Construct
Posted By: MacGuyver<brianblovett@hotmail.com>
Date: 4 February 2000, 10:57 a.m.
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I came to with a start. Where was I? I tried to concentrate on what I had been doing last, and drew a blank. Finally I remembered my internal recorder. With a thought, I recalled the details of my last conscious hours. I had been on a retrieval mission with 3 other men. We were sneaking around in this covenant base, looking for their main computer system. We were looking not to sabotage it, but to download it, in an attempt to gather a massive store of intelligence in one shot. We were hoping to get in and out without being detected, but we obviously failed. We had picked up what we were looking for shortly before we got caught in a fire fight, and I got knocked into a refuse pit by a shot to my shoulder. According to my watch, I had been out for nearly an hour. It all seemed a little weird to me somehow, but my whole body felt a little weird anyways.
I looked around, trying to get a sense of my surroundings and fathom why I felt so odd. I finally realized I was ankle deep in garbage and broken machinery. That would've been no problem if I'd been upright, but I was upside down, nearly standing on my head. Whatever, the trash must have covered me up and saved me from summarial execution by Covenant janitors. I groaned as I slowly righted myself. I took stock of my possessions, and realized that I still had the data module. But of course I had it, I was the tech guy on the team, after all. That meant that even if the others made it back to base, the data did not. I had to get back to our camp if this mission wasn't to be a total loss. Something sparked near where my head had been. Was that why my natural memory was malfunctioning?
With a heaving jump, I lept out of the garbage pit, glad to have my artificial legs. I ran into a nearby alcove, and tried to remember the way out of here. I followed my recorded memories in reverse, trying to retrace our steps. I got lucky this time, and left the Covenant base unnoticed. I started heading back to our camp, and paused. I went over my memories one more time, and realized what was strange. I had turned to my left to shoot a Covenant trooper right behind me. Without thinking, I turned around and drew my pistol. This time I turned to my right. Someone had obviously tampered with my memory recorder; somebody who knew me well, but not quite well enough. I sat down by a nearby tree and tried to think. After nearly an hour of contemplation, I still had only one name.
Cortana.
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