( OPEN ) GAME START.

[monstermasher]

▶ WHO: Everyone.
▶ DATE: July 9th, 2015 (Day 1)
▶ WARNINGS: Blood, violence, general zombie horror.
▶ SUMMARY: You've met with a bad... however that line goes. Welcome to Earth.

GOOD MORNING!

---

Please try and ignore whatever it is that you just heard. It should only last for up to a minute... maybe.

It... it is morning, right?

There are no windows.

There's a light, but it's barely considered one. The compound runs on a solar generator, but that doesn't mean it has a lot of power. The light seems to be hanging from the ceiling, swinging precariously. That's when you might actually start to wake up, sit up, find the things that are familiar to you... and then some of the things that aren't. It'd be wise to explore the small room you're in before leaving through the steel door, but there's nobody around to tell you that.

Outside is a tightly knit compound, just as dark and metallic as the room. The hallway you're in houses dozens more doors identical to yours, and if you're unlucky there may be more people poking their heads out through them, just like you. There's a dull glowing sign that reads MEDICAL BAY but not all of you remember being hurt. Some of you may be just fine, apart from the memory of the sound you heard when waking up.

The Medical Bay is stocked with enough medicine to last a couple of months. There's almost everything that can be found in a hospital. Somebody was thinking ahead.

Outside of the Medical Bay are more doors, some are even locked—many aren't. There are living quarters, a food storage, a kitchen, some laboratories; even a room full of computers and nothing else, all with a screen asking for a password. There's only two doors out of the compound, a vehicle bay with what appear to be a few military jeeps and trucks, and the front doors. It's on the inside of the front doors that something is painted in bright red, flecked with what smell like blood:

DO NOT GO OUTSIDE WITHOUT A GUN AND WATER.
GUNSHOTS ATTRACT THEM.
HOLLOWS IS 1.3 MILES NORTH OF HERE.
GOOD LUCK.

And on the outside of the doors, if you choose to open them:

THE WORLD ENDED JULY 3RD, 2015.

Now... how long ago was that? And where is this place? Luckily for you, Hollows is a small town that can be raided. It hasn't been too long since the apocalypse—surely you'll be able to find something there. Batteries, food, weapons, maybe some people—and what you're guaranteed to find. Them, whatever that means.

Outside of the compound there's a fence with a single gate. Nothing can get past this unless you let them in for tea, so be careful. There's a shooting range and a large shed full of weapons and ammo, enough to last two months if you're careful. Guns, knives, anything that would be used by the military and police is hidden away in the shed. There are even a few hunting bows with arrows.

If you climb up the ladder to the top of the wall, there's enough room to walk along the top. There's definitely something moving in the distance, something you should definitely be worrying about. Maybe it's time to get a good look with a sniper rifle...?

Oh.

It's gone.

Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Regardless, it's impossible for everyone to stay in the compound forever. There are nefarious things at work! The choices are to go to Hollows, stick around, or go somewhere else. Really, the world is almost a blank slate. Maybe more of a used slate, but still yours to explore.

When the night comes, you should be hiding. The screamers, the ragers, whatever the hell they are, are running full tilt through the streets and across the landscape, running through anything in their way, ripping apart anything alive. If you don't make any noise, they won't notice you. Especially since they're stuck listening to each other. But if you get noticed by one, it won't be long until a horde forms... you might be able to outrun one for awhile, but they don't seem to let up on their breakneck pace. Maybe someone should have told you how to kill them.

OOC NOTES.

---

There will be zombies in Hollows. Whether you meet them on the way there is up to you. Apart from the undead and the animals (maybe somebody should let those poor creatures out of their houses) the town is completely deserted. In fact, the closest thing you can find to a human are the bodies of those who died without being bitten, and there's even few of those. You can find anything you'd find in a normal town here, and are free to loot and raid the houses and stores—the cops won't be coming, after all. The power is OFF apart from what you can find that is solar powered or still has a charge. If you're lucky and find another town while exploring the first few weeks, you might find an area that still has power—thank hydroelectricity.

Just keep in mind travel time... and travel expenses.

You have creative freedom over everything else. The world is open. The only stationary places are landmarks and cities—if you want to go to Texas and talk to the poor astronauts stranded up in space, it's there. (Might be a long trip, though...)

If your character can figure it out by geography before getting to Hollows, the compound is located a few hours from the west coast, in California.

The way to kill a zombie is blunt force to the head. The head doesn't need to be removed, but significant damage needs to be done to it. This does not include the throat—it needs to be a headshot.

There's also a glaring hint. The computers in the compound, asking for a password. It is impossible to hack at this time. There will be more on this later!

Finally, if your character is exploring outside of the compound (or extensively inside of it) there's a comment here for linking me the thread. You can also PM me! I'll be ducking in with what your character may or may not have found, via a response to the actual RP thread.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS please direct them here!

Comments

[untodawn]

[ I'm your greatest achievement and you detest me!

Those lost few nights were so, so angry. John can almost taste the burning ozone from frayed wires just as he could close his eyes and feel the heat from the remains of the Covenant Lich ship fall apart in flames around him on the floor of the Ivanoff Station hangar bay. She didn't pull the ship up even when he pleaded as nanolaminate hull plates torn in ribbons out from under his feet. The wasn't the last time it all just broke apart around him.

It's okay., John thinks even though no one is listening. Trying to placate dead echoes reverberating in the back of his mind buried too deep to unstick.

Since Halsey had whisked Kelly away to parts unknown with and John is none the wiser to her eventual return to the UNSC and arrest the last four years came back down on him all at once. The last traces of color were drawn out from her hair that sat light below the ears framing her pale face. John sees how the strongest woman he'd known all his life stands like she's lost weight; frailer but not weaker. He thinks she knows.

Then, John does something thirty years of training tells him not to. His shoulders buckle and he falls out of attention, taking one step into the room. Slouching his massive armored body to clear the door but not rising back up again when he enters. All the IIs had been crumbling in increments for years, and only now was it all catching up to him. ]

Ma'am.

[oplourgia]

[Questions die unasked as John does the SPARTAN equivalent of dropping to his knees, and Halsey's shock turns to alarm. She springs to her feet, and even at her full height, even with John slouching, she still barely comes up to his chest. In the moment, a slight old woman somehow seems to fill up more space in the room than a SPARTAN in MJOLNIR, and it frightens her in a way no threat of death ever has.

She does what few dare and fewer get away with, and lays a hand on the breastplate of his armor, the energy shielding in its idle configuration feeling slick beneath her fingers. From Halsey, only slightly more physically demonstrative than the SPARTANs themselves, it's a major gesture. She'd adjusted, unhappy but aware of the necessity, to the unavoidable reality that her SPARTANs could and would die, but until now she hadn't believed they could crack. Looking at John's unreadable visor for a long moment, she compiles a mental list of things that could conceivably break a SPARTAN, could break this SPARTAN, and it's both short and terrifying.]

John, what's wrong?

[untodawn]

[ It was all over, and even after making it across that finish line - John still didn't have an answer for Cortana. Which one of them was the machine would be a question that hung in the air. Echoing back and forth without anyone to confer with; without the voice in his head that saw every corner of his mind for the last five years. A psyche with a party of one suddenly felt unbearable lonely. There were maybe a thousand questions left hanging after seeing Halsey again after so many years, and yet he couldn't focus.

As if spurred by the thought both Halsey and Cortana would find his current state lacking in some way, John pulled himself back up. Even though brought up to full height he felt dwarfed by Halsey closing the distance between them; hand against his breastplate. Too much like a goodbye than a gesture of concern. He doesn't like it even as her hand lingers with the thought of removing it nowhere in his thoughts. Almost as if he wants to be a gangly fourteen year old again, letting Halsey help him put on his first helmet because he couldn't control his own strength to do it himself.

His helmet.

John feels washed out; the strength in him gone like he stood with his legs buried in a strong ocean current for hours where the constantly still hadn't left him muscles. Arms mechanical, he races his head and with a hiss of the hermetically sealed helmet coming off his shoulders he almost winces at the sudden sensation of a dead breeze across his pale face furrowed with lines. ]

She stayed behind.

[oplourgia]

[John of his own accord takes off his helmet in an unsecured location, and when she looks into those familiar eyes for the first time in years, Halsey's blood goes as cold as her enemies in ONI accuse her of being. Set deep against the pallor of his face, John's eyes are as blue as hers and always have been, but now the sharpness they also shared is gone. SPARTANs aren't the emotionless machines of UNSC propaganda, far from it--Halsey has seen those eyes fierce with determination, lit by joy and anger, clouded with confusion--but this is the only time they've ever been darkened by despair.

"She" can of course mean just one thing, and it explains why only Halsey and John are speaking. Her hand curls into a fist against John's chest, nails digging into her palm. It's anger, but not at him. Never at him. So much must have happened in the four years since he'd disappeared, so much she could have prevented or at least minimized if only she'd had the freedom to act instead of pacing the cage Parangosky had thrown her in to get the last word in their long-running argument.]

Cortana? She stayed behind where? The Forward Unto Dawn?

[untodawn]

[ The air was stale and John could smell trapped water under the poured concrete that gave the room a humid smell that reminded him of rainfall after it dried into the tarmac on an airfield. Only he didn't like this - it was stifling, more claustrophobic than when he had his helmet on. Blue eyes shadowed into the dull, gun metal grey collar of an empty rifle chamber dart around them and for the first in years John feels deeply unsettled to be out of armor. Outside where he could feel rather just read meteorological data off his HUD and how the sweat chills down the nape of his neck.

He absolutely hates this, but nothing is shown but for the shadows bruised under his eyes and the tight line he pulled his mouth in. ]

Have you heard of the Didact?

[ The response might seem glib to anyone else, but his gaze anchors on Halsey's; onto something familiar. He wants to know because even in his crumbling emotional state he would be reticent to waste her time with inessential details. ]

[oplourgia]

[Halsey knows more about the Forerunners than any other human and most of the Covenant, but instead of the acidic "of course" the question would have earned him at any other time, she just cocks her head and says...]

Yes.

[...encouraging John to continue without fearing that he's annoyed her. He wouldn't be prefacing like this if it weren't important.]

I strongly suspect he or a personality imprint of his was behind New Phoenix.

[She might be very much out of grace right now, but Halsey's mind remains as sharp as it ever was, and ONI can't keep her under house arrest on a station orbiting Earth without her being able to piece together a few things.]

[untodawn]

[ New Phoenix. John sets his chin out and turns his head down almost against his chest in a half nod. That had given him a relative timeline to go from. What with time having been established as unreliable be it by slipspace anomaly or something outside his ken, he could be grateful for that if nothing else.

That Halsey wasn't short with him was good, too. They hadn't seen each since the fall of Reach, and John imagined she had questions of her own. Still, it would be best not to mince words. He wasn't worth much to anyone in pieces. ]

Forward Unto Dawn crashed landed on Requiem and it was the Didact himself at the helm of the Mantle's Approach - somehow. [ It was explained, somewhat but John was processing a lot then. ] We stopped his attempts to compose Earth in its entirety.

[ John didn't furnish Halsey with details like how he and Cortana piggybacked onto the Mantle's Approach by coasting under the slipspace shield of even the specifics of Ivanoff Station. That wasn't him, boasting. And it had all been her planning in the first place - John just did all of the footwork.

And you couldn't hold up any military victory over six million civilian casualties that blinked out existence because you couldn't stop one short-tempered captain. That many lives, and still just one weighed heaviest. ]

She, Cortana-

[ John turns the helmet in his hands, revealing a vacated AI neural interface system; the sum of Cortana's physical existence rendered mute to a small slot at the base of his skull for dust to build up in. ]

She stayed behind.

[oplourgia]

Cortana...

[Halsey's fingers brush the empty slot where Cortana's chip should be. AIs have short lives and she's worked with and outlived so many, but it never hurts any less. And Cortana...Cortana had been special even among the AIs created from Halsey's own flash-clones.

Every time Halsey starts to think she's inured to loss, another AI erases itself to safeguard the location of Earth, another beloved name turns up in the war obituaries, another SPARTAN's status changes to "MIA."

And now this. Halsey shuts her eyes because she doesn't want John to see the glimmer of tears before she can get herself under control. Her voice is level, steady as ever, but only because she has decades of practice lying. Even so, she can't keep bitterness from eating away at the edges.]

They didn't tell me. They didn't tell me any of it.

[untodawn]

[ It strikes a cord with John to think that somewhere in the interim that Halsey had been locked out of the loop. Halsey was the entire reason any one from top brass to foot soldiers was left standing, dammit. Cortana howls in terrible flanging voices that they didn't care, they replaced them. This time he couldn't whisper that it was okay to her, or anyone.

The IV program was in full swing and ONI apparently needed its scapegoat when the dust settled. So many of his brothers and sisters never given the right to die properly, flung into the purgatory that was propaganda only to be bitterly denounced. It wasn't until Del Rio tried screaming that AI chip out of his own hands that John started to have questions. Doubts.

John is fourteen again; awkward and too big for his uniform, and forgets his own strength. Face blank even as his fingers tighten bloodless around his helmet around that something creaks.

Then he remembers to exist in the present again, and when Halsey had her moment John puts his helmet back on. ]

They didn't.

[ John swipes two fingers across his visor - a SPARTAN smile. Deeply personal and seldom used it was as much an emotional outburst as it was their only gesture of reassurance. Outside of the IIs only Halsey understood its significance. ]

I can.

[oplourgia]

[It's worse than "out of the loop," but John doesn't need to find out ONI has successfully reclassified his existence as a war crime, at least not before he's put himself back together.

Halsey thinks she's regained her equilibrium, and then John gestures across his visor. The tears well up again, not yet threatening to fall but still making her eyes shine...only this time she's smiling. No sign language needed for Halsey--her face is never covered, and now it's lit from within by an almost joyous relief that makes her look twenty years younger despite her silver hair.]

I told them you'd be back, John.

[untodawn]

[ Nothing springs to mind that could stitch together this tumult thrashing inside him and put it into words. When faith in your superiors is all you have ever known, what was a pillar in everything you been taught. For that to collapse was...alienating. He still didn't know what to think of Lasky other than a cog in a bigger machine; the likes of Palmer and the fireteams of IVs another matter entirely.

For once, he doesn't trust what other people are telling him. Told him. He trusted Halsey and that didn't waver even an inch.

Her eyes are wet and John feels something tighten in his throat. He doesn't know how else to proceed other that to be the unflappable SPARTAN Halsey made him into. To continue to fit the mold she made for him believing that would put her mind at ease better than some awkwardly executed commiserating he scarcely understood the nuances of himself. ]

Thank you, ma'am.

[ John stands proud, voice even. He misses his friend bitterly, but he can't help neither her nor anyone by chasing ghosts. ]

[oplourgia]

[This particular crisis is over, and Halsey feels a tension she hadn't noticed drain out of her when John recovers his SPARTAN bearing. Being mysteriously stranded in a derelict military base from five or six hundred years ago is nothing compared to her concern for John's well-being. With the latter seen to, they can deal with the former.]

And now that you are back, we have other problems.

[Status quo restored, Halsey hopes, with respect to each other if not their places in the universe, and she's back to her usual cool demeanor that people mistake for callousness, brushing away a remaining tear before it can fall down her cheek. That's quite enough blatant sentiment for one day. She doesn't mind John seeing cracks in the ice, not for her own sake, but she can't go falling apart when one of her SPARTANs needs her.]

Do you remember how you got here? I simply woke up on a cot without ever having gone to sleep, or even noticing anything unusual at all.

[She can be drugged easily enough, but a SPARTAN is almost impossible to knock out, their MJOLNIR recording systems even more so.]

[untodawn]

[ There was an ache that weighed heavy in his chest that mirrored Halsey's tightly controlled brush of a knuckle across her cheek. John couldn't do them same - everything behind the helmet had to evaporate in its own time until the air inside smelled distinctly of salt. He could deal with that.

Following along with Halsey's logic that the matter of what had happened to them to bring them here was the more pressing issue, John nods. Not delivering a another, repetitive 'yes ma'am'; he was happy she was here and perhaps given to rely heavily on protocol but he was hardly sycophantic. ]

No.

[ It was as though he could see the cogs turning behind her ice blue eyes. He was near abouts the same conclusion that it was highly irregular that a SPARTAN could be incapacitated without their knowing short of being of vented into space. And there had been no side effects beyond the expected confusion. ]

We're somewhere on Earth, but...

[ The next part is where things get a bit murky and well beyond his ken. ]

Outside this compound survivors of an unknown disaster left behind a note that said: The world ended July 3rd, 2015. Further out two klicks north there was abandoned town and what I assumed to be the survivors.

[ Again, he shifts his weight from foot to foot. Hesitation. ]

The town was devastated and any people I've come across exhibited what looked exposure to the Flood.

[oplourgia]

[Halsey's potential questions about what's starting to look very much like time travel evaporate at the rest of John's news, and her eyes widen. She doesn't doubt a single thing he's saying; if John were uncertain about his observations, he'd say so. Since he hasn't, what he's reporting is as reliable as if he were showing her video.]

Flood? Did you see any infection forms?

[How they got here and how the Flood got here are problems that can be investigated after they attend to the matter of not being turned into mindless, shambling horrors bent only on infecting every other piece of sentient life in the galaxy.

She is very studiously not thinking about Jacob.]

[untodawn]

No, ma'am. We've encountered several infected humans, but other species haven't shown any symptoms and a perimeter sweep hasn't yielded anything in the last several days.

[ Not wanting to come up empty handed, John pulls out the plastic pink compact mirror. It sits awkwardly small in the palm of his massive hand. ]

And I found this when I arrived. It can't be coincidence.

[ The compact clicks open as he holds it out to Halsey, revealing a set of coordinates and a piece of heavy sketch paper folded into the powder well. ]

[oplourgia]

Who's "we?"

[Halsey accepts the compact from John. It looks somewhat less ludicrous in her hand than his as she transcribes the coordinates into her data pad with quick movements. Nothing about them jumps out to her, but she can investigate if they can find any hard copy maps with adequate resolution.

Next comes the sketch paper, and Halsey's lips tighten almost imperceptibly as she unfolds it to see Cortana's likeness. Who is so intent on rubbing salt into wounds only a few people should even know exist? She pulls her own mysterious picture of Cortana out of her lab coat and offers it to John to inspect.]

Consider my interest piqued.

[Her tone of voice suggests that's not necessarily a good thing for whoever did the piquing.]

[untodawn]

[ John, of course, rattles off all known information about the people he's taken to associate with since his arrival to Halsey. ]

Agent Peggy Carter and a Chris Redfield. Neither of them made any explicit references to their respective military branches. I was led to believe Carter is associated with the British Armed Forces; she made mention of serving sometime around the Second World War.

[ beat. Time - it's confusing. ]

I trust her. Redfield? United States military, maybe. Twenty-first century. All pre-UEG.

[ He finished off what for him would be bordering on long winded when suddenly, Halsey hands him something. It was thick, good quality sketch paper with a weight to it - exactly like the one he had been carrying but he saw right away that this was a different piece of paper. One possibly pulled from the same sketchbook. Wordlessly, he gingerly takes it from Halsey dreading what he already knows is beneath the folds.

Even in MJOLNIR, John can be deft even gentle with his hands. The paper doesn't even crinkle when he unfurls it. He can start to smell dried salt behind his visor; he blinks rapidly. Halsey only seeing how he looks at every corner of the room before his gaze anchors back on the sketch.

Cortana sometimes looked like Halsey when John could remember her face behind the glare of lights in the auditorium on Reach as she explains why they were never going home again. Sometimes he could see Miranda, although he never knew why.

Here all he could see was Cortana. In the first drawing, done in dried ink with messing lines pulled together into an imperfect but lifelike image, she was standing with her back turned. Hands on her hips and head cocked ever so slightly as she sometimes did when projected on the holotanks. He could superimpose that easy smile she would be wearing face him.

The second drawing was a bust shot. Here, Cortana was in repose; turned halfway turned him with a relaxed almost sleepy expression he never seen her wear before. Head turned so far into the palm it rested in that her neatly trimmed 'hair' spilled against her shoulder. She appeared to be so...calm. He remembered the last time she looked so at peace and mechanically held the drawing back out for Halsey.

There was only one question on his mind. ]

Why?

[oplourgia]

I don't know.

[Anger clips the edges of her words. As little as she likes to admit ignorance, she's never lied to him and she's not going to start now.

John hates not having a purpose; Halsey hates not understanding. Ousted from her position as chief scientist and held incommunicado by the machinations of ingrates, and now this inexplicable nonsense tearing her away from what little work she's permitted to accomplish anymore.

She hopes that Forerunner artifact has stolen half of Lasky's blasted crew by now, starting with Palmer.]

We will find out.

[untodawn]

We start with those coordinates.

[ John rumbled in that deep voice of his. Although more disinclined to wear his emotions on his sleeve even held up Halsey. In private, here he could visibly boil under the surface.

Unfortunately, ]

I failed to find a records room, and the computers are all either inoperable or obsolete.

[oplourgia]

If this really is the early 21st century, I'm afraid the information resources will all be woefully inadequate.

[Halsey folds her arms and drums her fingers against her bicep. Her eyes go distant as she looks at John but doesn't see him, mind elsewhere and spinning out possibilities. Pieces are falling into place, but nowhere near enough of them to make a coherent picture of what's going on.]

Bizarre as this all is, our first priority is to determine whether there is indeed a Flood infestation. I don't doubt you, but as of 2015, the Flood was still contained on Installation 04. If that's somehow changed, we need to know.

I very much hope your report was in error, because, John... [her eyes go from infinity to laser focus on where his are beneath the visor] ...you're the only thing on 21st century Earth that can stop the Flood.