SEVEN YEARS
THE STORY OF WINTER CHARNOCK


“This may hurt,” the man wasn’t lying. That was for sure for Winter was exposed to a thousand needles each shutting underneath a lay of skin squeezing this and that into his veins. “Hmm... Doctor we may blow one of his veins. Maybe we should set up a port?” “No,” replied another voice, more cruel then the first. “I believe he will be fine.”

In the room Winter screamed, as he felt himself becoming the tortured as a fluid ran through his veins like acid, eating away at his sanity sending him into a symphony of screams and moans.

Pain, like anything it subsided but it took far longer than he could ever think possible. His mind, feeling tormented and torn only allowed the simplest of thoughts to flow. It could have been hours, weeks, months, years before the pain stopped. There was no way of telling. His eyes dared to open only to have blinding brightness bringing them back to a close. The room was made from solid white materials from the walls to the instruments swiveling around his head, like spiders limps swinging around above him whirling in amusement as their subject lay strapped to a white dentist chair. These instruments were like little hands with cameras as fingers circular and square all connecting to a huge black mass of cables upon the ceiling. Cables black and thick became consumed into the floor and all around him monitors to many to count processed and splat out a constant stream information. Vitals, brain waves, and scan after scan through his brain all seemingly jumbled together to bring out codes, designs, figures and words. What were they doing?

Winter pulled on his confines.

He was stuck; it was certainly a dreadful omen.

---


“Now… Time to continue with the test.” A voice raised, a doctor tall and tanned dark spectacles falling down the crook of his long pointed nose. His voice hard as if he had spent his life yelling at soldiers, a drill sergeants voice.

Everything suddenly went black as a wave of pain rippled through him bringing him into a quick, hasty, sleep. Saving Winter’s mind from future torment. But of course, dreams can be far worse.

---


He dreamed he was in a hallway. Light did not filter through the square windows, the light of the distant bright stars not trickling in a single beam of light. He was consumed in darkness

“No!” Sarah’s sweet voice pleaded, breaking through the barrier of silence her voice echoing down the pitch black corridor, “he knows but I can tell you! I am the centerpiece, the keystone.”

“You cannot stop us. You know who we are. What we are. What we can do,” replied a voice clearly the villain of Winter’s nightmarish dream. The villain’s voice was raspy, slow corrupt and vile like contaminated water spilling from a fountain.

“Then I will take what you want. Conscious, no, something you lack. Morals to, they are like fences in your path so you simply run over them. Yet by running recklessly you destroy things you intended to keep."

“Yes, sometimes,” the voice replied deleteriously. “We lack the ability to listen to… Morals as you say those troublesome things. Like grubs in your garden. Simply pick them out. Throw them away. The end case shut. Tonight we will not destroy what we want.”
There was a pause in the conversation. Cold darkness bit him like a snake, it was to lonely he longed even for the man’s foul voice.

“You want the pot of gold. You want it badly but I have a button and if I press it all of it goes ‘boom’,” the sound of an explosion shook his dream throwing Winter into the black darkness of the floor. “You kill the trinity you kill the one you want.”

“I see what you mean.”

“Good.”

“But I don’t care,” returned the villain.

“But you want your slice of the pie?”

“Yes.”

“Then pay for it.”

“How about no,” said the voice, evil intentions falling from his voice like a volcanoes fire. “Kill them, them all.”

“NO! NO! NO! NO!” Death, it loomed hidden in the darkness the reaper was there death wanted to vanquish him from life. Winter screamed, despite himself trying to find an end to the dark consuming hallways. But no room, no turn came space on either side stretched on and on.

“No let us not.”

A new voice this one was pleasant, there was something corrupt about but there was a spark of life. Winter stopped in his path. The corridor was black but the omen of death had passed.

“Let us use what we have. Let her have what she wants.”

“No, no. I disagree” Yelled the first voice of the first evil man.

“Yes,” replied the kinder voice.

“Not in your dreams Martin. I cannot let them go.” Said the villain, “they are far to important to let go.” Sarah had fallen silent; Mr. Martin took her place to speak.

“They offer you the information you want. I’m sure you will have plenty to trudge through. Forget well, forget evil. What do we get out of this Philip?” So, the first villain was Philip. “A little pet we can let them out of our cage but we can always have a leash. They want insurance let us give it to them. I’ll take charge I will… Watch.”

“But…” Philip replied. As if something was being stripped from underneath him that he couldn’t hold onto. “Very well Major.”

“Good, good,” the room started to become all black. The stars through the square windows were being snuffed out one by one like candles. “I see a purpose. We can use him. Multiple purposes… Ah yes, I do see it now… Good… We have it figure out don’t we?”

Everything turned to black.

“He is mine now, Philip.”

---


The ship’s hallway was of sterile plating painted ghostly white. There were no windows reaching out to the beautiful dark space there was no comfort of the stars. He felt like spiting upon the floor just to change the plain, pure white hallway. Winter clasped his eyes shut. The soldiers wearing blank faces and gray fatigues would certainly lead him down the ominous, brightly lit hallway regardless of rejecting his dammed fate. Wherever the hell he was going. He wasn’t told anything everybody here was to quiet and the lights were too bright, like a brightly lit funeral home. Everything was dead it was like constantly being consumed in the light from an explosion the feeling of your retinas slowly being burned few. Damn, he hated this spaceship. Or he thought it was that was a good question. You could just tell sometimes that you weren’t on earth and he felt like that now. Where was he? Some medical ship controlled by ONI? Probably, they were testing him like a lab rat it seemed to be the type of thing ONI would do. Yes, it was a spaceship those damned weird toilets to.

“Your name is Winter,” asked the doctor, or that was Winter’s first impression. The man had thin graying hair and a pair of red horn rimmed glasses. Other then the graying hair atop his head and the few black moles speckling his face like freckles this ‘doctor’ had the chiseled jaw of a soldier and muscles bulging underneath his one size to small starch white lab coat. Underneath this coat he wore military fatigues yet they like the soldiers behind him lacked any symbol of rank or name.

“Yes, sir,” Winter returned, slowly as he asked himself: why was he here? Why weren’t lasers cutting away at his cranium? Nobody has bothered to talk to him before.

“You have quite a…” A grim smile crossed the man’s thin lips, white block teeth jutting out like a fish out of water. “You’re quite a soldier, a defender of earth, many HEV drops, successes, and many more ‘unheard’ ones. Of course… Some parts of your records are… Fuzzy.” A wicked smile crossed the man’s lips as if he knew everything Winter did, everything he had done and seen. It bothered him.

“And I’m having trouble figuring out what,” the man said across his wide white desk desk. “Do you think I will find out?”

Why interrupt him? Doom was like a cloud hovering above his head. He’d let the man continue his speech and maybe strangle him who knows the guards might kill him but at least this b*****d would die and maybe the testing would stop. If he was wrong that this man hadn’t been the one who had watched over Winter’s ‘experiments’ with morbid satisfaction so be it. Killing Covenant bastards was much different than humans but he could learn again. Hopefully in the few seconds he would have.

The doctor continued: “You knew Major Lipton?” It wasn’t a question, but he answered regardless. “Yes sir,” Winter replied, Major Lipton was MIA along with the rest of the Pelican’s crew.

“Hmmm…” He pondered something bringing a pen to his perfect set of teeth. “Well, the pelican he had been on was the same that you were on, correct?”

“Yes,” Winter answered unemotionally.

“Lipton, the pilots, and entire crew are MIA,” no s**t Sherlock. Winter didn’t like the death of Major Lipton, even though the man had wanted him tried and shot, the man was simply following protocol. “You are not though. You were found aboard the Shadow of Intent in a prison cell. ” The doctor, whose name was unknown let a sickening smile trickle across his lips, what was going on his mind? What cruel, vicious thoughts forming like a disease? “Well, I found it interesting a blip on your record. Maybe we’ll erase it,” erase it or him?

Winter wanted to scream, burst over the table and send the doctor to whichever god he chose. What game was this doctor playing? But two men stood behind him batons swinging in their hands. So he sat, unmoving waiting to hear how his life would come to the end. A hanging or a shooting which would it be? Neither of them pleasant.

“But we have better uses for you then being in a coffin,” Was he reading his thought? Was he to be ONI’s little toy how much longer? Two weeks it had been and yet it stretched on like years. Experiment and tests one after another. Large white mortifying scanners constantly swiveling around his body as electric shocks ran up his spine. What reward was there for him at the end of the day? A meal of disgusting gel as stomach wrenching as human bile and only hours later it happened all over again. Sleep was awful to, always filled with morbid nightmares.

The Doctor flicked a pen down upon his desk, lighting the computer board to life as his writing utensil started to scribble an important official working document. “Agent Winter that is your name now your family is dead, the better and your squad has taken heavy casualties. Most everybody believes your dead or fell off the face of the earth. It works perfectly for us.”

And you have some explaining the ex-ODST thought painfully, was this some sort of joke? Was ONI so cruel? What was wrong with them their minds and morals demeaned by years of power and nobody starring over their shoulders? Agent Winter?

The doctor tossed his hands at the soldiers and they without word moving quickly out of the room. The hiss of the door proving their disappearance, he could feel it. If he wanted he could kill the doctor now this was his chance, but he didn’t.

“Do you know of Section Three, Agent Winter?” The doctor asked, finding some humor in Winter’s ‘new’ name.

“Yes sir,” he answered, truthfully. “Special operations, black ops.”

The doctor smiled once more, “Spartans to.”

“Yes sir."

“You’ve worked for Section Three correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“Can you be any more vague?”

“I have worked on special operations. ONI officers watched over them I suspected.”

“Well good at least you can put two and two together.” The doctor began to write down upon his computer board with his ballpoint pen in handwriting as confusing as doctors. “Then you are familiar with our… Business?”

“Yes sir,” he answered, again. What was this man getting at? What were his plans? Again and again he would ask himself and again and again he would lose it. This man was bringing him into ONI’s circle? Or was this a joke, a test.

“You doubt me,” the doctor asked, he was like a father already knowing the truth to his son. ******** him, Winter thought.

“Yes sir,” he answered without a single tinge of emotion. Giving nothing away.

“Hmmm… Well you are a very special individual Winter.” Now the man across the desk had taken the role as the ‘father’, ‘god’, Winter’s ‘Lord’, manipulating his little subject how he wanted. “You see, you have Sarah the AI buried in your head. You are fluent in the languages of the forerunners. Sadly…” It almost looked like he’d cry and the doctor was not being sarcastic. “Your mind is like a fortress. We like that we need that. We have used you as our subject for only two weeks, correct?” It was no question and Winter did not answer. “Already we have figured much enough to find out many, many things. We need you for other purposes now. The war has been won and now it is time to rebuild. It is the age of reclamation, what was lost will be found. The Elites have started to finish off the Brutes but you don’t hear the news? No, of course not. Well… We’ll catch you up to speed soon.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, Agent Winter.” Said superior officer, “I’m in charge now.”

“What is your real name?” Winter questioned suddenly. Damn, he slipped.

“That is not for you to know. What day is it?”

He read the calendar behind the man’s head. “Monday sir.”

A smile flashed as the doctor showed his white, pearly teeth.

“Then,” the doctor said: “you can call me Mr. Monday.”

“Yes sir.” Winter answered. Now who was this man? Mr. Monday was as mysterious as the rest of ONI and his horned rimmed glasses like a glass wall, keeping Winter from seeing in to his eyes finding out who this man was. What he really was.

“No, no sirs,” he snapped back. “Just… Mr. Monday.” A smile flashed across his lips, huge, from cheek to cheek. “I am your superior officer by rank. You can make your own guesses in what my rank and who I am. I don’t mind. I would be happy I have saved you from a much worst fait. Politics within ONI can be troublesome. Luck is on your side Agent Winter let hope it stays that way” Mr. Monday looked down at his desk writing way. “We are done here. I will be watching you, Winter.”

The door hissed the guards returned. Swiftly he was uprooted from his chair the guards strong armed coiled around his biceps. “No, let him go. He’s free.” The guards did as Mr. Monday had said. And it began.

---


Day one: introduction, day two: history, day three and on: hell. Boot camp had been hell, ODST training had been hell, HEV drop training had been worse, and surely this surpassed it all. Fighting, shooting, learning all mixed together into a marvelous yet horrifying experience. Each day began at six each mornings sprint around the mess a hundred times it seemed. There was nobody else to push him to be make Winter try to be better than anybody else. The bunks were many but only one occupied, breakfast was eaten in solitude, a solitude he enjoyed for once. For Sarah had reappeared

The private ‘tutors’ Winter received which were few. But each were war torn men and even women who bore scars that equaled Winter’s own and some were as strong as fast and as agile as Winter himself. Or more and so he had much to learn. The chemicals that had been injected into him at a time that seemed years ago had changed him from his vision to his mind and body. They had saved him but it had also had led him to new rather strange discoveries. His mind had many occupants, Sarah who had spent her time hiding away deep in his mind having returned to prod him with continuing stories of the pain the tests had put them through or more so her through. How did an AI feel pain? It was a interesting question but Winter dared not ask. The two shared the same processor Winter’s mind and when she hurt he hurt. Like a small headache on your temple it annoyed him but that female’s voice was so wonderful, melodic and his only savior from torment most of all he didn’t have to even open his mouth to return words.

Regardless, his mind was in constant dishevelment as thoughts and memories were tossed haphazardly around his brain like a blender on the frits. It was like there was to many occupants in his mind like a room stuffed with people. Including the forerunner life now embedded into him giving him strange but spectacular dreams every single night. Some of the dreams were strange but many of them revealed mysteries and puzzles that had kept humanity struggling to figure out all shed light on through a single dream. ONI had scanned him crept into the darkest depths of his mind but were they noticing these things? He kept a journal on his personal computer one he didn’t bother to encrypt. Mr. Monday had been by once and only once to look upon Winter’s progress and only a few words had been shared between the two. Winter didn’t like Mr. Monday the mysterious man gave him the creeps. But wasn’t that how ONI was? Mysterious old men fiddling their fingers and coming up with new plans, and Mr. Monday was just one of them. With graying hair and horn rimmed glasses.

Regardless, Winter kept a journal on a small computer that had no other purposes then composing a journal. Mr. Monday was sure to read Winter’s entries and he had left a path of crackers for Monday to be sure to stumble over. The dreams were wrote up his views on the days were rather bland so he often left them out. He didn’t want to release thoughts he didn’t want to give so some he kept. A few he would give, not wanting to be taken back to the white sterile labs to only be prodded and tested upon. Occasionally he had the wretched dreams waking up sweating and panting.

The days went from before the sun rose too far after it fell and the moon took its place. Winter had become to tired by the end of the day to look up at the stars and follow the day and month. Thankfully at the end of the day his bed was commonly there, if a mistake was made it was stripped away and he didn’t dare use another. They were there to temp him weren’t they? The floor was comfy enough, so weary every night sleep was easily achieved. Each day except two were physically demanding and the other two were meant as a time for his muscles to rest and replaced with a wave of reading and learning. What were they trying to do? Crunch a year worth of training into a month? That might very well be it. The teachers were fine if not very quiet. Winter didn’t asked questions and simply listened. They seemed like they wanted to end this as swiftly as he. So he worked swiftly learning ONI protocols, inner workings, laws, regulations, and many more subjects.

This day he was at the range the sun was far up in the sky, it must have been midday. Winter noticed how often he was given small arms to practice. It gave him a hint; he would be in public. All he knew was that officially he was becoming an ‘agent’, an agent for ONI but what would he do? What rank would he be given? The training ranged such a wide verity it could be for a number of purposes. But what?! At least it gave him something to think about as his subconscious took over hitting perfect headshots, heart shots, onto the targets placed around on the concrete shooting range. At least there was a sun above him he thought happily, wearing a pair of ballistic orange tinted sunglasses.

Mr. Monday suddenly appeared waltzing happily into the open air range dress shoes kicking up dirt and gravel. The man wore no uniform this day preferring a business man’s attire. Without a word he came beside Winter reaching underneath his tweed sports coat to protrude his own black gray metal sidearm and began to pecker the targets expertly. “I thought I’d drop by,” he commented blandly.

Mr. Monday was a few inches shorter then himself Winter commented quietly. Yet, despite it the man was menacing pulling out every imaginable trick from beneath his sleeve. The man was an expert shot, planner, and marvelous at keeping information secret that he wanted secret. It attacked him constantly, just who was this man?

“You’re halfway through your training Winter,” he commented happily after dropping the pistol against a small plastic table. This particular range just one of many on the large facility that was made for hundreds not for a single soldier, in short this range had two small white tables Winter’s own was stacked high with ammunition boxes.

Mr. Monday took it upon himself to take one of Winter’s boxes of ammunition, magnum rounds. Mr. Monday started too filled up his empty clip as he started to speak again in his cool, soft, voice of authority: “it saddens me that you don’t have months and months to train. But you seem to be doing well with an already fine perception on what our business is. What role we play in the UNFC and the advancement of humanity.”

“Yes sir,” Winter answered bluntly, he was still skeptical of this man, for good reason.

“I hear that Sarah is finally… Speaking up,” now, how would he know that?

“Sir?” He asked questionably.

“Oh I wouldn’t worry Agent Winter. I implanted nothing in your mind I just watch you very, very, very closely.” Like a pervert, Winter thought to himself dryly. “By the way what you have imprinted in your mind has helped in our discoveries in forerunner technology. We are hoping to put it to good use soon.”

Mr. Monday continued swiftly. “Now it is time to give you a codename, yes. Your name is Winter of course but I like to play word games.”

Already Mr. Monday had gone over the importance of secrecy; Winter’s name to his trainers was ‘you’, or simply, ‘agent’.

“I was thinking of… Well, let me ask you Agent Winter, what do you want to be called?” It was a question and one that prodded at Winter’s ability to rarely ask questions or answer them. Damn, and whenever Mr. Monday asked a direct one your sure as hell better answer. He didn’t know what would happen if he kept his mouth shut and he didn’t want to find out.

“Charnock,” he replied.

“Hmmm….” Mr. Monday responded sliding a fresh magazine into his sidearm before deforming each of the paper targets shoulders, left then right, and then head. “That works, Winter Charnock it is.” He seemed pleased a smile passing his lips as the sound of gunshots started to leave Winter’s ears ringing. With that the man left as strangely as he had come walking away from the range.

Strange, he thought to himself.

He returned to the range. His job: empty six boxes of fifty rounds and a pile of paper targets.

---


That night he was exhausted both mentally and physically a big black bruise against his cheek proving it. A metal pipe had slapped him hard; they came at him with every imaginable weapon, knives to ancient swords and guns with low velocity rubber bullets that still stung like hell. The trainers were ruthless in every way they could be and they were all strong from the female teacher who taught him history, protocol, information gathering techniques, to the big black man who was the head of his martial arts training with arm muscles larger than his bald head. Now he lay in bed the room rectangular bunk room enveloped in darkness only himself lying nearly naked atop his cot. All alone.

Winter, it was Sarah, whispering so kindly and so gently into his mind. The funny feeling of voices within his mind had long passed and finally he welcomed it because it was so familiar, so personal, you could feel the emotion of the voice the full essence of its meaning.

Yes, my dear? He told to himself, lips unmoving as he simply spilled the thoughts into his mind.

You learn fast, have you been wondering why?

No, he answered, why couldn’t it be that he was smart?

You’re a fast learner, that’s why.

Thank you, he answered, a smile creasing his lips in the darkness.

But I to listen, I to learn, I to memorize and whisper it into your ear. Cheating almost but not so much.

Winter wanted to chuckle, but he didn’t. I’m fine with that.

I worry for you though. Your brain can only hold so much. The war was a toll on your mind, your sanity, your morals and self, most of all your purpose. I worry for you; you killed so many spilling blue blood across so many lands. I worry for you the war is over why couldn’t they let you be? Become what you wanted to be? A farmer, a police officer, a builder?

Because, he answered, there is no place for a person like me. I’m good at my job.

What happens after you are too old? Sarah asked, worried.

Maybe I’ll be dead.

You’re depressing.

What did they do to my brain?

Lots.

Then why am I here?

I have my womanly ways.

Again, he wanted to chuckle. Maybe so hon, now let me sleep.

---


Five AM, he was up no clock needed. Throwing himself from bed Winter found himself already dressed a plain black shirt creasing along his hardened bulging muscles that seemed to want to explode from his small form. Clipping his running pants tight against his waste he let out a yawn. Slipping one of his few possessions, a pair of orange ballistic goggles, across his eyes he bolted to the door. “I need to stop sleeping in my clothes,” he commented to himself dryly.

Without being told he ran sprinting from the long barracks built from poured concrete and thin metal plating. It was cold up here in the mountains leaving the use of air conditioning pointless during the dark nights. Already the sun was peaking over the bleached white mountains were snow still clung. The shivering in his body only lasted moments as his legs hurriedly flashed in front of one another his breathing sinking with his steps.

“Ha… Huh… Ha…” He breathed openly cool wisps of frosted breathe falling like cigarette smoke from his mouth. Eight laps three miles he had been running around two dozen concrete structures all blending into one another a tall UNSC flag rising above the first story buildings the only indicator of anything different.

Breathing, stomach grumbling for food he filled his longs with precious cold air that stung his lungs every time he inhaled but smelled sweetly of mountain air. When his run was over Winter entered the mess were tables to fit a hundred sat beneath long concrete pillars that held up the roof. It was Closter phobic room and he didn’t like it. Closter phobic like a bomb shelter but there was food and surprisingly good food. Or so he thought, anything was better than the puke he had been forced to eat at the lab or the nothingness he ate while on his tour of duty.

There was nobody else in there which always freaked him out just a huge plate of food, fruit, pancakes, and eggs and a strip of ham. It made him chuckle a ghost chef and he was treated like a king!

Scooping the last bits of his food into his open mouth he found himself like a trashcan he made sure to take very scrap he could. Winter’s body would need it.

---


“Come on you,” a fist came flying huge and black his teacher’s voice rumbling with pride and strength. Despite the huge structure of James, the fighting teacher, he was as fast as a panther with the strength of an elephant. Winter dodged back dodging the skull fracturing punch.

“Have you trained a bunch of folks?” Winter asked stalking in a circle around the six foot tall goliath. His muscles were really bigger than his shaved head; he a huge jaw and giant lips brought up into wicked a smile. His large strangely blue eyes twinkling with delight of a good fight.

“Yes, I have. I’m supposed to be one of the best.” With that James moved forward but feinted, Winter thought he would bring a left kick up for it was his right foot that came forward. This man knew too many forms of martial arts leaving Winter confused and dumfounded as James’s right leg flew up a huge bare foot storming straight into Winter’s kidney. “I teach s**t to those who need it.”

The kick was beyond fast beyond quick and all Winter had time for was to check it bringing his left knee up to block the oncoming storm. Winter’s balance was torn from him making him stamp his now aching leg back to the ground. Even checking a block hurt but much better than his organs being squished flat.

Winter went onto the offense for he could only block for a certain amount of time. Winter made it appear like he was about to run straight into the black mass called James. Suddenly two steps forward he stamped his feet into the ground, left foot forward, his right foot turned 45degrees at shoulder length. Hands up blocking his face he tossed his left leg forward into the man’s side and wonderfully James blocked. That wasn’t it though, a smart guy doesn’t go in and stop but he knows when to back out. A smart guy also brings back his leg fast before anybody can catch it and let the bad guy end the bout with a nice break in the shin or twist your leg till it breaks.

James’s eyes were on Winter’s legs. Bad move Winter had his chance. As he swung his kicking leg back he tossed a left handed punch but he kept his leg still travelling to the right, past his normal Muey Thia stance. Winter’s hips curved and he gained force. With his hips swinging to the right his right elbow hooked around, left hand covering his unprotected face. Before James could react Winter’s lightening fast elbow strike came storming into the man’s face sending a victorious grunt into the air.

There was still force in his moves force Winter could use. Winter came back to his stance but kept traveling swinging his left leg straight into the man’s kidneys a second right hooked fist shot slamming into James’s temper. The giant staggered back, grunting, sweet pouring down his forehead and into his naked perfectly muscled chest.

“Nice, nice, nice!” James boomed. Sniffling, damn, Winter even hit his nose! “I’m bloody now,” he said, whipping away a trail of dark crimson blood from his overflowing nose. “Get some water bro, nicely done.”

“Good,” Winter commented taking a deep breath. Like James his chest was equally naked strings of sweat sticking to him like tendrils shining in the sun’s bathing light. They were outdoors soft grass beneath their feet dirt to catch their falls. It wasn’t always like this, sometimes they were in a concrete hallway, a driveway, wherever James picked they fought. Winter already knew the art of fighting. Hell he had grown up beating life out of people so he could have some. James was a tank and as fast as a Pelican with the same fire power. He’d have hated being some Covy b*****d with the guy running through the battle scene assault rifle blaring firsts bounding up Covenant s**t heads. Winter would bet the guy could even take down a elite bare handed. Maybe he was looking at this guy to far but no matter how much he pummeled him and no matter how close Winter got to killing the man James always survived.

The two had had some square fights and Winter had done pretty well but many were put down as submission, which he won occasionally. “Gotcha,” was still pretty rare to come from Winter’s lips but it was becoming more and more often. Rarely anymore at least did James say ‘try to kill me, all out’. Maybe because Winter had a chance to do that now. They fought several times a day in between shooting and learning new tools new tidbits of information. All he did was learn and his brain was now in a constant fuzzy headache. Luckily he could sometimes get some medication. All he wanted was for this hell to stop to see the purpose of all of this. Sweating a hand running through his hair bringing down a rain of sweet with lips curled around the lip of a glass of warm water Winter cursed.

All he wanted to do was get some real sleep. Get out of this prison! But he wouldn’t break, no he would never break. No ******** way.

---


“One month, two weeks.” Mr. Monday told Winter, “how long did it seem?”

There had been no graduation. Suddenly one morning after breakfast he heard a pelican’s engines roaring overhead. Mr. Monday had come and told him he was done. No handshakes from his group of teachers, not like he expected it.

“A long time,” Winter answered vaguely. The rumble of the ship’s engines was familiar and peaceful. The rear door had been closed and the ships pilots had a nice slab of metal between the two passengers. Over the… How long it had been he had felt very distant from people only asking questions that were needed the ones that were useful. Hopefully Winter hadn’t forgotten how to speak.

Mr. Monday chuckled. “You look like s**t.”

He did his black t-shirt was worn down to its last fibers and his muscles ached bruises and cuts ran almost every inch of his body. Yesterday he had seen James go all out; trying to kill Winter with a ferocity he had only seen in Brutes and Elites. Nobody had given him a hint to a goodbye not his female teacher Seriana, nor his shooting instructor Richard. The only goodbye present had been a nice beating of his a**. James would have made some Spartan.

“Yes Mr. Monday.”

“Its time you repaid ONI and UNSC.” Monday observed.

Repay? For what, a month and a half of pain?

“Yes Mr. Monday.”

The man, wearing his a long gray coat pulled a small ID badge from his pocket. “Congratulations, you are now a member of ONI.”

Winter took it reluctantly, ‘Mr. Winter Charnock’, great, he was now a spook.

“Yes Mr. Monday.” What was there to answer with? Now he was back into the ranks of soldiers but ONI weren’t real soldiers. Just mysterious creeps who did whatever the hell they wanted when they did unwatched and unchecked.

“Mr. Monday was a disguise.” Yes, Winter commented to himself of course he knew that. “Its really Dr. Martin. Dr. Caleb Martin. I was a neural surgeon and shrink but now I am Major Martin. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes,” he had several; one being why was he telling me this? “How old are you?”

With a grin he smiled, “fifty and happily married.”

That answered one question. Neural surgeon, shrink, it sparked some thoughts but was he lying again? Still regardless it gave him something to think about. Fifty years old he must have been in ONI for awhile maybe he had worked with the Spartans. Maybe he had watched them go insane watched the human mind find its breaking point. Maybe and this man didn’t mind suffering under his smile a cruel b*****d was hidden behind a nice marriage.

“Yes, Major Martin.”

“No, Mr. Monday works fine. I find it interesting, a little nickname.” He answered with a childish chuckle. “Now, now remember I have invested much in you. You might not have been here if it weren’t for me. Well simply you wouldn’t. You will listen or I personally take apart your brain piece by piece. And you won’t be asleep.”

Ouch, Winter took the threat to heart. It didn’t sound like something he wanted to happen to him doomed to be taken apart and sliced and diced. Specially while being alive, when he died he wanted it to be quick not slow and torturous.

“Permission to speak freely.”

“Granted.”

His eyes turned, looking into the man’s stone jaw and graying hair. “Sir, what am I going to be doing?”

“Wait patiently. You’ll find out soon enough.”

And like a movie they flew into the setting sun. But the truth was it was only going to get darker.

---


Years later.



Illsium, the massive city reached across a quarter of New Harmonies surface. Each inch smothered in concrete tall skyscrapers towering like eyes over all. What did humanity believe they had become? Gods? Perhaps in seven years humanity could venture from a near death experience to believing they had become greater then all. Luckily most of the military mind didn’t believe they were God’s, only ONI. But they did everything in the name of humanity correct? Thus nothing they did was wrong.

Rumors of insurrection had reached the ears of the military and Winter had been sent to investigate. No, there was nothing dealing with Forerunner technology even though the city was highly influenced by its technology. Still the universe was shaky the Elites bled the Brute race slowly out of existence squashing the ape like race as they did with the flood. Swiftly and effectively and the universe was still far from peace. Rebellions that had cropped before and during the war continued on and that was why he was here. Something was supposed to be happen and Winter was searching for it.

“Need something sir?” Asked a young lady a cute smile and long black hair, she was a waitress. She winked at him.

“No, no. I’m just waiting for somebody.” Winter replied kindly feeling quite handsome in his uniform. Despite the scars that etched into his skin like drawn lines underneath it all he was once handsome. Some women liked scared guys.

Or maybe it was the rank one lank under enlisted and the few metals that puckered his plain gray uniform. Maybe the little cloth medallions of battle long passed interesting people. As he sat waiting stirring sugar within his caffeine induced drink he wondered if settling down would ever be something he would go for.

About that time somebody opened the door a male, tall and blonde around thirty a thin face and a broad smile.

This was no secret meeting yet the small restaurant overlooking a vast stretch of water would have worked perfectly like some movie cliché. It was simply the restaurant next door to a store; Winter had looked for a pair of gloves.

“What’s up?” Asked the blonde who was young and equally energetic, “nuthin.” Winter replied.

“Well it is all cool like water. How did you sleep?”

Also next door was a hotel were Winter had slept. He wanted to get a feel for a city and a nice long hot shower in solitude had been worth the pay. Space travel sucked the energy from him and there were no laser blasts to wake him back up, at least here. Those times had passed but that didn’t mean Winter didn’t get into trouble from time to time. That would make life a little to bland.

“Like somebody dead.” Morbid replied but it made the point.

“Yeah well we have a car that will take you to center.”

“Good, good.”

The boy ordered a coffee for himself, no sugar, and returned to Winter. “Ya know Gunny your going to have to pucker up to those folks at command.”

“Why?”

“Not sure how they like ONI creeping over their shoulders. Anyway ONI has been snatching at every bit of information. The show is being stolen right from underneath their feet.” The other soldier replied taking a sip of his coffee.

“We’ll see. “ Yep, a spook that was what Winter had become.

“I’d get there soon. The car’s waiting when you are.”

With several swift chugs of coffee the soldier smiled and left.

Now it was time to take a look at this entire ‘rebellion thing.’ Tossing the pay for the drinks on the table plus a little bit extra. The city was to big for Winter’s tastes hopefully he wouldn’t get lost. Who knows, he only had one fourth of the planet to walk over before he realized that he took a wrong turn.

Down the blue streets he walked blending into the crowd hands deep within his black trench coats pocket the feeling of body armor against his chest and a handgun bouncing against his left breast. It was perhaps the only item that kept him from losing his sanity. He wanted to wear his armor become an ODST once more a dark wisp in the mist. At least those relics had not been stolen from him. His armor, updated, his battle knife were still all present somewhere. That familiar helmet with its HUD and many sensors still running.

For now he slipped on a pair of orange ballistic goggles to combat the bright sun and continued down the street navigating the crowd of those of all sexes, colors, and heights.

"Master Sergeant Winter!" A voice cried out. He had bypassed the garage. A young private in fatigues motioned for him to come over. Exiting the daze of his mind he crossed through the human traffic.


"Sorry private," and he followed the soldier to the car.

They drove in silence. Winter did not catch the man's name nor did he really feel like it. The car was civilian black long and sleek one of those cars the military used to drive around officials all day long telling how beautiful and prosperous this city was.

Winter sat in the back seat. Quiet, unmoving eyes swiveling within his sockets looking at the man forms of transportation that dotted the streets. The thousands of people that walked and underneath it all there were guns being sold to bad people.

Written by Admonished Nonsense
Formatted by Destitution