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The Spartan took another out with a burst from his assault weapon and the other robots moved in to fry the remains.
Once that contingent of freaks had been dealt with, the Chief followed the Monitor down a hall lined with blue screens, through an area that was infested with Flood, and out onto a lift that looked different from the last one he’d been on. Geometric patterns split the floor into puzzlelike shapes, a series of raised panels stood guard around a column of translucent blue light, and the whole thing seemed to glow.
The Master Chief stepped on board, felt a slight jerk as ancient machinery reacted to his presence, and saw the walls start to rise. He was headed down this time—and hoped that his journey was near an end. Without hesitation, he slammed fresh ammo into his weapon; it seemed as if he emerged into a huge cluster of Flood every time he traveled on a lift.
The lift made hollow, rumbling sounds, fell a long way, and stopped with a reverberating thud.
343 Guilty Spark hovered over his shoulder as the Spartan stepped off the lift and approached a pedestal. “You may now retrieve the Index,” the Monitor said. The artifact glowed lime green; it was shaped like the letter T. It slowly rose from the top of the cylindrical tube in which it had been kept for so many millennia. A series of metal blocks that encircled the device rotated and spun, releasing their protective grip on the Index.
The Spartan took hold of the device, and pulled it up and out of its tubular sheath. He held it up to examine the glowing artifact—and was startled when a gray beam lanced from Spark. The Index was yanked from his hand and disappeared inside a storage chamber in the Monitor’s body.
“What the hell are you doing?” the Spartan demanded.
“As you know, Reclaimer,” Spark said, as if addressing an errant child, “protocol requires thatI take possession of the Index for transport.”
343 Guilty Spark swooped and dived, then floated in place. “Your biological form renders you vulnerable to infection. The Index must not fall into the hands of the Flood before we reach the Control Room and activate the installation.
“The Flood is spreading! We must hurry.”
The Master Chief was about to reply when he saw the bands of pulsating light flowing down around his body, knew he was about to be teleported, and again felt light-headed.
It wanted something,Keyes realized. The memories that replayed like an endless library of video clips were being sifted for something. The buzzing presence in his mind sought . . .what?
He grasped at the thought, and pushed back against the wall of resistance the other that burrowed through his consciousness had erected. He brushed up against it and it almost slipped away . . .
Then he had it—escape. Whatever this thing was, it wantedoff the ring. It hungered, and there was a perfect feeding ground to be found.
The other plunged a barbed-wire tendril into his mind and ripped forth an image of a lunar Earthrise, which blurred into images of cattle in a slaughterhouse. He felt the other’s tendrils eagerly grasp at the image of Earth.Where? It thundered.Tell.