Hunt the Truth/11 VO

The window on Petra’s lead is closing. With only 72 hours to get past ONI and into Deep Space, it’ll take a miracle–or a timely intervention–to keep the story on track.

The night was pouring in over my shoulders, and no matter how hard I tried to disappear into my hoodie the temperature just kept dropping. I never should’ve come here. They’d evacuated my neighbors, taken all my things, my stash of money, torn everything down to the bone, and they hadn’t even left me a hint that I’d ever existed in the first place. ONI could erase anything they wanted to.

BEN: “Hunt the Truth”…

I just sat there. It was quiet… when I got a call.

BEN: Hello? Who is this?

FERO: Ben, you need to get out of there now. They’ve found you.

BEN: Wait, FERO? Wait, no- how- How did you-

FERO: Ben, listen to me. I told you I’d protect you. Now go, before it’s too late.

BEN: Protect me? I don’t even know how you are. How can even I trust what you-

FERO: Okay, Ben. Just listen to me.

BEN: I’m not- I’m not going anywhere.

FERO: Damn it Ben, have a pity party later! You need to get out of there now!

It was already too late.

FERO: Okay, Ben. Listen to me. Ben.

BEN: Oh, damn it, damn it, damn it…

I could hear them out there through the giant hole where my windows used to be.

[AGENTS TALKING OUTSIDE BEN’S BUILDING]

BEN: Oh no...

I need to hide. Stay quiet. If they were using biometrics I needed to slow my heart down, too. But I was terrified. And then. I froze.

[AGENTS BREEAK THROUGH GLASS, ENTER BEN’S BUILDING]

ONI was here and everything became instinct.

[BEN RUNS DOWN THE HALLWAY]

I flew out of my apartment into the hall. A door. Any door. I picked one, but the plastic sheeting.

[SOUND OF PLASTIC SHEETING CRUMPLING LOUDLY]

I stepped too loud. So I retreated and slipped through a door across the hall, soft feet this time. Moving as fast as I could toward a back bedroom, avoiding the wrinkles on the floor, navigating the silhouettes of draped furniture. Trying to be silent.

I curled up beneath a bedroom window and listened.

[DOOR OPENS]

That was my door opening. They were in my apartment. Had I left any evidence?

FIRST AGENT [IN OTHER ROOM]: Hey. Over there.

I need to relax.

SECOND AGENT [IN OTHER ROOM]: Clear.

I breathed and waited.

FIRST AGENT [IN OTHER ROOM]: Oh, he’s here.

They would systematically scan the building until they found me. And then they were going to stuff me in a bag. I closed my eyes. Tried to disappear.

The sounds had gotten faint. This was my chance. I could make it to the stairwell, but I had to go now. I went.

[BEN RUNS TOWARD HALLWAY]

And three strides into the living room, I could hear them coming around. I dropped down out of sight behind a couch. They were right outside

SECOND AGENT: Shhh… He’s here.

I waited. It was quiet. And then they struck.

[AGENTS BURST THROUGH THE DOORWAY AND ONTO BEN]

BEN: NO, NO, NO, NO, NO – DON’T- UGHN!

The agents began to overpower me.

[AGENTS STRUGGLE WITH BEN]

They were about to put me down when-

[TWO GUNSHOTS RING OUT]

The agents crumpled to the floor. They- They were dead. What happened? I tried to clear my eyes when suddenly I heard one of the agents still alive.

[AGENT STRUGGLING TO BREATHE, GURGLING]

[A GUNSHOT RINGS OUT]

And then he wasn’t.

I saw the shooter emerging from the shadow, snatching up the ONI COM pads and stepping right up to me.

FERO: Do you trust me now?

BEN: Ye- yes, yes. Wh- What- What- Yeah.

FERO: More agents will be here in two minutes. You can wait here to die or you can get your ass out that window right now.

I did what she said

BEN: Okay, okay, okay.

I’d just met FERO.

I’m Benjamin Giraud and this is Hunt the Truth.

BEN [MUTTERING]: Alright I guess… Alright…

FERO led the way along the ledge to the fire escape. I was trying not to look down. We jumped the last several feet and I immediately ran across the street to take cover.

BEN [WHISPERING]: Oh my God. FERO, where are we going?

FERO [WHISPERING: Stop. Talking.

I did as she said, trying not to think. She moved quickly, staying in the shadows. I tried to step where she stepped, but it was hard to keep up. I was almost out of breath by the time she finally ducked into a drainage canal and stopped. I was trying to digest what had just happened.

BEN: Were those agent- Were those agents even-

FERO: I don’t have time to talk. I only came here to make sure you stay a free man, so I need you to listen carefully.

BEN: Okay.

FERO: If they haven’t already, ONI’s definitely greenlit you now. You need to get off-world. Agents are probably searching the neighborhood as we speak, and they won’t stop until you’re neutralized.

BEN: Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God…

FERO: Listen to me, we will protect you.

BEN: Okay. Okay.

FERO: But we’re mobilizing in the Outer Colonies right now. Major pieces are in motion, so everything’s on lockdown. You’ll have to make it on your own for at least a few more days. We’ll give you the resources you need to lay low.

She handed me a COM pad.

FERO: This is completely untraceable. So use it for whatever you need. It gives you access to a secure account too. You’ll have more than enough credits.

BEN: What? Really? Seriously?

Even since ONI froze my accounts, I hadn’t even been able to buy a cup of coffee, and now FERO was giving me a trapdoor out of the financial ruin. She’d already saved my life, and now, this.

BEN: This is great. This is great. I- I can’t thank you enough.

FERO: You can access our network of safe houses on there. The protocol’s blocked right now, but when the lockdown ends, it’ll automatically prompt you. I’ll make sure they know to take care of you.

BEN: Wait- Wait, won’t- won’t you be there?

FERO: The move we’re planning is dangerous. I’m about to go dark and this time, it might be permanent.

BEN: What? Wait, no. Why are you taking that much risk?

FERO: There’s no time. The window is closing and the Chief is still taking the fall. Your story exposed ONI, the Biko leaks cut them deep. We had the bastards bleeding. But when the Senators didn’t bite on our hack, ONI had a chance to recover. So we’re going all in, while they’re still vulnerable. That’s why we’re on lockdown. The mission’s desperate at best, but there’s no silver bullet here.

BEN: But no. There- There has to be-

FERO: It’s okay, Ben. I’m not afraid to die. What we’re doing is so much bigger than me. And I know there will always be people to continue the fight. People like you.

ONI was coming after me with everything they had. FERO had saved my life and now she was prepared to lay down her own. I couldn’t lay low. I knew what I had to do.

BEN: Wait, wait, wait... I may have a silver bullet.

I convinced FERO to hold off on her plan for a few more days, while I followed up on Petra’s lead. I knew whatever I did with whatever I found there would have to be big. But if it took making a major impact to keep another one of my friends from dying in the fray… I thanked FERO again-

BEN: Thank you.

Told her I’d see her soon, and we parted ways.

I stayed in the shadows and moved quickly across town to the freighter headed for Bliss, only stopping once at an old military surplus along the way. I stocked up there, then caught my ride out to Deep Space.

When I arrived, I headed straight for the Office of Mineral Rights. On the ride up, the freighter captain had seemed far more interested in bribery than my aspiring prospector backstory. I was hoping the claims coordinator would be equally pragmatic.

COORDINATOR: Mr. Jared, an entrepreneur diversifying into silicates does not usually hop on a Deep Space freighter to walk the glass troughs. I like your gumption, but I’d love to show you some of these projected yields.

BEN: Actually, I already have a plot in mind.

After negotiating transport up here, I understood better what the industry considered acceptable compensation. And with all the haggard men outside holding gold-plated COM pads, I figured the man who issued the permits would have me plundering FERO’s account. So, seventy-five thousand credits later, I had access, nav, and full gear. He seemed alarmed though when I refused an escort.

COORDINATOR: That’s four klicks from here, and beyond that periphery, it’s a hard slog through raw glass. Some of those formations will stab through bone.

I just signed the waivers. To his credit, he offered me some parting advice, free of charge.

COORDINATOR: The wind really kicks up out there. And the particulate’s been extremely rough. We’ve had to close the shutters twice in the past week. So, uh, if you hear that alarm, you get to cover, okay? Otherwise, it’ll tear your skin off.

BEN: Thanks. Appreciate it.

On the outskirts of the settlement, the horizon seemed to be all quarries. When I reached the periphery though, open-pit operations stopped abruptly and I saw the real glassed planet. A daunting, chaotic sea of shapes and textures, black brittle swelling and troughing without end, scattered with the skeletons of melted buildings.

The terrain was brutal, repeatedly slowing my trek to a crawl, picking through fields of jutting glass. The climate was killing me too. Constant thirst despite constant water breaks. My skin felt like it was cracking beneath my soot-caked gear. And after choking on a mouthful of dust, I’d been breathing on the respirator for the past hour. Occasional desert plants pushed through the cracks, bright blue or blood red. But aside from the crows stalking the settlement’s landfill, that was the only non-human life I’d seen. It was all that fine ash. 32 years later, still suspended in the atmosphere. It precluded thriving life, as it painted the surreal sky above, constantly shifting with the erratic winds, gorgeous streaks to diseased palls.

I had been making relatively good time, when a cloud of dense ash suddenly descended. I stopped. I was totally blind. I didn’t want to take a step; a lethal fall seemed far too possible. I checked the nav. Only 1,200 feet to go. I was debating whether or not to wait out the fog, when it suddenly lifted. It was beautiful for a moment.

[STORM SIREN SOUNDS]

When a low, rising growl snapped me out of that reverie. The storm siren.

I pulled up the nav and started moving as fast as I could, sudden pockets of cold, hot, then cold again, the wind whipping sharply back and forth, bits of sand spraying against me.

[STORM SIREN SOUNDS]

But I didn’t see anything. Behind me, everything was calm. In front, the sky above the mountains were perfectly clear. Where was the storm? I looked down at the nav. Only a few hundred feet to go. Ahead, I saw the ruins of a huge complex. I’d be there in no time. But then I realized it; those weren’t mountains. A black wall was coming from the horizon, and it was coming right at me.

I flat out sprinted. The storm was closing in. it was the color of night and impossibly tall. I got to the ping on the map, the structure had been leveled. There was nowhere to go and the sand was flying faster, stinging my cheeks. I looked around desperately, trying to shield my face. There was a massive collapsed section up ahead. I scurried over, bits of glass starting to spray against the debris, like tinkling wind chimes.

The glass was stinging through my clothes. I half-climbed, half-slid down the waves that oozed and sloped into the pit, slicing my leg on the way down. The sound was deafening, I had to get in now. I started tugging at a split in the collapsed floor, the storm blasting harder, my skin on fire.

I made one last push, the glazing shattered, and I slid in, as the wall of glass exploded overhead and I plunged into the darkness.

I laid there for a bit before pulling off the respirator. My skin was stinging all over. I checked my outer thigh.

BEN: Damn it. Damn.

It was bleeding and it hurt like hell, but it wasn’t too deep. I pulled out my medical kit, wrapped it, and started looking around.

BEN: Okay, the Roof's collapsed there... All- all sorts of debris on the ground... Chairs, wire...

Whoever abandoned this place must have had advance warning and left in a hurry. I shined my light along a back wall.

BEN: Okay. “Office of Naval Intelligence… Subspace Communications… No civilians past this point….”

It was an old ONI subspace relay facility, one of the hundreds scattered in Deep Space to cut back on COM delays between Earth and the out skirts. ONI wouldn’t have left anything useful in a place like this.

BEN: Okay, Petra… What am I looking for?

I followed every warning sign I could find, looking for anything “Restricted Access.” A few flights down and dozens of turns in, I was standing on what appeared to be the lowest level, and based on the long echoes into the darkness, the room was huge. I moved through dozens of rows of tall shelves, draped with drop cloths. Whatever had happened on Bliss hadn’t made a dent down here, apparently. I peered behind one of the cloths.

BEN: Oh. Damn.

Guns, explosives, ammunitions, all kinds of after-market mods. None of this was UNSC-sanctioned.

BEN: Seriously? Guns?

Had I come all this way for neatly organized contraband?

BEN: You gotta be ki-

But that’s when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Coming from the shadows at the back of the room. Through a glass door-

BEN: No way…

A tiny blinking light.

BEN: No way… It can’t be active….

An active relay?

BEN: The relay!?

In an ONI facility? There could be anything on it. There could be everything on it… if someone screwed up. The surface destruction was catastrophic. They could have just assumed the glassing had gone this deep. And ONI probably wasn’t even operating in any real capacity out here anymore. This had to be why I was here.

I immediately hooked up my COM pad and I couldn’t believe it. The server was in standby, but it seemed fully functional.

BEN: “Connecting”!?

Something kicked on deep below and low auxiliary light filled the room.

BEN: Oh my God!

I started entering queries.

BEN: “Biko”…

“Biko”. It was current. I remembered the name of the raw file for the Biko video that FERO leaked.

BEN: Oh, now way…

That video popped up. And so did the second video, the one FERO hadn’t seen.

BEN: Ray, I found it!

I pulled it down and opened the footage. It was a composite of every single angle cameras captured that day.

The original video just showed Chief firing down the hallway where four civilians had died. But I didn’t see civilians in that hallway. I saw two “janitors” with a rocket launcher. I saw two “couriers” with frags. And none of them had a chance before Chief dropped them. Shot for shot, bullet for bullet, I watched him take out the terrorists. Firing his handgun exactly twelve times, hitting only assassins every time.

I saw the bodyguard and four embassy guards firing at Sekibo himself. And the best part was, the coroner’s reports backed up all of it. Ray’s scavenger was dead on. It was indisputable; Chief killed the bad guys, bad guys killed the innocents.

I found Sekibo’s original request for security and the UEG’s immediate automatic rejection.

BEN: I can’t believe it… Wow. We go ‘em!

I had everything I needed to clear the Chief, but there was so much more to implicate ONI.

I got an awful idea, and I knew exactly what to search next.

BEN: “Benjamin… Giraud….”

As the results popped up, a chill went down my spine. Psychological profiles on me, conversations between Sully and his bosses, bullet-point lists of my pressure points and relationships. This was making me nauseated. I downloaded the files, but I couldn’t read it.

BEN: Oh, no way…

I scrolled through my interviewees. Gabriella Dvorak’s real military jacket? 2524, she was on Dwarka. She’d never set foot on the planet where she supposedly liberated a young John.

The war camp survivor, Thomas Wu, the man who also lied about there being camps on John’s planet? ONI chose the carrot over the stick with him. They promised to fund more memorials and awareness campaigns for survivors of the insurrectionist camps that Thomas and countless others endured.

I found the actors too….

BEN: Walker…. I see you, bastard!

Paul Gustafson, AKA Jakob Walker was in there. His acting resume, personality notes, agreements to surrender existing work and retire.

And then I found Deon, or Simon Kensington. There was even video of him rehearsing, tweaking his Deon delivery, responding to whatever prompts his ONI handler was giving. As I listened to him discuss my emotional vulnerabilities, my nausea turned to rage.

BEN: All. You. Bastards!

But when it came to the story I’d never wanted to hear, Anthony’s story of the SPARTAN program, I realized I was still scared to see hard evidence, to prove the rumors. But I went for it. I quickly found myself looking at highly classified assignments pushed to ONI scouts in 2516. Queries and requisitions from planet after planet, weighted toward the Outer Colonies. And then the qualifications for the SPARTAN-II program. A list of physical and mental criteria, genetic compatibility with a slate of augmentation procedures, and optimal age: six years or younger.

I did one last search.

BEN: “John-117”

[RELAY SERVER BEGINS TO SQUAK]

There he was. On a list in 2517. I began to follow his name on a trail of documents that continued past the day his parents thought they’d buried him. The progress reports, written by scientists, language you’d use to describe an expensive technological prototype. But they were talking about a child. They had done that to a hero. To my hero. And countless other children. I was just digging in when-

[RELAY SERVER SQUAKS AND CLICKS LOUDLY]

BEN: What- What the hell is that?

Corrupted files started hitting my COM pad.

BEN: NO! NO! NO!

I immediately disconnected from the server and checked the files. They were fine.

BEN: Oh, thank God….

Then, it just shut down.

[SERVER CLICKS OFF AND POWES DOWN]

BEN: Wait- Wait. Oh, no. No, no, no, no…

I was terrified. Had I gone over Petra’s 72-hour window? Had ONI just caught me looking? I checked the time.

BEN: Okay.

I was fine. But then, what was that?

I looked at the server one more time. That little standby light? It was glowing brighter. Pulsing at me. I was starting to lose it. But it didn’t matter.

I had what I needed, and the storm was over. I emerged from the bunker. It was time to leave this sad, ashy nightmare behind.

As I trekked back across the wasteland, I stepped with more confidence. I knew this terrain now. And I had ONI right where I wanted them.

Please join me for the next episode of Hunt the Truth.