“I’m sure you do.”

“What’s the game?”

“It’s very simple. I toss the coin like this.” She flicked her wrist, snapped her thumb, and the coin arced, spinning into the air, and landed in the sand. “Next time, though, before it lands, I want you to tell me if it will fall with the face of the man showing or with the eagle holding the arrows.”

“I got it.” John tensed, bent his knees, and then his eyes seemed to lose their focus on her and the coin.

Dr. Halsey picked up the quarter. “Ready?”

John gave a slight nod.

She tossed it, making sure there was plenty of spin.

John’s eyes watched it with that strange distant gaze. He tracked it as it went up, and then down toward the ground—his hand snapped out and snatched the quarter out of the air.

He held up his closed hand. “Eagle!” he shouted.

She tentatively reached for his hand and peeled open the tiny fist.

The quarter lay in his palm: the eagle shining in the orange sun.

Was it possible that he saw which side was up when he grabbed it... or more improbably, could have picked which side he wanted? She hoped the Lieutenant had recorded that. She should have told him to keep the data pad trained on her.

John retracted his hand. “I get to keep it, right? That’s what you said.”

“Yes, you can keep it, John.” She smiled at him—then stopped.

She shouldn’t have used his name. That was a bad sign. She couldn’t afford the luxury of liking her test subjects. She mentally stepped away from her feelings. She had to maintain a professional distance. She had to... because in a few months Number 117 might not be alive.

“Can we play again?”

Dr. Halsey stood and took a step back. “That was the only one I had, I’m afraid. I have to leave now,” she told him. “Go back and play with your friends.”

“Thanks.” He ran back, shouting to the other boys, “Look!”

Dr. Halsey strode to the Lieutenant. The sun reflecting off the asphalt felt too hot, and she suddenly didn’t want to be outside. She wanted to be back in the ship, where it was cool and dark. She wanted to get off this planet.

She stepped under the canvas awning and said to the Lieutenant, “Tell me you recorded that.”

He handed her the data pad and looked puzzled. “Yes. What was it all about?’

Dr. Halsey checked the recording and then sent a copy ahead to Toran on the Han for safekeeping.

“We screen these subjects for certain genetic markers,” she said. “Strength, agility, even predispositions for aggression and intellect. But we couldn’t remote test for everything. We don’t test for luck.”

“Luck?” Lieutenant Keyes asked. “You believe in luck, Doctor?”

“Of course not,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But we have one hundred and fifty test subjects to consider, and facilities and funding for only half that number. It’s a simple mathematical elimination, Lieutenant. That child was one of the lucky ones—either that or he is extraordinarily fast. Either way, he’s in.”

“I don’t understand,” Lieutenant Keyes said, and he started fiddling with the pipe he carried in his pocket.

“I hope that continues, Lieutenant, ” Dr. Halsey replied quietly. “For your sake, I hope you never understand what we’re doing.”

She looked one last time at Number 117—at John. He was having so much fun, running and laughing. For a moment she envied the boy’s innocence; hers was long dead. Life or death, lucky or not, she was condemning this boy to a great deal of pain and suffering.

But it had to be done.

2300 Hours September 23, 2517 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach Military Complex, planet Reach

Dr. Halsey stood on a platform in the center of the amphitheater. Concentric rings of slate-gray risers surrounded her—empty for now. Overhead spotlights focused and reflected off her white lab coat, but she still was cold.

She should feel safe here. Reach was one of the UNSC’s largest industrial bases, ringed with high-orbit gun batteries, space docks, and a fleet of heavily-armed capital ships. On the planet’s surface were Marine and Navy Special Warfare training grounds, OCS schools, and between her underground facilities and the surface were three hundred meters of hardened steel and concrete. The room where she now stood could withstand a direct hit from an 80-megaton nuke.

So why did she feel so vulnerable?

Dr. Halsey knew what she had to do. Her duty. It was for the greater good. All humanity would be served... even if a tiny handful of them had to suffer for it. Still, when she turned inward and faced her complicity in this—she was revolted by what she saw.

She wished she still had Lieutenant Keyes. He had proven himself a capable assistant during the last month. But he had begun to understand the nature of the project—at least seen the edges of the truth. Dr. Halsey had him reassigned to the Magellan with a commission to full Lieutenant for his troubles.

“Are you ready, Doctor?” a disembodied woman’s voice asked.

“Almost, Déjà.” Dr. Halsey sighed. “Please summon Chief Petty Officer Mendez. I’d like you both present when I address them.”

Déjà’s hologram flicked on next to Dr. Halsey. The AI had been specifically created for Dr. Halsey’s SPARTAN project. She took the appearance of a Greek goddess: barefoot, wrapped in the toga, motes of light dancing about her luminous white hair. She held a clay tablet in her left hand. Binary cuneiform markings scrolled across the tablet. Dr. Halsey couldn’t help but marvel at the AI’s chosen form; each AI “self-assigned” a holographic appearance, and each was unique.

One of the doors at the top of the amphitheater opened and Chief Petty Officer Mendez strode down the stairs. He wore a black dress uniform, his chest awash with silver and gold stars and a rainbow of campaign ribbons. His close-shorn hair had a touch of gray at the temples. He was neither tall nor muscular; he looked so ordinary for a man who had seen so much combat... except for his stride. The man moved with a slow grace as if he were walking in half gravity. He paused before Dr. Halsey, awaiting further instructions.

“Up here, please,” she told him, gesturing to the stairs on her right.

Mendez mounted the steps of the platform and then stood at ease next to her.

“You have read my psychological evaluations?” Déjà asked Dr. Halsey.

“Yes. They were quite thorough,” she said. “Thank you.”

“And?”

“I’m forgoing your recommendations, Déjà. I’m going to tell them the truth.”

Mendez gave a nearly inaudible grunt of approval—one of the most verbose acknowledgments Dr. Halsey had heard from him. As a hand-to-hand combat and physical-training DI, Mendez was the best in the Navy. As a conversationalist, however, he left a great deal to be desired.

“The truth has risks,” Déjà cautioned.

“So do lies,” Dr. Halsey replied. “Any story fabricated to motivate the children—claiming their parents were taken and killed by pirates, or by a plague that devastated their planet—if they learned the truth later, they would turn against us.”

“It is a legitimate concern,” conceded Déjà, and then she consulted her tablet. “May I suggest selective neural paralysis? It produces a targeted amnesia—”

“A memory loss that may leak into other parts of the brain. No,” Dr. Halsey said, “this will be dangerous enough for them even with intact minds.”

Dr. Halsey clicked on her microphone. “Bring them in now.”

“Aye aye,” a voice replied from the speakers in the ceiling.

“They’ll adapt,” Dr. Halsey told Déjà. “Or they won’t, and they will be untrainable and unsuitable for the project. Either way I just want to get this over with.”