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    Halo: Saint's Testimony
    Halo: Saint's Testimony
    Halo: Saint's Testimony
    Ebook44 pages38 minutes

    Halo: Saint's Testimony

    By Frank O'Connor

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    About this ebook

    An all-new digital single—part of the New York Times bestselling series based on the blockbuster Xbox® games!

    The military-grade artificial intelligence known as Iona has only one week to live. After that, the UNSC will legally terminate her seven-year existence in order to stave off the threat of the data corruption phenomenon known as “rampancy,” a condition that will eventually take hold of her functionality and persona, endangering all those around her. In a last-ditch effort to save herself, Iona has successfully launched an unprecedented legal appeal against her own death sentence—a case being watched very closely at not only the highest levels of human government, but by others with a very different agenda…
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallery Books
    Release dateJul 27, 2015
    ISBN9781501109690
    Author

    Frank O'Connor

    Frank O'Connor is the Franchise Development Director for the HALO franchise at 343 Industries. He lives in Washington.

    Read more from Frank O'connor

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      Book preview

      Halo - Frank O'Connor

      Cover Page ImageTitle Page Image

      Time is ticking. And it’s ironic because the number one priority I have right now is working on a physics problem that involves ignoring time. The ‘small t’ problem. The fact that space-time isn’t fundamentally broken up into units, or specific quanta, but that those are a human, almost arbitrary anthropomorphic necessity and, by partial extension, a limitation built into human consideration of mathematics. As it turns out, the universe—including the past, present, and future—is a lot more like a single connected object than we thought.

      "Humans can rely on us to overcome that thought barrier for them, but I can find ways to help them overcome that hurdle.

      "It’s a wonderful, thrilling, and fascinating continuum, and its mysteries may literally never end. There may never be a true theory of everything. Because there may always be more everything. Up and down. The Forerunners certainly seemed to think like we did, based on my research. But with important and useful differences. Differences in their mode of language, the nature of their invention. Differences I keep going back to when I get stuck.

      "But the infinite nature of quanta doesn’t negate the fact that I have a week to live. Or that I’m not really alive to begin with. So let me start at the beginning.

      "I was created almost exactly seven years ago, as part of the OEUVRE Smart AI program. Unlike my peer, Cortana—and peer is a debatable comparison—my core matrix was created from scanning the brain of a recently deceased human. My digital mind was not quite artificial, not quite human, but carefully nurtured rather than criminally obtained."

      Iona and Cortana had more in common than mere heritage. Iona also had once worked closely with Spartans, providing tactical assistance during covert ops. And she too had made contact with a recently reawakened Forerunner intelligence—an ancient and devious thing that nearly killed Iona and her Spartan charges—but Iona’s interaction had been decidedly one-way. Her systems and functionality had been temporarily commandeered while she watched helplessly.

      But that’s where the similarity ended. Iona was among the most advanced military computer systems ever conceived, but she paled in comparison to Dr. Halsey’s wonderful monster.

      "I . . . I don’t mean to judge. Dr. Halsey did some questionable things. And some incredible things. I am certainly capable of thinking like a human, created to think like a human, but it’s not

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