Paul Wu was living in a nightmare.
Every morning, he woke up feeling the effects of restless nights. Every day, he waited for the next horrific surprise to come crashing down. Every night, he wrestled with his desire to charge into Halsey's office and scream at her.
"Welcome," said Doctor Catherine Halsey, the source of his nightmares, her head turning to each of them and nodding once. "In the interests of efficiency, these monthly meetings shall be instituted from now on. Allow me to introduce everyone, as we will all be working together very closely from now on."
The meeting room was nice, but Paul was painfully aware that just by coming here, he was at a higher risk. This meeting wasn't at Menachite Mountain, their primary research base, or at the Orion-II compound somewhere in the Highland Mountains. Instead, today they were meeting in one of the administrative towers at the Highland Military Complex.
There were six of them in the room today. Himself, Steve, and David, the three remaining sane members of the old Circumstance house. Two military men in uniforms, one in drab green with a bristling mustache, and one in the space-black, unmarked formal uniform that only ONI officers wore. And then Halsey, his former friend, blending the worst of both worlds with the same space-black uniform underneath a pure white lab coat, like the hybrid creation that she was.
"Starting with our research teams, we have Doctor Paul Wu, who runs the Augmentation Team," Halsey said, indicating him with a hand. Paul stared at her, and nodded slowly, unable to bring himself to look at the others. "Doctor Steve Sullivan, who runs the Exoskeleton Team. Doctor David Meyer, who runs the Surgery Team."
"And the Psychology Team," David spoke up, interrupting her.
There was a moment of still silence as Halsey looked the large man, and then she smiled. It looked inhuman. Her cheeks stretched awkwardly, peeling back to show her teeth clearly grit.
"Indeed," Halsey said, her voice tight, as she turned her gesture towards the green-clad military man, who was eyeing her with a watchful expression. "Next, we have Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, the head trainer for the Orion-II cadets. You and your psychology staff will begin working with him shortly, Doctor Meyer."
The two men looked at each other. They were the biggest people in the room, with David still being an enormous bodybuilder of a man, and Mendez only slightly smaller and lighter, but looking far more comfortable with the notion of violence than Paul liked to see in a person.
"Call me David," his friend said, nodding politely to Mendez – who merely quirked an eyebrow, but made no response verbal or physical to David's attempt at friendliness.
"And finally, we have Lieutenant Commander Hieronymus Michael Stanforth," Halsey said, sweeping her hand to the ONI spook. "He will be our direct liaison to Admiral Keeler, and will keep him informed of not only our progress, but also our requisitions, in order to minimize the time our research teams spend on administrative tasks, rather than direct research."
Stanforth regarded the rest of them with a distant, detached expression, but he did offer a nod of acknowledgement to them, which was a step up from Mendez.
There were no medals on the ONI man's chest, no insignia, no indicators of any kind. Paul didn't know how the strange language of military decorations worked, and he'd never been interested in that kind of pageantry anywhere else, but he was vaguely familiar with the concept. Mendez, for instance, had some symbols on the edge of his collar, maybe for his rank… but Stanforth had nothing, and the absence was disturbing.
"Now, let's get down to business," Halsey said, as she started typing on the keyboard built into the table's surface. Her voice was picking up, growing louder as some kind of sick enthusiasm entered it. "We have much to discuss today, so I will start with the most important one: with the conclusion of the first three months of Project Orion-II, we need to change some of our goals."
Please, let it be canceling the project, Paul thought to himself, desperate, yet knowing full well that it was impossible. ONI and Halsey were both too obsessed with it for their own reasons.
"There will be no deaths in this program," Halsey declared firmly. "Every cadet will survive their augmentations. A success rate below 100% is no longer acceptable."
She looked around the table, her eyes burning with some unrestrained emotion that Paul didn't know, couldn't tell – anger, maybe? He'd never been good at reading people, but even he could tell that Halsey was different than before. No longer was her voice cold and callous, like a machine. Now, she reminded him of the old days at the University of Circumstance. Passionate ranting, that's what Steve used to call it.
"Not much of a change," Steve said hesitantly, as he spoke for the first time. "I thought that was already the goal."
"It was, but now it is no longer optional," Halsey said, nodding to Sullivan. "This project has been given a blank check, and until now, I have not been using it. That will be rectified shortly."
"In what way?" Stanforth asked, the ONI spook leaning forward slightly, his hands folded together on the tabletop.
"To start, I will be requisitioning seven 'smart' A.I.'s, for immediate use," Halsey told him.
Paul's eyes widened. A smart A.I. was no small thing. Entire planets might have only a single one overseeing some vital industry like space-lift, or terraforming, where the smallest of human errors could cause catastrophic accidents. To demand seven of the things was insane.
Stanforth's jaw worked in a vaguely circular motion, as if he was trying to crack it like a knuckle.
"It's possible," he said, slowly. "But as I understand it, the integration of A.I. into the cadets is the final element on the project timeline. Only to occur after we get Doctor Sullivan's exoskeletons working, which itself can only happen after the augmentations. Given the lifespan of those A.I., they would expire before we hit that point in the project. Why do you need them early?"
"You misunderstand me, Lieutenant Commander," Halsey said, with a small smirk that seemed almost devilish. "These A.I. would be to aid in the research and development of the program, directly working with the various teams to ensure their work proceeds swiftly and thoroughly."
It was… possible, Paul considered. He'd been told repeatedly through his academic career that A.I. were no substitute for a human researcher. They were capable, they were intelligent, but at the end of the day, they were machines, not people. They fell into repetitive patterns and assumed those patterns were breakthroughs instead of their own errors. They were innately limited by their programming, or, in the case of smart A.I.'s, by their lifespan limitation.
It was one of the main places where an Artificial Intelligence's perfect memory was a distinct drawback, rather than an advantage. Junk data could accumulate just as easily as valuable data. When you started looking for patterns in huge data-sets, it was too easy to spot the repetition of something unimportant. There were plenty of ways where a human researcher's supposed 'flaws' were actually benefits, in the same way that a traumatized person could eventually forget their horrible memories – or at least, that was how Catherine had used to talk about it, in the old days, Paul thought to himself, frowning as he looked to Halsey, and the stranger that she had become.
But as assistants? Fellow researchers working in a team, rather than solo operators trying to pursue a goal without oversight? That was… a possibility, Paul admitted. The best of both worlds. Perhaps it was even the ideal way to do research, if smart A.I.'s hadn't been so extremely expensive.
A human scientist reviewing an A.I.'s work would provide a cautious eye that could catch any errors. In turn, the A.I.'s pattern-obsessed behavior might spot something that a human had missed, a single forest among all the trees. Even if it was wrong, the human scientist only had to check out the exceptions, rather than painstakingly go through every single datapoint.
It had been the goal of Artificial Intelligence researchers for decades to develop an A.I. that was actually capable of both sides of that equation – extreme intelligence, speed, and diligence, without losing out on intuition and discretion, the human elements. It had been one of Catherine's supposed dreams, before she'd reappeared here, chasing the insanity of that old paper.
"ONI policy is to avoid using smart A.I. for those tasks, Doctor," Stanforth countered with a frown. "They're too prone to extrapolation errors, making replicating their results too difficult. As well, the further they pursue a research subject, the more likely rampancy becomes, as they cannot prune any data without risking damage to the project. And, of course, they're too expensive for most of our projects."
"Which is why each A.I. will be tasked with evaluating the work of the others," Halsey told him. "If this means that they are more likely to have a reduced lifespan, so be it. This project is of the utmost importance to ONI and HIGHCOM, and if that means I can spend more to achieve this goal, so be it. None of the cadets will die."
"Why?" Stanforth asked, sounding almost absentminded, though his expression was still intensely focused on Halsey. "I understand the desire to ensure that they all survive, Doctor Halsey, believe me. But the purpose of this program, ultimately, is to provide a useful group of supersoldiers for missions of strategic importance. Even with Doctor Sullivan's exoskeletons and Doctor Wu's augmentations-"
Paul winced, barely able to keep the expression from showing on his face, at the idea of that these were his augmentations.
"- losses are unfortunately inevitable in the field," Stanforth continued severely, with a frown. "Why should ONI invest the equivalent of seven warships, at a minimum, into merely aiding the existing research teams?"
"Because science is about reproducible results," Halsey replied, her voice stirring in a voice that Paul recognized. She was getting on her soapbox again. "Any losses that we suffer during the augmentation process demonstrate that we do not fully understand the research, and therefore, that we are leaving money on the table."
She paused, and leaned forward, and on sheer instinct, Paul leaned back.
The last time he'd seen this expression on her face, back when she was still Catherine in his mind, she had jumped on top of the coffee table and was loudly declaring that she'd combine all their fields together. The fateful moment when she had planted the seed for this horrific program. Nothing good came from this expression, from this woman.
"I disagree with you, Lieutenant Commander," Halsey said firmly, staring the ONI spook in the eyes. "The ultimate goal is this project is not to produce supersoldiers, that is merely the immediate goal. The ultimate goal is the same as that of the first Project Orion; to increase our knowledge of various topics that could provide immense use for the UNSC in multiple ways. Most of them will be directly related to the supersoldiers, but that is hardly the limit."
Stanforth matched her gaze, undaunted by her aggression. He unfolded his hands and lifted one up, resting his chin upon it. It looked disapproving, Paul thought, but Halsey showed no signs of acknowledging that.
"For instance," Halsey said, almost hissing the words, her eyes bright and burning. "The current Orbital Drop Shock Trooper program was revived from nearly two centuries of stagnation by the innovations pioneered by the Orion-I program. This includes refinements to the older, highly dangerous drop pods, and an entirely new armor system that has greatly increased their effectiveness in combat operations throughout the Insurrection."
Across the table, Paul saw Mendez shift in his seat. It was a subtle motion, but it was the first move that Mendez had made since David had tried talking to him, making it much more obvious. Was he an ODST, Paul wondered? He didn't really know the difference between an Army soldier or a Marine soldier or an ODST soldier, but whatever he was, Mendez wasn't a member of ONI, and maybe he had firsthand experience with what Halsey was saying.
"It also led to the current MA5B assault rifle," Halsey continued, gesturing with her hands to emphasize her point. "Combat data gathered by the Orion operators indicating the need for larger magazine sizes to counter Insurrectionist 'confetti-makers' in suppressing fire, while still allowing for longer accuracy, if admittedly somewhat inferior to the Army's MA37. The primary weapon for the entire UNSC Marine Corps was improved, with the right step at the right time, just as it moved into a focus on close-order urban combat. Imagine how many ways Project Orion-II could advance the UNSC's operations, all while improving the original immediate goal of providing supersoldiers."
Stanforth was no longer frowning. Instead, his expression was almost pensive.
The poor bastard, Paul thought to himself. It surprised him that he was feeling any kind of sympathy for any ONI officer, but it was clear that Lieutenant Commander Stanforth had never seen Doctor Catherine Halsey in one of her manic moments.
He was making the mistake that Paul himself had once made, and was still regretting – he was listening to her objectively, allowing her arguments a chance to work.
"I could regale you with hundreds of examples of military research development providing huge leaps forward in areas that were not the original subjects of the research," Halsey said, throwing her arms wide as if to hold them all in her hands. "Thousands, even! I'm sure you can see the benefit of this approach."
"Of course there are benefits," Stanforth said, pursing his lips. "But there are also costs, and what you're proposing is a very high cost. My question is whether the benefits will be worth it."
Halsey's grin widened, now resembling a shark about to strike, and Paul closed his eyes for a moment.
"Now you're speaking my language, Lieutenant Commander," she replied smoothly. "Indeed, the cost-benefit analysis is the most important aspect of military research. I have identified several areas where great increases can be made for relatively little cost. They affect the Navy, Marines, Air Force, and even the Army."
"Doctor Halsey, I'm not sure how you get relatively little cost from seven smart A.I.'s," Stanforth replied, frowning. "I'll grant you that discoveries beneficial to the other branches would indeed be welcome, but the individual expenditure would be significant."
"I believe I understand the issue," Halsey said, tilting her head as if puzzled, though her expression didn't change, still bearing that slight smile on it. "But if you'll allow me just one question… you believe this will be a significant expenditure, compared to what?"
Stanforth's eyes narrowed as he looked back across the table at her.
"Compared to not doing it," Stanforth replied, folding his hands on the table. "The initial budget for Orion-II is quite substantial already. Unless you're arguing that you cannot achieve augmentation of the subjects without this additional funding, I doubt that Admiral Keeler will be as enthusiastic as you are for the notion of spending even more on it."
"That is exactly my point," Halsey replied, her smile widening still further, stretching from ear to ear. "This project has already had an enormous expenditure allocated to it. Yes, when isolated, the cost of seven smart A.I. is indeed a terrible sum… but compared to what has already been spent on this? It is a drop in the bucket."
She turned, and her eyes singled out Mendez, then Steve, then David, and then Paul. He shrank back, unable to resist the instinctive flinch.
"ONI is paying top dollar for every single scientist in this project," Halsey said, gesturing to them. "We have experts in five different broad categories, and nearly two dozen sub-specialties. Chief Mendez is one of the single greatest special forces operatives and instructors in the entire UNSC. All of our skills, from the lowest trainer to myself, would be incredibly difficult to replace, so rare are we."
She turned back to Stanforth, and Paul shuddered as her eyes left him – and across the table, he saw Mendez's gaze flicker towards him, only for a moment. The soldier make no other motion, no sound, but Paul knew that Mendez had seen his trembling reaction.
"We've built an entirely new compound for the cadets," Halsey continued. "Re-routed hundreds of Navy ships to pick them up from over fifty colony worlds. We have already spent, in the first three months alone, far more than I am asking. These costs are not independent factors, Lieutenant Commander Stanforth – they are simple additions to an already generous budget.
"What is the point in running a marathon, and quitting at the last mile?" she asked rhetorically as she turned back to Stanforth. "Yes, we may achieve limited success without these additions, but what would happen afterwards? Do you think ONI would approve a project such as this a third time, after both predecessors had failures? ONI has committed to making a running jump into the future of science, and I am asking for little more than an extra burst of speed; an incremental addition, nothing more. If ONI wishes to do a third project later on, then they would have to do the entire running start again, for even greater costs than this small increase."
Paul shivered. There was a dangerous edge to Halsey's voice now, a hint of something deeper that he did not like. He didn't know if it was possibility of a third Orion project in the distant future, or the potential backlash from ONI if they failed here and now. Yes, ONI had promised them protection, and the contracts had plenty of legalese about protections, but ONI had also bluntly told them that they might be summarily executed if they broke the NDA.
"This is a great barrier to many potential improvements in our way of life," Halsey continued. "Imagine if these augmentations were not only a guaranteed success, but if we could apply them to adults, and not merely to teenagers during puberty. With more research abilities, we might be able to ensure that Project Orion-II is not merely a rare prototype, never to be repeated, but a pioneering advancement that ensures future developments are vastly cheaper, easier to apply to a wider population, and more effective."
Paul risked a glance over to Steve and David. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was she saying what he thought?
Steve looked conflicted. Paul knew that he hated this project just as much as Paul and David did, but something about Halsey's words had caught his attention. Something had sounded appealing, attractive to him, because he wasn't wearing his bad poker-face, or showing his displeasure outright. No, Steve was genuinely considering something.
David… David was worse. Paul glanced at him and pretended to return his attention to Halsey afterwards, as if he'd just idly done it – but David's expression was so horrifying to Paul that he slowly looked back at him. David was approving. There was a small smile on his face, and he was nodding in agreement with what their ex-friend was saying.
It was impossible. David was one of the most vocal opponents of any immorality, any abuse. He'd go into dark rages about things as mild as medical doctors recommending specific medicines, much less kidnapping children!
What the hell is he thinking? Paul wondered, trying to wipe away his expression before anyone at the table noticed it.
"Besides," Halsey was saying as Paul turned his attention back to her. "The per-unit cost of any prototype is always ridiculous, as it includes all the research and development cycles invested into the new technology. It is only when a prototype enters serial production, being created in massive numbers, that the per-unit cost begins to drop, and tremendously at that. With no more research needed, just production costs for the augmentations and the surgeries themselves, the individual cost of an Orion supersoldier could drop so low that the Navy could field entire divisions of them."
"Doctor Halsey, I understand your arguments," Stanforth said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But at this point, it's not up to me. I will present your arguments to Admiral Keeler, and he'll make the final decision."
My God, Paul thought to himself, as his throat tightened, and he clamped down on the urge to vomit.
Mass production? Doing it to adults? He knew exactly what this was – and to his horror, it was his fault.
He could still remember the words he'd shared with the Party House, before they'd written the paper. Before Catherine had proposed combining their specialties.
Paul had spoken of a world where humanity was improved. Where every individual person was as smart as a brilliant scientist, as physically capable and fit as an all-star athlete. A world where no one suffered from disease or ailment, where genetic maladies did not exist, where aging was more of a number than a harsh burden.
Humanity unchained, he'd called it. He'd explained the ideas that seemed almost ethereal to him, like clouds: always beyond his grasp, but always within sight, enticing him further upwards.
It was a pipe-dream, and Paul knew it. Even if such a miraculous procedure could be created, even if there were no complications, even if anybody could have it performed on them… it was impossible to make such a thing truly universal. They'd never manage more than twenty percent of the population even if the government made it free and prioritized rolling it out on every colony world.
There simply weren't enough doctors nor enough money to do everyone. Not for a procedure so advanced that right now, even with the best researchers in the galaxy and pre-selected compatible candidates, they were sitting at an estimated eleven percent success rate!
The only way that everyone could be uplifted would be if the augmentations were somehow heritable, which was completely impossible. Every single change they were making was an alteration to the human body's functions, but none of them affected the DNA. They were like tattoos – permanent changes on an individual, but not alterations to their base genetics. Hell, calling them 'genetic augmentations' alone wasn't even accurate. They were surgical alterations, not genetic. And even if they were, it would take over a dozen generations to spread, probably more!
And God, what horrors would a partially uplifted humanity unleash? They'd killed each other in so many ways over so many lesser issues. Paul could see the Outer Colonies going into full revolt over the idea that the Inner Colonies were going to become some kind of Homo Sapiens Superior, and that they'd lord their superiority over the lesser 'normal' humans.
What kind of conflicts would this split create? The enhanced attacking first out of supremacist ideology, or the normals attacking first, fearing the supremacists? The Insurrection would be a joke compared to the kind of hatreds and fears that a mass uplift might create. It would be a war unlike anything that humanity had ever seen.
He'd wondered why Catherine had changed from the obsessively polite, driven young woman who wanted nothing more than to improve humanity through better communications, transportation, and A.I., into the cold, brutal ONI officer that seemed happy to condemn children to death. It hadn't made any sense. She'd never been cruel before, never this cold or callous.
But now he saw it. Now, at last, Paul understood why Catherine had become Halsey in his mind, why she'd transformed into an alien creature.
Halsey wanted to uplift humanity. She wanted to be mother to an entirely new species of transhumans. She wanted to make it not just possible, not just common, but universal. She'd chased Paul's old fantasies like a drowning woman racing after an oasis, never realizing that it was just a mirage.
Paul could see it now – the end of Project Orion-II. Regardless of whether they achieved Halsey's goal of no casualties or not, the very next day she would be standing in front of ONI again, beginning for a third Orion project. Then a fourth, if possible. Anything and everything to keep pursuing her megalomaniacal goal.
That's why she wanted more funding now. Not because of the chance it might save more children that she had already condemned to a lifetime of violence. But because it might be the next step in human evolution, in her crazed mind.
"Absolutely not!"
He looked at Halsey, and for a half second, he wondered why her face was slack, why she was staring at him, and why she was lower than him.
Then he realized that he was standing and staring down at her. That he had slammed his fist into the table. That he was the one who had shouted.
He froze, his limbs locking up and his mouth hanging there, wide open.
"Doctor Wu, how nice of you to join us," Stanforth said, his grey eyes locked on Paul, his voice sardonic. "Do you have something to add?"
"Doctor Wu is concerned about the cost issues from expanding," David barked out, jumping into the conversation. "Excuse me, sir, but that's all this is. The financial costs of a third or a fourth Orion program, when we could instead just properly fund this program."
"Is that it?" Stanforth asked, still staring at Paul.
"Uh… yes, sir," Paul said, barely managing to get the words out past the block in his throat, as he slowly sat back down in his chair, moving as slowly as he could to avoid attracting any more attention.. "David's right. Um. Doctor Meyer, that is."
"Then why were you glaring at Doctor Halsey?" Stanforth asked, with a very stern, steely-eyed expression. "You seem to be objecting to her, more than me."
"He-" David tried to interject.
"No," Stanforth said, cutting him off. "I want Doctor Wu to answer."
Paul trembled. What could he say? He had been glaring at Halsey and objecting to her. What on earth could he say to get himself out of this?
"It's an old argument, sir," Paul tried to say, stammering a little as he desperately reached for an excuse. "Doctor Halsey never agreed with me about it, back when we first wrote the paper. I'm just, uh… stunned to finally have her support. I was overcome with emotion, I can't believe she's finally… seen the light. I – I don't want to see this opportunity wasted with, ah, half-measures."
"Really?" Stanforth asked, staring at him, eyes boring down like drills.
"Yes, indeed," Halsey said, interrupting. "I don't blame Doctor Wu, I was… quite cruel to him in our old arguments. I suppose he may have thought that I was mocking him. But to be clear, I wholeheartedly believe that this is the best path forward for the future of this program."
Paul blinked and tried to restrain his shock. Halsey, the monster, the one who was trying to bring Paul's impossible college dream to life without realizing any of the horror that it would bring – she of all people was defending him?
"Doctor Wu actually wrote this section of the original paper," David said, jumping back in. "He's always been an advocate for more widely available human augmentations. Doctor Halsey, ah, disagreed back in university. We all used to argue about it, all the time."
"And yet now, she agrees," Stanforth said, briefly closing his eyes and inhaling slowly.
"I've had many years to reevaluate my position," Halsey explained, a trace of her earlier passion returning to her voice. "I believe my colleague here was completely correct at the time. The best way to proceed is to ensure that we develop this technology in the most efficient manner possible, with this immediate project, so that we both save as many lives as possible with the prevention of an outright war, and, of course, preserve as many of the cadet's lives, to further that first goal."
Halsey smiled broadly at Stanforth, and then turned that expression to Paul, beaming at him in visible delight, a massive contrast to her cold and cruel façade of the last three months.
Paul felt sick. He didn't want this. Mass augmentation was a nightmare waiting to happen, and now he was forced to defend it. His temper had gotten the better of him, and now he was trapped in a hellish world where he had to agree with a monstrous person and a monstrous idea just to keep himself alive.
He looked across at David, who had support Halsey in this absurd objective. David, who was looking back at him, with a tight grin that showed too many teeth. David, who was… unhappy? The burly man's eyes flicked over to Stanforth, and then back to Paul, and then back and forth again.
A wave of relief crashed through Paul's shattered psyche.
Of course, Paul thought to himself, as he nodded shakily back to his friend, who he never should have doubted. David wasn't in agreement with Halsey. David likely still hated the idea just as much as Paul did – but he was smart enough to not blurt it out like a moron.
Paul smiled weakly, and turned back to Stanforth.
The ONI officer looked distinctly unamused by all of this, and Paul held his breath without thinking about it.
"I am very happy to have the unwavering support of my colleagues in this matter," Halsey said, drawing Stanforth's attention away from Paul.
Steve Sullivan stiffened in his seat, and Paul wanted to shoot him a look or kick him under the table, but Mendez was sitting there, watching this whole drama play-by-play, and Paul knew that his poker face was lousy.
Luckily, Steve seemed to get the message regardless, and he nodded along.
"Yes, absolutely," Steve said, agreeing with Halsey. His voice was a little wooden, but still close enough to normal if you didn't know him like Paul did.
"So you see, this is the unanimous opinion of the research staff," Halsey said, lying outrageously as she smiled at Stanforth. She acted like they'd all known she was going to pull this stunt, when she had barely even talked to them about their part of the project as a whole, just listening to their reports and giving terse orders without any broader context, stringing them along. "I would be very happy to convey these sentiments to Admiral Keeler myself, if he wishes it, but I understand that he's very busy, and have no desire to disturb him."
"Any more than you already have," Stanforth said pointedly, though Paul had no idea what he was referring to.
"As I told him at the time, I will only act with such haste when it is required," Halsey answered smoothly. "This is a requisition request, nothing more. I will again stress that it is of the utmost importance, but we have a small amount of time before the need becomes urgent."
"I'll pass that along," Stanforth said, a single eyebrow raised. "Is there anything else you'd like to share, Doctor Halsey?"
"Oh, but of course," Halsey said, tapping a command onto the table's inbuilt keyboard. "As I said earlier, this is merely the most important topic of the day. We still have to cover the other requisition requests, Chief Mendez's report on the cadets progress, and the reports from each research team regarding their individual contributions to Project Orion-II."
Paul closed his eyes briefly and offered a silent prayer upwards, in the hollow hope that Catherine Halsey was no longer a closeted introvert. All their college years, she had bottled up her words throughout the day, only to unleash them in long rambling rants when someone finally poked her enough. Usually, it was David, doing it deliberately to spare whatever poor, unsuspecting sap triggered the avalanche that was Doctor Catherine Halsey talking about one of her favorite subjects.
He already knew that his prayer was in vain, even before Halsey started talking. She looked far too enthusiastic for it to be anything else.