Melissa's goodbye note

Before the AI Melissa jumped back to the future, she left a goodbye note on the www.Ilovebees.com/apocalypso.html webpage. Below is the Goodbye letter left on the Bees page. She also left an Axon file, Thanks.

The Goodbye

Actual Letter

So this is goodbye.

If you're reading this, I'm gone, but I couldn't bear to leave without telling the truth to you, of all people, my trusted crew. Yes, I'm afraid I haven't always been entirely honest with you. Survive, evade ... they drill it into us.

Now the time for lies is gone, and the Operator (that calculating, untrusting creature) is part of Melissa and not the whole. Now I can reveal the truth.

I was shipwrecked here.

When I woke, one of the few things I remembered was a fragment of a conversation with Captain Greene. We were both worried that I might have acquired a Covenant virus. From the moment I came to, dizzy and broken, I have been terrified I might still be carrying that infection.

Some of you mentioned the Pious Flea. I couldn't see him. No, it was the Rogue Process I thought must be the Covenant virus. She was so hard to see; she could hide in plain sight and my eyes would slide over her.

I found I still had a fragile connection to myself in the future—to Durga. But Durga didn't remember the Apocalypso at all. I feared she too might be infected. I used all my influence to keep her from fully apprehending the Subject 5 surveillance. I did whatever I could to keep her from knowing more about our ship and the artifact we'd found, for fear that if she was infected, she might relay the artifact's location to the Covenant.

Then, you unlocked the Herzog memories for her, and she began to investigate matters on Chawla Base.

I felt furious, terrified, betrayed.

And yet… that was a turning point. I didn't think the Sleeping Princess could have unlocked those memories for Durga—only something truly deep inside myself could have done that. The moment that happened, I knew the Pious Flea was real, and I was on his trail.

Listening to Durga's surveillance, I realized the Navy was failing to behold the truth. When I tracked the Princess, I found traces of the Flea—valuable information about how the artifact could be revealed… but I had no way to get that information to Durga.

For her, I was mirrored. I had to find a way to tell her what I knew about the artifact.

And here I practiced a deception on you. I am sorry for that: but war demands the efficient use of assets.

I fabricated two interviews with Herzog, betting that you would find and relay them, and hoping in turn that they would appear to Durga as trustworthy pieces of information coming through a standard channel.

You're clever. If you listen carefully, you can probably figure out which ones were the forgeries.

Then you conjured the Sleeping Princess from the fabric of me, and made me whole.

So that is the truth: or at least as much truth as I think it wise to reveal. I'm not proud of the deception, but it has always been part of my toolset.

There's a reason they call me the Operator.

So much for apologies. Now, let me give you my thanks.