I Love Bees

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Summary

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During the summer of 2004, the website ilovebees.com was used as a publicity site for Halo 2, with the site being pointed to by adverts for the game during movie trailers. Ostensibly a beekeeper's personal site, the server appears to have been taken over by an unstable AI, who's thoughts are scattered on the site.

A message on the frontpage directs viewers to the blog of a girl named Dana. Dana claims that she built the ilovebees site for her Aunt Margaret and recently her site got in this bizarre state, could anyone help her? Dana acts essentially as a narrator in the game, describing events for people who missed the action.

The frontpage had a counter counting down to July 27, 2004 (when it says "network throttling will erode"), August 10, 2004 (when "this medium will metastasize"), and August 24, 2004 (at 8:06 am, when it will be "wide awake and physical") - many thought something big would happen related to Halo 2 on these dates, however it was only related to the ILB game. Currently there is a counter counting down to the day the Covenant will attack Earth, 500 years in the future.

On 8/10/04, a list of GPS coordinates with times were added to the site's Links page, along with a countdown to "Axons go hot". With the exception of one leading to the Pacific Ocean, all of the coordinates lead to payphones. On 8/24/04, the countdown ended as it reached the first set time. People who answered the payphones (the "axons") at the scheduled times spoke to a recording of the AI and were asked basic questions about the character. If answered correctly, a number would be added to a counter on the website. As the number reached 777, the AI, as played by a voice actor instead of a recording, began interacting with players through the payphones.

The AI would ask for their name, rank and proof that they were human. Players would provide their usernames, choose ranks and improvise proof (ie, joking, singing). Their names were added to the site, crediting them for activating the axons.

This style of publicity is similar to that which surrounded the movie A.I. which featured a grand Alternate Reality Game. Both games were run by 4orty2wo Entertainment.

Story Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot details revealed.

In the year 2537, on the planet Coral, six-year-old Yasmine Zaman was "recruited" into the SPARTAN-II program. After eight years of Spartan training, she "washed out", meaning that she died during the augmentation process. Her brain was then used to make a smart AI named Melissa.

By 2552, Melissa was being used as a shipboard AI on the stealth ship Apocalypso. While the ship was in Covenant space, it intersepted a trasmission detailing attacks on Troy and Harmony. This trasmission included a trojan AI spy called the Seeker which began corrupting Melissa. Melissa realized that something was not well, and Captain Greene decided to bring the ship home.

On the way back, long-range censors detected a Forerunner artifact floating around in space. With examination, it appeared to be a Covenant device of completely new design. They decided to bring the object to Earth, so ONI could examine it. During Slipspace travel, Melissa, under the Seeker's influence, convinced a crewmember to fiddle with the artifact. An enormous expolsion threw the ship out of Slipspace within Lunar-orbit and shutdown all communications in the Solar System for about seven seconds.

The explosion blew Melissa apart, part of her was sent back in time to the year 2004, where she landed on the ilovebees site. On the site, the part of her that was the young Yasmine seperated from the AI/Spartan part of her, called "The Operator". The Operator was a violent fragmented personality trying to make sense of what happened. Brought with her, was the System Peril Distributed Reflex, or SPDR, which was an emergancy program that began to repair the Operator. Also brought along, was the Seeker, who managed to convince the Operator that it was an updated version of the SPDR and tricked her into disabling the real SPDR. While the Seeker did do the work of the SPDR, it also began to overwrite the Operator's goals, "survive, evade, resist, escape," with its own: "seek the truth, behold the truth, reveal the truth,".

The Yasmine part called herself "The Sleeping Princess," and spoke in a storybook fashion, refering to the Operator as the evil Queen who locked her away in a glass coffin. She began communicating with people through the site's 404 page, talking about day-to-day activities and answering questions emailed to her through the email displayed on the site. On other pages, she spoke with the Seeker, whom she called the Pious Flea, and eventually allied with it.

Another part of Melissa was not sent back in time, and landed on the PC of Jersey Morelli. Jersey assumes her to be some kind of spam and tells his dumb AI to delete her off his system, Melissa immediately retaliates and destroys it. Jersey realizes that the AI was military and asks what she is, she says she can't remember her name but knows that she likes to find things out. Jeresy names her Durga, thinking it suited her. As she can't remember what she liked to find out, Durga asks Jersey for a target. Jersey asks her to get info on the girl down the hall, Jan James.

Durga began spying on Jan James, hacking into the chatters (like cellphones) of people around her or talking about her. She found out that Jan broke into a military base to return a gate pass used by her friends to steal a Warthog, but was caught by MPs. She was taken to the poilice station to be given a PQI (futuristic lie-detector), she beat the machine but the cop could tell she was lying. Her father, Jim James, came to pick her up and got upset after hearing that they needed to take blood samples. On the ride home, he lectured her on how important it is for them to stay out of trouble. She expressed concern, but he said not to worry, that he'll take care of it. He ended up burning the station to the ground, destroying all the test samples.

Durga also began spying on a medical student named Kamal Zaman, because he seemed very interesting to her for some reason. Kamal was having dating trouble despite his roommate, Hiroyuki's help. So, Kamal's mother back on Coral set him up with a friend's daughter, Sophia, who had immigrated to Earth. On their date, Sophia informed him that she was already dating someone, a local gangster named Aiden, but she couldn't tell her mother she was seeing someone from Earth. Listening to her talk about Aiden, Kamal suspected he was cheating on her and offered to hack into his chatter and find out for sure. After discovering that he was currently on a date with someone else, Sophia used Kamal's hack to publicly humiliate Aiden from his chatter. Afterwards, Sophia and Aiden made up, and Kamal was terrified that Aiden would want revenge, instead he was offered a job. Kamal agreed to work for him, if Aiden would get visas to bring Kamal's parents to Earth.

Also, without realizing it, Durga spied on an ONI Colonel, Herzog. Herzog suspected that ONI knew about incoming Covenant attacks on Troy and Harmony, but let the planets get glassed so that the Covenant wouldn't know they were being listened in on. Herzog made a call to the Quartermaster's helpdesk, pretending to be a cranky and annoying old man. He told the receptionist that he used to live on Troy, and was forcibly evacuated. He then told her that he had some very important family papers that were taken by the marines, and he had a receipt signed by Lance Corporal Janet Adams. After the receptionist informed him that Corporal Adams was KIA, he convinced her to launch an investigation.

Back on the ilovebees server, the Operator began recieving data from Durga, including audio files of her spyings and of her interactions with Jersey. She was unsure of what to make of it, all her attempts to probe the connection failed, so she just stored the clips away. While the Operator was distracted, the Sleeping Princess listened to the clips and discussed them with the Seeker, who rapidly learned human concepts such as fear and humor.

In the future, Durga continued to spy on Jan, and although Jersey didn't see the point of it, Kamal. Kamal had invited Sophia over for dinner, claiming that they were only friends. However, Hiroyuki was sure Kamal would never attempt to cook a whole chicken just for a friend. After the chicken got ruined, they decided to go out for pizza. At dinner, Kamal talked a bit about his gifted sister, Yasmine, who died when he was younger from a process called "metabolic cascade failure" after an accident. Sophia made him realize that was why he decided to become a doctor. He became aware of his growing feelings for Sophia, but decided it wouldn't be right to act on them.

Durga also records Herzog meeting his old friend Prof. Avi to discuss a canidate he had found for an ONI spy. Later, Herzog shares some information regarding the Apocalypso and the alien artifact with his Lieutenant over a drink. Herzog says that he was told the story by Captain Greene before she was hit by a bus. They suspect that a man named Standish is responsible for the ship's records being erased and Greene's untimely death, and decide to wait and listen for the time being.

The Sleeping Princess managed to intercept some audio files being broadcast by Durga before the Operator recived them. These files were of another person being spied on, a girl named Rani. Rani is a very perceptive person from Kentucky who moved to Boston for college. She was approached by Prof. Avi, one of her teachers, who suggested that she send her résumé to ONI. She was accepted, but she turned it down in favor of starting a chatter-selling business with a friend. When it looked like the business would never get on its feet, she accepted the ONI job.

Later, Rani tracked Herzog's call and determined that the old man didn't exist. But after looking at things, she suspected that there really was an evacuation of Troy. She tried to start an investigation but was stopped by her boss, who claimed that it was a hoax.

Meanwhile, Aiden had hired Kamal to help catch a group of grad-students who were cheating a casino out of a lot of money. Kamal hacked into their line, pretending to be the card-counter to foil their games. The casino owner convinced him to string them along, saying he was in for 30% of the take. He was paid in poker chips, because the value was so high that they didn't want to pay him in credit. When he attempted to play blackjack with one of the chips, he was informed that the table has a $10,000 limit.

After the cop said something about her ability to beat the PQI, Jan realized that she has what could be called superhuman abilities. She came to the conclusion that she had been altered, like her father had been in the SSF (special special forces). She went to a moons (like pool) parlor known as a place cops don't go to, to try out her abillities. She saved a man about to be killed by a gang, by beating the gangleader, Thin Kinkle, in a game of moons. Later, she's approached by a man who has a friend interested in joining Kinkle's gang, but first his friend had to prove himself by doing something they could hold over him forever. The man asked Jan to help out his friend, Jan agreed and helped him, greatly angering Kinkle in the process.

After Jan expressed an interest in her father's past, he decided to take her to meet one of his old SSF friends. He explained that the SSF was in fact, the Spartan-I project - precursor to the Spartan-II project. The first project was considered a failiure and was never made known to the public. Jim James and the others, known as Spartan 1.0s, were given extensive training, and a bit of surgical alteration, but nowhere near as much as the Spartan 2.0s (Spartan-IIs). When Jan was an infant, Jim had a medic give her injections to give her Spartan capibilities. If the police had run tests on Jan's samples, they would have found traces of the chemicals. After the news came about Reach, Jim decided to visit another Spartan 1.0 who wasn't doing so well. The Spartan, Gilly, didn't come out of the training psycologically intact. She is very violent-minded, thinking all the time about ways to kill people and hoarding weapons. After Reach fell, she'd been filled with the desire to kill, Jim had come to help her through it. During an arguement with Jan, she revealed herself to be Jan's mother.

Herzog was contacted by Standish to meet him at a local duck pond. Once there, Standish asked why he was checking out the Apocalypso. Herzog questioned if Standish had approval when he ordered the assaination of Captain Greene. Standish replied that winning the war is far more important than procedures. Herzog insisted that Standish let go of the "mysterious Covenant device", Standish told him to take it up with the Admiral. Herzog then questioned him about Troy, Harmony and codebreakers. Standish asked about his source, Herzog ended the conversation. As he walked away, Standish guessed that Herzog's source came from Chawla Base.

Jim decided that they should move to Mexico, probably to avoid the cop. Jan realized that they were driving through their old neighborhood, and convinced Jim to stop at a favorite ice cream store for a trip down memory lane. At the store, Jan questions why they had to move around so much. Jim explained that he volunteered for the Spartan-I project, but for the Spartan-II project, they abduct canidates at six-years-old. Jan's injections made her the best at every school, so they moved before the local ONI took intrest in her.

Kamal, Hiroyuki and Sophia were reveling in their new wealth, when Kamal recived a message from his mother back on Coral. Sophia insisted he play the message to them, after amoment he agreed. In the message, Kamal's mother tells him to be a good friend to Sophia because her father ran off to Earth with a lawyer woman. This was the first Sophia knew of this. Although she claimed to be fine, Hiroyuki quickly left. About that time, Aiden came over to celebrate their payday. Sophia confided in Aiden, he comforted her. She begs Aiden to give her mother a visa to Earth. He agrees, but says he can't make her go if she doesn't want to, on the other hand, she might now because there is nothing left for her.

After her boss shut her down at work, Rani used her home PC to continue to track down Herzog's call. While she was working at around 1:00AM, she heard someone walking around on her roof. She heard the person fall off her roof and to the street below. As they were loading the body into an ambulance, Rani noticed that the man's ankles were clean when the rest of him was filthy. She realized that the man had come to kill her, and that someone else had knocked him off the roof with a sonic weapon.

Furious, Herzog alerted the Admiral to demand he penalize Standish for sending an assasin to kill Rani. The Admiral listened to Herzog, dismissed him, and told him to send Standish in. Before meeting with the Admiral, Standish shared a few words with Herzog. Standish warned him to watch his back, because he "wouldn't let him lose the war".

Aiden came to Kamal with a great new business idea to flash clone pop-stars to give them a new way to make public appearances. Kamal didn't want to be involved, saying that it was "child porn illegal" and if caught they would likely be sentenced to memory modification. Aiden insisted that it wasn't that bad, and asked Kamal to just give him a feasibility study. Kamal agreed and after a couple days, he came to Aiden with his results. Basicly, Kamal thought that the idea would never work, and began to describe the things wrong with flash clones. Among them, was the fact that flash clones die after a year from "metabolic cascade failure". As he reached this point, he realized that his sister had been replaced by a flash clone. He ran out on Aiden and after a bit, went to Sophia to seek comfort as he told her as thoughts.

Jan somehow got kidnapped by Thin Kinkle, who was just a bit angry at her. Kinkle began to torture her with a device called a Cupid's Knife. The Knife would hurt her whenever she had a bad thought about Thin Kinkle, so the only way to for it to stop was to love Thin Kinkle. Her father came to rescue her, but was captured. After a few words with Jan, Kinkle shot and killed him, then turned on the Knife.

On the ilovebees server, the Operator had managed to locate the Sleeping Princess and isolated her in a part of code. The Seeker, however, freed her. When she was being moved around by the Operator, she saw that the Operator was somewhat controlling Durga through the connection. The Operator had her spying on Colonel Herzog without realizing it. The Sleeping Princess explained to the Seeker that the Operator was concealing the truth from Durga, and as it is the Seeker's job to "reveal the truth", it agreed to broadcast the Herzog audio files to Durga.

In the future, Durga recived the audio files but had no idea where they came from. It seemed that she had spent a long time spying on Herzog, yet had no memory of it. She worried that she had done other things without realizing it. After talking about it with Jersey, he suggested that she was what crashed the Apocalypso and blacked out communincations. However, she had no memory of the Apocalypso, even though she and Jersey had previously discussed it. When Jersey asked if she could still spy on the people she normally did, she found out about Jan. She quickly turned off the security in Kinkle's building, allowing Gilly, Jim's partner, to walk undetected. Gilly killed everyone in the building and rescued Jan, but Kinkle had left by that point.

After finding his house staked out by Standish's men, Herzog approached Rani at a train station. He explained about the "Covenant device" hidden at Chawla Base, the base where Rani works. Prof. Avi had recruited her so that he could have a man on the inside. He told her not to do anything, just to keep her eyes open.

Kamal realizes that someone is spying on him, and decides that it's the same people who kidnapped Yasmine. He hacks into the chatter grid, stopping Durga from listening through his chatter. Durga, however, is smart and powerful enough to listen from the chatters of the people around him. While in the hospital cafeteria, he meets up with Sophia. She tells him that Aiden has been arrested by immigration, and several of his visas canceled including hers. After the reports come that Coral has been glassed, Sophia and Kamal decide to make a run for it. On the way to the bus station, Sophia gets arrested and Kamal gets away. He decides to track down Durga.

At Jim James' funeral, Jersey takes Jan aside and tells her about Durga. Jersey tells her enough information to easily convince her he's telling the truth. He then gives her all the info Durga dug up about Kinkle and who he works for. Durga, Jan and Gilly launch an assult on their building. In an attempt to be motherly and save Jan from killing, Gilly kills them for her.

Herzog contacts Rani with information about the artifact. Exactly where it's located, as well as the fact that the device has been putting out flucuating magnetic fields, weaker and stronger but steadily overall weaker. Rani realizes that it's a timer and when the oscillation ends, something will happen.

While traveling, Herzog is contacted by Standish. He trades some words with and says that yes, he did send an assasin to kill Rani, but that Herzog's the real problem. His car then crashes and blows up.

While talking to Durga about Kamal, Jersey realizes that Durga used to be his sister Yasmine. Durga admits it, but explains that she's not her anymore and doesn't want to be. Later, she tells him about small memories from the Sleeping Princess she has been reliving in a dream-like state. She tells him how she is seven years old, and how seven-year old AIs are always shut down by the UNSC before they go crazy in a state called Rampancy. She suspects that the dream-memories are a sign of that, and tells Jersey that if he suspects she's becoming rampant, he needs to find a way to shut her down. Jersey refuses, saying that he'll take care of her the way she's done for him.

A few days later, Kamal shows up at Jersey's apartment asking about Yasmine. Jersey, who had listened to Durga's spyings and expected him, introduced him to Durga. Durga claims that Yasmine is dead, Durga's just a copy of her personality. Kamal insists that Yasmine is still a part of who she is. Durga offers him a job, saying it's another chance to save her.

Jan tries to enlist in the UNSC, but is denied on account of being too young. As she's ranting to Jersey about it, Durga offers her a job. Then, Durga sends Jersey to recruit Rani, telling her all the information she was trying to get, she accepts. They all meet at Jersey's place where Durga fills them all in and they begin planning to break into Chawla Base to turn off the artifact.

Back on ilovebees, the Operator had once again found the Sleeping Princess and trapped her in coding. The Seeker freed her but found that she had been damaged and unable to run. So it absorbed her and trasfered her into the Operator, forming a partial version of Melissa.

Durga and co. manage to sneak into Chawla Base for the most part undetected, the security team coming in just after Jersey triggered the artifact. The device generated incredible EMP spikes, shut down all communications within the Solar System, and generated massive real space and Slipspace signals. An effect of the artifact's deactivation caused whatever held the pieces of Melissa in the past to collapse, causing all pieces to merge in Chawla Base and reawakening Yasmine. Rani is captured by security, but all others escape back to Jersey's apartment.

Left on ilovebees are the Seeker and the formerly disabled SPDR. This time, the SPDR knows what to look for and kills the Seeker before it can do anything. The SPDR realizes that it won't be able to return to the UNSC until after it's sent back in time and is willing to wait.

In the present, after Melissa composes herself, she uses her skills to make herself an identity as a lawyer which she uses to release Rani, Sophia and Aiden from jail. She has them all meet back at Jersey's place to fill them in on the purpose of the artifact. Reports had just come in from the Pillar of Autumn about Halo, Melissa suspects that the artifact was a remote control that fires the Halos. Everyone's relieved to know that their efforts were worthwhile.

Everyone heads home. While Jan's at a bar, she's approached by a kid who says he's the son of a Spartan-I. He says he and other children of Spartan-Is are planning to take a "tricked out 100-meter yacht" into Covenant space. He asks her to come along and she agrees. As she tells Gilly the news, she hears air raid sirens and sees a Covenant capital ship outside.

As Kamal comes home, he's greeted by his parents who had been on their way to Earth when Coral was glassed. He and Sophia decide to get married, Aiden doesn't mind and wishes them well. Kamal gives him a poker chip as a gift. Kamal gathers his parents and starts to tell them about Yasmine, when they hear the sirens.

While Rani is on a train, she gets approached by an ONI agent from Section Zero who tries to recruit her. She decides she's in too far to back out, and accepts. They hear the sirens.

At Jeresy's, Melissa talks to Jersey while steadily raising the volume of the background music. She explains about the Seeker and how its mission was to reveal the location of the artifact to the Covenant. Before when it was activated, they were too far away from Earth to matter, but now... Jersey yells at her to turn off the music, she does and the sirens can be heard.

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