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http://www.halopedia.org/Hunt_the_Truth#Episode_02:_BAD_RECORDS
Episode 02. BAD RECORDS
第二篇 錯誤記錄
I couldn't believe it. According to the document I was looking at,
John, the boy who would go on to become the Master Chief, died forty-one years
ago. My protagonist, the greatest hero of our time, was dead at six. It was a
major discrepancy, and I needed to find a way to fix it.
I'm Benjamin Giraud, and this is Hunt the Truth.
ONI AI: Continue to hold.
If you ever happen to obtain sufficient clearance to call the Office of
Naval Intelligence, you'll be on hold for at least an hour. If you ever happen
to get a call from them, you will also ... wait an hour. And in the end, they
never unblock the video, so you just end up talking to a really crisp insignia.
Giraud: I am waiting to talk to Michael Sullivan, hoping he can help me with my
little ... records problem.
ONI AI: Continue to hold.
And it's been ... eighty-five minutes.
Michael Sullivan, also known as Sully, works for the ONI in public
relations. If it seems odd to you that the most secretive agency in our
government has a PR department, you're not alone, but that's not something I'd
mention to them. Besides, Sully had hooked me up with the assignment in the
first place. I was grateful for the opportunity.
ONI AI: Office of Naval Intelligence. Public relations.
Sullivan: Ben!
Giraud: Hi! Sully, hey! Ah yeah, thanks for taking my call.
Sullivan: Absolutely. How are the sources?
Up until this point, I'd had no problems with the story. All my facts
had been lining up nicely, but now ... I had an obscure document from the far
reaches of the galaxy that listed John as deceased. This contradicted
everything. I needed Sully to make it make sense, and thankfully, he did just
that.
Sullivan: Welcome to the Outer Colonies! Nothing makes sense out there.
Giraud: No, I know, I know, it's just, uh- I just wanted to make sure that I
buttoned up all the details.
Sullivan: And that's what you're doing! Look, Ben - it's the far reaches of
space out there, and the planet you're talkin' about was glassed to hell. You
know just as well as anybody that if there are any local records, they're a
mess.
OK, so - I felt a little stupid. Sully was right - it's a real problem
in the Outer Colonies: planets destroyed by glassing have bad records. Every
researcher knows this, and every researcher knows that questioning that fact
is standard fodder for conspiracy theories.
It's a coverup! That's Government Secrecy 101!
That's a message I received last week from a man named Meshach Miradi.
He's one of many truthers out there who've come out of the woodwork since I
started doing this story. Apparently, he heard I was investigating the Master
Chief. Meshach seems less ridiculous than most of the characters who've been
filling up my inbox, but he's definitely been the most persistent. He's left
me a message every day for the past two months. I never respond, but I did
find the timing of his last message pretty funny.
Miradi: Let me guess - the government is telling you that the records don't
make sense because the planet was glassed. Right? That's what they tell you!
Technically, Meshach was right. That was what the government was
telling me. But unfortunately for Meshach's theory, it was true - glassed
planets have bad records. John's childhood friend Ellie Bloom has dealt with
this reality her whole life.
Bloom: ... you have no idea ...
I recalled what she'd said in her interview.
Bloom: I mean, it can be hard enough out here trying to do business between
planets that haven't been glassed. There's so much upheaval. Keeping track of
personal records, financial documents, medical records - it's a total
crapshoot.
In retrospect, I'd probably been asking for this kind of hiccup.
Getting cute with the research, opening up a rat's nest of old paper records -
and for what? All I'd dug up from slogging on my own was a few hazy
kindergarten stories from Ellie and a nonsensical death record.
But - things were looking up. Sully had arranged a face-to-face
interview with ONI Vice Admiral Gabriella Dvorak. That not only got me
offworld, but it was onboard the newest Autumn-class heavy cruiser, the UNSC
Unto The Breach. Got a private shuttle up, full luxury - they had me riding in
style. When I came aboard, Dvorak even greeted me personally.Now, civilians
aren't normally allowed onboard an active duty ship, let alone given this sort
of attention.
Giraud: Ah, I-
Dvorak: Please. Call me Gabriella.
Giraud: Okay ...
This was not the kind of hospitality I was used to.
Giraud: Um, what- what, uh, brings you way out here?
Dvorak: [brief laugh] Work.
She told me she was on a detachment and in the neighbourhood. I guess I
lucked out. The white-glove treatment continued too - captain's mess, officer's
quarters, the whole thing. By the time we finally got to her office for the
interview, Dvorak could have said anything and I'd have been thrilled. But
she's the real deal, and she jumped right into it.
Dvorak: It was that 'finally' moment. After all the fighting was done, I was
helping lead all the prisoners out of the containers.
As lieutenant in the UNSC, Gabriella not only took part in the grand
operations that freed John and countless others from the rebel labour camps in
Elysium City, but she remembered the 13-year-old as well. She described the
liberation.
Dvorak: When you saw them, what had been done to them, you realised who you'd
been fighting to save. The aftermath of it, ah ... it was ugly. Everyone was
streaming out into the daylight squinting, limping, just - grey and fragile
and sickly. Their ... backs were hunched, all their eyes just staring at the
ground, and - they looked ... they looked dead.
That's when she saw John.
Dvorak: He was sticking out like a sore thumb. In the middle of all this -
just - beaten humanity, there's this ... tall, young kid walking toward me,
towering over the others, his shoulders back, his eyes forward, and when he
passed me, he looked right at me. Looked in my eyes. Ah, I mean, that doesn't
sound like much, but that eye contact coming from someone in that moment, who'd
been in that circumstances ... was shocking. He looked malnourished and
dehydrated like everybody else, but he was so young, and whatever had broken
all these people - it hadn't broken him.
In the aftermath, Dvorak remained stationed in Elysium City, working in
the refugee camps. From the first day, John stepped up to help Gabriella with
her duties. She came to know him well over the next several months.
Dvorak: There was a point when he told me about his parents. That they'd been
abducted along with him. He didn't say much, but, um ... they didn't make it.
Her understanding was that it had gotten ugly in there. They died a
couple days apart, a few weeks before the Liberation - and John was there when
it happened. On the rare occasion when John opened up about this, Dvorak says
it was memorable.
Dvorak: He would get this look on his face when he talked about - eh - it's
hard to describe. I'd see it on him other times too - he seemed to feel the
weight of all that had happened, but still ... he was calm. Not angry, not
desperate, just ... resolute. He was a remarkable young man.
Like so many people at the time in Elysium City, and throughout this
region of the galaxy, John had lost his home, his family, everything. People
packed up whatever they had left, got out of town, and most never looked back.
But Deon Govender - John's boxing coach - said many of them found a way to get
some measure of closure.
Govender: Yeah, yeah, definitely. We all got separated and spread out across
the planet and all the Colonies, but - some of us were able to cobble together
a list of names. An, uh - kind of a memorial, that grew longer as we got more
information. Yeah ... I remember seeing John's parents' names on the list
early on, but ... but not John. After he missed that last practice ... never
saw him again, but ... I remember thinking, "That's OK, you know, as long as
I never see his name on this list, that's OK." And I never did.
His will to survive left an impression on then-Lieutenant Gabriella
Dvorak as well.
Dvorak: I think ... John just didn't wanna be a victim any more. I remember him
telling me he was gonna enlist. He said he was gonna make a difference. I've
never been more sure of another person than I was of him when he said that.
Out of the chaos of war, from the rubble, a young John was able to
forge a purpose for himself. A purpose that would drive him to become the hero
the galaxy would one day need him to be. This is the kind of turn in a story
that gives me patriotic goosebumps. I was feeling genuinely moved on my trip
back home. When I got there, though, Ellie Bloom was gonna ruin all that for
me.
Bloom: Hey, I just wanted to follow up with you about your story. I'm - really
confused.
Giraud: OK, uh, what's-
Bloom: Remember how I said I was gonna tell my friend Katrina about it?
Katrina was that other girl in John's neighbourhood - the third wheel
in Ellie's childhood stories of playing with John. Ellie had moved offplanet in
2517, but Katrina had stayed.
Bloom: Sh- she said that John was dead. He died when he was six.
Giraud: Wai- wait a minute, wait, what?
Bloom: John was perfectly healthy, but then he just started wasting away. At
first I thought maybe it was some autoimmune thing and then they thought it was
something else, and then something else, and then meanwhile he's getting all
these tests but the doctors couldn't figure it out at all, and his parents were
panicking, I ... it sounded horrible.
Then - John died. Just like that. I had no idea what to make of this.
Ellie seemed convinced, though, so I got her to put me in touch with her friend
Katrina. Katrina wouldn't let me record the interview, but this woman was
adamant. I wanted to discount what she was saying, but she seemed to remember
it so vividly, providing extensive detail - I couldn't ignore it. As far as
this person was concerned, John - was - dead. Before I could even begin to wrap
my head around that claim, though, here was the kicker from Katrina: John's
parents were alive and well in Elysium City, all the way up until Katrina left
the planet in 2528 - four years after their supposed death. She was wrong. She
had to be thinking of someone else, or - she was lying? Why would she lie,
though? I had to admit, she seemed pretty convincing, but - it didn't make
sense otherwise. I still thought I could fix the story, though - make the
pieces fit. Make it make sense. But what I didn't realise was that this crack
was only the beginning - and the whole ugly mess was about to split open.
Please join me for the next episode of Hunt the Truth.
我無法接受。根據我現有的資料，John，原本應該要成為士官長的男孩，在四十一年
前死了。我故事裡的主角、我們這個時代裡最偉大的英雄，在六歲時就已經死了。這些資
料有極大的出入，我必須想辦法弄清這一切。
我是Benjamin Giraud，你正在收聽Hunt the Truth。
海軍情報局人工智慧：請繼續等候。
如果你有管道能打給海軍情報局的話，你至少要等上一個小時。如果你有機會接到他
們的電話，你還是要等上一小時。重點是，他們會監控通話，你不會有和高層的人說話的
機會。
Giraud：我在等Michael Sullivan，希望他能幫我解決我一些……紀錄的問題。
海軍情報局人工智慧：請繼續等候。
Giraud：我已經等了……八十五分鐘了。
Michael Sullivan，也就是Sully，在ONI（海軍情報局）的公關部門工作。你可能很
懷疑我們政府裡最神秘的組織怎麼會有公關部，你不是第一個這麼想的，但我當然不會去
跟們提這件事情。而且當初就是Sully把我找來做這份工作的，我也很感謝他給我這個機
會。
海軍情報局人工智慧：海軍情報局，公關部。
Sullivan：Ben！
Giraud：嗨，Sully。呃，謝謝你接我的電話。
Sullivan：我很樂意。你的資料來源都還好吧？
到現在為止，我認為故事都沒有問題，所有資料都互相呼應。但突然，我拿到了來自
外太空的一份含糊的資料顯示John已經死亡，它把一切都變得矛盾了。我需要Sully幫我
解釋清楚，我也很慶幸他這麼做了。
Sullivan：這就是外殖民地，一切都不會合乎邏輯。
Giraud：不，我瞭解你的意思。我只是想說，呃，我想確定我把所有細節都搞清楚了。
Sullivan：你現在就是在這麼做啊！聽我說，Ben，那是一個位在遙遠外太空的星球，它
被還glass到像是人間煉獄。就跟其他人一樣，你應該知道就算有當地的紀錄，那也會是
一團糟。
好吧，我覺得我自己有點蠢。Sully說的沒錯，外殖民地就是有這個問題，被glass的
星球的紀錄會出錯。每個相關的研究者都知道，而若是去懷疑這個事實的就是助長了陰謀
論者的說法。
這是顆煙霧彈，政府掩蓋真相的標準流程！
這是我上禮拜收到來自一個叫做Meshach Miradi的人的訊息，我在接到這個工作以後
很多懷疑論者紛紛冒了出來，他是其中一個。顯然他知道我在調查士官長，Meshach跟其
他在傳來我收件匣裡的人比起來算是比較不荒謬的，但他卻是最有毅力的。他在過去兩個
月裡每天都傳訊息給我。我從來沒有回覆他，但我卻發現他一則訊息來的時候非常奇妙。
Miradi：讓我猜猜，他們告訴你紀錄有問題是因為個星球被glass了對吧？他們是那樣跟
你講的。
Miradi講的基本上沒錯。政府是這樣跟我講的，但很可惜Meshach講的也是事實，被
glass的星球就是會有紀錄上的問題。John的兒時玩伴Ellie Bloom一生都在面對這個問
題。
Bloom：你絕對無法想像……
我回想起她在訪問時所說的。
Bloom：要在沒有被glass的星球之間辦事就已經夠難的了，能遭遇到的變化太多了。要
追蹤個人的紀錄、財務資料、病歷，根本無跡可尋。
現在回想起來，我也許一直以來都是在自討苦吃。在調查資料的時候耍小聰明，挖
出了一堆亂七八糟的老資料，究竟是為了什麼？我所找到的只是幾個模糊的幼稚園記憶
和毫無道理的死亡記錄。
幸好，情況總算要好轉了。Sully安排了我和ONI的副司令Gabriella Dvorak面對面
訪談，我不只是離開了星球，我還搭上最新的秋風級大型戰艦（Autumn-class heavy
cruiser）UNSC Unto The Breach。我搭了私人接駁艇，很豪華。當我登上戰艦以後，
Dvorak還親自來歡迎我。是說，平民一般來說是不能登上執勤中的戰艦的，所以這引起
了些許的注意。
Giraud：呃，我……
Dvorak：請叫我Gabriella。
Giraud：好……
我不是很習慣這種善意。
Giraud：呃，是什麼把妳請來這裡的？
Dvorak：（笑）工作。
她告訴我她當時在一支分遣隊又剛好在附近，我想我算是幸運。他們周到服務還不
只這樣，我還體驗了上尉的伙食、軍官的宿舍。直到我們終於到了她的辦公室準被訪問
的時候，她說不管她說什麼都能讓我很激動，但她是來真的，所以她直接切入了正題。
Dvorak：那時已經是善後的時候了，所有戰鬥都已經結束，我正在帶戰俘離開。
身為UNSC的中尉，Gabriella解放了在Elysium市的勞動營，讓包括John在內的無數
民眾重獲自由。她也還記得當時才十三歲的John，她描述了當時的情況。
Dvorak：當你看到他們還有他們所承受的事物以後，你才發覺到你一直努力保護的是什
麼。戰後的情況……真的很糟。每個人走到陽光下時都是瞇著眼，走路一拐一拐，他們
灰頭土臉、一副病懨懨的樣子，弓著身子盯著地上，就像是行屍走肉。
她就是那時見到John的。
Dvorak：他很顯眼，他就在這群被擊倒的人們裡……這個高大、年輕的孩子朝著我走過
來，他在突出於人群之間、挺著胸、目視前方。當他經過我的時候，他直視著我，往我
的眼睛裡看。那聽起來可能沒什麼，但是和在那種時刻、經歷過那種狀況的人有眼神交
流，那讓人很震驚。他跟其他人一樣都是營養不良、脫水的樣子，但他還那麼年輕，然
而擊敗其他人的那一切，沒有擊倒他。
在戰後，Dvorak繼續待在Elysium市裡的難民營。從第一天開始，John就挺身而出幫
忙Gabriella的勤務，這在幾個月後她更加的認識John。
Dvorak：他有跟我談過他的父母。他們跟他一起被綁架。他沒說太多……但他們沒撐過
來。
她的理解是情況非常的糟，他們在幾天之內相繼去世，就在解放之前的幾個禮拜，
John當時也在現場。John是在一個很罕見的狀況下談論這些，Dvorak 說這讓她印象深刻。
Dvorak：他談這些的時候的表情……很難形容。我在其他時候也看過他這樣，他像是感
受得到承重，但他依然很鎮定。他沒有怒氣、沒有絕望，意志很堅定。他是個很了不起
的年輕人。
就像其他當時在Elysium市——還有銀河系裡其他地區——的人們一樣，John失去了
他的家園、家人、一切。人們打包了他們所剩的事物，離開以後，就再也不往回看了。但
Deon Govender，John的拳擊教練，說有很多人找到了從中解脫的方法。
Govender：對、對，沒錯。我們都被迫分離，分散到各個殖民星上。但是我們有些人湊
齊了一個名單，算是追悼他們，而我們得到了更多資訊以後名單就越來越長。我記得我
一開始就有看到John的父母的名字，但沒有John。自從他缺席了那次練習以後……我就
再也沒看到他了。但我還記得當時是這麼想「沒關係，只要我沒在名單上看到他的名字
就好了。」而我也從來沒看到他出現在名單上。
他的求生意志也讓當時的中尉Gabriella Dvorak印象深刻。
Dvorak：我覺得，John就是不想再當受害者了。我記得他跟我說他要入伍，他要改變，
當他說這些時我從來沒有對人那麼有信心過。
在戰爭的混亂之間、從殘骸之中，年輕的John找到了他的目標，這個目標驅使他成
為了銀河系所需要的英雄。這樣的轉捩點讓我起了充滿愛國意味的雞皮疙瘩，我在回家
的路上是打從心裡的感動。然而當我回到家以後，Ellie Bloom卻掃了我的興。
Bloom：嘿，我想要跟上你故事的進度，我覺得很困惑。
Giraud：好，呃，是什……
Bloom：你記得我說我要跟我朋友Katrina講嗎？
Katrina是另一個住在John附近的女生，在Ellie童年和John玩耍記憶裡的電燈泡。
Ellie在2517年就離開星球了，但Katrina還留著。
Bloom：她說John死了，他在六歲的時候死了。
Giraud：等等，妳在說什麼？
Bloom：John原本很健康，但是他突然就開始變得虛弱。我一開始以為是自體免疫之類
的，但他們認為是其他因素，醫生做了許多檢測但是就是毫無頭緒，他們的父母非常慌
亂。聽起來糟透了。
接著，John死了，就這樣。我不知道我該如何反應，但Ellie感覺非常確信，所以我
請她讓我和她朋友Katrina取得聯繫。Katrina不讓我錄下訪談，但她非常堅定，我試著去
懷疑她所說的，可是感覺她的記憶非常清晰，給了我很多細節讓我無法忽視。就這個人所
瞭解的，John死了。但在我還沒能夠消化這個說法以前，Katrina又給了我一個意外的轉
折：John的父母當時在Elysium都還活著，一直到2528年Katrina離開星球為止——這是他
們原本死亡的四年後。她搞錯了，她一定是想成別人了，還是說她在說謊？但她為何要說
謊？我不得不說，她很有說服力，但這實在不合理。不管怎樣我還是認為我能改正這個故
事，把拼圖拼起來，讓它合理。但我並沒發現這裂縫只是冰山一角，後面還有一大團糟準
備迎面襲來。
請繼續鎖定下一篇的Hunt the Truth。