"Amazing what friends can talk you into," Cortana says with a sound that's a little more than a snort but not quite a laugh. Not that the Chief had done much talking, mind. A couple of words and the slightest hint of a frown detectable only through the muscle impulses picked up by Mjolnir was all it took to get her to relent.

Sometimes she wonders when she'd turned into such a pushover. Can she blame it on Halsey's affection for the Chief?