Seminole Brighton Casino (Okeechobee) - 2021 All You Need

Hi all,
This is my first post on this subreddit. I apologise if it is very long, I wanted to try and include all the facts. I am a huge fan of Unresolved Mysteries and I hope to leave more posts in the future. I wanted to start with this one because I find cruise disappearances very interesting and I couldn't find anything on this case. Do you think it is a straight forward accidental overboard or could it have been a murder? Let me know your thoughts and also any general feedback you have. For more info see links below
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_George_Smith
News Articles: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/nyregion/bride-recounts-disappearance-of-husband-during-cruise.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-closes-probe-into-vanished-cruise-ship-honeymoone
Premise: George Alan Smith IV was a 26 year old Connecticut man who went missing under mysterious circumstances while on a 12-day cruise with his new bride, Jennifer Hagel Smith. Although it is assumed he went overboard at some point during the early morning hours of July 5th 2005, how that happened remains a mystery.
Background: George Smith came from the upper-crust Connecticut town of Cos Cob, near Greenwich. His family owns a popular liquor store there, and he was the store's General Manager. He had been married to his wife, Jennifer, for 10 days. She was a teacher, who was to begin a new job teaching third-graders upon their return. The newlyweds were honeymooning on a Royal Caribbean International cruise of the Mediterranean, which departed from Barcelona on Wednesday 29th June 2005 and was due to stop in Greece, France, Turkey and Italy, among other locations. The cruise ship the couple were staying on was the MS Brilliance of the Seas and they had booked Stateroom 9062, a cabin with a balcony situated on Deck 9. By all accounts, George and Jennifer appeared to be having a wonderful time those first few days of their honeymoon. Photographs show them embracing by the pool and on the second night, after a day spent exploring Villefranche-sur-Mer in France, the Smiths’ decided to have a get-together in their room, the noise of which kept their neighbour awake until almost 3:30am. The next morning this neighbour reported the incident to the guest-relations desk and asked what could be done. If it happened again, he was told, call the desk, and they would handle it.
The Disappearance: On Monday 4th July 2005, the Smiths were half-way through their cruise and had spent the afternoon exploring Mykonos, a popular Greek island. Jennifer had reported that they had been on a high as they returned to the ship that evening, because they had spotted the actress Tara Reid, who was filming her show "Taradice" on the island. The couple had planned a romantic dinner on the ship for that night, which seemingly occurred without incident. After dinner they spent some time at the casino and all reports said they were in good spirits and seemed to be acting normally, albeit a little rowdy. As is common on most cruises, the Smiths had become friendly acquaintances with a number of other guests on the ship, mostly other couples, but also a 20-year old Californian student named Josh Askin and another group of four boisterous young Russian-American men. The four were traveling with relatives; their group, numbering eight people in all, consisted of two families, both with the surname Rozenberg. One family hailed from South Florida and the second are believed to be from Brighton Beach, a Russian section of Brooklyn. Between them the families had three sons aboard, all said to be in their teens or early 20s: Jeffrey, Zachary, and Greg. Also in the group was a 20-year-old named Rostislav “Rusty” Kofman.
Following some time spent at the casino, the Smiths met up with another newlywed couple who they had befriended and who had gotten married on the same day in June as the Smiths had. They then headed to the on-board disco, where the Smiths and their friends were joined by Josh Askin, two of the Rozenberg boys and Rusty Kofman (it is not clear whether they had all socialised prior to this night). They all sat around a table drinking absinthe, which the cruise staff reported is not sold on the ship and must have been smuggled on-board.
It was at this stage that Jennifer Smith's behaviour is called into question. Josh Askin reported that Jennifer had been very flirtatious with one of the croupiers at the casino, a South African man named Lloyd Botah. When the group left the casino to go to the disco, Botah accompanied them, staying close to Jennifer the entire time. At the disco, Jennifer continued to flirt with Lloyd and also attempted to drape herself over other men. At this point, George noticed his wife's behaviour and attempted to intervene. An argument between the couple ensued, culminating in Jennifer kicking her new husband in the groin and storming out of the disco, with Botah following after her (although this detail is refuted by others, who say he remained behind). Shortly after the Smiths’ disagreement, at about 3:30am, the disco closed, and Askin, the two Rozenbergs and Rusty Kofman became aware that George was highly intoxicated and was too drunk to walk unaided, and so they helped him to his cabin. When they arrived at Stateroom 9062, Jennifer wasn’t there and George stated he wanted to find her. George changed his shirt and then, with Askin and the three Russian boys, headed to the solarium, where the cruise ship’s younger crowd would congregate after the disco ended each night. Jennifer wasn’t there either and so the group then helped George back to his room, arriving at 4:02am—a time verified by a computerized monitoring system that tracks when key cards are used to open stateroom doors. This was the last time anyone reported seeing George Smith.
It was after this time that noises coming from the Smiths room, described by one neighbour as “loud cheering—what sounded like a college drinking game...as well as high pitched yelling”, were first reported to crew members. At one point this neighbour believes he might have heard at least one person leaving the Smiths' cabin and talking in the corridor. After this, an argument with "at least three voices" was reported coming from the Smiths' balcony. At around 4:15am, the neighbour reports hearing voices ushering people out of the room, and distinctly heard the words "Goodnight, Goodnight" repeatedly, followed by the cabin door closing. The neighbour says he then waited about 10 seconds before opening his door and looking out, where he states he saw three men, whose identities have never been released publicly. Other neighbours reported hearing three male subjects talking in the corridor at around this same time, and they stated two of the men had "accents" (the Rozenbergs?). This is where questions start to arise, it is reported that 4 men accompanied George back to his room, but only three are seen and heard leaving, so who remained behind? Maybe the group misremembered and only three men went back to the cabin, or maybe one left earlier? Either way it is unclear who is in the room after 4:15am.
It was after 4:15am that the same neighbour claims to have heard a single voice speaking in a conversational tone, followed by furniture being moved around, and he speculated the Smiths may have been cleaning up after the party. He says this "clean up" lasted around 10 minutes before the sounds moved to the balcony, and he states he heard one of the metal balcony chairs being moved. All was quiet for around a minute, and then he describes a very loud thud, which was so loud it made his bed vibrate. He states it was not the sound of someone falling off the balcony, but instead it sounded more like someone falling on the balcony, except it was so loud he didn't believe a single person falling could have created it. He thought it could have been furniture, such as a couch, falling or being thrown on the floor. He said no screams or voices followed the thud, and all was quiet after that. So presumably despite what this neighbour states, the sound he heard was George falling off the balcony and hitting the canopy below. But did he fall or was he pushed? The neighbour said he always heard the Smiths coming and going from their cabin because he could clearly hear their door opening and closing, but on this occasion he didn't hear anything. So if someone was still in the room with George, did they manage to leave silently? The neighbour says the next thing he heard were the crew members arriving at the cabin to respond to the noise complaints from the passengers. However they only knocked and didn't enter the room, as the noises had stopped.
When question by authorities, Askin indicated that he, Kofman, and the two Rozenbergs stayed with George for 10 or 15 minutes in his cabin after returning from the solarium. During this time Askin stated he used the bathroom. He says that everyone departed by 4:15am, leaving no one inside but George. Kofman disputes this, saying everything happened 15 minutes earlier, and they all left and were back in their rooms by 4am. He states he has a timestamped photo proving this. Whatever the timing, Kofman insists the last he saw of George Smith was when the boys left him on his bed; George thanked them for looking after him, kissed one of the boys and promised to buy them a round of drinks the next day. According to Askin, he went to Kofman’s room with the others and was back in his own stateroom by 5:15am.
During this entire incident, Jennifer Smith was nowhere to be seen. According to several witnesses, she was seen leaving the disco at about 3:15am—just minutes before George and his friends left. It should have taken her less than five minutes to return to her stateroom, and if she did return, might she have been there for some of the party and then left? Evidently, she was not in her room all night. From the disco it appeared she took the elevator down to Deck 9, but she must have been so drunk she became disoriented. Instead of turning right, into the long port corridor that led to their stateroom, she turned left, into the starboard corridor. From there she walked until the corridor ended in an alcove with a maintenance door. It was here Jennifer passed out and was found by crew. She claims she believes she may have been drugged and led to this alcove by someone who left her there.
Jennifer Smith was found passed out at approximately 4:30 a.m. on the floor of a lounge area on Deck 9. The crew members who found her went to look for her husband back at their cabin, but entered and could not find him, and so they put Mrs Smith in a wheelchair and she was taken back to her seemingly empty cabin just before 5am, where she was placed on the bed. The staff reported that while they did not search the room at the time, nothing looked amiss, and so they left Mrs Smith to sleep. Jennifer says she remembers nothing from that night after the group left the casino, but says she slept for around three hours and then awoke as the ship docked and let people off at Kusadasi, Turkey. She said although her husband was nowhere to be seen when she woke up, nothing else seemed amiss in the cabin and she quickly remembered a 10am couples massage she had booked earlier in the week, and so got dressed and headed two floors up, hoping George would meet her there. When he did not arrive at the spa, she presumed he was passed out himself in a friend's cabin and would return to their room when he regained consciousness. She stated he had passed out outside their cabin on two prior occasions during their trip (seems like this couple know how to party to excess!) and so she was not immediately worried.
However Royal Caribbean officials said that Mrs Smith actually arrived about an hour and a half early for her massage and was in the treatment room when crew members came looking for her. They approached Jennifer to say that the cruise ship staff had received calls that morning from passengers who, in the daylight, had noticed blood on the awning outside their cabin, and indeed blood had been found outside the cabin and on a lifeboat canopy below their balcony. They said they suspected her husband had fallen overboard in a tragic, alcohol fuelled accident. A member of the crew was allowed inside the cabin to retrieve Mrs Smith's belongings, and she reports that she was escorted from the boat along with Mr Askin (who had come forward after hearing pages for George across the intercom) and the two were questioned by Turkish authorities. She then reports that she was left behind in Turkey to make her own way home, however staff from the ship strongly dispute this, saying she insisted on leaving on her own accord. The cruise staff have also been criticised for washing away the blood found inside and outside the cabin, although they claim they washed the area only after Turkish authorities had given them permission to do so. Police also boarded the ship, photographed the bloodstained canopy, and searched the Smiths’ stateroom. They reportedly found small droplets of blood on a bedsheet and a towel inside the cabin.
The aftermath and investigation: The family reported that little was done by Royal Caribbean International or the Turkish authorities to investigate George's disappearance, instead they insisted he had been extremely intoxicated and had fallen overboard, however no body has ever been located. The FBI were soon involved and once home in Cromwell, Jennifer reported that within a week, she met with the FBI and agreed to give blood and hair samples to their agents and to take a polygraph test that she said she passed. The investigation soon seemed to focused on the group of four Russians and Josh Askin, who the Smiths had befriended.
There was a lot of reluctance on the part of the media to identify these young men, which seems very odd in itself. What was also odd was the Russian boys' behaviour throughout the cruise, which gained a lot of attention and was described as outlandish, arrogant and rude. For example, when asked by a crew member to put out a cigarette in a non-smoking section of the ship, one of the boys cursed the employee and continued smoking. Their parents were warned numerous times about their sons' behaviour, however it seems little was done to control them. After the boat left Turkey on 5th July without Mrs Smith, the Rozenbergs and Mr Kofman continued to cause trouble. Two more incidents involving them allegedly occurred over the next 48 hours, one involving arguments between the Rozenbergs and staff over the age of their son Greg and whether he should be allowed enter the disco and another involving the four boys cursing at staff members. The parents were summoned and were told that if another incident occurred, they would all be asked to leave the ship.
On Thursday July 7th, a young girl reported being raped by Rusty Kofman and the three Rozenberg boys and the incident was videotaped. Kofman was the only one identified on tape, and claimed the sex was consensual. However rumors were spreading and 13 people in total were escorted from the ship, including the Rozenberg group and the Askin family. Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence pointing to their potential involvement in Georges disappearance is a videotape found on one of the Rozenberg boys' phone that appears to show three of the four men commenting on George's presumed death in a very callous way. The Smith family attorney stated "the most incriminating statement (from the video) comes when one of them stands up at the end of the tape and sort of hunches his shoulders and flashes gang signs and says, 'Told ya I was gangsta' and in the context of the discussion about George's death, almost as if he's bragging about having done something to George."
Since then the FBI have investigated both the rape allegations and the disappearance of George Smith, but so far, no arrests have been made. There has been a lot of controversy over the Royal Caribbean's supposed handling of the crime scene and Mrs Smith in the aftermath of the disappearance, with conflicting statements coming from both sides. George Smith's family and his wife insist he was murdered and the cruise staff covered it up to avoid a media frenzy. They state they believe the FBI will make arrests in the future. But why would someone want to kill George? There’s been speculation that he spoke of having a large amount of cash in his stateroom, but no one involved in the case says any money was missing.
Alternatively a less nefarious theory is that George could have gone out to the balcony for a cigar and somehow fell overboard. Or in his drunken state he could have tried to sit up on the railings and fell overboard. I'm inclined to believe one of the latter theories, although the disputes over how many men entered George's cabin on the 5th July versus how many were seen and heard leaving does make me question the accident theory, plus the small amount of blood found inside the cabin and the statements about George made on the video.
What are your theories?

[CONTEST] Hesitation (tl;dr in comments)

-UNSC Military Settlement Beta-Earth’s Moon-November 3rd 2551-

A flashbang grenade turned the bunks into a chamber of noise and harsh blinding light. The recruits all jolted up in unison, scrambling to get ready. Each recruit moved reasonably quickly, fumbling their hands over armour and equipment, all keeping their eyes firmly clenched shut in anticipation of the next flashbang. The smartest of them were savvy enough to locate their helmets first. They knew they wouldn’t be able to relax until they were all assembled outside the base fully armoured and equipped; only then would the continual devastation of their senses.
This exercise had become relatively common since the higher ranking soldiers had all been replaced over night several weeks previously. Bishop didn’t believe the excuses for the disappearances, nor did he trust the woman in white armour that had taken charge of their training, but what could he do? A 20 year old recruit had no business questioning such things, as he had been told several times, each time in a more intimidating fashion. He had finally surrendered to following his orders, knowing he had exceeded his warnings from the new officers. The woman in the white armour was by far the scariest, all the other recruits agreed, she would run exercises using live ammunition just irregularly enough that there was a constant level of pressure. There had even been talk among the recruits of trying to fight their way out early on, but the woman had quickly shown her combat superiority and crushed their hopes.

-UNSC Military Settlement Beta-Earth’s Moon-February 10th 2552-

“Cover Tims!” Henson shouted to Bishop.
“Got it!” Bish responded, standing and firing at the woman.
Tims took the opportunity to join smith in her flanking flanking position. They had the white armour clad woman beat for sure this time, on their fifth attempt at the exercise. All they had to do was beat the woman in a live ammunition combat scenario, but it seemed impossible, she could fight the four of them at once with ease. Bish felt that today would be different however, they could attack from both sides.
The way the woman moved was what the recruits found most intimidating, she could find her way to cover, or into an offensive position with only a step. Each move she made was calculated and efficient. Even when attacking from both sides, the recruits were having a very difficult time trying to force her from her tactically superior position.
Bish watched as Tims pulled the pin from a grenade. He quickly stood, readying his battle rifle to fire upon the woman and provide an opening. Time seemed to slow as the grenade soared through the air. Bish's breath caught in his throat. He froze, his finger hovering by the trigger, knowing that all he had to do was fire one burst to distract the woman. But he couldn't. The woman was ready, she snatched the grenade from the air. No sooner than the grenade had contacted her fingers, she had begun to pivot on the spot, expertly guiding the grenade towards a new target.
Time froze. The impending danger forced Bish's brain into overdrive, he saw every small movement, heard every minute sound. The grenade would be coming straight at him once she let go, she probably wouldn’t even see it until it was too late. Though the woman was not opposed to injuring the recruits, she had never tried to kill any of them. This was not intentional, this was a survival reflex. Bish knew that he was dead unless he could force himself to move. If he was lucky and the grenade exploded before it got close enough, he might not die, but he dreaded to think how much damage an explosion so close to his face would do, even with a helmet to protect him. Bish forced himself to move, squeezing his finger on the trigger.
Bish blinked. The flash of light pierced through his eyelids, allowing him a brief glimpse of pink translucent flesh with the occasional red blood vessel crisscrossing through it. The sound and heat of the explosion washed over him as his eyes began to open again. He saw a scorched, white-armoured figure fall through the air, propelled backwards by the ball of fire that had erupted at her fingertips. Her left arm missing from the elbow down, and with severe burns and shrapnel damage to her left leg, the woman's body hit the ground with a thud. Bish felt time return to its normal speed as he exhaled, a numbness spreading within him as adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream. Bish stood, his feet still rooted to the ground as he watched the other recruits creep cautiously out from cover and make their way towards the body. His vision blurred as motor control returned to his legs. He let himself fall into a sitting position.

-UNSC Arundel Base-Earth-June 20th 2552-

Bish had improved considerably since the incident during training. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, the intervention of the woman and her soldiers had fast tracked his skills to a considerable degree. He had done well with the UNSC so far, very well in fact. He felt the same calmness steady his aim whenever needed, the calm sensation he’d felt after he shot the grenade from that woman's hand. He felt there was something missing, there was some part of him that was never satisfied with his achievements, never happy, though he was surprised when his CO called him to her office.
When he walked into the CO's office to find a woman wearing familiar white CQB armour with a pair of prosthetic limbs on her left side, he was less surprised than he probably should have been. He didn’t even question the whereabouts of his absent Commanding Officer.
“Eliot Bishop.” The woman addressed him. “The project I work for is always on the look out for talented soldiers. They have shown an interest in you, at my recommendation.”
Bish stared in shock at the woman's face as she removed her helmet.
“Mother?” he almost whispered.
“You will refer to me only as Agent Brighton. Now, follow me.”
Bish followed Agent Brighton back to her pelican. He was sure that whether or not it was authorised, going with his mother was his only choice. Either his CO was dead, or had been otherwise convinced to let him leave.

-Apple of Discord-Space-June 23rd 2552-

Bish had been on the Apple for three days. He had already been given a new set of armour, his own set of black CQB armour, he assumed Agent Brighton had something to do with the choice. He had yet to be allowed to choose a name, or even simply assigned one. As such he had not been allowed to mingle too much with the other agents. He had however briefly met a very whiny agent who had been shot in the foot during a petty argument, though he hadn’t asked the man's name. He had been receiving basic medical examinations at the time and was a little too preoccupied to care for what the whinging agent was trying to say.
At the orders of the Administrator, he was to train with Agent Brighton each day until his skills were of a suitable standard. He had been chosen because of his potential, but he wasn’t freelancer material yet. Training with Brighton was difficult, she was just as fast as she’d been before, but now her left arm and leg were stronger and heavier. He got pummeled every time, though he was slowly improving.

-Apple of Discord-Orbiting Vera-June 27th 2552-

Bish was sitting alone in the locker room. He and the other agents had just returned from a mission to a covenant cruiser that had been dangerously close to the planet Vera. Though Bish had yet to be assigned his freelancer designation, he had been allowed to tag along on the mission by Agent California. During the mission he had been Brighton's shadow, sticking closely with her squad, helping where he could. He earned a friendly nod from Agent Houston after assisting him to dispatch an elite that he was having trouble with. Even after he got back, Bish still felt there was something absent. They had saved a planet, but he still couldn’t save himself from the emptiness he felt gnawing away at him.
”Hello, you are Eliot, right?” The white armoured hologram seemed to speak before it appeared.
“That's me... you're California's AI.”
”Correct.” The hologram replied, ”You can just call me Angel.”
Bish shifted in his seat to look at Angel, before replying, “So, what are you up to, Angel?”
”I came to congratulate you on California's behalf, you proved to be a great asset, you have less training than the others, but you showed excellent resourcefulness.”
“Oh... thanks.”
Angel then disappeared again, leaving Bish to think to himself alone.

-Apple of Discord-Space-July 22nd 2552-

Eliot Bishop was standing in the training room facing Andrea Knight. Agent Louisiana and the Administrator were watching from the observation room above. Bish and Knight had been asked to come before the Administrator, who had informed them that only one of them was needed. They now faced each other, preparing to fight for the right to be agent Brighton. She was top of the leader board, but Bish had a lot of practise fighting his mother, and he had beaten her before.
Once the fight was over, the newly appointed Agent Brighton went to the med bay to have his dislocated shoulder checked out. The former Agent Brighton made her way to the observation room to speak with the Administrator.
“Sir-..”
“Stand down, Agent.” The Administrator interrupted, “You aren’t injured are you?”
“I’m not an Agent anymore. And no, I am fine,” Andrea responded coldly.
“Interesting that the victor of your fight sustained multiple injuries, yet you appear to be fine.” The Administrator smiled.
Andrea wanted to look away, but she knew that if she did, her deception would be more transparent than glass. She looked the Administrator in the eye before replying, “He was capable of beating me. I wanted to at least push him to his limit.”
“Well we still have use for you. You won't be a freelancer, but you will still be an operative working for us. Your skill set befits solo operations.”
“When do I start?” She asked, genuinely curious.
“Tomorrow,” Interjected Louisiana, speaking up for the first time. “You won’t be based on the Apple, you’ll need to have packed your things within the hour.”
The Administrator nodded. “And of course, you are not to tell any of the other Agents about your reassignment.”
“Understood, Sir.”

-Paradise City-Vegas Quadrant-January 7th 2553-

Bish was sitting alone at a bar in a city he didn’t particularly like. He sipped at a particularly disgusting beer. It was cheap and tasteless for the most part, but left a foul aftertaste; nonetheless Bish drank, he much preferred the dingy, run-down bar to the flashier bars closer to the casinos. The night life in the city was deplorable. The casinos fulfilled their purpose of draining dry the poor souls that got hooked by the game, maintaining the hope of beating the odds so they could continue to relentlessly take from them. On the streets prostitutes and addicts skulked around, looking for any way to get money or escape their current pitiful situations. The gangs clashed all over the city, though there were too many, and in too few numbers for any of them to take any kind of hold on the city. The day time was almost worse, nothing happened, the streets were dry and empty, those who walked them squinted with overly sensitive eyes. The city was stagnant.
Bish hadn’t been in paradise all that long. It had been his first stop after leaving Freelancer, and to a certain extent, he was enjoying being free of all the drama. Joining Project Freelancer had been a good decision for him. Despite the fact it had seemed he had no choice at the time, he could have not tried when they were testing him, but instead he’d put every ounce of his effort into meeting every goal, every expectation, that they set for him. As Agent Brighton, he’d done well on the missions he’d been sent on, even become good friends with several of the other agents. However, after the intervention of the UNSC, and the arrest of the active agents, Bish had felt that Freelancer no longer held any purpose for him. He had requested transferred back into the regular UNSC forces, however it had not turned out quite so simply as he’d have wished. Despite his request being denied, he had found a good opportunity to slip away. The Project wasn’t all that interested in following up on a presumably dead trainee, and much to his benefit, he had been able to keep his equipment as it hadn’t been officially registered yet.

-Paradise City-Vegas Quadrant-August 8th 2557-

He couldn’t explain why he kept ending up back in Paradise, the name alone, a blatant fallacy; he couldn’t stand the city, but the mercenary work he could get there was his primary source of income. Over the years, the feeling of hollowness had grown. Each day he felt himself becoming more and more bitter, with no discernible reason in his mind; it was making him resentful of anything, everything, that he could convince himself was a factor. Each job he took was more dangerous than the last, his once selfless attitude now bordering on self destructive. The hardest part was that he was all too aware of the problems that seemed to be spreading like cracks on glass, slowly splintering his personality to reveal something lesser.
Bish was sitting at the bar as usual, drinking and thinking about the decisions he’d made, when he overheard something that genuinely captured his attention for the first time in months.
“Did you hear about this Nevada guy? Says he’s busy looking for dependable soldiers,” A shady guy drunkenly failed to whisper to his drinking buddy.
Bish abruptly stood up, put his helmet on, and walked to the man’s table. He didn’t need to say anything. It was clear what he wanted. The man looked at him, clearly intimidated, and immediately handed him a data pad before promptly trying to leave. Bish reached out with an arm to stop the man, who now looked mildly terrified. Bish handed back the data pad, having already transferred the coordinates of the supposed recruitment location to his HUD. As the man hurriedly exited the bar, Bish was left standing still for a moment. Something about the way the man had reacted to his presence made his heart sink, though he wasn’t entirely sure why, it had saved him a significant amount of time. After a moment he shook the feeling off, leaving the bar to investigate the intriguing rumour of a state named soldier.

-Blood Gulch Simulation Outpost 1-Unnamed Ring World-October 3rd 2557-

Bish sat in a falcon, readying his equipment. His enhanced thruster pack used up a considerable amount of energy to run, so it was usually best not to activate it until just before the start of an operation. Opposite him, sat Andrea Knight, still wearing that white CQB armour from all those years ago. She had arrived, much to Bish's surprise, a few weeks back; also joining up with Nevada's group, through she still refused to talk about what it was that she'd been doing since freelancer. Nevada had laughed at him, suggesting that he should call Bish “the shadow of Brighton” though he eventually settled on simply referring to them by their surnames. He seemed to enjoy the chess motif, and regularly referred to his regular troops as pawns when giving orders to Bish or Knight. Their current objective was to eradicate the inhabitants of an old simulation outpost that had become too self aware, and though two ex freelancer trainees weren’t necessary on such a simple operation, Nevada had wanted to see their skills on the field.
Bish looked at the small canyon as their falcon descended, it looked small, claustrophobic. The bases at each end were small, they looked almost too small to house the amount of simulation troops that were allegedly there, though it did appear that the residents had made a few additional structures. As they got closer a small network of trenches could be seen between the two bases, Bish was impressed by the attempt to fortify the canyon, it was apparently occupied by smarter minds than he had been led to believe. His mild feelings of admiration were immediately extinguished when he heard the guitar solo from thunderstruck coming faintly from a lone soldier with a guitar standing on the roof of the red base. He sighed, and saw an irritated Andrea clench a fist opposite him. He watched as she stood up and jumped from the falcon early, he heard the rather loud impact as she used her metal limbs break her fall to the roof of the base. The guitar immediately stopped. Gunshots had started to ring out across the canyon as the other falcons had begun dropping their troops. Bish felt the calm sensation wash over him, the same feeling he always got when in battle. He jumped down into the canyon.
Bish activated his thrusters just before hitting the ground, instead landing quite gently outside a small building surrounded by junk. From inside the building stepped a simulation trooper holding an energy sword. The man charged at him, taking a swing. Bish was almost surprised by the man's attack speed, though he easily dodged the swing by boosting backwards, giving him time to fire a burst of SMG rounds into the man’s shoulder. Bish was further impressed when the man continued on the attack, barely reacting to the bullet wounds. Bish didn’t bother dodging this time, activating the energy bayonet on his SMG, he parried the energy sword swing. He utilised the advantage of his opponent’s surprise to draw a knife from his armour and stab it into the man’s wrist, causing the man to drop his energy sword. The man instead grabbed at Bish's left wrist, effectively keeping Bish from shooting him. Bish instead pulled his knife from the man’s wrist and stabbed it up into the man’s chin. The man sputtered as blood filled his mouth. Another simulation trooper, with red and green armour and what appeared to be a customised rocket launcher, ran towards Bish. With the dying man still gripping his left wrist, Bish went to remove the knife from the dying man's head, but the man grabbed his other wrist, trying his hardest to keep Bish from attacking.
In a moment of near panic, Bish wrenched his left wrist free. Quickly twist his body, he launched his SMG, energy-blade-first, into the red armoured troop's face. The red guy collapsed mid run, his momentum carrying him a few feet closer to Bish and his fellow dying troop. Bish twisted the knife in the dying man's head and kicked him out of the way, he stepped towards the red armoured guy, grabbing the handle of the SMG still embedded in the red's face. Bish squeezed the trigger, allowing a few bullets to rip through the red guy's skull, before pulling his gun from the bloodied visor. Bish stepped into the small building, which was presumably some kind of workshop, but found no one inside and elected to move to the next structure. On his way there, a couple of plasma shots whizzed past his head. He turned in time to boost out of the way of the second volley of rounds. The large Sangheili seemed to be dual wielding a plasma rifle, and some kind of strange staff. Before it could fire again however, it was distracted by the several bullets fired into the back of its knees by Andrea. As the Sangheili turned to fight her, Bish continued to the nearby structure.
The structure seemed to be an additional Med Bay. Inside he found a woman he assumed to be a medic hiding. She tried to pull a gun on him, but Bish halted her attempt, shooting her in the stomach. As she doubled over in pain he watched for a moment. She wasn’t a fighter like the others that had died so far. Bish felt almost ashamed of himself, she had tried to shoot him, but it was only self defence. A sudden explosion snapped him back to reality. He looked around at all the medical equipment, it seemed this additional Med Bay had been outfitted as their primary one. He threw two grenades into either end of the room before stepping out of the door. Bish hears an audible gasp. Turning to look for the source, his gaze landed upon another sim trooper, wearing blue and green armour. He stammered something to himself, raising a DMR to aim at Bish. The sim trooper fired and missed far right. Bish stopped and looked at the man. The man fired twice more, missing both shots. Bish felt the twinge of guilt once again as he raised his SMG. He wanted to close his eyes but he knew that it would hurt more’s to admit to himself that he didn’t want to kill this man. He forced himself to watch the man die as he squeezed the trigger.
Bish was relieved when he got the call to fall back to one of the falcons. Most of the simulation troopers were dead, but they had put up a better fight than expected. Nevada would likely send a larger force of his regular soldiers in the morning to finish of the stragglers, all Bish knew for sure was that he and Andrea were apparently needed elsewhere. He met up with Andrea in the middle of the canyon and waited for their falcon to descend. A different Sangheili roared as it charged towards them. Bish stepped backward, onto the awaiting falcon, while firing a short burst from his SMG. One of the bullets caught the Sangheili in the eye, it stopped its charge, roaring once more as the falcon began to ascend from the canyon. Bish still couldn’t shake the awful feeling that everything he’d just done was wrong.

-Blood Gulch Simulation Outpost 1-Unnamed Ring World-October 18th 2557-

Bish stood in the middle of the canyon. It felt peaceful, but he knew that was only because everyone that should be making noise was dead. When he closed his eyes he could see the battle raging still. The simulation troopers hadn’t been all that great at fighting, but they had fought harder than anyone he had ever seen. Bish didn’t quite understand why, but he was starting to think that those simulation troopers had been fighting for more than just their lives. They had something that Bish certainly didn't. Bish blinked, looking at the ground. Bullet casings still littered the canyon dusty canyon floor. Whatever those troopers might have had was gone now.
“Eliot... are you okay?” Andrea asked, walking up from somewhere behind Bish.
Bish almost jumped. She had approached silently, or perhaps he had been too lost in thought to have noticed. He glanced over at her. She wasn’t wearing her helmet for once.
“I'm... fi-,” he tried to respond before she interrupted.
“You don’t want to work with Nevada anymore, do you?”
Bish paused for a moment, before responding, “No... I really don't... how did you know?”
“It's not like you to come back to a place like this. I just took an educated guess... listen... I’m going to be leaving soon, if you want, you can come with me.”
“Leaving? How come?” Bish almost shouted, out of surprise rather than anger.
“The mission they sent me on after I was dropped from the freelancer program. There are five ancient AI constructs that could have incredible potential, far greater than any smart AI that humans could create... or that’s what the higher ups at freelancer believed. There are records of contact with these AI’s in multiple ancient civilisations, but they haven’t been seen anytime recently. I was sent to find them, and my contact is still interested in getting them.”
Bish took a few second to catch up on everything she had just said, before frowning and asking, “so... how come you’ve been here with Nevada's group?”
“I had reason to believe one of the constructs had made contact with a simulation outpost called Blood Gulch. When I heard about Nevada's plan, it seemed a decent opportunity to find out... so, would you like to leave with me?”
Bish answered without hesitation, “Yes... but won’t Nevada want us back? I doubt he’d be above forcing us to work for him.”
“Just let me worry about that. If all goes to plan, we should be able to leave without being tracked,” She gave him a reassuring smile that looks a little out of place on her, usually frowning, face. “it'll be fine.”

-Paradise City-Vegas Quadrant-January 3rd 2559-

Bish had found himself in paradise once again. He and his mother had been using his old contacts from previous jobs to scour for information for a couple of months. All sorts of people came through places like this, most of them drunk. If something interesting happened, there would almost certainly be someone talking about it in one of the many bars in Paradise. Gathering information wasn’t as easy as Bish had hoped. Since he had last been in paradise, the gang situation had changed drastically. There were far fewer gangs these days, with more members and more power. The top four clashed over control of the city, though a couple of upstart gangs were threatening to join the big game between the top four. With some areas under gang control, the information flow was a little more disjointed than it had been. Both Bish and Andrea were growing impatient. Enough dead end leads would do that to anyone, but they also needed money to follow up on the few leads they got, which meant taking jobs. The cycle of mercenary work and pointless leads was soul crushing, but finally, Andrea had overheard something that could be of use. There were in fact multiple Blood Gulches, and it seemed that the second outpost was the one they had been looking for.

-Blood Gulch Simulation Outpost 2-Unnamed Ring World-January 5th 2559-

Bish and Andrea had arrived at the second Blood Gulch early in the morning. The simulation troopers at this canyon had made significantly less additions. The canyon bare but for the two bases and the alien pyramid structure crashed in the middle. The sim troopers had argued over who got to take custody of the visitors. Eventually, Bish had ended up with the reds, and Andrea with the blues, they decided to simply go along with things, knowing that fighting their way out was not only possible, but would be considerably easier than the fight at the first Blood Gulch.
*The CO of the red team had forbidden her teammates from speaking to Bish, she was smart enough to be wary of what information was leaked to the “prisoner.” She had confined him to her office where she had questioned him for a short time, he gave mostly truthful answers, purposely leaving out the truth of the nature of Blood Gulch, and the “war” she was fighting. There was something about her that Bish quite liked but he couldn’t seem to put his finger on it. In some small way, she reminded him of Agent Salt Lake from his freelancer days, which brought a few nostalgic memories to his mind, but it wasn't the reason.

-Blood Gulch Simulation Outpost 2-Unnamed Ring World-January 12th 2560-

In his week in the canyon, Bish had spent enough time talking with the reds for them to trust him a little. Their acting CO had answered some of his questions and answered most of the rest by repeatedly avoiding certain questions. It had come to the time when he needed to meet with Andrea again. After putting it to a vote, the Reds had decided to just let Bish leave. He went to the middle of the canyon and requested the blues let him see Andrea. Three blues escorted Andrea to meet Bish with orders to kill both of them if they tried anything. Once they reached the middle of the canyon, Andrea rendered all three of them unconscious in only a few seconds. Bish and Andrea walked to the cliffs by red base to discuss what they had learned.
“Red team's lieutenant told me that they have one of the AI's we're looking for, it seemed like she was trying to cover something, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they have more than one of them. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see the AI for myself, that lieutenant was a smart one.”
Andrea nodded, pausing for a moment to think before speaking, “From what I gathered in my time with the blues, the AI's seem to permanently bond to a host body, even if the AI is taken some form of connection is retained. It seems the AI's want to be reunited.”
“So do we take the ones that these simulation troopers have?” Bish asked, almost hoping for an alternative.
“I think it would be better to simply wait. Both the sim troops and the constructs are trying to gather all of them, and they seem to have better means of locating them than anyone else ever has. If we wait for them to obtain all five, then we can just take them.”
Bish liked that idea, he hadn’t found anything particularly interesting about the red team, but he still felt that he’d rather not kill them.

-Paradise City-Vegas Quadrant—July 5th 2566-

Bish was sitting in the bar he’d been infrequently visiting over the years. The beer was still absolutely awful, but the prices were now considerably higher. Paradise had kept changing. While the city was still stagnant for the most part, the current state of the city allowed for a better tourist industry, making the bars and casinos even more rich than before. The constant gang clashes seemed to have finally settled with two main factions vying for power. The Azures, once a small group of upstarts, was now in control of almost half the city. Their greatest rivals, the Rojas had, up until recently, been a formidable presence in the city, however, lack of any strong leadership had left them vulnerable. The Rojas were no more, and most of their old members had immediately joined the Azures, or the Bunnies, Paradise's leading faction.
Bish and Andrea had been using a small apartment as a base of operations. They had managed to hack into the old freelancer surveillance system in the second Blood Gulch so that they could keep track of the residents. This task became harder once the inhabitants inevitably discovered the truth they were simply part of a simulated combat scenario for project freelancer. Many of the sim troops had wanted to leave, some however, had stayed. Quite conveniently for Bish, the AI's that were there had all remained, some staying with their human partners, while others stayed alone. It had been years, and only four of the five AI's had been found. Bish and Andrea had been taking turns to try to locate the fifth, always leaving one to monitor the canyon.
Bish sat down and flicked between the camera feeds of the Gulch. All was still aside from the slight movements of the remaining canyon folk that were just beginning to wake up. Just as Bish got up to go get some ice cream, there was a sudden flash of light that illuminated the screen for a second, before killing the feed. Bish jumped back into his seat and hurriedly flicked through the screens to find a camera that wasn't down. After a few moments of stressed clicking, he reached camera 17, it was still working but only had a partial view. What he could see was all he needed. Another, very similar, alien structure had fallen into the canyon from space. Bish knew there was no time to waste, he immediately started prepping to leave. He knew Andrea was still beyond communications range, so he simply left a recorded message for her and left.

-Blood Gulch Simulation Outpost 2-Unnamed Ring World-July 7th 2566-

Bish finally landed in Blood Gulch. When he disembarked the pelican he ran to the new structure to find two dead bodies and a man cowering under the corner of the structure.
“What happened?!” Bish shouted to the man, reaching down to check on one of the bodies.
“D-d-don’t bother... they're dead... they-they've been dead for two days...”
“Have you been hiding here for two days?” *Bish asked incredulously, still a little shocked by the whole scene, before deciding it wasn't important anyway. “Tell me what happened.”
“The n-new AI from in here chose me... Then they all said that we had to f-f-fight to determine who was worthy. I said I wanted n-n-no part of it.. and they said I wasn’t worthy.. and the other three...”
The man shivered, looking over at the dead bodies. Bish looked at them as well.
“They wouldn’t n-normally have done this... those things made them...”
Bish nodded slowly and turned back to the man, looking him in the eyes as he replied, “where did the victor go?”
“She headed off somewhere. I don’t know exactly... b-b-but I can kinda sense where the AI's went... my one anyway... it’s like I’m there with him... but also n-not.”
“Okay then, you’re coming with me, and you’re gonna tell me where to go!”

-Unknown Ancient Alien Structure-Space-July 7th 2566-

Bish landed his pelican on what appeared to be a landing platform on the giant space station. He exited the pelican and walked slowly across the platform. There was artificial gravity on the ancient space station, but it was quite weak. Bish made his way to an airlock, bouncing past a second pelican on the way, presumably left by his quarry. There were several droplets of blood floating close to the ground leading to the airlock. It seemed the victor of the mini battle royale in Blood Gulch had not gone unscathed.
Bish continued to follow the infrequent drops of Blood once he was inside the station, quite glad of the fact that the gravity was almost normal in the corridors. The structure was made of a weird metal that seemed to absorb impacts quite efficiently, his armoured footsteps making no noise. He could hear the blood rushing through the blood vessels in his ears. The whole experience put him on edge. As he came to a corner, he realised he could hear laboured breathing from somewhere up ahead. Being able to hear the shallow breaths from an unknown distance away from him was extremely unnerving. Bish drew his SMG and gingerly turned the corner. At the end of the adjoining corridor was a woman in purple armour, slumped against the door.
As Bish got closer to the woman, she raised her head to look at him. She took off her helmet to look at him through squinted eyes. Bish was extremely surprised to see his mother's face looking up at him. He was unable to say anything, he simply just stared at her, but the longer he looked, the less sense it made. The woman's expression was far from the stern one of Andrea Knight, she instead looked weak, almost pitiful.
“You're one of the simulation troopers from Blood Gulch?” Bish asked, noticing an involuntary tremble in his voice.
The woman nodded slowly in response.
“What are you, some kind of clone?”
“I... they wouldn't let me through...” The woman said weakly, in a voice that was also disturbingly close to that of Bish's mother.
“Through? Through where?”
The woman raised a trembling arm and tapped on the door she was slumped against, before mumbling, “They wanted... wanted to wait until you arrived..”
“Who's they? The AI's that came to Blood Gulch? Do you know where they went?” Bish asked quickly, worrying that the woman would die before she had told him what he needed to know.
”We are here, Eliot Bishop.”
Suddenly, five orbs of light appeared around the woman's head. Bish took a few startled steps back.
”We have been waiting for you for a long time. Now you are here, we can proceed.” all five of the AI’s flashed with each syllable they spoke, their voice had the strange sound of five people perfectly talking in unison.
The AI's floated up to the door, which immediately unlocked and opened. The 5 multi coloured orbs floated into the next room silently. Bish was too curious not to follow them. The room he stepped into was large and open, there were large screens all around the room that started to flicker to life as the AI's took position around the room.
“I'm... I'm here to take you all back with me.”
The AI's laughed at him.
”You are here because you wanted to know what we are, what our purpose is. You can continue to try to convince yourself that you still only want to find us to sell us to a member of a retired military project if you wish, but you should know by now, that is not the reason you are here.”
Bish paused for a moment before asking, “Fine, so what is your purpose? You told the simulation troopers you were going to save the universe, but then you betrayed them.”
”Correct, we are here to save the universe. And the “simulation troopers” as you called them, have already fulfilled their role, to unite us and deliver us here. Once we were all together, we needed a suitable host to get us to this point. Secundum's partner, Alice Knight, was determined to be a suitable host by means of combat.”
Suddenly each of the screens started playing video footage of different parts of his life across the last fifteen years. Bish looked around almost frantically. The thought that someone had been watching him without him knowing made him feel sick.
“How?... have you been filming me for my whole life?”
”Yes and no,” The AI's responded in unison, ”one of this facility’s functions is to record everything and locate errors.”
“So why me? Why is it showing me this? Why does it want me?” Bish asked, trembling.
”This facility doesn’t want anything. It is showing you because you are the focal point of a catastrophic error.”
All the screens suddenly switched to one small loop of footage: a young Eliot Bishop, shooting a grenade out of his mother's hand during training. Bish watched the footage as it looped over and over.
”What you see before you is wrong, it should never have happened, and everything that has happened since that point has been wrong. As the keys to this facility, we are only supposed to be notified to unite as we have, if there is a critical error.”
“An error....?”
”An error in time,” The AI's responded before Bish had even formulated the rest of his sentence in his head, ”We must open a gateway for you to go back and correct the error.”
Bish tried to think of what to ask next, there were so many questions.
“... so, by fix the error.. what do you mean for me to do?”
”You must not shoot the grenade.”
Bish felt his heart sink, he was silent for a moment, trying to regain composure, before asking, “You need me to die?”
”We can show you a glimpse of what should happen if you were to correct the error.”
The screens all changed to show various videos of Bish's life once again. However, this time none of the events were recognisable. Bish's eyes flitted across the different screens, watching the life of a happy looking man in his adventures in the very same blood gulch that he had attacked. He watched as the man grew and developed as a person with the help of his friends, and the obstacles of their enemies. He watched as the man continued his life in Paradise City, having fun, and making more friends along the way. Bish stepped back, looking from the screens from the left side of the room to the right. The man had what Bish didn’t have, what he’d sensed the simulation troopers of the first Blood Gulch had: Love, trust, friendship, but most of all, family. This man's friends were closer to him than Bish was with his own family. Bish felt tears rolling down his cheeks as he watched. The man was him.
”Now, you must go.”
All five of the AI's pulsed and glowed brightly, in the centre of the room, a swirling portal appeared. Bish didn’t stop to think. He stepped thought the portal.

-UNSC Military Settlement Beta-Earth’s Moon-February 10th 2552-

Time froze. The grenade would be coming straight at him once she let go, she probably wouldn’t even see it until it was too late. Bish knew that he was dead unless he could force himself to move. At that moment, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He was confused, nobody was behind him. He turned his head to glance at whoever it was. As soon as his head began to turn he felt a strange sensation, as if the air was bubbling around him, everything felt fuzzy for the briefest of moments. Bish looked over his shoulder. No one was there. He turned his head back round to see the grenade in mid air, a couple of feet from his face.

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