Homecoming – a Mass Effect 3 Epilogue
2175 Aeia, many years after the Event
Aeia had long since ceased to be a menace to colonization. On the southern continent, there were a few settlements of the Regressed, by tacit agreement ignored by the planetary council, but up here, on the coast near the site where the long forgotten "Hugo Gernsback" had crashed, the minds of people were more occupied by the present and the future. Gleaming white and golden under the glare of Alpha Draconis, the towers of Antigan, the planetary capital, rose into the sky. Interspersed with cultivated parks and countless artificial waterways, its architecture followed the modern fashion of making technology all but invisible. The number of people lounging on boats, protected from the unforgiving sun by the shadows of trees, created a misplaced impression of leisure and serenity, but for those who cared to look and sense more closely, the inaudible buzz of electromagnetic communication and the number of egg-shaped craft zipping along the skylanes was indication enough that this city was as busy as a beehive.
Cyrus Shepard, piloting one of those Eggs, approached the city from the water, where the houses of the wealthier district rose from the top of the cliffs as if grown from them, while below swell crashed against rock. His goal lay near a broad waterfall where the Dagon River crashed into the sea.
With its power plant and automated fabricators hidden below ground, Miranda's home and workplace looked like a cross between a Tuscan manor and a futuristic castle. Rising from moss-covered rock on the banks of the waterfall, the lower three stories followed a square layout surrounding a generous courtyard. Towards the top, the walls, made of a gleaming white material reminiscent of marble, flared slightly outward to end at a roof-top terrace, its white railing interspersed with light globes. Parts of the terrace were arranged as living space and covered with retractable semitransparent domes. From one corner of the square rose a squat circular tower several stories high to end at yet another roof-top terrace, and from there a narrow spire went up about five hundred meters to end at a hollow wire sphere enclosing a floating rhomboid of translucent green.
On ground level, an archway was cut into the wing facing the river. From there, a narrow bridge with an arched support structure straddled the waterfall, ending on the other side at a circular expanse where about two dozen Eggs were parked. At its center rested a small starship, its sleek lines reminiscent of a military fighter craft.
Cyrus stepped out of his Egg and approached the bridge. Home at last. In bad weather this whole area and the bridge would be covered, but right now not a single cloud marred the sky, as if to give everything – the landscape and the buildings – the opportunity to present their best face for his return. The wind on the bridge was refreshing in the summer heat, and the water rushing past below made for additional cooling.
At the archway into the courtyard, a small sign with the distinctive green rhomboid logo read "Solheim Engineering". Cyrus smiled at the deceptively unobtrusive sign. Solheim Engineering may not have been the biggest engineering consultant in the galaxy, but it was the most prestigious. Clients traveled months for a visit, for Solheim Engineering made possible what others said couldn't be done – or shouldn't be done, in the opinion of some. Miranda had branched out over the years, but her primary area of expertise was coaxing new functions out of the synthetic symbionts the Event had left them with. Unsurprisingly, the technology had proven all but intractable beyond its basic functions, and projects decades in scope were not for everyone.
He passed the invisible security barrier and entered the building. Along a long straight corridor he walked, past transparent walls separating a number of laboratories where people of various species sat and stood around holoprojections showing three-dimensional models of complex molecules and the internal workings of mechanosynthetic constructors, flat holoscreens showing mathematical formulae and various other machines whose seamless contours showed no hint of their purpose. One woman smiled and nodded in greeting.
"Welcome back, Mr. Trebin. She's on the tower"
The message came through his networking extrasense, routed through his auditory system as sound on a specific band. He nodded back but didn't answer. He should've gotten used to the alias after all these years, but the name never ceased to evoke his first encounter with Miranda, back in the pre-Event era which had passed out of the public consciousness, only recalled by the historians and archaeologists whose professions he had adopted. The Danieli had survived the Reaper Wars unscathed, with neither important infrastructure nor a large population center having drawn attacks to Venice. Miranda and he visited every year for the masquerade, a ritual almost like time travel, back to when it had all started, and the need to change identities from time to time to avoid suspicion only heightened the appreciation.
Cyrus smiled as he reached the stairway. Following the timeless preferences of executives, Miranda's suite was on the highest floor of the tower, directly above her personal lab and office. Unlike the location, the need for secretaries hadn't survived the Event. Nanoelectronic VI symbionts took care of that, and people had more important – or more interesting – things to do than to manage others' appointments or communication.
Miranda was standing at an open window, clad in a light white summer dress that hinted at her figure without constraining it. His extrasense caught the AR symbol indicating that she was in communication as it vanished. Then she turned to face him with a welcoming smile.
His breath caught. Miranda's beauty had always had that timeless quality instilled by her father's genetic engineering, but instead of diminishing it, time and experience had added "a natural confidence befitting a deity", as some VIP networks called it. The subtle lines added by the symbionts were visible in a pattern as individual as fingerprints. The overall effect was incredibly attractive to some, but almost fear-inspiring to others, even though the galaxy didn't know this was the mythical woman who had conquered death for the first time.
She tilted her head, a long familiar mannerism.
"You know, I keep wondering why nobody recognizes us. I know what they're writing about me, but I can't believe they never notice you."
He grinned.
"Must be the job. Who would ever think the galaxy's saviour, the "architect of the new era", would turn into an archaeologist and historian"
She stepped closer and they flowed into each other's embrace. He felt as if connected to an electric current as she molded her body to his, all too present under his hands, teasing him through the thin fabric of her dress. It had been too long.
"I take it none of your fervent admirers has taken your fancy while I was away", he whispered into her ear, teasingly.
"Just as none of your devoted assistants has taken yours…" Her reply was breathless as she let her hands roam over his back and caught his head for a kiss. "Do you need to eat first?"
"It...can wait", he gasped.
"Good", she replied. "Because I can't."
At her inaudible command, a hole in the ceiling irised open. Cold biotic fire enveloped them as Miranda let them float upward into one of the domes on the rooftop terrace. Another command turned the dome's wall into a one-way mirror. It wouldn't do to let the news drones catch their first meeting in six months…
Sometime later, when darkness had fallen and the night wind was cooling their bodies, Cyrus was looking at the star-strewn sky. He chuckled.
Miranda raised one eyebrow.
"When I was a child, I dreamed of a bright future in the stars", he said. "Now look at where we are. And we've created it. You're still creating it."
"It's not perfect", she answered.
And it wasn't. The krogan were on the brink of extinction, the asari had retreated into isolationism, and the attempt to integrate the yahg into galactic civilization was considered to be so risky that some called it "insane". There were new species found, not always friendly, old enemies turned allies of uncertain reliability, there were wars, planets ruined by overuse of resources, and people were still stupid. But the grand tapestry of galactic civilization continued to grow and refine itself. Cultures changed and learned from each other. Humans and salarians had adapted themselves to many worlds, with the others following more hesitantly. And while people all over the galaxy still cursed politicians like they'd always done, the new Assembly of Worlds was a significant improvement over the old Council system.
"It never is", he said finally. "But it will take a bit more than the Reapers to destroy this civilization."
She trailed a finger down his sternum in a familiar possessive manner.
"So…what have you been up to? I can see you've been waiting for me to ask."
He chuckled again.
"You know me too well. Well, I found a copy of Tali's biography of me. Printed on platinum sheets, if you can believe that. Someone really wanted it to last. That will give my… "theory" of the history of the Reaper Wars quite a bit more credence. The digital copies we find are all edited, and Liara's hero-worship version didn't help."
She didn't answer. It was a familiar complaint. Liara hadn't followed his wish to include a truthful account of him in her warning to the next cycle, glossing over the various sacrifices that had to be made to win. The Cyrus Shepard in her story felt like an impostor to the real man, and the public tended to believe her, believe in the man who never doubted and never had to make painful decisions until the end.
"Now they're all gone", she mused. "Only we remain. If the stories were right, I should feel like a relic. But I don't. This era gives me all the opportunities I've only had with Cerberus."
"We won't feel like relics as long as we have something to do and people to connect to."
"True. But it's strange to live to a time when your most famous achievement has turned into myth. Even the little things I do these days would've looked like working miracles back then, but people today take it for granted, instead growing nostalgic about how I brought you back to life."
"Ever thought of revealing ourselves?"
"You'd like that", she laughed. "Telling everyone how they've been idiots and their interpretations all wrong."
"Yeah. Tempting", he grinned. "But they wouldn't believe me. Historians can't even agree which of the several samples of 'Shepard DNA' they found is authentic. No two of them match. "
"How will the galaxy look once we've lived again as long?" she continued after a pause.
"You didn't usually ponder such things", he answered.
A familiar ironic smile appeared on her face. "Perspectives change."
"Worried?"
"Curious. So much that I've been working on a model for the development of civilization. One of our old…acquaintances is helping me with this"
Their eyes met in silent understanding. He had always loved that about her – that having conquered one limit, she was already looking for the next, and never afraid to follow dangerous paths to get there.
How that transformed into desire he'd never cared to examine. He was thrown back to the moment of his return, when he saw her again, still the same blue-grey eyes and pale skin, the contours of her face familiar, but otherwise like a goddess stepped out of a myth, subtle curved patterns indicating her transcendence. She had studied a database of the Old Machines, connected to it by a cable – superfluous these days – bending her considerable intellect into finding ways to rebuild civilization. How a disembodied mind could feel desire was another thing he'd never cared to examine, how he could feel then, as now, how simply watching her made his breath go faster. Miranda had called desire a "chemical survival program", and it was that. But it wasn't less powerful for knowing its nature. He knew better than most, for along with a promise, it had brought him back.
A networking link opened between them, and they became aware of everything the other was. She followed his lead as he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her on top of him again. Her presence was intoxicating, mirrored and amplified as it was through her awareness of him. They would have their share of shaping the future, even beyond what they already had, but right now, the future could take care of itself. Her face against the clear night sky, outlined by blue biotic fire, reminded him of their first kiss on the Normandy. Just like then, it felt like a promise.