Alex Shepard knows he is dying.
He and the crystal-clarity of blood loss and shock are old acquaintances. The terrible cold of third-degree burns is no surprise. His heart is beating so quickly it hurts, but that's to be expected. The sterile air of this strange platform burns his rough and savaged throat with every breath. He doesn't know how much longer he has, but it can't be long.
Above, the wingless hornet of a geth frigate comes apart in silent majesty. It does not explode in a dramatic fireball. Science fiction enthusiasts might be disappointed. Instead, the Reaper cannon cores the bow of the frigate and guts it from stem to stern. Smaller secondary explodes cracks the hull like an egghell. Armor plating bulges and shatters; the blue lightning of eezo reactions bursts in spastic fits – the last spasms of a corpse.
He swears he can see the tiny forms of geth platforms flailing as they are scattered into the void. Why? The distances must be astronomical.
Perhaps that soft-spoken monster behind his has included some sort of telescoping effect in his artificial atmosphere. Perhaps he likes to watch his creations at work, supposing he doesn't see in some more direct fashion. Or perhaps it's just a not-so-subtle incentive: move your crippled, dying ass before you bleed out and have to watch all the fools you dragged to their deaths burn.
He notes the quarian ship slide up and retaliate with grim satisfaction. Momentary shafts of bright light tear soundlessly through space. About time those two realized that squabbling simply because they always had before was a waste of time.
A pity it took the galaxy roasting for them to find common ground.
"You are wasting time," the Intelligence tells him. "Choose."
"Shut up," he mutters, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and his nostrils. He hasn't moved. Three paths, all to loathsome ends. A choice of damnations. What a waste. So many dead so this angel-faced monster can resolve an imaginary conflict-
Focus.
Maybe he could order the fleet to fire on the Citadel. Eventually it should crack – but maybe there are still people alive. The arms were closed. He saw lights moving in the arms below…All those people, gathered into the one place hey thought it would be safe. All they've done with their damned Crucible (ha! someone had a sense of sick humor!) is ensure that everyone burns together...
Damn it. Damn him and his pack of pretentious, self-aggrandizing toys. They've left him no good choices.
"You will die soon," the Intelligence reminds him. "Choose."
"Shut up!" he hisses.
"Every minute you waste here, more of your friends die."
"I know, you wretched, genocidal malfunctioning Atari! I know!" The scream makes his chest rattle and bloody phlegm splatter the metal plating below him. For a terrible moment he thinks he's about to faint, beating back the fuzzy darkness at the corners of his eyes with an effort of will. "Can't you call your dogs off?" He watches a Reaper recoil as dreadnaught fire peppers it and resists the urge to cheer. Hull sections buckle and send chunks probably as large as fighters spilling outwards, peculiarly-hued "blood" spraying from the wounded monstrosity.
"My Reapers take their purpose from me, not their battlefield orders," the Intelligence replies. Has the bastard learned to sound smug? "You should probably hurry."
"I hope your Reapers scream when they burn," he snaps, and limps forward beneath the flickering light of gods at war above. He has never hated anything in his life as much as he hates them all in this moment. The purity is the most glorious high he's ever been on. Better than combat stims, better than red sand, better than afterglow. He wishes he could bask in it forever.
"And your friends?" the Intelligence asks, with godlike detachment. His quiet inaction and undertones of pity feels more obscene than the casual way Harbinger obliterated half of Hammer. "The geth? Your Intelligence?"
Every god of every species, past or present, damn him! "You think I've never ordered men to their deaths?" he retorts weakly. But it's hollow. He can't have that much blood on his hands and he knows it. The thought makes his knees go weak. He can't. He just can't.
"I know." The Intelligence's pity feels like an insult.
God damn it, who decided to saddle him with a galaxy's worth of responsibility? A bloody squad seems too much sometimes! He wasn't trained for this.
The Intelligence speaks again in the stolen voice of a murdered boy. "No one else has to die, Shepard."
The light of burning Earth throws horrible ruddy light back across his face and reminds him of all the corpses at the Intelligence's feet. "Nobody had to die in the first place!" he snaps. "This is your fault! Don't pretend you're above this!"
"Will the last act of your life be genocide, then?" The Intelligence sounds curious, not angry. "This is not the Commander Shepard I expect. Evidence suggests you are a unifier. Always a second chance. Always bridging gaps. Why should synthesis repel you so?"
Shepard ignores him. What point is there arguing with the little monster? You don't lecture busted machines. You turn them off. You throw them out.
His hand trembles as he raises the battered old Carnifex in his hand. Mordin's gun. Thank god he brought it for emergencies. His shotgun is slag somewhere hundreds of miles below and a bit to the left. A long shot, but he doesn't see why he needs to get any closer to the conduit to fire on it. The trigger gives gently under his finger…
And he remembers metal flaps unfolding like petals and a dry voice. He remembers strange mechanical eyes. He remembers the metal simulacrum of a woman and his crippled pilot sitting together in easy chairs, debating attractiveness. His finger drifts away from the trigger and the pistol falls from his hand to clatter on the metal floor.
Maybe Javik was right.
"Sentimental," the Intelligence says. "I suppose I can't blame you." The ghostly child is in front of him suddenly, transparent features placid. "You've lost a lot of blood. Let me help you."
And he looks ahead. Sees the beautiful shape of the Normandy outlined against the solar wind. Sees the ghastly many-armed shape rising from beneath it like a monster from the deep, baleful yellow eyes blazing with hunger and hate. He can hear that horrible bellowing cry with perfect clarity, even though vacuum makes it impossible. And he knows with absolute certainty that the only reason it hasn't fired is it wants him to watch it snuff out the last home he has in this universe.
He's seen it so many times in his dreams. Dreams of the Normandy's hull being peeled away by flashing beams, tentacles plucking him from the wreckage and tossing into their owner's howling maw. Dreams of husks with his friends' faces bashing down his cabin door. Dreams of tendrils bursting from his own cybernetic systems and crawling through his veins to suck him dry.
His diseased subconscious? Or the Reapers crawling inside his skull to play? It doesn't matter. Harbinger knows he's alive. It wants him to watch. The notion that something so incomprehensibly ancient can be so…petty would be comical, if it wasn't terrifying.
Alex Shepard makes his decision. He spits in the Intelligence's direction and breaks into a clumsy, hopping run, sliding and slipping on the blood running from his wounded legs. He makes it halfway across the bridge towards the strange apparatus on its plinth before his leg gives way and he topples onto his face.
He drags himself the rest of the way, leaving a red smear on pristine metal. Then it's a desperate heave, grabbing hold of the handles and hauling himself as erect as he can manage. He is going to die (again! the thought makes him laugh half-hysterically) on his feet. His hands curl around arcing contact points, accepting the jolts of electricity the touch sends sparking through him. Shepard grits his teeth and tries not to think of what he's doing – of the sheer hubris in thinking he could challenge these monsters in their own domains…
And the last thing Alex hears as the world dissolves into all-familiar burning, blinding pain is the Intelligence's short, disappointed sigh.