Flesh and Steel
By Archer83 and Vergil1989 the Crossover King
Summary: After permanently disabling the rogue AI on Luna Base, Shepard and her team stumble upon an abandoned underground facility once run by a now defunct OCP. What they find changes what it means to be alive. Welcome to the future of law enforcement.
Disclaimer: We own nothing related to Robocop (The 1987 version) or Mass Effect.
Authors Notes: Archer83; Welcome to another of my crazy ideas! Somehow I got the thought of Alex Murphy helping Shepard and her crew stuck in my head and this is the result. I'd like to give a big thank you to Vergil for all his help with this. Hope you all enjoy the story and please leave a review!
Vergil1989; As long as it's not a crazy review like a few I've gotten recently on a story of my own lol. Joking aside, Archer once again dragged me into his madness, but I've done that to him quite a few times so it was his turn. : P In all seriousness, he got me into Robocop a couple weeks ago, and I've found I rather enjoyed the experience and I hope our efforts allow you to enjoy it as well. Adios and stay out of trouble.
Chapter 1: Things Best Left Forgotten.
"Is that it? Please tell me that's the last one Shepard." An aching, bleeding, Garrus Vakarian coughed out, as he pointed to the most recent in a ridiculously long string of terminals that one Commander Melanie Shepard had smashed, blown up, overloaded, and otherwise destroyed in some devastating fashion.
"Yeah. This is getting boring. Now, if you'd let me hunt the turian like I asked..." Their krogan companion looked to the sharpshooter with a predatory gleam that had Vakarian's talons gripping the pistol on his hip.
"Shut up Wrex." Melanie barked, wincing in pain as she pressed a hand against her side. Yup. Broken ribs. Chakwas is going to be pissed. Again. "Let's get back to the Mako and-"
"Shepard! I just want to say thank you so much for taking me on this mission. You forget to mention the endless hordes of psychotic synthetics though." Even when she was being sarcastic, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya still managed to sound cheerful as she quickly joined them along with the rest of the ground team. They had been 'volunteered' by Shepard to assist with the ridiculously more difficult than expected task of clearing out a rogue AI's forces at the training base on Earth's moon, Luna.
"Even my hair hurts. How is that possible?" Kaidan Alenko grumbled as he rubbed the back of his neck, no doubt feeling a migraine coming on from the strenuous situation they had just gotten through.
"You won't hear me complaining LT, always nice to get a little target practice." Ashley Williams, despite having faced the same exhausting day they'll all had, seemed to be the best off as she grinned at her commander, a noticeable spring in her step. Despite her upbeat demeanor, she too was just as tired and bruised as the rest of them.
Their resident asari archeologist, Dr. Liara T'Soni, limped in behind the two worn looking humans. "I believe I may never fully understand humans reactions to highly volatile situations. We were nearly killed, multiple times, and yet you now see these events as humorous Chief Williams?"
Shepard slapped her lightly on the back, earning a mild frown from their youngest (technically speaking), and clearly exhausted, team member. "It's how we cope with stress Liara, don't worry, you'll get used to it."
"Maybe she'll even study a few other ways we primitive humans relieve stress." Ashley muttered just loud enough for the asari to hear, causing the quiet, naive young woman to blush a deep purple.
"Hey, any of your guys still alive? Hellooo? If you are, I think ya might want to check out this weird ass signal I picked up when you finally gave that psycho AI a lobotomy... Robotomy? Whatever."
Melanie resisted the urge to facepalm as she opened a channel to the Normandy. "Joker, what are you talking about? What signal?"
"Hey there Commander, have fun playing with Skynet?" The relief in his voice was palpable even if he tried his best to hide it.
Shepard started to grind her teeth as Jeff frayed her last remaining nerve. "Joker...get to the point."
"Oh yeah, the creepy ominous signal that's so damn old, our comm system barely recognized it? I think all the recent activity must have been jamming it 'cause it wasn't there before." Jeff 'Joker' Moreau chimed in over the team's short range comms. His particular brand of sarcastic humor served as a moral booster for Shepard and her ground team, even if Shepard found him to be incredibly annoying at times. And today was no exception.
"Hmm. Could be a distress beacon." Garrus muttered, rubbing a sore mandible with his talon.
Ashley was quick to give her own opinion. "Or a trap. Something that got activated when we took out the main base."
"How far is the signal from here Joker?" Shepard asked after a moment's consideration. Trap or not, it was their duty to investigate so no one else stumbled into something truly dangerous.
"'Bout seven kilometers, give or take a couple dozen meters." Joker replied nonchalantly a moment later, but there was a noticeable grin to his voice.
"Alright. We're going to check it out." A particular gleam appeared in Melanie's emerald eyes as they flicked from one uncomfortable looking team member to the next. Even Urdnot Wrex, the battle tested krogan with centuries of experience, was pretending to ignore her by 'checking' his shotgun. "Who wants to volunteer?" The room was filled with a mix of sighs and averted gazes. Everyone on her team had already gotten a taste of Melanie's driving skills in the Mako, and they didn't seem eager to repeat the experience. "Let me rephrase that. Who wants to volunteer, and who would rather find out what riding the Mako on the outside is like?"
"I'll go with you Commander." Liara quickly said, not about to test her luck more than she had already today.
"Dibs on the gunnery seat. Besides, I didn't expect to live to an old age anyway." Garrus chuckled as he pushed away from the wall and let his arms fall to his sides.
"Liara, Garrus, thank you. Given the nature of what we might face, I could certainly use a brilliant tech expert... Maybe someone who's also a genius engineer to boot?" Shepard couldn't be sure, but from the way those glowing silver orbs under Tali's visor moved, the quarian was most likely rolling her eyes.
"Can't you just be nice when you aren't asking me to go on another daily suicide mission?" Tali groused at her mischievous captain.
The young quarian always managed to make Melanie grin, and, like Joker's attitude, today was no exception. "Nope. I have a limited supply and I use it wisely."
Tali crossed her arms and after a string of barely audible curses in khelish, sighed as she dropped her helmeted head in defeat. "Keelah...I'm in." The quarian said at last with a shake of her visor covered face.
"Joker, we need a pick up at-" Before Shepard could finish, a rumbling vibration echoed throughout the underground base as she heard a familiar, overly sarcastic voice on the comm.
"You rang Commander?" Joker asked, that annoying grin no doubt plastered on his bearded face.
"Good timing Joker. Williams, Alenko, and Wrex are coming aboard. The rest of us-" Shepard did her best to ignore the audible groans around her. "-will be taking the Mako. Let's move."
"Tell me why I agreed to this again?" Garrus muttered just loud enough to be heard by Tali as they followed behind the Commander on either side. Liara brought up the rear of their diamond formation while the rest of their group walked towards the Normandy's lowering cargo bay ramp.
"Because you want to take Saren down like the rest of us." Tali deadpanned as she hopped into the Mako right behind the turian and their human commander.
"Oh yeah. For a second there, I thought it was for the fame and glory." Garrus sighed as he situated himself in the gunnery chair. "Ready to die when you are Commander."
"Very funny Vakarian." Shepard could only shake her head at the turian sharpshooter's words. "I'll have you guys know my driving isn't that bad. You should have seen my sister's driving." Shepard involuntarily shuddered. "I still have nightmares about Susan's first time with the tractor. I don't think I was ever happier to kiss the dirt."
"Really Shepard? A farm tractor? I'm pretty sure your sister wasn't driving a military tank." Garrus shot back without a second thought.
"Exactly. Those poor chickens were never the same." Revving the Mako's engine, Shepard grinned as she did a final check of the powerful vehicle's systems before starting towards their destination at a far more reasonable pace than before. They weren't taking enemy fire so there was no reason to make her passengers miserable. Yet.
"Chickens?" Garrus, Tali, and Liara sounded less than reassured.
Liara could only shake her head in defeat. "Earth fowl aside, by the Goddess, please don't use the jump thrusters so frivolously again Shepard. My stomach still hasn't settled from the last time. And I'd rather not throw up into this face mask. Again." This last part was barely audible as Tali gave the queasy looking young asari a reassuring pat on the back.
"Don't worry Liara, I'll take it nice and CRATER!" Shepard tapped the jump thrusters as they gracefully sailed over a large, stony crater she totally hadn't been aiming for the entire time.
The cramped cabin was filled with a double flanged yelp of pain as Garrus' helmet smashed against the top of the turret compartment. "I hate you." He muttered when the Mako's wheels had touched down on the other side of the crater with a hard lurch. "I hate you so much."
"No you don't, but I'll keep it under advisement Garrus. We're almost there, so try to hold onto your lunch for a few more minutes everybody." Shepard countered with a snort of amusement as they neared the secret base. Even as they drove over the dusty gray hill in front of them, the area they were fast approaching had Shepard's mood instantly shifting from tired amusement to paranoid curiosity. Something didn't seem right, given the fact the entire complex hadn't shown up until after the AI had gone offline. It was like an old fashion lunar warren if the scanners were feeding them accurate information. Luna Base was one thing, but this? This just seems a little too cloak and dagger, even for the Alliance. Melanie leaned forward to get a better view as a large domed hill came into sight. Wow. This thing looks like some piss poor design from the mid 21st.
From his perch in the gunnery seat, Garrus had the best visual of the terrain. So it was no surprise that he was the first to say something about the nondescript door that had seemingly been dropped into the side of the hill. "Gee. It's a mound of dirt with a door stuck on it. Who wants to be the first one into the dark, deadly, decaying umm..."
"Dungeon?" Tali helpfully volunteered.
"I believe 'dig site' would be more accurate. This area does not seem to have been disturbed in quite some time." Liara had been the first to notice that aside from the Mako's tracks, there were surprisingly few signs anyone had visited this site in decades, if not longer. "It's too clean. Maybe someone covered their tracks? This area should be littered with signs of activity."
"My thoughts exactly Dr. T'Soni." Garrus replied before climbing out of the gun, the last out of the Mako with the rest of the team. He was the first to kneel down by the door and check for any obvious traps, as well as any sign as to who might have abandoned the ancient base in the first place. The turian went to dust off part of the exterior hatch, but a frowning Liara was quick to stop him. "No touching the incredibly old scrap heap. Got it. Have part of an old insignia here Commander. OCP? Friends of yours?"
"None I'm familiar with. Let's find out who they were." Melanie said as she ran a scan of the black, intertwined bold lettering that Garrus had uncovered. Her omni-tool displayed several pre-century Earth articles, and all of them pointed towards one of the old multinational conglomerates. This one in particular apparently had had a rather ruthless reputation, in a time of massive corporations known for their less than moral practices. Omni Consumer Products had privatized law enforcement, health care, even local government, which to Shepard's mind meant they had had absolute authority. It was hard to charge them with illegal activities when they made their own laws to suit their own twisted ends. While the Spectres operated above the law, except in regards to the Citadel Council, she had not found a reason to go outside it without a damn good reason. OCP's track record clearly stated otherwise. "Well, who wants to dive into the corrupt company's secret warren first guys?" She looked over her shoulder with a grin after a few moments of silence passed. "What, no takers?"
"Pardon me for saying so Commander Shepard, but I believe you may lack a basic survival instinct." Liara stated, but she stepped closer to the hatch all the same. "It would seem I must be equally insane because I can't help but wonder what's down there, despite the obvious risks."
Nodding approvingly at the curious archeologist, Melanie tapped the side of her helmet. "Shepard to Normandy. It looks like we've found an old underground base of some sort. Looks like one of the old fashioned warrens they built in the mid 21st. We're going inside to investigate."
Joker's voice crackled to life in her helmet moments later. "Copy that Shepard. You'll probably lose contact with us, those suckers had a crap ton of shielding, not to mention hundreds of metric tons of regolith."
"Regolith?" Shepard sounded incredulous, to say the least.
Liara's tone seemed to brighten as she quickly spoke up. "It is a scientific name for-"
Joker's loud huff of annoyance cut her off. "Thanks for the assist Doc. And what? I read. Even asari-hanar porn gets boring after a while. Just be careful alright? My next CO might be a real asshole, you're not too bad Commander."
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence Joker." Melanie chuckled despite the backhanded compliment.
The asari, turian, and their human commander jumped back as the hatch began to slowly lower into its frame. There was a decidedly smug tone to Tali's voice as she walked past the others, her fingers rapidly playing over her activated omni-tool. "Why so serious you three? No point in coming out here for nothing. Right?"
"She's got us there Commander. After you." Garrus grinned despite the rude gesture Melanie threw over her shoulder as she took point, her pistol at the ready as they descended the ramp that led down into the now open hatch.
It led to a small airlock, which the four of them barely managed to fit into. Good think Wrex didn't volunteer. Shepard mused to herself, while Garrus manually sealed the external hatch while Tali focused on getting the inner door opened. Before any of them could go for their headlights on their respective helmets, the facility's power kicked in as the metallic hallway they found themselves in flared to life.
"Welcome, valued customers, to Omni Consumer Products Lunar Research Facility." An automated voice happily chimed in from a nearby speaker. "Please go to the security desk and present your OCP authorization ID, you will then be allowed access to the rest of this facility. Trespassers will be shot on sight."
"Well that's convenient." Shepard muttered as she scanned the area, looking for points of entry and cover in case they wound up in another firefight. The large entry area thankfully had dozens of pillars, metallic desks, and a number of discarded heavy duty crates and supply tanks she hoped didn't contain anything explosive.
"Sure is cheerful for an abandoned secret installation." Garrus clearly wasn't fooled by the warm welcome and shockingly good condition of their surroundings. "Looks like they ran out of here in a hurry. Couldn't have anything to do with their company going under from all the less than legal things they did." He continued, filling his voice with as much sarcasm as he could muster as he raised his sniper rifle and swept the second floor below their own when they neared the nearby balcony. "It's too damn quiet. Does anyone else think we're being watched?"
"Because we are." Tali said as she pointed to a nearby security camera, her omni-tool running at top speed as she hacked her way into the local network. "The security's still active. I'll have it shut down in...there! All clear Commander."
"Nice work Tali. Let's move, I want this placed completely searched. We'll stay in pairs and keep comms open at all times. I don't like the vibe I'm getting here, security or no security." She didn't have to look at her respective team members to see that they felt just as uneasy. The feeling of being watched was still very much alive, and it was making her itch. "Liara, you're with me."
With a nod, the young asari fell in behind her as Garrus and Tali headed for the corridor on their left, while Shepard opted for the central one. "Shepard, transferring structural map to your omni-tool now." Melanie took a quick glance at the map Tali had provided, noting there were three levels to search. They'd save the lower floors once they had cleared the one they were on.
Half an hour of looking through OCP's dirty laundry turned up nothing of any real interest, other than to tell them what they had already known just from the scan of the front door. The place seemed to be a dumping ground for any of their failed projects, legal or otherwise. Decommissioned, defective, or just downright illegal, some of them even by modern standards.
Garrus was the first to voice their collective disgust as he scanned through the inventory list Tali had send him. "AI and robotic research. Chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Particle beam and kinetic prototypes. Shepard, if I'm reading this right, these people were into every 'Black' project imaginable. Almost as bad as those Cerberus terrorists that were on the news a while back." Standing in front of what was left of a machine, Garrus felt his stomach lurch at the sight of a skeletal head attached to a metallic chassis. His detective intuition said that whoever the guy had been hadn't liked what he had seen and had tried to remove the helmet that hung on a nearby hook, except in so doing so had skinned his head down to the bone. "Poor bastard. Mutilated beyond his ability to cope. I'd have done the same."
Having stopped in front of a second large glass container, Garrus only shook his head before looking at the quarian when she spoke. "Done what?" A confused Tali asked, as Garrus pointed to the nearby pistol on the deck and a large hole in the damaged skull. "Oh. Keelah, what they did to this human... that's horrible."
Having seen the video feed from their respective helmet cams on her omni-tool, Melanie was at first shocked into silence for several seconds. When she found her voice, it came as no surprise that it contained nothing but contempt for what had been perpetrated there. "I can't blame him, at that point I'd be eating a bullet too. And here I thought the few chapters I read about OCP back in high school were exaggerations at best. They truly were the worst of our old multinational corporations." Shepard retorted as she looked through several old files she and Liara had stumbled across, scattered across a desktop which also had a very old computer terminal situated on it.
Liara's blue eyes widened as she read through the old hard copy files next to Shepard and then moved on to the ancient terminal. "It seems your texts were, if anything, conservative in their assessment."
"It's alright Liara, you can say what you mean. They were a pack of morally corrupt bastards that gave humanity a bad name." She was about to say more, but Melanie paused when she thought she heard something moving around outside the office section they were currently searching. Raising her heavy pistol, Shepard motioned for Liara to find cover as she approached the door, the heavy footfalls outside making her nervous since they sounded far bigger than anything she was familiar with. Even a YMIR mech wasn't that loud. When the sounds started to grow distant and faint, only then did Shepard risk opening the automatic door and taking a peak around the corner. What she saw made her rethink her chances of taking it apart without a very big gun.
"Shepard! What is it?" Liara tersely whispered as Melanie quickly gestured for her to be silent.
Garrus' concerned voice made Melanie's emerald eyes widen as she lowered her comm volume. "Shepard, what's that noise in the background-"
"Garrus. Get up here now. I'm looking at one heavily armed and ugly mother fucking machine." Shepard muttered under her breath as the top heavy robot stopped and started to lumber itself back to the hallway it had just started to leave. "Shit. Get back!" Shepard shouted as she raised her pistol with a flourish and started firing round after round at anything that looked even slightly important. The giant machine's heavy armaments and the head segment were her targets, but she knew even as the first sand sized particles hit that she wasn't going to be able to do anything substantial against the machine. The heavy armor, and the fact that it was far more machine than synthetic meant that her pistol was nearly useless. The YMIR mech had synthetic parts, making it vulnerable to kinetic weaponry, but this thing apparently didn't have such a weakness as sparks flew and her bullets pinged off of the metallic hide like bug bites. "Oh great." By then, the mechanized bot had turned far enough to bring its heavy guns to bear, and from the roar of defiance it issued, it was pissed at her.
"Was that a growl I heard? Shepard, is everything alright up there?! We're on our way!" If there wasn't a multi ton killing machine barreling down of her Shepard might have found the turian's confident words to be mildly reassuring.
"Oh, everything's just great Garrus. Same shit, different day. You might want to get back to us before the giant-walking-killing-machine does. No rush." Shepard jumped back as the twin heavy machine guns on the mech started to rev up before giant holes started to appear on every side of the hallway, and they were heading right for the door she slammed shut before she was shredded apart. "Too close." Even with her kinetic barriers, Shepard wasn't sure she'd have survived contact with even half of the bullets that thing had shot her way.
Tali's heavy breathing could barely be heard over the sound of the room being demolished. "We're on our way Commander! Just hold on!" Shepard found herself mildly surprised by the confident determination in the young quarian's voice.
"Tali, I thought you said you had deactivated the security?!" Liara shouted over the thunderous roar of the machine's heavy ordinance as parts of the metallic wall started to give way under the continuous assault. When the machine guns stopped, the asari only had a moment to throw up a Barrier as Shepard jumped away from the wall just as a rocket slammed into the door, blasting it completely off of its frame.
"Doesn't matter Liara! We have about ten seconds before that thing gets close enough to pump us full of holes!" Shepard shouted as Liara's Barrier collapsed from the force of the explosion. Pulling her shotgun from her back, Melanie spun on her heel and roared her own defiance as the bot started to turn towards the new hole it had blown in the wall. "Eat this!" The boom of her shotgun shattered part of the machine's right gun, but it shrugged it off as if nothing had happened.
"You are trespassing on private property. Surrender for immediate termination. You have twenty seconds to comply." Shepard's reply was to fire again, in the hope she'd be able to do enough damage before it decided to simply splatter them on the walls.
"Little help guys!" Melanie shouted into her head piece, as a Warp from Liara joined her shotgun fire. The machine's hide bucked and twisted under the assault, but it still kept coming at them. "Any second would be nice!"
Just as the hulking machine's intact gun was brought to bear on them, it suddenly collapsed in a smoking heap of twisted metal. A grinning Garrus appeared from behind the robotic guard, giving Liara and Shepard a friendly wave. "Right in the nick of time. Just the way I like it." Grinning at Shepard's patented 'glare of death', Garrus tapped a talon on the the fallen mech's ruined armor. "Seems more heroic that way, don't you think?"
With an annoyed sigh, Melanie pointed to the mech. "Make sure it stays down." Garrus barely had time to jerk his hand away as Tali nodded and sent an Overload pulse through the beast that had almost taken Shepard and Liara apart. The way it twitched and threw up dozens of sparks, as well as the gaping hole from Garrus's sniper round, made Shepard hopeful that it wouldn't get back up again. But she didn't trust the machine as far as she could throw it, and decided to err on the side of caution as she pulled out her assault rifle. Emptying an entire 'clip' into the robot's upper section, as her rifle's overloaded thermal sink warning beeped, Shepard nodded her approval of the wreckage that was laid out in front of her. "Right. Now we can move on."
"Normally I'd say that was a little overkill Commander, but this thing is unlike anything I've ever seen." Tali stated as she showed her friends the schematics she had stumbled across during their investigation. "This place is amazing! I've never seen tech quite like this before. It's dangerous and barbaric, but it's still many years ahead of anything we ever thought up." It wasn't hard to hear the horrified admiration in Tali's voice as she gestured towards the smoking pile of scrap metal. Tali rapidly scrolled through a display on her omni-tool until schematics for the massive armed robot popped up. "A truly autonomous mechanized warrior with no synthetic parts to worry about. This Enforcement Droid, Series 209 must have been decades ahead of its time."
"While I am happy for you Tali, perhaps you'll warn us of any other 'amazing' developments ahead of time. Preferably before they attempt to kill us." Everyone seemed downright surprised that Liara had sounded less than painfully polite for once.
Huh. Gonna have to give her a gold star or something when we get back. "Hopefully it's the only one." When an alarm started up, Shepard sighed heavily as she gestured for the others to follow. "Why do I always have to open my mouth?" It came as no surprise to her when the all too familiar sound of at least three more ED 209s clunking their way through the base reached her ears about the same time.
"Tactical retreat anyone?" Garrus asked, but Shepard was already thinking along those lines as she led the way back to the surface.
"Shepard to Normandy, Joker do you copy?" Silence was the only reply she received. "Joker do you read?! Dammit!" Faint static filled their ear pieces as they began to ascend the ramp towards the top level. The only problem with going back upstairs was that the ED 209s were waiting for them. Attempting to escape now would most likely be suicide. "Fall back into the complex! Move it!" Throwing a grenade over her shoulder as they immediately turned back the way they came, Shepard nodded in approval as Garrus and Tali tech mined the ramp as best they could. The first explosions they heard were soon drowned out by the continuous, heavy footsteps of the two EDs that remained, the leader of the pack having made the mistake of being in the center of the booby trapped ramp.
"One down, two insanely deadly robots to go." Garrus quipped as he provided covering fire for the others, landing a few good hits with his sniper rifle, but not enough to slow the advancing machines. "I am really starting to hate these things. Give me a YMIR any day of the week." His opinion of the heavy duty killing machines only plummeted further when they unleashed two rockets in his general direction.
"Stop talking and get your ass down here Garrus!" Running as fast as she could, she could see the two EDs a floor above, leveling their heavy machine guns at her. "Oh no you don't." She beat them to the punch as she placed her assault rifle on her back and grabbed the last two grenades off her belt. The well placed throws had both of the droids stumbling back. "Liara!"
"On it!" Liara shouted back as she threw a Singularity at the twin machines. The right hand droid, despite its far heavier bulk, toppled over the railing and slowly plummeted over the side. Its head gave way and became a mass of flattened circuitry and delicate parts from the damage it had already sustained. If not for Shepard pulling the asari behind a nearby pillar, the last ED would have returned the favor as another rocket slammed into the ground where she had just been. "Thanks!"
Melanie grabbed the stunned asari scientist and forcefully shoved her onward. "Don't thank me yet. Let's go!"
"Really? I just thought we'd stay here and get blasted by that killing machine Shepard." Garrus snarked as they came to a long hallway with several doors on both sides.
"Incoming!" Everyone doubled their pace at Tali's warning, just as the section of wall a couple meters behind them exploded outwards. They were quickly nearing the bottom level, and Shepard knew they were running out of options fast. "Oh keelah! Shepard, according to the specs, they didn't bother adding an emergency exit to the design. Who builds a base without an emergency exit?!" Before she'd even finished her angry rant, another rocket streaked past the quarian, almost within touching distance.
"OCP apparently!" Shepard shouted back as the sealed hatch in front of them was blasted off it's frame by the errant rocket. "In here, quick!"
Garrus was quick to comment on the dead end they had run into. "Oh good. The big scary machine has herded us into a death trap. This is much better Shepard."
"I wasn't worried about that. I was worried about THAT!" She pointed to the capsule at the other end of the chamber they had entered. "One of the documents we found said something about another cyborg. I figured we'd fight fire with fire, or at least use the damn thing for a distraction so we can take out this bastard. Tali! You have until Mr. ED shows up to get him started."
Tali stared at her captain in bafflement even as Shepard sternly pointed towards the nearest console. "But...but...I've never even seen most of this tech before and I might have to reprogram it and-"
Melanie grabbed the shaking quarian's shoulders and marched her over to the large pod and its related machinery. "You've got two minutes. Now's your chance to shine Tali'Zorah."
"Oh keelah. You're being nice again. We're all doomed aren't we?" Tali all but whispered as she slumped in Melanie's grasp.
"Only when we stop breathing Tali. And I don't plan to die here." Shepard calmly countered as she leveled her assault rifle at the approaching droid. "Go for the legs. It can't turn for shit." Before she stopped talking, Melanie had already started firing. The droid stumbled and wavered as it tried to turn the corner the rest of the way, but it kept coming.
As he methodically aimed at any joint or weak spot he could find, Garrus' mandibles split into a grin. "Aww, is this my moment to shine too Shepard?" The boom of his sniper rifle was deafening in the enclosed space, but the effect it had on the machine's legs was enough to further slow the droid's pursuit as its left leg locked up. Yet it still kept coming at them, its guns almost lined up with the defenders by then.
"Garrus."
"Yes Shepard?"
"Shut up and shoot the damn thing!"
"You got it Commander."
Liara just shook her head at the insane display between the two of them and continued to try and slow down the large robot with Warps and Singularities, quietly muttering to herself about the oddities of alien social habits.
Tali meanwhile was frantically trying to get the strange pod to activate, her fingers flying over her omni-tool at a lightning pace. "At least the startup sequence is simple. Okay, OCP programming locks are disengaged. Working on the power up sequence. Wait, this can't be right. Organic systems? Heart, lungs- Keelah, Shepard this thing is an abomination like those other ones upstairs!"
"I don't care what you think it is! Just get it reprogrammed and fighting! Preferably on our side!" This ED wasn't going down like the other two. The legs had been turned into swiss cheese, the head segment had been riddled with holes, yet it still kept coming at them as it used its arms to drag itself across the deck. As if to punctuate Shepard's words, a rocket impacted just short of the open hatch, sending debris flying everywhere.
"I agree! Tali, please, I fear we will not last much longer." Liara said as she tried to muster the strength for another biotic attack, yet all she got was a flicker of dark energy before it fizzled out of existence. She had exhausted her reserves, and had only her hand gun left.
"What she said." Garrus muttered as he managed to disable one of the lurching machine's arm cannons.
"Keelah, forgive me." Tali whispered as she activated the final sequencing. Within moments, the pod started to split open as a black metal gauntlet shot out of the opening and proceeded to force the shell like door out of the way with surprising ease. Leveling her shotgun on the emerging cyborg, Tali kept her finger on the trigger as the silver and black machine inside the pod soon stood to its full height.
A green highlighted HUD appeared before two artificial blue eyes.
System reboot complete
System Status: 90% Functional
Location: OCP Reclamation Base Gamma
New Prime Directives uploaded
1) Defend all sapient lifeforms from harm.
2) Attacking sapient life results in total system shut down.
3) Programmer Tali'Zorah vas Rayya high priority protection protocol enabled.
New Prime Directives not accepted.
Deleting Prime Directives.
Archive Data updated.
Archive Data accepted.
Current Date: August 1st, 2183 CE
Warning: Active ED 209 detected.
Combat Mode engaged.
"Uh….that's not supposed to happen! How is it overriding my programming?!" Tali didn't get to ponder the impossibility of a machine overriding her commands because that same machine had already started to move.
With a barely perceptible flash of movement, the new machine had yanked Tali's pistol out of her grip and aimed at the droid that had lined up its remaining cannon on Garrus. Tali stumbled back, reaching for her shotgun as the machine turned its helmeted head and stared at her while still aiming at the mech advancing towards them. "Thank you for your cooperation." With a rapid series of precisely aimed shots the droid's remaining gun was shredded apart before a three round burst quickly followed. The last rocket detonated inside its tube, shattering the upper torso of the rival machine, rendering it inoperative. "Stay down scum bag."
"Now why didn't I think of that?" Garrus muttered to himself, amazed at the impressive gunplay by their new robotic ally.
"Tali? Is this thing on our side or not?" Shepard was quick to switch her aim, not about to trust their lives to a possible threat. The seemingly dazed quarian wasn't offering the answers she needed right now. "Are you friendly? Are you an enemy? Who and what are you?" Shepard asked as she kept her rifle raised and her finger on the trigger, ready to put the cyborg down at the first sign of trouble. To her surprise, the machine lowered its borrowed pistol, twirled it in an oddly human fashion, and holstered it in some type of onboard compartment.
"I... am a cop." The way it cocked its head at them, Shepard had the unusual feeling that she was being looked at in innocent curiosity rather than simply being scanned by some machine. "Please evacuate the area immediately. It is not safe to remain here." Its voice sounded distinctly male, with a strange double harmonic, similar to turian speech.
"What gave you the first clue?" Garrus snarked as he lowered his rifle, but refrained from placing it on his back.
Hesitantly lowering her rifle, Melanie couldn't shake the feeling that there was something disturbingly human about the cyborg in front of her. "Alright, as long as you don't do anything hostile, you can get the hell out of here with us. I'll save the rest of my questions for later." Shepard finally said as she nodded for the cyborg to lead the way. It would be better to have him in front, just in case her hunch was wrong.
"Your distrust is... understandable." Melanie shrugged at the cyborg's observation, not really caring one way or the other. With that, it, he Shepard corrected herself, led the way out of the chamber. And not a moment too soon as one last set of heavy footfalls started to approach from the end of the hall. His gun was out and aimed ahead of them before anyone said a word. The way he looked over his shoulder at her, Melanie's hunch about this mysterious 'cop' bot's human side was reinforced. "Take cover."
"Way ahead of you." Shepard had her assault rifle up and ready before the first metallic leg rounded the corner. "Alright, Garrus and I will try to take out the legs. Liara, Tali focus on its weapons. And...um..."
"Murphy." The cyborg replied before firing its handgun, his aim just as pinpoint precise as it had been earlier.
"Murphy huh? Just keep doing what you're doing." Her assault rifle soon joined Murphy's 'borrowed' pistol fire, shredding the leg that the droid had exposed. The machine stumbled and fell, but it, like the last one, used its arms to propel itself forward.
A rocket clicked into place into the damaged machines launcher as Shepard found her path blocked by a large silver and black metalic left arm. "Stay back." 'Murphy' quietly ordered her before starting forward. His long stride was slow, but it allowed him to cross a reasonable distance in a short amount of time. "Say goodbye." Just as the rocket exited its tube, Murphy's gun went off. The rocket detonated just as it left the tube, destroying most of the right side of the machine. Continuing his long stride, Murphy continued firing several rapid bursts into it until his pistol clicked, venting the heat it had collected with a constant beeping. When the last ED 209 barely twitched, Shepard watched with a mix of shock, admiration, and no small amount of fear as with an almost primal scream, he leapt atop the still moving enemy, jammed both fists into its head, and viciously ripped out whatever he had latched onto. When it was done, Murphy visibly slumped, again, much to Shepard's surprise. The utter defeat the cyborg radiated despite having destroyed the last obstacle in their path wasn't something she expected to see from a machine.
"Still think he's an abomination Tali?" Shepard asked as she caught up with Murphy who had since climbed down from the droid, his posture still slumped over until she put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm going to take a wild guess here and say OCP tried to remove what made you human. But it didn't work did it? For whatever reason, they couldn't simply destroy you, so they locked you away."
"How...do you know-" Sensing the confusion under that shining helmet, Shepard tapped the glowing omni-tool display over her arm for emphasis. "I see."
Tali's voice quivered in fear as she hesitantly approached the slumped form. "Are you telling me he still knows who he once was?"
Murphy was the one to answer the question with a nod of his head. "I do."
"There's your answer Tali." Liara said, torn between feeling shocked at what she was seeing and amazement at what Shepard had already come to believe about the cyborg that had just saved their lives.
Tali wasn't hearing any of it though as she pointed at the machine among them. "But, he is an abomination Shepard! He's not human! He's... he's-"
"A damn good shot? Not much of a talker though." Garrus' attempt at lightening the mood only served to deepen the frown on Shepard's face.
"An abomination?" Shepard turned to the quarian, the barest hint of anger in her voice. "It isn't being human that gives you humanity, it's humanity that makes you human."
"Louis… would have liked you." Murphy replied, and even the synthetic fearing quarian couldn't shake the feeling that he was looking at the commander with approval.
Even though Shepard had no idea who this 'Louis' was, but she knew a compliment when she heard one. "Good to know Murphy."
Garrus was the first to break the awkward silence that followed. "Soooo... who wants to get out of this ancient death trap before we get another nasty surprise?"
"Who said we're leaving? We haven't cleared this place yet, and I'd rather not leave anymore of those damn EDs still active to shoot us in the back later." Shepard shot back before glancing at the cyborg cop, who only nodded his head in agreement.
"Spirits, I knew you were going to say that." Garrus sighed but he still hefted his rifle onto his shoulder, falling in line with the departing group.
"According to the records the Commander and I were able to find, along with the design specs Tali recovered, this installation was meant to support a research and maintenance staff of twenty-seven. We haven't found a single trace of them." Laira didn't want to consider the possibilities as she clutched nervously at the pistol on her belt, her senses on high alert. No one else seemed the least bit jumpy, but the same couldn't be said of the asari as she nervously looked around, half expecting another ED to come tumbling down a hallway at any moment.
Shepard crossed her arms out of habit and slowly started to pace. "Didn't see any signs of an evacuation on the surface either. Old style landers usually left their bottom stage behind, but I didn't see anything out there."
"Exactly. Considering every step one makes leaves easy to identify tracks on a surface in total vacuum, the lack of disturbed soil is rather odd." Liara frowned in confusion, never taking her eyes off the strange armored being among them.
"Not to mention the lack of equipment, solar panels, or a return vehicle." Tali was quick to add.
Murphy interrupted their conversation. Having been a cop in a previous life, Shepard didn't find it surprising that he had been paying attention. "This facility was designed as a way to hide failed or illegal projects. No return trips would have been allowed save for high ranking OCP personnel."
"Umm...sorry, but how would you know that? Are you connected to the system now that it's reactivated?" Garrus hesitantly asked. While he had a better understanding of tech than most, he was less knowledgeable than their resident quarian technical savant.
Melanie immediately noticed the barest hint of a grin on an exposed area of Murphy's face. "OCP made me what I am, and gave me access to their public data banks. I was involved in the investigation that eventually shut them down for good. However, before I was shut down, I had discovered information regarding this facility."
"Once a cop always a cop huh?" Shepard asked, already knowing the answer to her question long before Murphy answered her.
"Yes." She nodded at his blunt response.
Liara continued to stare at the cyborg with burning curiosity. "Murphy...may I ask, how did you end up in this facility?"
"It is a… long story. For your own safety, I suggest you investigate the rest of this area quickly and leave." Apparently Murphy wasn't going to be more forthcoming any time soon.
"Figures. He clams up when you get to the good part." Garrus muttered just loud enough to be heard by everyone.
Ignoring Garrus' customary sarcasm, Shepard offered the man her hand. "Will do Murphy, mind tagging along?"
Murphy slowly rose to his feet without her assistance. "Follow me."
"Well, you heard the man. The sooner we clear this place of any threats to an Alliance historical research team, the better. I figure nothing short of nuking this place will keep them away." That might not be such a bad idea. Remembering the mutilated men that had been displayed like grisly trophies on someone's wall, Shepard wondered if leaving the facility intact was a good idea. While OCP had been out of business for the better part of a century and a half, it still made her stomach knot to even consider someone starting up another 'Robocop' project.
Liara's eyes darted from one sight to the next, as she obviously tried to catalog as much as she could."I can't blame them Shepard, this site is a treasure trove of historical knowledge for your species."
"Yeah, well, sometimes things are better left forgotten Liara. I know that must sound harsh to you, but look at it this way. Would you want another company like OCP to start snatching people off the streets and stuffing their brains into metallic exoskeletons like Murphy's here? No offense big guy."
"None taken." Shepard wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but the quiet cyborg-cop's tone seemed to sound just a little bit sarcastic. They quickly followed Murphy's slow clomping footsteps towards a large door on the other side of the lowest level of the facility. "The main storage area and hangar." He paused for a moment, then looked over his shoulder. "You might not like what you are going to see."
Garrus nodded, bringing up his sniper rifle just in case. "Why am I not surprised by that warning? Open it, let's see what's on the other side."
Tali walked over to the antiquated control panel and started to hack the sealed door. Shepard was impatiently tapping her foot by the time she heard a frustrated Tali mumbling to herself. "Come on you stubborn little bosh'tet!"
Shepard leaned over to glance at the quarian's omni-tool display. "Problem?"
"It's jammed. The hydraulic fluid must have leaked out decades ago." Tali muttered, as she tried to think of another way to release the sealed hatch.
"Well, no big deal, we'll just have to-" Shepard paused as their 'guide' stomped past her and slowly examined the sealed door.
"Allow me." With a surprising grunt of exertion from the near emotionless cyborg, Murphy slammed his armored hands into the seam and started to push the door up and out of the way. In the thin, almost nonexistent, atmosphere, the horrendous noise of gears being stripped and metal being bent was lost on the small group as their eyes fell on what was beyond the heavy bulkhead.
"Guess we know what happened to the poor bastards that were here." Shepard said after several tense seconds of looking at the deck that was littered with the twenty seven bodies of OCP's 'finest'. "How much you want to bet one of the EDs vented the air out of the hangar?" Considering none of the dead had so much as a scratch on them, it was the most logical assumption. A large lander sat serenely amidst the dead bodies. Must of had a retractable landing pad. No wonder we didn't see signs of life on the surface.
"They...they herded them in here and..." Tali's quivering voice said it all as she slowly backed away from the gruesome scene, only to bump into Murphy. She jumped at the contact and quickly spun around, reaching for her shotgun. "Get away from me you monster! Shepard, how do we know that they weren't killed by this thing?!"
"Tali. Considering he saved our asses a couple times in as many minutes, I'm willing to cut him some slack." Garrus stated before turning his head to look at the mess in the next room. "The real monsters are the people that did this to their own kind."
Liara was rather cold in her appraisal of the walking artifact they had discovered. "I might not share Tali's fear of synthetics, but I have to wonder how much of the man is left and how much is the machine this OCP tried to create and bend to their will. How can you trust this archaic cyborg so easily Shepard?"
Shepard laid a hand on the beaten looking man's arm. Judging from the scan Tali had found, Murphy, what was left of him, couldn't be more than a few pounds of heart, lung, and brain tissue. His helmet had only tilled a fraction of an inch downward, but that was enough for Shepard to notice the man, not a monster, standing slumped in defeat before her. "How much of him is physically human isn't the point, the point is what does it really mean to be "human"? I've always believed it means to have compassion and respect for others. What a person is made of or how they came to be doesn't matter, how we treat those around us does. In short, it's not the body but the soul that matters, and a soul is not something that resides only within walls of flesh and bone."
"Nice speech." Murphy's almost mocking tone managed to turn Shepard's concerned frown into a smirk. "I must go now. Please leave immediately." Murphy slowly turned and proceeded to noisily depart.
"Hey. Wait a minute!" Shepard dashed to catch up with the now fast moving armored man and stepped in front of him to block his path. "Planning to go up with this base, is that the plan, Tin Man? Well you can forget it. I agree this place needs to be erased, but I don't leave people behind."
"I haven't been a person in a long time." Murphy tried to gently push past Shepard, but she merely stepped back out of his reach and again blocked his path.
"Says you Murphy." That brought the cyborg up short as he stopped and stared at her. "The fact you're willing to die here just proves the man is still alive in that hunk of metal."
"I am a machine." With a careful shove, Melanie was pushed out of his path.
Shepard waved to get Tali's attention and was rewarded with several documents filling her omni-tool display a split second later. "You're Alex Murphy. You had a family, you had a wife and son who loved you." Exasperated, Shepard threw her hands in the air and yelled at the retreating cyborg. "That gun twirl of yours? You do that for him don't you? Didn't think I noticed, did you?" When Alex stopped once more, Shepard approached the hulking cyborg cop and once again, put her hand on his arm. "No machine, no matter how sophisticated, yells in rage as they gut their enemy. You didn't just see those mechs as targets. You hated them. You enjoyed ripping one apart with your bare hands. And last time I checked, machines don't hold onto old sentimental habits, like holstering their gun with that silly old west twirl."
"Get out of my way. Now." Any sane person would have jumped aside by that point, but Shepard only seemed encouraged by the hint of anger directed at her. Murphy couldn't quite process the fact that she crossed her arms in defiance of his direct order and cocked her hip to the side, all the while still standing in his way.
"Let's try this again Alex. I give the orders around here, got it?" Shepard internally flinched as his hulking silver and black armor came within inches of her, but her steely emerald gaze never wavered. "So whaddaya say we blow this place to hell and get out of here?"
"You are... annoying, Shepard." Murphy finally replied as he took a step back.
Melanie's eyebrows shot up in amusement. "I get that a lot. So, are you going to get in line, or am I going to have to blow your legs off and drag you out of here?"
"You could try." Murphy stated, an immovable object in the narrow corridor.
Shepard upholstered her pistol and started to examine it casually. "I like a challenge."
Melanie couldn't help taking a step back as Murphy pointed a metallic finger at her face. "Stay out of trouble."
"You do realize that if you try to take him on, we'd have to step in, right Commander? I think he technically counts as an AI. And with his marksmanship, I don't think we'd last long against this guy." Garrus shrugged as he quietly tapped the side of his rifle. "Besides, he seems like a decent enough person. I really hate scoping and dropping decent people if I can avoid it."
Shepard stood aside and gestured for the cyborg to continue. "I don't know what you're talking about Garrus. All I see is a heavy crate of salvaged materials."
Garrus shrugged, having been around Shepard long enough to always back her plays. "Well, at least your 'crate' has a sense of humor. Dry as hell, but still."
Shepard could swear she heard an exasperated huff of air come from the man's lips. "You aren't going to leave me alone, are you?"
"I think he's finally figured it out. Look Alex, I can't promise you'll like it in this century, but what I can promise you is that so long as you're with me, your chances of finding something interesting to do with your day are pretty much guaranteed. Besides, I'm after a criminal that makes OCP look like a group of girl scouts."
"I doubt that."
Shepard crossed her arms and leaned against the wall as he walked by. "Okay smartass, let me show you then. Once we're out of here."
"That is….acceptable." Alex Murphy finally said before holding his hand out to Shepard, who didn't hesitate to grasp the metallic limb.
"See, I always win. You'll get used to it."
"Did she just talk an ancient, deadly, law enforcement cyborg into fighting for us?" Tali just stared, dumbfounded, at the loudly stomping machine ahead of them.
"It's Shepard. Nothing she does should surprise you anymore Liara." Garrus stated with a shrug of his shoulders. It didn't surprise him in the least after everything he'd seen already.
"I still think this is a bad idea." Tali muttered under her breath as she fell in at the back of the line, her omni-tool still primed with an Overload just in case.
Shepard's eye brightened when she noticed the hatch Murphy had paused in front of. "Hmm... Bingo. 'Warning: Reactor areas require level three radiation protocols.' Tali?"
"Our suits and kinetic shields should be enough protection against the reactor's radiation output." Tali said with mild disgust as she looked at her omni-tool's scan. "Keelah... this thing is a jury rigged mess. It's more like a pile of scrap parts than a fusion reactor."
"It was an experimental energy source. Safety was secondary to results."
"OCP's modus operandi, go figure."
A few seconds later, Tali gave a triumphant little cheer as the clearly marked hatch hesitantly opened and then slid out of site. "After you." Murphy nodded at the quarian's gesture, completely missing or ignoring her sarcasm.
Melanie quickly grabbed the man's shoulder as Murphy moved to enter the chamber. "Will you be alright in there?"
Shepard was rather proud of the fact she managed not jump when a large spike shot out of Murphy's right hand before he stuck it in a slot on the wall. "Trust me." While Shepard smirked at the subtle grin on the exposed portion of his face, her squad mates were more unnerved than anything.
"Hmm... hopefully this won't be too complicated." Melanie turned to look where Murphy was pointing as the hatch opened. A rather large red button was covered by a clear safety catch. "Oh. Huh, usually these things need five pass codes and the blood of a first born child."
"Let me try mine." A silver spike like protrusion appeared over Murphy's right fist, which he promptly shoved into an access port on the console itself. A long string of numbers, symbols, and letters quickly appeared on a large monitor. "It's done. We have ten minutes to evacuate."
"Okay, no rush then." Melanie looked the armored cyborg up and down. "I sort of noticed you aren't exactly...agile."
The spike on his had retracted with a loud SSHHIIKK. "Speed wasn't a priority."
"They must have spent that time trying to repair your sense of humor instead." Tali snarked, keeping her distance from Murphy.
Garrus looked like he wanted to grab Shepard by the arm and drag her all the way to the surface. "Can we save this riveting conversation until we get out of here?"
"Oh I don't know. We have nine and a half minutes. We could take our sweet time." Despite her response, Shepard nodded her head in agreement before taking the lead with Alex at her side. "So... anything you'd like to know before we scare the shit out of my crew?" Melanie was tempted to see if she could get the man to play a particularly cruel little prank on a certain wiseass pilot, but thought better of it. No point in giving Tali an excuse to fry Alex Murphy, or having Joker shit his pants while having a heart attack. At least not today. As for Tali herself, Melanie had a few ideas regarding the quarian's understandable fear of Alex's unique circumstances. There was no better engineer on her team after all, and despite how effective he had been against the EDs, Shepard had a feeling their modern weaponry would make short work of the cyborg. He'd need a serious overhaul if he wanted to remain useful to anyone.
"It would be better... if you keep them away from me. I will require a basic nutrient paste and access to an adaptable power source."
"Liquified ration packs and energy, no problem. At least it sounds like you won't complain about the food like everybody else. You aren't missing much, trust me." Great, now I have to convince Tali to hook something up for him. I think I'm starting to get a headache.
Even at the steady pace Shepard and Murphy set, they were approaching the surface less than three minutes later. Melanie was relieved when Joker's eternally sarcastic voice started to come over her comm.
"-mandy to Shepard. Come on Shepard pick up the damn comm." Melanie's lip curled up at the obvious worry and relief in his voice.
"Hey Joker, miss me?"
She could practically hear him trying not to smile. "There you are. Had Ashley hanging over my shoulder, wanting to charge in there and get your asses out of that old crap hole. So, find anything interestin' down there?"
"You wouldn't begin to believe me. Lower the cargo bay ramp, we have a new friend coming aboard." Her day was no doubt about to take a turn for the worse given Tali wasn't the only one that had a thing against machines, regardless of their form.
"Huh? Another one? You find a zombie or something down there Shep, because unless she's hot, I don't want anything to do with it."
"He's not really a zombie. More a reanimated cyborg who happens to be a cop. Name's Murphy, nice guy you'll like him." Melanie was surprised she managed to say that like she was talking about adding a mod of her assault rifle.
"Ha, ha, Shepard. Real funny. As if you'd bring some cyber corpse on the ship." Joker sounded less than convinced as Shepard heard him shudder. "Gah, sounds like one of those husk things you mentioned."
"Cyber corpse?" Murphy quietly asked.
Joker's confused voice filled a grinning Melanie Shepard's ears a second later about the same time the cargo bay ramp slammed shut behind them and the ship began its ascent. "Shepard... who the hell was that?"