"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" -Juvenal
Javik was stretched out in a tent in the Australian outback, trying to get to sleep, when the Shepard-machine found him.
Since the pod, he had never slept well. Too many dreams, none of them good. Since the "end" of the Reaper War, sleep had only grown more elusive. Closing all of his eyes was an invitation to think about his vengeance. His failure.
Shepard was gone, and the Reapers were not. Instead, they had turned their activities to rebuilding, restoring, or so people said. Primitive fools.
He could not understand how Shepard had failed, how his work had reached this strange end. In one of their first conversations, Shepard had told him that he was willing to make any sacrifice to stop the Reapers. Javik had heard such bold words from many cowards and been inclined to discount them, until he touched Shepard and sensed his sincerity, his willingness to pay any cost necessary. What had gone wrong, up there on the Citadel?
Javik ran his hand across the deep scars on his side, cursing the wound that had forced him to evacuate on the verge of reaching the Citadel. If he had been at Shepard's side… perhaps the outcome would have been different. But he had been too weak, unable to keep Shepard's pace. After everything, too weak to finish the fight.
He had thought his erstwhile companions would understand the need to keep fighting, but none of them had the heart. Liara had rhapsodized about the coming golden age and the chance to learn the ancient secrets of the Reapers and their past victims. He rather hoped they had disappointed her as badly as he had. The rest of the crew was caught up in "honoring Shepard's sacrifice." Even Vakarian, who Javik had thought would understand, spoke of the need to be "practical," to "rebuild." What use was it to rebuild when every new construction was doubtless laced with Reaper traps?
He had returned to Earth hoping to enlist the krogan there to battle the Reapers. Surely the warlike primitives could see the threat the machines still posed? Surely they would not be willing to give up the fight? But even the krogan were focused on returning to Tuchanka and raising families. It was appalling. Javik had no doubt that Shepard could have rallied people to a renewed war effort. He was no Shepard, and he was sick of arguing with primitives.
And where there were primitives, there were Reapers, "helping" them rebuild, a constant reminder of his failure. In the end, Javik had sought a wilderness where he could escape both machines and primitives. Better to be alone, to plan, even if every plan he considered ended in his futile death. He could not see the Reapers here, but when he tried to sleep, he could still feel their malignant presence, an ache like a tumor growing in his head.
All four eyes opened wide as he heard a muffled crunching sound from outside the tent. Javik closed a hand around his particle rifle as a shadow loomed near the tent. He swiftly aimed the rifle at the shadowy figure and fired, a green beam lancing through the fabric of the tent and into the dark form. Shields glimmered blue around it. Javik held down the trigger and waited for the shields to fall, but they stubbornly held as a metallic hand reached out and seized the weapon from his grasp, tossing it effortlessly into the night.
"I'm not here to fight you, Javik." The voice was clearly a machine's, with a synthesized sound to it, but it was also unmistakably, impossibly, Shepard's voice.
Javik weighed his options. He had a pistol at his side, but if those shields could hold against the rifle, the pistol was unlikely to make a mark on them. If this thing wanted to talk, best to play for time. "I'm supposed to believe that you're Shepard?"
"Don't be ridiculous." The voice had taken on an irritated edge. After his many missions at Shepard's side, Javik found it disconcertingly familiar. "This machine is just a tool which I'm using to communicate with you. My consciousness is well out of weapons range."
Javik wriggled out of the wreckage of the tent and sat up. "Marcus Shepard is dead. Traces of his DNA were found in the wreckage of the Citadel." Earth's moon was bright enough to dimly light the surrounding terrain. He scanned the area for cover, noting some rocks and light brush. Not a terrific option.
"The man I was is dead, Javik, but I live on," the mechanical voice responded. "I took advantage of the opportunity to replace the Reapers' controlling mind with my own consciousness. I'm now in control of the Reapers."
"Now I know you're lying, Reaper machine. Shepard agreed with me – the Reapers had to be destroyed." He gauged how quickly he could roll into partial cover. His biotics wouldn't get through the machine's shields, but they might be able to slow it down enough for him to put some space between them. But to get those shields down, he'd need his rifle. Where had it ended up?
The Shepard-voice sounded almost amused. "You can stop trying to come up with an effective tactical plan. I designed this machine with your capabilities foremost in mind, and you lack the means to destroy it. Even if you were lucky enough to do so, I have several more in reserve. It is fortunate for you that I have no intention of using them to do you harm."
Javik gave up on locating the plasma rifle – the machine had tossed it away with such careless efficiency that it could have landed anywhere. He targeted it with a frustrated sneer. "So what is your plan, machine? Indoctrination? Deception? Or are you just here to taunt me?"
"Javik, this is really me. Before that final push, do you remember what you told me? You expected that we would defeat the Reapers, and then you planned to go to the Cronian Nebula and put your men's ghosts to rest. And then you planned to join them."
"I remember…" Javik stared at the machine. Clearly it had access to Shepard's memories. Was it using them to deceive Javik, or had the machine genuinely deluded itself into believing that it was Marcus Shepard. "Tell me, then. Why did you change your mind? Why did you deny me my vengeance?"
"It wasn't an easy sacrifice to make. Giving up my life… that was almost easier. I knew you'd feel betrayed, that you wouldn't understand why I had done it. But it was worth it to take control of the Reapers."
"Now you sound like your Illusive Man. I thought you agreed with me that his plan to make use of the Reapers was foolhardy, wrong-headed."
"His plan would never have succeeded. I think he knew it, at the end, right before I shot him. But I learned something on the Citadel that I hadn't known. The Reapers are only tools of their controlling intelligence. That intelligence was the true enemy, and I destroyed it. There was no reason to destroy its tools when we can turn them to our own ends instead."
"Our own ends? Shepard, my only end was defeating the Reapers," Javik said. He issued a sharp mental correction to himself. This machine is not Shepard. No matter how familiar its arrogance and ends-justify-the-means philosophy might seem.
"And what then, Javik? A galaxy in chaos, all but defenseless? Piracy and disorder everywhere? At the mercy of other synthetics, coming to finish what the Reapers began? Or the Leviathan, seeking to enslave all other organics? I can end these threats, rebuild what is broken, and keep humanity and the other races safe. It was the right decision. It was worth the cost."
Javik couldn't hold back his angry response. "You had no right to make that decision!"
"I had every right to make that decision. Everyone put the responsibility for ending the war on my shoulders, and I was the one in the position to do it. What should I have done – radioed Hackett and asked for suggestions? Maybe tried to reach the Council? The Reapers would have killed us all during the debate." Now the voice sounded smug. Javik could picture Shepard's little half-smirk accompanying the words.
"Even supposing that you were Shepard, even if you are still Shepard – how can you know that living as a machine won't change you? Eventually make you more sympathetic to synthetics, willing to betray organics?"
"I can't know that," the machine said, the smug tone gone. "That's why I'm here, Javik. I need you to come with me."
The voice was so much like Shepard's that Javik found himself instinctively rising to obey. He stopped himself and glared at the machine. "I'm not following you anywhere."
"Javik, I really do appreciate your paranoia, but what can I possibly do to you elsewhere that I couldn't do to you here? If I'm forced to immobilize and carry you, I will, but I'd rather we just walk. It's not far from here."
From what Javik had seen of the machine's strength and speed, its threat wasn't an empty one. And he had to admit that he was curious what it meant to show him. He glared at the machine again and huffed out, "Fine."
Prothean and machine walked across the plateau in science. Javik took the opportunity to study the machinery that claimed to speak for Shepard. It was humanoid in shape and plain and efficient in design, bearing more resemblance to a mech or a geth platform than any Reaper technology he had seen. It was also heavily armored, covered in solid-looking metal plating. Javik couldn't see the shield generators, so he assumed they were hidden somewhere underneath the plating. He periodically caught the telltale flicker of the shields. The machine might be trying to earn his trust, but it kept its defenses live at all times. Which was, he had to admit, exactly what Shepard would have done.
When they came to a small escarpment, the machine beckoned him to follow the cliff as it curved away. The machine stepped into a sheltered alcove in the rock, then took another step, apparently into the cliff wall, and disappeared from view. Javik extended a hand to the stone and met no resistance. Some sort of projection technology, apparently, creating the quite convincing facsimile of a solid wall of stone. He stepped through the image into a roughly excavated cave lit by a single arc light. He looked into the shadows and his hand immediately went to his pistol.
Twenty or more machines, apparently identical to the one who had led him here, stood in the shadows around him. He barked a quick laugh. "So this was all a trap, after all."
"Again, if I meant you harm, I could have ended your life out on the plateau." Shepard's voice sounded impatient. "These are simply spares. A contingency in case you proved unexpectedly well-armed, or astoundingly lucky, and could take down a single mech." The mech was bending down over a large metal sphere with no obvious seams or controls. At some signal, the sphere opened at the top and its sides recessed, revealing two small black boxes.
"What are those?" Javik asked.
"My insurance policy, and my gift to you, if you'll take it." The machine gestured at the box on the right, which was slightly larger. "This is the more important of the two."
Javik bent down to grip the larger box, then straightened up and held it near the light. It was featureless except for a pair of buttons, respectively labeled "Arm" and "Detonate" in Prothean.
"A detonator?" Javik asked. And, clearly, one that had been built solely for him. "What is it supposed to detonate? Surely you don't expect me to believe that you're handing me the weapon that will destroy you."
"Much more than just me," Shepard's voice answered him. "I've had each of the Reapers under my control construct a self-destruct mechanism linked to the device in your hand. If you arm the detonator for 15 seconds and then press the detonate button, you will destroy every Reaper in the galaxy. There will be substantial collateral damage; the explosions will be… impressive. But you will have your vengeance."
The detonator suddenly seemed much heavier. Shepard was handing him the power to destroy the Reapers with the push of a button, to do what Shepard had failed to do? No, that couldn't be true. Neither the real Shepard nor a mechanical imitator would leave themselves so vulnerable. "This has to be a trick." He hated his voice for wavering, made it firm. "How do I know that this does what you say? And if it does, what's to prevent me from destroying you and the Reapers with it right now?"
"If you tried to use it right now, I would take it away from you before fifteen seconds could elapse," Shepard said matter-of-factly. "Later… we'll come to that. But for your first question, there are two devices here for a reason."
Javik transferred the first device to his off hand and picked up the second. It was very similar in appearance to the first, except that the first button was labeled "Target."
"This device will activate the self-destruct mechanism in any single Reaper. As long as you have an unobstructed view of the target, it should function at any distance. Again, the explosion will be quite catastrophic. I would recommend a target away from population centers, though the choice is yours."
"You're leaving the selection of the target to me?"
"Naturally." Shepard sounded smug again. "If I selected a target, all that would prove to you is that I had placed a self-destructive mechanism in that one particular Reaper."
"What would stop you from deactivating the self-destruct mechanism after I tested the second device?" Javik asked.
"It's not single-use," Shepard answered. "It will stop working after you blow up ten or so Reapers with it – I can't have you roaming about the galaxy detonating Reapers at will – but you can use it occasionally to reassure yourself that the self-destruct is still functioning."
"Why would you give this to me? You know how much I hate your machines." I just called them his machines. I'm starting to believe this, ancestors help me. "You're taking an enormous risk of destruction. Why not pass it on to someone like your human pilot, who wouldn't be as eager to destroy you and your tools?"
"That's why I have to give it to you. You're the only one that I can trust to use it if it's necessary. If any of the others knew what I've become, sentiment would keep them from destroying me if that becomes necessary. It won't stop you. You're like me, in that. As for Steve…" The machine paused, and when it spoke again, it was more slowly and with apparent difficulty. "I would much prefer that he think me dead than know what I've become. The death of the man I was has to have been terrible for him. I never wanted to put him through that again, but how much worse if he knew the truth…"
Javik couldn't resist a barb. "Actually, when I last saw him, he seemed very close to that human Major, I believe Coats was the name? He said something about how you would want him to move forward, not stop again."
"Ah." The machine said nothing more for a moment. "It is probably best this way."
The pause gave Javik time to think of another line of questioning. "Suppose for a moment that I don't use this thing now. How will I know when it becomes necessary to destroy you?" Javik asked. "Daily radio check-ins, when I ask you questions from Shepard's past? Moral quandaries? Whether you remember how to love?" He finished with a sneer.
"No," Shepard said. "I'm afraid that you and I will never speak again. If I were to become a thing that you need to destroy, my natural move would be to disable the self-destruct mechanisms, or to seek out and destroy the detonator. So I can't know the details of how the self-destruct mechanisms work, or of my relationship with you or other members of the Normandy crew. I've already buried the information about the mechanisms, except that tampering with them will likely set them off. When we're done talking, I'll likewise bury my memories of you, Cortez, and the rest of the Normandy's crew."
"You can just decide to forget us?" Javik asked. "Even I don't have that ability to set memories aside. But I suppose as a machine, you can just delete them."
"No. My consciousness has organic components. I can suppress the memories, hide them in places I won't want to look, but I cannot destroy them. Part of me will remember you, but not the conscious part. So you won't be able to communicate with me. You'll need to judge based on my actions. For starters, that means you'll need to be somewhere more central than this desert, so you can track Reaper activities. You'll also need to recruit people to work with you, and so that you have someone to pass the device onto when you die."
"So the Cronian Nebula wouldn't be an option. Is that what this is really about, Shepard? Are you providing me with a retirement plan?"
"No. This is about protecting the galaxy from the Reapers, in the unlikely event that I've made a mistake. If it gives you a purpose and a reason to live, call that a side benefit."
The bastard sounded so self-satisfied, thinking he'd found a way to force Javik back to civilization, to force him to trust. Shepard had always taken such glee in his machinations. Javik did not appreciate being their subject, but at the same time it filled him with a strange nostalgia. He had thought Shepard gone, with no chance to say farewell. But he could no longer deny it – this thing in control of the Reapers was Shepard. Changed, yes – but possibly not changed too much.
"Shepard-" Suddenly he had too much to say, and he wavered between telling Shepard to go to hell or saying something sentimental that he would doubtless regret in the future.
"Goodbye, Javik. These mechs will self-destruct in sixty seconds; the cliff face should largely contain the blast, but I advise you to put as much distance as possible between you and the explosion."
That settled it. "Go to hell, Shepard," he grunted, then grabbed what he can from the tent and runs for cover. By the time the explosion collapsed the cliff face, he was sheltered behind a rock, eying the detonator. If Shepard had told the truth, he could destroy every Reaper in fifteen seconds. His thumb itched to hold down the "Arm" button.
Who did he think he was fooling? He wasn't going to use it. Not now, at any rate. If Shepard had trusted him with one last responsibility, he was going to take it seriously.
Still, he fully expected to find annihilating a few Reapers with the test device extremely gratifying.