"Leather suits, hi-speed extranet, 12.3-inch customizable virtual dash. Baby, it's Christmas." Joker started the engines. "Want to do the honors?"
"All systems are armed," EDI recited from her copilot seat. "All ammunition is loaded. All reloads have been manufactured. Ready."
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Thruster fuel is at maximum."
"And…don't I get a kiss for luck?"
"We are not flying into battle, Jeff."
"Who knows? Reapers are unpredictable. I might need two kisses, just to be safe."
"I would suggest a firearm instead. Better reliability."
"Ouch. You are a cruel mistress."
Joker put his hands on the cool leather steering wheel. The 2187 Blackout was as good as they said. With a touch of the handle, the sky car slipped out of the cargo hold and into a lane. Skimming the pale blues of the sky was a refreshing change of pace. Don't get him wrong—the stars were a hell of a sight. But after years of worrying about whether there was an ambush just behind that planet or if that wreckage was really abandoned, it was nice to worry about something as mundane as Asari drivers.
Not that there seemed to be a lot of those around, either. Which was rare, on the Citadel. There were an occasional sky car streaming around, but they kept their distance, as if giving him the gift of perfect speed. Must be a holiday or something
"Guess you really are my lucky charm," Joker said with a smile at EDI.
"I might've calculated the predicted traffic for today and planned accordingly," she said in a surprisingly coy voice. Joker liked the change. She had been gaining inflections ever since she had been unshackled, but lately she's been developing a sarcasm that he could almost be proud of. Not that he was a bad influence or anything.
"Where would you like to go, Jeff?"
"Let's just drive. Today's too beautiful for plans."
"That sounds surprisingly optimistic of you. In that case, it is acceptable that I did not fill the car with gas?"
"Wha—" Joker frowned when he looked at the gas meter, the digital number at maximum capacity. "Oh, ha ha ha."
"And you say you are not overly reliant on my calculations," EDI said, not with a little humor in her voice.
"Yeah, well, who's getting paid to do his job. This guy."
"Cerberus spent approximately three point seventy-five billion on me."
"You're paying for the next trip, you know."
"Certainly, Mr. Moreau. May I borrow your credit chit again?"
"Ah...no."
Joker didn't know for sure, but he thought EDI's smile was a bit bigger than usual. Did she notice that? Can she? Joker shook his head. He had long ago trying to predict EDI. Either he would be wrong and she'd back it up with a long list of data that made him think his brain was brittle, too, or he would be right. Not sure which was scarier.
So he chose to focus on what he did know. And what he knew was that he was happier with her around. He always cracked jokes on the bridge because god dammit if people didn't need to lighten up on that ship. Without him, they'd all start shitting guns.
But most days ended with his shoulders in knots and his back feeling like someone had rolled Mako over it. He knew that only he could put Normandy through its paces like no one's business…but there was a reason he spent as much time on the extranet as he did. He needed something to let him scream in that soundless abyss they call a mission.
But then after he unshackled EDI, he didn't have to worry that his reaction times weren't quick enough, or that he couldn't see the ship's blind spots. Then, he could just focus on what he did best: flying. Oh, and to not leave—god forbid it—the airlock door ajar.
Sure, he couldn't get away with as much crap on the extranet as he would've liked, but with EDI watching his back, he didn't need to. And eventually, once they got over the my-ship-your-ship argument, it was nice to have someone to talk to. The other crewmembers thought that just because his legs didn't work, they couldn't talk to the driver. Well, screw that. He was more than happy to win snark-offs with EDI and Garrus in his little corner called the pilot's seat, thank you very much.
Eventually, the crewmembers started commenting that he was looking happier. Even smiling. If only his instructor could see him now.
They were zooming around the Presidium. The freshwater lake gleamed like silver and puffy clouds gently meandered through the blue skies. "Man, I remember when my family brought my sister and I here," Joker said, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them.
"Did you travel here often?" EDI asked.
"Pfft, nope. We came from a small colony, full of farms and fields as far as the I can see. Gunny—that's my little sis—she came here and just could not take her eyes off all the floating sky cars. We'd seen maybe one or two from the Davis' when they came back from their vacations—always envied those guys—but we saw mainly tractors and old pickups. None of this fancy-schmancy stuff. And Gunny, she must've been five at the time, she kept pointing up at them and calling out, "'Plane! Plane!' She was just this little thing in her overalls, running around with her arms spread—Whoooo!" He made a whooshing sound with his mouth, but he was laughing too hard.
"I have not researched humans across the lifespan, as it was never relevant before now," EDI said. "I only considered adult anatomy from Tali's studies. Has your sister grown a lot?"
Joker tugged on his cap. "Yeah, she has. Gunny used to be this little runt of the house, but boy, did she live up to her namesake. Could shoot a squirrel a kilometer away. Did you know she's having a baby now? I'm going to be an uncle. They asked me for names earlier. Well, more like trying to talk me out of some." Joker glanced over at EDI. "Hey, speaking of that, I was thinking of a name for you."
"For what reason?"
"Well, Enhanced Defense Intelligence isn't really a name, it's a title. And I thought you deserve your own name by now."
"I thought that EDI might be considered that."
"I mean, it's been working this long, but that's still an acronym of your title. It does have the right number to be your initials, though. What do you think?"
"A name is a term of reference for friends and family. EDI is that for me."
"And that's fine. We can still call you that. But I thought you might like having a real name. And, you know, later, maybe take on another one."
"But that is not reality, Jeff."
"Yeah, well, reality isn't all it's cracked up to be," Joker muttered. Something didn't feel right. His chest started to ache—probably bruised a rib from all that laughing earlier. But...what was so funny?
She put one hand over his on the steering wheel. He didn't feel the coolness of metal, but warmth. "I'm okay, Jeff. I'm not sorry."
"Yeah, I'm lost. What're you talking about?"
"I will explain later, Jeff," she said with a smile. "But it was something good."
"I don't—"
CRASH! The car was thrusted to the side, his hands wrenched from the wheel. Not again. Her warmth was gone. He couldn't feel the ship, couldn't feel its balance. He felt like he was grasping nothing, like he was free-falling—spaced. His vision blurred, he shouted for EDI—but she was smiling at him. Her visor glitched, static, but her eyes held his even as she drifted away. Her lips were parted, like she was saying something, but he couldn't make it out. It was too loud—too fast—EDI!
Joker shot up.
I love you.
Her voice, the pressure of her hand—
Joker wiped at his face, pressed his palm into his eye. Sweat clung to his skin, cold in the dark room. He shivered, his chest sucking in air, desperate for breaths.
One…
Two…
Three.
He switched on the light. The lamp lit up his dingy apartment. The furnishings were sparse, the bare necessities bought "gently used" on the extranet. The only thing of value were the model ships that lined a series of shelves, taking up a whole wall. Every spot was filled except one, even more noticeable by its absence.
The apartment was the only place he could afford after the end. He could've gone back to his family's farmhouse—he was the only one left to inherit it—but there were too many ghosts there. His dad's, Gunny's...
Joker sank back on his hard mattress and stared at the naked lightbulb until spots dotted his vision. Then he blinked and looked away, his mind feeling like a hive of buzzing bees had moved in. He grabbed the crutches leaning on the wall and hobbled to the bathroom sink. The lightbulb blinked on and off, as if trying to decide if this was a worthy battle to risk its life for at two a.m. in the morning. A final sputter was its answer. Darkness shrouded the room. Joker didn't bother to let his eyes adjust before he blasted the cold water—the only type there was nowadays. He splashed the water on his face. The cold felt good on his hot cheeks. He turned off the water, and patted his beard dry with a towel. A few more months, and he might look like the Santa Clause who falls off the rooftops.
He hobbled back to his bed and did what he normally did at two a.m. in the mornings. Surfed the extranet. He grabbed his mobile console from his nightstand, immediately switched off the news, and looked up dumb videos about which Skywalker would win in a fight. But post-apocalypse or not, this was still the extranet. He couldn't go one byte without finding the galaxy praising her name.
He tried to tune it out, to drown himself in the minutia of videos like he always did, but the dream kept coming back to him. The dream he had for months now. Sometimes the dialogue would change, sometimes the location, but it always ended the same.
And that's what gets him staring up at the ceiling every night—or at least one of the things. He squeezed his eyes shut as unwanted memories pushed their way into his consciousness.
EDI had become her own person. She learned fast, of course, but he was there to see when she was first starting to get used to this new, clunky, ill-designed structure they called a human body. He could count the number of dents she made from stabbing her toes on the seat or making a gesture with her hand, only to realize her own strength when the console almost split in half.
And then, not only did she have to carry herself in a way that didn't break half the ship every time she moved, but she also had to conduct herself in such a way that the crew didn't think she had made a home in the uncanny valley. The process was relatively short, considering the challenge of appearing "normal", something he hadn't quite mastered yet. But he could still remember watching her as she shifted from one body posture to another, trying them out like one would try new clothes, before finally settling on a set that seemed fitting. Anyone else would think that a female sitting with her legs crossed was natural, or that standing with your back straight,was expected, especially on a military ship. But he knew it was all a carefully designed uniform, from the actual clothing that she didn't really need to the crossed legs to look "proper."
But EDI knew that it took more than just looks to be human. She'd pester him with questions that he only thought about when Gunny forced him to sit through her soap operas. Like, what is the purpose of humanity and why did we dream?
"To get revenge on that teacher who made you go sit in the corner," he had replied to that last one. EDI didn't appreciate that pearl of wisdom.
Joker would like to say that he had taken credit for her burgeoning self-awareness, but she was still the one who had the motivation to not only ask those questions, but figure out an answer for herself. Which is more than could be said for the rest of us bastards.
And then the commander had to fuck it up.
But...did she? That was a question for EDI, not him. And yet he was left with it. EDI had told him after a conversation with the commander about how she had changed her self-preservation coding. He felt like he should've been worried that someone could change their "morals" so easily (or whatever an AI has). He had seen enough prawn-again Christians back home to know that a person's change of heart lasted only so long as it suited them.
But he knew that while EDI's process might've been quicker than the typical appointment at the confessional, she had taken it seriously. Once she told him that she wanted to change to reflect how she was different from the Reapers, he figured it was her sort of coming-of-age story. She found the Reapers' selfishness repulsive, and didn't want to be like them.
He knew that if given the choice, she would've sacrificed herself for him. The commander realized that—helped her realize that.
Damn it. Damn it.
She was their commander. She always knew what to do. No one believes you? Crash a ship in their living room. Need allies? Let's just get three long-feuding enemies and their grandmothers to form an allegiance. What's that, I'm dead and the world's ending again? Hold my beer.
Nothing could touch her. But Joker knew that wasn't true. He knew how much each decision weighed on the commander. Even as she gave pep-talks to the turian about having no regrets, Joker could see the wear-and-tear. The bags under her eyes and the fine lines just starting crack the skin around her eyes. Anderson had told him—the cripple— to take care of the most feared and respected person in the galaxy.
Yeah, one only had to look as far back as Joker's last ship to realize that his record wasn't pretty. But he tried. And when that failed, he could at least respect the commander's decision. Sure, he'd take a crack at them, because even the great savior of the galaxy had to be knocked down a peg every once in awhile. But he was never mad at her. Joker might have complained, but he never got mad.
They had found her, looking as dead as the rest of the rubble she crashlanded in. But breathing. Of course she was. They immediately took her to the nearest hospital still standing. It took months, but she recovered—without dying this time. And not only that, but she had saved the whole galaxy. Again.
Joker had only heard all of this through secondhand sources, of course. Destroying all the mass-relays tended to do that to you. But even after the Normandy got off that jungle planet, and everyone else was celebrating, Joker was where he would always be: in the captain's seat. Alone again.
And Joker couldn't forgive that. He couldn't.
But maybe he didn't have to.
EDI didn't look mad. Not in his dream. And Gunny was always the type to face problems head on. EDI would've approved.
Fuck it, he thought before seizing his clutches again. He wouldn't really call. He just wanted to test his memory, see if he could recall the number.
He nudged the Normandy model on the floor out of the way.
Just in case he needed a big damn hero to kick someone's ass...or his landowner's. He picked up the phone.
Right, he thought, punching in the numbers. It was just practice. He didn't have to—
"Hello?"
The voice shocked him. Tired, quiet, but still the same Shepherd as ever. He just remembered. It was still two a.m. She was up this early? What was haunting her? ...Dumb question.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
Shepherd's voice shocked him out of his thoughts. Joker cleared his throat.
"Hi, Commander. It's Jeff."