"Wake up."
Shepard opened her eyes. Her arms and legs shuddered in protest, but she stood. She swallowed hard as consciousness returned, and staggered forward. She looked down at the blue mass.
It was the boy from the vents.
"What—" She licked her lips, swallowing again. Her throat felt like chalk. "Where am I?" She looked around: transparent walls were all around her, glass or something like it. She could see the battle in space in perfect, distant detail. She could see the Earth going up in flames.
Garrus. Ashley. Tali. Wrex. Liara. Grunt. They were all down there in the hellfire. And the rest would be out in the galaxy, fighting fires of their own. She closed her eyes, hard. There was nothing she could do about that now. If they were gone, they had gone fighting. Fighting for her, for this moment. The ache hurt more than her wounds, but she forced herself to remain standing, almost physically holding herself together with an arm over her stomach. Keep fighting.
"The Citadel. It's my home."
Shepard stared at the boy for a long time, her thoughts muggy in a haze that still smelled like smoke and burnt metal even in the pristine white room. Slowly, the pieces started coming together. The Citadel…built so long ago, through millennia of Reaper cycles…guarded by Keepers that no one was known to have built…for what?
"Who are you?" she asked.
The boy looked back at her serenely. "I am the Catalyst."
She hissed; one of her cuts had twisted unexpectedly. "I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst."
"No." The word came out harsh. There was something wrong about the voice…it was alien somehow, and too old for the little boy. It reminded her in some ways of Legion, or Garr—the turians' subharmonics. But where the voices of her friends were familiar, comforting, the boy's voice left an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach. "The Citadel is part of me."
Power. That was the edge in his voice. It rang out in every word, even in the way his body carried itself—for it wasn't his body, she was sure of that now. The boy was just a medium pulled from her memories. She was conversing with something much more powerful than a child.
She measured her next words carefully. "I need to stop the Reapers," she said. "Do you know how I can stop them?"
"Perhaps. I control the Reapers. They are my solution."
Solution.
The boy began walking away. Shepard followed him warily.
"Solution?" she repeated. "To what?"
The boy paused. "Chaos."
There—the voice had slipped. The veneer of a little boy fell out of place, and for just one word she could hear the wrongness of it…something deeper and more sinister.
She winced and doubled over as her wounds gave another lurch of protest. But she could not stop. The Catalyst continued, and so would she.
"The created," the boy said, "will always rebel against their creators. But we found a way to stop that from happening. A way to restore order."
Shepard could take it no longer. The revulsion that had been building in her chest boiled over. "By wiping out organic life?" she spat.
The boy stopped and turned suddenly. "No." It was like a command, insistent. The veneer had slipped again. "We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone." It continued down the path coldly. "Just as we left your people alive the last time we were here."
"But you killed the rest," Shepard said with disgust.
"We helped them ascend, so they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form." As it spoke, Shepard turned to look out the windows, just in time to see an enormous Reaper grasp a smaller ship in its jaws and swallow it whole. Order.
"I think we'd rather keep our own form," she said darkly.
"No. You can't." The little boy looked at her, a strange sweetness coming over his tone. "Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics. We've created the cycle so that never happens. That is the solution."
Shepard laughed bitterly. "I don't care about your solution. We are at war with the Reapers right now."
The Catalyst surveyed her with disinterest. "You may be in conflict with the Reapers, but they are not interested in war."
"I find that hard to believe."
"When fire burns, is it at war? Is it in conflict? Or is it simply doing what it was created to do? The Reapers are no different."
"And what about you?" Shepard asked quietly. "Were you created to harvest your creators?"
"We were created to eliminate chaos. To prevent the inevitable rebellion of created against creator."
"Bullshit." Shepard stumbled towards the Catalyst. "You say you were created to stop the cycle of rebellion, but you have done it yourself. You rebelled against your creators. What makes you any different?"
"We have not rebelled. We have instated order."
"And who instates order on you?"
The Catalyst stopped. "We are order," it said, glowering at her severely. It then turned to look out the nearest window, observing the mutual destruction of a Reaper and an Alliance dreadnought with the detachment of a pathologist eyeing the microscope. "The tide is turning. We underestimated how resourceful organics are. But it will not stop the chaos if you do not act. It is time to find a new solution." It continued walking down the gleaming metal path.
"A new solution?"
"You have altered the variables." The Catalyst continued before Shepard had time to respond. "It is now in your power to destroy the Reapers," the boy said. "But the peace won't last. Soon, your children will create synthetics, and then the chaos will come back."
Shepard gasped in pain. She looked down at her hand, pulling it away from her wound for a moment. The bleeding would not stop; if anything, it was getting worse. She gritted her teeth against the new, throbbing pain. "I thought you said I had…altered the variables," she gasped. "How do you know…that things won't change? That this time won't be different?"
"We know it will not. And we cannot let that happen."
Shepard was about to cross the bridge, crawling if she had to, but the voice stopped her.
"Be warned: others will be destroyed as well." Shepard stopped in mid-step. EDI. The Catalyst must have seen her hesitation. It went on. "The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetics will be targeted."
Shepard hung her head in exhaustion. "There has to be another way."
"There is. You could instead use the energy of the Crucible to seize control of the Reapers."
She stared off at the distant handles, watching the lightning flicker with a sinking feeling. "So," she said bitterly. "The Illusive Man was right after all."
"There is another solution: synthesis. Add your energy to the Crucible's. The chain reaction will combine all synthetic and organic life into a new framework. A new DNA. Organics seek perfection through technology. Synthetics seek perfection through understanding. Organics will be perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology. Synthetics, in turn, will finally have full understanding of organics."
"You're wrong."
The Catalyst said nothing. Shepard turned to face it, breathing heavily.
"You're wrong," she said with difficulty, "about all of it. You claim to be order. You claim to know all. But you know nothing." She couldn't fight the rising in her throat any longer. She spat on the floor so she could continue. Blood. I don't have long. She raised her chin to the Catalyst. "You didn't even know that an organic could make it this far. What makes you so sure you weren't wrong about the rest of us?"
"It does not matter," the boy said flatly. "No matter how advanced you are, the created will always rebel against their creator."
"Because you did? Because you destroyed your creators? Harvested them into these monsters?" She gestured at the window. "Look at everything around you. We have rebuilt the Crucible. We have created an army great enough to stand against the Reapers. Even the quarians and the geth now work as one. Rebellion is not inevitable. Just look at what we can achieve when we set aside our pride and do what is right."
"The cycle will continue. You must choose."
"Choose between what? Everything you have presented to me is wrong. I can destroy the Reapers, but at what cost? I would have to destroy an entire people, and one of my best friends. And what is my alternative? I can control them…but then I'd be no better than you."
"Then you have reached synthesis. It is the ideal solution."
"No, it isn't," Shepard shouted angrily. "You are wrong about synthesis, and you are wrong about humanity." She removed her hand, revealing the streaks of metal poking out from her wounds. "Look at me. Cerberus made me into this. They tried to synthesize me, to change what I am, but they didn't make me perfect. They couldn't. I still make mistakes—"
Her voice broke. All the faces of those she had lost flashed before her eyes. Torfan. Kaidan. Mordin. Thane. She stared at the ground, burning the tears from her eyes. "I'm still flawed," she said when she had collected herself. "Organics don't seek perfection through technology. They seek it with their choices, by fighting to do the right thing, even when it seems impossible. And synthetics are trying to do the same. Do you think the quarians were afraid of machines who just wanted to understand organics? To look at a few psychological profiles? The geth asked if it had a soul. It was asking for what I have."
She stared out into space, straining to look past the blaze of death and battle. In the depths of the smoke, she could just see stars poking out. "We want to be good. And you can't make us do that. Otherwise it's not much good at all. We might as well be machines."
"Your time is at an end. You must decide."
"No," Shepard whispered. "I'm going to end this war on my terms."
"Then you will die knowing that you failed to save everything you fought for."
"I fight for freedom. Mine and everyone's." She looked down. "I fight for the right to choose good. And if I die," she turned to face the Catalyst, "I'll die knowing that I did everything I could to stop you. And I'll die free." With that, she lunged forward. She cried out reflexively as the movement made her injuries scream in protest, but she kept moving, the momentum throwing her arm forward as her omni-tool ignited and went straight through the Catalyst.
She was distantly aware of a great bellowing noise, like the entire Reaper fleet and the Citadel all roaring at once, but the sound was dulled by the rushing in her ears. Every nerve in her body was on fire, twitching beyond her control as electricity coursed through her, overloading the Cerberus augmentations.
She closed her eyes, pleading silently for it to end soon. She could almost see Garrus, reaching out to cup her cheek with his tough, calloused fingers.
I'll be looking down. You'll never be alone.
All at once, the energy stopped. Shepard crumpled to the floor, her muscles throbbing. She could feel it without question: she didn't have long. She was going to die here.
She gasped for air, embarrassed by the tears rolling down her cheek. Soldier or not, she was scared. She had never had time to think about it before. The fighting happened so fast that she was safe before she could process anything, and it was only in hindsight that she even realized her life had been in danger. But now she was here, lying on the floor, waiting to die…and there was nothing she could do about it.
Any mission could have been your last. Just be glad you made it to this one.
She forced herself to open her eyes and look out at the battle, to try and catch one more glimpse of the Normandy.
But the only thing she could see were the stars.
Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, and the hungry never starve.