Internal Messaging
Summary: Shepard now has control over the Reapers. Her problem now is figuring out if she has control over herself anymore.
This is a fill for a kink meme over on the Mass Effect Kink Meme livejournal (which you should all check out, because it's awesome).
There was no echo as she walked down the hall. Without a physical form her boots didn't click, there was just a light buzzing as the Citadel mainframe projected her body form from before it was destroyed in the process of taking control of the Reapers.
She still found it unnverving. Not being able to hear herself breath. Just the clacking of the Keepers metal feet as they walked around the spacecraft. It was eerily silent without human or alien traffic coming and going as she remembered it.
The Citadel had closed when she took control of the Reapers, and so far she didn't see any reason to open it to the public again. The place was a massive weapon. She understood that now as she controlled all the systems within. If she wanted to she could destroy the mass relays by simply making a light come on back in the mainframe. She knew the one. It would blink green to signify it was ready, blue as the task was being completed, then finally red when it was done, and it would stay that way. It was a rather intimidating little light.
Click.
She whirled around at the sudden sound that couldn't have been made by a Keeper. Shepard had memorized the little sounds they made as bits of metal moved months ago. A camera to her left performed a scan of the area for any forms of life as she instructed it. It only took a second for a report to come up in her AI headset.
Internal Systems Scan Complete.
No Alien Life Detected In The Area.
Searching For A Breach Now...
There was a small hum of the machines around her as they got to work. A light in the corner of her vision blinked as a way to tell her the next report was coming in now.
No Breach Detected.
Scanning Ship For External Data.
Her eyes narrowed. She had been sure she had heard something move in the shadows of the cargo bay she was currently in. The light blinked again, the third report popping up in her vision.
No External Data Recovered.
With a sigh that came out in a programmed version of her former vocal cords she walked further into the cargo bay, looking with her eyes rather than the system. She hadn't run an analysis check in awhile, maybe that's why it wasn't getting anything. "Mainframe, run a diagnosis on all systems."
"Of course Comander."
The hum of the electronics increased as she walked. It was the loudest the Citadel had been for awhile. Stepping into the shadows she activated the program to make the glow of her computerized form brighter so she could see more. Shepard practically jumped out of her non-existent skin when she spotted Kai Leng sitting on one of the crates looking directly at her.
"All this power, and yet you still have to do things yourself. What was the point if it doesn't follow your instructions Commander?"
Him speaking snapped her back to reality. "You're dead. I saw you killed. Heck, I killed you. Get off my ship Leng."
"Your ship?" He didn't even seem to acknowledge her previous comments. "It was the Reaper's ship before it was yours Commander. Did you forget that? That it was used to signal when species were ready to be harvested? That is this ships first function." He smiled now and it almost looked sincere. "If the Illusive Man couldn't control it what makes you think you can?"
"He was indoctrinated." She snapped glaring at the enemy that had killed some of her own comrades.
"And you aren't?" Shepard clentched her projected jaw. To her right a turret went off, blasting at the crate Kai Leng sat on. When the smoke dispersed there was no corpse.
The Commander turned and walked quickly from the cargo bay, trying to think where Leng would go, what he was even doing here. How it was possible for him to still be alive. She could remember every little detail of when he had died.
Her omni-blade sinking into his flesh, the light from his eyes going dim, the bit of tech implanted in his skin flashing warning lights.
The light in the corner of her vision blinked once again. Without really thinking she pulled the menu down. She didn't have to do this, the information could just be sent straight into her brain-or whatever one called a massive holding cell of information, mechanics, blueprint layouts of every ship that had ever docked on the Citadel. If she was being honest she hadn't sorted through all of it yet. Rather she had been trying to hack into lost information from when other races had run the Citadel before they wiped out. She hadn't gotten very far so far. Raising her hand and flickering a finger down as she walked Shepard looked over the diagnosis scans.
Diagnosis Scan - 374,507J - Citadel
JRV - Scanned 97,473,793 Items
HAY - Scanned 5,729 Items
QUN - Scanned... Error - Override Implemented - Recovering Files - Restoring Files
GTV - Scanned 35,737 Items
FTL - Keeper4577 Sent To Check Overheating
KSP - Scanned 10 Items - Files Copied - Put In Storage
OPR - Scanned 1,092,349 Items
LS - Scanned 214,923 Items - Debris Being Removed
Shepard clicked out of the report, not caring to see the rest right now. Anything she would need to worry about would have been at the top. The Keepers would take care of everything else, like the dead bodies that still lay scattered around. It looked better now but once that was done and the city didn't look like a warzone then she could possibly reopen the Citadel to the public. Once making sure there was no way for anyone to get into the systems, possibly make a program to counter a hacker's moves.
Right now she was focused on finding Kai Leng as she wondered the halls of the Citadel, moving into an elevator once the doors slipped open and closed once more when she was inside.
Her holographic fingers tapped at the metal as she ascended up. Hesitating only when she heard a light scraping of metal. As she raised her hand from the surface the elevator came to a halt, the light dimming down into an orange glow, a signal that it was waiting for a maintance program to fix the systems before it kept moving.
"Leng." Shepard scowled as she turned towards where a thump had come from, just after the tearing of metal was heard above.
"Shepard. Savior of the galaxy. Where's your medal for that?"
She ignored his jibe. "What do you want?" Her eyes were narrowed as she looked over the shadow of his form, a lone silhouette in the elevator highlighted by the dim lighting.
"What I want is what the Reaper's want. Same as you."
"I control the Reapers. They want what I want now." Folding her arms across her chest she stared him down, making a note to add a gun in the elevators as part of the new system she would be implementing.
The answer she recieved was a short laugh. "You're in denial Shepard. Just accept it already. The Reapers were never made to be controlled, especially not by someone without the will."
"The Illusive Man didn't have the will. I have more than the Krogan ever did when it came to curing the Genophage." Her fingers were tapping angrily at her shoulders now. Why was it taking the system so long to get the elevator back on and moving?
"Is that so? My apologies then. It seems I've made a grave mistake." Shepard intended to let out an angry huff but instead gasped when a hand fell over her wrists and dragged her forward to him, colliding with his chest. "No, that was you." One arm was locked around her body, the other brushing fingers through her hair. She growled low in her throat and pushed at him though his grip just seemed to get tighter. "Tell you what Shepard. If you can say, 'no' I might be inclined to let you go."
She stilled in his grip for a moment, as if giving up then rammed the heel of her boot into his metatarsols. His grip didn't loosen, rather he chuckled directly into her ear. It just sent her into a rage, twisting in his grip to try and get out of it but with each movement she just got restricted further until she couldn't move. She settled for glaring at him from the corner of her eye.
His fingers traced through her hair to run along the edge of her ear. "Was that suppose to hurt?" She continued to glare at him. "If that's the case I think you're forgetting something." His hand continued down to her neck, his teeth running along her ear now. "You can't hurt someone that isn't there Shepard."
His voice sent a chill down her spine and she blinked, focusing her systems off that made her able to become a corpreal hologram to try and get rid of the feeling. When she opened her eyes again the elevator lights were back on and it was moving again. Looking quickly toward the ceiling she saw there was no hole there.
Shepard jabbed at the controls of the elevator, taking a moment to make herself corpreal again so they moved the next time she banged on them. The elevator came to a screeching halt. The moment the doors were open she was out of the small confined space and walking quickly across the open floor.
Her feet froze in place at the sound of fingers tapping over a keyboard and she raised her head to see Leng standing at the mainframe's console. Curling her own into a fist she waited a second before looking towards the droid that should have gotten up and fired at the intruder before even getting to the console in the first place.
"That won't work." Leng said without even looking up and she turned her head to face him again.
"Why not?" she asked, deciding to go along and play this game of his.
He smirked at this, finally looking up from the console to her. "Because I just took control of the systems."
She rolled her eyes at this, raising a hand to open a menu infront of her, looking over the data. "If you had taken control of the system then I wouldn't be able to get in. Which I can do just fine. You only disabled the one mech." Bringing the screen back down she stepped back to find he was standing infront of her now.
His fingers were already wrapped along her arm to keep her in place. "Correct. Now all I have to do is disable you." In a single motion he was behind her, having twisted her arm behind her back, bringing another hand up to wrap along her throat, squeezing.
She screamed more in shock than in pain. Her free hand bringing up the menu again, her fingers roaming over the coded words, pressing frantically at them.
"I told you that won't work Shepard." His mouth was right next to her ear again and she was tempted to find a knife and slice it clean off. "But please keep trying, it's so fun to see you squirm."
She gasped to try and draw in air, her fingers slowly lowering from the screen as the oxygen no longer traveled that far. With her vision blurring it was hard to even make out the words and numbers she was looking at. It seemed like a jumbled mess.
"Just a little longer Shepard." His fingers had tightened even further on her throat and she hissed around them. "I got something I need to show you."
"W-what?" she manged to get out.
"Hell. I signed your invination." She would have laughed at his words had her eyes not been closing, her body going still in his arms. Shepard was barely aware when her body was lifted higher up, cradled like a small child against him. "You'll like it there." He promised before disappearing into the flames that surrounded them.