~Author's Note~ As you might guess from the title, this is not a happy story. Fair warning.
They tell me that they can surely remove the aches and pains of these old scars. All that I must do is let them take my soul and throw it into a cold unfeeling machine.
Perhaps that is a bit melodramatic.
I have lived a long time here on Rannoch, from the time that Shepard stopped the Reapers through all these long centuries since.
Yes, you read that right. I have lived for over three hundred years. As Quarian lifespans go, I think I have lived the longest in recorded history. Unless one were to count "living" in those machines as part of your natural lifespan. I do not, of course, but I think you've figured that out by now.
After the war, my people were frantic to return to life as we had read about it. Life on a glorious garden world, free of disease, free of fear, and in harmony with our previous enemies, the geth.
My people were so incredibly naive. It is a simple fact of evolution that once we have "un-adapted" to an environment, it takes a miracle of science to add information back to the body that it has lost. We had been off of any planets for three hundred years. Our immune systems were shot, done, destroyed, whatever term you care to use. No matter what scientific advances we tried, nothing worked. We simply could not adapt. Some of us were stubborn. They refused to believe the evidence in front of their eyes, and they removed their suits anyway.
They died. Mercifully, it was quick.
Others turned to outsiders, intent on finding a cure from them. None were in a particular hurry to help the Quarian race. While the Reapers were around, we were an asset. Afterwards, we were naught but a galactic nuisance. Or so it seemed to us.
Still others turned to increasingly more desperate measures of science. Their intent was good, but when a group of them decided to try to forcibly introduce their cure to the entire planet without our consent, that was when they overstepped their bounds. We stopped them, though we lost many that day. But it was too late. They had already spread the cure over the entire planet. It was in Rannoch's very atmosphere.
And it worked! Our immune systems were suddenly ten times as strong, we could head out into the world, enjoy it with our suits off. But it came at a price. Oh, such a terrible price. We did not realize it until five years after the fact. The cure had begun to wear off, you see, our immune systems were returning to their old state. The idea of putting back on our suits, our prisons, was simply unthinkable to most of us. And that was when we discovered the side effect.
No children had been born in the last five years. Not a single one. It was odd that an entire culture could miss this, but we had. We were too busy celebrating over the removal of those damned suits that we missed the fact we had no newborn children living among us. It had rendered us sterile.
It was also unable to be duplicated. We faced now not only the prospect of returning to our suits, but the certain knowledge that the Quarian race would die in a single generation.
It was then that the geth stepped forward. I am certain, at least at first, that they meant it sincerely to try to help us. The Quarians nearly revolted at even the idea of taking over geth "bodies", of being, as some of us put it, "assimilated into the network."
The first of us took the step. A few bold, daring adventurers, most of whom were dying anyway due to some disease or other, with nothing to lose.
And, like a miracle, it worked. They were still there. We saw them move around, we even helped them grow synthflesh on their new bodies so they looked like us. They talked like us. They acted like us.
More joined. The idea of finally, finally, being able to move around without a suit on was so tantalizing, the knowledge that we would never be able to do it in our own bodies... you may think it was crazy, that we were crazy for considering it, merely because we had to wear a suit for our entire lifetimes. And perhaps you may be right.
I simply thought it was ironic that finally, the Quarians had ceased wearing suits only to become them.
A few saw the dangers. One of the Admirals- was it Xen?- stepped forward to "take the suit", as we had come to calling it, but instead she attempted to destroy the entire network with a computer-engineered virus.
One that I helped to create.
Don't look at me like that. I did not know what it was for. I thought, and the code could indeed have been used for this, that it was a system designed to bring a quarian's consciousness back out of the geth collective. Daro'Xen- I really do think it was Xen, now that I think about it- decided that those Quarians had become corrupted.
It was eery. There had been so much talking, so much chattering that finally, Xen, one of the most vocal opponents of this assimilation process had seen the light, and decided to join, and then, just like that, silence. Like someone had flipped a switch.
Xen stepped back from the console with the strangest expression on her face. I rushed at her, demanding to know what she had just done. I knew right away that something was wrong, because not only the embedded Quarians had gone silent, but all of the original geth had too.
She shoved me away, saying that it was necessary. Something she had to do.
That was when a dozen-odd lasers cut her to pieces. The geth always were precise in their aim. I was not two feet from Daro'Xen, and I didn't even get so much as a scorch-mark.
The collective was too strong for her virus, as it turned out. Far too strong. That many geth gathered in one place, along with all the assimilated quarians, well, a virus designed by us mere mortals didn't stand a chance. The geth held no grudge, they simply went on accepting those quarians that would come.
Eventually, the Quarians began to die off. The flesh and blood ones, I mean.
The others begged them to join. A few did, but most of those who remained were those who had always objected to the idea.
Finally, it was just me. I have an idea as to why I have lived as long as I have. Our friendly neighborhood Reaper always insists on stopping by Rannoch and meeting me. I am pretty sure he is keeping me alive. He cannot bear to watch me die.
That gives me hope for the galaxy's future at least. If he is still concerned about me, then perhaps he did not lose his humanity when he "took the suit."
They are always trying to convince me to join them.
"Come in and join the collective," they say. "You will know so much more than you ever imagined, feel so much more than you ever did!"
They never consider that perhaps I do not wish to know more, or feel more.
Nor do I trust their descriptions. Despite the geth's technological advances, (which have been incredibly rapid, believe me), synthflesh is not real flesh. I can still feel the difference.
They say that if I join, I won't know the difference.
I do not want to join if that is the case.
If I cannot distinguish between hands of metal touching me and real hands touching me, then I do not wish to join their damn collective.
I have felt real hands before, the hands of a man that I loved. Yes, loved. You may think it odd that this old quarian could ever have had someone like that, but I did. And if I would lose that memory, lose what made him different, then they can take their collective and throw it into the deepest sea on Rannoch for all I care.
The idea of opening my mind, of letting millions of others view what is mine, what makes me Tali'Zorah nar Rayya vas Normandy, that is an intrusion I will never permit.
They say that I will never again have to fear death if I join them.
That is the funniest thing of all. Eternal life is within my grasp, I would be helped along by millions of people, just waiting to usher me into my new body. They point out that I am old, (thank you, I would never have guessed that myself), and that my time is limited.
But they are operating on a false assumption.
I do not fear death.
I welcome it.
An odd thing to say, perhaps. But you see, I have already lived far past my time. I have seen far too many friends and loved ones go to the grave ahead of me. I welcome the idea of the sweet embrace of nothingness, or if the stories are true, perhaps an eternity in a bar with my old friend Garrus.
And Shepard. Whenever he gets done with... whatever it is he is doing.
With no damn suit on, I'd insist on that. Some afterlife if I had to wear that bloody thing. Keelah.
They are coming up the hill again. I can hear them. They will come marching up to the door, as they do every day. They will want me to join them. They will try to get me to come down and use the last console, the one that they have kept running for all these years, just for me. Every other time, I have smiled, and declined, and let them have their fun, let them tend to the old, last, quarian.
This time, I won't be here.
I am going to take a walk, I believe. Along the cliffs, down the shore. I still know a few places where the geth have yet to settle. But I have no intention of hiding. The sea is calling me. I know that you cannot bear to see me die, love, so look away, if you are still watching.
I will find that bar, and Garrus and I will sit there and swap old stories and tales of days gone by.
You should probably hurry. If the Afterlife can possibly run out of wine, I can guarantee you that Garrus will figure out how to make it happen.
Goodbye, my love.
Keelah se'lai.