Grace Creed clenched her fist and smiled as the iconic blue aurora of a biotic disturbance field energized the local air particles. The scientists giggled. She was now the first synthetic biotic in the systems alliance.
Despite what many of her former colleges in the Teltin facility at Paragia had thought the process required no drugs or risky medical procedures but rather a substance that most of the galaxy overlooked.
Omni-gel.
Created by the omnitools corporation it was publicly expounded to be a mix of industrial grade plastics, ceramics and alloys kept in a molten state. Cool to the touch and having the consistency of petroleum jelly it saw use in manufacture and processing of raw materials and due to a recent hack of its systems as an all purpose doorknob.
But nobody really questioned exactly what it was. And why would they? It was just one more marvel nobody in this complacent society cared to understand. All most of them needed to know was that it work and it was cheap and you could make literally anything with it so long as you had the designs downloaded onto your omnitool.
If they only knew...
The truth behind the wonder-material was that it was something the citadel council had long ago banned and they kept the truth of it hush hush now that someone had found a way to make it commercial in a BIG way before the politicians realized what it actually was.
Nanites.
Tiny programable machines small no bigger than an enzyme or mitochondria. With nanotechnology, something banned under the citadel WMD accords you could create or modifye literally anything. And that was just what she had done.
It was public knowledge that the gene seqences present in the human survivors of element zero poisoning, those who became biotics, were present in 13% of the human population, roughly 1 in every eight people. It was also publicly accepted doctrine that unless you were asari you had to be exposed to Eezo upon birth to become a biotic.
The first part was right, but the second was a lie.
The reason biotic exposure has to be done during childhood, or better during gestation, was that Eezo poisoning, like heavy metals poisoning, liked to collect in fast growing cell structures and when only Eezo in the nerves cells was beneficial... trying to become one outside of a major growth period was tricky business requiring low level exposure over long periods of time to allow your body to adapt and absorb the material. It was both expensive and time consuming.
There was another procedure other than hers that allowed one to become a biotic after their growing period was over, but it had been developed by the Krogan and involved injecting or surgically implanting Eezo in the nerve fibers, something few enough of the highly regenerative lizards survived, never mind anyone else.
Dr. Creed's procedure was much simpler. Nanomachines, taken from the omnigel, were linked directly to her omnitool. Once transmission was established the tiny robots would follow the directions of a quality medical scanner meant for mapping nerve function for recent advances in related treatments. Eezo was then transported in minute quantities into every synapse and mylon sheath in her lower nervous system and very specifically selected pathways in her brain. The selection of these particular pathways had come largely from the unfortunates at the Paragia facility, but also from di and vivisected Asari commandos TIM had somehow gotten his hands on.
After that it was just a matter of sitting back and letting the fever run its course.
The problem with having biotics, she now found, was turning them off. With Eezo lacing every nerve fiber, simply moving set off a mass distortion field and ignited an aurora around her.
Grace sighed and moved over to her terminal. It was time to take her research...at least somewhat public. The question was whether she wanted to buy an Asari tutor, or deal with the bureaucracy and ensured exposure of contacting Alliance Project Ascension.
Let the games begin.