The salarians pretended not to notice him, but Javik heard their whispers. The prothean's here! Of course, he was; Ilos belonged to hispeople, not theirs. They were the outsiders. The hard, silvery architecture – covered in dirt and overgrowth, but familiar nonetheless – towered over them, and it was strange witnessing such things undisturbed. Buildings were supposed to be on fire.
He opened himself up to the world and brushed his hand against the wall.
"Edana has fallen. All lines of communication have been severed to avoid Reaper detection," Vigil said. The crowd of scientists shared looks of sorrow. One, a young man, shouted at the VI indignantly as if it were somehow responsible. It gave no reply.
Valki, who looked heartbroken herself, placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. It seemed to calm him, and when she smiled gently, swallowing her pain, he returned it. She turned to the scientists. "I believe it is time."
For a moment they stood still, taking in her words and processing the meaning – their plans, their theorising, it was no longer an exercise of contingencies, it was their last hope – and then they sprang into action: they saluted her, the lead researcher gave out orders and all at once there was a sudden buzz of activity.
Javik noticed T'Soni approach – he heard the care in her steps. It was thoughtful, but unneeded. "I am fine," he said.
"Your hands… they were shaking." The doctor feigned preoccupation and nonchalance, scrolling through her omnitool, stealing glances as if he wouldn't notice – he did, as always. "What did you see?"
"Edana – what your cycle calls Eden Prime – had just fallen," he explained and raised his hand, steady then. "It is just a symptom of… vivid recollection. They left behind many biological markers here, and the Reapers never cleaned it out."
She grimaced at the mentioning of those machine megaliths, but her expression soon mellowed into one of fondness. "I remember the first time we arrived here. All these buildings and relics, untouched and just waiting to be studied. I was enraptured… until Saren's geth started shooting at us."
It was strange – amusing – when the doctor gushed over the empire and its remains. Even after exchanging memories, and seeing what his cycle was truly like, she seemed ever so curious, eager to discover whatever she could. That childlike persona, buried beneath. "Primitive," he teased.
"Fossil," she returned on reflex, and grinned. Apparently satisfied by his explanation of the shaking, she turned to re-join the salarians. "Let me know if you need anything."
He nodded, reassured – of what, he did not know – and followed Valki as she walked off and entered the commanding officer's quarters, a little off to the left. It was run down, even in her time, but practical – just like everything else back then.
Once inside, she seemed to deflate, slumping down onto a small couch that had long since expired. Her eyes were… hazy. "Vigil."
A holo appeared from the projector on her wrist.
"Let's run through the numbers again."
"Certainly." Vigil brought up a wall of charts and statistics. "Anything in particular?"
Her expression turned dark. "Expected number of survivors."
"You have checked this statistic every day for the past eleven days," it replied, showing the number zero. "If you suspect a malfunction in this platform, it is recommended that you run a full diagnostic."
Valki sighed, staring at that dreadful, hopeless number. "Never mind," she muttered, and closed the VI.
The door opened behind Javik, and in stepped another prothean – the stripes on his pauldron indicated the rank of lieutenant. "Valki," he said, "how are you feeling?"
Not bothering to get up, Valki replied, "Fine."
The newcomer sighed, and made his way through Javik, approaching the couch. "Really?"
Valki looked up at him but averted her eyes when she saw him looking back. She shifted, making space for him to sit down beside her. "They are all fighting for the empire out there, and here we are… just hiding. I have no right to feel…" she hesitated, returning her eyes to him.
The lieutenant wrapped an arm around her. "He was stationed there, wasn't he?"
She nodded, her expression mired in sorrow… and guilt. "It was foolish – childish – and it was never going to work… but we made a…" she lost her voice.
Promise.
He caressed her by the cheek, gently rubbing away a tear forming in her eye. "It's okay… I understand."
Who was this? Was he family?
"Paval," Valki called softly and embraced the lieutenant by the waist, her head falling softly onto his shoulder.
They leaned into a kiss, and Javik's stomach sank.
He found he could no longer stay and physically left, escaping the memory entirely. The salarians snapped their heads to the commotion as he stumbled out of the building, breath ragged, but he glared, and they looked away. It was a memory. A damn memory! All he needed to do was move to another time, there was no reason to walk away, but primitive behaviour was growing on him, corrupting him. Getting under his skin.
How could she?
His heart was racing. It felt like coming out of the pod again. There was nothing. Asari, human, turian; primitives. Everyone was dead. Ruins were all that remained of Edana – that grand, beautiful city, even in his lifetime against the Reaper's assault, diminished into oblivion by time and the machines.
He slowed his breathing, leaning onto a wall. Nothing would bring them back. Nothing would bring her back.
She was gone. He needed to let go.
But a Valki from another memory walked past, and he followed on instinct, the misery cast aside if only for a moment. This Valki was from the day after, and she joined a table of scientists set up outside the barracks, some form of makeshift war table, and the rest of the colony – enlists and non-essentials, assumedly – stood in a crescent around them. They saluted her as she took her seat at the head. "Is everything going according to plan, Ishan?"
"Yes, ma'am," the lead researcher from before replied, sitting on the other end of the table. He went to continue, but hesitated.
"Speak freely," Valki said.
He clenched his fists, eyes dashing across the people standing behind Valki, before landing on the woman herself. "I am compelled by my duty toward our great empire to implore you, major, to reconsider."
She shook her head. "I have reconsidered the matter multiple times already, and my decision remains the same. The power will be triaged equally."
The other scientists kept silent. The crowd around them seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief.
"But then our research, our work, it may all be for nothing."
"So be it, then."
Ishan shifted in his seat but held himself together. Javik had to commend him – he knew first hand, it wasn't easy going against Valki. "Ma'am, the cycle must end. Victory, at any cost."
"That is where you are wrong," the major said, as if the matter were settled. "We live together," she looked around at the others with meaning, "and we die together."
Javik couldn't help but smirk at Ishan's expression; it was the one he would have worn had it been him in that position. He would have called Valki a quixotic fool, maybe even a traitor… but seeing her again as he had known her calmed him, and reflecting on all he had been through, the people he had met in this cycle – yes, people, not primitives – perhaps there had been some merit to that kind of thinking after all. In a way, she reminded him of the Commander.
"Javik, there you are," T'Soni said from behind, flanked by a herd of salarians. He must have been wearing a peculiar expression, because, when she saw him, the doctor smiled fondly, as if she had foreseen such a reaction from him here. "Do you know what this is?" She held out a data drive.
Its operation was simple – even a soldier like him knew how to use it. He reached out to it with a finger, and upon contact, he received the data in a stream of physiological signals. It was a log of Vigil's internal systems: timestamps of scientists accessing data, records of extraplanetary emission levels, and… an instance of superuser behavioural override.
He looked deeper. A modification of Vigil's stasis mode routine. The scientists had been prioritised.
Javik left the drive and glared at the memory of Ishan sitting there in front of him, the sympathy from before all but dissipated. "You dare…" he muttered. It didn't matter then that the researcher had played an instrumental role in ending the harvest. He had betrayed Valki.
The doctor stepped into vision. "What did you find?"
His eyes remained on Ishan. "Nothing yet." He reconnected with the drive.
There was something else, another perversion of Valki's vision. This modification was less elegant, more brutish. Ishan's nerves were showing, and it filled Javik with dread – what could be worse than the other thing – but he decided not to think anything until he had actually seen the log. He opened it.
Lowest priority setting for stasis pod number 1, Valki's.
Javik pulled away, only then noticing how close T'Soni and the salarians had gotten. "Nothing! I found nothing!" he roared and ran for the archives.
It couldn't be! Valki had died an honourable death, he knew it were so! No traitor would have ever gotten the best of her!
He heard the doctor's calls to stop, but he didn't. Charging ahead, he went into a sprint, and her voice became distant until it was gone completely, drowned out by the sound of his breathing and the splashing of water under his feet echoing throughout the hall.
The hall of the dead.
Overhead he saw his brothers and sisters climbing into their caskets. "Stop!" he screamed, "don't! Live! Live!" His words fell on dead ears. "I am still here!"
The numbers were getting smaller, his dread greater, and he sprinted faster as if doing so would cleanse him of his feelings.
25… 19… 7… 5… 2… 1
He tried to stop but failed, his momentum carrying him forward into a tumble across the muddy water. Panting, he looked up at Valki, who was shaking hands with Ishan.
"Thank you, ma'am," the researcher said. "I believe you were right, after all. You have saved me from an honourless and shameful fate."
Valki smiled and nodded.
Javik hurled biotic energy at the betrayer – it did nothing, and Ishan calmly climbed up to pod number two. Valki watched as the last of her subordinates – after one last salute – went to sleep, and she sighed.
"Vigil," she summoned.
The holo appeared. "Major."
"Give me access to the program for your stasis routine."
Vigil paused. "Physiological signature matched. Superuser authentication successful. You are now authorised to execute all operations and modifications."
Valki blinked.
"Power triage priorities have been modified."
Her eyes went over the other pods, and Javik looked too, two walls filled from top to bottom with their people for as far as he could make out. "I am sorry," she said.
Javik rushed to wipe the tear rolling down her cheek. His hand found nothing but air.
Valki trembled and blinked again.
"Priority of pod one set to minimum. This pod will be the first to lose power. Confirm."
"Confirmed," she replied, stepping into her pod. She seemed… at peace. "Thanks, Vigil. Look after us, alright?"
"Of course. For the empire," the VI replied, and the holo disappeared.
Valki laid down – to rest. Her pod closed and inserted itself snug into its hole.
Silence filled the air as he remained frozen in place, gritting his teeth. How could she? Why? He knew the answers to both, of course, but his mind called out into the nothingness
And then… there was… an echo. Javik looked around, searching for the source, but it eluded him. It was coming from nowhere in particular and everywhere at once. Like the voice of a trillion dead souls: mourning, celebrating, living, dying, saving, killing. It was all there, millions of years of history summed into a single tune – the beauty of life, the sublimity of the universe, but more than that, it was the sound of hope. Perhaps it was Vigil singing a song.
Javik caught the splash of footsteps. They were the doctor's.
She saw him, covered in mud and filth, and ran over. "Are you alright? What happened?"
The prothean couldn't help but chuckle. He shrugged. "Never mind, doctor. All is well."