WARNING: Extensive spoilers follow.
At the end of Mass Effect 3, the galaxy is in danger from a race of creatures called the Reapers, who kill all organic life every fifty thousand years, resetting civilization and apparently ensuring their dominance. The many races of the galaxy work together, building the Crucible, a weapon that the Protheans, the dominant organic life of the previous cycle, believed would destroy the Reapers.
On reaching the centre of the Cruicible, Commander Shepard is confronted with an AI, who believes that conflict between synthetic life and organic life is inevitable, and who has created the Reapers to bring order to that chaos. The AI confronts Shepard with three choices: become a Reaper and control them, sacrifice to allow synthesis between both forms of life, or destroy all synthetic life along with the Reapers and allow the cycle to continue.
In this story a female Shepard, in a relationship with Garrus Vakarian, chose Destruction, causing the death of synthetics throughout the galaxy, the explosion of the Crucible and the shattering of the Mass Relays which allow interstellar travel. Shepard's ship, the Normandy, escapes to the garden world of Eden Prime along with many of the other fleet ships. Bioware's extended cut finishes with the sight of a blackened form wearing N7 dog tags, taking in a single pained breath.
Choices, choices
by Liz Keogh
"It's been five years, Garrus."
The turian hadn't turned round at the soft hiss of the door, and didn't feel the need to turn now. There was only one person left who still visited him. The benefits of being grumpy, he thought to himself. He detached the barrel of his sniper rifle and held it up to his visor, bracing his elbows, calming and holding his breath while the computer measured the aperture down the length. His vision magnified, tracing minute striations in the titanium.
"Garrus, put it down. It's fine. It's been fine for five years." A blue hand, fingers huge in the visor, jolted the calibration. He grunted and looked up at Liara. "When are you going to stop behaving like this?"
"Like what?" he asked.
"This. Alone. Angry. Grieving."
He managed a low chuckle. "Just grieving, Liara. I like being alone. And I've always been angry."
"There's so much sorrow in the universe already," Liara pressed. She went to the window and stood looking out over the landscape. "Eden Prime's seen so much pain. Why do you feel the need to magnify yours?"
"Was there something particular you wanted me for, or were you still feeling sorry for me?" Garrus started disassembling the rest of the weapon, shucking the thermal clip and releasing the panel that exposed the inner workings of the gun.
"It's been five years," Liara repeated. "Five of Shepard's years. The anniversary? The Normandy's up at the relay and the shuttle's waiting for us. All the crew will be there."
He gave her a flat stare. "No. They won't."
The Asari's expression moved swiftly towards guilt. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"
"Liara, it's fine. I know. But think about it. What will I do there? Share stories with Alenko about how much we both loved her? Commiserate with Tali about the loss of the Geth, again? Pretend we don't see Joker's face when Edi's voice comes over the com? Thank you, but it's not my idea of fun."
"It should be perfect for you, then, given how far you've gone out of your way to avoid anything that might be considered fun." Liara crossed her arms and tilted her head, waiting for his response. When no reply was forthcoming she added, "Everyone else misses you. Even Javik asked if you were coming."
"Hm." He snapped the panel back on the rifle, loaded the clip and snapped the barrel back into place in a smooth motion, then lifted the rifle to his visor and aimed through the glass. There was nothing significant for him to shoot, not since the Normandy and the hundred or so ships who'd come with her through the relay cleared out the last of the Cerberus troops.
"Please." There was less begging in Liara's tone than command.
"All right," Garrus sighed, "but there better be alcohol. Lots of alcohol."
The first glimpse of consciousness hurt too much to be interpreted as pain. They weren't even really injuries. A dead person couldn't be injured. There was no heartbeat, no breath; limbs shattered and torn, armour melted onto skin, flame searing lungs and throat so that she couldn't even scream as the Crucible collapsed. Just a long darkness, and the sensation of something crawling beneath her burnt and blackened skin.
Tali was already strapped in as Garrus entered the shuttle, but her exuberance at his presence was enough to make him feel as if she'd jumped up and hugged him anyway. "You came! Garrus, thank you."
He nodded, and reluctantly admitted to himself that he had missed the little Quarian. "Tali. I haven't seen you since…"
"We finished the main Eezo field last summer," she reminded him. "It's very good to see you. What are you doing these days?"
"Hunting, mostly. It turns out that Turians can metabolise pyjak meat. There are a lot of pyjaks." He hefted the rifle. "Not so many now, though. I've been helping the new farms set up automated defences – they do have some native carnivores on Eden Prime, not to mention the pyjaks – and I've started a branch of C-Sec in the city. It seems that saving the galaxy doesn't make everyone in it suddenly become a good person."
A small movement of the eyes behind the mask, smiling. "Shepard would be proud of you."
Garrus snorted a half-laugh. "Shepard knows me better. I got bored with C-Sec and its endless red tape on the Citadel. Due process is important, I'm sure, but I've worked outside of bureaucracy too long to start again now. I passed it on to Turian Command. I considered taking up the old Archangel role but, given the trouble I managed to cause last time… losing one side of my face is enough, I think." He rubbed his hands over the scars, remembering how she'd looked at him, even after the fight that nearly killed him.
"Garrus… I miss her too," Tali said.
"We all do," Liara put in.
"Of course, we all do," Garrus agreed. He remembered how warm she was beside him, how troubled her dreams were, and that she'd said she slept better when he was there.
The first breath was agony, but she'd been half-conscious for a while. The tiny machines were specialised but worked together well enough to divert resources to her brain before anything else: lowering her temperature, pumping the blood through her scorched veins, breaking apart carbon dioxide and forcing the oxygen into her cells while the carbon went to repair her vital systems. Others, less biologically inclined, spun excess metal from her cybernetic implants out into her body, meeting and replacing muscle and bone.
They had already brought her back from the dead once before… and that time, she had only been human.
"…so there I was, even more drunk than I am now, and I told her, 'Emergency Induction Port, Shepard!' And she replied, 'Tali, it's a straw.'"
Garrus watched, detached, as they laughed. He'd never been much given to laughter; not the kind of free joy that Tali and Joker slipped into so easily. Vega, Liara and Alenko were with them, knocking back drinks while a bunch of invited dignitaries looked on, uncertain of their place, unsettled by such intense camaraderie. It was something that Shepard had created; that space in which diverse people and personalities could come together, join for a greater purpose. For a moment Garrus had the uncharitable thought that the dignitaries shouldn't be on the Normandy; that they had no right… but they'd come through the Mass Relay from Sol like everyone else. They'd been there at the end, risking their lives. Liara's comment stung. There's so much sorrow in the universe already. Why do you feel the need to magnify yours?
A light touch on his arm. He turned, then started back. Javik was the person he least wanted to see aboard the ship; the one who had far more right than he did to be grieving. The Prothean lifted his head as if acknowledging that right, then announced, "Last cycle, I was a soldier, and not distracted from my mission through obsession with anyone else." He paused and added, "I am glad. I have already mourned a trillion lives. I would not want miss just one as much as you do."
He's right, Garrus thought as Javik walked away. I'm being selfish and obstinate. So many people have lost loved ones. And always, the thought, Shepard would want me to move on.
But Shepard wasn't there. Without her, he was perfectly happy where he was… for some definition of perfection.
After a few hours, it started raining.
The nanomachines sensed the water on her skin and scuttled towards it, grasping the precious moisture and bringing it back inside. Complex schematics, held in shared memory, showed them where to take it, what to do with it. With the rain, they were able to work faster. Factory machines went into action, carving paths through her armour, creating new nanobots from the substance they lifted and separating the metal from the remnants of her skin.
Fed on carbon, iron and water, they began to create new flesh, interlaced with exotic compounds spun from storage cells created for the purpose where flesh alone was not enough.
Garrus left them on the crew deck, still joking, and walked towards the starboard observation lounge, looking carefully away from the memorial wall as he passed it. Putting Shepard's name on it had seemed wrong; a betrayal of her memory.
The lounge was almost as crowded as the crew deck. He frowned, then he saw what they were all looking at. The Mass Effect relay was glowing. The engineers were running their first tests; reaching out to the rest of the galaxy to see who else was out there. Already they were firing quantum entangled particles through. He'd helped them make some of the components. He knew how to make micro-tools and measuring devices, and they'd been needed in the thousands to repair the relay. Tali and Liara spent hours locked in conversation together in those first few years, talking through ancient schematics and computing paradigms that lay well beyond his expertise.
He wondered briefly if he would be able to talk to his father on Palaven. It was the only connection he wanted. Access to the rest of the universe just reminded him how vast it was, and how empty.
He left, and took the elevator to her cabin. Crowds made him feel false and hollow, but her cabin would still be sacred. He wanted the emptiness to match his mood.
"What the hell is that?"
"It looks like a husk."
"Is it still active? It's glowing."
"It's not moving. Put it on the pile with the others."
"Will do… woah, it's warm. Hey, Lieutenant, I don't think this is a husk. I think it's one of our guys… some kind of cyber implants. See? N7 tags."
"Oh, weird, look at those eyes…"
Silence, except for the sound of metal, clinking. Hands brushing the new skin being built over her heart. Her name, spelt out slowly as they cleaned the dirt away. She remembered who she was. So did they.
"Oh, my god. Medic! Shit, shit, shit. Medic! Over here! Now!"
The feeling of being lifted. The agony of breath. Her heart, beating faster.
"Garrus, you are wanted in the communications room."
He ignored the voice. There was little left of her in the cabin; a music system she never used, models of ships, some medals. Her fish had been taken away; the tank was cleaned and empty. He traced a finger over the pillow where she'd slept beside him. Fool, fool, he told himself. He'd waited, wanting it to be perfect, thinking that there would always be more nights, more time, with less distraction. He had few regrets where Shepard was concerned, but still… he understood that regret could only come with greater understanding, and it felt bitter, and calm.
"Garrus, please respond."
"Go away, Edi," Garrus replied bluntly.
"There is something in the communications room that you might want to see."
He sighed. "Edi, please. Leave me alone."
The little holographic sphere was all that remained of Edi's form after the Crucible burnt out the brain of her avatar. It flashed up, relentless. "Garrus, did you know that they connected the Mass Effect Relay to Earth three days ago?"
Shepard's planet. Her homeworld. It got his attention; he stood. "How are things there?"
Edi's voice followed him as he moved to the elevator. "Good. Much of the fleet was stranded there, but they had adequate provisions. They were able to use components from the fleet ships to repair their relay. It has been working now for over three years."
He smiled faintly. "I bet they're glad to hear from us."
"Very. We have been exchanging data for twenty-seven hours. I have been working with the technicians to enable you to share audio signals with the Sol relay."
You. Edi spoke the turian language natively; it came across in the singular, not the plural form. He felt dizzy. He wished he hadn't drunk quite so much.
"Who wants to talk to me, Edi?"
"Garrus, you are wanted in the communications room."
The first time she saw her reflection in the mirror, she instinctively drew her gun on it. Those eyes were not the kind she expected to see in her own face. It made her wonder what the Illusive Man had suffered, to have undergone that same transformation. It made her wonder whether she was really the first person who'd come back from the dead… and whether he was really dead himself, given her latest resurrection.
She let them run tests on her. Not all of the Migrant Fleet had made it to the relay before it shattered, and now they prodded and poked and compared the substances in her body to those of the Geth processors, cooked within their great metal forms. It took a few years, but the Quarians were persistent, motivated by the shame of their earlier persecution as much as the technical challenge. She spurred them on for similar reasons, recognising the guilt of her choice; for all her time spent making peace between them, when it came to the decision, she had chosen to wipe out the Geth.
She was glad that the AI had proved as fallible as she suspected. The Crucible had targeted synthetic life based as much on its form as its intellect, and had bypassed all the VI programs and any synthetic component entangled with organic life. Many of the Quarians had accepted Geth into their suits, helping them to build their immunity in preparation for their return to Rannoch. The Crucible had passed over them too. Within a few years, the Geth who survived alongside their Quarian hosts were back on their mutual homeworld, wearing their old bodies with new brains. They were joined with thousands of Quarians, who wore their masks for no reason other than their cultural heritage, and who could take them off safely to watch the sunrise.
When they discovered the fragments of the relay arcs which contained the logs of passage, and she found out where the Normandy had gone, she waited. It was fifteen light-years from any other relay. Waiting was the right choice.
At least this time, it was an easy one.
They were all waiting for him, expectant looks on their faces, drinks in their hands and wide smiles. Vega clapped him on one shoulder as he entered.
He didn't want to hope. He'd seen the Crucible burn up; the whole Citadel exploding as they raced for the relay. He felt the same way as he did before a shot; poised, breath held, a whole life about to change from the passage of a single moment.
"Garrus is here now," Edi announced.
"You could have routed it into the cabin," he told Edi. Still not hoping.
Then, the voice, teasing. "Garrus. There's no cameras in my cabin. If Edi did that, I would never get to see how you reacted."
It was hard to speak, suddenly. His own voice, always gravelly, cracked when he spoke. He cleared his throat and tried again. He reached out and touched the console surround, and remembered vaguely that Joker sometimes did the same thing. He couldn't feel the rest of his body; he might have been crying, shaking, breathing; all or none of them.
"You already know," he told her. Then he turned to Tali and Liara. "What do we need to do to get a shuttle through that thing?" he asked.
She thought of waiting longer, of waiting until Eden Prime's transport was working then surprising him in person, but decided not to. She didn't know how he would react, when he saw her. More than that, she didn't want to wait any more.
"I like it."
"You do?"
"Mmm. It's like having a sniper visor already built into your eyes. Can you actually zoom with those?" She nodded and he added, "Handy."
"You don't mind my skin?"
"We all have scars," he grinned, and closed his eyes when she reached up to touch them.
"Garrus. When I thought I had destroyed the Mass Relays, abandoned you somewhere out there…" She told him what had happened; the choices she'd been given. Her analysis surprised him. "The AI was right," she said. "Conflict is inevitable. Organic life is limited. Look at this." She lifted her hand. The lights glistened beneath her skin. "Without this, synthetics really will surpass their creators. There will be war and chaos, even with the Geth. When they're as powerful as Reapers, they'll treat us the same way."
He considered her insight. "And yet, you chose to destroy the synthetics we had rather than finding a permanent solution. There must have been a reason."
"Mostly, the AI. Creating a race of synthetics to kill us every fifty thousand years, to stop us being killed by synthetics? Not exactly playing with a full deck."
He laughed. Free joy, for the first time in a long time. "I have no idea what that expression means, but you did say something about it being 'batshit insane'. I guess I don't need to know what a bat is to appreciate the crazy."
"Right. I didn't trust the AI's version of synthesis. I've seen the damned husks. They were nothing but hunger, the Reapers nothing but destruction. I figured that we could do it ourselves, in our own time. The work Cerberus has done… well, we used Maelon's data when it came to it. We'll use this too." She lifted her hand again, letting the lights beneath her skin play. "We'll reach synthesis, and we'll help the Geth and beings like Edi to understand organics."
"She might need a new avatar," Garrus pointed out.
"The Migrant Fleet's working on it, even if it isn't quite so migrant any more."
"Joker will be happy to know that," he grinned.
She smiled back and wrapped her arms around him. "It'll happen. But we'll do it in our own time, and not because we're forced to make a bad decision."
"Thank you," Garrus said, for a moment he paused, holding her close, thinking about the immensity of the choice she had made. "You said that it was mostly the AI?"
She looked pained for a moment, remembering. "They were hard choices to make, Garrus. I was hurting. I'd lost a lot of blood. I didn't trust the AI to synthesize us, and I didn't trust myself to control the Reapers. I don't always make decisions because they're the right ones. I can get angry too." Her hand went to her cheek, where other scars had once made their mark; nanomachines fighting against the stress of her ire while she was still a creature of pure flesh. "And destruction… it didn't seem right, either. They were all balanced, and all wrong. I couldn't find a good way for the universe, so I was selfish. I didn't know the Crucible was going to blow up, or that the relays would shatter." She shook her head, remembering. "I didn't know that I'd survive it, or that I'd need to. I hoped the Normandy would come in and rescue me, or the universe would go to hell and I'd never know."
"We had to make Joker leave," Garrus pointed out. "He was scanning for your signal all the way to light speed."
"So tell Joker he made the right choice. He chose a good way for you, and everyone else on the Normandy. My choice… well, the galaxy was too big. So I figured, what the hell. I chose what I wanted." She looked up at him with those shining eyes.
"This way, I got to see you again," she said.