Jack: The Knife in the Back

Shepard pressed the button in the room, and a green light exploded from the omni-tool on Jack. She found herself stumbling backwards as her yellow earpiece lights shone a bright green, and her irises now had holographic data-blocks orbiting it. When she found her bearings again, she saw that Shepard and their other squadmate were trapped in that room, but more than that, there were orange holograms on each of the walls. The door they had previously tried to open was now ajar.

"So I'm moving on by myself. Great," Jack thought. Most of the time when people had her go ahead, it was by their choice, either because they needed someone who looked like an expendable meat-shield, or to desert her when she wasn't looking. This was one of the few times when the separation was imposed on her by the very enemy they were fighting, which in a way made it all the more aggravating.

As Jack continued forward into the Atlas Station's depths, she found that the geth were glowing a sickly green color, and they exploded in a shower of holographic data-cubes when she destroyed them. She could even make out cries of 'STOP', although each sounded more like a plea for mercy than a command to surrender.

"There are no options left. How to get the geth's attention?"a hologram of Gavin Archer spoke as she entered a green room. Jack also saw David Archer mimic the geth language and get a response out of the robot, with his older brother calling him a miracle worker. It was all fine and shit, she thought as the holograms on the walls returned to their orange color, but it didn't explain why the VI was now going berserk.

A few spheres of green holographic data had emerged. When Jack touched one, the room turned green again, with Gavin getting David to repeat notes from a previous experiment, apparently signifying that there was no discernable pattern of geth obedience. Another sphere had David ordering a geth to step forward using his own linguistic mimicry.

"He's literally a human computer," Gavin eventually stated.

"And you think that he can interface with the geth's neural network?" an assistant asked.

"I do."

"Is that even safe, Doctor?"

"I see no harm in finding out."

"Sure," Jack thought, with unpleasant memories rising in her mind. "Let's just take our best bet and throw him at the wall to see what sticks. I don't see any possible way that that could backfire. Assholes."

When she got to the main chamber, Jack found another data node, which showed David speaking at a much faster rate. Anyone with half a brain could hear that he was panicking, and yet… "We're ready. Open a connection to the geth network." It was Gavin Archer's voice.

"QUIET!" David yelled, as the connection started up. The nearby geth aimed weapons at the scientists assembled.

"David, NO! Tell the geth to stand down!"

"QUIET PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!" David continued to yell.

The world returned to being orange, and an announcement signalled that the Normandy was within transmission range; the VI was trying to upload its program to the ship. Jack had no choice; she had to stop it herself. The world flashed green again multiple times as she chipped away at the VI Core in the chamber, with panic at each interval. "Pull the plug! Tell Vulcan Station to cut all power!" sounded Gavin Archer's voice, before he was told that they lost all control.

His voice sounded a second time: "David, you have to stop this!"

"DAVID DOESN'T WANT TO BE HERE!" the VI yelled.

After enough shotgun blasts and biotic shockwaves, the virtual shell of the VI Core broke, revealing David Archer himself, but it couldn't have been clearer that he was forced. He was suspended far off the ground, with wires rammed into his arms and mouth, his eyes forced open… this was some sickening shit right here, she thought.

Looking at him longer, and hearing his despairing cry of 'Quiet, please make it stop,' aroused something in Jack; something like fury crossed with empathy crossed with a rising desire to murder. A lot of this reminded her of Teltin, and this too validated a particularly strong opinion of hers: "Turns out if you mess with someone's head enough, you can turn a scared kid into an all-powerful bitch.'

"Wait, Subject Zero!" Dr Gavin Archer called from the lift to the chamber. "I'm begging you, don't do anything rash."

"Sure, jamming electrical circuits into someone who pleaded with you not to hardwire him into a VI's behavioural system isn't rash at all! Gimme one good reason I shouldn't throw you screaming into a garbage compactor!"

"I know how this must look but I never intended any harm to come to him. You must see that. It's not like I planned this. It was an accident. Seeing David communicate with the geth… it all seemed harmless."

"Famous last words, asshole. Teltin must have seemed harmless for the researchers at the time, and we both know how well that worked out!"

"There was no way we could have known that this catastrophe would occur! Any war we fight with the geth will be bloody. I was asked to prevent that."

"You Cerberus assholes are all the same. It's goal this, goal that, and screw the damage we do along the way!"

"If humanity kept worrying about every single little repercussion of its actions, we would never have become part of a galactic civilisation. We have to take gambles to see results. If my work spares a million mothers mourning the loss of a million sons, my conscience will rest easy."

"Yeah, and I'm sure that the kid will forgive you for putting him through hell! And keeping him locked in a glass cage like a lab rat!"

"But a well cared-for lab rat. At least he'd still be alive."

"Bullshit! I was a 'well cared-for' test subject by those standards, even if I was in agony! Besides, look at what the fuck you've done to him!"

"The damage may not be permanent. He may still recover some semblance of his mind."

"Take a good, hard look at him and tell me that you haven't screwed him in the ass! I dare you!"

After Jack's order, Gavin turned his attention to the man hard-wired into machinery, sounding over the intercom "Square root of 906.01 is…"

"30.1," he responded. Turning back to Jack, Gavin spoke again. "What I've done to David is unethical. If he dies, it's unforgivable. Please… let me take care of him."

"Fuck that!" Jack declared, blasting him backwards with a biotic shockwave. "I'm not letting you screw with him any longer!"

"What… do you mean…" Gavin gasped, getting to his feet.

"He's coming with me."

"No! Leave him! He's too valuable!" he shouted, drawing a pistol and firing at Jack before being hit with another biotic shockwave that caused him to let go of the weapon.

"It screws with Cerberus research… even better!" She levitated him with another biotic field before propelling him to the direct opposite side of the chamber, smashing him into a wall and leaving him gasping for breath.

"Where… where will you… take him?"

"Dunno, and as long as it's out of Cerberus hands, I don't really care. But lemme make this clear: if you come after your brother, you'll end up in a body bag. It's a fucking tempting option as it is!"

Activating her comn link, she continued. "Shepard, this is Jack. I've dealt with the VI, but the kid here's in shit shape. His brother screwed him over pretty bad. We gotta get him outta here!"

End note: I think, due to her personality, I see her blasting Gavin Archer with shockwaves much sooner, but I wanted to see how the rest of the dialogue would play out.