"So that's Commander Shepard."

"Yep," said Jeff, with just a hint of proprietary pride. "Pretty great, huh?"

''I'll say," said Traynor. She looked out the front window of the Normandy with a starry eyed expression, as if she might somehow catch a glimpse of the Commander on the dust covered surface of Mars below. "She just came in and took charge, like she'd never left. But she was still so nice. And I mean...I'd seen the vids, but in person, she's just so much more...striking. And...charismatic. I'm really looking forward to working with her."

Joker turned to look at the gushing woman beside him. Another person might have resented being demoted from head researcher to glorified secretary, but Traynor was smiling like all her birthday presents had come at once. And she never came up to bug him in the cockpit when she was supposed to be on duty, she was usually way too conscientious for that.

"Oh my god," he said, laughing. "You totally have the hots for Shepard."

"What? No, I just...I mean..." Traynor blustered. If her skin was paler it would have gone bright pink, he was sure. "I'm just...looking forward to working with her. And wanted to discuss it with you, since you actually know her."

"Uh huh."

"But um...just out of curiosity..." Traynor's voice got very small. "Do you, uh...know if she's interested in women? And, uh...subordinates?"

Jeff laughed for like a full minute. Clearly the legend of Gina Shepard, Saviour of the Galaxy, left out a few of the more salacious details. "Women? Traynor, I once saw Shepard hit on an elcor. She slept with her last personal assistant, and that woman was a Cerberus agent. Interested is not your problem. Her lizard assassin boyfriend, that's your problem."

"Oh. And I suppose he isn't the type to share?"

"Not as far as I can tell, sorry. But on the plus side, he's got some weird lung disease and hasn't got long to live, so you might not have to wait long until she's single!"

Traynor stared at him in horror. "Joker, that's terrible," she said. "I can't believe you just..."

"Hey, I'm not saying I want him to die. Thane's a good guy. I was just trying to cheer you up!"

"Thanks," said Traynor. "But I'm going to go... sit in my room by myself and hit my head against the wall, if that's alright with you." She turned to leave.

"Have fun!" said Joker, glad to finally be able to get back to playing around with the new console. He's only just gotten to take the Normandy back into space, he didn't want to waste time talking.

Jeff had never really found Shepard all that attractive. He recognised objectively that she was nicely put together, but she was his commanding officer, he just...didn't think of commanding officers that way. But when she strode onto the Normandy with Kaidan over her shoulders like some sort of avenging hero he had to agree with Traynor that she was certainly striking. "That's my Captain," he thought proudly. Anderson was ok, but he wasn't Shepard.

Of course Anderson probably wouldn't have put a Cerberus AI in the AI core.

"Are you trying to get us all killed? You know Cerberus is infected with Reaper tech these days, and that stuff is contagious. Your supposedly deactivated robot would literally only have to take two steps to have direct access to EDI's brain."

"Look, Joker," said Shepard, her voice tense over the comm. "I appreciate your concern, I don't want EDI getting infected any more than you do. But I discussed it with her and she said the AI core was the best place. You have any problems with my decision, bring it up with her. Now if you don't mind I'd like us to get the Citadel before Kaidan...Major Alenko dies of a brain haemorrhage rather than standing here arguing about things that might possibly happen."

"Fine," said Joker. "But I'm checking it out myself once we're there."

Joker stared at the limp tangle of charcoal stained metal limbs lying like a beat up old battle mech in the back of med bay.

"And people mistook this for a real person?" he said, dubiously.

"Before it caught fire, the drone was covered in a thin layer of faux human skin," said EDI. "And the casing around the head was subdivided into black strands of fibre resembling human hair. The design is quite ingenious, an observant human might notice the oddness of it's appearance if they looked closely, but how often do humans suspect each other of secretly being robots?"

"I will now," said Jeff. "And I mean, have you met Vega? No way that guy's muscles are real."

"I'm not certain that they are natural," said EDI. "But they appear to be entirely organic. Perhaps he would submit to a biopsy."

"You and your biopsies," said Jeff affectionately. "But seriously: are you sure it's safe to keep it in here with you? What if it tries to take over your systems?"

"It's quite possible that it will try," said EDI smugly. "But I very much doubt that it will succeed."

Jeff watched the feed from the command centre and tried not to bite his fingernails. He knew he had to stay at the helm, but he really didn't like whatever was going on with EDI. She'd actually taken over the main battery and started warming up the guns, only to just as suddenly power them down and claim that she was doing nothing out of the ordinary. He really didn't like to think that she might be being taken over by the damn Cerberus AI, but the possibility gnawed at him.

Still, at Least Liara and Traynor didn't look too worried. "I can't find anything wrong with EDI's main systems," said Liara, scrolling through a glowing orange readout. "She's far too complex an AI for me to be able to pick up any problems for sure, but there's certainly nothing to indicate infection by external software that I can see."

"That's what my investigations showed up as well," said Traynor. "I'm sorry we called you up here, but she really was acting strangely."

"That's alright," said Liara. "Just before I came back to the Normandy we met up with an old turian friend of ours, so Shepard should not be short of guns. And it's better to be safe than sorry."

By 'old turian friend' did she mean Garrus? Jeff certainly hoped so, he didn't like thinking of the poor guy getting blasted by Reapers down on the surface of Palaven. God, this whole situation was nuts. Earth under attack, the turians being beaten down like a bunch of helpless kittens...it was hard to keep up his normal cheery demeanour. They were all screwed.

"Jeff." He looked up from the screen. EDI's voice was much softer than normal, and he could hear no echo of it on the feed.

"EDI? What is it?"

"Do you trust me?" Well that wasn't an ominous question or anything.

"I...guess. Why? Do you want me to pull your finger?"

"Not exactly. But things may get strange again for a while soon, and I don't want you to worry."

"What do you mean by strange?"

"It's probably best that I don't explain," she said, maddeningly. "I'll see you soon."

"Oh c'mon!" said Joker, but she refused to answer again.

He had never been more glad to see EDI's little icon on his dashboard. "EDI," he said "Are you back?"

"Yes, Jeff." He let out a breath and felt all his muscles complain about being held in a tense ball for so long. He'd be lucky if he hadn't fractured anything.

"What the hell was that? When you said something strange might happen, I didn't think you meant you'd be shutting down and catching on fire."

"I did not actually catch on fire," she said. "But I'm sorry if I caused you distress. I had a conflict with the Dr Eva drone. I won. I'm coming to show you my new platform now."

"Your new platform...you mean that drone? You're...in a robot now?"

"Not all of me. But I am able to use it's body as a mobile platform."

Ok, heart attack aside, that was actually pretty cool. The Dr Eva body had been pretty beat up, but he knew that EDI found being stuck inside the Normandy frustrating sometimes. Even a burned out broken mech body could be useful for like...connecting to external data nodes and stuff. Maybe he could take her out to the Citadel and show her the sights.

And then the door opened and in walked a shiny metal goddess of hotness.

"Holy crap," he said.

She gave a shy smile. EDI was smiling at him. Or at least, EDI's new body was smiling at him. Ok, this was kind of weird.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

"Do I ever."

Every time Jeff looked over at EDI (which was frequently. He was still getting the hang of there being an EDI to look over at) she was doing something weird with her new body: pulling the fingers back or twisting her head around to it's maximum rotation, it was freaky. But he only put his foot down when she started trying to detach her breasts.

"Stop that," he said. "It's...weird. And totally against, like, human social norms, even you know that."

"I apologise," she said. "I know it would be unacceptable were I a real human, but this is merely a physical platform that I am experimenting on."

"Well, if you ask me you look enough like a real human that some of the same rules apply," he said. "Even if you are allowed to sit around without any clothes on. I mean, I really do like your new body and all but...I'm trying to concentrate on flying the ship here, ok?"

"I see," she said, with that voice she used when she was processing new data. That often lead nowhere good. "Am I arousing you, Jeff?" she asked.

"Jesus, EDI." She certainly got to the point, didn't she? He thought about denying it, but he wasn't going to start lying to EDI now. He groaned. "Ok, yes. You are. A little. And it's kind of freaking me out. I mean, on the one hand it's nice to have this shiny naked metal chick to look at while I'm flying, but on the other hand it's kind of hard to process that the shiny naked metal chick is you. I'm not used to you having a body, let alone one that's so..."

"Arousing."

"...yeah. I mean, I'll get used to it, and it is pretty cool, but...try not to mess with my head too much, ok?"

"I'll try," she said. "Although I cannot make any guarantees. Your head is remarkably easy to mess with." The familiar subtle smug tone in her voice was accompanied by a subtle smug smile on her face. Yeah, he was screwed alright.