Chapter 4-Roads Untravelled
"It seems as if the incident in the Terminus colony Gideon's Grace was not an isolated one. The reapers have been sighted in other parts of Terminus systems, either providing protection or aid.
Just today, two reapers served as escorts to a civilian ship traveling through pirate space. The people on board were apparently not aware of the reapers' presence, as all viewports were covered as a safety precaution, and the reapers kept their heat emissions masked. Still, the pilots did wonder why the pirates would close in, only to turn tail a moment later. They had their answer once they reached safe space and opened their viewports to see the reapers that had been trailing them.
The total number of reapers which have returned is unknown, but it is estimated to be around a dozen, which was the number of previously derelict reaper constructs drifting around the Shrike Abyssal only two weeks ago.
Reports have also come in of a figure claiming to be the new leader of the reapers. Most of the evidence is word of mouth or amateur video, so most details are largely unconfirmed. However, most of the reports agree on its ability to control reaper forces. For more information, visit our extranet site.
Coming up next, an organization nicknamed 'The Tikash' due to their logo's resemblance to a bird native t-"
The turian councilar set the remote down on his desk, shaking his head. "All this talk of a new leader has driven people into a frenzy," the other councilors nodded their agreement."Half of them want us to destroy the reapers, and half of them want us to form an alliance."
"What are you going to do about it?" inquired Garrus. Tali shifted beside him, bowing her head in thought.
He was hesitant to believe the reports at first. The reapers? Helping people? News coverage in the Terminus was sketchy at best, and he was more inclined to believe there was some sort of unified conspiracy going on. But the accumulation of these incidents, along with live vidfeeds and reliable reports provided by the quarians and the geth aided in the legitimacy of these claims-which only raised more questions.
"Actually, that's why we brought you three here," said the human councillor, motioning to him, Tali, and Legion, "you have the most experience dealing with the reapers, so we wanted your opinion."
"In my opinion, we should've already blown the reapers thirteen ways to hell. But the Terminus is in our way, and they're sure as hell not going to let us help them," retorted Garrus.
"Actually," began Tali, "Legion and I were talking about this a few days ago. We think that we should try to make contact with the leader."
A silence fell across the room.
Garrus stared at her, taken aback. There weren't many details on the leader-a few vids and eyewitness accounts were the only proof of its existence. It's not as if he hadn't entertained the thought of allying with the leader; but that's just what it had remained, a thought born of desperation. Either way, the idea of reasoning with the reapers was comical at best.
He held his mandibles tight against his face as Tali continued speaking. "The geth would be able to send them a transmission, and we could set up a meeting in a safe area?"
"How do you know they're not still trying to harvest us?" he prodded.
"Just think about it," she pleaded, "maybe that's what the Crucible was meant to do; not destroy the reapers, but give them a new leader, turn them good! This never happened with the protheans."
Before Garrus could argue, the asari councillor spoke up. "I was considering the same thing. The reapers could have attacked us by now. Their forces are more than sufficient, and we could barely dent them during the war. But why haven't they yet?"
"It looks like the reapers are trying to get on our good side," mused the human councillor, "I mean, there are stories of the leader saving whole colonies and taking bullets for little girls. This doesn't sound like the old reapers."
Garrus exhaled sharply. Nothing made sense anymore. "All of you were on the Citadel at the time of the attack. You weren't there on Palaven, Earth, Thessia...You haven't experienced everything the reapers are capable of."
"We know what happened," said the asari councillor, a tired, solemn look crossing her face, "and now the victims of the war are looking to us for the answer of whether or not the reapers will return. We need to find out-for them."
The salarian councillor continued for her. "The reapers are exhibiting peaceful behaviour for the first time in known history. Based on our knowledge of the protheans, a ceasefire such as this one never occurred. I agree with Ambassador Zorah, it may be possible that it is the effect of the Crucible."
Perhaps he was looking at this the wrong way. The reapers were machines, easily programmable beings. They did not have their own personal vendettas. The need to exterminate every living creature was a code, not a want. The Crucible, meanwhile, was a massive creation capable of the unknown-could giving the reapers a new leader, and therefore a new directive, be that unknown?
He tried to ignore the niggling thought that maybe this was his own, selfish way of believing Shepard's sacrifice was not in vain.
"Fine, invite the leader. Just make sure they don't bring the big guns to the Citadel. Arrange a pick-up out of system, and tell them to keep the constructs away," he suggested, "if they're up for a diplomatic meeting, then they shouldn't have a problem with it."
"That's a good idea," Tali quietly affirmed as the Councillors discussed amongst themselves.
"That's why I'm the Spectre," he joked, mandibles splayed in a grin. "And you, miss ambassador? That was...quite the proposal."
"Sorry about that," she squirmed, wringing her hands, "it wasn't even a serious idea before, didn't think it would come up..."
"It's alright. Problems don't get solved by thinking inside the box."
Tali tilted her head questioningly.
"Human expression, it means by convention," he explained. She nodded, and turned back to the Council, who were conversing among themselves.
Garrus couldn't bother to listen to the Council's quibble. Truthfully, he felt detached from the whole thing. Either the reapers really had changed, or a new harvest was about to begin. If the latter were to come true, than he knew they would fight a losing battle. Shepard was gone, and the Crucible was useless. He realized now how much he had depended on her for hope and encouragement. With her gone, he felt like he was back at the safe house in Omega, running on stims and delaying an inevitable end.
Although if the worst did come to pass, at least Shepard wouldn't have been alone long.
"It is decided," announced the asari councillor, snapping him from his thoughts, "we will arrange for a peaceful conference with the head reaper, to find out its intentions and hopefully broker peace."
"Spectre Vakarian," spoke the turian councillor, "You'll act as a diplomatic emissary for the first meeting with the reaper leader," oh shit, "you will be tasked with escorting it to and from the meeting, along with answering any questions it has. So long as they fall outside the realm of confidentiality, of course."
Garrus nodded reluctantly. Well, he supposed this was better than getting buried in paperwork.
The reaper collective was like nothing else.
Every reaper was a nation in itself, thousands, if not millions, of unified minds singing in complete harmony. Every mind kept its own traits and characteristics, and in conjunction all of them worked as a sort of consensus. A reaper was still an individual, in a way. All of the minds and processes worked together to give an identity and maintain unity, while still keeping partial individuality. A single mind was its own, but combined with all the others it became a small part of a singular being. Because of the sheer volume of thought processes and streams, staying in the collective for prolonged periods of time gave her a killer headache.
But man, was it awesome. As a human, Shepard was limited to the senses and sensations of her own body. In the collective, however, she could share with the constructs. She could see what each one of them saw. It reminded her of Liara's set up back on the SR2-many, many displays, each showing an individual picture. And she could choose to zoom in on any one. She could put herself in the mind of any construct, moving when it moved, sensing what it sensed, and feeling its thoughts run parallel to her own. Even the ones who lay deep in dark space-though their connection was fractionally weaker.
Shepard felt a jolt as every reaper in the system experienced the same thing: an information burst, sent by the geth. The string of numbers and symbols that formed the code were undecipherable to her, but the reapers understood it perfectly fine. Her curiosity peaked and she chose Gerula to share the information with her.
Its thoughts streamed into hers. Her surprise echoed across the collective, and she disconnected before she could cause anything dramatic to happen.
"Well, I guess this is it," Shepard laughed nervously. Still, excitement flooded through her. She would return to the Citadel after all this time, and meet the , needling guilt plagued her anticipation. She'd been so keen on distancing herself from the world, especially from the people who had been close to her. Now that Shepard was getting the chance to return to civilization, she realized what a coward she was.
She was afraid, perhaps ashamed, of revealing herself. To them, Shepard had been dead for nine months. Abruptly returning, and with the reapers no less, would feel be like a stab in the back to them. She was Shepard, yes, but not the Shepard they had known and loved. It would be unfair to them to tear down the image they had of her.
Although, it would be unfair for her to hide herself as well.
That's a bridge I'll cross when I get there, she thought. She could not decide what to do until she saw the effect her death had on them.
The same would apply to Garrus, she made herself promise. He'd always had Shepard's back, and with a pang of remorse she realized that she would still love him, whether or not he was aware of her existence.
Shepard missed him-a lot. Perhaps she had gotten too comfortable, too complacent with their relationship. Too used to having him around. It was so simple to relax and pretend that they could last forever with no troubles, and it was the one selfish thing she had granted herself. She'd forgotten how easily one could lose everything.
Gerula's rumbling voice snapped her back to attention. "They asked that you do not bring extra forces. Is this acceptable?"
"I wouldn't be worried. If they try anything funny, I'll sic a reaper on them," replied Shepard, "can you send a message back? Tell them the conditions are fine with me, but I'd like to keep one construct in-system."
"Is that all?"
"Yeah." Shepard checked her reflection in the viewport. Her hair had gotten longer, and her complexion perhaps more gaunt, but otherwise she looked the same. Yet the sensation of her fingers gliding across her scalp felt almost detached. It was surprising how unfamiliar one's own body could feel.
She straightened out the wrinkles in her undersuit, and moved across the room to retrieve her armor, which lay strewn across the floor. She slipped into the greaves first so she wouldn't have to bend over with a chestplate. Then came her gauntlets and her arm and shoulder covers. She snapped on her chestplate, and picked up the helmet.
It glared back at her with wide blue eyes, the only distinguishable facial features. The back curved into wicked points, and she supposed if she ever needed a weapon, she could simply slip off her helmet and bludgeon people to death with it. Nasty and brutish, but it would get the job done.
She slid on the mask and looked across the room. Her reflection in the viewport was more familiar now, she realized with a jolt.
"Well, I think it's the dumbest, most suicidal idea I've ever heard!"
Solana was incensed, naturally. She believed that there came a point where too much was asked of an individual, and that point had been reached.
"Well, in my defence, it wasn't my idea," Garrus countered, mandibles flaring in a smirk.
Solana rapped his head with a knuckle. "You're trying to bargain with the reapers, it doesn't matter whose idea it was." She bumped his shoulder. "It's suicide."
"Solana..."
"Don't do it," she urged him, looking him in the eye.
In his mind, her plates lightened and aged, and her eyes took on a gentle sheen. She'd always looked more like their mother.
He swallowed. "Solana, please. Everything will be fine," he brushed her crown with the back of his hand. "And if I die, the apartment goes to you."
"Garrus," she hissed, "not the time for your pitiful attempts at humor!"
"I'm hurt, Sol," he feigned, pressing a hand over his heart. He moved to his weapons cabinet, extracting a compacted sniper rifle. "How's work?"
Solana sighed. "You're trying to change the topic."
Garrus screwed on the extended barrel. "What? I can't genuinely be interested in my sister's life?"
"Spirits, I hope not," she snorted, "stay out of my life."
"Are we teenagers again, Sol?"
"Feels like it."
Garrus crouched to fetch some heat sinks from the bottom shelf. "Let me try again. How was work, sweet sister of mine?"
She inclined her head in a show of exasperation. "We got a whole lot of new refugees because of that new Terminus gang."
"Oh, the Tikash," said Garrus, his mind flipping back to the painted red bird on the ship that had attacked the councillor's men. "Yeah, they've been giving us trouble too."
"They're attacking a bunch of colonies on the fringe of the Traverse-not quite Citadel protected space, so we can't do anything about it, but not quite the Terminus, so your reaper buddies can't help them either."
"They sound like asses."
"Oh, they are," her mandibles fluttered and she stared out the window in thought. "There are rumors of them starting a Terminus alliance. Do you know anything about that?"
Garrus paused in surprise. "No, I didn't. Where did you hear that from?"
"Here and there, really, it's just small talk."
"Well, you know the Terminus. A trillion guns only pointed at each other."
"Yeah," Solana replied, "they wouldn't put their differences aside for anything but a fist fight. I hope."
They could hear the airlock hissing from behind the door as the pressure stabilized. The guards kept their rifles trained on the entrance, their fingers nervously twitching on the triggers. Great, one slip, and he'd have a diplomatic nightmare on his hands. He himself felt rather apprehensive-perhaps a bit excited, as well-at the fact that the head reaper stood on the other side of a thick metal door.
The door slid open and Garrus was, well, surprised. He had seen the leader a few times on the extranet; it was a thin, unisex figure, though decidedly more feminine in form, resembling either a human, drell, batarian, or perhaps an asari (although one witness claimed it had the face of a human woman).
But seeing it in person, he realized it was much... smaller than he'd expected. It had the same dark armor and glowing eyes, but it lost some of its intimidation when he realized it was several inches shorter than he. Its eyes swept the room, stopping when they came across him. Perhaps I spoke too soon, he thought, shifting uncomfortably under its bright blue scrutiny.
It carried no weapons besides a sniper rifle slung on its back, which would have to be given up before it entered the tower. He signaled for the guards to drop their weapons."Please, step inside," he said, breaking the silence.
It took a tentative step, eyes fixed on him.
"The Council asks that you move your reaper farther away from the mass relay to prevent any...conflict with ships passing by.
It momentarily broke eye contact to nod. The ship trembled as the reaper undocked.
"Now, follow me and I'll take you to the lounge. Would you like anything to eat?" He asked as they walked across the deck, feeling a bit ridiculous. Reapers didn't eat...did they?
It shook its head, and took a seat in front of the viewport.
"I'll be in the cockpit if you need me," he said, and strode away.
Garrus. Of all the people, how the hell did it end up being Garrus? Shepard didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps both, the situation was pretty funny in a cruel way. She felt an overwhelming urge to bash her head against the wall. Garrus!
She was doing well up until now, thinking she could simply avoid the trappings of her old life. After all, what could happen on a brief trip to the Citadel and back? She'd thought herself into a corner, by the looks of it. What was she to do? Rip off her helmet and say, hey, Garrus, I know you though I was dead but I'm not. Also, I control the reapers now too!
Shepard stretched her limbs, releasing a strangled groan and likely spooking the hell out of the serviceman by the door. Things always get more complicated. She barely trusted herself to speak at the moment, relying on nods and shakes. Formulating complete sentences was likely out of the question. That meant no classic silver-tongued Shepard-style speeches.
It was miserable, really. She torn between being Shepard and hugging the damn turian, and being the reapers' leader and doing, well, not that. She was worried that sooner or later she would let something slip, and she wasn't sure whether it'd be a good thing or a bad thing.
It had been easy to hide away in the Terminus and pretend like her previous life was over, that everything she knew and loved was gone. But everything wasn't gone-in fact most of it was the same. Returning to her old life, even reopening old wounds, was a tempting idea.
Shepard was a reaper now, though. Not the Shepard from before. She feared they would all look down on her with disgust and hatred, and concealing her identity would prevent her from ever finding out if it were so. It was also completely cowardly and uncharacteristic of her. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, breathing slowly.
When she opened them again, the Citadel had appeared in the viewport. Even after all this time, it still managed to take her breath away.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Also, for future reference, which do you prefer: Ashley or Kaidan?