Note: If you enjoy this story, you may wish to read my other work-in-progress, The Legend of Dragon's Gate, a three-way crossover between Baldur's Gate 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and The Legend of Zelda. Unless, of course, you've never played those games, in which case you obviously won't be interested.


Chapter 8 – They Saved Prazza's Brain


"This is the new test subject?"

With a push of a button the tank raised into position, revealing the human test subject currently in stasis. Hvenna'Tor was quite impressed with his physique, though he had no particular fetish for humans, unlike the individual in charge of this project.

"Who is he again?"

He glanced at the datapad. "His name is 'Slab Bulkhead' and he's a pornographic actor. Made it big in Fornax magazine, I hear. Won back a bunch of subscribers after that nasty business with the Forbidden Issue."

Taedal'Rhen grunted in contempt. "And to think one of our own was responsible for that. Prazza should never have been allowed off the flotilla. Everyone knew he was unstable."

"Just be thankful you weren't the one they sent to Freedom's Progress to recover his body, or what was left of it. They ordered us specifically to recover as much of his brain as possible. You ever tried recovering someone's brain after they've been hit in the face with a rocket launcher?"

"Sounds messy."

"Indeed. But with bio-reconstruction and synthetic implants we've successfully rebuilt it. We're going to be hooking it into the Geth Prime this afternoon."

Taedal fidgeted. "But...why Prazza? What's so special about him, aside from the fact that he was a gibbering moron?"
He sighed. "It's much too complicated for me to explain to you. Let me just say that the...unique...configuration of his neuroanatomy makes him exceptionally well-suited to this project."

"And if it fails? All test subjects up to Subject 39 have been dismal failures."

"But I have a good feeling about Subject 40; Mr. Bulkhead here. And if that fails, well, there are plenty more idiot humans in the galaxy, aren't there?"


That night Tali found herself unable to sleep, tossing and turning endlessly in her bunk. The business with the quarian they had taken from Omega continued to torment her long into the night, though a part of her knew it was naïve to think that her people wouldn't train shadow operatives. Earlier that night she had sent a message back to Shaala, but so far she had not heard anything back. That was assuming that Shaala was at liberty to say anything about any sort of quarian black ops group. As distasteful as the idea of keeping secrets like this was, Tali had to acknowledge that it was mere practicality that sensitive military operations were only known to a select few.

This was not the only thing keeping her awake. She kept thinking back to that moment on Omega when Shepard had helped her to her feet and then caught her just as she was about to fall. Tali knew it was mere reflex on his part and meant absolutely nothing, but all she could think about was how good it felt to be held in his arms and how very much she would like to feel that again. She went back and forth for what felt like hours on whether or it not was healthy to have thoughts like these.

A pang of guilt struck her, guilt that this was a terribly selfish thing for her to want. They were on a dangerous mission, flying into the Omega-4 relay, a place from which no ship had ever returned. So much depended on them stopping the Collectors and the last thing they needed was being distracted by their feelings. Even if Tali could find some way to be close to Shepard without the encumbrance of her suit, there was a very good chance she could become ill, perhaps seriously so, and that would negatively affect her performance on the mission. No, she thought, it was too much of a risk. Better to forget this idle fancy of hers and concentrate on what was important. And if this truly were a suicide mission, what did it matter if she had some fling right before her death?

But no matter how many Tali told herself this, she could never quite believe it. Though she tried hard to ignore it, the fact remained that she was terribly lonely, having lost all of her family and seeing most of her friends die on Haestrom. Was it so wrong for her to desire companionship right before they flew off into some battle from which they might never return? A part of her would have said yes, that the proper thing for a quarian to do was subordinate her own desires to the greater good. That was the ideal she had always striven for all her life, but now she had foolishly developed feelings for her captain and could not wish them away no matter how she tried.

As proof of her affection, Tali had bought a present for Shepard during the last stopover at the Citadel. She knew he had a hobby of collecting ship models and putting them in a display case up in his quarters, so when she saw a model of the Normandy SR-1 on sale at a souvenir shop, Tali knew at once that she had to buy it for him. But ever since then she had never been able to work up the nerve to actually give it to him. What if he took it the wrong way, thinking it was an overt romantic gesture and rejecting her right on the spot? What if he considered it inappropriate for someone to give her captain a gift? Tali knew very little of how humans handled gift-giving; among her people it would be very unusual for someone to give a gift solely to an individual..

Eventually Tali got fed up with her inability to fall asleep and climbed out of bed. Maybe there was something to do on the crew deck that would take her mind off her troubles for a while. A few off-duty crewmen were seated at the mess table, watching some big important game on a holographic screen, while Aethyta was showing Grunt an old krogan weapon that had once belonged to her father. It looked like a sword, albeit one much too large for anything but a krogan to wield. On closer inspection, the weapon did not have an cutting edge like a typical sword, but rather a series of saw-like teeth along the blade.

"...and this is a krogan chainsword that belonged to my dad. Ancient krogan warriors would carry these into battle and use them to cut through the armour of their enemies and kill them in a spectacularly gory fashion."

Grunt help the enormous blade, a smile (or what Tali thought was a smile; krogan weren't all that terribly expressive) creeping up his mouth. "I'd like to see the Collectors get a taste of this! Ha!"

Aethyta stashed the chainsword under the counter when she saw Tali approaching. "Ah, another one of the crew who can't get to sleep and is looking for a drink and advice, am I right?"

Tali froze. "Oh, well...I guess."

"So, what'll it be? The quarian neutronium, or are your problems not bad enough to warrant something that strong?"

"I...I don't know. Do you have any human drinks that are safe for quarians?"

"Let me see," she said, looking through the shelves of bottles behind the counter. "I've got a few bottles of vodka, here that oughta do it." Aethyta held up one of the bottles, which was filled with a clear liquid indistinguishable from water. "Hmm, and according to the bottle label, this was distilled in some Earth city named 'Samara.' Well that's an odd coincidence." She poured out a full glass of the stuff, which would be a rather enormous amount for a human, but was typical for quarians who could handle large quantities of alcohol better than humans. Tali found that it had a burning taste, but it was a pleasant burning.

"So what's the big problem that's keeping you awake?" Aethyta asked.

She wanted desperately to talk with someone about her feelings, but she didn't want anyone to find out about her feelings for Shepard. "It...it's a bit personal, I don't know if I should be talking about it..."

The matriarch crossed her arms. "Tali, is this one of these questions that begins with, 'I have a friend who...?'"

Tali stepped back. "N...no! I mean, well...yes...that's what I wanted to talk to you about. It's just that...um...there's someone back on the flotilla, and...uh...he's on his Pilgrimage. He met this...asari...and he...he's really interested in her, but he isn't sure that she's interested in him, or if he-, I mean she - would be interested in a quarian. So...what I want to know is, what should I – he – do in this...this situation?"

Aethyta saw through her flimsy story at once, but decided to play along. "Do you want to know what I would do in that situation, or what your friend should do?"

"Is there a difference?"

"Damn right there is! If I were interested in someone, I'd grab em' and take em' around the nearest corner for a roll! Just do whatever comes to mind and damn the consequences! That's the only way to live."

"And...what's your other advice?"

"Tell your friend that he should come right out and tell the object of his desire how he feels. Sure, it might hurt if she rejects him, but better that than never knowing." Aethyta then leaned in close and lowered her voice. "Let met tell you this: there is nothing, nothing worse than looking back and thinking about what could have been. Say your 'friend' decides that he doesn't want to risk getting turned down, so he keeps his mouth shut. But the object of his desire never learns that he's interested in her, so eventually she finds happiness with someone else and your friend spends the rest of his life drowning his sorrows in cheap liquor because he didn't have the guts to tell her how he felt."

"I...I guess that makes sense."

"And one more thing, Tali. You don't have to be coy with me; I know you're talking about Shepard."

She stepped back from the counter. "Wh...what? N...no, I...I mean...how did you know?"

Aethyta waved her hand. "Oh come on, everyone knows you have a thing for him! Even a senile hanar could see that, given the way you talk about him."

It felt like something had grabbed her heart and stopped it from beating. "Then does...Shepard know?"

"Why wouldn't he?" she answered with a shrug. "This is a small ship and word travels fast. I wouldn't be surprised if that frilly twit of a secretary told him, given how she likes to play ship's counsellor."

Tali's heart sank upon hearing this. If Shepard knew, and he had never expressed any interest in her, then that had to mean he felt nothing for her. "But he...he hasn't said anything to me," she said despairingly. "I...I guess that means he's not interested...why would he be?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I think he's interested, he just doesn't know it yet."

"What...what does that mean?"

"It means you should go and tell him how you feel, damn it! If you're nervous, you should get hammered to take the edge off. Actually, forget about that; you'll probably just end up saying something embarrassing, and I don't think Shepard will like 'Drunk Tali.' Well, unless he's drunk himself. Now there's an idea! Get him liquored up, then lay it on him. Of course, then he might not remember it the next morning..."

She ignored all this. "But...what if being together with him is the wrong thing to do? I mean, I could get sick, he could get...get distracted."

Aethyta laughed. "Sick? Listen babe, you're both different species, and neither of you are asari, so that means you'll never have to worry about the most horrible STD in the galaxy: children. And as for distraction, well, I think we could all use some distraction from the fact that we might all die horribly at the end of the mission."

"I...I guess that makes sense." Tali didn't know if she really believed that, or if she were just trying to talk herself into thinking that pursuing a relationship with Shepard was a good idea. "Maybe...maybe when we're finished investigating this pulsar system, I'll tell him."

"Good. Let me know how things turn out, and if wild, passionate lovemaking ensues."

"Um...yes..." She slowly stepped away from the counter before quickly making her way back to the crew bunks.

That left the issue of just how she was going to confess her feelings to him. Obviously going up to his quarters and screaming "I love you!" wasn't going to work. Just how did you let someone know you were interested in them? For Tali, it was not an issue of quarian/human cultural differences, but rather that she had never felt this strongly about someone before and had no relationship experience whatsoever. Then there was the issue of just how their relationship would be seen by her people. Quarian/human couples were almost unheard-of, and it was childishly naïve of her to think that everyone would accept her choice of partner. And what of Shepard? Quarians weren't exactly held in high regard, and being arguably the most famous human in the galaxy, he would surely take some heat for being seen with her.

But all this was hypothetical anyway. There was no guarantee, nor was it even probable, that Shepard would return her feelings. Yet Tali knew that Aethyta was right, that never knowing would be far worse than the sting of rejection. And so she made up her mind that when this mission was over she would tell him...somehow.


When the Normandy entered the PSR E1337+42 system, Shepard was up in the cockpit, eager to see where their search had taken them this time. If he remembered his astronomy lessons correctly, a pulsar was a remnant of a star that had gone supernova, and which emitted beams of radiation along the axis of its magnetic field. This was offset from its rotational axis, which caused the beams of radiation to sweep through space like a lighthouse beam. He was rather impressed with himself for remembering all that from off the top of his head.

This particular system was a sight to behold. The pulsar was young, being a remnant of a star that had gone supernova only a few thousand years ago. It was shrouded a swirling veil of dust and gas stirred up by the pulsar's super-strong magnetic field (which was about a hundred million teslas in strength, according the cockpit readouts). More worrying were the numerous radiation warnings being thrown up on one of the displays. The entire system was bathed in high-energy synchrotron radiation, although the Normandy's hull should have been sufficient to shield the crew from its effects. That would not help them at all, however, should they be so stupid as to fly into the pulsar beam. This would result in the ship being instantly disintegrated, a rather inglorious fate that had befallen Prazza's great-great-grandfather.

EDI had already completed a full sweep of the system. "Radiation from the pulsar is interfering with my scans, but I detect three planets in orbit."

"How is that possible?" said Shepard. "Any planets in this system would have been pulverised when the star went supernova."

"It is possible that the planets formed after the supernova, or they are the rocky cores of gas giants whose outer layers were blown away in the explosion. I am detecting the presence of an artificial construct on the second planet; it appears to be the ultimate destination for the data retrieved from Cerberus."

"Take us in, Joker, and make sure the stealth system's engaged. EDI, what can you tell me about this 'artificial construct'?"

"I can get no readings inside the construct as it is heavily shielded, most likely to protect it from the pulsar's radiation. It's silhouette is similar to that of quarian ships of the Migrant Fleet, suggesting a re-purposed spacefaring vessel."

That confirmed what they already knew – that quarians were behind the hacking attempt on Cerberus, and with any luck they would find out just what they were up to. There was no telling what they might find at this point, although Shepard knew it was nothing good.

All of the planets in the system were little more than barren hunks of rock, lashed with radiation of such intensity that anyone not wearing a shielded hardsuit would be killed instantly. When they neared their destination it was revealed that there were two separate structures on the planet's surface, both of them being former quarian vessels that had been anchored to the ground. With the Normandy's stealth system it was unlikely that anyone down there was aware of their presence in orbit, but at the same time there was no way to tell who or what they might face.

With two facilities to investigate, Shepard decided to send two teams. He would lead the first, with Tali, Garrus, and Kasumi at his side, wanting a mixture of firepower and tech-saaviness. The other team would be lead by Miranda, alongside Jacob, Mordin, and Zaeed. The two teams packed themselves into Kodiak shuttle, although Kasumi was quite annoyed that she didn't get to sit next to Jacob.

"Remember that we have no idea what might be in store for us. I don't want anyone getting trigger-happy; it might be that the people down there aren't even armed."

"I highly doubt that," Garrus quipped.

"You don't know that!" Tali shot back. "I...I won't take up arms against a fellow quarian, unless they...they..." She didn't finish, and Shepard wondered if he had not made a mistake in allowing her to come.

Below, they could now make out the two quarian vessels lying on the planet's surface. This had to be the most dismal planet Shepard had ever seen, being nothing than a barren, grey rock that was featureless in all directions. There was barely any light to illuminate this dreary world, with the pulsar being little more than a tiny speck of white light in the distance. So far no one was shooting at them or attempting to scare them off, which was probably a good thing. It could, however, indicate that the station was abandoned. Going by personal experience, that would mean that things were going to be far, far worse.

The shuttle landed on a small docking pad located next to what once been the airlock of the quarian ship. Everyone put on their helmets in preparation for disembarking into a vacuum, and the doors opened with a loud hiss of escaping air. One advantage to being a quarian, Shepard thought, was that one didn't need a hardsuit when going somewhere with no atmosphere, or one that was unbreathable.

Tali stared up at the ship, shaking her head. "How could someone take two ships from the flotilla without anyone noticing?"

"They're not exactly large, Tali," said Shepard. "They're no larger than the Normandy. There's tens of thousands of ships in the Migrant Fleet; I can imagine someone making off with two ships and no one being the wiser."

"Ships are our most valuable resource, Shepard! Someone would notice. Whoever is behind this must be someone of great influence; perhaps an admiral or some member of the Conclave."

Behind them the shuttle lifted off, carrying the second team to their insertion point. "Well we won't find out anything just standing here. Can you hack through the airlock controls?"

Tali brought up her omni-tool and quickly hooked it into the airlock system. "Just give me a minute. There doesn't appear to be any sort of security system. They likely never expected anyone to try to break in."

Kasumi, irreverent as ever, wasn't very impressed with this example of quarian shipbuilding. "I hate to say it, Tali, but this ship is really ugly."

Garrus was of the same mind. "I agree. It lacks the strong, focused lines of a turian warship."

Tali ignored them and continued working. Less than a minute later the large, outer doors of the airlock swung open and the four of them filed inside. The second team, lacking anyone of Tali's technical expertise, took a little longer to gain entrance. In fact, Zaeed had decided that the best way in was to use a number of breaching charges he had brought along. It wasn't as subtle as hacking the door controls, but it got the job.

A few seconds later the outer doors closed and the inner doors opened, revealing the interior of the former ship. It looked more or less the same as the ships Shepard had seen during his brief visit to the Migrant Fleet, but unlike those, this vessel's halls were sparse, without any of the crates and containers jammed into every nook and crevice. More obvious, however, were the dead bodies of quarians strewn about, along with bullets holes and scorch marks on the walls and floor. The quarians hadn't died with weapons in their hands, meaning they were unarmed with the shooting began.

"Keelah...what happened here?" said Tali, her voice emotionless. Shepard could not tell for certain, but he guessed that she was thinking back to the fight about Alarei.

Miranda's voice over the radio jarred him his thoughts. "We've breached the airlock, commander, and are making our way into the ship. No sign of anyone."

"Looks like a major firefight took place here," he radioed back. "Lots of bodies."

They proceeded down the hallway, which branched left and right. Unsure of which way to go, they went right, finding more corpses along the way. Their air was thick with tension, and Shepard kept a firm grip on his Revenant light machine gun, expecting a confrontation at any moment. Whoever had killed these quarians had not been very precise or subtle about it, as the decks and bulkheads were so riddled with bullet holes it was a wonder they hadn't collapsed.

"We're inside the ship," said Miranda. "They've removed all the bulkheads and converted it in some sort of holding area for prisoners. Shepard, they were keeping humans here; we've got bodies still in their cells."

"Any survivors?"

"None so far; it looks like someone went through this place and killed every last one of them. I'll let you know if we find anything more."

Tali was visibly distraught at hearing all this. "I...I can't believe this, Shepard. To think that my own people would...would do something like this..."

"Maybe there's someone still alive who can tell us what happened here. We've got to keep moving."

At the end of the hall they reached what had once been the ship's medical bay, only now it had been converted into something much worse. Lining the walls were large stasis tanks, similar to the one Grunt had been kept in on Korlus. All of them were empty save one, which was occupied by a human male. Shepard hoped that the man was still alive, but a quick scan with his omni-tool revealed that the stasis pod had lost power and the person inside had died. He glanced around at the other tanks, wondering how many others had been kept here, or for what sick purpose they had been used for.

"Wait, I recognise this man, Shepard," Garrus said. "Back when I was with C-Sec we busted him for red sand possession. His name's Slab Bulkhead, and if I remember correctly he's a porn star who starred in several issues of Fornax."

"I know him, too," said Kasumi. "He owns a fancy estate on Bekenstein. I broke in there a few times and took some of his prized possessions, but I don't think he ever realised they were gone. The man was well-endowed but damn, was he ever a moron."

The true horror of this place, however, lay in the middle of the room. The former medical bay was lined with examination tables, all of them empty save one. On it was something Shepard could only describe as an abomination. Part of it was a typical geth bipedal platform, but where its upper body should have been there was a human torso fused with the rest of the platform. Wires and tubes ran from the geth's hardware and into the man's flesh, with most of them connected to the base of his skull. Whoever this poor bastard was, he had not died peacefully, and his face was frozen in a scream of agony. The table on which this terrible creation lay was drenched with blood, much of which had spilled onto the floor. He could only guess at what horrors this man had endured in becoming this...thing, and whoever was responsible for it all likely hadn't bothered to make the process painless.

Shepard backed away from the table in revulsion. "Christ, what the hell were these people doing?"

"Shepard, I...I know this man, too," said Kasumi, looking rather nauseated. "This is Douglas Falkner. He's a famous race car driver on the Zero-G circuit. But...how did he end up here?"

There was a nearby computer console which still had power, so Shepard used his omni-tool to establish a link with EDI. He hoped to get some his answers to whatever had gone on here, or at least the names of those responsible. He had seen some sick experiments in his time, but nothing compared to seeing someone trying to fuse a human body with that of a geth. This was the sort of thing Cerberus was known for, not the quarians.

It only took EDI a few moments to sift through the computer's databanks for information. "According to the research logs, the quarians were attempting to fuse the human nervous system with the geth platform's hardware, as well as interfacing his brain with the geth's neural network. However, the subject's cause of death was a massive brain haemorrhage, suggesting that his physiology could not handle the connection. It is possible the quarians were attempting to continue the work of Project Overlord and gain control over the geth, though they had obviously had no success."

"Is there any information in there about who's responsible for this?"

"This facility utilises a quantum-entanglement communications device similar to the one installed on the Normandy. Presumably this allows them to communicate in real-time with the Migrant Fleet or some other location; it is beyond my capabilities to say where, exactly. The databanks contain no information on anyone behind this 'research'; there are only mentions of an individual known as 'The Overseer'. It may be that this facility is a merely a cell within a larger shadow organisation."

"You mean like a quarian Cerberus?" said Garrus.

Tali was understandably aghast that idea. "No, that...that's impossible! We would never have something like that!"

"It'd be hard for them keep something like this secret," Shepard added. "Even if there were a high-ranking officer in charge of it all, someone would notice all the resources being diverted to building and running this facilities."

Kasumi, meanwhile, was busy doing some hacking of her own, making her way into the video feeds from various monitoring devices throughout the station. Whoever was in charge of all this was clearly cut from the same cloth as the Illusive Man, keeping a close watch on his research projects.

"These video bugs were everywhere," she explained. "Let me bring up me the last recording from this room."

The scene played out on her omni-tool's display. In it, a quarian was standing before the stasis tank containing Mr. Bulkhead, who was awake and frantically pounding on the inside of the tank, his screams muffled by the thick glass.

"Ah, the human porn star has awoken," said the quarian. "It is time for more...experiments."

He pushed a button on a nearby console, sending a jolt of electricity into the stasis tank and causing Slab Bulkhead to scream in agony.

"The pain will only be passing. You should survive the process," he said coldly before giving him another jolt of electricity.

Another quarian entered the frame. "What the hell are you doing?" he said.

"I'm in the middle of an experiment, fool! Do not interrupt me!"

"Experiment? Look, you're just giving the poor bastard random electrical shocks! You can't learn anything from that!"

The other quarian sighed. "All right, I'm just doing it because I'm bored, okay? And I don't like the look of this meatbag, either."

"Who is he?"

"Some porn star named 'Slab Bulkhead.' The Overseer had us take him from Tanfana, of all places."

"Was it difficult?"

"Not really. Mr. Bulkhead has to be the stupidest human I've ever met. Convincing him to come with us involved nothing more than making him an offer of cookies."

Suddenly there was a loud explosion and the sound of gunfire, at which point the recording ceased. "That's the last log before, well, whatever happened here."

"One of them mentioned 'Tanfana,'" said Shepard. "I've never heard of that place before."

Garrus explained it to him. "It's a planet out in the Terminus Systems which, as you can probably guess, is home to all sorts of dirty businesses. I think it's where the headquarters of Fornax magazine is, I believe. Heh, 'dirty businesses.'"

That only raised more questions. "But why would they go to all the trouble of finding this one person?" Shepard asked. "If they needed humans for these sick experiments, they could have easily gotten them from slavers or mercs."

EDI had the answer to that. "According to the research logs, the less intelligent the test subject is, the more likely their brain is to withstand the connection with the geth. It is probable that the researchers were seeking out the least-intelligent individuals they could find, although I do not know why they were using only humans."

So now they knew what, exactly, the quarians had been trying to accomplish here, but they still had no idea what had caused all this death and destruction. He got Miranda on the radio and asked for a status report.

"We've finished searching this facility, commander. There's just holding cells and nothing more."

Shepard heard Zaeed speaking as well. "Goddamn waste of my time. I was hoping for some killing."

"Get your team back to the shuttle, Miranda, and make sure its ready to pick us up. We've still got some more of this place to look through."

"Understood, commander."

They left the laboratory and proceeded down another hallway, this one also filled with dead bodies and bearing the unmistakable signs of gunfire. Whatever had taken place here, they were moving closer to the cause of it, and when they rounded the corner they saw a massive set of steel doors, blown wide open by some incredibly powerful force.

Beyond the doors was a small yet high-ceilinged room, and from the blood, scorch marks, and bullet holes all over the place, it was obvious that this was the epicentre of whatever catastrophe had befallen this facility. In the middle of the room was a large circular platform with countless cables and wires running up from underneath the floor, which had once been connected to something on the platform but had since been torn away. It appeared as if the platform had been built to support (or perhaps restrain) something, and from the size of it Shepard guessed that it was just large enough to contain a Geth Prime. His suspicions proved correct when Kasumi downloaded the video surveillance footage from this room and played it on her omni-tool. It showed the Geth Prime that the quarians had stolen from the Cerberus lab ship in the middle of the platform, which had cables and wires connected to every part of it, looking like the geth equivalent of a life support machine. Two quarians stood near a computer display, occasionally glancing up at the Geth Prime.

"We've successfully linked the last of the geth's systems with Prazza's brain. Prepare to initiate the start-up sequence."

"Prepare? You're always preparing! Just do it!"

Power surged through the Geth Prime, bringing it back to life. But no sooner had it gone active then it immediately began pulling at its restraints and emitting a terrible noise, one that was unpleasantly familiar to Tali:

"WAAAAAAAGH!"

The Geth Prime then began spraying the area with gunfire courtesy of its pulse rifle, forcing the two quarians to take cover behind the console. "Keelah! I thought you disarmed this thing!"

"I thought you disarmed it!"

They had no more time to argue about it, as the Geth Prime instantly annihilated them with a siege pulse, which also knocked out the surveillance device, ending the video log.

Tali was dumbstruck. "Th...they kept Prazza's brain? H...how? And they put it in a geth?"

With the exception of Freedom's Progress, Shepard had been fortunate enough never to have experienced Prazza's stupidity in-person. From what Tali had told him, however, the idea of putting that man's brain into a Geth Prime had to be the dumbest thing one could possibly do.

"It...it's so horrible," said Tali, pacing about the room. "Even after he died, Prazza keeps on hurting people."

"I'm wondering," Garrus said, "if a Geth Prime was responsible for all this, then where is it now?"

As if in reply, there was a deafening crash from behind them, and when they turned around they saw that the Geth Prime had burst through the wall and, in true Prazza fashion, was now spraying gunfire everywhere without a care for whom he hit. No one could say if Prazza's brain was unable to handle the connection to the neural net and had gone crazy (well, crazier), or if he were just acting in his usual manner, albeit now able to wreck havoc in the body of a walking tank.

"WAAAAAAAGH!" screamed the Geth Prime, it's voice mechanical and distorted. Shepard trained his Revenant on the advancing geth and let loose with a continuous stream of fire, but it was not enough to bring down its shields. He tried to run for cover, too late, as the Geth Prime fired a siege pulse directly at him, sending a wave of pain through Shepard's body and causing him to go flying over a nearby railing. His last thought before he lost consciousness was whether the Geth Prime bore him any particular ill-will or animus, or whether it was simply trying to kill everything it saw. The true answer was that it was completely under the control of Prazza's brain, whose essence was that of complete and total hostility towards all life and whose very being was centred around destruction. Unfortunately he lost consciousness before he could see the Geth Prime suddenly turn to face the wall and fire its rocket launcher, blowing itself up.