Victor Shepard
Backwards
Again the pixellated face smeared itself on several nearby monitors and screamed its nonsense, booming again through the facility's mess hall, over dead researchers and dead geth. Another cry, and the words—and the terror behind them—came through the distortion. "Quiet please, make it stop."
Shepard frowned, then looked behind him at a flight of stairs. "What was Project Overlord's purpose? AI technology? Anti-geth weaponry?"
"I'm not sure," Miranda said, climbing the last step. "The Illusive Man gave me the same briefing as you. Both your ideas seem likely."
"Maybe the other operative he sent knows something."
Miranda gave a faint scowl. "Perhaps."
"Miranda will accompany you to Aite," the Illusive Man had said. The two of them were to rendezvous with another Cerberus agent already on the ground. "He tends to be somewhat abrasive, but he has a great deal in common with you." This wasn't the first Cerberus mess the Illusive Man asked him to clean up, but it was the first he took such a hands-on approach. What made Overlord so important, Shepard wondered.
Down a corridor and through a door, shredded and unmoving geth littered the next room. Save one, sparking and spasming while a kneeling man worked an omni-tool over its head. Shepard's approach drew the man's cold gaze. A blade sprung from his omni-tool, and he severed the cords behind the geth's neck. The geth twitched, then joined the rest in silence.
"You're the Illusive Man's agent?" Shepard asked, noting the orange fanged symbol on the man's black armor.
"His personal assassin," Miranda said. "This is Kai Leng."
"And you…" Leng's deep voice carried just over a whisper as he gestured towards Shepard. The cybernetic plating framing his dark eyes shifted with his smile. "… Must the boss's pet science project. I'd shake hands, but we have a mission."
Can see why Miranda doesn't like him. He could also see how Miranda lied about her briefing. "How much do you know about this project?"
"Before he dropped out of contact, the chief scientist told me that we're dealing with a rogue VI."
"And the geth?"
"It's controlling them somehow. The one I scanned had signs of tampering."
"I thought the geth were immune to long-term hacking."
Leng shrugged, then turned towards a staircase. "We'll just have to find out."
The favored operative, the elite problem solver, that and more came through in the smooth grace of Leng's movements. A Shepard fresh out of N-school had that easy, naive cockiness, too. "He tends to be somewhat abrasive, but he has a great deal in common with you." That seemed more bad than good with each passing second.
"So," Shepard said, following Leng, "let me guess. Ex-Alliance?"
A chuckle came ahead of him. "Was it that hard to figure out? Yes. Former marine. Even paid the Villa a visit. Walked out with the logo and the stripe."
N7. That explained one of Shepard's hunches. "But you left."
"I'm not in your suicide zoo. Save the prying for them."
"And why aren't you, anyways?"
Miranda came up to Shepard's side. "Our mission is taking up a considerable amount of the Illusive Man's resources. He wants to keep a few in reserve."
Yet the Illusive Man sent Leng here, his own ex-N7, to work with Shepard. Alongside Miranda, two of Cerberus's most loyal agents were assigned to someone who couldn't say the same. One Cerberus plot, and I'm in the dark. My entire mission exactly.
Monitors lit up with green pixels, and the intercom loosed the tormented cry once more. "Quiet please, make it stop." Shepard glanced at Leng, then Miranda, before continuing on.
Three research stations overrun with hacked mechs and kilometers of travel brought the three of them to the VI's controls. Just a console awaited them. Not even a special interface. Shepard glanced at Miranda and Leng, then placed his fingers on the haptic keys.
His omni-tool appeared, not of his own doing. The room, the air, everything pulsed. Green fire—no, pixels—erupted from the console and his omni-tool. Shepard tried lifting his hand, but something, some dull force, some presence, seized every muscle.
"Quiet please." The voice came from no speakers or intercoms, but from his own head, like a thought that drowned out every other with its echoing pain. "Make it stop."
The VI was all Shepard could muster before his arm obeyed some impulse. His legs followed suit, turning him around and shuffling forward, one after the other. Miranda's mouth moved, as did Leng's. Nothing came out that he could hear. His mouth did nothing that he could respond with.
The door shut behind him once he was out of the room. Then the vice grip lifted, and the floor rushed to meet him.
He caught himself on his elbows and pushed up onto his hands. Glowing green lines ran along the floor, along the walls and ceiling, pointing towards a door at the end of the hallway.
No other way. Shepard followed.
In the next room, a curving corridor with a view of a large central chamber, the green lines stopped and a orange pixellated haze began. Holographic phantoms, all wearing Cerberus uniforms, walked up and down. Some seemed locked in conversation, others alone. Shepard unclipped his pistol and proceeded.
He'd seen some of these faces before, on the decaying corpses around the research stations. Was the VI showing him the past?
He had his answer when Doctor Archer's image moved past him. "The square root to nine-hundred-six-point-oh-one." Archer said, the voice again in Shepard's mind.
"Equals thirty-point-one." A bald young man appeared at Archer's side.
For a moment, Archer was in the corner of Shepard's eye, not ahead of him, before both the doctor and the young man fizzled out. Shepard frowned. His memories.
More doors led to more rooms and more memories: David interacting with a geth unit, Archer conferring with the Illusive Man, Archer's desperate journal entries. The VI's memories led him to a conference room. Doctor Archer appeared once more before a QEC device.
"Initial link-ups were successful, but subsequent attempts placed increasing strain on David's mind." Archer tapped a foot as he looked downward. "I fear he's no longer willing to continue the project."
"Project Overlord is important to my long-term goals," the Illusive Man's voice said, "You haven't forgotten the stakes, have you?"
"I haven't."
"Good to hear. I trust you'll do what's needed."
"What's needed" echoed, blared in Shepard's head, taking on a hundred different distortions with every repetition. A barrage of other words followed. For flickers of moments, cold metal seemed to lock around his wrists and angles as Doctor Archer's unfeeling stare bore down upon him.
"We're ready. Open a connection to the geth network."
"David, no! Tell the geth to stand down."
"Quiet please, make it stop."
And then it lifted. The lines and the haze remained, but Shepard was alone in the dead silence of the conference room. Archer told him that David volunteered for Project Overlord. Another lie. Is why they're here? Did Miranda and Leng know the truth the whole time? Did the Illusive Man send Leng so one ex-N7 could keep another in check? Of course he would, after Binthu and Chasca and all the others.
Grateful for the locked door, Shepard continued on. He spotted an elevator down and made for it.
A sharp force—a real one—to his head sent him reeling forward. Shepard caught himself, turned around and pointed his pistol.
Too slow. This time it struck him sideways. The gun clattered on the floor while his back hit a wall.
"Whatever you think you're doing," Kai Leng said, omni-blade pressed against Shepard's chest, "the answer is 'no.'"
Shepard kicked out, broke free as Leng staggered. Three punches. Leng weaved around them, but a fourth caught him across the chin.
"So what's your mission?" Shepard asked, backing off. "Keep me from doing something your boss might disagree with?"
Leng grinned. "Well, the Illusive Man didn't pick an idiot to fight the Collectors."
Shepard sidestepped a kick, dodged a swipe, replied with testing blows that created a fair distance. He's not here to kill me, just incapacitate me. "Cerberus doesn't want David Archer freed. They need their perfect test subject for Overlord. Not happening."
"That's just the thing," Leng said. "You and your overinflated sense of importance. On your fancy ship, our boss lets you think you're in charge. He tells his people to follow your orders while he moves you square by square like a pawn. Here? You're just a gun pointed at a problem." Leng aimed his omni-tool. "Here, Cerberus doesn't require you to think."
Shepard rolled away from the incinerating attack. Glass shattered behind him. "We're done here."
"Our boss—"
Shepard pounced. His forked omni-blade bit into Leng's side. "Will have to deal with it."
A blow to the face. Shepard stumbled. Leng, scowling and clutching the stab wound, lobbed a grenade out the broken window. The central chamber came alight with green and the sounds of systems firing up. And the VI roared.
David and Doctor Archer's ghosts. Flashes of dead researchers. "The square root to nine-hundred-six-point-oh-one equals thirty-point-one." "No longer willing to continue." "Do what's needed." "Tell the geth to stand down!"
"Quiet please, make it stop."
Amidst the hellish clamor inside Shepard's head, two hands grabbed his shoulders. A knee slammed into his gut. His swimming vision shifted. Cold metal struck his face.
"Call it cheap," Leng said, his blurry figure standing over him. "A shot is a shot. Shame. Would've liked to take you on at your best. But we make do, right?"
Footsteps, then the sliding metal of a closing door.
A near-eternity seemed to pass before the door Shepard could see opened.
"Commander." Miranda rushed towards him and knelt, omni-tool opened. "Dammit. Can you walk, Shepard?"
Despite what felt like heavy weights on his arms, Shepard pushed himself up to sit. Miranda helped him lean back against a wall. "Yeah. Don't know how good…" Miranda's face went out of focus, and Shepard head refused to keep level. He grunted. "Stop him" was what could manage. If she listened, the only thing he needed to.
If. Miranda stood and stared down at him for a long few seconds. "I'm sorry."
