Note: All standard disclaimers still apply. Thanks again to all the people who've taken time to encourage me by adding me or my story to favorites. And, most especially, thanks to those few who've written reviews. Your interest and support is always appreciated, and often instrumental to maintaining the inspiration necessary to develop a story.
Chapter Title: Directly from story text. But here are some related quotes."I have had to fight like hell and fighting like hell has made me what I am." ~John Arbuthnot Fisher
We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
Chapter-Specific Notes: The current placement of this scene is after-perhaps very late the same night, perhaps one night later than Parts Answering Parts: Chapter 6: Absence. If you have an opinion on where this scene should be placed in a story arc, let me know. The phrase "cause and effect in a hell of a mess" is used by Archie Goodwin-gumshoe-in one of the many excellent Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout. The "tangled web" is an oblique reference to Sir Walter Scott's Marmion: "what a tangled web we weave/when first we practice to deceive!"
Her stomach hollowed with realization as she walked under the stars, time so slow it ceased to exist-or at least to matter, her own breath rasping in her ears.
The world-her world-had ended; she couldn't save it.
How could space be so quiet, so calm, so empty, so unscarred, so...so unmoved?
She looked into infinity and saw Kaidan's face. She didn't know if she was comforted or terrified by the sight.
She could feel Joker's arm, solid muscles sliding and bunching over something light and hollow, something fragile and precious...like life...within the unbridled violence of her grasp. She could hear him shouting, but the ground was suddenly shifting beneath her feet, the words didn't make any sense...
There was a blinding flare of white light, and she was spiralling into it...or through it...
Shepard woke with a stifled scream, her heart pounding in her ears as if desperate to escape.
The icy blue glow of the fish tank washed over her, eerily reminiscent of Alchera...
As if that weren't waking nightmare enough, the low blue light reminded her of the blue glow of Saren's biotics in that final battle on the Citadel, the glow of an undead, mechanical monster, the puppet of a Reaper.
Bio-synthetic fusion. Cybernetics. The words burrowed through her scalp and crawled along her spine. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Saren burning blue against the lids. He'd used those words to describe himself...a synthesis of organic and machine... Saren who'd been augmented by Sovereign and betrayed everything he'd promised to protect...though the betrayal seemed to have begun long before the augmentation.
"Cause and effect in a hell of mess," she rasped aloud. Her voice echoed through the loft, reverberated off her spine and made her shiver.
Saren who'd been working with ExoGeni...who'd been involved with experiments on Thorian Creepers and Rachni...both of which she'd found lurking in bases associated with Cerberus.
Coincidence was a funny thing, and could be a powerful force indeed, but...but this seemed a bit too symmetrical, a bit too planned, to be nothing more than coincidence. And that terrified her beyond belief.
Because if Cerberus had ties to Saren...and Saren had ties to the Reapers...well... that was a seriously tangled web. And the more I fight it, the more trapped in it I seem to become.
Her heart was still pounding. She was beginning to feel faint-but-definite tremors of it through her head, a sensation Kaidan had mentioned more than once, and one that-all empathy aside-she'd never had the slightest desire to experience.
More irritating than the incipient migraine, however, was the lurking knowledge that they'd be arriving at Omega station in a few hours. Neither the Illusive Man nor his dossiers had led her to believe she'd need to be combat-ready just to approach a couple of recruits...but neither the Illusive Man nor his dossiers had led her to believe she should expect anything other than a fight.
And...in her experience, everything was a fight. Every. Goddamn. Thing.
"Life," she informed herself, rubbing her temples, "is war." Her fingers dipped down over her eyebrow...and the thin scar bisecting it wasn't there, not anymore. One I've already lost.
Light flickered at the corners of her vision.
She kicked her feet free of the blankets.
"Shepard?" EDI queried before she could speak. "Are you unwell? You seem agitated."
"Unwell?" Shepard repeated sardonically. She rolled her eyes and immediately wished she hadn't. Damn, but that hurt. "Yeah. You could say that."
"Are you in need of assistance?" EDI's consideration might be nothing more than programming, yet another reminder of Cerberus' interest in protecting their investment, but Shepard couldn't quite squelch a slight twinge of guilt. If Shepard hated or feared what she had become, that was hardly EDI's fault. The AI was only doing her job, and doing it well...something Shepard normally would have approved.
And, oddly enough, the AI had just offered her the very thing she wanted.
"Actually, EDI, that's not such a bad idea." she said slowly. "I doubt I'm in any immediate danger, but I would like Doctor Chakwas' opinion."
"Very well, Shepard."
"Uh-EDI? At her convenience. There's no need to wake her up or anything."
Shepard eased back onto her pillows and closed her eyes, determined to put the problem of herself aside until Chakwas could look her over and assess the risk. She could be Chakwas' problem, at least temporarily, but Omega station and whatever challenges it might bring would be hers to address, and-come hell or highwater-she was going to set foot on that station rested, refreshed, and ready for whatever it might-whatever it would-throw at her.
She'd just begun to relax when the door to the loft hissed open.
She jerked upright, snatching the pistol from her nightstand and training it on the door in one smooth motion as swiftly and naturally as taking a breath.
"I doubt you invited me up here just to shoot me," Chakwas observed. Shepard thought-not for the first time-that the dry good cheer in the doctor's voice was as soothing as a good dose of medigel.
"EDI-"
"Didn't wake me," Chakwas interrupted smoothly. "And helping you is hardly what I would call inconvenient, Commander. Didn't I tell you it was exactly what I'd been missing?"
"Well, in that case," Shepard dropped the pistol back onto the nightstand with a clatter, "it's about damn time you got here."
"Oh, Shepard," Chakwas chuckled. "I have missed you."
"Thanks for coming," Shepard added, inscrutably polite, which only increased the apparent amusement of the doctor.
"My pleasure," the doctor assured her, more amused than ever. "Now. What seems to be bothering you? Is the implants?"
"After a manner of speaking," Shepard returned. "I'm not sure it's the smartest thing I've ever done, asking you where we're under obvious surveillance..." Shepard shot a look at the empty space where EDI's blue avatar had been not long before, "but...considering I wouldn't even have made it out of that damned research facility if Miranda hadn't been watching every step I took, Cerberus already knows I took as many of their files as I could manage...And I made a point of telling Miranda, Jacob, and that damned creepy excuse of holographic man that I don't trust them...and would love any excuse not to cooperate...so, really, if I didn't ask, they'd only be disappointed...Doctor...just how much of myself am I? Really? What did they do to me?"