Kelice Medical Centre
"You will regret this. You can't keep me here, you hear me?!"
A fist pounded on the window a few times before the asari in the room paused, glaring out at the lab technicians in the next room. None looked her way, their attention focused on the displays of their work consoles. She stepped back, gathering her energy. A burst of light, glowing with power, smashed against the window before dissipating. Seconds later, another struck the quad reinforced plasglass. Another followed by several more. Each time, the cast energy was weaker until finally, no more biotics were thrown. The asari slumped to the floor. Even though exhaustion was evident, her fury did not wane.
"We will have vengeance! You will regret the day you killed them!" she screamed. Her eyes spewed venom before finally, too tired to keep them open, she lay down on the floor. Still, no one in the laboratory paid any heed.
"Any change?" Liara glanced over to the lab technicans and bit back a sigh when they shook their heads. "All right, send her back to her room."
"I recommend a higher anesthetic dosage. She's building up resistance," one of the salarian technicians said.
Liara nodded after a moment of consideration. The thrall should be able to handle it. Colourless gas began to pour into the room. The asari staggered to her feet and pounded on the window a few more times before sliding back down to the floor.
The technician checked the readings on his display before announcing, "She's out."
Stifling another sigh, Liara watched as the gas was vented. Two orderlies in hazard suits entered the bare room. Picking up the unconscious asari thrall, they strapped her securely to a hovering med-trolley and steered it out of the room. She glanced at the chronometer. Time to get herself up to matriarch Telienos's office for the meeting.
Closing down her work station, she conferred with the lab techs on the rest of the examinations for the remaining thralls and left. She took a lift to the upper floors. As she walked to the director's office, she paused by the large window of a small sitting gallery overlooking the sprawling gardens of the medcenter and gazed unseeing at the far distant towers and buildings of the city.
Is there no way to rehabilitate those who are lost?
It seemed so cut and dried. Victory against all odds. The Reapers were defeated. The future of the organics ensured. After the exultation of achievement, had come the hard task of reconstruction. The Victory Fleet dispersed, each fleet returning to their homeworld to begin gathering the survivors and proceed with the restoration. A long term mission that would span decades. For some, it would possibly take a life time. For the outer colonies and the krogans, this was especially certain. The Reapers had pulverised some colonies to dust while the krogans were themselves mainly responsible for the nuclear winter on their homeworld. With help, they could rebuild some of the cities and allow the rest of the planet to continue with its recovery.
What they did not foresee, or rather, had forgotten in the euphoria of victory, was the effect Reaper influence had on those who lived under it for so long. Not everyone was turned into husks, cannibalized into brutes, banshees and cannibals. Teams sent to investigate cities came under attack. Lives were lost. Amidst the confusion, no one understood why their own were attacking their rescuers who had come to succor them. Shepard's announcement that they were indoctrinated sent shockwaves and horror. Most couldn't believe it. Denied it. It couldn't have happened that way. But Shepard's statement was borne out. After a few of the indoctrinated were captured, interrogated and examined did they come to realise that the war did not truly end with the Reapers. Now they had to deal with their thralls.
The news of the indoctrinated was badly received by the galactic community. Months of discourses were followed by demands that respective governments do something. For most who tasted the horrors of the Reapers' thralls and soldiers, they preferred immediate removal. For others reluctant to lose more of their friends, families, loved ones and those who felt the thralls deserved a chance, a cure was preferable. Some even thought the TI was mere propaganda. Whatever the course, the discovery of the TI brought about a rethink on reconstruction plans. Those who survived the war would have to face the hardest task they never envisioned. How were they to prevail? How were they to sift out the indoctrinated from the masses?
Liara rubbed at the mild throbbing on her temple. Saren Arterius was the first reaper thrall they encountered. There was nothing in his behaviour that hinted of indoctrination, only the discovery of his machinations would later reveal this aspect. Rana Thanoptis was another. There was Shepard's account of Dr Kenson. Even though her bondmate had her suspicions during her dialogue with the scientist, the alarming prospect of imminent Reaper invasion overrode her misgivings. She had gone to the research base and knew she was right to be apprehensive when she saw Object Rho. It was fortunate that the human thralls failed to keep her unconscious for long to receive the same effects from the Reaper artifact. She knew that being in close proximity to the device had preyed on Shepard's mind. Even now.
With no way to figure out who was indoctrinated, travel was restricted, security checks were bogged down, industrial production and commerce remained stagnated at a time when they had to be reestablished. Worse of all, schisms appeared among people who once considered others as friends and colleagues. Unrest had broken out. The situation would have become worst if Shepard had not come up with a solution. Recalling that Vendetta, the Prothean VI had identified Kai Leng as a TI, Shepard suspected it had a scanning program that could detect the thralls.
She was right. Vendetta provided a set of scanner algorithms used by the Protheans to identify thralls. Even then, there were concerns that it would work since Prothean technologies were more advanced. There were fears that it was not infallible. Innocents might be harmed. Tests were run on TI captives and volunteers. It worked.
The algorithms were disseminated. Travel and commercial restrictions lifted after a month. Plans of reconstruction was once more revived. Of the council races, the salarians had the least difficulty in resuming their lives. The rest had to mount a campaign to retake their homeworlds. After several months of hard fighting with the help of the geth, the asari managed to establish a foothold. Kelice. Sharzis came about a year later. With the new security scanners, those who were turned were removed as settlement began. Their removal hadn't been without protests. There were those who stubbornly held to the belief that the TI could be saved. But removed they were, with those who were more violent, put down.
More lives lost.
Liara closed her eyes. How many more lives have we banished since we began? She hugged herself, wishing Shepard was with her. But we do not have a choice, it is either us or them. Goddess, why did it have to come to this?
The alarm on her omni-tool beeped, shaking her out of her bleak introspective. She was going to be late. She hurried down the corridor to the director's office. Before she could turn into Telienos's office, the matriarch's assistant directed her to the conference room. There she found Telienos and Peliar, a colleague of hers, conversing with Primarch Victus and Admiral Hackett. The sight of the latter gave her pause but she stamped down on her apprehension.
Hearing the swish of the opening door, Telienos turned and gestured to her. "Liara, please join us," she said.
"Telienos, Peliar." Liara approached quietly and nodded to her colleague. "Primarch Victus, Admiral Hackett," she greeted, wondering what unpleasant developments they would reveal.
"Do you have any updates on the TI, Dr T'Soni?" Victus asked without preamble. They had had these conferences too often to meander about with casual conversation.
"I am afraid not," Liara said regretfully. "The earlier prognosis of the effect of indoctrination is correct. Intellectual atrophy is progressive. At the current rate, we are looking at a steady three year degeneracy before final dissolution. Attempts in rehabilitation of healthy subjects have not been successful."
"I would say this is good news but unfortunately, we cannot wait for the TI to die out on their own," Hackett said grimly. "I've received reports from squadron pickets at outlying colonies that there have been several missing persons reports. They are occurring too often for it to be incidental."
"You are suggesting they have been abducted?" asked Telienos.
"It is a possibility," said Hackett. "Several shuttles are missing from the colonies. It is not clear if they left voluntarily or if local TI insurgents forced them to board those shuttles. Given the short range of the shuttles and the lack of hospitable planets in those systems, we postulated a bigger vessel, possibly a freighter, picked them up."
"Why would they kidnap people?" Peliar said in confusion. "To what end? Isn't their purpose to destroy the perpetrators of their masters' destruction?"
"We do not think their objective has changed. What they may wish to change is the numbers they can throw at us." Victus's mandibles seemed to grind in his agitation. "While the incidents are currently isolated with the Systems Alliance colonies, we ourselves have reservations about our own colonies."
"To take the healthy. That could only mean they have existing Reaper devices," Telienos said softly. Liara noticed her hands were clenched tightly by her sides.
Hackett nodded. "That is what we suspect. Up until now, they have engaged in sabotages and guerrilla warfare. There is no hard data of the existing TI populations but they have to be losing numbers to armed conflicts with our forces and quite possibly suffering a higher rate of casualties from the natural attrition of indoctrination. They need to replace those losses."
"I do not see what we can do to help, Admiral-," Peliar waved at her companions, "we are scientists, not military strategists."
"We provide whatever we can." Telienos threw a withering glance at Peliar.
Liara held her face impassive though she sighed inwardly. Peliar was constantly at odds with the drive to remove the TI and hence, abrasive whenever discussions of that subject appeared. Though she did not say so, her opposition clearly indicated her stance on the TI.
"We wish to discuss the probability of accelerating the rate of atrophy," said Victus.
Silence dominated for a long moment after that bombshell. Liara closed her eyes, feeling sick.
"What?!" Peliar's voice rose incredulously. "How can..," she began to protest when Telienos made a sharp gesture to silence her.
"This proposal is currently under Council consideration but we have been given authorization to...have a private discussion," said Hackett, looking at Peliar speculatively. Victus only looked grim. "Would you have any theory how it can be achieved?"
If they said they had the means, would the proposal be approved immediately? Would tests be carried out on the TI captives they currently have? The thought of watching those captives die made Liara ill. All her efforts to find a way to return the TI to some form of sanity would come to naught. She knew it was an impossible task but she had to try. For the sake of peace, the future, she would now have to find a way to kill them faster than to save them. There was no other choice.
Telienos stirred. "We will convene a meeting with our specialists and advise you of the results. Is there anything else?"
"No. Thank you, Director Telienos," Hackett said. Victus nodded before withdrawing completely from the vid pickup. "If I may have a moment to confer with Dr T'Soni?"
"Of course." With a wave to a pale Peliar, Telienos left the room with her.
"What is it, Admiral?" Liara asked. She had a suspicion on what the admiral's next topic would be.
"How is Shepard?"
"She is doing very well, sir." Liara tried to shove away the cold stone in her stomach. Please, please ...
"That is not much to go on." Hackett's left brow lifted slightly at the defensive tone. Did he sense her fear? "Given the difficulty she was facing and her failure to keep in contact, her present status is in question."
"I was not aware the admiral is acquainted with Shepard's situation." Liara winced. What had gotten over her? She was rude and snappish.
"Liara T'soni." Hackett leaned in on the pickup on his end, as if to look at her eye to eye. "A good soldier knows how to maintain his arms, when to attack, when to retreat. A good commander knows when to let go, when to loosen the reins, when to reel the line in and most importantly," he paused for a moment, "cherish those he commands."
"I am sorry, sir," she sighed. "She is really doing well."
"I see.' Hackett looked reflectively at her. "Tell her I expect a report within a week. Hackett out."
Goddess, what possessed me to talk like that? Liara pressed her fingers to her head. I need to rest.