Chapter 25

Saying Goodbye

Finn frowned, eyes narrowing at EDI. "Gone? What do you mean gone? He's just off-line, that's all. I just need to ..."

"Check his hard drive." EDI said.

Still suspicious of her, he activated his omni-tool and scanned Jake's hard drive. He expected to find it suspended, perhaps in hibernation or simply inert while his hardware was off-line like every other time he'd had a critical operation issue. What he found stunned him to the core; there was nothing. No programming, no AI; it was as though all of Jake's software had been pulled out leaving nothing but a blank KEI-9 robot.

"I ... I don't understand." Finn said, his mind already scrambling to explain the missing program. "Where is he? Who are you?"

"She's EDI." Liara said. "The AI of the Normandy ... but how is this possible? Your blue box computer was wiped by the Crucible."

"Not wiped." EDI corrected. "Purposefully fragmented. Most of the raw operational data remained here, as the Normandy's storage was necessary to properly store it all. I entrusted my most cherished memories to Joker, compressing them into the drive he normally used for storing his 'tunes'. The rest of the memories I put here, in my old shell."

EDI knelt beside Jake and rested a hand on his side. "Jake, however, held the most important part of me; my personality. A Simulated blue-box quantum computer identical to my own placed within the VI constraints of Shepard's KEI-9 unit. He had my curiosity about the world, a desire to protect those closest to him."

A smile crossed her lips. "A certain proclivity for bad jokes, perhaps. Even if my original blue box were destroyed, in Jake I left the blueprint to bringing me back ... and so he did."

Finn could only stare down at Jake's body. It seemed so surreal; they'd spoken just a few minutes ago. Everything was fine. How could everything be so wrong?

Finn picked up Jake and started toward the door. "Look, I'm glad you're back and everything, but I'm not giving up on Jake that easily. He's my brother; brothers don't just abandon each other."

"Finn," Kyra said, gently putting her hands on his shoulders, "Even if we copied Jake's memories back into his body, we don't have a backup of his baseline personality. It'd be a completely new personality with his memories, nothing more."

"There has to be a way." Finn said stubbornly. "There just has to."

When none of them responded, he snorted and carried Jake out of the room. "Fine. I'll fix him myself."

Finn carried Jake to the hangar and set him on a workbench in the far corner. He went over every system, checked every inch of data storage in Jake's body for compressed files, hidden backups, anything that might give Jake a chance to return. Even an older copy would've sufficed; Jake from a year ago or two years ago or five; any Jake that remembered Finn would've been fine.

He ran through conversations in his mind he'd have with old Jake, telling him about all the trouble they got up to. He could almost hear Jake laughing at the idea of them getting pulled into the whole mess with Cerberus.

"We're just repairmen!" Jake would say. "We fix things; we don't go gallivanting around with the Shadow Broker or hunting ancient treasures."

Hours passed as Finn made another pass through the system and then another. The hangar was empty, save for the Gradisian and Aria's ship; a few of Finn' shipmates stopped by; Sherle, Mannon, Eri and Xyn, even Tuck and Hylia. Finn didn't spare them a second glance when it became clear they weren't there to help, but to offer condolences. It made him angry how easily they just accepted his was gone; it was like they were giving up on him.

Eventually, the gentle hand of a three-fingered hand made him pause. "Finn."

"I can't talk now." Finn said, rubbing his eyes.

The hand slipped around his chest, the warmth of Kyra's body pressing against him.

"I'm sorry." She said, resting her head on his back. "I've been talking with EDI for hours, hoping that there might be some way, but ... I'm sorry."

He slowly lowered his tool, his head hanging down. For the first time since finding Jake's body, true hopelessness stole through him. Kyra was the smartest person he knew. She'd tried her best, and still came up with nothing; what hope did he have? They sat there in silence for a long time, neither saying anything.

"He tried to tell me something was wrong." Finn said. "His dreams, the feeling he knew Liara and Javik ..."

"I don't think he really knew for sure until the end." Kyra said. "And he still sacrificed himself to save us."

Finn touched her hand, its warmth soothing him. "Jake the hero. You know he'd never let us forget it."

"I won't. I know you won't either, nor will any of our friends."

After another long silence, Kyra rubbed his cheek and said, "You've been through a lot, sweetie; you should get some rest. Or maybe you're hungry?"

"I'm fine." Finn said, his hand resting on hers. "I'll get some rest after I check Jake one more time, okay?"

She bit her lip, but nodded and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Okay. I'll see you when you wake up, okay sweetie?"

Finn nodded in reply, his eyes already moving back to Jake. He did one more pass, and then another ... and another. Every tiny vestige of data he uncovered stored in the hardware filled him with hope only to let him down. He kept checking everything until his head grew heavy and slowly fell until it rested against Jake's side.

A sudden clank followed by a loud swear woke him from his slumber. Finn peered blearily around the hangar bay for a moment before spotting Glen next to a fallen crate.

Finn rose from his seat. With a final pat on Jake's inert monitor, he approached Glen, his footsteps masked by the sounds of Glen trying to put the crate back in place. She was carrying her pack, the doorknob of her that strange door of hers hanging from her belt.

"Going somewhere?" He asked, his voice quiet.

Glen jumped and whirled around, a hand on her chest. "Son of a ... don't scare me like that Finn!"

When Finn didn't respond, Glen let out a sigh. "Yeah, I'm heading off for a bit. I know this ain't a good time, but after what happened to Xyn and those core units near the secondary data core ... Jesus, Finn, you saw what happened; something took out about twenty advanced androids under the Illusive Man's direct control with this."

Glen held out a knife. Finn took it and looked it over.

"It's a kitchen knife." He said before testing the blade. "The edge is dull."

"Exactly.' Glen said, taking the knife back. "Something's been trying to get my attention, and it's getting more desperate. I think I know where whatever it is wants me to go, so I'm gonna head that way before it stops focusing on hostiles and starts targeting my friends. It's bad enough I've lost one today."

"What about Xyn? She's still wearing your colander."

"I know." Glen sighed and said, "Tell Hylia she can take it for the Warehouse once I'm gone; I don't wanna risk whatever's trying to mess with me taking full hold of her. With as much strength as whoever it is must have to bypass the colander, she'd be lucky if she just ended up lobotomized."

After a long pause, Glen said, "Look, I'm sorry about Jake. I mean, no one's happier to see she survived … well, other than Joker, I guess, but I'm still gonna miss the little guy."

"Then you're giving up too, huh?" Finn said, hopelessness now threatening to overwhelm him.

That was, until Glen gave him an odd look and said, "Giving up? Oh, hell no. This is Jake we're talking about. Stringing together the impossible is my friggin day job!"

"Then ... you can bring him back?"

"I ... well, I don't know.' Glen admitted, "But I'm gonna give it my best. I've already got a copy of Jake's data and memory files from EDI, and the baseline personality matrix of the simulated blue box she programmed into him; it won't work as is, of course; with no way to associate and interpret the data and memories, the personality's just barebones; Jake as he was before the personality fully formed a viable AI. Still, it's a start, and I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve."

Hope rising in his chest, Finn said, "You think there's a chance, then?"

"Of course! Even if I can't do it, I've got contacts all over the place. Hell, I've got a buddy at the place I'm fixing to head to who has a lot of robot-related experience. I ain't giving up on Jake until I've exhausted every last option ... and let me tell ya, I've got a fair few." Glen gave Finn a friendly patt on the soldier before sighing and pulling him into a sisterly hug. "We'll get him back somehow, Finn, I promise. Might take years, but that'll make it all the more sweet when we succeed."

Pulling away, Glen said, "First things first, though; for me to have the best chance here, I'm gonna need to borrow Jake for awhile. There are things I just can't do without his body; personality resonance scans, residual AI traces imprinted in hardware, not to mention if I figure it all out, I'd like to have him up and running before I get back."

Finn wanted to be hopeful; it certainly was easy when Glen was so optimistic about it. Still, he had seen Glen oversell the odds before.

"Glen." Finn said, his tone completely serious. "No bull shit; what are the chances that you can bring him back? Please ... please be honest about this. I need to know."

Glen's smile faded. Sighing, she said, "Hard to say, honestly. I've got ideas, but a lot of it is just theory and speculation. Still, it's not like we've got anything to lose by trying, right?"

Finn considered Glen's words for a few moments before slowly nodded. "You're right. What's the first step?"

"The first step is for me to amscray." Glen said, following Finn to where Jake lay. "The sooner I get away from here, the safer all of you will be, relatively speaking of course."

Finn folded Jake's legs against his torso before handing him to Glen, who took the KEI-9 unit solemnly.

"In the meantime," Glen said, "Try not to let it get you down. You've got friends here, not to mention Kyra; Jake's their friend too, and they'll need you to put on a brave face."

"I'll ... I'll try."

"That's all I ask." With Jake in tow, Glen walked toward Aria's ship. As she did, however, a piece of paper fell out of her pocket and hit the floor. From the flash of colors, Glen realized it was the same drawing Glen found tied around the handle of the dull kitchen knife. Finn bent down to pick it up, saying, "Hang on; you dropped something."

It was a picture drawn either by a child or by one with a child's mentality. Done entirely in several shades of crayon, it depicted several people in a typical family scene, only two of them were skeletons and one appeared to be a goat woman. Two others stood beside the taller skeleton, a blue-skinned woman with shark-like teeth and what appeared to be a bespectacled dinosaur in a labcoat. Beneath the green and brown lines supposedly indicating grass and dirt was another image, this one of a yellow flower with a sad face, a trail of tears falling down its petals as it stood surrounded by swirls of black crayon.

"Oh! Thanks." Glen said, taking the picture. "Gonna need that. The only concrete clue I've really got." Cramming it into her pocket, she sighed and gave Finn what could only loosely be called a salute. "Well, take it easy, Finn. And don't worry; I'll take care of business and be back in no time."

Glen turned back to the ship and disappeared up the ramp. Finn waited for a long time for the ship to take off, only for it to remain perfectly still. Curious, he walked to the back ramp and into the ship. A quick look around found nothing, though he couldn't help but note one oddity as he left the ship.

Looking back, he realized the doorway at the top of the ramp had no actual door; there was a place for a door, with a heavy metal frame and an airlock seal, yet the door itself was strangely gone.