Shepard's footsteps slowed, then stopped altogether. She couldn't decide if it was become something was present or missing…but something wasn't right. She looked to the blue-lit generator, the answer at which she had arrived.

It was like the knife of Eva Rogers cutting through her face: a burning sensation, sharp, that left cold in its wake. Was it a feeling, she wondered as she reached up to touch her face, or was it a sound?

Something wasn't right.

No, something was right: when she raised her arm…there was no pain. In fact, the pain had lessened significantly between the junction of the paths and where she now stood. Her head felt better…painless…as if some kind of static, low-level interference, had slowly but continuously dialed down since she started dragging herself this way.

Right: she wasn't in as much pain.

Right: she'd always associated the color blue with 'right' or 'good' choices—something about the calm serenity of the color had always appealed to her aesthetic sense for moral dilemmas.

Right: this had to end.

Right: she was in the right place at the right time…

…wrong.

Because the right way was never the easy way, not for her. Never for her. She took a slow, deep breath, a breath that shuddered and shook though not from pain. The blue-lit generator loomed before her, promising an end…

Rewriting them could save them…but it's a little too much like Indoctrination for me. They picked a side: they can die for it. Just like the rest of us do.

You're like a virus Shepard: and I haven't seen the AV software or the firewall that can keep you where you don't want to be.

Should have implanted that control chip: Miranda had the right idea.

I will kill you if I must.

Shepard stared at the generator, her expression changing, as though she was looking into a crystal ball with answers.

Wrong.

…since when did she agree with anything, anything, the Illusive Man said or did? How many people were dead because of him? Needlessly dead? Or corrupted as surely as Reapers corrupted organic things? Alenko put at risk, the kids of Grissom station at risk, David Archer at risk, Talitha dead…

…but in the end, the Illusive Man committed suicide rather than fight her…

…like Saren had.

…just like Saren had…

And had she really come all this way to tell the Reapers to go away, as though addressing an army of stray dogs? Had she really come all this way to let them go, when they could overrun the galaxy?

The krogan could, the Rachni had…but this was completely different: the krogan and the Rachni didn't just drop out of the sky one day and start harvesting sapients!

But the geth? Legion? He faced dissolution for the sake of his people…

…dissolution. Losing himself to 'go to them'. To save them. To turn them into something new…

And what, really, were the chances that blowing up the Reapers could and would destroy everything she cared about? They were control freaks—they controlled things, then killed them (or turned them into Reapers, which was worse). They were like the Illusive Man: control. Always control.

Slowly, she turned on her heel, to find the child watching her from where he stood.

For a moment Shepard stood there, undecided. She took a step towards the generator, still watching the child…

…then realized she hadn't intended to take the step. It had been responsive to the subtle increase of pressure on her mind. She hadn't noticed it until it went away a second time.

She looked around her, looked at Earth burning, the fleets burning, knowing everyone and everything she loved was out there, dependent on her making the right choice…

…but 'right' by whose definition?

I am not constrained by programming that requires me to give accurate information.

…who said the Reapers didn't know how to lie? In fact…they did so very well. They had to be good liars, to manipulate people like they did, to know how to apply the right pressure. They promised peace talks but only Indoctrinated those who participated.

There it was again: it was a sound, not a true sensation, but still had the cutting quality of a sharp knife biting into unprotected flesh.

Shepard turned fully around, drawing herself up straight, aware of muscles growing increasingly stiff, wounds increasingly painful as she staggered slowly back to where the child stood.

When she knelt in front of it, just on one knee, to peer into its face it was almost a collapse. The pain was back, the pressure in her head was back…why had she wasted so much energy just to come back here for another go-nowhere talk…?

She looked into the gaseous features, the wide-set eyes, the Cupid's bow mouth, the childhood-soft face. There was something familiar in it, something that tugged strongly at some deep memory or experience. Something strong enough to make her not want to ask questions.

Because the answers were painful. She ran a hand along the outline of the Catalyst's cheek. "Who…are you?"

"I am the Intelligence." The big eyes looked up at her through thick lashes, head cocked to one side.

"I'm…not sure what you are…" she closed her eyes, then smiled—a smile that came with a sob, "but I can tell you what you're not." Opening her eyes brought an overflow of tears; not tears of relief, but just another instance of lachrymal overflow.

She knew what it was. She finally knew what it was, what the child on Earth had been.

The child that never was.

It was an amalgamation of her two youngest brothers, she could see it, now. She felt a big-sisterly sort of kinship with Talitha…but there had never been any younger-brotherly figure. And both had called her Lissy.

"I know what you're not: you're not my brothers," Shepard's eyes seemed to glow as the whites became bloodshot. "You are not my brothers, you little shit."