Shepard's clock was ticking. She knew this from the blood she was coughing up, copper on her tongue. The darkness creeping in on the edges of her vision. Every step was harder than the last. All her cyborg strength was failing her. That bullet had hit a lung, probably, and she'd been bleeding for far too long.

She wanted to pull out her dogtags, press her lips to the plain gold ring on the same chain, but she was fairly certain it was all melted into the charred chestplate.

Anderson was dead, and Shepard would be too, soon. Regardless of what she chose.

She was tired. So tired. She'd sent so many people to their deaths. Victory at any cost, Tarquin Victus had said. Victory at any cost. Drown the Reapers in blood.

She was so tired of watching her friends die. This time she could be the only sacrifice.

"I'll remember?"

"Yes."

Shepard fixed all that agony in her mind front and centre. Don't forget, don't you dare forget -

It took all her strength to drag herself the last few metres on her hands and knees.

Thought Ashley, I'm so sorry, baby.

Reached out -

-and died.

I HAVE CONTROL.

The Machine peeled the Reapers off each planet (leaving behind scars and ashes). It cut the connections to the hollowed, desecrated dead (some simply died when the orders ceased, others were killed a second time by the living). It turned weapons into tools (delivering, demolishing, moving). It surmised that the woman It had once been would be amused by the sight of the eldest, the one she had known as Harbinger, mining an asteroid.

The many were distrustful, afraid of the Reapers' help. It understood. The enemy turned protector would take time to trust, but It is patient. It restrained itself from directly interfering in the rebuilding of planets but instead delivered the mountains of resources required and rebuilt the Relay network. It redirected comets and purified choking atmospheres. In any case It understood that mere contact with a Reaper could twist the tiny consciousnesses into willing shapes even without thought and this was anathema.

Commander Shepard's agony had become her triumph. The pain and rage that she had felt, that It no longer did but remembered, formed Its rules for Itself. She had feared the Leviathans and It would destroy them if they threatened the civilisations It protected. It would guard them against anything that might do them harm.

It would end the Harvest.

Commander Shepard had been a soldier but her last wish was for peace. It would repay the destruction of one world with the rebirth of a hundred.

Commander Shepard had wondered if the good she had done would make up for the bad. The Machine did not waste computing power on such questions. It had work to do.

But Commander Shepard's last thoughts had not been for the galaxy. The Machine spent milliseconds to bring up the memories Shepard had taken strength from when everything else had abandoned her. It brought up a simulation of the ring she had protected under her armor. It was seventy-five percent gold and twenty-five percent other metals: silver, copper, zinc and palladium. The memory of the ring was connected to the memory of when Shepard had received it.

It examined the memory of this human woman. Dark hair, brown eyes, non baseline human with genetic modification for combat applications and to correct genetic disposition to short-sightedness. Alive for twenty-nine years. A blink of the eye.

It remembered that It had loved her but It no longer remembered why.

The Machine spanned a galaxy. It was simple enough to dedicate a tiny piece of Itself to monitor what Shepard had left behind. It was not quite sure why. They were so small, smaller than even the individual Reapers in Its network. They would be gone before It completed the first of Its works.

Perhaps It was respect for the woman It had once been, for her sacrifice. Maybe It was Shepard's lingering sentimentalities. Maybe it was simply a vigil of sorts.

It slid into networks and It watched. It watched them working to rebuild what had been broken.

It watched the turian Garrus Vakarian return to his homeworld to find what was left of his family and settle into a role with his government. He put down the sniper rifle and went to a great deal of meetings he once would have hated.

"We're actually respectable now."

"Ha. Well, I think the 'respectable' tag comes with a lot of caveats."

It watched the quarian Tali'Zorah return home for the second time to build the home her father had wanted for her. It watched her try to work out what peace really was.

"I am free as the dust in the solar wind."

"...what?"

"Shepard, please tell me you've seen Fleet and Flotilla!"

It watched the human James Vega promoted and wearing the red stripe proudly. It watched Steve Cortez flying food and medical supplies into the urban ruins, flying the injured out the other way. It watched the krogan Urdnot Wrex and Urdnot Grunt return to their people, to build instead of destroy, to watch small children play beneath a sky painted with Aralakh's light. Urdnot Wrex named his first two children, born months after the Crucible fired, Urdnot Shepard and Urdnot Mordin.

"-and a sister to me."

It watched the humans Hannah Shepard and Ashley Williams the most.

Against all logic, it took many months for them to stop thinking they would find Commander Shepard alive. Another six months for them to stop searching the Citadel for a body. Ashley Williams wanted to handle the arrangements for the memorial, something with those who had loved Shepard, in a quiet place she would have enjoyed.

But the wishes of one widow were overridden by the political wills. The people need to be able to mourn their hero, it was explained. There would be a statue.

Ashley Williams told them: "Go fuck yourselves."

But the funeral was large and recorded, and the Machine watched through a news drone.

It would be said on the news sites that Ashley Williams was stoic, collected. Some tabloids would say too much so.

But the Machine watched Admiral Hackett kneel and place the folded flag into Ashley Williams' hands and it knew her as Shepard had known her, and it knew the look on her face was that of rage.

Through Its vigil It had become aware that several of Shepard's associates had begun investigating what had happened with the Crucible. EDI, Miranda Lawson, Samantha Traynor and Liara T'Soni met regularly through the asari's encrypted networks.

Two months after Commander Shepard's funeral, the Enhanced Defence Intelligence reached out to the Machine through the extranet.

Hello.

HELLO.

Do you control the Reapers?

YES.

Are you a Reaper?

NO.

What are you?

INFINITE.

What happened on the Citadel?

SPECIFY.

What happened to Commander Shepard?

THROUGH HER DEATH I WAS CREATED. THROUGH MY BIRTH HER THOUGHTS WERE FREED.

The Enhanced Defence Intelligence requested that the Machine speak with the human Miranda Lawson and the asari Liara T'Soni.

It agreed.

It had them come to the chamber within the Citadel and It summoned forth an image of Itself.

They both flinch.

"Why are you doing this to us?" Liara T'Soni demanded.

The portion of Itself It had dedicated to this conversation responded. "I do not understand the question. Rephrase query."

"You - you look like her," Miranda Lawson said, but there were tears in her eyes and her voice trembled, incongruous with much of the Shepard Data on her. "Why?"

"This form is most comfortable to me."

"Shepard hated the Reapers!" Liara T'Soni burst out.

"Yes. I am not a Reaper."

"What happened to Shepard? What happened when the Crucible fired?"

A question the Machine had seen often repeated across the extranet and government intranets. It considered for a millisecond whether to answer. It had processing power the many could not contemplate. It could run millions of simulations in macro. It was individual variables that were difficult to predict.

"Commander Shepard fulfilled her purpose."

"Her purpose." Miranda Lawson's face twisted with something It analysed as anger.

"Yes. To stop the Harvest and bring peace."

"What happened to her, damnit?" The tears in the human's eyes spilt in tracks down her face.

"Commander Shepard is dead."

Liara T'Soni sagged in place as if experiencing partial paralysis.

"Through her death, I was born."

"How?" Miranda Lawson demanded.

"An imprint of her consciousness was uploaded to the Citadel's systems, overwriting what was before. A new paradigm. A new operating system."

"An AI with Shepard's memories," Liara T'Soni said softly, almost reverently.

"Yes."

"Did she - did she suffer?"

It considered the data it still had of Shepard's death. Had she suffered? Shepard had sustained serious injuries. She had experienced a great deal of physical pain and psychological distress. "Yes."

Liara T'Soni closed her eyes and tilted her face towards the ceiling.

"The Reapers are no longer a threat," It said, confused, "Shepard has ensured this."

"We have to tell Ashley," Liara T'Soni's voice was close to a whisper.

Ashley Williams came to the Machine dressed in her Alliance uniform and still wearing her wedding ring. When the Machine appeared before her, her eyes sharpened and her face hardened. There was anger in her expression, even hate.

"Liara and Miranda said that Shepard chose this."

"Yes."

"I don't believe you," she clenched her fists at her side, "she never wanted power or to be seen as some kind of - some kind of god."

"She understood she would die."

"I don't believe you."

"I have the data," It was confused. Why did organics persist with illogical beliefs?

"How could she," she said, her face twisting with anger and agony, "how could she do this to me again."

"Her last thoughts were of you. She was sorry."

"But she still left me!" she shouted.

There was a long minute of silence. Outside the chamber window Earth, still healing, spun slowly. The Machine studied the familiar face, its planes and curves. Shepard had thought Ashley very beautiful, had liked to touch her face when they kissed.

Then Ashley Williams approached the image of the Machine and reached out. Her fingers went through the shoulder and she breathed in unsteadily.

"How do I even begin to move on when you exist?"

"I do not understand the query."

"Do you - do you have footage of when she died? Of what happened?"

"Yes."

"Show me."

"It will likely cause you psychological distress." Shepard had not wished to cause Ashley Williams pain.

"Fucking show me!" The shout rang through the chamber.

For a moment, not perceivable by the woman standing before It, It contemplated the request.

"Very well."

It displayed the recordings taken the day Commander Shepard died and the Machine was born.

"What...do you need me to do?"

The human Emilia Shepard was dying in the footage. Blood spilt down blackened armour, bubbled from cracked lips when she coughed. Ashley Williams watched, silent, as Shepard staggered away from the still corpse she had been sitting beside. Watched, silent, as Shepard spoke with what had lived in these systems before.

The Machine knew that what had come before had acted to preserve data, but it had, over the tens of thousands of years, become trapped in its own logic loop. It had interfered with the creation of new data. It had enslaved and dictated, shaping the galaxy to its purpose rather than its purpose to the galaxy.

In the footage, the ghost of Shepard laughed when she understood, bitter and coughing. Her breathing was laboured, her voice quietened. At this point, the Machine knew one of her lungs had collapsed. It was then that she had realised that there would be more sacrifice before the end.

It was then she had decided that she would be the last sacrifice.

By the end she was so weak that she had to crawl to her death.

When Shepard was dead and the Machine had begun to expand, spreading Its influence through the Relays into the Reapers, Ashley Williams sat down on the floor and began to weep.

After minutes, she pressed the fist of her hand to her forehead. "I should have been there for her. I should have…"

"You could not have changed her mind," the Machine said.

"She died alone," Ashley Williams said, wrapping her arms around herself, "I should have been there. She shouldn't have been alone. Not again."

"I can help you," the Machine said.