Immortality costs a man dearly, for to do so he must die during his own lifetime.
~Fei'Ni Chi, Asari philosopher, 3rd Sunrise Period
Insects buzzed, clicking their serenade outside. The very weather mocked the idea of discomfort, an incredible sunset igniting the horizon's edges in multi-hued fire. Clouds drifted through the cascading light, diffracting blazing rays into darker shadows, muting the effect across their water dense interiors. Zephyr-soft breezes brushed across the grass, tickling its tips with endless merriment, conveying the distant scent of thunder, a storm well-enough away to be ignored for many hours yet.
Squatting in almost parodical counterpoint sat a survival shelter, made from durable synthetic fibers. Its pale flanks reflected the sun's dying glory in dim imitations, grass blades dancing across the surface in dark tangles. Two large, dark shadows loomed on the nearer surface, blocky outlines of Shepard's chair, and that of his host.
If one turned away from the glorious illumination, the first stars could be seen. Unlike the view Shepard remembered from space, these specimens twinkled in shades of pure white, set in velvet darkness. As it was that time of year, traces of light streaked across the sky, meteorites expending themselves in a final destructive burst. Poetic, if one had such a bent. A brief existence terminating in glorious destruction.
"Karl."
Shepard continued to watch the sunset, admiring colors an artist would mock as 'unrealistic', all while inhaling deep breaths of the open air. Filtered starship air smelled of lubricant, but the plains of Mindoir held another scent. He could sense grasses and mulch on the breeze, the faint hint of oil-based treatments the distant farmers used on their equipment. A fainter, more acrid tang hid in the air, quarry-stone mined dozens of miles away. Quartz, by the smell.
"Karl, listen. This is important."
Shepard tore his attention away from the experience, turning it back to the man that had done so much for him, and for whom he'd torn the skies apart to aid. "James. I'm having a moment here."
A hoarse chuckle rumbled from the camp chair set across the small fire. "I noticed. But … this can't wait any longer."
Shepard sighed. Such phrasing never boded well. "Go ahead."
"I'm getting old, Shepard."
He blinked at the unexpected statement. "We all are. I'm your big brother, remember? Pretty sure I'm hitting the age wall faster than you."
Dead silence met his response. Then his brother's chair shifted, giving off a faint squeak. "That's not quite true."
"A few nanites, sure," Shepard waved the topic away, tilting his neck to better glimpse the meteorites striking for planetfall and meeting their doom partway. "You have children. And a wife. You don't live longer, it just feels that way."
This time he elicited a pained laugh. "Karl, I'm sorry."
That caught his attention like nothing else. "Sorry? What for?"
"I ran tests. I'm sorry."
A sense of worry flickered through Shepard's spine. "You're not sick?"
"Sick?" James Shepard let out a huff, making his dark bangs flip upwards. "No. Just the usual train of descent all mortals face. Age. Senescence. Growing decrepit, one foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel. Old Karl. And you're not."
Shepard's booted feet swished through flattened grass as he changed position to better see his counterpart. "I'm not?"
"Not like I am," his brother made a frustrated gesture. "Let me start over. Remember when you came back to Mindoir seven years ago? We went for a jog in Darkness Falls Canyon."
"Aye," Shepard thought back. "I remember."
"Karl, I am in peak condition. I have the best genemods science can develop. I use the best myo-stim gym gear available, enhanced liver de-tox, everything. Seven years ago, I was superior to soldiers and Olympic athletes. Modded athletes Karl."
A low chuckle built in Shepard's chest. "I still beat you at the marathon though."
"Yes, you did. That's my point."
Shepard went still.
James leaned closer to the popping fire, its flickering light casting shadows across a face that looked near identical to his own. He pulled a small bottle from a pocket and lobbed it over the flames. "You know what that is?"
He fielded the object, studying its labels. "Dye remover."
"Right," James gestured for the object's return, and caught the thrown container. With one hand he began using the aerosol on the side of his temple, while the other began dabbing with a cloth. "I have been dying my hair, Karl. The stress of everything, even with all the modifications, takes a toll. Use the light there, it's a bit dark. Look at me."
A strange heaviness pulled at Shepard's hands, making them clumsy beyond normal. He hesitated, letting the omni-tool lower, staring at the wristband as if an unexpected viper had found sanctuary there.
"Karl." His brother's voice softened, but there was steel in its compassion. "Look. At. Me."
A moment later light burst from the side of Karl's wrist, filling the campsite. Shadows raced across the waving grass, stark light pillorying the darkness in harsh contrast. Somewhere a group of birds took flight, and grasses rustled through the passage of some heavier creature. But none of that registered with Shepard, not with what he was seeing.
"Gray." His brother smiled, but it was the sort of expression reserved for funerals. "I'm going gray, Karl."
The light clocked off, drowning the affected area in darkness. Flames crackled merrily, unaffected by the change; insects continued their endless song, out in the taller grass.
"Being a CEO must be more stressful than I thought," Shepard tried to joke.
"It is," James' smile could be heard, still there, still listening. "But you've been through more, Karl. Seven years ago you beat me in a ten kilometer marathon. Then you ran a twenty-four mile marathon, when I had to take care of business. I could've done the second marathon, but you did it in record time. When I tried, my best time was still ten minutes longer, after a month's rest. So I started a few tests, looking at what's going on."
Shepard felt his throat tighten. "And?"
His brother sighed again. "Hell if I know. But it's obvious what the end result is. Then you got hit with the Beacon, and … it got worse."
"And?" Shepard tried to keep the pressure he felt out of his voice. It failed, of course.
"You're immortal. To a certain extent, of course." James raised his shoulders in a what-do-you-do gesture. "The science is … strange. Are you starting over with your first birthday? Can you die? Obviously you can, but other than some violent death, I don't know. I just don't know."
Shepard couldn't think. The concept was too vast to contemplate.
His brother was talking again, the same low, calm voice their father would use. A part of Shepard hated that the mannerism worked, but another part enjoyed knowing some things didn't change.
"You've been taking medical nanites for over ten years." James continued, "That's something no one else could do, either because of money or availability. Seven years ago that meant your age was slowed by a few decades."
Shepard snorted. "You've had access. You just don't use them so you don't trigger any entrance sensors." He paused before asking the most important question. "How long do you have?"
"I'll see the middle of my second century in all likelihood," his brother looked up at the sky, wearing a peaceful expression. "There are people hitting two centuries now, and they didn't start getting gene mods into circulation until thirty years ago. Getting them younger means longer lives, but no one has had nanites like you for even six months, let alone ten years."
Another thought penetrated Shepard's mind. "Nanites break down after a decade active use. You can't be right."
"Self-replicating?" James shrugged. "Then you got hit with Prothean tech. You know you were using the Charlie Delta series?"
"Not experimental. I tested them extensively," Shepard felt an unexpected defensiveness. "There's too much on the line to risk."
"I know, I know," his brother's hands rose. "But that's still been sold to only two other parties. That's the heuristic model, remember?"
Shepard nodded, slow and steady. "Ya. Good for mobile updates, some hacking benefit. Who did you sell it to?"
"A small-time thief and the Hanar," James's mouth twisted in puzzlement. "Traded, really. The hanar paid for possible cure development, that lung disease the drell have – I followed up on it. The thief I traded for access to Omega's private networks. Aria's doing some crazy shenanigans again, might need to knock her down a peg soon."
"Again?" Shepard's mind went to infiltration routes, listing the probable security forces used by the self-proclaimed Queen. With a wrench he hauled it back in line. "Wait. You think the Prothean hardware interfaced with the nanites?"
A small readout danced to life across James's fingertips. "We've updated your nanites once a quarter, until this year. Just too much going down with Saren, and the updates aren't needed that often once the first few sets adapt to your physiology. Between what they did to dear old Dad's genes and the nanites, both of us will be the picture of health for a long time. But you took the modified variants all the time, and your genes are closer to our father's. Blame crossing over events, not mom."
Shepard's hands clenched. "You figured out what happened to him?"
"They told you, more or less," James reached for a beverage, popping its seal. There was a pause as he enjoyed the carbonated liquid. "Our Old Man was a first-generation gene-mod recipient and received the best of the best. Did some secret ops, found his records sealed away." A tight grin flashed across his face. "Not sealed enough, of course. But the treatments Intelligence gave him was a delayed payoff, supposed to improve in the next generation. One-of-a-kind treatment for the Übermensch."
The cannister in Shepard's hand crunched into a narrow parody of its original form. Liquid splashed over the edges, ejected a good double handspan into the air.
"It's not all of Alliance Intelligence," James continued as if the display hadn't happened. "Just a subset. After you found their operative on the Normandy, I was able to trace back enough to uncover the cell. Well, cells, to be technical."
"Who." Shepard's voice was ice cold.
James smirked. "Now then, do you think I'm the kind of brother who wouldn't avenge family? I have your back, Karl. They won't be bothering anyone for the next few decades. Or using credit chits or their own legal names, purchase property or any number of pleasant necessities. They'll be lucky to be recognized by their own children. After they recover through the niceties, I have a few plans in motion to make them hurt."
An amused snort hissed through Shepard's nose. Nothing spoke of love like causing debilitating injuries, an instinctive language all humans understood. But his attention turned to something else, a thought that bothered him a great deal.
"Only one success?" Karl's attention stayed on James's face, one of the half-dozen he could still see. That triggered another thought, the healing properties of nanites were legendary. "Will this … fix me?"
"In order, there were others, but they are all dead. Supposedly." James shrugged. "Following up on those, two bodies I can confirm. Working on the third. But it does appear our father had left the program. He gained leverage somehow and got out."
Karl's eyes went skyward once more, tracking a shining dot that drifted across the darkening zenith. "Mustered out. Joined a colony, no wonder he wanted to stay out in the middle of nowhere, working a factory station of all things."
A near-silent grunt agreed with him. "As for your brain, I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe the nanites register your current condition as the optimal physiology. What I do know is they can't be turned off."
That caught Shepard's attention, bringing his eyes back to focus. "You can't turn them off?"
His brothers' hands dropped, resting on the arms of his chair, looking almost as defeated as the face linked to their actions. "I tried. Every command code, every override. They're heuristic, Karl. They learn. Their prime directive is to keep your body in good condition, to repair and replace defective tissue on a cellular level. Whatever they were exposed to, taught them to do their jobs as well as possible, as fast as possible, all the time."
Shepard lifted a hand, staring at it. He knew the nanites were resting latent somewhere within, waiting until the right time to activate. They'd been a godsend on countless occasions, turning life-threatening injury into inconveniences, preventing any manner of burns and scars from forming.
'Not vanity,' an old argument went through his mind. 'Can't be identified if there are no identifying marks.'
But their work on a deeper level was disturbing. Extraordinarily so.
"They won't let me stop. Will they." He wouldn't phrase it as a question. Couldn't.
"Oh, you'll stop."
His brother's carefree tone almost deceived him, until Shepard looked. Truth spoke honesty in the way people's bodies moved, and those who worked out the most spoke the loudest. Right now James's voice suggested mild interest in a vexing problem. But the man's knuckles, splayed feet, and dilated pupils spoke an entirely different matter.
His brother was afraid. Not about the situation, or even at the potential of immortality, but for him.
"A bullet to the brain might do it," James continued, sounding casual even as his hands screamed otherwise. "Powerful enough electric shock, nuclear explosion. Really the only thing that's off the list now is old age."
It took a few moments before reason made its tortuous path through Shepard's stuttering thought process. The sheer obviousness clouted his forebrain like an irritated krogan, albeit with less physical presence. It was unexpected, something that his chosen lifestyle hadn't made worth thinking about.
"If that happens," he made an effort to watch the fire, turning his focus away from eye contact. No one knew quite why that worked, but indirect communication helped reduce tension. "If it does happen, that I'm. Well. Immortal."
"Functionally immortal," James pointed out.
"Yes," Shepard rolled his eyes. "Functionally immortal. If … that … does happen, I'll keep an eye on your kids. And grandkids. You know that."
It was the right thing to say, it seemed. The tension seeped out of his brother, draining like a fine bourbon from an asari's wineglass. Neither chose to mention the reduced strain. A code of manliness had to be observed after all. Not all such things rested in chest thumping and explosions.
"Of course. I know you won't forget them," James opined. "But now that the elcor is off the table, have you heard about the latest development in communication? Quantum Entanglement. Ridiculously expensive. I have four already."
Shepard leaned back, listening as details of technical depth soared past his ken. The world would spin onward, he would continue. Whatever happened, he would do his best to look after his own.
Above, meteorites continued their enthusiastic lemming-like charge. Shepard acknowledged their display, still listening, but with half an ear. 'I'm free now. Free as the dust on the wind. Time to have some fun, see what toys I can work up. Reapers won't know what hit them."
A/N: A very short epilogue, but I have BDTS in the works for Epilogue II. Yes, the quote is from Nietzsche, but I am annoyed by the man. Ergo, I mixed it up and attributed it to some asari philosopher. Thanks to Nightstride and Oklina for great advice.
Life continues. Live it! Excelsior!