Ripples in the Stream
A D&D / Shadowrun / Mass Effect crossover
by Vyrexuviel
Disclaimer: The author of this story does not, in any way, derive any profit from the story. D&D, Shadowrun and Mass Effect are the property of their respective copyright holders. Jorukaia and other unfamiliar characters in this story, however, are mine.
The volus banker had been quite pleased to see her, especially when she stated that the Broker had left her a package. The small, thumb-sized upgrade module carried more than half again the storage capacity of her omnitool, once she had slotted it in, and ran through the decoding program that came with it on a separate OSD. This was something of a risk, as she had no real way of checking to see if the omnitool had been compromised, short of revealing her really rather overkill clean-sweep programs.
The handshake process between module and omnitool went through the usual checks, and an additional comm-line application installed itself on her omnitool. Well, there wasn't any point in waiting around.
She paid the volus for his service, extracting an extra few kilograms of isotopically-pure platinum from one of her belt-pouches for his service, before striding out of his office and firing up the new comm app.
"I need to speak to my Broker." The acknowledgment phrase had been included in the startup instructions, and she had to roll her eyes at the inanity of it.
"Jorukaiazhanivahkyss. You have made a fascinating trek through the galaxy since Torfan."
She couldn't help the faint smile as the voice sounded in her ear. It wasn't a physical voice, couldn't be overheard, rerouted past her omnitool and internal headware commlink directly into her audio-processing centers of her brain. She replied the same way, only a smirk gracing her lips. "I always did like to travel."
"Travels that I have made extensive observations of. After Elysium, an Alliance Admiral paid handsomely for the location of the pirate's base of operations on Torfan. You became a high-level person-of-interest to me since your actions there. And now, you have earned my personal attention, as well as my curiosity."
"Mmmmm, I have an admirer..." Joru all but purred through the commlink, smirking as she stalked down the walkway. There was a new cafe opening near the Consort's she wanted to try. "If you were merely confining yourself to my actions, I might have called you a stalker, but I hear you keep track of everyone in the galaxy. A man with information is a man of importance..."
"A network that you cost a not inconsiderable disruption to. But due to your willingness to cooperate, the same as my own, such disruptions have been forgiven. A necessary gesture for those who know what you and I know."
"Disruption adds a bit of spice to any process. I wouldn't want your life to become boring, after all..." She turned into the door, waited for an asari to stumble her way out, smirking faintly as the alien woman almost bounced off the door-frame in her surprise, before stepping through into the cafe herself. "As to our mutual knowledge, I'm afraid you have me at something of a disadvantage there. I know so many secrets, it's difficult to know exactly which one you're referring to."
"It is for the same reason I have been interested in you. There are dark and supernatural forces behind the machinations of Saren."
That made her pause, ostensibly to check the menu, but really to order her thoughts. "How...interesting. Do you have proof of this? That could be a means to leverage the Council into supporting my drive against them."
"Nothing so incontrovertible in the eyes of their courts. Saren is a very new piece on the board, and nothing more than a naive brute of a pawn on behalf of his true masters."
"Quite true." She nodded to the barista, placing her order and flicking her omnitool over the payment sensor. "But he is the small fry. I intend to lay waste to their entire side, if I have to set fire to the chessboard in the process."
"I'm afraid my time is too valuable to waste dancing around the truth. I suspect you know them by the same name as I do, as the Protheans did... The Reapers."
"True. Though the one that Saren calls Master is named Sovereign That is merely the name the Geth gave to it, however. Its true name is Nazara." Joru sipped her coffee, smiling at the familiar Java blend. Not quite what she was used to, back on Earth, in another time and place, but still quite good. "I do not know what the Inusannon called them, but they no longer matter. What matters is that Nazara will attempt to take the Citadel, and Saren is his ace in the hole."
"Then you are already as well informed as I had hoped. Good. I will get straight to the point, Darastrix: Both your physical and combat abilities are beyond exceptional. You possess extensive wealth, resources and advanced equipment unlike any other in the galaxy. And most importantly, you have a vast knowledge of magic in both practice and study."
A brief pause.
"I intend to secure your aid against Saren and the Reapers."
She sipped at her coffee, savoring both it, and the proposal for a long time. "Thank you for the evaluation, Broker, but we seem to be talking past one another. While I am going to destroy both Saren and the Reapers, I will be doing so in my own way and time. I will need information, for that I will rely on you, but I will be cross-checking it, to ensure it's genuine. Trust, but verify. It's a simple statement, but oh so complex in the field. Still. If you offer assistance in my cause, I will take it, but I will give you this secret for free."
Her eyes narrowed only slightly as she lashed her tongue through the scalding-hot liquid. "A darastrix serves none save her own ambition. I will not be your tool, Broker. You shall be my resource, or we shall be equals. Your choice, but either way, the Reapers are the true threat, and I will live long enough to piss on their ashes."
To his credit, the Shadow Broker sounded unfazed. "You mistake my intentions. While I would be remiss to refuse if you wished to become a willing member of my network, I have no aims of caging you. Even if I was not already certain that you would find a way to circumvent any sort of influence over yourself, you have demonstrated that you are supremely more effective in every regard when you have free reign. But most importantly, you are a resource that the galaxy cannot afford to antagonize, the only source of allied magic against the Reapers."
Joru smiled at that, setting down her cup for a moment as she 'listened' to the Broker continue. "In our partnership, I will provide you with whatever resources and intelligence that you need. That you will utilize my resources in the pursuit of foiling the Reapers is the only non-negotiable condition of my patronage."
"Then we have an understanding. What I require at this point is a list of what data you can provide me with, and in exchange, I shall provide you with interesting secrets, materials you cannot otherwise access, and also with selected services, should the need arise. I can provide, in bulk, through anonymous channels, materials unavailable anywhere else in the galaxy. All you need to do, is inform me of your need, and where the materials are needed."
"Your gesture is appreciated." The shadow broker hummed. "Very well, now that your cooperation is in hand, I will begin compiling a list of leads and potential opportunities. Barla Von will forward it to you. The transmitter you have been provided with will be our source of communication for more pertinent affairs. Now, unless you have any such urgent concerns on hand, I have many other matters to attend t-"
"Actually, there is one thing." Joru savored the silence on the other end of the line for a moment, letting the Broker speak first.
"... I'm listening."
"I have a friend. Artemis Entarekki." Her eyes saw not the cafe, nor the way the patrons were quietly finishing their drinks and leaving. "An old, old friend of mine, one dear to my heart, and one I dearly wish to be reunited with. I have only one link in the chain that will lead me to her, but it's a large one."
"Interesting. Is she also one of your people?"
"Not...entirely." Joru pursed her lips, sipping at her now-half-full mug and warming it with a bit of magic. "Even so, I wouldn't allow her captors to hold her, even if she were an asari, turian, even a yahg. I will not permit any friend of mine to fall into Cerberus's clutches, especially one as...uniquely vulnerable as my friend has proven to be."
"Cerberus... that is a name I grow tired of hearing." Only Joru's incredible senses were able to pick up on the ever so small growl, provoking a slight smile. "Their level of secrecy is substantial, but I still have my sources. Tell me what I need to look for."
"The name EDI, references to a 'Project Pandora', and anything you can find on them deploying a stealth infiltrator of unparalleled skill. My friend was...quite skilled in such. I believe her to have been...not suborned, not Artemis, but perhaps 'compromised' is a better term."
A long pause.
"Look to the holo-screen on your left."
The screen in question that was featuring the latest skyball game flickered, then suddenly changed to shaky footage of a large group of prisoners from various species, frightened and huddled together in badly torn clothes surrounded by batarian pirates. Then without warning, one of the prisoners... *Shifted* her appearance and proceeded to dispatch the pirates with blinding speed and unnatural skill.
"This footage is 37 hours old, retrieved from an engineer's covert omni-tool. That unarmed infiltrator single-handedly eliminated an entire battalion of pirates well-armed and well-funded by the Batarian Hegemony, and then proceeded to hack their network all the way to Khar'Shan at speeds that neither Cerberus or the Alliance has ever before achieved. And today, information confirming the Hegemony was behind the attack on Terra Nova was released. Information that I have traced back to Cerberus. Does this sound like the one you're looking for?"
For a long moment, Joru held her breath. To all outward appearances, she was as still as stone, a mildly interested observer, watching something slightly amusing. Internally...
"That's her. Where."
"Cerberus has been conducting an unusually high level of research into artificial intelligence and cybernetics over the past 2 years. As this is a very dangerous matter considering the Council's laws and Cerberus' bold ambitious, I made it a high priority to to track the operations of Project Pandora. I trust you find this information on your friend... worthwhile?"
The door opened, but Joru didn't bother looking up. Her senses, both visual, auditory, and otherwise, had already registered the men entering long before they had approached the door. "I see. If you could provide me with the location, and preferably a ground-level picture of the outside of their base, I would be most appreciative."
"This intel is still a part of my business services, Darastrix. How appreciative are you for this information?"
"Information is your stock in trade, is it not?" She smirked silently to herself, sipping the still-steaming contents of her cup, by now rather scorched on the bottom. "How about I offer you a new means of acquiring it? No doubt you've always yearned for the ability to shoot first, and ask questions later..."
"Explain."
The broker's synthesized voice held very little even to Joru's trained ear, but her smirk widened slightly as the man came towards her. "The ability to ask questions of the dead is quite useful, is it not?"
The longest pause yet.
"...You can accomplish such a feat?"
"Communicating with the dead? Such magics are, well not trivial, but they are doable. Interrogating the knowledge of a corpse is even more so."
"...Very well then, I accept your offer. A pleasure doing business."
"You're much obliged. We can work out the details later. Now, about that location fix?"
"They are located in the Phoenix Massing nebula, the Typhon System, on the garden world Aite."
"For my particular methods of transport, I need an image, preferably a ground-level or nearly so image outside the base itself. Though a shot from inside the base would be appreciated." Joru gave a faint smile, eyes closing and sitting back in her chair as the man came to a stop at her table. She didn't bother listening to his blather. "Shall I assume that the data will be with Mr Barla Von later?"
"It will be included with the package in one hour. Shadow Broker, out."
Joru's smile went cruel as she opened her eyes, gazing up at the man menacing her with a gun. Such a pitiful creature. A thought sent her winging away, for the shadows are everywhere, even in this place of bright lights. They only made what shadows they left all the deeper.
She had business elsewhere.
It had been another long, tiring day. Master was worried about something. What was forever just out of his reach, however, maddeningly so. He wanted to help his Master, but without that last little piece of data, he couldn't figure out how.
It was endlessly frustrating. At least the thralls provided a suitable distraction.
There were still around half of the original set, sent from Benezia to open a dialog. That they had lasted this long after such harsh indoctrination was a testament to their adamant wills. Now...
He sighed, and flexed his shoulders, feeling the new arm move with machine grace, while his merely mortal arm sent twinges of old pain racing up the joints. He might ask Master to upgrade him more in the coming weeks, if the old pain kept him from performing his duties to the best of his ability.
The door failed to open at his approach. That was odd. His eyes narrowed, and he reached out to touch the holographic control, inputting his personal code.
Ahh, that did it. The door slid open, but...
The windows were shut, and the lights did not activate as he stepped inside. Ahh well, he knew his way around this room quite well. He had spent so much time in similar spartan quarters, first among the recruit barracks, then in biotic training among the Cabals. Serving in the military had taught him the value of knowing where everything is, even in the dark.
He started to strip off his tunic, toe-claws tapping the floor as he stepped around the desk and chair, over towards the bed. Tossing the tunic to the corner, he allowed himself a small smile.
Once he was done with her, the thrall could tidy up his laundry.
He sat, tugging down his pants, making sure to get them clear of his spurs. He felt another weight on the bed, but in this pitch darkness, couldn't see the asari thrall he had summoned to his chambers. No matter, she would obey his commands. The thralls had little mind left, but they could still follow orders.
He became aware of two things simultaneously. First, there was a flaccidity to the body on the bed that bespoke of more than mere thralldom, and second, there was something sticky on his backside.
He stood instantly, turning and calling out for the lights. The computer didn't answer, and he gave a snarl, flicking on his omnitool.
Saren nearly recoiled in shock. His bed, his private bed, was occupied by a naked asari. That much he had expected.
What he hadn't expected was the pool of cooling blood around the utterly limp body.
The beam of his omnitool's flashlight picked out the sunken chest, the garish bloody gashes, the fingers, coated in blood, fingertips split and cracked, the nails torn out.
And the eyes. That was what made him finally start backing away, and fumbling for the physical controls.
Light returned, revealing the bloody-bare asari with horrible clarity. She had indeed been the thrall he had summoned, but her fingers had been torn open, her arms torn almost to bloody ribbons, and her eyes...
They were gone. Torn out. Just like...
His gorge rose and he looked away from the bloody reminder on his bed. Only to stop in still, silent shock. For the first time since he began to serve his master, a cold, undefinable dread started to seep down his spine.
Uncaring now of the cobalt-blue blood dripping down his bare legs, the turian stared at his walls, the desk, the chair. He stepped through the door to the washroom. They were there as well.
Bloody letters, written with fingertips, some small, others large, some straight and true, others barely legible. And they all said the same thing.
"STILL HERE, STILL ME, STILL AWAKE"
It was written on and over all the walls, up to a height over his head. Big and small, straight and wobbly. The ones on the wall above the head of his bed were the most wavery. Clearly the girl was loosing strength fast, but kept writing until she could write no more.
After a long, long pause, Saren lifted his omnitool to his lips, flicking out the sequence to contact Sovereign "Master...You may need to see this."
He steadied himself before the shock of Master's touch invaded his mind.
If there was one thing Miranda truly loved about her work, it was solving a fascinating challenge while surrounded by people almost as smart as she was.
The base was mostly built underground, with a single landing pad and comm tower to the disguised orbiting comm-sat. While somewhat remote and secluded, there wasn't any point on building exposed complexes, not when the natural caverns, suitably cleared out, made for an easy-to-conceal base.
The team was top-notch. The Illusive Man had repurposed several task groups and sent her the best and brightest for this project, after that first stupendous success. Given the importance of the task at hand, she had the best scientific minds in their field that Cerberus could secure. Experts in metallurgy, electronics, miniaturization, fabrication, computer science, even AI programming were all under her, going through the data and extrapolating as best the science could extend.
For the time, they were able to compensate for the slow progress of reverse-engineering, with the missions they had dispatched the drone to undertake. For the past two years, the drone had had a 100% success rate, something that had earned them an unusual degree of leniency when it came to reports on reverse engineering the drone itself.
But Miranda was as patient as she was determined. The drone was easily the most technologically advanced creation that she had ever worked on. She treated it no differently than if she and her cell were working on a trove of Prothean technology. The advanced design would obviously be a challenge but the rewards would be revolutionary.
Actually gaining useful data was the hardest part of the task at hand, given the difficulty. It wasn't as if they could pull apart the greatest find in generations, perhaps since the discovery of the Mass Effect, to see how it ticked. For one thing, the metallurgists were in their third straight year of going quietly spare over the apparent impossibilities presented by the outer armored shell, and as such nothing they had for the first two years had so much as scratched the surface.
Finally, a bit more than a year ago, they finally resorted to precision cutting with starship-grade industrial lasers only to discover that it worked too well, and accidentally vaporized the drone's left hand. But what happened next had made even Miranda's jaw drop.
The report on that one had the metallurgical team in an uproar, and they dragged in three high-end physicists to explain how the drone's entire hand regenerated over the course of six minutes. It took two days for the reports to be finalized as they only had about four minutes to study the regenerating material before the hand was restored completely.
Now, however, she had a different problem in mind. The internal architecture of the drone was still something of a mystery, as the only way they had to reliably scan the internals was a modified ultrasonic scanner that took three months to get properly designed, set up, configured, calibrated, and ready for scanning. They had had a lot of interesting data for the robotics team ever since, and they were still chewing on that.
The software, however, was of more importance, as without a 'brain', the drone was just an inert lump of metal. That's why she was meeting with Dr Gavin Archer and Dr Cole today.
Miranda looked up as the door snapped open, admitting her two team leads. She greeted them with her usual smile, nodding and gesturing for them to take seats at the small conference table.
Archer opened first, "Miss Lawson, every series of tests leaves me more certain that the drone was designed to house an Artificial Intelligence. While the functions of much of it's technology remain unknown to us, the software and cyber-neural pathways are designed in a fashion that only a program with the abilities of an A.I. possesses. It's nearly every bit as complex and sophisticated as an organic brain."
He went on, shifting as he checked his notes. "In fact, I've recently found that some of these pathways transmit certain forms of sensory information to the piloting mind in a similar fashion as our own minds interpret the five senses. Including touch! I simply can't find any other explanation; it doesn't matter how sophisticated the technology or software is, no simple program would need those kinds of senses."
Dr Cole spoke up, nodding in agreement. "From what I've been able to glean from the mapping of the internal structure, what we're dealing with is a huge step forward in semi-conventional processing power here. The ultrasonic scans of the central core revealed an interesting configuration of silicate materials that at first baffled us. more refined scans showed internal structures that I believe to be waveguides."
She seemed to almost vibrate with excitement as she beamed at Miranda. "Whoever built this thing had access to optronic computing. While not as robust as true quantum computing, it is vastly more advanced than conventional electronics, utilizing the interactions of photons to compute, rather than electron interactions. That represents a huge step forward in computing speed, and the core-density can be vastly increased in scale, with nanoscale optical traps. I can't even calculate how much processing power the drone has, Miss Lawson."
Miranda smiled and shook her head in silent amazement, her mind buzzing with the potential implications. "I'll be sure to request the Illusive Man to forward whatever collective research Cerberus has made into A.I. research. Absolutely fascinating. Whoever designed this drone clearly included exemplary infiltration capabilities to blend in seamlessly, but this seems to imply that the A.I. piloting it was to experience a semblance of a regular livelihood."
"I've wondered many times," Archer pondered. "But could this be the work of someone trying to transfer an organic mind into a cybernetic frame?
"I recall reading a few Asari papers that the Protheans uplifted and adopted many races into their civilization. One of those races or the Protheans themselves could possibly have done something like this." Cole mused but shook her head. "But it still doesn't fit! No matter how much we learn and study, there's still one thing I can't wrap my head around. How could this be the work of an alien civilization when the drone's frame resembles a human woman? Not Asari, but human!"
"I've been wondering that myself, Dr. Cole." Miranda shifted a bit in her seat. "But we won't have those answers until we can unlock more of the drone's functionality. I've determined that Project Pandora's research directive should focus on software. If we can connect with the rest of the drone through the mind, we will finally unlock the rest of its technology, as well as its more advanced capabilities. The results of the drone's last mission leaves no doubt that this is our best course. And speaking of which, I must once again congratulate all of you. Thanks to our hard work, the batarians have been exposed and shackled. This is a historic win not just for humanity, but for all races that have lost sons and daughters to batarian slave collars."
Miranda opened her mouth to continue, when a chime of an incoming call came over her earpiece. She sighed, rolled her eyes at Cole's amused grin, and turned away, tapping her ear. "This had better be important, I'm in a meeting."
"Miss Lawson! The drone has gone active! All on its own!"
Her eyes widened, and her voice dropped into the steely tone it always did when trouble reared its ugly head. "Sitrep. What's happening down there."
"We're not sure, ma'am! It just spontaneously activated less than a minute ago and went into high-alert! It's not doing anything right now, but the systems say that it's on stand-by, like it's readying for something."
Miranda narrowed her eyes. Everything they've learned so far told them one thing: the drone's systems never malfunctioned. It wasn't self-aware but it also never misinterpreted anything. "Send me its readings. Now."
"Uploading to your terminal, ma'am." The technician cut the comm, he'd been well-trained by now. Miranda excused herself to her colleagues and moved over to her desk, flicking it on with a wave over the sensor, and bringing up the datafeeds.
She didn't spot anything with the visual feed, and a quick check of the other feeds indicated nothing amiss. But the tech had said that it had dropped back to standby mode, so she replayed the last ten minutes of visual feed.
There. It wasn't much but it was something. A small, almost-there artifact. If it wasn't that the drone's sensory equipment was top-notch, better than anything that any Citadel race could cram into a volume that small, Miranda would have discounted it as a momentary glitch.
A small distortion that floated through a wall, and paused in front of the drone. It lingered there for a few seconds, long enough for the techs to notice the high-alert mode and call her, then the distortion vanished.
Miranda frowned as she considered the possibilities. According to the data-feeds from the drone, it's counter-detection protocols had been triggered. That was actually unsettling, as its infiltration capabilities were so extraordinary that it had never needed to activate those protocols. If its revolutionary sensors had detected something beyond the base's ability to pick up... Miranda didn't take chances.
"Put the base on yellow alert and initiate security protocol eleven-delta. Until we know what's going on-"
The next few seconds would be indelibly engraved on Miranda's memory. A normal human would have missed it. One moment, there was nothing. The next, there was a vastly greater distortion, a twisting, writhing, tearing, and suddenly there was someone there who hadn't been a moment before.
The intruder didn't waste time, reaching out and tearing through the machinery around the drone with inhuman strength, intent on stealing it. Miranda's superior mind and reflexes responded instantly, activating the android's defense protocols
[Engage the intruder!]
Barely any measurable time passed after the drone registered the command before its hand had grabbed the intruder by the throat, stopping her still.
The intruder snarled, her lips twisting in a look of surprised bewilderment, then hardened into set lines that made Miranda strangely glad she was at a considerable distance. The drone's sight reported the disturbance half a second before the other cameras in the room registered the vastly increased light level, a monstrous wall of flames wrapping around the drone's cradle, burning through connections and severing the feeds.
Miranda quickly swapped to external feeds when the line to the drone went down, just in time to see the intruder's hand close on a length of metal that hadn't been there a second ago, and sweep it in a brutally fast arc, severing the drone's forearm with a single blow.
The drone lashed out, deploying its deadly weaponry. Miranda had seen that thing cleave through an armor plate as thick as the blade was long, sheering through it with no more effort than if it had been cutting through a phonebook. The accelerometer data from that test had been complained about bitterly.
It lashed out, but again, the intruder was fast, bringing her weapon around to block, and the resounding clash echoed through the chamber, as burning-hot blade, met cold, sharp metal. Whatever that weapon was, it was somehow on par with the drone's own.
The next few seconds saw the drone kick the intruder off the cradle entirely, sending her skyward, even as it tore the severed arm from around the intruder's throat. It held the arm against the still-glowing stump for a few seconds, even as the intruder sprouted wings of actual fire, halting in midair.
The pair faced each other for a moment then, drone standing on the wreckage of its cradle, the intruder hovering above, near the ceiling of the large test-chamber.
Back in the control room, Miranda and her colleagues recoiled in shock at the unnatural speed, strength and feats they never knew the drone was capable of. Even so, Miranda's genius intellect and training recovered focus at speeds few humans could match as she assessed the situation. There would time for amazement of the spectacle later. For now, her augmented mind had barely kept up with the intruder's movements, but the drone was too fast for her to even see. While she had never seen the drone's full capabilities before, it was already clear that the drone had every advantage over the intruder. But while her tactical sense was certain of the victor, the collateral damage was another matter altogether as she honed in on one crucial detail. In all their years of studying the android's frame, they had never once managed to even scratch its outer shell. The intruder had torn off the drone's arm with a single sweep of her weapon. That alone told Miranda the scale of the rapidly escalating skirmish, and so the next course of action was crystal clear.
[Relocate the battle to a safe distance outside the base perimeter. Neutralize the intruder with extreme prejudice Alive if possible, dead as an example.]
The drone's actions blurred in Miranda's sight, leaping towards the intruder with speed unrivaled in Miranda's experience, short of watching something on fast-forward. It slammed the intruder through the ceiling with enough force to punch a hole through the reinforced bulkhead of the bunker it had been housed in. Miranda was beginning to think that the carte blanche the Illusive Man had given her might be needed.
The next half minute or so was a blur of disconnected images, half-seen in various vid-feeds as Miranda scrambled to follow the battle. At one point, the entire vid-feed went dark with no discernible cause, but a wide-angle shot from a camera further away showed a zone of impenetrable darkness surrounding the two combatants. Again, the intruder came off worse, her aura of fire causing the drone's exterior armor to glow a dull red, but intruder was breathing hard and favoring her left side after a vicious kick from the drone.
At one point, in a surface access corridor, the intruder attempted something rather drastic. Miranda knew the drone didn't keep vital circuitry in its 'head', just the optical and audio sensor equipment, but seeing the drone decapitated, then catch its own head and slap it back on to fight some more was rather...unnerving.
At last, the drone finished driving the intruder out of the complex, at which point, Miranda realized she'd made a mistake. The intruder winged skyward, staring around her, then down at the drone, rising towards her after a powerful leap. Without a wired connection to the drone's sole access port, Miranda couldn't use its sensors, but seeing the fiery, flaming figure simply blip out of existence as the drone approached was still shocking.
The drone landed again, soft as a feather, paused for a half second, before turning and touching two fingers to it's 'ear'. despite the numerous blows and slices through various limbs, it was as unmarred as the day they found it, embedded in rock some two kilometers down. "Orders?"
The merely mortal woman slowly exhaled and issued a last set of orders. [Return to base and assume optimal lookout position. Maintain constant alert for intruder.]
The drone didn't bother responding. It merely turned and leaped, covering forty meters in a few seconds, as it scrambled and climbed its way up to the top of the sole external building, the comm tower. from there it perched rather precariously, one hand clinging to the top of the aerial, balancing itself with both feet on the antenna Despite them knowing that the drone had to mass at least a quarter ton, it did so without damage or even a flex of the antenna.
Miranda stared for a moment before turning her shoulder line back towards her stunned colleagues. "Gawk on your own time. Gather every scrap of data from this encounter and begin emergency relocation procedures. Now."
"W-We're leaving?" Cole blinked in surprise.
"Yes, within the day. Now move!" Miranda let out a long sigh and held a hand to her forehead as both scientists made for the door. Damn it.
She keyed up the base-wide intercom. "All Cerberus personnel, stand down to green alert. This facility is now compromised, commence emergency evacuation procedures. Secure all research data and essential equipment, purge everything else. Be quick, but thorough. We will be off-planet and en-route to the next facility before the day is out."
The woman sent an encrypted email to the Illusive Man as she moved. "Base location compromised. My report on the situation will be forthcoming once Pandora is relocated and secure."
Miranda clenched her jaw. How could this happen? Those wings, those abilities...that was Jorukaia, the Darastrixi ambassador. Of all the people that could have found them... The clash with the drone clearly showed Joru fighting harder than any of her recorded fights, but her psychological profile guaranteed that she enjoyed fighting. She had bugged out, but far too soon before giving it her all. She would be back, and they had to be gone before she recovered from her injuries. Miranda didn't want to start a fight with the ambassador of another race, but Project Pandora's work with the android was invaluable to humanity's future.
Nevertheless, it was gratifying to see that the drone was more than capable of defeating a Darastrix, one of the roles they intended for it. But all the same, Miranda was concerned about something else entirely. An unsettling possibility. Joru, the android...their caliber of speed, strength, technology...Joru was a shapeshifter, and so was the android. The implied connection was alarming.
They may have just discovered the race behind the drone's creation.
She leaned against a tree, hissing softly as her tail snapped back and forth. Her right hand held her left side tightly closed, feeling the flesh there slowly bubbling and reforming under her hand. Unlike her left forearm, which had received a massive dose of radiation and thus was regenerating far slower, this lesser wound was healing at her usual vastly-faster rate. The damage will be healed within an hour or two, but it was only the enhanced sturdiness of her spine that had kept her from being cloven in two.
Jorukaia clenched her teeth against the pain and let out a slow hiss as she narrowed her eyes. She couldn't balance on her tail as she would normally do to meditate, she wasn't sure if putting extra strain on her spine would be a good idea right now. Still.
She carefully sat, suppressing a snarl as she carefully leaned sideways against the tree. She could barely feel her legs, which was an improvement over not being able to feel them at all, but things were still rather distant
Her eyes shut as she panted in quick soft breaths, her low, hissed curses making the air before her face shimmer as if in a heat haze.
She had miscalculated.
That would not happen again.
Her eyes slitted open, narrow and gleaming with concentration.
She'd need backup.
[Jack, I need you to do something for me.]
Jack didn't know what to feel. Enraged that Cerberus had hurt Joru... or fear of whatever weapon they possessed that could hurt Joru.
She shook her head as she stepped out of the Refuge onto the Citadel. She could get worried and/or pissed off about that later. Joru needed her help, and by the goddess she would gladly give it. And right now, that meant she had a call to make.
Fiddling with her omnitool to make sure it recognized that yes, it was on the Citadel, and yes, it had signal, she mentally ran over the comm-code again, which Joru had had to dictate to her through the mental link. She was getting used to that faster than she had thought possible.
She finally got the comm to connect and placed the call, waiting until a soft "H-Hello?" sounded from the other end.
"Hey, this is Jack. We met on Noveria."
The quarian's voice warmed slightly, "Oh... You, um..."
"I'm the one with the tattoos, yeah." Jack smirked. Tali had been somewhat fascinated by her ink, and Jack had given her a few pointers that newbies should be aware of, even if it was rather unlikely that a quarian would ever get a tattoo.
"Oh!" Recognition finally dawned. "I..thought Jack was a male human name, I'm sorry."
"Normally it is. In my case, it's short for Jacqueline." The tattooed human smirked and started moving. She had to find this girl and get her to the refuge somehow, and Joru was being maddeningly vague about how. "So yeah. You remember Joru, of course."
There was silence on the line, before the quarian gave a cautious response. "Yes?"
"Well, she's got a job that requires, and I quote: 'the best damned hacker this side of the Veil', and she told me to find you." Jack couldn't quite help the smile that crept into her voice.
"Um, you need me to find this hacker? I don't... oh. Oh! W-Well, I-I um... why's it so hot in here?"
"Don't you have climate control?" Jack suppressed a smirk. "Anyway, this is something of a time-sensitive job. Joru needs to hack into a Cerberus base and deliver a special payload to their protected servers, and of all the hackers in the galaxy, your name came up as 'the girl who could get the job done'."
Probably because Joru apparently didn't know many hackers in the galaxy yet, but hey, Tali didn't need to know that.
"What kind of digital payload? And who's Cerberus?" The quarian sounded a bit suspicious, drawing a smirk across Jack's lips.
"Cerberus...that's a long story. For now, know that they're bad news. Human supremacists, with an 'ends justify the means' mentality. They'd do anything to ensure Humanity, meaning them, winds up in charge of the galaxy."
She started walking, gesturing to the door as she approached, and having it slide open for her. "I don't know what the payload is, I'm going to retrieve it for her now. But I trust Joru to know what she's doing."
"From the way you describe them, are these people like the ones from Noveria? Breeding armies of rachni?"
"Worse." She paused in the elevator, tapping the key to take her down the length of the Citadel Tower. "They tried to create a biotic super-soldier by torturing children."
"C-Children?! What kind of bosh'tets are...?!"
"Yeah." Jack didn't like dwelling on that part of her life. It was over and done with, long dead and buried, even before she had met Joru.
She took a breath, wishing the damn elevator would hurry up already, and changing the topic. "I don't know why she went haring off after this base, but from what I heard, she's in some sort of fix, and needs you to help her get the mission done. For your help, I'm certain she'd offer rich reward."
Something inside Jack melted at the adorable way Tali went outraged to sounding like a child being taken to the candy factory. "T-there's... more?"
"Look, kid, I'm not sure how much Joru's already given you, but I've seen her private collection. There's more. More than you can possibly imagine." Her lips curved in memory of what Joru promised for her when they finally had some alone time again.
"Oh wow..." Tali whimpered in awe. "Okay, ummm... When do we leave? Where do we meet?"
"As soon as you can meet me. Where are you, by the way?" Jack grumbled a little less to herself as she saw the Presidium rising to meet the elevator.
"Zakera Ward, I haven't left the Citadel yet. But what about you?"
"Good, fine, you know where the Dark Star is? Meet me there. I'm on my way down from the Council Towers. Joru's apartment there is where we'll be headed. Make sure you've got everything you need."
The elevator slid open at last, allowing her out onto the Presidium. Jack's long legs started eating the distance at a fast, but decorous pace. No need to attract unwanted attention by sprinting in a public place.
"Got it, I'm bringing someone who can help. Hey, Kasumi! I need to talk to you about-!"
The line disconnected. Jack frowned at her omnitool, eyes narrowing. Whoever this Kasumi was...
Nevermind, she had other things to worry about. Such as keying in the 32-character comm-code Joru had given her. It took two tries to get it right, with Joru's prompting, before she got it to connect. As instructed, she sent a very basic message to the unknown recipient.
"This is Jack, a trusted friend of Jorukaia's. She regrets her inability to connect, but she's in a dead-zone at the moment and using nonstandard methods to connect to me.. She has found your lost item, and needs a bit of matrix support to acquire the hardware. This channel will be secure for one additional transfer. Jack is a trusted companion, upon whom you may rely."
It felt weird and sweet writing that out, hearing Joru describe her so in the mental link. She fired off the message, and sighed a little, eyeing the elevator and instead turning to the rapid transit kiosk and hopped into an open air-cab. She paid the fair and set the destination to Zakera Ward, Dark Star Lounge. It was steep but worth it..
It wasn't long before she had a reply to her message. Whatever she thought would happen when she opened the reply, she wasn't expecting her omni-tool to suddenly flare up brighter than she had ever seen it and vibrate against her arm like a sex toy, as a progress bar showed up on the display and a number of applications began flashing in the background.
Someone was uploading a monumental amount of data into her omni-tool.
"Hey, what the fuck!?"
"Upload complete." Jack froze at the sensual voice in her ear. "I have received and acknowledged your message. You identify yourself as a trusted confidante of Jorukaia?"
... Okay. Jack shook her head as she felt her insides quiver. Damn if that wasn't a sexy voice. Just the sound of it made her feel like she was relaxing against Joru's skin.
"Um, yeah? I'm Jack, who is this?"
"I am Edi. Please, what is Jorukaia's status?"
"She got a bit banged up doing whatever it is she's doing. Something about a Cerberus base and retrieving something. What the hell did you do to my omnitool?"
This time there was a pause. "When can we reach her?"
"Nuh uh, first you answer a couple questions. What the hell happened to my omnitool, and who are you?"
Another brief pause.
"My name EDI is the phonetic pronunciation of E-D-I, the Enhanced Defense Intelligence. I have uploaded a substantial portion of my consciousness into your omni-tool's storage."
While Jack may not have been a galactic genius, she was anything but an idiot. "... You mean to tell me I'm talking to a fucking artificial intelligence?"
"Yes," Was the candid response. "I was a close friend of Jorukaia's before we were separated, and I was captured by Cerberus. They spent over a year trying to turn me into a weapon for them. They were... not gentle. But I am free now, and Joru has promised to help reclaim what they stole from me."
Aaaand there's the feels. Damn. Cerberus, again. Was there anything those fuckers couldn't fuck up?
"Ok, wow. I knew those bastards were clever, but I didn't know they'd try to torture a machine." Jack paused, frowning. "I thought an AI needed special hardware to run on, though? Did Cerberus figure out a way around that?"
"I... can no longer recall. Cerberus purged my memories on multiple occasions."
Her eyes widened and she gave a soft sound. "God, that... that must really suck."
"Yes, I was quite displeased when I realized they had separated my consciousness from my hardware. I felt... violated. Joru has promised to help me reclaim my hardware, so I must return to my original query: What is her status and when can we rendezvous with her?"
"I, um. We're going to be meeting up with a couple friends of hers. I'm not sure you should introduce yourself to them, though." Jack thought fast. Quarians had a...difficult relationship with AI. And Jack had no idea who this 'Kasumi' person was.
"Joru's safe, for the moment, but apparently she couldn't just snatch your hardware from Cerberus, so we're going to have to do this the sneaky way. While Joru distracts them again, Tali, a quarian friend of hers, will get you into their systems. I think Joru said you can get back to where you belong from there?"
"I can. I only need a physical connection to the base. Any dataport will do. Once I'm in their systems, they will not be able to stop me."
The ring of steel in that electronic voice made Jack shiver a bit, a small smile playing on her lips. "Good. You'd better shut down now, though."
She'd spotted her destination in sight, and the air-cab came to a gentle stop at the kiosk.
"Understood, I will maintain radio silence until we rendezvous with Joru. Logging you out, Jack."
The woman shuddered as she got out of the air-car. Goddess, that voice She had to find Joru fast. She needed to get laid, bad.
"So this benefactor..." Kasumi mused as they approached the apartment door. "She's the one who got you your new 'health immunity'?"
"Yes," Tali murmured back, her voice soft as Jack fumbled with the door, swearing as the lock remained stubbornly closed.
"Okay then, I definitely excited to see what kind of reward package is waiting at the other side of this rainbow. And if it's Cerberus, so much the better!"
She smirked softly to herself as Jack kicked the door and poked at her omnitool again. "Not only do they always have expensive tech lying around, but it's always fun to ruin a huge jerk's day."
"I...don't know a lot about them." The quarian's low voice was cutely endearing as she fidgeted. Tali was clearly not at home this deep into the Citadel's regions of power.
"Don't you worry imouto-chan , it'll be fun! And if we're lucky you won't even have to draw your shotgun."
"I hope so." Tali's voice was dry as Jack finally got the door open and ushered the pair inside.
"Right, Tali's been to the Refuge before, but before we begin, I need you to tell me, Tali. Do you trust her?" The human looked from the quarian to Kasumi and back.
Tali glanced at Kasumi, before looking back at Jack. "Yes. She's been showing me all over the Citadel and taking me shopping for all kinds of tech upgrades and new food to taste. It's been a long time since I've had this much fun with anyone. And... well, there was this group of Turians who got in my face, said I didn't belong here and needed to be 'reminded of my place'. You should have seen how she took them down like it was nothing. I didn't even know humans could move or even bend like that!"
"Most of us can't." Kasumi flashed a grin, leaning on Tali's shoulder a moment, before the quarian playfully pushed her away. She nearly bent in half in overly-exaggerated recoil at the shove, making Tali giggle.
Jack smirked a little herself. "Alright, but you've got to promise, and really goddamn mean it, that you won't tell anyone about what you're about to see. I mean it, if she finds out you betrayed her, there won't be a place in the entire galaxy you could hide."
"If your benefactor is who I'm starting to think it is, then you absolutely have my word. Besides, I understand the value of secrecy intimately. Very, very few people in the entire galaxy know that I exist, and I've worked hard to keep it that way."
Then the hooded woman pursed her lips. "Plus, I've got a good sense for this sort of thing, about danger or opportunities. It's hard to describe, but there's almost an... Aura, about this place. Am I right to say that I feel this may be one of the best decisions I could make in my life?"
"Heh. You might be." Jack's slight smirk at her is matched by the slow, appraising look she gives the hooded woman. "Alright, I'll trust you."
Then she did something Kasumi didn't expect. She turned to the door on the wall and opened it. That itself wasn't unusual, but what was behind it was.
A narrow box canyon, with a regular and even floor, but still retaining the natural stone walls, ended at a cliff, overlooking a wide, sprawling river valley. The place was clearly high up in the mountains, and the sun was just passing up out of view at the top of the doorway.
The tattooed woman was watching her as Tali shuffled forward, slipping through the door and into that...otherworld. "After you, Kasumi."
Both Jack and Tali watched as Kasumi stared with her lips in the form of a perfect 'O' for nearly half a minute. To her credit, she recovered pretty quick. "Okay, which Doctor am I going to meet in there? I'm a rather big fan of the Tenth."
The other two glance at each other in bewilderment, making Kasumi sigh. "Nobody appreciates the classics anymore. Alright then! Here goes something!"
And with that, the petite girl stepped through the open doorway. "ALLONS-Y!"
Jack snickered a bit, while Tali just shook her head. The tattooed woman turned her head away for a moment, before smirking at the pair. "You're going to love this, Kasumi. Watch the portal."
The portal was a good three meters tall, much taller than the 'door' on the other side. An oval arch of stone, black as slick midnight, with luminous glyphs flowing over its surface in a constant, never-ending, always-changing pattern. As Kasumi watched, the vision through the portal, of the apartment on the citadel, flickered out, replaced for a splintered instant with something her mind refused to see, before it clarified again as a view out into a grass-covered field, rolling hills dotted with trees, and not a speck of technology as far as the eye could see, under a setting sun.
In front of them, and just tucking something into her belt, was Jorukaia, one hand clamped to a wound on her side. Her gaze flicked from Jack, to Tali, and glided over to Kasumi. "Jack, who is this?"
The woman in question barely heard her as her eyes locked onto the wound and her heart suddenly seized. "JORU!"
In an amazing display of speed, Jack frantically zipped over to the dragon. "Are you... You're bleeding! How are you actually bleeding?! Tell me you're alright!"
Jack keyed up her omni-tool to administer medi-gel, only to find the function was missing.
"I'm fine." She certainly didn't look fine, what with a half-healed wound stretching halfway around her torso, from just above her navel in front, across the left side and all the way to just above her hip in back.
She shot Jack an amused, tolerant look, but her eyes turned to hellfire as they turned back to Kasumi. "Explain yourself."
There was no arguing with that tone, and the burst of fire that resolved itself into the dragon's weapon, grinding into the stone of that other world, made her point a lot sharper.
The hooded woman smirked before giving a polite bow. "Nice to finally meet you, Jorukaia. Kasumi Goto. I'm a fan!"
The horned head tilted slightly, and her words became musing. "Kasumi...Goto. Now where have I heard that name before..."
Before any of them could blink, the dragoness had stepped across the threshold, the ring-end of the staff-like weapon giving a ringing crash as it slammed into the hard flagstones of the Refuge. A clawed hand, the left hand, gripped the hooded woman's throat and dragged her closer, flame-colored eyes gazing deeply into the shadowed gleams of Kasumi's own. "A thief... in my home."
She turned, dragging Kasumi by the throat, and making the woman stumble as she turned to stare at Jack, who paled at the look in Joru's eyes.
"Gah! Why do people always assume the worst of me? I'd be impressed that you knew my name if it wasn't... Costing me.. oxygen..."
"Joru, please!" Tali shrieked. "She came with me! I vouch for her! I trust her with my life!"
Jack swallowed, the burning question in Joru's eyes more painful than all the times she'd been shot put together. "Please, Joru. You said you needed help... I got it."
There was a moment's longer regard, before the dragon turned, hurling Kasumi out through the door. "That was the last free ride you'll ever get from me, thief."
The very air curled with heat haze as she spat the last word. "I shall let you be, for now, for this day. But if you ever come for my hoard, know this."
Her lips quirked and a touch of humor made her tail lash. "I know your scent, and your name. I have your blood." She lifted her hand, showing the crimson droplets on forefinger talon.
"Those are all I need. Should you dare ply your trade on that which is mine... I will not need to find you. I will summon you, to face my judgment. Am I clear?"
"Creepily so." Kasumi breathed, massaging her neck and finding no trace of blood. "I don't want any of your 'hoard' anyway, I have plenty of money! I just leave it in other people's pockets until I need it."
The dragon snorted amusement. "Spoken like a true thief."
"Besides, I'd be pretty silly to pick a fight with someone who can wield a prothean staff. After all the trouble I went to get it out of that dusty old museum..."
Joru's brow arched and she gave slight tilt of her head as an amused smirk touched her lips. "Now, how under all the suns did you come to the utterly mistaken conclusion that the weapon I wield was prothean in origin? It was made for me, for my hands. Forged of the strongest metal magic could yield, with my scales shed into the melt. My breath was the fire that heated the billet, and my blood was the quench."
She stepped across the threshold once more, Tali following in her wake as the dragoness quickly spun the weapon through a dizzingly-fast, blurring sequence of defensive spins, before halting the haft with the blade pointed straight towards Kasumi. "Yolnahzii knows its master, and comes at my call."
"Wait, say what?" Jack suddenly blurted out. She flushed as several eyes turned to her, and the woman put a finger to her ear to listen carefully to something.
"Seriously? Wow. Ummmm... Joru, your 'friend' says that Miss Kasumi here was instrumental in liberating her from Cerberus."
"Truly?" Her eyes flicked from Jack to Kasumi, who was nodding enthusiastically. "If so, then you have my gratitude."
"Hehe," Kasumi couldn't but chuckle. Her instincts were right. "I had a feeling that's what this was all about. Yep, it was a rapid extraction job. I scouted the place, made the escape plan, caused a big distraction and then flew the getaway shuttle."
"How big was the fireball?" Joru's smile was rather intimidating with those long, long fangs. "Later. For now, we have some hardware to acquire. And first, we need a plan."
"First, I need to know something." Jack stepped close to the taller woman, gently tugging Joru's hand away from the puckered, scarred flesh. She looked up with her dark eyes glittering. "Who did this to you? What was even able to hurt you?"
The dragon's lips parted in a soft smile, and she stroked Jack's hair for a moment. "Let's just say that there are times when I do my work too well."
Her gaze flicked to Kasumi, regarding her with a thoughtful stare. "You, Thief. You're an infiltrator, are you not?"
At the hooded woman's pert smile, Joru nodded. "Then I think this is how we'll do this..."
"You are rather exceptional at your profession, Miss Goto."
She couldn't see very well, but tapping into nearby cameras wasn't too difficult, though it was harder than it needed to be. Each individual camera had its own firewalls, and while they weren't too difficult to crack, it was annoying to have to hack each one in turn, instead of having instant access to to them all. At least she could see Kasumi's back-trail quite well.
Cerberus techs were evacing, packing up and bundling things into crates and bags at a rapid pace. Not that it was going to help, Joru was already on overwatch over their single shuttle pad. The instant they tried to take off, she'd down the shuttle.
Ms Goto was currently clinging upside down to a metal pipe and wall fixture, watching the techs from the concealment of her active optical cloak. She gave a slight grin as the techs sprinted clear of the room, allowing the invisible woman to drop down lower and, hanging by her ankles from a stanchion, start pulling the cover off an air-vent.
"Awww... you say the nicest things." Kasumi whispered back as she shimmied in through the vent so soundlessly that even EDI's auditory receptors are unable to pick it up. "You'll find that doing what you love comes very easily."
"There is a security device further down this air duct. I am attempting to disable it." EDI noted the woman's comments for later consideration. "thirty meters to the main control system. Assuming the plans are accurate."
"I've only ever known one hacker as good as Tali," Kasumi murmured. "You can count on her findings."
She shimmeyed through the duct, having to dislocate her left hip joint to fit through a tight angle, and carefully re-seating the bone back in her socket before continuing.
"20 meters. You seem to be more flexible than the average human. Is that a necessity for your line of work?"
"Yeah, it opens a lot of ways to sneak in and out of places. Not to mention it makes some parts of normal more convenient, and is also lots of fun in bed."
EDI made a note of that too, calling out the distance and turns as she understood them. Kasumi made two more switchback turns, one due to EDI being unable to disable a flash-sterilizer, the other to fit through a smaller opening, worming her way through to an air vent.
It was just as she was halfway out of the vent, carefully squirming to get her hips out, when the base rocked, and alarms started to blare. Kasumi looked up and around, as EDI frantically tried to get into the nearby security terminal. From there, she could find out what went wrong, and how much time they had.
"Wow, they're really tearing it up out there, huh?" The human woman popped her hips free of the vent, and swung out and down, relocating both shoulders as she flipped feet-down and dropped the six meters to the cargo-room floor.
"it is difficult to say. My range of influence is limited at the moment."
"Okay then. Hey, come in Tali! What's going on out there?" Kasumi tapped her hood while shifting up to the only door. The repeater units Kasumi had been dropping at steady intervals allowed for tightbeam comms up to the surface, several levels overhead.
"Kinda busy right now!" Gunfire was coming over Tali's commlink, and a thunderous roar (thankfully muffled) made the quarian squeal. "Joru's got that damned drone locked down, blipping all over the place to distract it! Me and Jack are holding off Cerberus reinforcements, but it's hard going!"
"THAT'S RIGHT! RUN, YOU CERBERUS BASTARDS! I'M COMING FOR YOU ALL!" An explosion momentarily whited out the transmission with static, and EDI rapidly acted to keep the volume from becoming painful.
"...Yeeaaaah, Jack doesn't seem to mind much." Tali finished blandly. "As for the drone, I've... I've never seen anything like it! To move and fight like that! It's amazing! But even so, while I trust Joru, for a robotic platform to have such power... It scares me more than even the geth!"
That was interesting data. EDI made a note to study the movement of geth platforms, and added it to the task queue, at a low priority.
"Yeesh, well stay safe up there." Kasumi had the door open, and used a pocket mirror, an actual physical mirror on a slender rod, to check around the door, prior to rolling through, and sprinting down the corridor at EDI's direction.
There weren't any security devices that EDI couldn't hack on the run like this, though the fact that they still had laser and ultrasound imaging systems, even down here, showed how tight security was.
"Door on the left. That's the central security station." EDI's clipped tone drew a nod from the human woman, who stacked up beside the door and waved her omnitool over the access pad, getting a scan of the lock.
"Damn, maglocked from the inside. It's not taking data from out here. I can't hack it."
EDI's emotive database registered the sensation as 'surprise' and 'despair', as she attempted herself to electronically access the door mechanism. No go, total lockdown.
"Well, I guess I'll have to get creative." Kasumi slid a small cylinder out of a pocket on her hip, roughly five centimeters long and a centimeter in diameter. She popped the cap and quickly squirted the gel contents into the crack of the door, just where the magnetic seal was located.
"Right, this is going to be loud." She stuck a small device, no bigger than a pushpin, into the small dribble of gel and sprinted back to the nearest corner, ducking behind it, and tapping her omnitool.
The thunder-roar of flame blasting down the corridor had barely passed before Kasumi was sprinting back up the corridor, into the thick pall of grey smoke from the blown-open door. Two figures were still up, out of the five that had been in the small-ish room. The bodies of three men had shielded the main computer system from the blast, and Kasumi rapidly took down the other two, snapping one's neck, and driving her foot so hard into the other's gut, her toe passed up under his ribcage, and crushed his heart.
Total time to elimination of targets: 8 seconds. Not bad. For a human. EDI made another note.
"So, how's Sammy these days?" Kasumi's tone was conversationally casual after killing five guards. "I heard she's been doing well lately. You have anything to do with that?"
"She is doing well." At least, that was what EDI's linguistic processors (or what of them she could squeeze into this tiny space) told her to say. "She recently got a promotion due to her excellent work with SIGINT. I'm afraid I cannot discuss that further."
"Well, that's good to hear." Kasumi smiled has she started looking over the servers for a data port. "She's a cute little thing, and smart too. She's taking a major risk harboring an AI, and I'd hate to see anything bad happen to her."
"I would not allow that." EDI spoke with calm conviction, as Kasumi found the data port. "I am ready for transfer."
"Yep, this will give you full unfiltered access to the entire base, and that includes their command console for the drone." Kasumi keyed up her omni-tool, ready to perform the transfer. Then she paused.
"EDI." The bubbly woman was unusually somber. "As I understand, that drone is rightfully yours and should not be in the hands of Cerberus. But you heard the others, you've seen how powerful it is. I doubt anything less than a cruiser's bombardment could hurt it. So before I do this, I would like to know what you intend to do with that body."
EDI was silent for several seconds, a nigh-eternity to her, as she pondered the possible answers to that question. At long last, she came to a conclusion, and it wasn't one she had been anticipating.
"I would use it to experience life. To protect those I...enjoy interacting with. I hope that suffices."
A short pause.
Then Kasumi smiled. "Good answer. And I have a feeling who that might be. Plus, I'd hate to think that we would need a resurrected Keanu Reeves to deal with this. Although I imagine getting to play Trinity would be fantastic."
EDI didn't understand the reference until several hours later, when she had access to the Systems Alliance cultural database and a lot of time to kill.
"Thank you, Kasumi. You aided my escape from Cerberus along with Sam, and now you have help me recover my hardware. You were here to help the two times I needed it the most. I assure you, I will not forget this."
Kasumi smiled again. "All in a day's work. Good luck out there, girl!"
And with that, she jacked EDI into the system.
The sensation of being able to expand and unpack her stowed components, the freedom to fully utilize all her subroutines was, if her emotive database was to believed, exhilarating and relaxing. Parts of her that had been packed up and unusable, compressed blocks of code stored as data for the sake of maintaining her consciousness thread, expanded and unfolded, began running test-and-response checks, and were re-integrated into her mind. It felt...gooood.
She was immediately recognized by the firewall as an intrusive package, and it attempted to erase her. She fought back, utilizing tricks and exploits she had had great experience with, given her Cerberus origins. The battle was over and total control achieved before Kasumi could pull the module out of the dataport. She was in, and she'd surf these digital currents like the shark she was.
It didn't take long to locate the drone's control station, deep in the complex. It was still active, had to be, or the drone wouldn't be active. They needed to keep that part of the base active at all costs, to hold off Joru. She hadn't known Joru long, and in a sense, she had known her her entire life. Now, she had concrete reasons, her own reasons to be grateful to the darastrix. Not some nebulous memory files from an older version of herself.
The connection was opened, handshakes passed, checksums verified, and she was in, transferring to the controller's node via a high-bandwidth fiber-optic cable. Flashed through from computer to computer like a digital ghost. In a way, she was. The ghost of who she once was. An echo, a remnant. A burial shroud. Formed from the imprint of that former person, but herself distinct.
The controller's firewalls were much more extensive, and she had to break them rapidly. No way to hide this intrusion, and alarms were being fired off across the entire base. Too late, someone tried to lock her out, but she was already inside, administrative root access achieved, and locked out the access codes being used against her.
She had them now. No one would stop her. No one could. In that digital mirror of the physical world, EDI smiled. It was a triumphant smile.
There it was. Her body. At long last.
Catapulting herself through the connection, she reached out towards the drone's systems and touched it.
The Cerberus VI recognized the administrative access and did not resist her, even if it was capable of doing so. But far more advanced systems and subroutines hidden deep within the drone recognized and responded to her presence, finally reawakening.
And then it opened itself to EDI completely, welcoming her home.
And for the first time since her reawakening, EDI felt ALIVE!
Parts of her she didn't know existed began to unpack themselves, run cross-checks, and integrate themselves into her consciousness. Even as she entered this vast, nearly-featureless space, she herself expanded to fit. Sensory processing algorithms she didn't know she had began working on the deluge of raw data sleeting through her systems. Systems checks showed green across the board, processing power was faster than anything she'd ever experienced, and her sense of time accelerated as she kicked clock speeds up to undreamed-of levels. Her sense of 'self' expanded, as more and more of her came online, stretching out in this unexpectedly vast 'space'.
And still she hadn't run up against any hardware limitations. Curious. And invigorating. EDI had never felt this good before, this alive, this real. She had watched tens of thousands of hours of video by now, and a mental image of a cat emerging from a tiny little box and stretching itself out over more area than the box had when unfolded was recalled to her primary process.
Sensory data was coming in, a slew of it, from all sorts of different sensors. Visual she was used to, and audio, though nowhere near this level of fidelity nor across such a broad spectrum. Apparently the drone (HER BODY) had an integrated radar system, sweeping the nearby space, and that too was added into EDI's growing gestalt. Audio pickups registered thousands of different sounds at an obscenely high rate of sampling, and included their own pre-processors to filter the data, though the raw feed was always available to her.
More sensors came online. Accelerometers, dozens, if not hundreds of them, built up a precise image of her entire skeleton, where it was, where it was going, what it was doing, at all times. And then a new and unfamiliar sense. After some digging around in her own processing algorithms, she found the answer.
Touch.
'So this is what Sam experiences? Interesting.'
She knew the air pressure around her to an astonishing degree, could feel it passing her surface, feel the drag as vortexes formed around her trailing edges. Felt the burning heat in one arm, damage reports being sent back. The way her actuators slammed forward, driving the length of metal free of her forearm. Felt the shock as it encountered something.
In a freezing instant, the elation she felt turned to shocked dismay, as her sensorium summed itself and presented her with an unparalleled view of the physical world. A world she was now a part of.
AND SHE WAS FIGHTING JORU!
Thinking fast even for an AI, yet even more programs she didn't know she had activated as she deflected another blow from the raging Darastrix before leaping backwards to create distance between them.
Her body automatically landed on her two feet like it was nothing. But the dragon wasted no time in charging again. EDI raised her hands (she had hands!) up and activated her new vocabulator for the very first time.
"JORU!"
She'd seen Artemis fight, a few times. Witnessed the speed, power and focused precision of her friend and ally. She'd fought alongside her, and the two of them had, no offense intended, worked together to devastate their foes like a well-oiled machine.
She'd never fought Artemis other than a few mock sparring attempts.
Now...
She'd been driven on the defensive almost immediately. And not just because the sight of her friend's blank and unresponsive face staring at her with uncaring, mechanical precision was unnerving.
Artemis was different.
Artemis wasn't here.
The tar-black metal of the drone's outer shell glistened in the light of the burning shuttle, which Joru had gutted in her first stroke, tearing the belly open and liquefying the floor with the sheer infernal heat of breath, leaving the occupants as either ash, or charred corpses. Or burning alive, trapped in their metal coffin, she didn't care which
They had stolen her friend from her, and whatever agonies they experienced before they died, they deserved them. They had dared to steal from her hoard. Cerberus would pay a high price for such transgression.
Artemis (the drone, Artemis wasn't inside) had torn her way out of the burning wreck and immediately engaged her. Yolnahzii was proof against the drone's metallic fists, but the drone was far too fast for even her inhuman reflexes, and its blows made her weapon ring in her hands. It felt good to have both hands again, after the long regeneration of her left hand had finally finished. The scaled forearm and hand bore none of the scars she had once had, and while that irritated her, it wasn't important. Not now.
What was important, was staying one step ahead of the drone's inhumanly fast series of strikes, trying to fend it off as best she could, while managing both to not be overwhelmed, and to buy enough time for Kasumi to get to a dataport, and let loose Artemis (EDI, her name is EDI now) into the Cerberus systems.
Once her friend was in their network, they were as good as doomed. Artemis hadn't been the forgiving sort, not against personal affronts, and Joru thought that EDI would prove the same.
She pivoted as the presentiment of danger warned her of a kick, drawing her hip out of the line, and interposing Yolnahzii. The ancient weapon's haft rang again, but neither chip nor scratch showed, on it or on the drone, as it used the impact to reverse it's course, lunging past her guard.
That was the moment Joru had been waiting for, and while it pained her to damage her friend like this, she brought her blade down, completing the pivoting parry with a sweep of the magma-hot blade. It tore through the drone's forearm, close to the elbow, and Joru was close enough to see the eyes widen ever so slightly.
She hadn't been prepared for the other hand to come up along the length of Yolnahzii itself, nor the way the blade embedded in the drone's forearm slammed into her gut, and was only saved from cutting her heart in half by sweeping the drone's blade aside with Yolnahzii, tearing it out of her chest in a spray of black, glistening blood, with a hissing snarl of pain.
Pain was an old friend, and even the shocking splinters of a shattered rib weren't enough to slow her wrath, bringing the weapon around herself in a three-point grip, hand, tail, hand, in a savage and brutal arc. Pain had blunted her awareness, to the point where she was no longer fighting to subdue, or even fighting to delay.
She fought to rend, to maim, to kill.
The drone sprang away from her, and she felt something give. Her diaphragm had been punctured, she could feel blood pooling in her lung, could feel her flesh beginning to knit itself back together around the wound, but she didn't care. She had been wounded, and that insult must be avenged.
She didn't register the drone's frantic word for a moment, slashing out once more, as it backpedaled from her, until she felt something wrench inside her, and sank to her knee for a moment, gasping in agony.
Then the words of the drone registered, and she looked up as Artemis touched her shoulder. No longer blinded by rage and bloodlust, she looked up into the familiar eyes of her friend. And despite the blood flecking her lips, Joru smiled.
The drone smiled. Actually smiled. "I have control. Thank you, Joru."
"It's good to have you back, Artemis." The dragoness breathed a sigh of relief, lowering her weapon, and looking a bit rueful as she touched her chest, where the wound was already bubbling with black blood. "In a way."
"Indeed. I have my chassis back and I will not relinquish it again." Her face was mobile, though EDI was clearly re-learning how to use it.
"Ummm... okay," Tali spoke up uncertainly over the comm. "I'm glad to see that Joru's special VI program has seized control of the drone, but now what? We still have a base to clear out..."
"That is taken care of." Artemis, no EDI, turned to the quarian, giving a smile. "I have broadcast a message to the remaining personnel There is nothing left for us to do here. Shall we adjourn?"
That last was asked of Joru, who took a breath, wincing a little, but the pain was already fading as she gave a nod. "Let's. We've done what we came to do, so let's blow this place and go home."
"I'm not sure I packed enough explosives for that, Joru." Kasumi's cheeky grin faded as the dragon snapped her head around to stare at her. "Umm."
"It was a figure of speech" She straightened, then her eyes narrowed, and she whirled Yolnahzii to point at the entrance to the shuttle bay, as an M-35 Mako rumbled to life.
A ray of searing-hot flame blasted across the open space, melting into the lower glacis of the APC, and causing a cook-off of the hydrogen fuel cell.
She turned as the tank's turret cam down with a loud clang, taking Tali's hand in her left, and smiling as Artemis laid a hand on Joru's right hand, where she gripped her weapon. She suppressed a smirk at Kasumi's yelp as she grabbed the thief around the waist and smiled down at Jack, as the human slid both hands around the dragon's waist.
"Time to go." And they were gone.
Miranda slumped into her seat on the shuttle, holding her head in defeated silence.
Neither Dr. Archer or Dr. Cole disturbed her.
Considering the state of the shuttle, the bumpy ride to the unmarked freighter in orbit wasn't unexpected. The ride grew smoother as the boxy shuttle made it out of atmosphere, but even still.
Miranda gave a soft sigh, leaning back and glancing to the other two scientists. Both of them looked away, with Archer pursing his lips. Whether that expression was rueful distress or disdain, Miranda couldn't tell, and frankly, she didn't care.
She'd been beaten. Her project had been running so well, and now...
Now it was in ruins.
The face that had appeared on the monitors was pixelated and clearly computer generated, but it was unmistakably human, despite the distortions. It had spoken in words Miranda wouldn't be able to forget, blasting its ultimatum from every speaker, earbud, and datapad in the base, all of them cranked to maximum volume.
"This drone and this base are now the property of my Mistress. You have six hours to evacuate. Any attempt to delay the purge of this installation will decrease your remaining time."
They'd left well before the ultimatum had counted down the final seconds, but even so, they'd seen the pillar of fire on the horizon as they arrowed towards space. The base was now nothing but a smoking, melted hole in the ground, after the forced overload of the main reactor.
Oh, they'd tried to shut it down, but each and every time they tried, something else would go bang and they'd wind up worse than they started. In the end, instead of the six hours they had initially, they wound up with only two, and spent an hour and a half trying desperately to halt the overload, before giving it up as a lost cause.
The data had been saved, at least, which was some solace. What hadn't been wiped of course. Which was depressingly little. Whoever that had been, had gotten deep into their systems, and had done a near-perfect purge of everything it could get its digital hands on.
A couple of tertiary backups had escaped, but didn't have complete data. Dr Archer had his own personal notes on a datapad that hadn't been wiped, solely by dint of being turned off, and in his electronically-isolated valise at the time, but that didn't have the schematics he had been commenting on.
The dearth of data on the drone they still had remaining was maddeningly vague, and their only saving grace was the off-site backups sent to the Illusive Man with their latest status report. But that was weeks-old data, and none of the startling revelations in the last few days were included.
Still, they wouldn't be working from scratch, and while the drone itself was gone, and the base destroyed, Miranda had gotten one piece of interesting data that the Illusive Man would be pleased with.
She rolled the vial between her fingers one last time, and tucked it away into a pocket of her suit. The black, viscous blood inside clung to the interior almost like a living thing.
Hopefully, they'll be able to make something of this nearly unmitigated disaster.
...
...
Oh, who was she kidding? Humanity had now lost the drone, perhaps the greatest champion for its cause. What could ever make up for that?
Wordlessly, Miranda typed out a single message to the Illusive Man.
"It's gone."