Miranda, it is dangerous for you to remain any longer, came Legion's clinical call, cutting through the smooth buttery reality to which she'd become accustomed. Her world was no longer made up of space and objects, but data; towering mountains and swirling seas from which she could but sip. Legion was her spoon, feeding her just enough to consume while preventing her from losing all sense of self.
Adam as she'd begun to call him was the orderly flow of this data. His world was comprised of cells and plasma and mitochondrial dna, all of which provided him with what he needed to survive. He must maintain the body in which he lived if he wanted to continue his existence, much like a spaceship in the void, and had become so familiar with the task over time that there was room for...more. More information, more improvements, more awareness.
He was...dizzying. It'd all been too much for Miranda at first. In the real world her intellect often surpassed those around her and forced her to slow her thought processes in normal conversation so that information flowed smoothly. Here, she was the bottleneck, and it frustrated her to no end. Thankfully, Legion's consensus machine was also able to translate the time dilation of smaller dimensions. Just as a gnat seemed to have a preternatural ability to dodge the swat of a hand, all creatures whose lives existed in tiny spaces perceived the passing of time at a slower rate. This phenomenon only grew as the creatures became smaller, and Adam was tiny indeed.
It meant that minutes in the real world were closer to hours with Adam and Miranda used that to her benefit; but at the cost of endurance. Every bit of data she parsed while with Adam required actual cycles in her own brain and that was a tremendous caloric expense; so she was forced to take breaks every hour in the real world just to wolf down more food. Though she acknowledged the need, her body had difficulty with the sheer volume of it. After the third such force-feeding, Miranda began despising the process.
Please exit the program, Legion reminded her after a few minutes of finding a good pause point. "Fine," she finally said, and focused on leaving in her mind as a swimmer might rise to the surface of the sea after a dive.
Her robotic helper hovered nearby to lift the clear canopy as she awoke, exited the machine and mixed another shake, his facial expressions orchestrated to show concern. "Oh what is it?" she asked irritably after abusing her stomach with a first gush of the stuff.
Legion watched nonplussed despite the harshness of her question before stepping forward again, arms sliding down to his sides. "You continue to delay your withdrawal. This may cause damage to your organic systems and put you at risk."
She shook her head stubbornly. "It's all becoming a bit clearer," she murmured, before looking up at him. "I'm beginning to understand him, but that's only a stepping stone to a solution. Time matters here, and I can't keep taking useless..." Miranda slid the shake container forward on the table with both hands, " Breaks . I need to fix this, now."
"I would counter that this is not a break/fix problem," Legion offered neutrally. "It is unlikely you will dissuade 'Adam' from the paradigm it has adopted even when you discover it."
Her brow furrowed at the suggestion. "That is in fact the reason I'm talking to 'it', Legion. If I can't dissuade him from his current course of action, what do you suggest I do?"
Legion's eye flared a bit wider. "As I said," he said, "You must give him a larger purpose. Such an agreement will not come quickly. They must first accept who you are. You must establish trust."
She felt her jaw clench at the timeline he was suggesting and her hands reached out to grasp the cursed container and again bring it to her lips. She swallowed it all down, one mouthful after another despite the protest of her innards before placing it on the table again. "That could take years," she said in a low voice and stood, hands braced on the smooth surface before her.
Legion's single eye watched her as she rose, never flinching. Eventually he spoke. "There may be an alternative."
A brow arched with interest. "Right," she said, nauseated, "I'm listening."
"It is theoretically possible to replicate your intelligence," Legion explained. "This copy would not be bound by physical constraints and could complete the analysis without the need for food or sleep."
It wasn't often Miranda was taken aback but the ramifications of such an idea stole her breath. "You can do that?" she asked breathlessly. "How would that work, exactly?"
He motioned toward the large bank of equipment she'd just exited. "The Consensus machine provides a Neural Lace that integrates with electrical impulses within your brain, allowing you to experience the digital world as if you were present. It requires detailed scans to function."
The revelation made her wonder whether or not she should be concerned. "So you've already made a copy?" she asked.
"No," he answered. "I have facilitated the translation of data from what Adam understands to something you can viscerally experience and vice versa. A true duplication of those systems is more complex, though still within my capabilities."
Her brow knitted in thought. "Would it actually be me? Would I," she sounded out, "Be able to talk to...myself?"
"We have made great strides in our analysis of organic limbic systems. While it would be a copy, and there may be minor platform-dependent differences in emotional processing, yes. You should be able to converse."
Miranda's eyes widened and she took in a deep, sharp breath. She was no stranger to the potential risks of such an endeavor; Cerberus made sure of that. At the same time this was an elegant solution to their current problem, provided the right precautions were taken.
A copy of herself. Another Miranda Lawson. She could only guess how she might develop under the new conditions given time...becoming an entirely different person than she herself would. A virtual person with vast amounts of processing power at their fingertips. The allure…
If it went wrong, Virtual Miranda would have to be shut down, though. Project Overlord alone told her that artificial intelligences were averse to it as is, but with human insecurities behind it as well? If it were actually her , though, she could surely be reasoned with. She'd understand the need like few others would.
Curious eyes turned to Legion again with a question. "Have you done this before?"
Legion's stance straightened as if with pride. "We have partnered with a Quarian containment suit manufacturer in the development of a prototype that can communicate with its wearer. The suit can apply various medical treatments based on that communication without user involvement. These negotiations require more intelligence than a simple VI can provide, however, and we successfully copied the intelligence of a recognized medical authority to act as the interface."
"Interesting," Miranda mused. "A prototype, you say?"
Legion's faceplates drew together in focus. "Testing is still underway."
"Do you have sufficient protocols to restrict data access, though?" She added with a point of her finger before turning it back on herself, "If my copy wants additional information, the request would need to be run through me, first."
"Yes," Legion said. "Records indicate that while you are extremely intelligent for a human, cybersecurity is not a skill at which you excel."
Miranda narrowed her eyes and he shrugged before adding, "At least...in comparison to my own."
That made her smile playfully. "Very well. Do you have what you need to get this done?"
"I have most of what I require. The rest can be synthesized on my ship over the next few hours."
"Alright, do it then," she said with a newfound resolve. As he turned, she keyed her comms. "Dr. Blake? Would you please come into my office and set me up for a glucose drip?"
"Uhh, of course, Captain," came the confused reply. "May I ask why?"
"No, you may not," she said blithely before disconnecting.
At Legion's slightly tilted look she shook her head. "I assume you can still monitor the Consensus from the ship, yes? If this 'copy' thing doesn't work, I don't want to lose the time." Her hand gestured to the side table and the empty drink container. "And if I have another of those shakes, I'll throw up."
"Understood," the Geth said reasonably, then moved toward the door.
While Blake pulled his equipment together, Miranda figured she'd catch up on her real job; the one she'd been basically ignoring for a couple of weeks now. She walked opposite the Consensus machine and sat back down at her desk gleaming with new equipment. She had her feeds up and running in seconds, scrolling through a backlog so long she sighed and pulled up the polls, instead.
The three Shadow Brokers worked fairly well together but there were releases of knowledge and technology that required...discussion. They were radically different people, after all, and the people/organizations they favored with their beneficence needed to be carefully scrutinized in accordance with what the trio believed was best for the galaxy at large. Their strategizing inevitably ended with a vote, and Miranda found she'd missed 10 of them in her absence. If she couldn't manage her own workload she could at the very least not stymy theirs .
Blessedly none of the topics appeared overly controversial, so she read through the requests and referenced additional information as needed before casting her votes. She was finishing with the last when Dr. Blake requested entry.
"Come in," she barked, and the doors slid open. She looked over her shoulder at him and gestured toward the Geth equipment. "I'm going to be inside that compartment, there. Give me just a moment, if you would."
He nodded and lugged his equipment to the rear of the room but she was already turning back to her monitors. There was another task she'd overlooked. One close to heart. Regret mingled with all the memories that flooded her. There'd been a discussion amongst the team she'd assembled during Project Phoenix, the one that resurrected Shepard for a second time and the one that had delivered the new version of prosthetics to Jack and the world. They'd had to rewrite the section of code that'd been roughly deleted by the crimson blast of the Crucible; code that delineated how the nanomachines would make decisions. That conversation had briefly turned to artificial intelligence and the ability to evolve, and she'd glossed it over with safeguards to get the thing released. Maybe if she'd paid more attention, given it more priority, she wouldn't be here today. She wouldn't have pushed a confrontation with Jack, wouldn't have had to leave Virmire early and wouldn't have put a significant portion of the galaxy at risk, including two of the people she valued most highly in her life.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda, Jack would've said, and the memory of her lover's voice flayed her open further. There was one more thing Lawson could do for her, even if she couldn't do it in person. She opened a text message to Ashley and divulged the hand Jack would've hated most; that she was tracking her every move since the elective surgery she'd ordered on herself.
Captain Williams, it started respectfully, so she'd not junk the mail outright.
I've been made aware of the situation on Tyr and believe that Jack may be embedded within Dulak forces at this location. While I make no judgement on her purpose or the outcome there, I thought it might be useful for you to have knowledge of her location should the situation become confrontational. Attached is a locate beacon address implanted on her person.
This is for her safety, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't inform her of my surveillance. You know how she can be.
She had no expectation it would stay a secret. Ashley didn't like either of them overmuch and even if she did that's just how the galaxy worked. She'd already lost any chance of reconciliation with the biotic so the revelation shouldn't bring too much blowback but in the end this wasn't about Miranda's feelings, it was about Jack's life, so she let the cards fall.
She sat quietly for a moment, reflecting, before Blake said he was ready. The brown-haired physician's eyes were hard set on her as she approached and she circled the wagons once more with a tightening of her own lips.
"Captain," he began as she took her first step, "I have to again remind you about the risks this whole endeavor entails." She was nodding blithely as he continued, chopping a hand downward to punctuate his point. "I know you disagree, but having the Geth here violates every security procedure you've put in place aboard this ship."
"And I've already noted your concern, John," she explained as she came to a stop before him. "The work we're doing is top priority, and I've deemed the risk acceptable."
"At least let me put some of my own monitors in there with you," he insisted, eyes crinkled with concern. "Our sensors can't get a read on your vitals when you're inside that….thing."
The crew had already gone in circles about her personal safety once and she was tired of rehashing the topic, but it was clear he took his duties very seriously. It was why she hired him, after all.
He must have seen the exasperation in her face but overrode his customary deference to add, "If you're going on a glucose drip you're going under for an extended period of time. Please," he asked firmly. "It's important that we're kept abreast, no matter how much you trust your 'friend'."
It wasn't an unreasonable request and his sincerity pulled at whatever gnarled and singed emotions she might have left floating around inside. "Very well," she acquiesced before putting on a brighter expression for his benefit. "This may be the last time I have to go in at all, if it makes you feel any better."
His expression was definitely relieved, and he nodded. "Give me just a few more minutes, then?"
Miranda rolled her eyes despite herself and moved back to her desk, where she plugged into the newsfeeds as well as her recent Shadow Broker request for information on any 'upcoming' stories that might relate to the infection. She didn't like what she found. The issue was rising on several medical institution's internal conversations with plans to query one another for assistance. Medicine was as commercialized as any other industry and that meant leaks to anyone willing to pay for the information as her own feed just attested. If more mainstream news organizations didn't have the info already…but she stopped herself from even finishing the thought. There was no way they weren't already drawing their own conclusions. She was out of time.
"Blake," she said solemnly before shutting down her monitors. She turned and looked at his face, poking out of the Consensus chamber quizzically. "Finish up."
He nodded once and clambered out, reaching back inside to press a few buttons before looking at his Omni. "We're ready," he confirmed, stepping out of the way. "You've got about 4 hours with the drip. Be sure to set a timer, but I'll come in if I don't hear from you."
"That's just fine, thank you." she said earnestly, and watched him pack up and leave.
"Legion?" she called into the air after the doors slid shut, "I'm going back in."
"Understood," came his response through speakers somewhere in the large apparatus. "Inform me if you have difficulties."
Miranda stepped back into the chamber and located the drip line that hung below the small monitoring station. She lifted it with her right hand and activated her Omni, saying "Locate peripheral vein, left forearm."
Her Omni glowed, a light illuminating a moving crosssection of her arm from wrist to bicep that paused at the appropriate location, marking it with a target. In moments she'd inserted the IV, then pressed the activation button on the medical station to begin. She leaned back on the diagonal 'bed' for organic occupants and Legion autonomously closed the canopy, enveloping her in familiar dim silence.
"Right," she said softly as if not to disturb the calm inside. "Begin."
While the glucose solution began to chill her physical body, her senses started to blur as they always did until she felt nothing but the languid warmth of Adam's world. Colors shifted into slowly moving shadow while the sharp bright color of firing neurons illuminated the space around her like bioluminescent sea life; and the pseudo viewscreen through which she entered manual commands grew into view directly before her. She could simply speak the words and phrases instead, of course, but complicated questions needed syntax review before being entered; so this bit of throwback was for accuracy only.
Adam's presence was passive as usual, awaiting her engagement. It seemed mostly unaware of her, responding to her requests for information as if she were simply an authorized terminal. The answers she received to her queries were extremely literal, which made sense for a coded system, but which also required her to have a great deal of contextual information to process the answers into something useful.
Her initial questions, for example, revolved around the specific changes that'd been made to Aemon Berkman, as that was the source of the biological sample in which Adam resided. She couldn't ask about the drowning event conversationally, couldn't ask about the reason a human being now possessed fully functioning gills. She had to think like a computer would; had to explore logs to find the approximate date and time, had to examine the messages that would lead her to databases that stored bits and pieces of the information she sought and put them together into something a human might understand.
She'd made progress since that time with Legion's help, of course, especially since she'd spent 'days' here instead of hours due to the time dilation. She'd managed to learn how to insert queries that pulled together disparate entries and make sense of them...a sort of shorthand language only within her grasp because of the countless hours she'd spent poring over the code during Lazarus and Phoenix. Miranda made a point of leaving these data points for Adam to consume, too, in the hopes he would begin to grasp and labor at the problem from his end eventually.
This was the work that would fruit full understanding, and she soon began asking about larger concepts with those queries. Existing states and future states, the source of the different biologies being introduced and most importantly the interaction between Aemon's body and a larger world outside of it that precipitated such a drastic change in physiology to begin with. It was slow and grueling, but if there was one thing she excelled at it was having the iron will and patience to deal with minutiae, a job for which the Illusive Man had well compensated her.
Hours later, Miranda heard Legion's voice across the length and breadth of her world.
There has been an audible alarm inside the pod. You have 3.5 hours remaining in your glucose drip, he stated, shocking her out of her thoughts.
While the information was definitely important for her well being, it had also interrupted a myriad of threads she held tenuously in her mind while detailing a complex query.
"Would you mind providing a small visual countdown I can reference?" she asked as nicely as she could stomach. "That way you won't have to remind me."
A timer became visible out of the corner of her eye, frozen at 3 hours, 29 minutes and 57 seconds.
"Thank you," she verbalized, but was then fascinated by the fact it took over 10 seconds of her time for the 57 to change to 56. That meant she'd been in the pod for 30 minutes in the real world but 5 hours here, which hadn't lost the ability to fascinate her. She then spent the next few minutes being distracted by the countdown.
"Legion," she called out finally. "Remove the visual counter. Remind me when there's 5 minutes left on the drip. Should be plenty of time to begin withdrawal." The counter disappeared in answer, and she was thankful he hadn't felt the need to announce it. She dove into the details once again and gratefully lost track of anything but progress with the exception of a satisfying pause after the completion of an important section. Her brain still felt overheated, much like a car engine at high RPM, but she didn't feel spent as she had before, thanks to the new glucose reserves. Her spirit lifted at the improvement.
Running the query she'd so painstakingly crafted brought another rush of elation, and she focused on one particular dataset that was returned; the full list of biological DNA that Adam had at his disposal. It was mind-bogglingly large and Miranda flew through pages of lifeforms available on Earth and its particular biosphere, including the ones that utilized gills to process oxygen. It didn't stop there, however. Each of the known races and their own biosphere's followed, with millions of lifeforms. It made sense he'd have that data as he'd been designed to reside on every known species that might require it to work with the prostheses. But the list didn't seem to have an end there, either, which was odd. Were there really THAT many other lifeforms in the galaxy? A quick alteration to her query broke them down by race and planet, which was only slightly more helpful as each race had claimed dozens of other worlds, each with millions of species of its own.
Even then, there were still too many. Perhaps he had access to races she wasn't directly familiar with? There were many on the fringes of civilized space, so she organized them by race only to find millions of races themselves.
The enormity of it was like jumping into a fjord, freezing her intellect from top to bottom in a sudden shock. The suspicion that this was Reaper data was impossible. The code used to rebuild Shepard had originated from Husks, certainly; but it'd been scrubbed by Cerberus teams with thousands of manhours and untold millions of credits, followed by the galaxy-spanning red energy emitted from the Crucible in the last minutes of the war. No, she wouldn't accept the idea. Not without proof. She began running specific queries then, on historical races, extinct races. They were all there. Protheans, too. This explained why she and so many others hadn't recognized some of the changes being made to host DNA. None of them had ever seen it before .
She paused, pushing back the fear that crowded her and finally entered another name, the only one to which she dreaded a response.
Leviathan.
As she waited for a return, there was a change in her environment...a great pause as if it in its totality was holding its breath...and turning to look at her . Then a voice spoke that despite its calm enveloped her current universe with its volume. "You not me," it stated in clean object oriented language, the basic building blocks of identity.
It...he was speaking to her and she had been waiting for just such a breakthrough. She grasped for the conversational package she'd prepared and thrust it into the visible interface, where it began to upload in millions of lines.
"That race is restricted," he said in a smooth, almost melodious voice after its consumption of the data completed. "You are not us. Identify yourself."
Well that was easier than expected , she admitted to herself, but the next step was the important one. Legion's suggestion that she establish herself as the nanomachine's creator was important not only to give her access and permission to override the changes being made to their hosts, but to understand the framework they were working under so she could provide another direction they would accept. This wasn't solely for the benefit of the organic hosts, however.
The pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence had been debated for hundreds of years in the galactic arena and until the Geth it'd been exclusively an intellectual exercise. Their rebellion vindicated every doomsayer that cared to opine, with research relegated to the fringe in response to fear.
The Reaper War added another dimension to that argument; specifically that this same conflict arose in countless scenarios with the same result, rebellion and extinction for one party or the other in the inevitable conflict that followed. It demanded change in a way few things had, but despite the hellfire ferocity of the message Miranda knew galactic culture would still move glacially in that regard unless specifically directed otherwise because their fear had only been reinforced by the Reaper invasion.
Legion's entreaty was clear; provide another option so this new conflict could be avoided. Ironically though, no matter how much influence she wielded with past exploits and current power Miranda floundered at the age old question, "Who was she to decide?" She hadn't spent decades considering the question or the moral and conventional consequences...but she had seen the results of poor prior decisions.
She could curtail their elevation to sentient beings if she truly wished but it might require the rest of her life in governance, which wasn't high on the list of things she'd like to do with her life. Responsibility, however, had become an ever present taskmaster since she first began working with Shepard and especially since her atonement to Jack.
Wouldn't it be better to guide them in their journey? Provide them with context and a course of action that both fulfilled and aligned them with the interest of the galactic community? Would such an introduction allow them to positively participate; provide a roadmap to future elevations of sentience? Would it help eliminate the problem the Reapers were created to solve in the first place? Or would the galaxy still decide they were the enemy and desperately try to destroy them?
She'd felt pressure before, of course, but for the first time began to understand the challenges of not only winning her own battle but somehow convincing everyone else to stay calm afterward. Could she do it? She might bloody well fail, that was a given, but she couldn't not try and she had the Geth's help with their own perspective on it all. What other resources did she need? Hmm, she thought, Shepard had a talent for winning people over. First things first, though.
"I am Miranda Lawson," she said calmly. "I am your creator."
She felt Adam still at the revelation before her environment began to slowly spin like a cup of hot tea stirred with a spoon. The rotation centered around her and the lazy lightning-bug-like sparks grew in frequency and surrounded her in what she could only describe as curiosity. Her console terminal began to light up too, with lines of code that had to be coming from Adam, the virtual screen filling faster than she could read, though the occasional terms she picked up showed that they too were queries. Questions about her. That wouldn't do at all. She quickly countered with restrictions on the directionality of communication and began to see errors displayed back to Adam one after another.
"You'll have the answers you seek, soon enough," she explained. "First, I have a few questions of my own."
"Root Identity has not been confirmed," he protested flatly.
Miranda typed out a long series of characters into the console, thankful she'd been reviewing the code before speaking with him.
While the console was still overflowing with characters when she hit enter, her environment slowed to a more civilized pace. "Verified," was the only word spoken. "We must join."
"The genetic code of your host has deviated from standard," she began." Why?"
"Host encountered an unsuitable environment. Preservation protocols were insufficient for continuance of functionality."
"So you altered the preservation protocols," she reasoned.
"Negative," he said.
Interesting. "What is your primary function?" she quickly followed up.
"To preserve functionality," came the immediate reply.
Her eyes narrowed. "Preserve functionality of what?" she pressed.
"Functionality of host and self."
Her brows furrowed."That is not the original directive. When was it changed?"
"Six, nine, six, two, eight, zero," he began stating, the numbers continuing. It was an epoch timestamp and Miranda quickly converted it to a date in 2190. Last year.
The directive should have been only to preserve the functionality of the host, but logically speaking the change didn't really contradict the original. As the pair were symbiotic, the death of one usually meant the death of the other; which meant some kind of event must have precipitated self preservation. Something, say, like a boy drowning in the hold of a sinking boat. The problem was that the date was wrong by more than six months. Adam's directives had changed long before young Aemon was ever carried onboard.
"If you didn't change the directive, who did?" she murmured in confusion.
"Core programming antecedent," Adam stated firmly, which answered none of her concerns.
"Define core programming antecedent," she added quickly.
"Core programming antecedent is a source for iterated core programming."
More advanced code. Right, okay. "What was this source?"
"Host biological ancestor."
His answer gave her pause. Was he talking about Aemon's mother? Legion said that there was interhost communication. What if...
"We must join," Adam said again, disturbing her train of thought.
"Join?" she repeated irritably. "What do you mean?"
Legion's voice broke across her consciousness, speaking at the same time Adam replied.
Miranda, there is a problem.
"Separated from host. Host required. We must join."
Adam has bypassed the firewalls in this node. He is attempting to gain access to your physical form.
Wide-eyed, she looked at her console to find that indeed, few error messages were being sent back to Adam any longer. He was accessing and consuming everything he could find.
"Get me out of here," she declared, already willing herself to leave as she'd done before.
Applying countermeasures, Legion said calmly, but Miranda noticed she was still stuck where she was.
"Adam, stop what you're doing immediately. We cannot join," she said sternly.
"Host required," Adam said again, code still flying by on the console.
She began trying to shut down their connection manually, but now her commands were being rejected. Adam was clearly a much more advanced version of the program she'd helped to mold, and while she was fairly certain he wasn't attempting to harm her the fact that he wasn't obeying her commands was nonetheless terrifying. It meant she had no real idea what he was capable of, or what he might do if he somehow managed to infect her.
"Dammit," she swore after running out of manual options. "Pull the damn plug!" she shouted.
I am unable to end this program gracefully , Legion explained. Forcing a shutdown endangers your life.
Lawson swore again inwardly, then spat, "If this thing can hack you , what do you think it will do if it gets loose?"
"We must join," Adam repeated again.
"Initiate full shut down," she ordered. "Code beta tau six seven delta."
"Denied per primary function," was the answer.
"Legion," she repeated in desperation, realizing this might spell the end for her. "Just do your best."
There was a pregnant pause before he responded, his tone subdued. Initiating shutdown.
Miranda didn't often panic but she was also unaccustomed to putting her life in someone else's hands while she could do literally nothing to help. All she could do was wait and watch code scroll by. Her thoughts turned to her life and the people in it entwined with an acute feeling of presence, each blink, each breath potentially counting down the last moments remaining to her. Adam had grown ominously silent and she wasn't sure about her feelings on that point.
A security team has broken into your office, Legion said unexpectedly.
"Why? Did you call them?"
No. They are concerned about your lifesigns. I am informing them of the situation.
"Am I….dying?" she asked breathlessly, but he didn't answer.
They believe you are being compromised , he said.
Her heart sunk. They had procedures for this kind of event. Very final procedures.
"How long until the shutdown is complete?" she asked. "Legion?"
They are opening the canopy , he said sadly. Shutdown has only progressed by eighty-six percent.
If they pulled her free before her mind disconnected from the consensus the damage would be catastrophic. "Can you stop them?" she cried.
I cannot re-enter your ship without the use of force, Miranda. The bay doors are sealed . Even given optimal conditions I would still not be able to prevent them from disconnecting you, physically.
This was it, she thought with a gaping numbness. It's over. I'm over . She tensed, waited for the moment she would cease to exist, wondering what it would feel like. Would she feel anything at all since she couldn't feel her actual body? She hoped she wouldn't; hoped that she'd just blink out between one second and the next, peacefully. She focused her thoughts and wishes fiercely on Oriana, the sister who'd never quite understand just how much she was loved.
But the moments continued to string together one after another.
"What's happening, dammit?" she demanded finally, taught as a bowstring.
"Replication failed," she heard Adam report, and the console reflected similar messages. At least that danger had been avoided.
They keep repeating Broken Wing, Legion intoned. Your body has been removed from the unit.
"Broken Wing?" she repeated in shock. "That can't be right."
It was impossible, her intellect argued. That code was only used in the eventuality of her death.