After their initial exchange, Shepard had stayed in the briefing room while the others went about their remaining downtime, bringing him up to speed on what had happened since her resurrection by Cerberus: the lost human colonies, the Collectors, the unpassable Omega 4 relay, the derelict Reaper, and their assault on the Collector base. At length, they both shared the happenings of the last few years, weaving together their separate stories into a single continuous history. To her, it was like stumbling upon a lost tome of forgotten history. To him, it was like finding an impossibly long-awaited sequel. After an extended period of catch-up, Shepard took the opportunity to break by removing her damaged armour and giving him a brief tour of the ship.
"Deck four is engineering," she informed him, leading him out of the elevator. "Behind those doors to the right is the Tantalus drive core. Worth a look if you appreciate the engineering: three times the size of the original SR-1's, nothing like it elsewhere. And here," she showed him, opening the next set of doors, "is the starboard cargo hold. It's been recently vacated by one Zaeed Massani. Cerberus stopped paying his retainer so he skipped. Feel free to set up here."
Arius looked around. The room was spartan but very spacious. A cot, two large desks, a console, and a few cargo crates were scattered around. Three windows on the starboard side looked out onto the outsides of the ship, and a large port side window of the room looked into the cargo bay. The ship's trash compactor was located at the far end, but that was a non-issue given the exceedingly indulgent accommodations.
"Thank you, that's very generous."
"Don't mention it," she replied. "You'll meet the rest of the crew when they return from leave. If you have questions about the ship or ever need a soundboard, EDI is always up and listening."
"The ship's VI?"
"AI. Yes, I know," Shepard insisted, raising a hand before he could reply. "AI's are technically illegal in Citadel space. She's saved our lives more than I can count and is a valuable member of this crew. You can trust her."
"Ah. It's been a long time since I've conversed with a synthetic. A pleasure to meet you, EDI."
"Likewise." the female voice chimed from somewhere around them.
"Sorry - if I segue," Shepard asked him, rubbing her forehead, "but I've got a burning question: you've been on Earth since the Protheans fell, only joining the rest of the galaxy again once humanity had developed space flight. Fine. That was decades ago; why have you waited until now to move?"
"A valid question."
He placed his helmet upon the corner desk, then continued to unburden himself of his weapons and the armoured gloves of his suit while he spoke.
"I will admit, I may have been," he started, but then paused and corrected himself, "may be biased when it comes to humans. I now see things from your perspective foremostly, which I suppose seems unsurprising given that I've spent much of my life as one. My point is, comparatively speaking, the Inusannon and the Protheans were much more advanced than any of the current council races, asari included. I simply didn't think the Reapers would return anytime soon… and why that is not the case, I can only speculate. Perhaps after the difficulties of the last cycle, they wanted to ensure a swift harvest this time around. Perhaps they judge a cycle's readiness based on some galactic population threshold rather than technological achievement. Perhaps it's down to genetics. Perhaps it's a mix of several factors. I don't know."
He scratched his chin, and his eyes drew downward, deep in thought.
"One thing that I find fascinating is that you mentioned that you destroyed an unfinished Reaper at the Collector base, one that was modelled after and whose material was exclusively human. Humans are neither the most populous nor the most technologically advanced race this cycle, not by a long shot. They are perhaps the ones with the most potential, the ones with the steepest advancement trajectory? Broadly, I don't know what to draw from that, only that it seems the Reapers see something in human beings that goes beyond a surface level. The very fact that I'm standing here right now, having this conversation with you…"
Shepard noticed an expression flash across his face. Was it... pride?
'... a weak argument, I know. Still, I'm glad my bet paid off."
"Alright, one more, and then I'll leave you alone," she asked semi-apologetically. "How about while you were on Earth? You were there for a long time. Were you just sitting tight? Could you have jumpstarted human progress? Did you jumpstart human progress?"
By this point, he had started removing the large pieces of his hard suit, which he placed on the desk beside his pistol. The bizarre-looking sword that had been on his back he had left leaning upright against it too. Beneath his undersuit was developed, lean muscle that rippled with his movements.
He turned back to face her while leaning off the edge of the desk, looking into her face for several moments without responding, the tiniest hints of thought repeatedly crossing his features. Shepard saw the depths of something behind his eyes, and his mouth silently opened as if to begin to tell her something, but it seemed he could not find where to start and closed it again. Eventually, he did speak, but she could tell that it wasn't what he originally wanted to say and was probably a much briefer explanation than what had occupied his original thoughts.
"... Aside from the Mars data, I occasionally tried to lend a helping hand, but probably not in the way you're thinking. It's a tricky thing; during the Prothean cycle, I worked for a time on an expeditionary force to catalogue uncharted worlds. I saw first-hand the capacity for a civilization to annihilate themselves before they could become space-faring. Accelerated technological progress that outpaces cultural development almost always ends poorly until multiple worlds can be colonized, so I left the data on Mars. Saying this, I may have made a suggestion here or shared an idea there - an occasional nudge in the right direction often initiates cascades of discoveries. Before long, the process runs on its own."
"So…" she repeated back to him, "teach a man how to make a better stone tool, add a couple of thousand years and boom, spaceflight."
His laughter was hearty and loud. "Something like that," he said and didn't elaborate further. Shepard made a mental note to get the larger story later.
"Okay, last one, for real this time. I saw you shrug off biotic attacks like they were nothing; how's that possible?"
Before he answered her, she saw him search the desk for something, passing his hands over some of the various items that were strewn over its surface before picking up a small item and holding it in his clenched hand.
"We never figured out the entire story for certain," he began telling her, "but we did discover through archaeological evidence that while my species was still in its relative infancy, a massive alien starship broke up near our planet. The ship's broken drive core scattered its contents over our world, contaminating the environment, causing some of our native species to go extinct and those that survived to show a tendency to develop certain abilities."
The story rang with a startling and dark familiarity within Shepard. Her biotic abilities had been sourced from a starship drive failure orchestrated over the human colony she had been born on. She had been lucky to emerge unscathed, nay, enhanced by biotic abilities, but a large percentage of the children born in the colony after the incident had developed fatal cancers from exposure.
"This may sound familiar, but there's a twist to this story: It wasn't till we stumbled upon a distant mass relay, near the end of our history, did we first discover what you now know as element zero. That ancient, broken drive core that had contaminated our world was not based on eezo but rather something others came to call anti-eezo. To describe its properties, let me preface with something you know: mass and energy are interchangeable. When subjected to an electrical current, Element Zero releases dark energy, which can be manipulated into a mass effect field, raising or lowering the mass of objects within that field. As planned by the Reapers, most modern technology is based on this element and its effects. Anti-eezo, on the other hand, releases something we called ultralight energy, which then can be manipulated into an anomalous energy effect field.
Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the rest of the galaxy was based on the inverse of our tech and that eezo seemed relatively abundant in comparison. We never learned or solved how this material was gathered or created by its original makers, the origins of the species that had built the starship, why it failed, or why I've never found that element elsewhere in the galaxy."
"The Reapers have been running their harvest for a long time," Shepard voiced. "Millions of years, most likely. At some point, there was probably a race that was able to manufacture or extract it."
"It's certainly possible. It makes you think of what novel and fantastic things once graced this galaxy."
"This anti-eezo, does it work similarly?"
"Not really. Its effects are mainly passive in nature. I can't turn it up and down like you can. It plays poorly with dark energy within mass effect fields, and they tend to disrupt each other, which means that most modern eezo technology is fickle when very close: that means kinetic shields that use mass effect fields are not stable around me, which is less than ideal in this age of high-velocity weaponry. On the upside, direct biotic attacks tend to break apart."
"A double-edged sword."
He shrugged. "It has its benefits and its detriments. Its defining characteristic, however, seems to be on living tissue. It's hard to describe, but unlike the perceived coldness of eezo, it's… warm. It's also mainly why I'm still alive and not looking like a walking desiccated corpse."
Shepard chuffed inwardly. That statement was hyperbole. He may have felt like death, but he didn't look it. On the contrary, had they not known the source of his longevity, she was certain asari matriarchs would have killed for his skincare routine.
"Alright," Shepard said, exhaling sharply, "I think that's all I have for now. Thanks for indulging me. Going to need some time to digest this."
"Of course, you know where to find me. One last thing," he added, "and please take what I'm about to say seriously. Thank you."
Shepard raised an eyebrow, not entirely understanding. "For what?"
"For everything that you've done for us so far. I understand the struggle, Commander. I know its weight. You've done everything that you believed was right, and for that reason, we're still alive and have hope. I need you to know that."
His expression was deadly serious as he thanked her, and it was strange to her, both in his insistence and its alluded magnitude. People didn't speak like that, and although she had received some words of gratitude since the first attack on the Citadel, the person thanking her usually didn't know the personal costs. If everything he had told her was true, he knew what it cost, and he respected her for it.
"Oh, ok? You're welcome."
He observed her polite dismissal of it, and he shook his head, unsatisfied with his expression.
"Human words," he said, waving his hand, "I found, are not great for this. Nothing in the Earth languages I know has a word that I can say to sufficiently convey this level of gratitude. The Protheans had a word…" he mused, "and you might be able to understand it due to the Prothean Cipher. Please, turn off your translator; I don't want the software butchering it."
Hesitant but compliant, she made a few quick taps on her omni-tool. Her translator turned off.
He then looked her directly in her eyes and uttered a string of syllables. She didn't understand what he said; If someone asked her to repeat it or translate it, she couldn't. Yet some murky part of her mind recognized and reacted to it, and she involuntarily blushed from the feeling the sounds had created.
"This is… wow. That's new." She pressed a hand to one of her warmed cheeks. It was a strange experience as far as strange experiences went.
Satisfied, he nodded.
"My time on Earth was not personally fruitless. I've been raising significant capital for quite some time. I'll negotiate repairs for the Normandy if you haven't already. With your permission, since this isn't an Alliance vessel, I'm going to contact Silaris to see if they'd like to case-study us while we're docked, as they have offices here on Illium. I'm certain that with a light investigation of the hull and offensive specs that you've gathered from the Collector cruiser, they'd be grateful to see the effectiveness of their product and give us a discount on armour repairs. This may also help bring some Reaper attention within the corporate world. The prevalence of directed energy weapons will increase in the coming war, and we're going to need to throw out as much influence as we can."
"Go ahead, as long as I get back to running at full effectiveness asap."
"Understood."
