...

"Could you sacrifice me to complete your mission? Could you watch me die?"

(Cortana)

…

Aldrin Station, November 14th, 8:09 PM, 2180

…

Dan had only become tenser and angrier during the ride back to Aldrin Station. While before he was a wildfire in California, now he was closer to Reactor 4 at Chernobyl. He was about to explode, and I would have to stay here to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. God knows that didn't end well for a few bullies and one Turian back on the Citadel.

The familiar sounds of the docking clamps shook the ship, signaling our arrival. We picked up our belongings, walking down the narrow tube that linked the both sides together. Once at the other side, we went through the usual decontamination sequence.

"Dan, please don't do anything to crazy." I pleaded as we waited for the process to finish. "I don't want to end up in some detention cell because you couldn't control yourself."

He looked over at me with angry eyes for a second before turning back at the door. He sighed, running a hand through his oily brown hair.

"I'll do my best." He quietly agreed, nodding as I breathed my own sigh of relief.

I accepted his acknowledgement as the doors opened, revealing Lynda and Dr. Karpyshyn.

"Welcome back, gentlemen." Lynda greeted with a very slight head nod and a neutral expression. "I'm sorry we had to meet again under these circumstances, but Dr. Nemo deserves to know what's going on."

Dan exhaled from his nose, looking over at me without turning his head.

"Follow us." She finished, turning on her heel as she and Karpyshyn began walking.

We walked in silence for a while, going down to the 41st "floor". We crossed through yet another decon chamber before entering the Alpha Labs. This was where Karpyshyn worked day and night on his groundbreaking and highly illegal A.I. research. It resembled a medical bay more than anything else, though it was very messy and dark. Papers littered the floor and empty coffee cups could be seen as far as the eye could see.

"Alright... Powell is my crowning achievement, but even he isn't perfect." Karpyshyn began, tapping away at his datapad with a stylus. "His neural interlaces are comparable to that of the average human, but he still lacks two things."

"What would they be?" I asked, crossing my arms as we stopped in the middle of the lab.

"Depth and accuracy. While he has a charming personality and will work hard on any task given to him, he operates a lot like his avatar suggests. He follows orders like a soldier, and doesn't deviate much from that path." Karpyshyn answered, explaining it further. "That's one of the drawbacks of scanning the brain the way I did. While his processes will slowly evolve and improve over time, he is not a perfect copy of the donor brain."

"Donor brain? You made Powell using a human brain?" I immediately cut in, surprised by this sudden revelation.

"Yes, Dr. Mike Powell. He was an old friend of mine from Johns Hopkins who was killed treating colonists in the Traverse." He explained, looking at me with an intense look in his eyes. "On his will, he insisted his whole body be donated to me to be used in my experiments."

"I fail to see how this rel…relates to my sister." Dan interjected, obviously wanting him to get to the point. He could care less what was going on right now, he just wanted to know what happened to his kin.

"Please, let him finish, Dr. Nemo." Lynda eased, holding up her hand.

Dan grudgingly agreed, crossing his arms and looking back to Karpyshyn.

"With Powell, I used a flawed process that forcibly ripped the neural signals from the donor's brain, sacrificing all the traits that person once had. That's why we had to be careful with him, he effectively became a different person... well, more of a "reflection", per se." Karpyshyn continued as he turned his datapad around and showed us a diagram. "I've recently cracked the problem with my process, and found a way to perfectly preserve all the synapses during the transfer."

We both looked at the comparison, seeing the difference in wavelengths. I was actually getting very interested in this, Karpyshyn knew his stuff. But I brought my head back up and refocused myself. That would be another conversation for another day.

"This is where your sister comes in, Nemo." Lynda chimed in, handing Dan yet another manila folder. "About three years after you and Dr. Michaels disappeared, your sister did indeed join DARPA. She went into heavy medical research, creating a successful, long-term treatment for Lou Gehrig's disease and working on several smaller advances in medical technology."

"Wow." I exclaimed, shooting Dan a smile as he began looking through the folder. That was an incredible little factoid, hearing Dan's little sister of all people helped stop ALS.

"Despite all of this, she tragically contracted leukemia two years after becoming employed at DARPA." Lynda continued, causing Dan's face to drop. "After her diagnosis, she found there was no way she could develop a workable treatment or cure, so she instead turned to cryogenics."

"Wait a m-minute, are you telling me DARPA put my si…sister on ice?" Dan remarked, even more confused than he was before.

"She put herself on ice." Lynda corrected, crossing her arms. "She put herself under and handed all her research over to DARPA, giving them two conditions for resuscitation: Cure Found or Cryo Failure."

"I don't ha…have a good feeling about this. It all sounds insane." Dan grimaced, closing the folder and focusing on Lynda. "What is this all leading up to?"

"Two years ago, her body was destroyed by a slow buildup of ice crystals, caused by improper maintenance of her suspension chamber. There was no way possible to revive her." Lynda slowly said, looking down at the ground halfway through her sentence.

Dan looked devastated.

"Until recently." Karpyshyn chimed back in, handing his datapad to me so Dan and I could both see it. "While your sister's body had been destroyed, her brain had not. We managed to save it, and preserve it here in the lab."

One the datapad was another dossier, but this one contained statistics about a Brain No.5. Dan got a strange, new look on his face as the puzzle pieces fell into place. It was somewhere between utter confusion, horror, and amazement.

"You want to t-turn my sister into an A.I.?" Dan questioned, a dumbfounded look dominating his expression.

"Yes." Karpyshyn confirmed as Lynda nodded. "With my new transfer method, I can completely preserve your sister's memories, thoughts, quirks, everything, but at a cost. Her humanity."

"If you allowed your sister to become an A.I., her brain would be destroyed, and she would never again be considered human." Lynda added, taking the pad back from Dan. "I don't have to explain to you that A.I.s are extremely illegal. If the Citadel Council ever found out about her or Powell, they will surely try to destroy them."

Dan rubbed his chin in thought, pondering the ramifications of this. I had no idea what was going through his mind, and that was rare for me. Dan would either have to sentence his sister to death or to a life of seclusion. Both were not ideal options, but options nevertheless.

"Can you give me and my friend a minute?" I asked, knowing Dan would want my opinion on this.

"Sure." The both agreed as we walked back towards the lab entrance, out of earshot.

"I don't k-know what to do, Sean." Dan admitted with a look of partial panic on his face. "I don't know h…how to make a decision like this…"

I nodded, understanding how much weight was on his shoulders at the moment.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do Dan, but if I had the chance to bring a member of my family after everything we've been through, I would do it in a heartbeat." I said in his ear, staying as quiet as possible. "At least you have that choice."

Dan stared into space for a few seconds before covering his face with both hands.

"OK, I'll do it." He confirmed quietly, still keeping one hand over the lower half of his face.

We walked back over to Lynda and Karpyshyn, who were waiting patiently.

"Alright, y…you have my permission to perform the procedure." Dan reluctantly agreed, nervously shuffling his feet as he looked back at me for acknowledgement. I nodded, agreeing with his decision. "When will it be done?"

"Right now." Karpyshyn answered with a smirk, motioning for us to follow.

We followed Karpyshyn and Lynda into another lab. This one contained an odd looking machine in a sealed-off area behind a glass shield. It looked a lot like an oversized holotank with dozens of lines connected to it, all meeting at several smaller cylindrical storage devices. On the edges of the room were large, inactive servers that flickered as the device warmed up.

Once the device was fully activated, Karpyshyn tapped out a command, causing a glass case to emerge from one of the cylinders on the floor. That must have been Lydia's brain.

"This is really weird." I let slip, grinding my teeth together out of nerves.

"Heh, don't worry, I still find it a little weird too." Karpyshyn replied with a smile, rolling up his sleeves before taking is glasses off. "Alright, transferring Brain No.5, Dr. Lydia Nemo, to transfer tank."

A claw arm slowly picked up the glass brain case, moving it into the center tank. Once secure, a umbilical connected to the top of the tank, causing a sharp popping noise to vibrate through the air.

"Umbilical secured." Karpyshyn announced, looking over at Dan. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Dan hesitated for a few seconds before hitting the Enter key, beginning the process.

"Transfer sequence has begun, estimated time… three minutes." He said as the lights in our room dimmed. The lights on the servers went crazy, blinking rapidly as a bluish glow could be seen emanating from the "transfer" tank. Pulses of electricity could be seen coursing through the curvatures of Lydia's brain, copying and converting her brain's signals into data.

About three minutes later, a hologram began to form inside the nearby holotank, flickering between different colors, shapes, and forms. It was extremely erratic, like a broken lightbulb or someone having a seizure.

"Right now she's processing, trying to choose a form to represent her new self." Karpyshyn explained, pointing at the flickering hologram.

"Why wouldn't she just choose her original form?" I asked, trying to gleam more from this process.

"She still could for all we know, but I still believe it's based more on what the subconscious wants." Karpyshyn proposed as her hologram slowed, beginning to reveal a feminine form.

She wore heavily-stylized golden armor, including gauntlets and foot coverings. She was wrapped in white and red-trimmed toga and some kind of gold jewelry attached to her face. Said face remained the same as her "original", though looked slightly older than I remembered. I noticed that she looked a lot like something I remembered from before, but I couldn't place my finger on what exactly it was.

"Can you hear me in there?" Karpyshyn asked into a microphone, causing her to flip around in search of a source.

"Yes." She confirmed with a confused expression on her face. She looked into space as one of the cameras turned on in the room, turning to face her. She looked over herself, huffing in approval.

"Who are you?" Karpyshyn probed as Dan, Lynda and I watched carefully. "What is your name?"

"My name is Dr. Lydia Nemo… well, it was the last time I checked." She answered, crossing one of her arms and rubbing her chin. "I'd love to know what exactly is going on."

"We will in a while, but first you have to answer a few questions." Karpyshyn held off, looking over at his datapad. "If I don't properly test you, there could be complications."

"Alright, shoot." She agreed, the cameras in the room turning to face the polarized window.

"OK… where did you go to college?" Karpyshyn continued, looking between the datapad and Lydia.

"I went to Harvard University for three years." She answered, crossing her hands behind her back.

"Good… what did you accomplish when you joined DARPA?" Karpyshyn asked, causing Lydia to get an angry look on her face.

"Hold up, just who the hell are you people?" Lydia demanded, waving her arm. "I don't know who you are, why should I trust you enough to talk about DARPA?"

Karpyshyn just smiled, looking back at us.

"Alright, depolarize the screen." Lynda ordered as Dan shot her a slightly annoyed look. "Now we can talk."

The screen dropped, giving Lydia full view of the control room. She looked at us, he eyes going wide.

"Dan? Sean?" She said, looking shocked as her holographic eyes drifted over us.

"Hi Lydia." Dan said with a big smile, moisture forming in his eyes.

"How did… where did you and… what?" Lydia stammered, looking around in an attempt to calm herself.

"It's a long story." I said, leaning on the edge of the console as I looked over at Lynda. "I think your situation should be explained first."

Lynda nodded, stepping up and straightening up her uniform.

"Hello Lydia, I am Lynda Embry of the Alliance's Special Projects Division." She greeted, standing as straight as she possibly could. "The Alliance is-"

"I know what the Alliance is, I've already glossed over the Codex you have here." She replied, looking distrustfully at Lynda. "So… what happened to me?

Dan and I braced for a long conversation, sitting down in some nearby chairs.

…

Aldrin Station, November 15th, 9:51 AM, 2180

…

Yesterday had been one hell of a day. Lynda, or "Athena", as now portrayed herself as, spend about three hours asking and answering questions. It had been kind of surreal to see something that happen to Dan's own sister, but I had to admit it still seemed kind of neat. Later though, in private, Karpyshyn told me and me alone that he had no idea how long Lydia could last. He explained that she could exist in her current form, theoretically, for thousands of years, but admitted it could only be hundreds, or maybe only a few dozen years. He didn't know, it was a whole new form of tanshumanism.

I rubbed my temples, a headache coming on. I was overthinking the subject.

"Eh, this is too much for me still." I remarked out loud, guzzling down another cup of coffee as I looked over the status reports for that test ship the Admirals had provided us. It was an Alamo-class frigate from Rear Admiral Mikhailovich's 63rd Scout Flotilla. He must have been pissed, the ship was brand new and fully customizable. As I was reading the report, our Nemo-Michaels reactor and Windham's Gravity Drive were being mounted. In six days it would be ready for us and a few technicians to come aboard and calibrate everything. After that, it would likely be ready for its maiden voyage.

I said a silent prayer to myself, hoping that when the time came I wouldn't have to explain to the Director why the shiny new frigate the Admirals had given us had been reduced to subatomic particles.

I smiled, shaking my head at the thought. We have gone over the calculations dozens of times, the ship would be fine.

Knowing that there was nothing else to do in the meantime, I picked up my files and tucked them under my arm, snatching a can of Pepsi as I walked out the door. If figured that I'd start looking into this weapon idea of mine, it had been tempting me for a while now.

Once in the elevator, I looked over a few designs I had cooked up, leaning towards the one most similar to the one from Doom 3. I was about to start looking at the plasma properties until the elevator stopped. The door opened revealing Dr. Ford.

We stared at each other for a few seconds before she broke eye contact, walking inside and punching in the 22nd floor on the panel. We stood awkwardly in silence for a minute before she spoke up.

"I… would like to apologize for my personal misconduct the other day." She started, still avoiding eye contact but turning slightly in my direction. "It was uncalled for and extremely unprofessional."

"It's alright, I'd feel the same way if someone was getting preferential treatment over me." I softened, turning towards her. "I really am sorry about that, I didn't know we were getting more funding."

She nodded slightly, looking up at me for a second before turning back to the elevator doors again.

"Hey, I'm about to start a new project that I've been cooking up." I said, trying to make friendly with her. "It's a new weapon that you might be interested in."

"If it's a weapon, then wouldn't Dimitri be the better person to ask?" She inquired, looking back at me.

"Dimitri would be a good choice, but I don't think he's ever worked with plasma before." I remarked, causing a tinge of interest to cross her face.

"Plasma, huh?" She questioned, crossing her arms. "OK, now you have me interested."

"I thought that would." I smiled as the doors to the 22nd floor opened. She looked between the doors and me before hitting the close doors button.

I handed her my ideal schematic, causing her eyes to light up.

"This is insane." She remarked with a small smile creeping onto her face. "This could be devastating if it was deployed properly."

"Yeah, I'm still trying to find a way to keep the plasma going in a straight line." I pointed out, handing her the properties list of the synthetic plasma we were going to use. "While it stays inert when stored, it tends to burn off too quickly when immediately exposed to the air."

"I know exactly what your problem is." She said, taking out her datapad and making a quick sketch for me. "You need a magnetic field to keep the plasma in a stable state. Not only will it last longer, but it will move both faster and farther."

My eyes went up in surprise at her assessment. I hadn't even considered the thought of using a magnetic field, but she thought of it instantly.

"Wow." I exclaimed, looking down at her. "You and I… could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?"

"Heh… as long as we keep it professional." She nodded, giving me the faintest smile.

…

Aldrin Station, November 23rd, 9:51 AM, 2180

…

I was nervous today. Not the kind of nervous that simply makes you feel uncomfortable, but the kind that makes your stomach hurt in an oddly specific way. Dan, Jack, Lynda and I stood on the station's observation deck with the three Admirals who, like us, were waiting for the test run to begin.

The first one I recognized from the recruitment vids, Steven Hackett. He was certainly inspiring in said vids, but in his actual presence I felt like I was standing next to an actual titan. He had a gruff, scarred physique that said volumes of what he has gone through over the years, and it took all my self control to not start asking questions at random.

The second was Admiral Tadius Ahern, who ran some sort of special forces training center called Pinnacle Station out in the Argos Rho Cluster. Like Hackett, he was a veteran of the First Contact War and had seen a lot of action against the Turians during that time.

The third Admiral was the strange one. Her name was Catharine Parangosky. Unlike Hackett or Ahern, she didn't talk about her work in the military at all and genuinely creeped me out when she looked at me for too long. She must have had some kind of intelligence or counter-intel role in the past, like one of those spooks from the CIA.

I could tell that neither Hackett or Ahern liked her either. They avoided her as much as possible and stuck to talking between one another. Strangely (or unsurprisingly) enough, Lynda, our esteemed director, seemed to be the only one actively looking to strike up conversation with her.

Dan and I were busy talking to Lydia off on the side of the room, having pulled up a chair to her projector. We had already done the meet-and-greet, leaving the rest of the PR up to Lynda. She was cold, but still a better people person than us.

"I still can't believe you were crazy enough to turn yourself into a popsicle." I remarked absently to Lydia, crossing my arms as a sunk slightly in my chair. "The thought alone creeps the hell out of me. Yeesh."

"I still can't believe you two were crazy enough to work on a device that creates wormholes." She shot back, looking at both of us with her hips cocked to the side. "Having myself frozen seems like a far cry from traveling through time, I must admit."

"Yeah yeah, just don't go blabbing to any of the other staff members about it, that's highly classified shit right there." I replied, shaking my head as I tried to fight back against a mild stomach cramp.

"If it hadn't b…been destroyed, im...imagine what we could have done with it though." Dan theorized, looking down at me and Lydia.

"There's no point in reminiscing over it now, it's long gone." I deflected, shaking my head as I thought back to all the time we spent on the project. Dan silently agreed, nodding as Lydia looked between us.

"You two wouldn't rebuild it? I'm sure with today's technology-" Lydia spoke up before I started shaking my head, cutting her off.

"No... despite the obvious applications, its way too dangerous now that I've looked back on it." I pondered, leaning forward into my clasped hands. "If misused, who knows what terrible things could happen to the layers holding our dimension together. Back then, I was blinded by the sheer scale and magnitude of the project, but now that we're in space, with faster-than-light travel, alien life, and other advanced technologies... I don't see a reason to take the risks."

"That's a f-fair point." Dan agreed with a sad look on his face.

Silence suddenly fell on us as we watched the Admirals talk amongst each other. I didn't like it.

"So Lydia, why don't you change your name to Athena? You already look like her, why not go all the way?" I asked, trying to change the previous subject and lighten the mood.

"Why would I? I'm just the same as before, just with 1's and 0's instead of neurons firing in a fleshy brain." She replied, crossing her arms as she smiled. "I just got you and my brother back, why would I want anything at all to change?"

"Other than the l-lack of a body, you haven't changed at all." Dan added, smiling as he munched on a bag of M&Ms.

"Hey, I never asked to be reduced to computer code. You were the one that made that choice." She shot back, looking at her holographic hands briefly. "Still, I can't argue with the results. I've learned so much in the last few days. So much more than I ever could have learned with a "conventional" brain."

"All you need now are one of those super-sleek gynoid bodies, all shiny and sexy…" I remarked sarcastically, creating an exaggerated female figure in the air with my hands.

Dan didn't appreciate it very much, and responded to my proposition by slugging me in the shoulder.

"I was just kidding, geez!" I said through a laugh, rubbing my shoulder as mild pain coursed up my arm.

"Thank you, big brother." Lydia deadpanned, looking at me with crossed arms. "If memory serves correctly, your browser history had quite a few of those "gynoids" on it…"

"Anyways, I heard Karpyshyn was working on some new kind of storage device specially made for you or Powell." I immediately redirected, straightening myself back up again as I very non-subtly tried to change the subject again. "Some kind of crystal/silicon hybrid?"

"Heh...yeah, it'll be portable, about the size of a briefcase or possibly even smaller." She said, getting an excited look in her eyes. "We'll be able to fit all our processes on it and still have extra space after the fact."

"Sounds like it…it would be good for subterfuge." Dan added with a grin, rubbing his hands together.

"Yeah, Karpyshyn's main idea behind it is for the A.I. to be both easy to transport and easy to hide." She explained, looking at something unseen to us. "To be honest, it would be very well suited for black operations."

"Heh, he's not going to be putting you into the backs of people's heads, is he?" I joked, remembering Cortana and Master Chief from the Halo series.

"No, that's stupid." Dan shot back, knowing exactly what I was referring to.

Our omni-tools beeped, signaling that the test was about to begin shortly. The rest of the Project Leads arrived to watch the demonstration along with a few technicians and maintenance personnel.

"Well, duty calls." I said, standing up and smoothing out my lab coat. "You going to watch, Lydia?"

"I can watch while balancing twelve other things, don't worry." She smiled as we walked back over to the admirals.

"Well, if this new system you three developed works, then we'll finally have something to hold over the Turians and those damn Batarians." Ahern commented, letting the smallest amount of prejudice flow through his voice.

I couldn't really blame him, to be honest. I couldn't abide by slavery in any form, and the Batarians claimed it as part of their "culture".

"We certainly aim to please." Jack replied with a smile, crossing his arms behind his back.

"I hope you didn't make any mistakes installing the two devices." Parangosky interjected, looking between us three and Lynda. "From these readouts, they have the potential to be rather… catastrophic if not calibrated properly."

"We've already compensated for that, we have a V.I. installed that monitors and regulates the equilibrium between the Nemo-Michaels reactor and my Gravity Drive." Jack explained as we all looked out the window at the frigate.

"I'm excited for the colonization potential behind this new system." I chimed in as the three Admirals looked at me. "If we outfit some exploration and colonization ships with this system, we can easily set up shop in star clusters far away from Mass Relays."

"Major Embry, we are ready for our test run." Captain Buckell of our newly christened SSV Explorer announced over the intercom. "Are we cleared for departure?"

"Understood Captain, proceed to the coordinates and perform one final systems check." Lynda confirmed as the station briefly vibrated.

The Explorer slithered out of the spacedock in front of us, barely visible past the station due to its black paintjob. It was a very sleek and beautiful design. The only things making it visible were the running lights, engines, and the Task Force emblem which was a bright, reflective silver.

The emblem was simple, it was just a modified Alliance one where the Earth was replaced by a bubbly chemistry beaker. Simple, but effective.

"Major, all systems are green. We are ready to jump." Buckell announced, giving me another twist to the gut as Hackett held his hand up slightly, walking over to Lynda.

"Captain, this is Hackett. You are cleared to jump." He announced, getting me to smile just a bit. "Good luck."

"Thank you, Admiral." Buckell finished as he cut the line, leaving us here in anticipation.

I crossed my fingers. This was the moment where we either went down in history as legends or failures.

The ship's profile shimmered as the gravity drive warmed up and produced its spherical magnetic field. Five seconds later, the SSV Explorer blinked from our vision as it jumped to incredible speeds. The status screens all beeped loudly as they lost their connection with the ship, the last recorded readings showing it had gone well past standard FTL speeds.

We all stood there in silence, waiting to see if the Explorer would reply back. Right as a sickening feeling began to manifest itself in my stomach, the radio pinged.

"Well captain, was the test successful?" Lynda inquired as everyone held their collective breaths.

"Pluto is looking very tan and brown today, Major." Buckell sarcastically replied back, causing me and several others to chuckle.

Everyone who was involved in the project cheered in celebration as the three of us shook hands with the admirals. I was absolutely ecstatic, we had finally found an alternative to Mass Relays!

"Good job to all of you, this is the dawn of a new age for the Alliance." Hackett congratulated, letting a smile form on his chiseled face. "It'll take time, but soon we may not even need the Relays anymore. The possibilities you have all opened up for us are endless, gentlemen. Congratulations."

Dan and I gave each other firm handshakes, prouder than words could describe.

We had finally found something to top the Fourth of July of 2014, and I wouldn't trade anything for it.

…

A/N: So, a lot happened this chapter! Dan finds his sister, Sean and Dr. Ford make friendly, and the test run for the Nemo-Michaels Reactor and Gravity Drive goes off without a hitch! What more can you ask for?

Lydia's new appearance is based on Athena from God of War 2, if anyone is curious. Everything is pretty much the same except for the face, which resembles Lydia herself.

I'd love to read any reviews, I'm always up for suggestions or constructive criticism. Stay tuned.