Chapter 30
Uncomfortable Decisions
May 26th, 2187
"Grrr..." Wrex growled as Garrus shook the lumbering krogan awake. "You had better have come with food."
"Sorry, Wrex, but no food. But we do have a good fight coming up for you."
In a flash, Wrex leaped up, still wearing his armor with a wide, slasher grin. "Who are we gonna kill?"
"Little more complicated than that," Garrus said. He filled Wrex in on the plan as he moved onto one of the balconies on the second floor, waiting for Shepard to signal.
Markus stood by the front door. His omni-tool was just a few keystrokes away from activating his dual omni-blades that he set to activate on cryo and electrical charge. This time, he was going to get information out of whoever was coming for him.
Tali stood a few feet back, the knife she regularly kept strapped on her boot was in her hand, ready to back him up. Garrus, Sirilia and Wrex were in position by now on the second floor, ready to jump them from above.
"You okay? Are you sure you're ready to do this?" Tali asked.
Markus could hear how concerned she was. How worried she was that he might have to attack his own sister. He felt half sick, half enraged. She was one of the most straight laced people he'd known. To think that she could have been indoctrinated, part of him considered that maybe taking the Crucible's third option, as disgusting as it was to him, might have been better.
"What? Where am I?" Shepard said. Blood loss was leaving him borderline delirious and likely hallucinating. After all, there was a translucent holographic child talking to him in the middle of a... where he was he wasn't certain the last thing he remembered was shooting the Illusive Man then sitting down with—Anderson!
Anderson had passed out. He tried waking him but couldn't do much. His equipment was destroyed and the Crucible still hadn't activated. He had to leave him behind.
"The Citadel. It's my home," the child said.
He looked around. In the background, the allied fleet was still battling the Reapers, but it had wound down considerably and not for the better. Just as he knew would happen, they were loosing. Badly.
"Who are you?"
"I am the Catalyst," the child said.
Okay, I'm hallucinating, Shepard thought to himself. It took two attempts for him to fully form the thought in his head.
"I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst."
"No, the Citadel is a part of me."
He may be hallucinating, but didn't have much else he could do but risk playing along with it. At the very least, his subconscious which was playing itself out might give him some information he didn't have yet. "I need to stop the Reapers. Do you know how I can do that?"
"Perhaps. I control the Reapers. They are my solution." The child walked down the single gangway, Shepard trying desperately to keep up. His legs and nerves felt like they were frozen and on fire, moving slowly as though he were trudging through water up to his waist.
"Solution? To what?" Part of him didn't want to know how badly the problem had to be for a measure this drastically to be taken.
"Chaos," it said. Shepard stopped dead in his tracks.
How could this be the solution to chaos? Sovereign alone caused enough chaos to nearly tear Citadel space apart. How could countless hundred bloodthirsty killing machines be a solution to chaos? It also frustrated him that an actual answer wasn't given to his simple question.
The child continued, not hesitating in breaking pace. "The created will always rebel against their creators. But we found away to stop that from happening, a way to restore order."
"How can wiping out all organic life bring order?" The sentence was something of an oxymoron, but he refused to believe that the only options were death and order or life and chaos.
"No. We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just as we left your people alone the last time we were here."
There were ten thousand ways he could argue that if he had enough blood in his body rather than drained and dropped over the last quarter mile he'd trekked so far. "But you killed the rest" was all he could say.
"We helped them ascend so they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form." The Catalyst stopped to gaze at a Reaper dreadnought that was engaging one of the few intact flotillas, a group of asari and human cruisers.
"I think we'd rather keep our own form."
"No, you can't... Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics. We have created the cycle so that never happens. That is the solution."
"We're at war with your solution right now. How many have been lost to your 'solution'?"
"You may be in conflict with my Reapers, but they are not interested in war."
"I find that hard to believe." Some of the blood had returned to his head and was thinking more clearly which is why he chose those words rather than what he thought. Openly insulting the trillion plus year old AI controlling the Reapers would likely result in the last mistake he would ever make.
"When fire burns, is it at war? Is it in conflict? Or is it simply doing what it was created to do? We are no different. We harvest your bodies, your knowledge, your creations. We preserve it to be reborn in the form of a new Reaper."
All that, and only one of those abominations would be born. Countless millions of voices, screaming in agony for countless eternities and for the birth of a single demon.
"Like a cleansing fire, we restore balance. New life, both organic and synthetic, can once again flourish."
"After all these years, you still haven't figured it out. The single most defining part of organic life is to make our own choices, good and bad. You take away our will and we're nothing more than cogs in a machine. That's not life."
"You have even more choice than you know. The fact that you are here, the first organic in history proves it. But it also proves that my solution won't work anymore."
He couldn't say that he didn't like the sound of that. "So what do we do now?"
"Find a new solution."
There was something bugging him about all of this. "Why tell me all of this? Why bother helping me, one of the lowly organics you're trying to harvest?"
"You have altered the variables."
"What do you mean?" Killing three Reapers made that much of an impact? If he had known that, he would have recommended the Normandy join the front lines for a few weeks, get some more kills.
"The Crucible changed me, created new... possibilities. But I can't make them happen."
No, because if you could you would have already done so, wouldn't you?
"If there is to be a new solution, you must act. It is now within your power to destroy us," the Crucible said looking at a large set of mechanisms on the right side.
Well then, I can't say I don't mind having that. He felt a significant portion of his strength return. Not enough to go hand-to-hand with a pair of Marauders like he could before Harbinger's blast nearly killed him, but enough to blow the Reapers back to hell whatever it took.
"But be warned: others will be destroyed as well. The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetics will be targeted. Even you are partially synthetic."
He knew what that meant. Every VI and AI would be hard wiped. That meant Legion's sacrifice would have been in vain. What's more, he'd be committing mass murder of an entire species. Adding to that was EDI. He didn't see her as his ship, not even as an AI, but a real, person. Hell, he'd spent weeks making both subtle and obvious pokes to get her and Joker together.
If he killed her, then he'd never be able to forgive himself. And the wrath that Joker would bring down when he found out... he couldn't betray them. Not like this. Not if there was another way.
"Then I won't activate the Crucible. There has to be another way..."
"There is. You could use the energy to seize control of the Reapers yourself."
"I'll be damned," Shepard whispered to himself. "So the Illusive Man was right after all?"
"Yes, but he could never have taken control... because we already controlled him."
"But... I could?"
"After a sense. You will die. You will control us, but you will lose everything you have."
Shepard's head was twisting sideways between blood loss and what the Crucible was spinning. "How can I control the Reapers if I'm dead?"
"Your physical existence will be dissolved; atomized. But your thoughts, even your memories, will continue. Your connection to your kind will be lost, though you will still be aware of their existence."
The thought of Tali mourning him, his family having to bury yet another empty casket.
"I did not go through all of this just to die again!"
"There is a third solution."
Well it had better be something with all the boom and none of the pain.
"Synthesis," the Citadel said.
"Which is...?"
"Add your energy to the Crucible's. The chain reaction will combine all synthetic and organic life into a new framework. A new... DNA."
"I don't... I don't understand."
"Your organic energy, the essence of who you are will be broken down and dispersed."
"And then?"
"The energy of the Crucible, released in this way, will alter the matrix of all organic life in the galaxy. Organics seek perfection through technology. Synthetics seek perfection through understanding. Organics will be perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology. Synthetics, in turn, will finally have full understanding of organics.
"It is the ideal solution. Now that we know that it is possible, it is inevitable we reach synthesis."
The memory of conversations he had with Mordin came screaming into his mind, how they talked about cultures advancing faster than were ready, how the uplifing of the krogan people was akin to giving nuclear weapons to cave men. If he went through with the synthesis, he'd be giving every single answer to every question to every race that they weren't ready for, human and alien alike.
"I'm not doing that. I can't force an entire galaxy to change like that. It's sick."
"Synthesis is the final evolution of all life. If you do this, we will leave, ending the harvest and the civilizations will be preserved in the form they now hold. The path of things to come is yours."
With things the way they were, the fleets had two hours, three at the most if they moved to a full defensive stance. The exhaustion that Shepard was going through, however, was another matter entirely. He estimated less than forty-five minutes before passing out. In his condition, if he did, it was very likely wouldn't wake up again.
With two clocks hanging over his head, and three abhorrent choices in front of him, he considered just shooting the Catalyst interface. Checking the M-6 that was barely in his grasp, he saw that he had only two rounds in the clip and no idea how many spare clips were left, he chose against just opening fire on the Catalyst. It was little more than an interface and would continue the culling.
Two minutes ticked by, his pulse marking each second with a dull thump. The risks of indoctrination by taking control of the Reapers was too high, so that option was out. As was the moral depravity of synthesis. That left him with one option, the lesser of three evils: destroy.
If he could refine it a little more, he could target the Reapers alone. The idea did have an appeal to him. He was a combat engineer after all. But the brightest engineers and physicists in the galaxy had been working on the Crucible for months and still hadn't been able to get the Crucible to work right.
Then, as if in a movie, a lightbulb went off in his head. The Alliance engineers hadn't known exactly how the Crucible's energy would be released, so of course it would act like a cudgel. If he could get his hands on it, he might just be able to reshape it into a scalpel.
"Can I... could the energy released from the Crucible be focused? To target only the Reapers."
"It is possible. But you do not have time. Even now, your physical being is waining. You must make a choice now."
"You know nothing of organics, say nothing of humans. We don't die because an enemy tells us to."
Shepard took two steps before his leg collapsed on him, sending him falling hard onto the cold ground. His head slammed against the ground and he felt himself nearly loose consciousness. His vision became blurry and the few contents in his stomach erupted as he vomited onto the ground.
Coughing out the last of the stomach acids, blood spurted from his mouth.
"As I said," the Catalyst said. "You do not have the time to find another option. You must hurry, or the cycle will continue."
Gritting his teeth, Shepard's arm reached out, pulling himself forward along the floor. It took him several minutes to reach the capacitor controls. Picking up the M-6, he began to beat against the screen until it gave way. Then he got to doing what he did best: rewiring, soldering, wielding and making minor coding adjustments.
Blood from the cuts above his eyes began to cloud his vision, slowing him down every few minutes to wipe it out of his eyes.
For half an hour, he fought to stay awake, to work on the job at hand. All the while he had three words screaming in his mind. No more dead. Kaidan, Legion, Mordin, so many friends. So many more of those who he had served with over the years whose names and faces he had long since forgotten.
After making what he hoped was the last adjustment, he closed his omni-tool. Standing back up slowly, he picked his M-6 up and aimed it at the center of the control console right above where he had been working.
All the while, the Catalyst was telling him that he was making a mistake. It only drove him more, assuring him that he was making the right call.
His hand was shaking as he tried to steady it, make sure he hit the target with the first shot. The effort it was taking to keep it trained on target was so extreme that he'd snap a tendon when he pulled the trigger. Or straight up break the bones in his wrist.
Turning back to look at the interface, he grinned maliciously at it. "For the countless quadrillions you've already killed, I hope this hurts you, you twisted piece of shit." he turned back to the control panel. Then squeezed the trigger.
As Shepard had predicted, his wrist snapped. But the ensuing explosion that sent him flying took focus. For the half second he was conscious, that was.
After all that, he couldn't believe that Sonya, his own sister, would be capable of this. Yes, she'd pull stunts to surprise him in the past, but to actually set him up for an ambush?
He just couldn't believe it. Especially after his first trip to Earth.
Years earlier
"Come on, you spacer punk." An older teen slammed his foot into a 13 year old Markus' stomach. "I told you already,, you don't screw with the Reds and walk away."
Shepard coughed as he laid on his side on the ground in an alleyway. He had accidentally made the mistake of insulting a member of a local gang, the Tenth Street Reds. He was only two years older than Markus, but was nearly three times his size. Two of them, the guy Shepard offended and one of his buddies from the Reds dragged him into an alley and began pounding on him.
He tried fighting back, but was beaten down harder every time he did. They had already taken all the money and what little he had on him.
"Get your hands off him, you slimy sacks of sludge!" Markus' eyes snapped open.
A flurry of red hair dashed across him, sending both of the Reds flying back.
"Markus, get out of here. Find a cop fast." His jaw went slack. Somehow, Sonya had not only been able to get some time off, but she had just saved his ass.
"Bitch, what the fuck do you think you're doing," one of the Reds said.
"You better get out of here fast, or you'll be a dead whore. This kid here, he fucked with the Reds. Now you're fucking with us."
Sonya's attention was split between the Reds an Markus as she gave him another warning to run.
"Mistake letting that piece of butcher's meat go. Of course, you got some nice meat yourself, bitch. Gonna hate slicing you up." One of the Reds pulled two switchblades, handing one to his friend.
"I'm gonna give you empty brained pricks one last chance to run," Sonya warned.
The Red that had been kicking Markus, running his mouth off charged first, leading with his blade. Rotating with a sidestep at the last second, Sonya dodged the blade. Her left hand slammed into the outside of the Red's elbow causing him to drop the blade and snapping the bone.
She caught the blade with her free hand and yanked him back by the collar on the red and black jacket he was wearing and threw him to the ground.
Sliding on top of him, she drove the blade into his hand, piercing it and the ground beneath. He was pinned and screaming in agonizing pain.
Sonya looked up to the other Red who was shaking, still holding the knife. He was too afraid to run away or attack her.
Getting back up, the Red beneath Sonya curled over to protect the bloodied hand, unable to grasp it due to the damage to his other arm.
The second Red began to cry, so Sonya took pity on him. She jerked and said "Boo!"
He dropped the knife and ran in the opposite direction, out the other side of the alleyway as fast as he could.
After all that, all the help she had given him, everything she had given up for him, for it to be like this?
"Markus," Tali's voice snapped him back to the present. "We can do this on our own."
"I can't. She's my sister." He took an unsteady breath. "You know what to do, right?"
Tali gave a shallow nod.
"Okay, then. Let's... let's get this over with." He opened the door and walked outside.
Tali remained by one of the windows, ready to strike. Garrus, Wrex and Sirilia were above him, lying low on the balcony ready to move the second someone went for a weapon.
The door faintly clicked shut behind him. In the dark, he could barely make out Sonya's outline. His training said that there were others nearby, but he couldn't see them.
"Well then, it's about time you got back," Markus said. "Was starting to think you just ran off."
"Sorry about that. I didn't think I'd be expecting the call to come in. When it did, I needed it taken care of right away. "
"You coulda called."
"Again, sorry but it was time sensitive. As for what I said earlier, I wasn't entirely honest. I didn't bring one person. I brought a lot more."
With that, more than a dozen people erupted from the shadows.
A/N: So that's it for the month. I'm working on an armor cosplay (not Mass Effect) and want to get some headway with it. It'll be taking up most of my free time for the next two weeks or so. I should have something out no later than the end of the first week of August. The other reason for this, is to give myself some time to get the details of the next few chapters right.
In any case, I'd love to hear what you're all thinking about what I've done so far. Your reviews keep me focused, inspired and driven to write more.