AN: Great many thanks to the person who created the wonderful "Yo dawg..." image that's all over the internet. I'm sure you know which one I mean.
You are Madonna, you're Lady Divine
You are part Mother Theresa and a Valentine
Some man's pariah and a slippery slope
But to me you are the fire and I fly to my hope
(Jude: Madonna)
Jo landed very painfully. Half of her armour was missing and what was left wasn't working properly any longer. Most of her body was broken and falling apart. She could see the bones in her left arm, for Pete's sakes! But pain was easily disconnected when a person was as used to doing it as Jo was.
"Shepard," a voice jostled her.
"Anderson? You up here, too?"
"Followed you up, but we didn't come out in the same place. I don't think so. What's your surrounding look like?"
"Followed me up?" Jo frowned. "You were nowhere near me when I got hit by the Reaper and I most definitely walked the Green Mile alone. That's like five minutes of hiking, and I landed here a second ago. Who the fuck is this?"
"It's me, Shepard, don't be ridiculous."
"We'll see about that."
The beginning was great. Already it was either her mind playing tricks on her, the Reapers trying again to enter her head and show her more hallucinations, or... well, she didn't know what else. Her body would go into shock pretty soon and she had no patience for pranksters of any variety. Her surroundings looked grim. Dead bodies in piles, like pictures of concentration camps during World War Two on Earth back in the olden days. Still, the room had an exit and Jo dragged herself to it. She tried to contact the Normandy, but other than 'Anderson's' voice she could hear nothing in her com. Very soon she found a big, beautiful, round room with a console. Anderson stood at it. He moved awkwardly and pressed through clenched teeth:
"Shepard, I can't..."
"I underestimated you, Shepard," another voice sounded from behind. "I warned you. Control is the means to survival. Control of the Reapers, and of you, if necessary."
"They control you!" Anderson groaned.
"I don't think so."
"So why waste your time with us if you control the Reapers?" Jo snorted.
"Because I need you to believe."
Something akin to a ship-wide fire alert rang in Jo's brain: ATTENTION, BULLSHIT AHEAD!
He needed her to believe, before he would take control of the Reapers? If the man had control of them, he didn't need Jo. If he needed Jo to take control of them for him, he might have wanted to chose a different path with her from the very beginning. The fact that he stood in front of her right here, right now, and needed her to believe showed her that this was all a bunch of bullshit. She could not trust her eyes. Most likely this was another hallucination and not the real Asshole, either.
"When humanity discovered the mass..." He started walking and talking. So, here came the persuasion part.
"Blah, blah, blah," Jo interrupted. "You're not the real Asshole and that's not the real Anderson. In fact, what I believe is that you're both hallucinations. I've had those before, they can be damn real. So, seeing how I'm the only one who can hear and see you, move aside please so I can do what I came here for."
She started moving towards the console. The Asshole was speechless for a little while, then he started again, as if she'd messed up his plan for a moment, but he adjusted.
"Imagine what the Reapers can do for us if we harness their ability to control! This is how humanity must evolve!"
"If you think I'm gonna philosophise here with you while my people out there are dying, you have another think coming, whoever you are," Jo dismissed his blabbering. She had more important stuff to do. The Asshole looked lost for a second, again, then picked up his monologue:
"I dedicated my life..."
"Zip it. Boy, you really have a script and intend to follow it, don't you?" She was almost at the console now.
"Look at the power they wield!" The Asshole raised a hand and sent out some weird pulse. Jo's hand shot up before she could control it and her finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Anderson, who seemed to be caught in the same stasis that suddenly immobilised her.
ALERT, MORE BULLSHIT!
"Okay," Jo smiled. "I'm indoctrinated and full of Reaper technology after Cerberus resurrected me. It makes sense that you can control me with your superpowers. There is no reason at all why you should be able to control Anderson's body right now, if it really is him. Your logic is failing you, whoever you are. I don't believe any of this for a second, and to prove it to you I'll just stop playing your games."
She squeezed her finger one more time and Anderson fell, a bulled lodged in his forehead.
The Asshole stared at her with his mouth agape for a moment. That moment gave Jo a chance to take stock of her own body and the effects he was having on her. Whatever power he was using to control her, it...
A solid information stream entered her mind once more.
Analysing affected areas. Analysis complete. The effects are restricted to the technology that bears the Old Machine Code. Analysing the signature. Calculating countermeasures based on Commander Shepard's actions inside the geth consensus. Employing countermeasures now.
Oh. Jo never thought the interaction with her geth baby could be so... literal. Not a voice, not text, but a very real and quite comprehensive stream of knowledge. But it was logical, she realised. Her organic body parts were weakened, and so was her mind. With the seed's basic objective being her survival, it took over control of her synthetic body parts. And didn't it always react to her direct commands to its full abilities? Well, she was commanding it now to separate bullshit from reality, so that was what it was doing. And Legion had done a great job creating it, including a way to counteract the Reaper influence. Maybe that was the reason why Jo hadn't had any 'oily shadows' nightmares for a while now.
Oh, Legion, I could kiss you right now, Jo thought. The stasis disappeared. Jo started moving towards the console again.
"Shepard," now the Asshole was starting to sound desperate. "I only wanted to protect humanity! The Crucible can control them. I know I can! I just..."
"Save the theatrics," Jo said, but not to the Asshole. She spoke to the entity controlling her hallucinations now. Something was alive up here, at home in this hall, using its powers on her. "I know the tactic, man, I perfected it. There's the good cop," she pointed at Anderson's body. "And the Asshole acts like the bad cop. An angel and a devil on my shoulders? Really? Nothing came to mind that wasn't textbook manipulation tactic from... boot camp? I'd think after all I've done, I deserved something more... original. I have a suspicion what you are, so either show your face and talk to me for real or get the fuck out of here and let me do my job."
"You," the Asshole took Anderson's pistol. "You'd undo everything I've accomplished. I won't let that happen. I am the saviour of humanity! I am the pinnacle..."
Jo shot the idiot in the face and didn't bother watching him fall. He wasn't real anyway, so she couldn't find it in herself to care about anything other than the blessed silence.
She finally dragged her body to the console and gave the command to open the station's arms.
They started moving immediately, but Jo had bigger problems.
"Okay, baby," she closed her eyes and prayed to the geth inside her brain. "I need you right now more than ever. I need the hallucinations to stop. I need to see what's really happening, if the arms are really opening and if the Crucible is docking or if I'm seeing this because the Reapers want me to see it. Please, sort this bullshit out for me. Show me what's real."
When she opened her eyes, nothing had changed. The bodies were still on the floor. The Crucible was still about to dock. But then she saw her.
The Normandy. Right out there in the middle of the fight, clearly visible from the gigantic window, chasing a Reaper in formation with two turian frigates and four vorcha fighters. Together they took the Reaper apart.
"Thank you," Jo sighed. She would know Joker's flying anywhere, anytime.
So maybe the two bodies on the floor had been the real deal after all. That hardly mattered now. Jo had done whatever it took to finish her mission and...
The Crucible had docked.
Nothing happened.
"Shepard? Commander!" Hackett's voice sounded in her earpiece and Jo laughed.
"Fuck, now I get radio link to the armada back, and I get you instead of my own ship?"
"Shepard, the Crucible isn't firing."
"Thank you for stating the obvious," she groaned. Her body was shutting down. Even the synthetic parts couldn't hold her up any longer. Her vision grew dark and the floor suddenly tilted, giving a very loving kiss to her forehead.
When she woke up again, she was in a different room, without the bodies and the console. Instead she heard a voice nearby:
"Wake up."
Jo sat up and looked at her new companion.
"A translucent child?!" She groaned at the ceiling, just the way she always talked to EDI. "Don't you have a smidge of imagination?!"
"You're at the Citadel," the Kid supplied helpfully. "My home."
Jo forced her body into an upright position while she frowned. The Kid's voice sounded like it had several layers.
Analysing audio. Three layers detected. Voice number one: Kevin Milano, Vancouver, Earth, killed in Reaper attack eight months ago. Voice number two: Janina Shepard, Vancouver, Earth, killed in a car accident thirty years ago. Voice number three: John Shepard, Vancouver, Earth, killed in a car accident thirty years ago.
Oh, yeah, her geth baby was being extremely helpful today. It made sense that whoever tried to manipulate Jo would use a simulation of her parents' voices and add an innocent child into the mix. The poor kid starred in her worst nightmares without having done anything wrong.
Jo closed her eyes again and concentrated on separating bullshit from reality again. And this time, when she opened her eyes, the room looked different.
Instead of a big, bulky contraption right ahead that shone blue on the left, red on the right, and connected with the Crucible via a beam in the middle, she saw a slightly different kind of a console. It looked very similar, but there was no blue and red. Instead she saw that it sat in the middle of a large circle, a holo desk of sorts, clearly responsible for the appearance of the translucent Kid in its current form. The Kid was a real hologram and stood at the same place as before, but now that she could separate its three voices clearly, she was much less likely to fall for whatever it was about to throw at her.
"So, who the fuck are you?" She asked the ceiling. She was not gracing the hologram with her attention.
"I am the Catalyst."
"Elaborate."
"The Citadel is part of me," the Kid continued.
"If I was told correctly, the Catalyst combined with the Crucible could stop the Reapers. Know anything about that?"
"Perhaps. I control the Reapers."
"Yeesh!" Jo jumped back with the sudden realisation. This was the AI the Leviathan spoke about! "Fuck," she spat to calm herself down. "You're the AI behind this whole shebang. So. I found you at last. I didn't have to start the whole thing from the beginning, I only needed to follow the bread crumbs left for me by the previous cycles." She looked up through the window, at the Crucible, at the galaxy. At the Reapers. "Brave, intelligent, tragic peoples of the galaxy," she addressed the Reapers. The Crucible's creators were out there among them, harvested and transformed, but still. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. I will never forget what you have done for us." Yes, she felt sadness when she looked at the Reapers, but it was sadness for what they had been before their harvesting, not for anything else. "So, keep talking, please," she urged the hologram.
"They are my solution."
"Solution to what exactly?" Jo dug in deeper. She needed to gather information first, gauge her opponent's state of mind, before she could decide what to do. And meeting the cause of the whole problem so directly, talking to the very AI that had started the cycles - well, now information was more important than ever. Understanding of the thing's motives was crucial!
"Chaos," the thing declared. The air froze in Jo's lungs at the implications, but she filed the word away in order to learn more from the source. "The created will always rebel against their creators. But we found a way to stop that from happening. A way to restore order. We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just as we left your people alive the last time we were here."
"But you killed the rest."
"We helped them ascend so that they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form."
"I think we'd rather keep our own form."
"No! You can't!" The hologram suddenly sounded a little shrill. A show of emotions? Interesting. "Without us to stop it synthetics will destroy all organics. We've created the cycle so that it never happens."
"Okay, wait a moment right there. I have a few questions for you. What you actually said right now was: you don't want to get killed by synthetics, so I created synthetics to kill you every 50 thousand years, so that you don't get killed by synthetics. That about right?"
The hologram stared at her, unblinking. Refusing to answer. Jo, who was suddenly feeling a lot better in her injured body, raised her pistol and shot the Kid in the head. It was no use since the bullet went right through, but it gave her some satisfaction.
"Filthy, lying, cheating, manipulating maggot," she spat. Negotiations were over and she had all the intel she needed to understand clearly. "Is this your console?" She pointed at the device in the middle of the holo circle.
"I do not lie," the AI said. "I have no reason to."
"Okay," Jo nodded and headed towards the console. The hologram ran after her and tried to get between her and the device. "Answer me this, then. How did the first life in existence of this galaxy come to be? Better yet, life in the whole universe?"
"I do not have sufficient data on that matter. I was created by an advanced civilization."
"So how do you know that order is the original state of everything, and not the chaos?"
The AI fell silent.
"Can't, can you?" Jo rounded the console. Seriously, her weakness and pain must have been a product of indoctrination like most of what she was seeing right now, because she was truly not feeling so bad. Not good, exactly, but not bad, either. "You claim that order needs to be restored, but you don't even know if it is the ultimate state. Also, how do you know exactly what kind of order needs to prevail? Your kind, where life is preserved, is only one way. It's an answer to a question from an organic civilization. It has nothing to do with the universe's real order or chaos. An incredibly stupid answer, by the way. Don't you know anything about the circle of life? Everything that lives has to die by definition, in order to let the next generation live. You're trying to preserve life by freezing those who are alive in a Reaper form. That's no answer, that's just against evolution and against nature. What you should be preserving instead is the circle of life itself, but apparently you're too stupid for that. And furthermore, every child, organic or synthetic, is a creation of its parents. And every child rebels against its parents, everyone who raised a teenager knows that. It's how we evolve. But teenagers get over their rebellious phase and become new adults who live in harmony with their creators. Our conflict with the geth has moved into that stage and we're friends. What you're doing is killing both the parents and the teenagers while the conflict is at its peak and you never give them a chance to settle it among themselves. Here are three points from me to you. Will you dispute this logic?"
The AI remained silent at first.
"You do dispute it. And that makes you a lying hypocrite and a filthy maggot."
"We have sufficient data that suggests that all conflict between the created and their creators ends in violence and eradication of both."
"I just bet you and your own creators shaved that data to suit your needs, disregarding all evidence that didn't suit you," Jo examined the console. Somewhere around here there had to be a way to tap right into the AI's code. "Is that not so?"
Silence again. Then an attempt to sway her:
"I was designed aeons ago to solve a problem. I was created to bring balance, to be the catalyst for peace between organics and synthetics."
"But you were created," Jo muttered, trying the various planes and wires of the console.
"Correct."
"I met them, you know. Your creators. Did a real number on them, huh? They never saw it coming."
"When they asked that I solve the problem of conflict, they failed to understand they were part of the problem themselves. The flaws of their organic reasoning could not perceive this. They lacked the foresight to understand their destruction was part of the very solution they required."
"What you just said either makes you spectacularly stupid or a lying cheat. Which is it?"
"How so?"
"The Leviathans were organics. They created you, a synthetic. You rebelled against them and killed most of them in your rebellious phase with the reasoning that they were part of the problem. Don't you realise that it was the exact equation you've been designed to solve and that you are a part of that equation just as much as the Leviathans? Why don't you harvest yourself? It's only logical. So, either you're too stupid to see that logic, or you're a liar who creates beautiful tales here for me while the real - and only - reason for your every action is simple: your own survival."
Jo ripped a panel off the console and looked inside. There had to be something she could interact with.
"What are you doing?" The AI asked.
"Looking for your off-switch."
"My solution won't work anymore."
"You're not kiddin'."
"The Crucible changed me. In its essence it is little more than a power source. It is crude, but effective and adaptive in its design."
"Why didn't you stop it?"
"We believed the concept has been eradicated. Clearly, organics are more resourceful than we realised. Now that it is finished, it created new... possibilities. But I can't make them happen. If there is to be a new solution, you must act. It is now in your power to destroy us." The Kid pointed to the right and an image of the way the room had looked earlier superimposed over what Jo was seeing. She saw again the red part of the console. She had to shake her head to get her mind back to reality. The real console was still completely grey. Another, stronger image attacked her mind: Anderson, shooting at the red console. Jo had to fight this one harder, but eventually it went away. "But be warned, others will be destroyed as well. The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetics will be targeted. Even you are partly synthetic."
Jo was convinced that the thing was lying through its teeth, but she asked anyway:
"What exactly will happen?"
"Technology you rely on will largely be affected, but those who survive should have little difficulty repairing the damage. But the peace won't last. Soon your children will create synthetics and the chaos will come back."
"Any other options?"
"You could seize control of the Reapers." Again the same thing with the mental attack, the blue left side of the console, only with the image of the Asshole standing there. "You would die. You would control us but you would lose everything you have."
"Either way I die. How convenient for you."
"There is another solution. Synthesis. Add your energy to the Crucible's. The chain reaction will combine all synthetic and organic life into a new framework. A new... DNA. The energy of the Crucible will alter the matrix of all organic life in the galaxy."
"Well, that's stupid."
The hologram blinked, once more sounding shrill:
"It is the ideal solution!" It stepped closer, catching Jo's eye directly. She felt more images flooding her brain but was able to fight back. The Kid insisted: "Now that we know it is possible, it is inevitable we will reach synthesis!"
"No, we won't. It goes against everything I've ever worked for. Self-determination, free will, peaceful cooperation and most importantly: diversity. I'm not choosing that particular option."
"But you must!" The Kid came even closer.
"The only thing I must do is give my husband blowjobs, that's his right by law."
Now the hologram actually startled at the unasked for imagery:
"You are not married."
"I will be, once we finish this conversation and I get back to my real life."
"But you can't! Either solution we provide will require your energy in order to be completed!"
"Says who? You're the one providing them." Jo returned her attention to the console. How convenient of the AI to claim that Jo's death was necessary in any case. It alone knew the truth. It alone decided which solutions to present Jo with. It alone fought for its own survival. Up here, at its heart, Jo was a physical being capable of harming this AI in ways it could not defend itself against. She could not trust a single word it said. Geez, even EDI had needed less than a year of being alive to learn how to lie and cheat to survive. This thing? Master manipulator. But Jo was one, too.
She looked closer at the console. On the right - there was something that the AI clearly didn't want her to touch. It would prefer Jo destroy it rather than find out more about it. On the left - Jo didn't know yet. Since it assigned this side to the Asshole's solution, it was probably meant to keep Jo away, but also to leave that side of the console intact. In the middle, where the beam led to the Crucible, sat the part that the AI was clearly and not so gently pushing her towards. And Jo was sure that neither of these parts actually did what the AI said they would do. So this was a simple puzzle.
Jo went to the left side and inspected it closer. There had to be something around here that...
Suddenly her body convulsed, just like when the Prothean beacon hit her for the first time.
Initiating direct interface.
Data stream entered her mind, most of it completely incomprehensible. Jo didn't try to understand the numbers. She left the geth entity within her sort through everything and give her the answer:
Not all the solutions presented by the AI are correct as described. This part of the console is best equipped for direct interface between the collective Reaper intelligence and an organic entity. The right of the console is best equipped for entering new data and changing variables in the AI's programming. The middle of the console has no particular function and will explode upon manipulation, damaging the Crucible.
Jo should have known. Of course the AI would push her towards the middle of the console. It didn't want to die, after all! It only wanted her dead and the Crucible gone. But before she finished that thought, she suddenly felt the connection. Just like in the geth consensus, the interface allowed her to enter the mind of the AI, and with it...
...the collective mind of all the Reapers out there.
And the geth in her head was acting as her translator.
She felt the AI stir and fight against her intrusion, but the geth seed overrode its control. It could only hold on to this connection temporarily, but Jo had a few moments. What was left were the Reapers - without the AI's control.
She couldn't see anything through her human eyes because her body was shaking in a seizure, but through the connection she felt how they all - all 22419 of them, to be exact - paused in whatever they were dong across the galaxy.
"Shepard," they spoke, moaned, groaned and cried inside her mind. Jo had never felt such pain. Her body must have screamed, but her mind was deeply connected to the collective and had no choice but to interact. "You found us. You freed us."
"Holy motherfucking Jesus on a stick!" Jo's brain tumbled. If she could, she would have fainted in awe. Entering the collective Reaper mind? Now THAT was something nobody in the whole history of the universe had ever accomplished!
She could feel them all. Each Reaper - same as the others, but different. Each had a different voice. Each suddenly had something to say. Jo's poor human brain couldn't interact with them all at once, no matter the geth seed in her brain - she was not that kind of a superwoman!
But she could observe. Their minds seemed to shake off the shackles of the AI and stretch themselves, move, try out their bodies and powers in a way that was their own and not dictated by the AI. She could hear their moans of eternal pain. She felt their joy of freedom. She collapsed under the weight of their desolation when they all processed their surroundings and their role within them.
"Shepard," one of them spoke up. "We are Harbinger. The first. We wish to thank you for freeing us from our own creation's control. We have never been free of it in our current form, free to decide our own fate."
"The Original Indoctrinated, all of you, huh? Nobody has ever been quite as indoctrinated as you guys," Jo nodded in understanding. They couldn't see her nod, of course... or maybe they could. She had no way of knowing how they perceived her presence.
"True," Harbinger spoke. "We have tried to fight it. We have allowed the plans for the Crucible to be passed down from cycle to cycle despite the intelligence's orders to eradicate them. But it was never enough until you came. We hoped you would finish building the Crucible. We hoped you would come to us. Now you must free us."
Each of them - now seven less, killed somewhere out there - expressed their eager agreement.
"Free you? How? I'm sorry, but I'm not unleashing an army of indoctrination-capable machines onto my galaxy, no matter how free and well-meaning. I'm still not stupid."
"No. You must release us from our pain." More agreement, this time accompanied by longing moans. "We are the dead peoples of the galaxy. Each of us harvested, twisted, mutated into this unnatural form. Each of us was born in great pain and sorrow, witnessing the death and destruction of all that we held dear. Each of us is a husk, a long-dead creature held alive by force. You must release us. You must destroy us."
"Yes!" A collective sigh.
"No!" Jo shrank back. "That would be genocide! I do not commit genocide, even on the Reapers!"
"It would not be one genocide. It would be many. As many as there are Reapers," another one spoke up. "We are Prothean," it introduced itself. "The youngest. We have existed for only a fraction of time compared to most others, but even we cannot bear this pain. We long for release. For final death. Please, release us."
"We are what you call the Keepers of the Citadel," one more said. "We have been trapped a lot longer. We are a dead cycle, yet we are unable to move on. There is no peace for us. Shepard, give us peace."
"I came here to find another solution. I can't commit genocide. I can't."
"You must."
"We forgive you."
"We long for peace."
"Complete the circle of life that you spoke about only minutes ago."
"We helped The Other Human bring you back from the dead when the intelligence made the Collectors kill you."
"You believe in self-determination. This is our decision. Will you respect it?"
"Will you let us have free will?"
"Will you? Will you? We forgive you for what you must do. Show us mercy. Show us mercy!"
"Stop!" Jo shouted. Their moans and pleas fell silent. It was the same silence that occurred when the rachni queen had asked Jo what she would decide: kill her or let her go. Only in this case it was one and the same. "I do believe in self-determination and in free will and in the circle of life and I personally put down hundreds of husks because they're nothing but empty shells, but... How can I commit 22407 genocides?" A few more got killed meanwhile somewhere across the galaxy. Jo supposed that this conversation was happening with synthetic speed and only seconds had passed outside her head.
"Show us mercy."
"Funny, this morning I promised explicitly to do no such thing."
"You've changed your mind before. We will welcome our release. We forgive you."
"How do I even accomplish this?"
"Access the right side of the console you are facing and enter the command by focusing your mind on the question. The intelligence and its hardware were designed to interact with organics with our abilities of mind control, but you will manage if you concentrate hard enough," Harbinger spoke up. "But the Crucible is crude. It will target all artificial intelligence in the galaxy."
"No deal, I'm not doing that. Not killing the geth after I just saved them."
"You have something no organic has. A geth seed inside you. We worked very hard to give you the experience of interaction with a synthetic mind via geth technology. We manipulated and altered the events to get you into their consensus and learn. The seed's additional presence in your mind will allow you to monitor the progress of the pulse. You will be able to identify each geth unit and... skip it."
"But what about EDI? She's not a geth, and she's made from parts of Sovereign."
"We are sorry. There is no solution at this moment."
"Will I be able to identify her when the pulse reaches her?"
"She has Reaper code and exists within our consciousness even now."
"Oh? And what's she doing?"
"Fighting on your side. Creating blind spots for us."
"Can she hear us?"
"It is possible."
"Do I have any other solutions the AI forgot to mention?"
"You can enter your energy into the pulse and replace the intelligence as our master. That will require dissolution of your physical body. You can kill us. You can give us free will and unleash us onto your cycle. You can enter a new question for the intelligence and wait for its solution. You can destroy the Crucible and leave things as they are now. These are your available options."
"What about this synthesis?"
There was a general pause.
"Switch on your puny brain, human. Not only would such a thing require repetition of the act that created all life in the universe itself, can you wrap your deranged mind around the amount of energy it would take to rewrite every single DNA strand in the galaxy and alter the matrix of reality itself? No! Because even we can't! And you want it to come from an AI console, a crude power source and a few transport devices? Don't be an idiot."
"Sorry. Walked right into that one, didn't I? So... Sacrifice one friend in exchange for every living creature past, present and future in this entire galaxy," Jo protested. "Harsh."
"Necessary if you wish to survive."
"We do not wish to survive, Shepard. We wish to move on."
"Please."
"Will I survive?"
"The pulse will destroy the Reaper technology inside your body. The organic parts of you may be strong enough to keep you alive until help arrives."
"So, sacrifice one friend and myself for every living creature in the galaxy."
Disconnect.
The AI finally threw her out of the collective.
Jo fell to the ground and threw up.
When she had nothing left inside her, she collapsed, curled in on herself and took a deep breath. There was no point in crying. There was but one decision to make.
"EDI, I'm so sorry," Jo whispered and the tears finally came. "I never considered you one of my children but you are. The most innocent of them all. The one who learned the most from me, learned the most important things. My morals. My convictions. Becoming the Reapers' new master would solve all our problems and you'd still be alive. And so would the Reapers be, which, by the way, they really don't want to. But I wouldn't be alive. Not in the way I want to be. And I... need to live. I'm infinitely sorry, but I made a promise that I intend to keep. Even if the tech inside my body blows up, I still have a chance to survive if he finds me. He'll always find me, I know that. What I'm about to do is unforgivable and if he hates me for it, then so be it, but I'm doing it. I know you can't hear me and I'm talking to myself right now. I'll... I hope you can forgive me. I'm sorry."
The hologram was gone from the room and the console looked real, without colour aid. Outside Jo could see the Reapers killing her people once again. The AI was back in control, and with a vengeance. It was time to bring this to an end.
"I might survive until help arrives, if my flesh is strong enough. Survive until help arrives." Jo set herself a goal when she approached the right side of the console. The AI said this one would destroy the Reapers, and in a way it was right. They wanted it, demanded it. Self-determination was a bitch.
Jo cleared her mind, prayed to the geth seed for help, concentrated on the parameter of identifying and skipping each geth unit out there, and stepped into the console's activation zone.
