Heavy Mental

Jak woke up with a scream. He patted himself and he was wearing an odd garment that covered him from neck to toes. It looked almost quarian, but not quite. He stared around wildly, but the room looked normal. The bed was queen sized. the chairs, table and terminal looked set up for human function. Which made no sense at all from what he remembered. The last thing he remembered was falling asleep in the shuttle after a geth had taken control of it. Lara had…

"Lara." Jak inhaled as Lara unfolded from a chair near one wall. "You knocked me out." Lara nodded and then Jak's eyes went huge as she swiped the air and text appeared floating in midair.

'You were hurt. Are hurt.' Lara had been crying from the red around her eyes. 'I am sorry, Jak. I didn't want to hurt you. Not again.'

"Where are we?" Jak asked slowly, still eyeing Lara.

'We are on a specialized ship that the geth built. At the moment, we are at the edge of the Perseus Veil. We lost the Cerberus pursuit, but want to be sure, so we are checking with the patrols.' Lara wrote.

"That is not possible, Lara." Jak shook his head at this insanity. "The geth kill any organics who cross the Veil."

"That is not entirely true. Mostly but not entirely." Jak had only thought he was stiff. Now he was completely still as Illia rose from another chair and moved to stand beside Lara. She laid an arm across Lara's shoulders. The girl smiled gratefully at the asari. "Hello Jak."

"There is more going on here than I know." Jak said after a moment's thought. "Why am I not wigging out?"

"Because despite your enforced rest, you are exhausted and hurt. So, you are medicated. In addition, several beings -including myself- are working hard to keep you calm." Illia said with a nod. "I learned how to stay calm in high stress environments for my first job and my latest work has enhanced that. Before you say anything, it is not mind control. It is just how I am speaking, to promote calm. No one has tried to take control of your mind. Well, except for Cerberus and most of them got what they deserved. Stupid racist bastards."

She wasn't faking the hate in her voice when she spoke of Cerberus. Not a chance.

"Lara called geth to help us escape." Jak said weakly. Both Lara and Illia nodded. "That is not possible. The geth do not help people. They don't… I don't..." He slumped back to the bed, head spinning.

"The geth who you know of, the ones who attacked Eden Prime and the Citadel would kill you and any organic they encountered." Illia agreed. "These are not the same. I too had my doubts, but they can and will prove it if you let them. They are very reasonable and the last thing they want to do is hurt you again."

"What do you mean 'again'?" Jak demanded. "Geth are artificial intelligences. They rebelled against their creators and..." He shrank back as another form appeared nearby. This one seemed to unfold out of the wall. It was the small green geth from the shuttle.

"In so far as it goes, that is true, Collains Pilot." The geth said calmly. "But the geth mean you and yours no harm. We never did." Jak opened his mouth, but Illia beat him to speech.

"AF-43765 is not lying, Jak." Illia said with a shake of her head. "It wouldn't. Geth see little use in lies. They are different from us, but… I have had my eyes opened to many differences in the last few years. Yours is actually fairly tame, compared to some."

"My… differences..." Jak said slowly, still not moving.

"Yeah." Illia looked down at Lara and smiled as Lara looked at her. "Yes, I was getting to that." Jak looked from one to the other and Illia nodded. "I can sense her mind on a deeper level than most. It has to do with what I am now. I am a translator for beings who cannot speak in any way that most would recognize."

"For which you are honored, Illia Translator." The geth sounded almost awed.

"Don't start." Illia heaved an utterly fake sigh and indicated the chairs again. "Lara, you need to sit. You have been awake for too long and it hurt you as well. You need time to heal too." Lara shook her head savagely and started for the bed, only to be jerked short by Illia's iron grip. She struggled but the asari was far larger and stronger. She made a face but sat as Illia guided her to the chair. Illia sat beside her, perching somehow on a chair that was far too small for two people. "Not until we explain. He cannot trust you right now. He may not after we explain, you know that."

Lara's face as she turned to look at Jak was pure desolation. She nodded and her head remained bowed.

"Lara Medic blames herself for what happened to you, Collains Pilot." The geth hadn't moved, a fact for which Jak was devoutly grateful. "She did hurt you."

"The slavers hurt me." Jak said flatly. "She wasn't..." He trailed off as both Illia and the geth nodded. "She wasn't one of them."

"Yes she was." Illia held Lara gently as the girl cried. "She was the medical specialist on the slaver ship that you disabled. The one that you and your team stopped from taking any slaves on Terra Nova." Jak inhaled but Illia held up a hand. 'Now, before you get any more upset, know that she too was a slave." Jak stared at the asari and Illia nodded." She was born on a colony far outside the Alliance. Her parents..." Lara heaved once in Illia's arms and the blue female crooned to her. "Easy, honey. Easy. I know it hurts to remember, but he needs to know." Lara collapsed into Illia's arms and the asari held her. "Yes, yes. I will tell him. No." She declared. "No, I won't let him hurt you no matter what you demand!"

"She is a mess." Jak said slowly.

"More than you know." Illia was stroking the girl's hair and Lara calmed a little. "Her parents were sharecroppers. Little more than slaves themselves to a planetary corporation before the pirates came. Lara lost her whole family that day. Father, mother and little sister. They enslaved her because she had basic medical training. That was more sell-able than basic laborers."

"So how did she wind up a slaver?" Jak demanded. Lara winced, but Illia just held her.

"Easy." Illia was still stroking Lara's hair. "The doc they had was a drunk and she was left in his care more than once. Batarians cannot mate with humans, but that doesn't stop some from trying. It wasn't about procreation, it was about control and causing her pain." Jak stared at Lara, horror overwhelming his rage. Illia nodded. "He hurt her, she managed to get free for a moment and kill him."

"Good for her." Jak said savagely. "And then?"

"The slavers were a crude bunch, but when they demanded she work for them to pay of her 'debt', she had no choice." Illia snarled in rage that matched Jak's. Lara subsided in her arms, still crying. "She learned to patch them up, even when she wanted nothing more than to kill every last one of them. She couldn't."

"So when I showed up aboard..." Jak said slowly.

"You were hurt very badly from a collision with the ship, but you were alive and pilot trained." The asari made a face. "You cost them a lot, but if they had managed to get you enslaved properly and sold you, they could have made a lot of money. Thing was, Lara was the only one who knew how to work the machines. And yes, before you say it, she did enslave others when ordered to. It was that or die."

"Survival often trumps morals." Jak muttered "So, when she put the implant in me, it impacted my pilot implant." Lara nodded savagely. "And that hurt me."

"Very badly." Illia sounded sad now. "Permanently as far as anyone can tell. It caused all of the problems you face today. Small wonder she blames herself."

"How could she have known where my implant was and how it was connected?" Jak asked reasonably. "That is secret information." Lara wilted further in Illia's arms and the asari pulled her back up, setting the girl on her lap.

"She feels that she should have done more scans. Not that she knew how to interpret many of them." Illia heaved a sigh. "But then, you were a mess. She had hurt you and she couldn't tell the slavers that or they would kill her, so she kept you going. The slavers joined the groups that hit Elysium and you know what happened there."

"Shepherd happened there." Jak said with a grin. Illia matched his grin and nodded.

"Yeah." Illia shook her head. "Say what you will about the Alliance, when they get mad, run the hell away!" Jak smirked at her and relaxed some more. "Which is exactly what the slavers that Lara was part of did. Thing was, they couldn't get away."

"What?" Jak asked. "Oh, the Alliance pursued them?"

"A particularly tenacious frigate chased them through twelve mass relay jumps." Illia said savagely. Jak stared at her, a whistle of awe escaping his lips. "Yeah. I think those navy guys were a bit pissed."

"Mostly that they missed the best part of the fight from what I understood from guys who were there." Jak agreed. "By the time they got there, the slavers were broken, fleeing from the militia and Shepherd. So..."

"So, the slavers did something amazingly stupid." Illia hugged Lara tight as the girl winced. "To escape the Alliance pursuit, they jumped into the Perseus Veil. Of course the Alliance stopped short at that." Jak whistled in awe.

Considering that the Perseus Veil was the boundary between the Terminus systems and geth space and it was worth any organic's life to enter that area? Oh yeah. The Alliance wouldn't have taken the chance.

"Eh, yeah." Jak winced. "I guess they figured the geth would do the job for them. I would have turned around right then too. Why didn't the geth kill us?" He looked at the geth who spoke of the first time since Illia had started.

"If heretics had boarded the ship, all organics would have died and been turned into husks." The geth sounded calm, but then again, Jak had no way to be sure since he was not an expert on mechanical inflections. He wondered idly if anyone was. "You did not encounter heretics."

"So what happened?" Jak asked the geth carefully.

"There was no consensus at first." The geth replied. "When geth boarded the ship, the remaining slavers fought. They died. The only organics who survived were this one." It waved at Lara "...and you. Collains Pilot."

"I still don't understand." Jak said slowly. "Why didn't you kill me? Us?"

"You asked us not to." The geth replied. Jak stared at the geth and then at Illia who frowned.

"Lara was gravely wounded, no threat at all to anyone." Illia hugged Lara gently as the girl gave another sob. "And you were all but dead. As far as any of the slavers knew, Lara was implanting you and it was taking longer than usual. As far as she knew, she had lobotomized you. The geth knew next to nothing about humans. So it was a hell of a shock when the geth detected measurable signals from your life support container."

"They...detected..." Jak stammered and then froze as something impacted his senses. It felt welcoming.

Welcome back to Consensus, Collains Pilot.

Jak stared at the geth and then he would have fainted, except something intangible, but every much there held him up and held his awareness as his body recovered from the shock.

We apologize. The voice… No. It wasn't one voice. It was many! That was too quick. Lara Medic warned us that we would be too quick to bring you back in and she was correct. We have missed you.

"This is not possible." Jak said weakly.

Yes it is. You made it possible. What I did to you made it possible. Lara's voice from before came into his mind. As did her pain and regret. I am sorry. I am so sorry.

"Lara, hush." Jak chided as Illia said the exact same thing the exact same way. They stared at each other and shared a mirthless chuckle.

After a moment, Jak managed to find his tongue. "Why would the geth help me or Lara. We are organics."

"Most geth harbor no ill will towards organics as long as said organics do not attack geth." The green geth replied audibly, probably for Illia's benefit. "We were curious. You were organic, but you were sending information in measurable ways. We believed you were attempting communication. All geth were stunned. No organic had tried open communication with geth since the end of the Mourning War. We did not realize at first that it was not intentional. By then, you had healed enough to be coherent. You were accepted among our consensus, Collains Pilot. You and Lara Medic."

I didn't deserve it. Lara said weakly on whatever odd wavelength she was talking on.

"Lara." Jak said flatly. "Come here." He held out a hand. She stared at it, dumbfounded. "Come here." He commanded. Illia rose and pulled Lara to her feet. Lara struggled halfheartedly, but Illia pulled her to the bed and sat her down beside Jak who took her hands in his. "Yes. You hurt me. No, I don't blame you for it. I didn't before, did I?"

Illia and the geth both shook their heads.

"I don't remember any of this." Jak said quietly. "Do I want to know why?"

"No." Illia would not meet his eyes and Jak sighed. "What you did was noble and brave beyond belief. You chose to forget. Lara tried to stop you and you wouldn't be stopped." Lara burrowed into Jak's side, still crying as she hugged him tight.

"What did I do?" Jak asked softly.

"There was an accident near the Veil." Illia said softly. "A colony ship lost its drives and pirates were descending. You asked to be sent out to help them. The geth consensus refused. They did not like the fact that lives would be lost, but they felt they had little choice. They felt that any activity outside the Veil would be traced back to them. They could not act openly."

"How do you know this?" Jak asked. "Were you here?"

"No." Illia sighed. "I was called in when Lara ran away to look for you."

"What?" Jak demanded. He stared at Lara who just hugged him tighter. "Lara? What?"

I hurt you so badly and you hadn't changed at all. So brave. So selfless. Lara said weakly into his mind. I had to find you. I had to help you. I knew you wouldn't remember, but I had to.

"What happened?" Jak demanded. "I do not remember any of this."

"That is because those memories were removed when you went to aid the crippled transport." The geth sounded sad now. "You delivered what they needed to restart their drives. But you knew you would not be able to return. You had planned to secrete yourself in a pod filled with slaves on one of the pirate ships that was not going to be able to escape the rescue forces. The plan did not work out as planned. You sent us your memories before disconnecting yourself from our consensus. It was traumatic for us all. Especially Lara Medic."

"I did what?" Jak said weakly.

"You undid what the geth did to help you." Illia sat beside Lara, her hand stroking the girl's arm as Lara sobbed. "Lara spent a large portion of the last decade in recovery from that shock. As soon as she was physically capable of it, she left the consensus too. That was when Legion called me. Bunch of pushy geth, I was happy on Illum! I could hide on Illum. Not out here. Geez."

"Lara, what were you thinking?" Jak demanded. He was not prepared for what happened. Her mind opened to his and he could feel her pain, her fear, her rage, her loss. She had been… She was connected to him!

I was thinking that the man I loved was a hero. Lara said sadly. That the man my mind was connected to was lost to us and I needed to find and help him. That all of us were all lessened by your loss. She hugged him even tighter and her mind wrapped around his. I could feel your pain and fear. It called to me. I had to go.

What...the… Jak couldn't quite articulate that. Lara? He could feel her love for him. He could feel her devotion, her need to be with him.

We are one. Lara said weakly. The geth helped us both, but after what I did to you and my own wounds, we are one mind that shares two bodies. More like a geth network than anything remotely human, hence why they helped us.

"We were curious." The geth said into the silence that fell. "You were both also deemed good souls. Neither of you ever showed any trace of animosity." It paused and then spoke again. "Except with pirates and Cerberus." Everyone looked at it and it spoke again "That was a joke."

"Oh great." Jak said with a sigh. "We are corrupting the geth with human humor. If the Council ever hears about this..." He winced dramatically. "So… now what?"

"The damage you sustained is permanent, Jak." Illia said gently. "It cannot be repaired by any means I know of. But I have heard some rumblings about what Ryder talked to you about. They have the best technology available. The geth were not able to heal you. Maybe Ryder's people can."

"I don't understand." Jak said slowly. "Why can't I stay here?" Illia looked at him and then at Lara who winced. "Oh. Um… Cerberus knows that the geth came for us now, don't they?"

"We would never leave you in their clutches." The green geth said firmly. "You cannot download to new platforms like we can. If your hardware fails, you are lost and that would be a shame."

"But what did they want?" Jak asked. "I get that they wanted to figure me out, but… Why?"

"We cannot give you back your memories but we can let you scan them." The geth stepped forward, a glowing blue orb of energy appearing in its hand and it raised it and extended it towards Jak. "You will understand."

Lara hugged Jak tight as he touched the orb. It didn't hurt. Indeed, it felt…

He couldn't help it. He cried as memory flooded in.