Machines
Jak sighed softly as he lay, Lara's head pillowed on his arm. She had finally gotten what she wanted and from her sated expression as she slept, it had been everything she had wanted. Jak felt numb.
The act had been pleasurable enough. For all of her apparent youth, Lara was not a novice at such things. His mind shied away from the implications of how a young girl on a slaver ship would get such experience. She was coping with her memories. Was he?
Jak had gone through hell. His small team had died holding the slavers away from a school that held women and children. They had known it was going to be bad as soon as they picked up the distress call from the isolated outpost on Tiptree but no one had counted on so many slavers. Six Alliance marines versus almost a hundred slavers with a building to defend? They had left a large pile of slaver bodies, but one by one, they had fallen., The slaver had brought their own Mantis gunships -two of them- and Jak had played a deadly game of cat and mouse with those, drawing them away from the colony. He had finally slammed the last to earth just in time to receive the last com from his team.
Specialist Horst had been a good marine. She hadn't been infantry originally. She had been a tech but when she had been assigned to the team she had learned just as fast as any that there were two kinds in fights that the team got into, the living and the dead. She had become a hell of a shot and a hell of a friend. Her com played in his memory just as it had in his cockpit.
'Sarge is down. They are breaking down the door! Walrus, we tried-' It cut out suddenly and he knew why. He had always known when such happened that a friend had just died. He had been so angry.
Why wasn't he angry now? He should be. Every time he remembered Horst's last transmission, he had been furious. But now? He stared down at Lara and shuddered. Had she done something? Had the geth? The rachni? Or was this on him?
He sighed again, deeply and then jerked as a door opened on the wall. He expected Illia or a geth to walk in, but instead, something small and round rolled in. He didn't recognize it, but it had to be some kind of grenade. He threw himself over Lara just as it went off, deafening him and blinding him even with his eyes tightly shut. Some kind of flashbang grenade! There was a screeling across his mind as well, static?
"No!" Jak screamed as three fingered hands grabbed him. He fought and something hit him, throwing him straight into darkness.
Some time later
Jak swam back to consciousness with a grunt. He jerked as memory flooded in, but did not move otherwise. He peered around through slitted eyes and the room was small and bare. It did not seem to have any furniture at all, but he wasn't lying on bare floor. He touched the floor beside him. Under his fingers, he felt woven cloth. A blanket? He was alone in the room. He was wearing an outfit that covered him for modesty purposes, but no more. He was unarmed but not restrained. Odd.
Someone had snatched him. Cerberus? That sort of made sense, but they usually used tech he could recognize. That grenade hadn't been anything human made that Jak knew of. Flashbangs were pretty common, but also fairly easy to recognize. Add the static that he had felt scouring his mind? No. Not human. What he was wearing did not look like human clothing. It wasn't a patient gown either. So he wasn't back in the loony bin.
Jak slowly sat up and winced as his head hurt. A quick hand found a medigel application at the back of his head. Right. He had been hit when he had struggled. He had seen his team do the same, for slavers they 'acquired for interrogation. Not enough to do permanent harm, just enough to knock them out. That took skill. Despite what holo vid entertainment said, a blow to the head was dangerous, almost certain to cause some kind of harm. He prayed that whoever had him hadn't hurt Lara. Nothing he could do about that. However…
He tried to call out to Lara on the odd wavelength they shared, but a hiss of static inside his head made him wince.
"Ah, you are awake." A cool female voice sounded from somewhere. The voice was pleasant enough, but the interest was in it was cool and clinical. Jak looked around, but could not see anything. "Good morning, Lieutenant Collains."
"Is it?" Jak asked quietly.
"It is morning." The other seemed unperturbed by Jak's lack of civility. "Your breakfast will be in shortly. I suggest you eat. You have a long day ahead." Not ominous at all, that.
"Do I?" Jak said into the silence that fell.
"There is no need to be rude." The other sounded snippy now. "We will not be uncivilized about this. We have questions. You have answers."
"Yeah." Jak said softly. "Quarians never act uncivilized, do they?"
"We need to know what the geth did to you, Lieutenant." The other neither confirmed nor denied his stab in the dark. But he remembered three fingers on the hands that had grabbed him. "You will not be harmed."
"Yeah." Jak muttered as he lay back down, mind whirling. "That is what Cerberus said too."
There was no reply and Jak sank back onto whatever he had been lying on. He was jerked out a doze by an irate voice.
"This is barbaric!" Another female, an angry one. Jak stared as a hidden door opened on one wall and a quarian stepped in She held a tray in her hands and was all but dancing in fury as the door closed behind her. She tapped it and her omni tool lit up. She grunted and then her tool vanished. "Lieutenant Collains?" She asked as she bent down and laid the tray on the floor. "My name is Elan'Shiya. I am supposed to help you." She did not sound happy about that.
"With?" Jak asked, not moving.
"Admiral Daro'Xen has...overstepped." The quarian said slowly. "Initiating action against a geth ship without conferring with the Fleet was an act that borders treason. But we did rescue you."
"Did you?" Jak's tone hadn't wavered. It was flat, emotionless.
"You are organic." The other said quietly. "They would have killed you."
"Yeah, the only communication between organics and synthetics is violence." Jak retorted. "You quarians know that better than many." His sarcasm was lost on the quarian. She seemed to relax.
"We do." The quarian said softly. "But I am to help you. Admiral Shala'Raan is on her way. She said she will contact the Alliance, see what they can do."
"And if I do not want your help?" Jak was still calm. Odd that. He should be furious at this. The quarian froze and seemed to be holding her breath. "Get out."
"Lieutenant Collains, please." The quarian raised her hands as if in supplication. "The geth did something to you. We need to figure it out."
"Get. Out." Jak did not move, but every muscle was slowly tensing. The quarian retreated a step back tot he wall. The door did not open. "Now."
"I cannot." Elan'Shiya retreated until she was as far from Jak as she could get and then slowly sank to the floor. "Until Shala'Raan arrives and countermands Daro'Xen's orders, I am stuck with you. And you with me. I scrambled the door. It will take them a while to break through my encryption. Even Daro'Xen will take time to do so."
"You locked yourself in a room with a madman." Jak shook his head. "That is bravery or insanity. Not sure which. Thin line there."
"As long as I am in here, you cannot be gassed or scanned as hard as Daro'Xen wants." The quarian explained. "If she hurts you, even accidentally, it will have drastic repercussions with our relations with the Alliance."
"And?" Jak asked as he scrutinized the quarian. "What do you want?"
"I want to help the girl who was with you." Elan'Shiya said quietly. Jak recoiled as if struck. "She refuses to speak with us."
"I wonder why." Jak snarked. "Having someone abducted is a wonderful way to introduce yourselves and prove trustworthiness."
"We rescued you!" Elan'Shiya did not -quite- growl that.
"Did she or I ask for your help?" Jak demanded. "No. You just acted. Oh well. If a couple of humans get fried in the perpetual war between quarians and geth, so be it. We do not matter as long as you get what you want." Elan'Shiya recoiled at the vehemence in his voice. "You have no idea what you have done. What you just unleashed." That wasn't Jak. He was stuck here, but… something wafted through him. He wasn't alone.
"No." Elan'Shiya said slowly. "No, we don't. And we need to. Please, lieutenant. Talk to me. We need to know what the geth did." Jak looked at her and then with a sour grunt, lay back on the floor and closed his eyes.
"The geth. Always it is the geth. Whatever. Bring on the scanners, the torturers, the whatever the fuck you quarians use." Jak said with a snarl. "I won't help you willingly."
"This… this isn't new." Elan'Shiya sounded stunned. "This isn't about the… The abduction." She admitted. "We have never met you before. What have the quarian people done to you to incur such hate?"
"Shut up, Elan'Shiya." The voice of what had to be Daro'Xen sounded from the hidden speaker. "He looks down on us like all of the others. Just like all the others. We are refugees who brought it on ourselves." Jak did not react to the admiral's words. "Well, if you will not be reasonable, maybe the girl will."
Elan'Shiya started to speak, but froze as Jak was suddenly on his feet. When he spoke, it was as if the room was suddenly several degrees colder. The rage that sang though him was ice cold. He stiffened. It wasn't just his anger! He wasn't alone in his mind. It wasn't like before, but he wasn't. He took comfort from that even as the rage sang through his words like music.
"Touch her and I will kill you." Jak's voice held no emotion whatsoever. "Then I will find your family and kill them. Then I will find your friends and kill them. Then I will find your coworkers, your colleagues, everyone who you have ever infected with your blind stupidity about the geth and I will kill them. You have no idea what you have done." He fought the rage that surfaced back down. It was hard. Then it was gone and something comforted him again.
There was no reply from the admiral.
"Why do you hate us so much?" Elan'Shiya begged. "What have we done to you?" She repeated and then paused. "Before." Jak looked at her, she was wringing her hands in worry. For him?
"Why would you care?" Jak asked as he sat back down. "Kill the geth, destroy the geth, obliterate the geth, neutralize the geth. It is all you know. All you will know. All you care about. There is no room in your minds for anything else. You lost your world. I get it. Nothing else matters but getting it back. Lives do not matter. Souls do not matter. So, go ahead, try to do what Cerberus did. Try and destroy mine."
"Cerberus." If Elan'Shiya was faking the anger in her tone, she was a very good actress. "They hurt you?"
"What does it matter?" Jak asked snidely. "Kill the geth!" He shouted at the ceiling. She did not react to his shout.
"It matters to me." The quarian said quietly. "They hurt us too, killed many of our people. We remember."
"You quarians remember what you want to remember. Everything else can go fly a kite." Jak snapped and then shut his mouth with a click.
"Why do you hate us so much?" Elan'Shiya was calmer now, her tone careful. "What did we do to you? This last thing? Yes. I understand your anger. They tore you from your friend. Brought you here against your will. But this is old anger. Not new."
Jak ignored her, staring up at the ceiling. He was trying to find that feeling that he had felt. The feeling of comfort from outside. It didn't feel mechanical. It hadn't felt like the geth. No, it had felt like… Like Illia! Uh oh! He stiffened even as Elan'Shiya tried again.
"Whatever we did, we can try to understand." The quarian said sadly. "Maybe we cannot fix it, but we can try."
"Where is Lara?" Jak demanded, not moving.
"She is in intensive care." Elan'Shiya bowed her head. "Whatever the geth did her, hurt her very badly."
"And the grenade you people used on us had nothing to do with that." Jak snarled and then he screamed as pure white hot agony tore through his skull. He convulsed and was barely aware as Elan'Shiya took hold of him, trying to help.
"Whatever you are doing, Admiral Daro'Xen, STOP!" The quarian yelled at the ceiling. "You are hurting him too!"
Jak could only writhe as spike after spike tore through his skull. He could feel Lara's matching pain and pulled as much of it into himself as he could. How did he do that? He didn't know how to do that, did he?
"This is treason, Admiral!" The quarian holding Jak screamed. "You are torturing him and her! That is against our laws and the Council's."
"Hush, girl." The admiral snapped right back. "We need to know what the geth did to them. Neither of them will not be permanently damaged."
"And that makes it right?" Elan'Shiya all but snarled as Jak suddenly fell still. "He is not a geth!"
"She does not care." That wasn't Jak speaking, but it was his mouth that opened, his voice. "I am just another machine, one she can disassemble and tinker with to her heart's content. I have no soul." That was him but not just him. "And Lara… She is hurting Lara." He was crying now and Elan'Shiya held him.
"I am sorry." The quarian said weakly. "I am sorry. I thought I could hold her off until Shala'Raan got here. Get her to stop."
"That type of person won't stop." Jak said sadly. "They have to be stopped." Again, that wasn't just his voice. "A human named Nietzsche put it well, the end justifies the means."
"It shouldn't." Elan'Shiya said sadly as she laid Jak back down. "If we forget why the geth rebelled, then we are no better than machines ourselves. Programmed to obey. We are not. We are people. Why do you hate us?" She pleaded. "Obviously, we earned your hate, but why? What did we do?"
"You, personally did nothing and the ones responsible are all likely dead by now." Jak tried to get up, to shove her away. He couldn't. "I had a friend who was quarian. He… left the fleet. You blinded him and he left."
"What?" Elan'Shiya sounded confused now. "Why would..." She paused and then hissed. "No. No. You didn't know Zumin! You couldn't have. He was gone long before either of us were born." Jak did not reply and the quarian touched his arm. "Did you?"
Whatever Jak was going to say was cut off by another missile of pure pain shot through his brain. Dimly, he was aware of the quarian gathering him up, holding him as he screamed and cried when the pain ebbed enough. He was aware that she too was crying but he couldn't do anything but writhe in agony.
It might have been seconds, hours or days before the pain cut off and Jak could do nothing but sob in Elan'Shiya's arms.
"Stupid boshtet." Elan'Shiya snapped as she tried to soothe Jak and failed. Something else rubbed his mind and he felt a little better. "Stop, Admiral! You are killing them both!"
"We are almost done." Daro'Xen sounded a little irritated now. "Your silliness is getting tiring, Elan'Shiya. When my scans are done, we will let you medics have them both and you can take the implants out so we can..." She broke off suddenly and alert klaxons started blaring.
"Too late." Jak breathed through remembered horror. "Now you have done it. You have hurt her. I can't stop them." That wasn't his voice even if it was coming through his mouth.
"What the hell?" Elan'Shiya dropped Jak and retreated, tripping over the forgotten tray.
"Hell indeed, Elan'Shiya vas Rayya." Jak didn't know where this odd stuff was coming from. He didn't know her full name. "Your admiral just stepped in it. She just started a war. And not with the geth."
Illia, no… Jak begged and a feeling for comfort seeped through him.
The door slammed open and two armed quarians stood just outside. Another in a dark envirosuit strode in and grabbed Elan'Shiya by the arm. Elan'Shiya struggled, but the other female quarian seemed to be far stronger. Both started speaking. Both were cut off by a new voice.
"Haven't you done enough, Daro'Xen?" A commanding voice sounded and another quarian female strode in, her posture angry. This one's envirosuit was lighter, but her posture was furious. "Let. Her. Go." No one moved and the newest come quarians all but snarled. "Now." The dark suited quarian stepped back.
"Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbey." Jak felt his lips move and everyone was suddenly staring at him. "You did not agree to this?"
"No." The other said sternly. "I found out what Daro'Xen did when Elan'Shiya contacted me. I came as soon as I could. Please… We can fix this."
"Can you?" That voice wasn't Jak's and it came from outside. Jak stared as the armed quarians spun, but froze. What greeted Jak's eyes as he looked down the hall outside was a horror. Illia stood a short distance down the corridor. She was unarmed. She didn't need to be. She was furious and dark energy swirled around her, moving here and there in her agitation.
The six rachni warriors that flanked her were even angrier.