Chapter Eighteen

Legion's audio receptors pick up the clatter of metal falling from inside the ward. It lifts its head, listening intently. Silence stretches behind the door, waiting. Legion turns, ready with a query for the doctor, but she has vanished, leaving it alone in the hallway. Silence, for a second. Two seconds.

Then Legion feels a burst of fire within its chest, a spark snapping violently and filling all of its senses. Quiet pounds in its head, empty air brushes its fingers, but it knows, without any data or observation, and with more certainty than senses can provide. John is hurt.

The lightning builds up, arcing around inside, panicky. Legion tries the door handle, but it refuses to budge. The key card! Then the feeling comes again, and this time the energy inside grows and grows, the spark catching, flames of feeling, emotion, roaring through Legion's body. Its vision narrows, zeroing in on the door, the single flimsy obstacle standing between him and Shepard. He pulls back his arm, fingers curling into a fist, and slams it into the door. The steel door shudders but fails to give. Legion hits the door again, but he barely notices as the lock shatters and it falls out of its hinges, because he is already running.

Legion skids into the room, brushing aside the second door, his eye taking in everything in a microsecond. Shepard is pinned against a wall, blood dripping from his face, and inches away from him with his claws wrapped around the man's neck is a single Turian. Legion steps closer, into the room, and as he does the Turian turns to face him, shoving Shepard away as if he is a toy to be played with later.

The Turian swears, annoyed, and a blue omni-tool flickers to life around his right arm. Instead of the usual formation of panels, the translucent blue energy covers mostly the back of the Turian's hand, and as he closes his fist it closes over the surface of his knuckles, armoring his hand in crackling electricity.

The Turian speaks, and Legion doesn't hear. His mind is filled with red mist, nothing but the desire to kill the one who dared to touch Shepard, the overwhelming need to tear him apart in the most painful way possible. He steps forward, lashing out with enough force to crush a skull, but the Turian easily ducks underneath, his fist striking Legion in the upper chest. The omni-tool drives through Legion's shields as if they aren't there, denting the armor and sending tendrils of electricity out from the impact point.

Legion reels back from the blow, reaches up to deflect the next one as it comes. The Turian changes direction at the last second, catching Legion in the abdomen. The shock hits, traveling through Legion's system like a thunderstorm. Diagnostic programs cry out in distress, structural damage and overloading circuits screaming to be heard above the storm of rage. Legion drives forward, aiming for the Turian's ribcage, but once again his enemy is too fast for him. The Turian dances back, laughing, and as Legion stumbles, off balance, he sidesteps swiftly and crashes an armored fist into the side of the geth's head. Legion's vision flickers, and he feels the floor shift under him, and then the anger is gone and its knees buckle and it sinks slowly to the ground. The heat of the emotion vanishes, and Legion is filled with cold. Failure... The thought flashes in its mind, analytical and unfeeling. Shepard will die now. Failure.

…

But instead of delivering the final blow, the Turian turns back to Shepard, to gloat perhaps, to show him the death of his last hope. But Shepard isn't there.

Talek turns his head too slowly, and suddenly, like a whisper in a silent room, the little surgical knife is pressed against his throat. Talek's eyes drift slowly up to lock with Shepard's. The artery in his neck pulses under the scalpel's blade.

Shepard's eyes are the ice of glaciers. His face shows no emotion as a tear of blood slides down from a gash on his cheek. "When," he says, his voice like granite. "And where."

Talek stares wildly at him, and a chuckle works out around the blade. "He. Hehheh. You asked. Commander. Did I look away?"

"When. And Where," repeats Shepard.

"Well. I'll tell you, John. I'll tell you what I did." The Turian's voice rises, high pitched and feverish. "I looked into her eyes John! The poison already paralyzed her, and she couldn't move, and as I crushed the bag in my hand and filled her veins with it the look on her face—Nnhh"

The Turian's cobalt blood sprays across Shepard's face. He pushes the body away and it falls with a thump. The scalpel hits the floor, bounces off its point, and slides away under an upended table.

Shepard looks dispassionately down at the body for a moment, then very slowly he pivots on his heel and kneels down in front of legion.

…

Shepard reaches out a hand. Legion reaches for it. It he it he it takes the commander's hand, and pulls itself to its feet. The geth stumbles, balance sensors spinning momentarily. Shepard's other hand shoots out, steadying Legion by its free arm.

"Are you-" begins Shepard.

Suddenly Legion looks up, meeting Shepard's eyes with its own. John's lips freeze around the words, then close slowly. For a heartbeat they stand there, the oddest tableau, a man and a machine holding each other in the midst of a destroyed hospital room. Then Shepard breaks away suddenly, casting his gaze away from Legion. It falls to the floor of the room, and the lifeless body lying in a growing pool of blue.

Shepard's eyes close. His lips move, mouthing syllables Legion can't pick up.

Legion watches him until curiosity pushes it to ask. "Why do you speak to the dead, Shepard?" it says quietly.

Shepard looks up, his face fixed in the same stony mask. Then his features soften, and to Legion he seems more weary than anything else. "Because..." Shepard looks away, and Legion sees a muscle flex in his jaw. "Because I don't have to. Because people like Talek don't. Because it would be so easy not to, to not care. But you can't. It has to have a meaning, always."

Legion looks down at the corpse of the Turian. It tries to comprehend the Human's words. It seems that there is something just out of its reach, something more than is visible on the surface. There was, it feels, a difference between the Turian's death and that of the Asari maiden. There was a difference between what Shepard did and what Talek did. Legion suddenly remembers the many times it has killed, the remorseless pull of the trigger abruptly fresh in its memory, and it wonders with the onset of doubt if there was a difference there, too.

…

Shepard eyes the geth. Whatever the silent figure's thoughts may be, they are a mystery to him. There is a part of him though that wants the machine to understand, wants it to be capable of compassion. Why? Because you feel compassion for it? Shepard tries to ignore the thought. Feeling anything for a machine, even the smallest of sympathy, would be a waste of time.

So he tries to modulate his voice, keeping out the concern he knows he can't be feeling. "Are you hurt- ah, damaged, Legion?"

The geth's head swings to face him. A stream of sparks cascades from its neck at the movement. "We are not badly damaged, Commander. Repairs will be necessary however. We will speak to Tali'Zorah upon our return."

"Good," says Shepard. Must have knocked my head pretty hard in the fight. Don't know why I feel so relieved. "Can you get something out of his omni-tool?" He smiles ruefully despite himself. "I'm hopeless with tech, prob'ly end up breaking it."

Legion nods, and to his surprise responds to the comment. "Very well, Shepard. Balance is achieved then; in an attempt at hand-to-hand combat, this unit nearly broke itself."

Shepard blinks. That was very nearly humor, wasn't it? "Well," he says, nonplussed. "When we have the time, I should teach you to fight. I don't want you breaking yourself if it comes to close quarters."

Legion stands up and closes its omni-tool. "Very well. We have copied the data from the Turian's omni-tool. Further examination may be made later, but during cursory observation we have found several strings, likely pass-codes. If the Turian was in contact with our former adversaries-"

"-Then it could be the key to the Batarians' data!" exclaims Shepard. "Well done, Legion!"

The geth's faceplates rearrange themselves, unreadable.

Shepard looks around at the room. "I've had enough of this hospital. I say we let the good doctor clean up her own mess. I'm guessing Talek payed her enough to keep this all out of the news, too."

"Agreed," says Legion.

The two stride out of the hospital room and down the corridor of the abandoned ward. They come across the doctor that led them in again in the main hallway. She does a double take, face going pale as Shepard brushes past her. A slight smile plays across his face, keeping him warm as he and Legion exit the hospital and make their way back to the Normandy.

…

Back at the Normandy, Shepard and Legion stand at the briefing room table. Garrus is with them off to one side, inseparably involved with the mission. Tali stands beside him with her arms folded. Inseparably interested in Garrus, Shepard guesses.

He wipes again at the blood drying on his face, which is becoming a purple smear. While EDI checked the omni-tool for viruses he has been bringing the impromptu task force up to speed on recent events. Now they all wait apprehensively while the AI goes through the data. Shepard stares into the false wood paneling on the table. He has no idea what EDI will find. Talek's voice comes back to him, maddeningly sure of itself. Everyone on the Citadel will be so many atoms, floating in space... A matter of days…

EDI's voice snaps him out of his brooding. "Commander, I have used the codes from the acquired omni-tool to open the data storage file that you retrieved."

"What did you find?" Shepard asks warily.

"I believe you will find much of this information to be of use," replies the AI. "Also, although the extraction method was primitive to say the least, there was a program running on the mainframe that has transferred to my data banks in the up-link process."

"What? Is it a virus?"

"No, Commander. It is quite simple in nature. I expect the Batarians were using it to keep track of something."

"Well, what is it then?" demands Shepard.

"It is a countdown. The time is minus forty-nine hours and twenty minutes."