"What the hell is going on?"
"I am not armed," Athena said calmly.
"Don't feed me that- you hardly need conventional weapons with the level of your biotics."
"You agreed to hear me out, Melara," Athena told her. "That was the price for providing you Moore-"
"That was five damn years ago, and you provided Moore because it gave you the chance to get ahold of that quarian merc. Stealing her out from under my nose kind of negates our agreement-"
"Melara," Liara's voice rang through the cavern as she stepped forward.
"Mama, stay back."
"I will do no such thing," Liara said tersely, halting between her youngest and Vina, who was nearly as tense on the trigger as her commanding officer was. Liara had her pistol in her hand but it was not raised. Her sky blue eyes fixed to Athena.
"Drop your biotics."
"Liara, much as I respect you, your daughter rather hates my guts," Athena said. "I drop my biotics and she will put enough bullets in me to turn me into ground meat."
"If you expect us to trust you, you must show some consideration," Liara told her. "Drop your biotics."
Athena looked at Mel a long moment, her eyes shaded, then nodded. She lowered her hand, the biotic shield vanishing. Grudgingly, Mel lowered her rifle, gesturing to the others to do the same.
"Start talking."
"It is a conversation that will take some time," Athena said, then turned her head, calling into the ship. "They are here!"
She stepped fully out of the vessel, moving aside as four more figures appeared. The first to step out was a scruffy human man wearing an ExiBaric uniform.
"Henry, are you all right?" Sallie asked. "What is going on?"
"We found a way to open the ship- they wanted to have a look inside," he said, and looked at the gathered group nervously. "What's going on?"
He moved aside at a touch on his shoulder before anyone could answer, and two more asari stepped out.
The first was a matron, with the muscular build and the contained grace of a trained soldier. Her eyes- an odd shade of green-blue with splashes of brown and gold- seemed to measure them all in turn, but she barely paused before stepping out of the way of the last. This one gave Liara a faint but affectionate smile.
"Hello, Liara."
"Eír? I must say, I was not expecting to see you."
"I know. Forgive me for using Aria to get you all here. I did not believe a message directly from me or Athena would be taken kindly by everyone."
"Did Aria know this was a ruse?" Melara asked.
Eír looked at her. "This is not a ruse, Captain," she said. "Five years ago, I purchased ExiBaric for the express purpose of getting a mining team to this exact location. I was hoping to find what we have now indeed found. When I learned of the discovery, I informed Aria, and she in turn informed all of you. No falsehoods were told, the identity of her informant was simply not revealed."
"You knew this ship was here?"
"I knew that something was likely to be buried here under the ice," she said, then looked at her daughter. "Athena- you owe Mel that explanation."
Melara narrowed her eyes a bit, then looked at Vina. "Get the civvies on the lift and send them back up to the main complex. Make sure Sallie gives us lock-down access and sends it back down so we can use it."
"Am…I one of the civvies?" Gerty asked, having overheard. Melara looked at him.
"You were vetted by the Council, I wasn't including you in that order. You are free to stay if you wish; just know that everything you may hear is considered part of this classified project."
"I understand. I'd rather stay."
Vina had lowered her weapon when Mel had. Now she shipped it, escorting Sallie and Henry across the room and toward the lift. The moment they were out of ear shot, Mel's eyes returned to Athena.
"Speak."
Athena folded her arms. "I told you part of this all years ago, when I came to Virmire," she said. "Do you remember the threat I told you of? The subtle hints and vague clues that told a troubling tale-?"
"Of course I remember," Mel said tersely. "You nearly killed my father extracting her nanites based on your 'hunch'."
"Your father submitted to that willingly, and I stand by what I said then. With that act she may very well have saved the galaxy a second time."
"Were you able to hack the nanites and extract the needed information?" Liara asked, the very neutrality in her words belying her emotion. Athena looked at her almost sheepishly.
"Not just yet, but that may well be rectified very soon," she said, then looked at Mel again. "I started tracking Red when I noticed she was selling rare artifacts that should not have existed. The Cinch was only the last and most powerful one. I had to find where she was getting them from, and tracing her steps would have taken far too much time. More, I needed her unique talent at sniffing these things out in my employ. Yes, I used you to make sure I could get hold of her and have leverage to earn her cooperation-"
"And it never occurred to you to just explain things to me up front?"
Athena just arched an eyebrow and gave her a look. Mel glowered, knowing full well what would have happened. She would have completely dismissed her, if she even bothered to listen.
"At any rate," Athena continued on after a moment. "Red was most helpful. She directed me here, where she had picked up the Cinch."
"I'd stumbled on the unique static signature that such artifacts give off," Red said with a shrug. She was leaning against the wall as if at a party. "Usually it's completely lost in the background radiation static of normal space, but I figured out how to fine-tune my scan to pick it up. Even so, it's got a pretty limited range. I picked up a faint signal when passing this moon, so I landed. Found the Cinch half frozen in this glacier, exposed by a crack- it was about four feet down, not that hard to extract. There were some other remains with it…bits of cloth, I think- trace amounts of bone-"
"Do you have these items?" Liara asked. "Did you have them analyzed?"
Red shook her head. "I was looking for items to sell, not bits of bone," she said. "Most of it was destroyed when I set off a grenade to blast the Cinch out of the ice. The other bits I just left scattered- they've long since blown away."
Liara actually looked physically pained at the news. Irie shook her head. "So the location of the Cinch in this particular spot lead you to try and see if anything else was buried."
"Yes, but we hardly wanted to draw attention to a potentially massive excavation. So Tama purchased ExiBaric and made sure a methane-extraction team got planted here to do our digging for us."
"Why notify all of us?" EDI asked. "You have seemed perfectly content to pursue your own investigation without our aid thus far."
"Partly because you are already involved. I believe that the threat this galaxy is still facing has to do in part with Irie's discovery of the exo-Reapers around the local galaxies," Athena said. The news surprised no one- it would have been incredibly naïve to believe she would not have learned of them by now, not with her information contacts and expertise.
"You believe they intend to come here again?" Irie asked.
"No, though I cannot be sure. I believe they are instead a symptom of a much larger problem," she said.
"You said 'partly because,'" Melara said. "What was the other reason you informed us?"
Athena pursed her lips almost sheepishly, glancing at her mother before she looked back at Melara. "It is true, I have not been able to extract the information yet from the nanites I took from your father. However, my efforts have not been idle, nor in vain. I have learned a great deal about the data locked away within them, from the small handful of artifacts that we have found contemporary to this ship. Tama's Cinch, for example."
"You still have it?" Liara asked, looking at her sister.
"Yes. I have kept it locked away and safe. It is an evil device, and after seeing what happened with Anadius I wanted it nowhere it could do damage. It has been used only for study."
"It was a smaller artifact we found that provided the final answer," Athena said, then activated her omni-tool. A projection of what looked like a tiny scrap of metal appeared in mid-air. "This was all we found of it, and it appeared useless and purposeless. What structure it was once a part of I cannot fathom, but it had faint radiative signatures that matched those that can be measured both in the Keepers and in key areas of the Citadel," Athena said. "On deeper examination, I discovered- quite briefly, a trace of a complex sentient program."
"An AI?" EDI asked.
"Yes. Software, something like a single geth. I was able to activate it and it lasted only a moment before the programming loop collapsed and degraded, but-"
"If it lasted only a moment, how do you know it was a sentient program?" Irie asked. Athena sighed.
"I had it connected to an output modulator. I know it was sentient, because regular programs do not scream in what sounds like pain. I managed to record the scream and analyzed it, found what appeared to be language tones buried in its ultrasonics. It took a bit to translate them into galactic, but when I did there were two distinct words. Help me."
Irie visibly shuddered, and Liara covered her mouth briefly. "Goddess."
"A single, ancient synthetic life," EDI said softly. "Trapped in that bit of hardware for millions of years. A life form similar to the geth?"
"That's my belief, which is why I wanted you and Joker here as well," Athena told her. "If I'm right, there just may be similar programs in the systems of this ship. Programs that can access and analyze the data in the nanites. I am going to need your help to power this ship, if it is even possible, and interface with those programs."
"Let me be sure I understand," Melara said tersely. "You want to power a forty million year old vessel- without knowing where it came from or who designed it or how it even works- then interface EDI and Joker with completely unknown systems with potentially hostile software in the hope it can help you unlock those nanites?"
"I am not going into this blind, Melara," Athena replied angrily. "I have been researching these artifacts in depth for centuries now. I would not risk it if I was not confident in the outcome- but yes. It is a risk. I simply cannot be one hundred percent sure. We are dealing with too many unknowns. If I am right, however- those nanites hold not only the truth behind the Reapers' existence and why they are intent on slaughtering all organic life in those horrible Cycles, but also the truth behind an even greater threat that may be bearing down on us all right now. Regardless, your father suffered for years because of these locked memories. She may not have believed me fully, but she believed enough that she was willing to cut short her final hours of life in order to let me extract them. Or are you going to let that hope and sacrifice be in vain?"
Melara pulled out her pistol, aiming it at Athena's face with such swiftness it almost seemed to appear out of thin air. At the same moment, Athena lit up with biotics, the powerful energy literally crackling through the frigid air.
"No!" Liara cried out, startled. She knew perfectly well what Athena's biotics were capable of, and terror that she would use them against her daughter thundered through her. Sihra snarled, tensing, as Dae and the remaining security started lifting their own weapons as well. Vina, on her way back across the room from the lift, reached for her own as she broke into a run.
All of this happened in what felt like a millisecond. It wasn't until shortly afterward that Liara realized Red and the other silent asari didn't so much as blink, remaining in their casual, relaxed stances.
No shot was fired. Almost the moment the gun was to bear, Melara was encased in biotics…and so was Athena.
"That is enough," Eír said, her hands held out. As powerful as Athena was, her mother was every bit as powerful and far more experienced. "We have greater concerns on our plate. We all owe it to Del Shepard to cooperate in this venture. We know of the existence of the exo-Reapers. While they may not be on their way here, now, that does not mean that will not change. That alone is of great enough consequence to put aside our differences. If Athena is correct, and something even greater than the Reapers is coming, it will take all of us to discover its nature and put a stop to it. If she is not correct, at least we will have put the matter to rest and can focus on the exo-Reapers."
After a moment's pause to let that sink in, she released her biotics. Melara lowered her rifle, indicating to her group to do the same with a sharp nod. Athena, eyeing her warily, let her biotics die. Eír nodded. "Good. Now. Where do we move forward from here?"
"How long will it take to determine if these sentient programs are indeed in this ship's systems?" Melara asked, her voice controlled but taut.
"With EDI and Joker's help, it should not take long," Athena said. "Provided we are able to actually power the ship or a portion of it, which may take significantly longer. If they are there and we can form a link or establish communication with them, we can have them extract the information from the nanites within a few hours. I have my translation program algorithm from the first of these life forms I encountered. Within six hours from now, we should know what it was that was locked away in Del Shepard's mind from the moment she fired the Crucible."
"Then you have six hours," Melara said firmly. "EDI, Joker; it is up to you if you want to help her."
"There are some risks," EDI said, glancing at Joker. "We will be interfacing with a completely unknown system and alien programs that may have intentions and purposes we cannot prepare for. I believe with careful analysis of Athena's data and adequate preparation, we will be able to enjoy success. If this information is as important as Athena indicates, I am willing to attempt the interface. Bringing a few of our geth down to assist would provide additional processing time and failsafes in case of unforeseen contingencies."
Joker shrugged. "Hell, I'm game," he said. "Eír's right. If Shepard really did see or learn something that indicated an ongoing threat to us, you know she'd be doing everything in her power to find out what it was and neutralize it. At any rate, it should be interesting. Talking to an alien life that hasn't existed for millions of years…it'll be like hanging with Javik again, only hopefully less annoying."
"Then let us get to work," Athena said, turning toward the ship. "The sooner we get started, the sooner we have our answer."
The geth arrived, riding in two mobile trooper chassis and bearing with them some specialized equipment EDI had requested, carrying it inside the alien ship. The door, it seemed, opened onto a tunnel that travelled without branch or deviation for quite some distance before it opened into a large egg-shaped room that EDI believed was some sort of a command center. While waiting for the geth, she and Joker had started examining the structure, Sam Williams, Irie, Athena, and Gerty helping.
Melara stood in silent observance. Sihra had managed to take a single step onto the ship before she uttered a curse and stepped off it again, declaring it a rotting corpse. Unwilling to set foot on it again, she had stationed herself as a guard in the cavern.
As the geth carried the equipment inside, Liara approached her youngest daughter. Before she could say anything, Melara spoke.
"You know her?" she asked. Following her eyes, Liara looked at the strangely silent asari.
"They call her the Wolf," she said. "Her face crossed my desk more than once when I was the Broker."
"What's her story? Why is she with them?"
"Her story is the same as many others. She fought in the war, suffered great tragedies and personal losses, as so many did. Afterward, she worked for Aria for a time. I know nothing of her movements after I lost the Brokerage."
Melara hummed under her breath thoughtfully, but remained silent. Liara didn't need her daughter to speak to know what she was thinking- the same thought was crossing her mind.
Eír had worked for Aria for a time after the war as well, and the two remained compatriots. It was highly likely Eír would have met the Wolf during this period. While she would have to ask to be sure, Liara suspected that the reason the Wolf was here now was not out of any employment, but rather because it was likely she was Athena's father. Liara had asked Eír about Athena's father before, and her sister had only smiled sadly, admitted her love for the other parent of her child, but then added that their relationship was 'complicated'. No name had ever been given.
Both her sister and the Wolf were very schooled in their emotions, and their interactions here gave little to nothing away. That was not so for another pair in the room, and Liara lifted her brow after a moment, then spoke softly to her daughter.
"I believe I know why the quarian remained with Athena, even after revealing to her where she had discovered that Cinch."
"Oh?" Mel asked, switching her attention. Athena was crouched with EDI and one of the geth near one of the walls, setting up one of the equipment bank. Red was half leaning nearby, watching them intently.
"I do believe she is enamored of her."
"I should warn her then," Melara snorted. Liara gave her a sharp look.
"All in life deserve love, Melara. This hatred you continue to hold for Athena poisons you more than it harms her."
"She nearly killed me, Mama. That I can almost forgive, but she nearly killed you too. It's only because of your pleading that Bába didn't go after her to skin her alive after she took the Brokerage. She's malicious, deceitful, and dangerous."
"She also makes you reckless," Liara said. "You do foolish things when you are blinded by your rage at her, Melara. Rage was your father's constant companion, yet she did not let it control her. You are in grave danger of letting yours control you."
Melara glared over at her cousin, knowing her mother was right. She lost all sense and reason when she dealt with Athena. Her training, her rationale, all went out the window in favor of self-serving hatred. Yes, Athena had almost killed her- but she knew logically it had been an accident, and just as horrifying for her as it had been damaging to Melara. She also knew that if Athena had really wanted to kill Liara when she took the Brokerage, she would have done so.
"I do not trust her," she said. "And I will not like her. But…I shall try not to let my feelings get the best of me."
"I would be satisfied if you would at least treat her with the same stiff, cold disdain you treat my bondmate," Liara said lightly, teasing. Melara blinked at her.
"What? I do not treat Dr. Williams with disdain-"
Liara fixed her with a look. "That is a conversation that has been a long time coming- but this is neither the time nor place."
She looked around at the room, her eyes glimmering. "All other considerations aside, this ship is remarkable. So simply elegant, so perfectly alien. I have never seen its like. Eír and Athena seem to believe it is contemporary to the Reapers and the Citadel, but it is so different from them. It does not seem constructed at all but almost- carved, or molded into existence."
"You don't think it was built by the Red Queen's kind, do you?"
"I do not know," Liara said honestly. "It is certainly possible. The crashed ship that we saw in that cavern on Rannoch was nothing like this, however. It was old, but quite clearly and recognizably a constructed ship. Of course, we do not know how many ancient cultures or species we are dealing with. There could have been hundreds, thousands. Perhaps that ship belonged to the Red Queen but this…the Iovino maybe?"
Melara made a thoughtful sound. The Red Queen had hinted at the idea that 'Iovino' was not actually a name of a person or a title of a particular type of champion, but rather an entire species. The trap that had captured her had been set by the Iovino. She had sent her thralls out in search of an Iovino to let her loose. At least, that was what they had gleaned from her clearly broken and raving mind. How reliable such information was, coming from a million-year-old psychotic lunatic, was in deep debate.
She looked over at the group that was finishing with the equipment. "Well, maybe if we find those ancient AIs or a way to access this ship's databanks, we will find out."
"Liara?" Sam's voice suddenly lifted from across the room. Touching her daughter's arm, Liara headed her direction. After a moment's pause, Mel followed.
"What is it?"
Sam straightened to her feet, dusting off her hands. "We have no way to activate or even locate the ship's actual power core- if it even has one," she said. "But it appears the hull captures and holds ambient energy that comes into contact with it. See?"
Melara still had not gotten used to the sight of Sam's 'biotics'. Rather than the dark energy flaring strictly blue, the color it produced was closer to purple, tangled with licks of white. It had been altered by her contact with several strange Inusannon artifacts, and not even the specialists and medics she'd consulted since had been able to really account for it- but it was clear that what they had dubbed 'extrobiotics' were both remarkably powerful and amazingly, physiologically, stable.
Her hand lit up now with licks of that purple and white as she gently placed her palm on the dark wall. Immediately, a soft glow began around it, and as she drew her hand back and stopped her biotics, a luminescent hand print remained where it had pressed for several seconds, before fading.
Reaching past her, Liara did the same with her own biotics, with the same result. "Fascinating. I wonder if it reacts this way only with dark energy, or if other forms of energy also charge the structure?"
"It may be that this ship has no real power core," Athena said, looking up from her work. "Instead, it could work completely on solar power or ambient background radiation in space itself- basically giving it an endless fuel supply."
"So long as it remains in space or in sunlight. Doesn't do the ship much good to be buried under two miles of methane ice," Melara said.
"Either way, it bodes well for us," EDI said. "Even the combined biotic power of everyone aboard would not be enough to fully activate the ship, but I believe a sustained pulse by Eír or Athena will charge this section long enough to identify and connect to any computer systems, and facilitate the location and extraction of any AI programs that may be within."
"How long until you can try?" Melara asked.
"Another half an hour to fully connect this equipment and run it through a few final checks," she said.
"Which leads us to another consideration," Athena said, looking up at Liara with hesitation. "If we do find these AI programs we need something to hold them in, some sort of interface for communication."
"I thought that was what this portable equipment bank was for," Dae said.
"It was, but it is looking less likely that it will work," EDI told her. "I have gone over Athena's preliminary data from her brief examination of the one AI she encountered. While this bank has enough storage and processing power to hold one, perhaps two of these AI signatures- that is all it will be able to do. Holding the AIs sustained within incompatible technology will take all of its runtime. There will not be enough left to even allow myself or the geth entrance to set up the virtual interface needed for communication, translation, or the analysis of the nanites memory storage. We need an extremely sophisticated and independent system to handle these processes, without overtaxing the storage bank."
"How sophisticated?"
"Incredibly complex," EDI said. "I already have a solution. Joker and I have spare chassis on board the Freedom. I can modify one for our purposes. It can both house several of these AI signatures and provide the interface we need for communication, translation, and interaction. Meanwhile, this bank can be used to analyze the nanite memory storage and serve as an extra processing router, and as a base where we can connect and monitor the information stream from the inside."
"So these theoretical AIs will have control of one of your bodies?"
"They will have control of some systems and the speech processing centers. I will sever the unit's wireless capabilities as well as its larger motor functions-the AIs will not be able to transmit wirelessly, or move the unit more than I specifically allow. If they attempt to leave the chassis, they will be unable to do so- the ship itself will be cold once again, and not have the power available for them to return along the hardline connection."
"If you are confident it is safe and possible, I think that's a good plan," Melara said.
"There is something else you need to be aware of before we proceed," Athena said. Though she was still looking specifically at Liara, it was clear she was talking to everyone.
"What is it?" Liara asked.
"These nanites contain far more than just that locked away information we need," she said. "They coded the memories of those blocked events, just like they coded memory engrams of every bit of neural activity in Shepard's brain from the moment they were implanted."
"You are saying that all of Bába's memories are on these nanites?" Irie asked.
"Her memories, the way the electrical impulses in her brain formed unique thoughts, moderated physical function-" She sighed. "There is a very strong chance- over ninety percent-that when the nanites are unlocked it will unlock all of these things as well. The AIs will have access to these memories, and considering how we have to set up the interface-"
"They will know everything she knew," Melara said softly.
"No, a bit more touchy than that. The nanites must dump their information in the exact same manner they were encoded-organically. For as long as those nanites are active for our purposes and interfaced with the AI programs, they are going to react exactly as they would if they were still in Del Shepard. For all intents and purposes, they are going to think and speak as if they were Del Shepard."
Liara had gone pale, her eyes distant. Sam worriedly touched her arm. Mel felt every muscle in her body tense, but Irie's tear-filled gasp was more visceral.
"What?"
"For several minutes we will be talking to something that thinks it is Del Shepard. It is going to have her personality, her experiences, all the way up until the moment the recording ends- in this case, the moment she loses consciousness during the Citadel battle, when these nanites isolated themselves due to the Citadel program. It will remember her entire life to that point, in every perfect detail-including the experience that has been locked away. To its limited level of awareness, boosted by the AIs, it will be Del Shepard. It will be on that Citadel, badly wounded, suffering, dying. The interface will allow it to hear us, and to speak, but it will firmly believe it is Del Shepard…and…likely, it will believe it is dying, alone and terrified."
Irie muffled a sob, Gerty moving over and putting his arm around her. Mel could feel herself trembling, one hand gripped so tightly her fingers ached. Her jaw ached too as she clenched her teeth against the stream of fury that wanted to escape her. Sam had her hand on Liara's arm as if to steady her.
"She will be able to hear us?" Liara asked in a low voice.
"Yes, and speak to us," Athena said. "That is the communication interface. Liara, this will not be Del Shepard, merely an echo of her memories and personality, encoded in bits of data. It will be nothing more than a simulation, played out. Its interactions will be somewhat limited as it will not be capable of abstract or independent thought- it can only draw on memories and experiences coded specifically into it. It may try to react in an abstract way that is consistent with Del's personality- it all depends on the sophistication of these potential AI programs- but there will be increasing errors the more abstract it becomes. My suggestion is to just leave the talking to me. I will limit myself to specific questions that only deal with the information we need- anything further will only put you through pain and grief that are not necessary. It is best if you do not interact with it, and repeat to yourself that it is only a program, not the real Del Shepard."
"No," Liara said softly. "No, you said it will be experiencing what she did. It will believe it is in pain, dying, and frantically trying to stop a war. It will be lost, blind, and confused. Our best bet to get the information we need is if it thinks it is speaking to someone Del trusts- if she…it, believes it is not alone. It needs a familiar voice in all that chaos. It needs me."
Athena shook her head. "You will be tearing open an old wound, Liara. Why put yourself through that?"
"Athena." Eír came forward and gently put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Liara knows it will not truly be her Shepard. You have made that clear. But she is right- it will think that it is, and in its stress it may be less cooperative with a stranger. It will believe it is in danger, under attack. Liara will be instantly recognized and trusted. Besides, I do not know what I would give to have one final chance to talk to Shrive- even just a simulation of her. To tell her that I overcame Gellian's program, that I lived to find love again, and have a child. It may not be her, and it may not even understand, but that is not the point."
Athena looked at her mother, then around briefly at Red. Finally, she nodded. "Very well then. It will still take a couple of hours to be ready, provided all of this even works as we are theorizing. You have until then to prepare yourself."