"This is your future, if you continue," the boy said.

Shepard looked around. He imagined he could hear thunder coming from a ravaged place on the other side of the world. "Where are we?" he asked.

"On one of many worlds that suffered through the chaos, before the harvest."

Shepard blinked. Far away, he saw spidery synthetics crawling over the bodies of creatures that had looked like green, four-limbed bipeds, some as high as two meters tall. Shepard heard the emptiness of the synthetics' thoughts. Our creators are gone. Our purpose was to serve the creators. What is our purpose now?

Shepard remembered the panel. The Crucible. The panel was gone. He didn't belong here. He fought to concentrate. He tried to remember the room. How it looked. Anderson's body. He said to the child, "I need to use the Crucible, or we're going to end up like this. Help me."

"No. You will not. You must ascend. It is the only way."

He didn't understand why, but something about this child enraged him. It was only a boy, but it wasn't acting like one. "Preserved... ascension? I don't understand. The protheans believed that the Crucible could destroy the Reapers."

"The Crucible will end the cycle. Chaos will return." With a sound like autumn leaves, the burned-out world vanished, replaced by another, and another, and another. "We hold the chaos back. You must ascend."

"The cycle... the Reapers?" Shepard felt like someone had poured ice water all over his body. He grit his teeth. He wasn't talking to a boy at all. "Harbinger."

Shepard shouted, "Get the hell out of my head!"

The vision shattered and Shepard was back in the control room. He felt anciently tired. How much blood had he lost? His armor meekly tried to keep him alive, but it was barely working.

The panel waited for him to continue. A transparent, sparkling version of the boy stood next to him. Shepard turned back to the panel. As he started again, the puzzle cascaded. Grew more complex. At first Shepard thought he had done something wrong, but then he saw harmonies and layers inside the cascade. It wasn't more complex; it was gaining strength. It was working.

Shepard wobbled on his feet. He grabbed hold of the console as his ears roared and a haze of dots swam over his eyes. The pain from the wound in his side stabbed him back to clarity. He felt tired.

He had to keep working. He hoped he finished before he passed out.

Or died.

. . .

"Miranda, I have narrowed down the region of possibility to approximately one cubic kilometer at the base of the Citadel. These are areas impenetrable to humans, in contact with the transport beam, and within Shepard's movement distance since he arrived."

It was still too big. They would have minutes. Maybe not even that. "What about a probe?"

EDI paused. Miranda smiled. That had to be a good sign!

"An array of probes in a search pattern could provide seismic telemetry of those regions. A rough schematic."

"Do it. Fire as many as you need. We're not saving them for anything."

"Understood."

Miranda swallowed. The tactical display looked grim. With the fleet going toe to toe with the Reapers, casualties were mounting. The Reapers would know they had been in a fight, but it didn't matter if they were all dead.

. . .

"Life must be preserved. Our purpose is the preservation of life through ascension," the shining boy said.

Shepard kept working. He felt cold, and he had to lean on the console to stay up. He moved glyphs with both hands, placing them on instinct. The puzzle looked like a fractal unfolding in front of his eyes. He could almost feel the floor vibrate with the building power.

Through the transparent display, he saw two Reapers wither and stop moving under massive bombardment. Bits of them floated aimlessly. Shepard would have cheered, but a dozen ships from the fleet died just where he was looking. Beyond that, he could see a patch of Earth burning. It looked like everything between Berlin and Paris was on fire.

He swallowed. His breaths even felt cold. "Why don't you talk to me in that satanic rumble you usually use?" he asked. He already knew the answer: because a boy's life mattered to him.

Harbinger continued, "That which you call Reapers were created to bring an end to chaos. Organics create synthetics to exceed their physical limitations. Synthetics evolve and surpass their creators. By harvesting organics and synthetics, we prevent their loss from existence, and allow new life to flourish."

Now it wanted to talk. After millions of people had died, now it wanted to talk. "Brilliant. You have an orderly cycle of armageddon. We wouldn't want it to be messy. Did it occur to you that we're all dead either way?"

"Not dead. Ascended. We harvest genetic and synthetic life. Your bodies, your knowledge, and your creations are reborn in Reaper form."

Shepard would have made a fist if he could spare the time. "You make 'reducing our bodies to goo' sound so vulgar."

His vision hazed over again. Shepard grabbed the console before he fell down. He coughed, and the act hurt so bad that he cried out. It was all he could do to stay on his feet. Shepard moaned.

"You are an anomaly. Your presence here creates an opportunity. You can create peace between synthetics and organics."

Shepard forced himself to breathe slowly. Push, soldier. Push! Stand up!

"You can end the cycle, and succeed where we have not."

He came back to his feet. Shepard stared at the puzzle. He could see similarities in between organic and synthetic radiation. Either he was hallucinating, or Harbinger was telling the truth.

"How?" Shepard asked.