It was the same dream. The one he'd had hundreds of times before.
A world ablaze. Strange pillars of fire rising from the horizons, the countless alien buildings and their strange geometries lighting the world in an orange glow and blanketing the skies with black clouds.
He hated this dream.
ARMD walked among the ruins, letting the sounds of chaos and despair wash over him. Crowds of unfamiliar aliens ran past him in futile efforts to escape the destruction. Whenever he reached out a hand to grab one of them, they would just phase through him.
The ground shook, the crowd fell. A horn sounded, and a red light bathed the street. ARMD turned around to see the glowing red eye of a Destroyer, gathering energy for a blast. Beyond it stalked the kilometers-high profiles of dreadnought Reapers, walking the surface like living towers.
The Destroyer let loose its volley of energy, and as it seared through the crowd and hit ARMD, he woke up.
He was back in the engine deck, on the Normandy. He gave the room a quickly go-around to make sure, but everything seemed in place. He'd taken residence in Grunt's old room, and Zaeed had made himself back at home on the other side of the deck.
ARMD moved to get up, but found himself pulled back. Looking down, he saw that his arm was still open. A mishmash of wires and circuits splayed out on the table he had laid it on, with a backup power cable plugged into one of the outlets in the wall. He'd been fine-tuning his arm and went into maintenance mode halfway through.
With a grumble, he put his arm's "guts" back in their proper place and unplugged from the wall. Now able to stand up, ARMD walked out of the room. To his right, he could hear the signature hum of the Normandy's oversized mass effect core. To his left was the cargo bay, though it was mostly empty.
With nothing else to do, he walked forward to go chat with Zaeed. As soon as he was through the door, he heard what sounded like an ancient car backfiring.
It was Zaeed, snoring. Slumped back in his chair with a battered M-8 Avenger is his lap. On the table next to him was an open weapon cleaning kit, and the old mercenary had a white cloth loosely gripped in his right hand.
Well, talking to him was a bust. ARMD turned around and went toward the engine room. He'd heard stories of how ridiculously huge the core was, and it was always something he'd wanted to see for himself. As the door hissed open and he walked inside, he heard EDI's voice over the intercom, though she wasn't talking to him.
"—any serious damage."
Another voice answered her, with an electronic filter of its own.
"I'm sure the Alliance engineers did a very good job, but they don't know her like I do."
The voice was coming from the engine room itself. As he walked toward it, he spotted a figure tapping away at the engine console, oblivious to the world around her. She occasionally muttered something out loud, usually a criticism of the repairs.
"Did they really-"
"Now that's just lazy."
"How could you—"
"Hello?" ARMD asked. He had a good idea of who it was, but—
The figure turned halfway before reacting. With a shriek, she jumped back and pulled out a pistol, holding it level at the synthetic's head and firing. The bullet hit his dense skull at an angle and the relativistic projectile kept going, borrowing itself in his skull a good quarter inch.
It felt like someone had jammed a red hot needle in his head, and he clutched it accordingly.
"Fuck!" he managed to spat. He would have turned off his pain receptors a long time ago, but his creators saw it fit to hardcode the sensation in him. Being based on Reaper technology, they took every step to give him "human" mannerisms, as to prevent him waking up one day and deciding he didn't much care for organics after all.
"Kellah!" Tali shouted, running over to her victim. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"
"You just shot me in the head!"
Joker's voice came over the intercom just a second later. "Hey, EDI said she heard gunfire in the engine room. You throwing a party down there?"
"I shot ARMD on accident," Tali said, now gently trying to pry the synthetic's hand away from the wound.
"Wait wait wait," ARMD said, holding up his one free hand, "How do you know who I am?"
As Tali scanned the hole in his head with her omnitool, she explained. "I might have...listened in on some communications. Found out about this mission Garrus had. Then when I knew, he *had* to take me along."
"Well that and we kinda needed a synthetic expert. Hey, if Liara decides she's bored with the whole Shadow Broker thing, you could give it a whirl," Joker added.
"It's tempting," she replied. She pulled away her omnitool, speaking to ARMD. "It looks like your self-repair protocols will take care of it."
With a few slow rubs, he pulled his arm back down. "Yeah. Thanks."
He noticed that she still had her omnitool on, and was moving it up and down in front of him.
"Uh?"
"So, Alliance AI? I thought AI development was super illegal in the Alliance. Well, until the Reapers anyway."
"It was?"
Tali didn't reply, staring at some readout on her omnitool. Behind her opaque mask, he could tell her eyes were wide open.
"Hello?" he intoned.
"Your code is—"
With a sigh, he shut down his wireless connections, with Tali's omnitool going blank. She blinked a few times before looking up.
"None of your business," he grunted.
Joker came over the line again. "Hey, you guys might wanna came up to the bridge. We're almost to Karcheck."
[break]
Garrus stood in pilot room, arms folded. Outside floated a pale brown marble; the planet Karcheck. An arid world, its population before the invasion barely exceeded 50 million. Orange smears glowed on the dark side of the planet, cities still ablaze.
"Got anything, EDI?" Garrus asked.
"Negative, but this could be a false reading."
"Why?"
"Surface images are returning extremely low-resolution images. Thermal pings on the planet show uniform temperature, regardless of the fires. Something is actively blocking my scans."
"Can you pinpoint where it's coming from?"
"There is a signal I cannot identify coming from one of the smaller cities."
"Bomb it," ARMD's electronic voice chimed in. He was followed by Tali and a slightly groggy Zaeed. "If it's Reaper stuff, anyone around it is either long dead or indoctrinated."
"We can't know that unless we check it out," Garrus answered. He turned back to the planet. "EDI, how close can we get?"
"I cannot discount the possibility of AA fire, so I advise setting down within a few miles of the signal."
"Looks like we're going on a hike, then."
The turian didn't say another word as he turned around and motioned for the others to follow. As they did, Joker noticed out of the corner of his eye that ARMD kept a strange glare on him for the shortest of moments before breaking away with the rest.
"And I thought Legion was bad," he muttered under his breath.
[break]
The shuttle's thrusters pushed away loose gravel and dirt as it touched down on the planet. The door slid open, and Zaeed was the first out with Jessie in hand. Tali followed with her favorite geth shotgun, then Garrus with his Viper. ARMD jumped out last, Talon at the ready.
The shuttle, remote-controlled by EDI, lifted off and headed to a more secure location beyond the mountains.
They all walked forward in awe. In front of them was a necropolis. The fires that had raged on so much of the planet had already swept through, scorching everything black. Buildings that hadn't burned down now stood like crisp giants, the wind still blowing plumes of ash from their high floors.
No gunfire or distant explosions to give some sign of a resistance's remnant. This city was dead.
EDI came on the line. "The signal appears to be coming from one of the buildings up ahead. I cannot pinpoint which."
Zaeed grunted. "It's a goddamn easter egg hunt."
"Right," ARMD stated, walking out in front of the group. He holstered his gun, and the air around him shimmered. Within seconds, he'd taken of the appearance of a human husk.
"Keelah-" Tali breathed before the android turned back with a very un-husklike smile.
"I'll be doing my own thing, then," he said before turning around, running off in a perfect imitation his disguise's shambling gait, making perfect husk squeals and screams as he went.
As the synthetic ran into the city, Zaeed pointed at him. "If we run into him again, how the hell will we know it's him?"
"He'll be the first husk ever to say," Garrus answered throwing up his claws and doing a bad impersonation of ARMD's voice, "Don't shoot!"
"Right," Zaeed said, raising Jesse and taking point.
Tali followed, Garrus bringing up the rear with his sniper rifle. As they began to advance into the actual city, they relaxed slightly. No Banshee screams, no Cannibal suppressing fire, not one straggling husk. Tali sent drones into any building too unstable to check themselves, while ARMD made progress in the alleyways. Every so often they'd see him move between the buildings, his wave proof that he wasn't a hostile husk.
ARMD walked into a half-ruined bar and choose a stool to sit down on. Something wasn't right. For one, the city was too small; the Reapers should have just bombed it into a crater. Even if they did invade it, there should have been some signs of a struggle. The damage they'd seen looked almost entirely caused by the ongoing global firestorm.
And something else. Something he couldn't place. A strange...calm sensation kept overcoming him. It was noticeable outside, but for some reason weaker in buildings and alleys.
Idly holding his hand in front of him, he shifted through several forms: Husk, Cerberus, Alliance Admiral, and finally to his default appearance. None of them ever felt completely right.
He broke radio silence. "Garrus, you there?"
No reply. Whatever.
"Tali."
Nothing.
"ZaEEEEEEEEEE—"
His voice module failed. Electricity coursed through his metal body while multiple systems crashed and failed to reboot. He felt pain, white and hot, being forced into his back and he fell to his knees, sparks flying out of his own joints.
"Za. Za. Za." he repeated, stuck in a loop, though still thinking with painful clarity. A force knocked him to the ground, pinning him against his cheek and pushing him into the floor.
"Never seen one like this before," a voice from behind him said.
Another voice answered the first, much closer behind ARMD. "Maybe something new?"
"Probably. Should we drag it back or just decom it?"
"Let's take it back. Boss'll want to see this thing."
Most of his systems were still offline, but ARMD's voice program managed to restart.
"Let me go!" he spat.
"Not a chance, you reaper piece of shit!" the closer voice spat back.
He heard rustling, and was practically picked up and thrown back down on his back. Two batarians, wearing raggedy armor and pieces of tech he didn't recognize stood over him. The one in the back had his rifle trained straight on ARMD's head, while the one holding him down held a pistol right in front of his face.
"I want you to get a good look at us. The organics are taking control now!"
"I'm not a fucking reaper!" ARMD screamed.
"Your face and blue lights say otherwise, you genociding fuck."
His attacker pulled out a modified stun rod. Probably the thing he'd whacked ARMD with. He reared back, hitting the button as baton began to glow white hot and sizzle with electricity.
The batarian smiled. "Say goodnight."
At that moment, one of the windows to the bar shattered. The rear batarian's head exploded and his limp body fell awkwardly over a stool.
The other stood up, pistol at the ready.
"What the fuck?!"
He seemed to spot something just outside, and fired several shots through the broken window. He ducked before the returning fire could meet him, throwing himself under a table.
ARMD's right leg came back online, and he awkwardly tried to scoot himself away. The batarian saw him trying to escape, and levied his pistol at the android.
"Oh no you don't!"
He was distracted again by a pink sphere sphere crashing though the broken window. The batarian swung his gun to fire on the drone, but four white streaks of energy pulsed out from the drone. Each met with the batarian's four eyes, and he dropped both his weapons, screaming and clutching his face. The drone hovered over him, scanning him before delivering a much larger pulse to his neck. He fell limp, head falling to one side.
The drone turned its attention to ARMD, floating just inches from his face. After a moment, it rose up and floated away, exiting through the window it had entered.
Then shouting. It was Garrus.
"ARMD!" the turian shouted. "ARMD! You alive in there?"
"Yeah," he weakly sputtered.
From behind him, he heard one of the bar's doors open. He saw two yellow armored legs, and the front end of a rifle.
"Yeah, he's in here," Zaeed grumbled. "Looks like shit, though."
ARMD attempted to raise a hand to give him the finger, but could only move his arms by a few degrees.
Garrus ran into the building, looking down on the battered ARMD. "Damnit," he cursed. He pushed a button on his visor. "EDI, ARMD's down. We're gonna need evac."
A garbled mess of static answered, but nothing coherent.
"EDI! Joker! Can you hear me?"
Tali had kneeled in front of the synthetic, doing the best she could to localize the worst damage. She protested when ARMD slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, then slowly dragging himself into one of the bar's booths. His right arm trembled, and the red light in one of his eyes had gone completely dark. Several black lines had scorched their way down his spine, and small billows of smoke poured out of the open areas of his body.
While Garrus continued trying to hail the Normandy, Zaeed walked over to the attacker the drone had shocked and nudged him with his boot.
"Hey, Vakarian! Tali's drone just knocked this one out. He's still breathing."
"Really?" Garrus asked, walking over to the stirring batarian. Just as he opened his four, swollen eyes, Garrus leaned down.
"Who? Wha?" the batarian blurted.
"Hi, I'm Garrus. We've got some questions."