The Shepherd felt something, something it had not felt before. It spent a full 0.06 seconds analysing the mysterious emotion and identified it as guilt.
It made a note of the moment. If anyone had been able to convert it to an organic language it would have read:
8:37am Friday 8thof September 2186. The range of experienced emotional reactions has expanded to encompass guilt.
But what was the source, the events at Omega? No, Shepard's memories showed that she had held a deep dislike and even scorn for the station. Some small and very human part of the Shepherd had taken secret pleasure from watching Aria T'loak's humiliating surrender. No the shame was radiating from something that was yet to happen.
In the mindscape the Shepherd kneaded its forehead. It was still so hard to concentrate.
On Eden Prime a gang of youths dragged a husk into an ally and beat its head in with bats.
A small Turian fleet in the Shrike Abyssal wiped out a lone pirate vessel out of fear that they would breach the armistice. It could see thousands of little individual stories all playing out at once.
No! Focus! The Serpent nebula, in orbit around the scorched world of Bekenstein, it was the reason it had a forehead to knead in the first place. It only took this form around one sentient being.
"It's remarkable." Liara was saying. She was standing inside the superstructure of a Reaper capital ship, one of the four that had remained behind to construct the new relay. That was what she was commenting on, through a transparent panel nestled between two of the monolithic armour plates on the Reapers back she could see the other three ships working away on the skeletal beginnings of a mass relay.
"When I studied the Protheans I never thought I'd see the inner workings of a relay."
"You're taking this all quite well." Said the Shepherd who was projecting an image of Elizabeth Shepard next to her. Liara glanced at the image with a strange look in her eyes.
It was Liara; she was the source of the guilt. But the young Asari had such heavy influence over the Shepherd, could it afford to leave such an unpredictable loose end unchecked? It needed insurance for all eventualities.
"I asked you here for a reason Liara." It said. "I need to know that I will never become like the Reapers that came before; sacrificing billions in the hope that I might one day find a miracle cure for conflict. So I'm entrusting this to you."
A panel pealed away from the ceiling and a spindly pillar lowered itself to roughly head height. Magnetically suspended from the end of it was a dull metallic sphere about thirty centimetres across.
"What is it?" Asked Liara in hushed tones.
"Think of it as the new crucible, perfected using Leviathan technology. If the crucible was a battering ram then this is a key. If I ever loose control or seem to be slipping back to the old way of thinking then I want you to use this. Like a key it will let you into our systems with a minimum of effort, you'll be given a choice and I want you to choose 'synthesis.'"
Liara reached out and took the sphere. The second her hands made contact it dropped from the pillar into her waiting grasp.
"Shepard I don't understand."
"I am not Shepard. You do not need to understand you need only to remember. Can you remember that for me Liara?"
"You…Yes, I can."
"Thank you. Keep it close."
Liara started to walk past as if to leave and brushed her hand against the image's arm. She recoiled.
"I felt that."
"My holoprojectors use an advanced Haptic Adaptive Interface that-"
"Just… shut up for a minute. I know you keep saying that you're not Ellie but please just let me..." Her voice shook.
Letting the sphere drop to the deck with a thunk she reached up and placed a hand on the image's shoulder. She found that the contact stimulated the nerve endings in her fingers and if she didn't press too heavily she could almost have been touching real cloth.
Throwing caution and self restraint to the wind she flung her arms around it and closed her eyes, basking in the feeling. After what felt like a blissful eternity she raised her head off the shoulder and pressed her mouth tenderly against its own. She felt the familiar scar under her lips and smiled through the kiss. When it remained unresponsive she opened her eyes. The Shepherd was staring back at her blankly, its arms stayed rigidly by its sides.
Suddenly the hologram dissipated and Liara stumbled forward a few steps.
"I am not Shepard." Came the voice from the walls, softer than the first time.
Liara stooped to retrieve the sphere (her face flushed with shame and longing) and strode from the room, straight backed, staring forwards.
Once she had boarded the shuttle and left the Reaper the Shepherd made another note: 8:51am Friday 8thof September 2186. The range of experienced emotional reactions has expanded to encompass brief bouts of self loathing.
Everything it had told Liara about the sphere was true; it would allow her to override the Reaper supreme intelligence but it had another purpose. Even now it was emitting low level electromagnetic waves and ultrasound, not enough to be picked up by passive scanning or even to affect Liara herself. But for something as vulnerable as a developing fetus…
It needed insurance for all eventualities.
'We are not the same. This was in the galaxy's best interests, surely anyone could see that.'