Author's note: Sorry for the wait, but I had recently got a job teaching at my old taekwondo school. Between the many hours teaching and then staying up to write (I find that my optimal time to write is at night) I just crashed. I'm still tired, but I am getting used to it now. Also, the content of this chapter took a while and a lot of effort to write. So add that into the time equation. There is also an author's note at the bottom about the content in this chapter. PLEASE READ IT, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.
Enjoy!
"Commander Shepard, we do not feel that it is neither very practical nor very cost effective to totally shun mass relay technology." The holo of Asari Councilor Tevos spoke. "I feel it would be best to phase it out of normal society slowly."
The other councilors nodded.
"It would not be very cost effective either. You'd be bankrupting the galaxy with a project like that!" This time it was Salarian Councilor Valern.
"Mass Relays also work to help keep things contained. Using long range FTL technology would destabilize every species' defense strategies." Turian Councilor Sparatus also added in.
Human temporary councilor Osoba stayed silent. I wonder what lies they filled him with.
"You doubted me before and look what happened. It's best we leave the Reaper tech in the dust where it belongs. We don't want to become like them. Using their technology will only lead us down that path."
"Commander, if that is the case, the path you wish to lead us down will ruin us as well." Shepard could tell that Tevos' gentle voice had a slight twinge of annoyance in it. I should be the one that is annoyed right now.
"We need change and right now with the galaxy as it is, the best time is now to introduce that change."
"No, the best way to introduce change is slowly over the years." Tevos replied.
"You forget that everything we have ever known in terms of long range space travel involves mass relays." Added Valern. "You can't just throw away everything we have and start from scratch!"
Liara presented herself at the doorway to the comm room. Shepard took notice but was currently busy with the council. He gave her a look of frustration.
"Shepard we can still see you and the faces that you are making." Councilor Sparatus' voice came in.
Shepard turned his attention back to them and responded with the click of the off button. The holos of the councilors disappeared instantly.
"Now you can't." He responded. He turned to Liara. "Damn politicians. It's almost as if it was better if I didn't save them from Sovereign."
"Shepard don't let them get you down. They are just doing what they think is right... And remember, the right thing for you right now is going to Chakwas and telling her about your dreams."
"Oh... right... well one more thing." He turned back to the console.
Liara grabbed his arm. "Let's go."
After a several attempts to tug Shepard out the door, he yielded and they made their way to the med bay where Dr. Chakwas was.
"Shepard and Liara how may I help you?" Dr. Chakwas greeted the couple from her desk as they walked into the med bay. "How are your injuries from London healing up?"
"I'm good... as always." Shepard responded with a grin.
Liara looked at Shepard and then back to Chakwas. "Actually, we have something to talk you about. Shepard has been having these dreams, bad ones, ones that he had when fighting the Reapers. We are worried that something is up with him."
"Doc they're just dreams, Liara is just overreacting." Shepard replied. Liara eyed him suspiciously. So this is the game you are going to play.
Chakwas crossed her arms. "Well it would never hurt to check you out Commander."
"But that's really not ne-"
"You denying a simple body scan isn't helping anything, Commander. I will talk with my colleagues at the Vancouver Memorial Hospital to see if we could use their body scanner for you. One moment…" She moved back to her computer and messaged one of her colleagues. Within moments she got an approval to use the scanner. She got up and faced the couple again. "I reserved the scanner for a 1 hour time slot in 2 hours." She looked at Shepard's bewildered face. "Don't worry it won't take that long."
Shepard breathed a sigh of relief and both turned to leave.
"Liara, can you stay a moment, I need to go over your medicine regiment that I gave you. I think I made a mistake."
"You go on ahead." She whispered into Shepard's ear. Shepard left the room and Liara walked back to Chakwas. Chakwas watched the med bay door close.
"Now Liara, take a seat on the table and do tell me everything about Shepard's dreams." Chakwas picked up a cup of hot tea. "Would you like some tea?"
Liara sat up on one of the medical tables. "No I'm fine; I don't know where to start, Dr. Chakwas. Shepard is scaring me. First of all his personality is changing; just recently he cut off Admiral Hackett and the Council during their talks with him when they weren't listening to him. He's never done that before… He's also been more aggressive and violent, and sometimes childish, and not just to me." She sighed. "But the dreams… I melded with him and he showed them to me. They were... terrifying. When we were fighting the Reapers, I guess a small boy haunted him and was the main indoctrinating front on Shepard. That boy is now attacking Shepard directly in the dreams, not subtly attempting to indoctrinate him. It's almost as if it's an internal moral or power struggle. Just the things the boy said, a Reaper would never have said that, because it never would have taken him along the path of indoctrination." Liara paused to collect more thoughts. She took a breath, trying to dam the waves of emotion welling up inside. "I don't know how to explain it, it's almost like there's another personality growing inside him. When I touch him, there are times when he feels normal, and others when he feels... different. I'm scared that this boy is not just confined to his dreams."
Chakwas was silent in deliberation, she rubbed her chin. After a minute or so, she snapped back into the real world.
"I don't know what this means child, but we must find out." She put a hand on Liara's shoulder. "I'll see you in 2 hours at the hospital. Only then will we know what's wrong with Shepard." She turned back to her computer. "But first I need to actually reserve the scanner."
"OW!" howled Shepard. "Small needle my ass! That was gigantic." He rubbed his arm.
"Shepard, you know I needed your muscles relaxed." Dr. Chakwas looked down at her patient, who was sitting on a small bench. "It was merely a sedative to keep your synthetics from causing spasms. This scanning equipment can do that." She motioned to the large machine resembling a CAT scan.
"Please lay down on the table Shepard so we can begin to scan."
Chakwas watched as Shepard complied. She walked out of the room, sealing the door behind her and proceeded to the control room for the scanner. Liara was there already and watched Shepard through a glass wall that separated the two rooms. Her arms were crossed, and Chakwas could tell that the emotional toll on her was great.
"Thank you again doctor for getting the scanning equipment." Liara began, a sincere gratefulness present in her voice.
"It is a pleasure, Liara." Chakwas flicked a switch and started the machine. "Now let's see what's been going on with Shepard."
The bed that Shepard was laying on moved fully into the machine. The machine was doing nothing discernible to the eye, but the data that was pouring in on Chakwas' readout suggested otherwise. Chakwas turned off the display.
"Now I didn't tell Shepard this, but it will be around 10 minutes of scanning." She got up from her chair. "Would you like to go to the cafe with me for a snack or drink?"
Liara shook her head. "No that will be fine doctor."
"Well I'll be back in a short while."
Liara brought herself back to the glass and watched the machine at work. Dr. Chakwas left the room. "Shepard I will find out what's wrong with you and fix it, no matter what the cost. I promise." A tear ran down her cheek, as she worried about Shepard.
Around the 9 minute mark, Chakwas returned to the controls.
"You should try the tarts they have at the cafe, they are delicious." She spoke to try to distract Liara.
"I should, but I will later. Once all this mess is over with." Liara responded, not taking her eyes of the machine.
"It's hard to watch those that you love in trouble. I've seen the same look on the dozens of spouses of soldiers I treated as I do on you."
Liara turned. Chakwas could see a tear run down her face. "I just want him to be better. I will have so little time with him in my life; every moment is just so precious."
"I understand what you mean." Chakwas glanced back to the display. "By the looks of it Shepard will be out very soon."
Liara followed Chakwas out the control room and into the room with the scanner. Chakwas stopped at the door.
"I will need a little bit of time to go over the data with some other doctors. Meet us in the conference room on this floor in two hours."
"Of course."
Chakwas then opened the door and went back to the control room to get the data. Liara walked in to get Shepard.
The couple walked into the conference room. Dr. Chakwas was seated at the far end, and was flanked by several other human doctors. Chakwas beckoned Shepard and Liara to sit down.
"Hello Shepard, Liara." She motioned to the human flanking her on her left. "This here is the head psychologist at this hospital, Dr. John Morrow." She then motioned to her right. "And this is the head of the hospital, Dr. James Donahue." Both nodded a greeting to the couple. "To Dr. Morrow's left we have Dr. Bernard Shin, he was another researcher that worked on Project Lazarus with Cerberus. To Dr. Donahue's right we have the head bio-synthetic fusion surgeon at this hospital Dr. Oppsokopolis. Finally, we have Mr. Hansen, the scanner technician of the hospital." Liara nodded a greeting to all of them. Chakwas continued. "Together we have been going through the data collected from the scan and discussing our conclusions." Chakwas projected the data from a terminal that was built into her end of the table.
"The scan found out something quite interesting. During the Reaper's attempts to indoctrinate you, Reaper nanites were introduced into your system."
Liara nodded. "Yes, that's how we found out how the Reapers made husks on Horizon. Some of the data salvaged from there also stated how they discovered that indoctrination was assisted by these nanites."
"Yes Liara, that is correct. The nanites would help amplify the Reaper indoctrination signals so a Reaper would not have to be in your vicinity to indoctrinate you. And when your mind resisted indoctrination, your body also rejected the nanites." Chakwas paused. "However that statement is only partially true."
Shepard sat up. "What do you mean?"
Chakwas motioned to Mr. Hansen. He cleared his throat and a new diagram of Shepard's body was projected. Red dots blinked at certain locations located all over his body.
"The scan shows large concentrations of those Reaper nanites located at the sites of Shepard's synthetics. We have been discussing what this could mean, and our theory is that your organic parts were able to reject the nanites, however there is no way for your synthetics to reject the nanites. So either all the rejected nanites went to the synthetic sites, or the nanites present at the synthetics were never rejected at all. In addition, the scans show that these nanites seem to be actively amplifying some signal, similar to indoctrination."
Liara put her hand on Shepard's. "Does that mean... that Shepard's indoctrinated?"
Hansen shook his head. "No, the nanites can only amplify Reaper indoctrination signals, and since we are sure of no more Reapers are active, there are no Reaper signals that they can amplify."
Liara let out a sigh of relief. But that did not wipe the anxious look off her face.
"But there is more to it. The nanites aren't just present at the synthetics, they bonded with them. As a result, his synthetics embody all the characteristics of Reaper tech; just like a husk, Shepard's synthetics are stronger, faster, and are far more efficient. It's almost as if the Reaper's wanted Shepard to become almost like a super husk if he succumbed to indoctrination. But with the Reapers gone from the equation, we deduce that these nanites enhanced synthetics can elevate Shepard's life expectancy to that closer to an asari's."
Dr. Shin raised a hand to speak. "But there are disadvantages to this. With no Reaper signals to act off of, the nanites don't know what to do. They amplify signals, and with no Reaper signals, they search for any signal that they can get a hold of… Now what we theorize is that the brain signals from Shepard's subconscious are now being amplified by the nanites."
Dr. Morrow then butted in to combat Liara's confused and disbelieving look. "To make it clear, the nanites have almost made a second personality for Shepard." He then directly addressed Shepard. "Shepard, the mental trauma that you faced was enough to drive others literally insane. Your brain had to deal with it in some way. So it locked all that trauma away into your subconscious to be dealt with later as is the case in some people. What else was locked up in your subconscious were thoughts, notions, and decisions that you actively suppressed; in other words, due to your paragon actions, your renegade thoughts were locked up. The nanites needed some signal to amplify, and since the Reaper's signal was not present, they went to the next available thing, their host. We don't know why it went after the subconscious but after getting an account of the content of your dreams, we feel that this is the case."
Shepard shook his head. He remained strangely calm and detatched. Has he been paying attention at all? Shepard caught Liara's glance. He looked back up to the doctors to avoid it. "So what happens now if all these theories are true?"
"Well the best long term solution would be to replace all your affected synthetics, Shepard. But we all know that will kill you." Dr. Shin mentioned.
"As a psychologist, I recommend some way of facing this other personality and overcoming it before it gains any more control." Dr. Morrow suggested.
"And how would I do that doctor?"
"I can set up regular sessions with you starting tomorrow."
Shepard shook his head. "I don't do well with things that I can't see. I need to fight this "personality" in my brain head on."
Liara spoke up. "Shepard, maybe this is something that you can't fight head on."
"No, I can fight it head on."
"Shepard, listen to Liara." Dr. Morrow suggested.
"No, I will fight it head on."
"Shepard, listen to me, therapy could help you. What exactly will you be fighting head on in your head anyway? You can't beat it through brute force."
Shepard stood up. "I've had enough. Good day." He strode out of the conference room, sucking out all happiness in his wake. Liara looked defeated at the others sitting in the conference room. Dr. Morrow was jotting furiously on a notepad. "All throughout the meeting he did not pay attention and behaved in irregular patterns than the usual. The transition to hostility occurred during the meeting when we suggested that Shepard is ill and needs help. It was accelerated to the point where he had to leave when I suggested help. At that point he got rather defensive and barreled out of the room. Renegade actions indeed..." He looked up from his notes. "I feel bad for the people that are in his path out of the hospital."
Chakwas stood up. "Looks like our theories are right. We need to figure out what to do with him."
They began to debate on what to do.
Shepard stood huddled in front of the Alliance shuttle wreckage. It was around an hour after the meeting. Shepard just didn't want to think about it. His hands tinkered with wires that connected to a small bomb. Shepard hummed to himself as he worked. Once his work was done he stood up and clapped his hands together. He nodded at his handwork. Wires went all over the shuttles, all leading to several explosives. Shepard viewed the remote detonator in his hand. He smiled.
"It's time for you to leave boy. It's time to destroy you in the world and in my mind... Out of sight, out of mind."
Shepard sighed.
"It's time to get my life back, and I'm doing it alone. Cause I'm fucking Commander Shepard."
Shepard began to walk away to a safe distance. Born from the fires of the explosion, Shepard will be born anew.
Liara, who was still sitting in with the doctors, was starting to get worried about where Shepard had gone. He probably went back to the Normandy. She messaged to EDI on her omnitool to see if Shepard was there. Almost immediately EDI's response popped up: 'All is quiet on this end. You sure he went back to the Normandy?'
Liara did not like what she was reading. She stood up. The other doctors looked up at her.
"We don't know where Shepard has gone."
"What do you mean?" Chakwas responded.
"Shepard left and did not go back to the Normandy. EDI confirmed this."
Everyone sat in a shocked silence.
"Then we need to find him."
Liara bolted out of the hospital. If I were a crazy Shepard, where would I go?
Just then the ground shook and Liara looked to see a ball of fire rise up in the air.
"Shepard." She muttered under her breath as she sprinted to the explosion.
*The Important Author's Note*
So I set myself up for something big. Shepard still has the bad indoctrination type dreams and no one knows why. I had promised some answers in this chapter, and I delivered. But the answers are probably not what you thought. I just want to go through my though patterns so you can understand where I am coming from.
I like to surprise and to keep people guessing. I also don't like to take the bland approach. Several of you out there have wondered aloud what your thoughts are, maybe the Reapers aren't all dead? Or maybe it's something to do with the relay? Well its different than that. Although I could have gotten creative with the relay, the possibility of a Reaper survival would seem bland and... unoriginal. I feel that there are others that can do that. Instead I went a totally different direction, as compelled by need-to-be-unique drive inside.
Let's think for a little bit. In the video game series, even though the missions that they took were deemed impossible, somehow Shepard always managed to break through. Yes he had help along the way, but it was mainly through Shepard's leadership and usual bad-assery that shined through. Furthermore, every single important decision was made by Shepard, no one else. That's fine and dandy, but I wanted something different, something that Shepard just can't solve. Something where he is a factor of the decision and not the decider.
So I shot out lots and lots of ideas, and the more I shot out ideas, they all began to converge at one location, the psyche. Shepard is a soldier and constantly deals with the physical. When someone dies he locks it up to deal with later. He is very strong willed, but eventually even his will has to break.
And so the idea that I came up with in the story was born. An evil menace is presented, but it is inside Shepard. The Reapers get the last laugh. The very renegade thoughts that he suppressed begin to haunt him. Shepard's life is extended greatly, but it seems like he will have to deal with his evil side the whole time; obviously a life not worth living right? It gets to the point that Shepard is not able to fight it, it begins to consume him.
This leaves it up to Liara and the rest of the crew to help him. He is now the helpless victim that needs saving. It's time for the crew to help the one that they thought never needed help. If you read A Little Ship in Space, I'm sure you can realize that I wanted more of a romance story for whatever romance option Shepard chose in ME3, in my case it was Liara. Now it might not me your take on it, but in a relationship I feel that both sides need to be helped by and help the other side. That would make it a sort of balance relationship right?
Anyway, that's what I'm going for here. It is indeed the rise from the ashes for Earth, but it is also the rise from the ashes for Shepard as well. I acknowledge that my writing is not amazing but please bear with it as I attempt my vision for this fan-fiction.
I write not just for myself or because I think it's fun. The people that read my stuff are a big deal as well in my writing. That's why I want to ask you all to write a review and tell me what you think of this twist. If no one likes it, the next chapter will be my backup plot I wrote in case this went sour (don't worry I was prepared). But if you like it, please tell me, it would make my day and I wouldn't have to write on without worrying if people like it. Every review I get I read and take into account. It makes my day every day to know that there are people that like my stuff.
Anyway, thanks for bearing with this really long author's note (especially this sappy last paragraph), but I didn't want to just post a link to my blog that only like 5 people would go and read.
Thank you all, you're awesome!
NotCras