"Hello? Hello, can anyone hear me?"
Glimmering gray walls were scorched black, splashed with red. A decorative plant had been knocked over, its large vase broken on the ground, rich brown dirt fanning over polished tile. Nearby, a man stared at the ceiling with glazed, unseeing eyes, all his cares lost in the crimson puddle beneath him.
"Hello? Is anyone there? I detected a landing craft! Can anyone hear me?"
A woman sat slumped beneath a desk. Wood had been pitted around her, dark holes forming a tattoo in halo about her head, glimmering with blood and what remained of her brain. Her nicely manicured nails shimmered in the fluorescent lights.
"Hello? Please, if anyone can hear me…respond! Please respond!"
A shadow fell over the limp woman's face. A gloved hand reached out, gingerly touching her forehead, eyes narrowing behind a faceplate as they considered the fatal wound, before they lifted to the flashing console nearby. Static rippled over its surface, but a man's face could almost be seen.
As Shepard straightened, Tali headed over to the console, her omni-tool already lighting. "I can stabilize the image, just one moment," she said. A few taps to her tool and the static cleared, revealing an older man's drawn and haggard gaze.
"Oh, thank heavens," he gasped. "Yes, I can see you now."
Carefully stepping around the dead woman's legs, Shepard strode over to Tali's side, Liara and Kasumi trailing behind. "My name is Commander Shepard," she stated. "What's the situation?"
"I am Gavin Archer. There is no time to explain. This facility was developing a specialized AI and it has gone rogue. It has taken over nearly all our systems including our mechs. Indications are it is going to attempt to use our communications dish to upload itself off-world via our satellite. You must retract the dish immediately. The controls are in the office, just down the corridor to the west. Please, hurry!"
"Shit," Shepard growled, already turning and heading for the corridor. Fucking Cerberus. Leave it to them to meddle with things they shouldn't be and turn it all into one giant clusterfuck.
Boot steps rumbled through the corridor as the four women hurried to the office, Shepard quickly clearing the room before stepping aside and letting Tali past. The quarian hurried to the controls and activated them.
The office bore a set of windows. Through them they could see the green mountainside, the afternoon sun painting it with a gold patina, shadowed only by the enormous communications dish. A small flock of birds resting on its struts suddenly lifted into the sky, startled by the motion of the dish as it slowly started to retract into the mountain.
Suddenly Tali startled, hands jerking back from the console as every monitor lit up in a brilliant green. A high-pitched shrieking sound filled the air, each woman clapping hands to the sides of their helmet against it.
Outside the window the dish jolted to a halt, the consoles brightening even as the screech grew louder. Shepard could feel it resonating through her skull, setting her very teeth on edge. For a moment, in the flashes of green on the monitors, she thought she could make out a face…but it was gone in the next breath.
With a bang, the consoles all fell black, the HI flickering and then snuffing out. The sound stopped as well, and Shepard lowered her hands to see a thin puff of smoke rising from the back of the machinery.
"Oh, Keelah…" Tali shook her head, then crouched, fumbling for the access panel. As she tore it open, black smoke billowed from ruined innards, and she waved a hand, withdrawing. "It's totally fried. The AI overloaded its power couplings. The dish is jammed. It will never retract now."
"Dish that big there has to be a way to get aboard," Shepard considered, shaking her head and stretching her jaw in an attempt to ease her aching ears. "If we can take out the antenna directly on the dish the AI won't be able to upload."
Liara leaned in close to the windows, scanning the exterior landscape. "I see a tram-line, Shepard. The station doesn't seem to be too far from here."
"Let's move. Tali, I want you to cut our direct communication to the Normandy. Everyone, isolate your omni-tools. I want no chance of that AI infecting the ship or accessing our tools via wireless."
She powered up her own omni-tool, isolating it not to accept any external signal as she spoke. The Normandy would be slightly alarmed when communications went down but hopefully Miranda had gotten word from the Illusive Man as to the true nature of this project. If she did, and realized there was the possibility an AI had gone rogue she would put two and two together.
Kasumi vanished under her cloak as she hurried ahead, taking her position as scout and feeling out the route and lay of the land. The other three followed, weapons-ready as they hurried toward the tram station, passing by the occasional dead civilian. With the sight of each one, Shepard's jaw tightened, her resolve firmed, and her spirit felt grimmer.
Blind men and women on an idealistic crusade after fool's gold, she thought. If she needed any more reason to hate the Illusive Man and Cerberus before, she certainly didn't now.
Her tension was not just related to the dead, or to their rush toward the dish to stop the AI from uploading off-world. They had not seen a single mech since entering the facility. The project had plenty of them and it stood to reason if an AI had gone rogue and was powerful enough to overload that console, then it most certainly had used the mechs themselves to kill the civilians. So where were they now? Why were they not hip-deep in the fuckers?
They found the tram, and Tali did a quick scan of its still active systems. "Its computer system is simple and isolated from the rest of the complex. It looks clean, Shepard. I've locked it down from any possible wireless interference. We should have a straight shot to that dish."
Shepard clapped her on the shoulder, then drew off her helmet. Running the back of her wrist over her forehead she peered out the front windscreen at the dish in the distance, unconsciously adjusting her stance as the tram jolted into motion and began to slide forward.
"What are you thinking?" Liara asked softly, having shed her own helmet as she came to stand by Del.
"It's going to take a lot of ordinance to bring down that antenna," Shepard told her. "And for all that carnage we saw back there…did you see a single fucking mech? Because I didn't."
"No," Liara agreed. "I wonder where they have gone?"
Shepard made a faint humming noise, never looking away from the dish. "My luck says we'll run into a huge fucking nest of them at some point."
"Ever the optimist," Liara teased gently.
"Hey, I always believe the best about the universe," Shepard told her with a dry smirk. "The universe just goes out of its goddamn way to prove me wrong."
The looming shadow of the dish slowly fell over them, then consumed them as the tram slid into its station at its base. As the doors opened, they could hear a pleasantly female voice speaking.
"Satellite uplink window will soon open. Please clear all data information through your department supervisor."
The four women came out of the tram in almost perfect sync, weapons up and expertly scanning the station. More dead bodies, a few damaged consoles. Kasumi vanished to scout ahead and almost immediately returned, her face pale as the cloak faded away. She said one word that instantly chilled their blood.
"Geth."
"How many?" Shepard asked.
"Dozens, maybe more. They're all over the main control center. I don't think we can fight through them all in time to shut down the antenna signal from within."
"How did the geth get here?" Tali asked, the scowl on her face clear in her voice. Shepard's brows knit as she thought quickly.
"The control room was a long shot anyway. What we can't do digitally we'll have to do physically. That antenna is held up by supports joining it to the main reflector. We'll head outside, take them out if we can. If the geth follow us they'll at least be exposed along an open field."
"So will we, Shep," Kasumi pointed out.
"That's where our barriers and Liara's biotics come in," Shepard told her. "Outside still has more tactical advantage than running into a whole nest of them."
"Exterior dish access is through this hatchway," Liara indicated. Shepard made sure her helmet was securely locked down.
"Mag-locks, lowest strength," Shepard ordered. "You don't want to be tripped up but the winds out here are going to be harsh…I don't want anyone getting blown off the side of the mountain."
Locks set, Liara eased open the hatchway, barely managing to retain hold of the door as that very wind suddenly grabbed it and threatened to rip it away. Edging out past her, rifle to her shoulder, Shepard scanned the exterior slope of the dish through the scope.
"Clear," she said. "First connection point looks like it's about nine o'clock."
Waving Tali and Kasumi ahead Shepard turned as she walked out onto the metal surface, covering Liara as she closed the hatch, then gripped the lock-wheel. Her hands sparked to life with blue fire, and she grit her teeth, warping the hatch and its wheel and sealing it shut.
Liara headed up the dish at a trot, drawing her side arm as she pursued Tali and Kasumi. Shepard brought up the rear, continuously scanning for any hostiles. By the time she got to the strut connection Tali was already straightening from her assessment of it.
"The yield of two grenades should tear it free," she told Shepard. The commander unhooked one from her belt, tossing it over.
"Set them for thirty seconds," she ordered. "We can be halfway to the next strut before it blows and gives us away."
Tali and Kasumi quickly set the grenades, the quarian gesturing quickly the moment the final one was locked. "That's it, timer's on."
All four immediately headed around the rim of the dish toward the second strut. Spotting another hatchway Shepard switched her scope that direction, calling over to Liara. "Cover those two!"
They were halfway to the second strut when the first one blew. A belch of flame spread out, shedding black smoke and shards of metal, the rumble of the detonation shaking the dish beneath their feet a breath later. Not three seconds later the hatch Shepard had covered blew open and geth filled her scope.
"Move!" she barked at the others, even as she took the first synth down. As his face-lights exploded she fixed on the one right behind it and eliminated that one as well.
Hearing gunshots she checked her HUD without turning her head, saw more hostile markers emerging from a third hatch on the other side. Dropping another geth she swung her rifle around and broke into a run, knocking down two on the fly even as Liara's biotics lit up in a flare of blue ice.
A geth trooper squealed as it sailed up into the air, tumbling almost gracefully over the edge of the dish. Shepard reached the biotic's side, dropping three more synths as they rumbled over the dish from the first hatchway. Bullets sparked off the metal curve and then flared against her shields.
"Tali!"
"Set! Fifteen seconds!"
The four women broke into a run toward the final strut, Liara throwing up a barrier between them and the swiftly multiplying synthetics. The second strut went up and this time the rumble that passed through the dish was anything but subtle. The structure bucked momentarily, faltering their steps. Shepard slowed enough to fall out of scope of the barrier and instantly her shields were hit by a barrage of fire from the geth.
Dropping four of them she reached the final strut shortly after the other three.
"I only have one left, I need one more grenade!" Tali called. Shepard yanked one off her belt and tossed it to Kasumi, who then tossed it to Tali.
"Can you push them back?" Shepard called to Liara. The asari flamed with energy, drawing in a massive wave before sending it sailing down the dish toward the enemy.
Geth were thrown flying, smashed back into the center structure even as Tali shouted.
"Set!"
"Get out of range," Shepard barked, covering their retreat as they rushed away from the strut and further up the dish.
Just outside of the blast range Shepard slowed, glancing back just as the explosives released, tearing the strut loose of its support. The dish rippled like waves in an ocean and she half-stumbled, only to steady as her arm was caught.
Smoke billowed toward the sky as the vibrations faded away, and Shepard grinned at Liara. "Well, that was easy," she quipped.
{…can you read me?}
"This is Shepard, Archer. Go ahead."
{You've done it, the connection to the satellite has been lost. I will be to your position momentarily.}
"Understood. Shepard-"
"Goddess! Look out!"
Shepard hit the dish hard as Liara tackled her. Barely had she struck it, however, than it seemed to shove her back upward again. Rising at least a foot into the air she then slammed back down, her very bones vibrating as she felt herself start to slide.
Digging in her boots she stopped herself, staring at where she had been standing.
A slab of metal debris at least a ton in weight had slammed to the ground just where she had been moments ago. Pushing herself up, grabbing hold of Liara, she looked upward.
The struts giving way had twisted and eventually torn the main antenna beyond the scope of its integrity. As she watched, the huge spear of electronics and metal was twisting off its base, ripping free of its connection and sending massive slabs of debris raining down.
The antenna was going to fall, and when it did, this entire dish was going to fall with it.
"You've got to be kidding me…" she gasped, then pushed Liara ahead of her as she barked toward the gaping Kasumi and Tali. "RUN!"
They fled for the edge of the dish and the catwalks that linked to the mountainside and facility. There was a good ten foot gap between the two but a full thousand foot drop below them if they fell with that dish.
The ground beneath their feet was bucking and writhing like a living thing, heaving and shaking with every debris impact, every shift of its weight. Tali reached the edge of the dish first and leapt into the air. For a second Shepard knew she was going to fall short and felt her heart nearly stop. Then Tali was wreathed in blue as Liara gave her a biotic shove, boosting her leap just enough to reach the catwalk.
Kasumi was in the air a breath later, Liara flinging a hand forward and all but batting the thief onto the catwalk as well.
Shepard could feel the dish actually folding under her feet as she reached the edge almost shoulder to shoulder with the young asari, both leaping into the air simultaneously. She was unsurprised to feel the tingle along her skin, the warm rush as she was taken up by Liara's energies and lifted higher into the air. In the midst of fear and adrenaline, however, Liara had boosted the pair of them a bit higher than necessary. Shepard found herself staring down at least ten feet at the catwalk even as they started their downward arc. Twisting she caught hold of Liara and turned her back toward the onrushing metal.
She slammed to the catwalk hard enough to bark her air from her lungs, her hard-suit creaking slightly with the force, shielding Liara from the impact with her own body.
Silence fell like a heavy blanket, the only sound her panting breaths as she fought to reclaim her air. Liara was clinging to her, both women too shaken to move immediately. After only seconds, they heard the faint dying impact as the collapsed dish finished its thousand foot fall and came to rest on the distant valley floor.
Still panting a little, Shepard managed a chuckle. "Nice…throw…"
"Nice catch," Liara replied. Lifting her head Shepard looked at the asari's eyes through her face plate, then laughed.
Rising, the asari helped Shepard up to her feet. The commander quickly looked over to the quarian and the thief. "You two ok?"
"Can we do that again?" Kasumi asked with a cheeky smile. Shepard gave her a baleful look and a snort.
"Yeah, no. How about we don't."
Suddenly grasping the other woman's arm she pulled her out of the way in the same motion she drew her pistol, aiming it at the figure running toward them on the catwalk. Her gun only lowered as she recognized the pale, panting civvie.
"Mr. Archer…"
"Thank goodness," he gasped as he drew to a halt. "You took the dish out just in time. The AI didn't make it to the satellite."
"That's great," Shepard said sarcastically, straightening. "Now how about you fill us in on what the fuck is going on?"
The office Archer had sequestered himself in was roomy enough for all four of them, but Tali and Kasumi lingered a bit in the door as the distraught civvie sat down. His shaking fingers traced nervously over his face a moment, before he clasped them in his lap.
"This is Project Overlord," he said as Shepard folded her arms. She and Liara had both shed their helmets, and both wore nearly identical expressions carved of pure stone. Dead civvies were bad enough, but they had almost died trying to stop whatever up this project had fucked.
He had better have a really good fucking excuse for it.
Licking his lips the man continued. "We were developing a new AI protocol, unlike anything anyone's ever seen before. We were hoping to link an AI's neural network to a human mind directly, and in doing so attempt to control the geth from inside their own sphere. We could infiltrate digitally and stop a war before it could even begin."
"Linking a human mind to an AI?" Shepard asked, horrified at the idea.
"And potentially saving billions of lives in doing so," Archer nodded. "With a human mind to control it the AI wouldn't get out of hand-"
"I sense that logic failed," Tali said tersely.
"Yes," he murmured, slumped. "I…I am still not sure what went wrong. You see my brother…my brother David…he volunteered to be linked up to the AI network. All the initial tests showed promise, nothing but positive results but when he was fully integrated I…I don't know what happened. The combined consciousness of David and the AI seemed…it seemed to go mad. The next thing we knew he was taking over the computers and then the mechs, turning them on everyone. I…I barely escaped, locked myself in here. I…I watched on the monitors as the mechs and the geth slaughtered everyone."
"Where'd the geth come from?"
"Not too far from here, at Prometheus…there is a crashed geth ship. All the units inside were in some kind of…of dormant state, a…a type of hibernation. We have been using them in our experiments, making sure the AI was compatible with geth systems and software. Every unit that was removed from the ship and transported here for the experiments was infected with the AI program. They came to 'life' almost immediately, but they're not under their own control…their actions are all at Dav…at the AI's will."
"This is what Cerberus does," Shepard growled under her breath. "Listen, I'm not going to waste my energy lecturing you on the ethics of this kind of experimentation…right now I have to mop up the goddamn mess you people made before anyone else dies. Give me the basics I need to stop this AI."
"It can control anything electronic, turn it against you. Consoles, computer systems, weapons systems, mechs, geth…anything that uses any kind of computer program. Right now its goal simply seems to be to kill anything living and get itself off world. If it manages to link to a satellite or some other system off this planet, the results would be catastrophic. It could spread to the extranet, hit every computer system in the galaxy in a single solar day. It would be Armageddon."
"If this thing is controlled by your brother, then why is it attacking?" Liara asked. "Was your brother a violent man?"
"No!" Archer gaped. "No, David is…David was the sweetest, most gentle soul you could ever encounter. We were careful, I swear it! We would never risk connecting someone with violent impulses or a malevolent personality up to something so powerful! We were careful!"
"Not careful enough," Kasumi shook her head.
"If your brother is so gentle then why kill people? Why all this death?"
"I…I honestly don't know. He…he may be in some kind of dream-state, or trance…he may be in a lot of pain and can't understand what is happening. It could all be some…some subconscious defense mechanism."
"Did you try separating him from the AI? Removing the connection physically?" Tali suggested.
"There was no time," he replied. "Only a couple of us got out of the room alive, the mechs attacked so quickly. He's sealed himself in now and the entire complex is on lockdown. The lockdown has to be lifted before anyone can get to him to shut down the program and free him from his connections. The problem is all three department heads have to clear the lockdown from their own consoles…in each of the three main stations. I've already cleared it here at my station, but…everyone else is dead. You'll have to infiltrate the other two stations and clear the lockdown at each station before you can get to Atlas and release David."
"Fan-fucking-tastic," Shepard huffed. "What are we looking at?"
"Prometheus station is the crashed geth ship I mentioned earlier. Vulcan station is the geothermal plant about two clicks from here, up the side of the volcano-"
"This is a volcano?" Liara asked, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Wonderful."
"Hey, I met you in a volcano," Shepard smirked a little.
"Even so, I would rather not have to outrun another one," Liara pointed out.
"Give us the coords to the stations and we'll shut down the lockdown. Is there anything else you can tell us that will be of any kind of help?" Shepard asked.
"Just be careful with anything electronic. Trust nothing, not even your own omni-tools if you can avoid it. And…hurry. If David finds another way off-world it is the end of life as we know it."
Despite Liara's fears, Vulcan station was not very difficult to infiltrate, once they had maneuvered the outside landscape. Dead bodies once more littered the close, dark hallways but only a small handful of mechs made an appearance, and the squad put them down easily enough.
Even so Shepard could tell these were not mechs acting on ordinary programming. Their motions were bizarre, not quite typical…and at times they had bursts of seeming intelligence.
It was the consoles that proved the real distraction. Though they made no move to access any of them, passing any kind of computer or console display invariably resulted in the same green flashes of light and loud, unintelligible screeching that had assaulted them when attempting to lower the dish. It was clear very quickly that these phenomena were following them, and they were starting to give Shepard a serious headache.
When they passed through the final door to the director's office, Shepard's brows knit. A single mech was furiously kicking at the lockdown mechanism, occasionally punctuating its apparent frustration with low-caliber pistol blasts at the same.
Shepard's first shot took its arm off at the shoulder, the mech both startling (if mechs could display anything like startlement) and whirling around to face them. With a giggle, Tali surgically removed its second arm with another shot to the joint, and Shepard grinned.
"Nice one."
Confused, the mech began to run around pointlessly in circles. Shipping her weapon, Shepard strode right past it to the mechanism and lifted the lockdown.
{Thank God,} Archer's voice broke through almost immediately. {Only one more left. The crashed ship is down in the valley, Commander. Be careful…there were still dozens of dormant geth aboard when we connected David and I cannot promise you they're not all still dormant.}
"Yeah, I gotcha," Shepard said in irritation. As she strode for the door her pistol snapped out and erased the head of the confused mech. It wobbled to a halt before slowly collapsing, neck joint still spitting feeble sparks.
The project had a mountain crawler that had been left at Hermes station when the lockdown had been put into effect. Shepard sat at the wheel, scowling a bit as they grumbled along the winding path toward the valley floor.
"Are you all right?" Liara asked softly from shotgun, her slim brows knit.
"This is exactly why I fucking hate Cerberus," Shepard grit. "They always claim such noble motives but try telling that to the families of all these dead civvies! Trying to prevent a war…all they did was slaughter hundreds and not only put our lives in danger but the whole goddamn galaxy if that abomination of an AI makes it off-world! Forwarding the cause of humanity my goddamn fucking ass!"
Liara inclined her head slightly, completely nonplussed by Shepard's rage. "I know," she said gently, "but I meant physically. Are you in pain?"
"What? No, I'm fine," Shepard sniped.
"The tightness of the flesh around the corners of your eyes and mouth tell me differently," Liara pressed. Shepard shook her head.
"It's just a headache, that's all. That goddamn AI screeching at us from every console, and-"
Almost as if her words had summoned it, the dash display of the mountain crawler suddenly went green and an unearthly, high-pitched shriek filled the vehicle, even as it suddenly lurched forward with a surge of speed.
"FUCK!" Shepard gasped, hauling on the wheel as they spun too close to the edge of the winding road and the cliff that fell away just beside it. The crawler turned into a skid and Shepard could feel the rear-wheels churning over empty space a breath before they caught back on to solid ground. The crawler lurched forward again, the unearthly shrieking still filling the air, sending lances of pain stabbing in her temples. Their speed continued to increase out of her control.
This isn't possible, Shepard thought frantically. Tali isolated the crawler's systems, made sure they were scrubbed. The damn thing doesn't even have a goddamn wireless connection…how did the AI get in?
The steering wheel seemed to be wrestling against her as well…yet another impossibility. The wheel controlled the tires through solid mechanics…the small computer only regulated warning systems, infrared guidance and fuel flow. No AI, no matter how talented, should have been able to control the steering mechanism any more than it could have controlled a rock.
Weaving on the narrow road as Shepard fought for control, they were barreling for another hair-pin turn…and the drop off another cliff. Shepard felt the muscles in her arms actually cramping as she threw all her strength into wrenching the wheel, her foot stomping as hard as possible on the brake though she knew that motion would be completely futile.
A cry of sheer determination growled out from between her lips as she pulled, and the crawler danced its way into another skid, its back end sailing for the cliff's edge as its front chewed its way toward the open downhill road.
"Come on! Come on!" Shepard barked. She could feel the crawler sliding backward, its rear tires digging for any traction they could find. That unearthly shriek had reached a pitch that she was certain was making her ears bleed, the green light strobing on the screen so fast it could have induced epileptic fits. Liara was clinging to her seat and the door, braced and wide-eyed as she felt the balance of the crawler shifting further and further backward.
Then the tires caught on something…part of the slope, or a lucky outcropping…and dug in with a roar. The crawler leapt forward with bone-cracking force, catapulting itself completely free of the road and sailing nearly ten feet before it slammed back down. All four women were thrown hard against their restraints as the crawler sped down the dirt path, weaving again before it once more skidded to the side, unable to maintain anything even resembling a straight course. Dirt slid and it tilted…this time to the left. They hit their restraints again as the right tires whirled madly in the air, the balance holding for a fraction of a second before it tipped too far.
The crawler began to roll, tumbling over the edge of the road and down a steep slope, picking up speed as it fell. The sound of crushing metal punctuated a particularly heavy bounce as it struck a boulder and ricocheted into the air, only to careen back down to earth. Within the vehicle the women were held in place only by their harnesses, everything a chaos of motion and noise and that awful shriek. Shepard braced herself to feel that final, deadly sensation of free-fall when the crawler would leave the slope and actually meet a precipice.
I should have left Liara behind, I should have left her on the ship! Kasumi and Tali…please let them live! Please let them all live!
The crawler came down with a final shattering squeal of glass and metal. All motion and sound stopped.
There was nothing left but silence.