Blue eyes opened as the faint, ever-present shimmer of light halted, taking with it the soft invasive hum that lingered just at the edges of perception. The sudden, subtle cessation was as instantaneous at waking her as an alarm's ring would be.
She had been sleeping, dreaming something about her childhood home, but the scraps of it were banished the moment her eyes opened, and in the same motion she was sitting.
"You have a call."
The voice belonged to one of the big shadows standing in the door of the cell. Miranda arched a dark brow.
"In the middle of the night?"
The guardsman said nothing, only gestured at her impatiently. Getting to her feet, she obediently stuck out her hands, allowing the second guardsman to clip binders on her wrists.
They lead her down out of the cellblock, only a couple of pairs of owlish eyes peering at them from behind their own containment fields. Of those awake and watching her, she could almost hear their thoughts.
Where's Her Highness going at this hour?
Down beneath the cellblock, the guards took her into a communications room, sitting her down. In front of her a console was flashing.
"You have ten minutes," the guardsman said, before he pressed the connection button and stepped back. A pale light fanned over her, digitally copying her image and sending it to her caller thousands of light years away. Simultaneously, a tiny projector cast her caller's image on the floor in front of her, coalescing from the floor up.
As soon as the image got to the waist, she knew who it was. Settling back in her chair, she gave a bitter little smirk as she regarded the asari. "I suppose it was too much to hope for that it was my father calling," she said.
"You were expecting him?" Liara asked.
"Never. Didn't stop me from hoping. Still, this is a bit more interesting. What could be happening that Captain T'Soni herself sees fit to wake me in the middle of the night?"
"I need your help."
Miranda smirked. Despite the cuffs she cocked an arm up on the back of the chair she was in, crossing her legs as if she was sitting in a board meeting instead of in a maximum security penitentiary.
"My goodness. The situation must be dire indeed if the great Spectre T'Soni lowers herself to ask me for my help."
Liara frowned slightly. "Miranda, this is serious."
"I know, which is why it's so amusing," she replied. "What on Earth makes you think I want to help you with anything? You're my arresting officer, in case you'd forgotten. You're the reason I am in here."
"You are the reason that you are in there," Liara told her.
"Save the morality lesson. You'll need your breath coming up with some very convincing motivations as to why I should consider doing anything you ask."
"Do you remember Dr. Gellian Osco?"
Miranda snorted. "Who could forget her? Woman was as jumpy as a wet cat hit with a tazer…and just about as charming. Is she doing something particularly nasty? I assume so, if the Council has you on the case. If that's the case, you've come to the wrong person. I can't give you any helpful insights into her or her work. We met only once and briefly. I have no ties-"
"That is not why I have called you. Dr. Osco has developed a plague, an interspecies agent that has devastating effect." Briefly, Liara outlined the PMD and the recent goings on. Miranda could not help but be impressed.
"And this Dr. Shepard actually identified it as PMD? That's remarkable. Such tech should only be in the theoretical stage-"
"Yes, it should. Dr. Osco seems to be in possession of quite an alarming number of items that should only be in the 'theoretical' stage. We also have cause to believe she may be hiding either in dark space outside the edge of the galaxy…or in the galactic core."
Miranda blinked, then laughed. "Now it all becomes clear! This is why you wanted to talk to me."
"Yes."
"Forget it."
"Miranda-"
"I spent twelve years of my life trying to figure out the Omega Four relay," Miranda said angrily. "I spent nearly every dime of my money, and to what end? I cannot even prove the galactic core is where the relay transmits to, I can only speculate."
"You seemed confident enough in your speculations two years ago," Liara said pointedly. "Confident enough to break a dozen Council laws and send four ships through that relay before I apprehended you."
"Four ships that never came back, if you'll remember," Miranda said. "Four ships holding a total of seventy souls that never came back. If you don't recall that small fact, rest assured I do. I have seventy consecutive life sentences for each of those men and women, after all…not to mention the extra twenty years given for breaking Council sanctions and accessing the relay to begin with. You dragged me off my vessel and in front of a judiciary committee on the Citadel before I even had a chance to look for them, to save them. Now you want my help to do the same bloody thing? What could you possibly offer me to even think of entertaining this idea?"
"A full Council pardon of the remainder of your sentence," Liara replied instantly. Miranda stared at her in shock, then leaned back a little.
"They really must be desperate…"
"You have not seen this plague in action," Liara said. "A full Council pardon, given the moment we find Gellian Osco with your aid."
"And if we don't find her?"
"Then you come back here, and you die here- either by old age during the course of your sentence, or by the plague when it's released and reaches that facility."
"What's to stop me slipping my leash and vanishing into the cosmos the moment they release me?"
"There will be measures in place to prevent that," Liara said. "Should you succeed, however…every Council Spectre and asari Justicar will spend the rest of their lives hunting you down- and the order will be shoot to kill."
"Blunt and cold as ever, I see," Miranda said, then fell into a thoughtful silence a moment. Finally, she met Liara's holographic eyes. "All right. I'm in- if for no other reason than to find out what happened to those lost ships, and revel in the irony of your asking for my help. I will tell you this. You had better hope that Osco is hiding past the Omega 4 relay. If she's not…if she's in dark space-…well. That's a nut I haven't even begun to crack yet. Finding her in emptiness might sound easy, but that emptiness makes the Milky Way look like the head of a pin."
"We shall cross that road if necessary," Liara said. "A transport will be at the facility in the morning to bring you here."
"I'll need equipment, some of it very specialized. Also computer space-"
"Everything will be provided. When you are retrieved in the morning, give them a list of what you'll require, and I will see that it is here by the time you arrive. Liara out."
When Traynor looked up and saw Shepard entering the lab, she abandoned her workspace and headed over.
Feris was with Del- not touching her but hovering close enough to steady her if she faltered. Shepard's every movement was stiff and shuffling, so that she seemed a century older than she really was.
"'Lilah, are you sure you should be out of bed?" she asked as she reached the pair.
Shepard smiled faintly. "According to Chakwas I should be. Just stiff and sore is all. I wanted to see Tali and the others."
"Deefa and Tali are just in there," she said, indicating a far door. "Delphine and Domingo have been given their own rooms in another area of the complex."
Her own hand reached out as Shepard continued onward, nearly catching her elbow before she hesitated, then drew back. Their last conversation on Purdue was still fresh in her mind, and she wasn't sure if Del was comfortable with even casual contact from her right now.
"How's she doing?" Shepard asked.
"Tali? She's doing quite well, actually. We took her off sedation this morning. She was a bit confused the first time she woke up, but far more coherent the second. She's had something to eat and we've informed her of what's going on in her systems. She was quite…stunned, when she learned she would never have need of an enviro-suit again. If her vitals were still strong we were going to let her out of the static pod."
Deefa was in the room when they walked in, seated and talking to Tali through the pod com. She looked over, then stood up when she saw Del.
"Doctor? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Shepard said with a smile. "Ready to get to work. How are you, Deefa? Shoulder ok?"
"Still aches a little now and again but it's much better," the quarian replied. Shepard shuffled over to her, and when she offered her hand, Deefa took it lightly with an air of puzzlement. Del only smiled, clasping the hand between hers.
"Thank you, Deefa," she said. "If it hadn't been for you, that woman would have shot me."
"I'm a soldier," Deefa replied, but Del could tell she was pleased. "It's my job to put myself between civilians and danger."
"Job or not, you risked your life for mine, and I'm grateful."
"You're welcome, but you risked your life just as much. You got Tali and I away from that fire."
Shepard colored a bit, then nodded, giving Deefa's hand a final squeeze before she turned to the pod. "And how are you feeling, Tali?"
"I feel all right," Tali said, her voice tinny thanks to the com. Wide, luminous eyes regarded Shepard as she bent over the pod.
"They filled you in on what happened, I hear."
"Yes. I-I still can't believe it. I can really go without a suit?"
"According to your last medical scan, your immune system is stronger than that of most krogan," Shepard said. "If you feel strong enough, I can let you out of the pod…let you stretch your feet."
"I would like that, thank you."
The tremor in her voice betrayed her nerves, and Shepard couldn't help but smile at her. Nodding to Traynor, she punched in the code to unseal the pod. Sammi moved to the other side as the lid opened with a hiss and then retracted.
"Just take your time," Shepard said as the girl started to sit. "You're going to be weak and probably a bit dizzy. Sit there for a few minutes and then we'll help you out."
The girl carefully sat, Shepard's hand at her back to steady her. She had been removed from her suit when she'd been placed in the static pod, and was still without it now. Her thick hair tumbled nearly to her waist, black and highlighted with chestnut. For a moment, Del wondered at its length, before she realized that in the enviro-suits, it probably wasn't easy or even feasible to get a haircut. Hair would grow mostly unnoticed-kept back from the face by gentle blowing from the air filters, but able to creep down the neck and shoulders as it followed a path between suit and skin.
Every quarian, even the men, likely have hair this long…hair that's never been cut.
The motion of sitting caused the faintest of drafts to brush across Tali's face, to stir small locks of that dark hair. She touched her cheeks in wonder at the sensation, felt the silk of one dark lock, parting the individual strands with her fingers a moment, before she looked at her bare hands.
Tears stood in her luminous eyes, and she looked up at her friend. "It feels so strange, Deefa," she said softly. "So…so frighteningly wonderful."
Deefa said nothing, only held her gloved hand out. Tali took hold of it, squeezing it tightly. With her other hand, she almost obsessively wound her fingers in and out of her hair, touching her face, playing with her ears. Then she took a deep, shaky breath and nodded.
"I think I'm ready."
With Sammi and Del steadying her from the sides, and Deefa still gripping her hand, Tali carefully climbed from the pod and put her bare feet on the ground. Almost the moment her toes touched the metal she let out a squeal and drew them back, before trying again.
"It's cold," she said with a smile.
"We'll get you some shoes and some proper clothes," Del said, indicating the scrubs she was currently dressed in.
"No hurry…I think I like the cold," Tali said, her feet now solidly on the floor. As she took her own weight, Del made sure she had her balance before carefully releasing her.
"How do you feel?" she asked. "Physically, I mean? I'm sure there's no describing your emotions at the moment."
"I-I'm all right," Tali said. "I feel a bit weak but…all right."
"Weakness is to be expected. You were very sick, and laying in that pod for several days. I don't want you to push yourself too hard."
Tali nodded, then to Del's utter astonishment, the quarian threw her arms around her and hugged her tight. The still healing burns on her skin complained at the contact, but Shepard bit down on a hiss of pain and instead hugged the girl back.
"Thank you," Tali said, tears clear in her voice. "Oh, thank you!"
Shepard felt tears heating her own eyes. She had failed to stop Osco in time, failed to deduce her next target quickly enough, and as a result, Tali's people had been horribly decimated.
And here she is…thanking me.
She couldn't bring herself to speak, or even to nod. Instead she just held on to the girl, ignoring the heated, healing burns and hoping that- whatever Gellian threw at them next- this time she'd be fast enough.
It was like passing through the heart of both a glacier and a sun- a searing yet painless sensation of hot beyond hot, cold beyond cold. Though she'd physically taken only a single step, it seemed to Ruth that eons had passed between her foot leaving the ground and then touching it again.
She stumbled slightly, nearly losing her hold on Osco. Regaining her balance, she lifted her head, opening her eyes as she reaffirmed her grip on Gellian.
The room was black and metal, shaped like an elongated teardrop. The 'door' she'd just passed through was at the fat end, the room narrowing to a point away from her. The walls were completely transparent, and outside of them was a steady orange glow- brilliant despite the ionized light filters. Were she to deactivate them, her eyes would literally fry in her skull from the intensity of the light.
The floor was so polished that, as she moved forward, it seemed a perfect mirror copy of herself was walking along as well, joined to her at the soles of her boots. Limping hard now, she had no time to wonder at the view or the ship around her. Reaching a low table, she carefully set Gellian down upon it.
Osco's face was pale, her lips highlighted in blue. A quick check showed she was still breathing, but there was no telling how long that would last. Ruth didn't have much time.
Though she had never before set foot on this vessel, she moved as if intimately familiar with it, quickly limping to a patch of the floor that was slightly less shiny than its surroundings. As she stepped upon it, the floor directly in front of her silently folded open, a pedestal emerging. It was as black as the rest of her surroundings.
It extended silently until it was about even with her chest, before it halted. A wave of her hand over the pedestal initiated a thin beam of light. Blue, cold, it pierced the air like a needle and settled on her forehead.
Though she knew what would happen, she couldn't help recoiling ever so slightly as a full computer display- rendered in perfect Galactic- appeared in front of her eyes. It was not projected there- rather, the computer was encoding it directly on the visual centers of her brain, making her believe she was seeing it.
She didn't have to move to make any selections. She simply thought of the ones she wanted and they swept past in front of her eyes. The effect was breathtaking, almost dizzying.
She thought about the countless hours Osco had spent here, interfaced with this very computer. It must have been even more amazing for her than for Ruth. Finally, she would have had an interface that could process as swiftly as she thought, one that could keep up with her racing mind and astronomical IQ.
Ruth didn't like this ship. She didn't like anything to do with it, and that included this computer. Where Osco may have found it exhilarating, Ruth found it swiftly nauseating. The whole place seemed to vibrate in the darkest parts of her being, and had ever since she'd learned about it. She had never set foot here before, and after this venture was done, she planned never to step a toe on board again.
This wasn't for her, however. This was for Jelly.
Within moments, she'd found what she needed, and initiated a program. The interface faded from her brain as the light on the pedestal died. As silently as it had arisen, the pedestal sank back into the floor. Beyond it, another section was opening up, something very large lifting into view.
Hurrying back to the table, she touched a couple of faint divots in its side. The base of the table detached from the floor and- as if it were made of liquid instead of metal- it melted together with the bottom of the now hovering platform.
Ruth pushed this platform across the floor, right to the base of the sealed monolith. As she drew it to a halt and refastened it, the metal panels on the front of the monolith parted and opened.
A cylinder of what looked like glass was bared. Within it floated...
...Gellian.
Ruth walked up to the side of the transparency, pressing her hand on its cool surface as she peered within. The woman floated serenely, hands drifting at her sides and lengths of pale blonde slowly shifting like seaweed around her face.
She was Gellian- a Gellian fifteen years younger, one that had never been tormented by the ravages of extended drug use, but Gellian nonetheless. In her head was what Osco considered a perfect brain- half organic and half supercomputer, it was completely empty of programming or life.
That was about to change.
Drawing back, jaw set tight, Ruth watched as lances of the same kind of light stabbed down from the edges of the cylinder, six or seven javelins of pale blue that all oriented on the limp Osco's skull.
This was it. There was no going back now. Every thought, every memory, every electrical bit of data in Osco's brain was being downloaded into the new brain. It was not merely duplicating or copying the information, but literally removing it from Gellian's twisted and dying gray matter, and moving it into the new bio-engineered home that was waiting for it. There, it would all be assembled perfectly.
She would not be a clone or a cybernetic simulation. The real Gellian Osco would wake up, open her eyes and find herself in the brand new body.
That is, if she survived the process.
That was the crux. This ship and its computers had yielded up astonishing amounts of new tech, new data. The species that had built it eons ago had clearly been far in advanced to any that lived now. They were hundreds, if not thousands, of years more developed. Gellian was an incredible genius, but even she was like a toddler playing with Daddy's gun. That was part of the reason Osco had not attempted to do this before, and had told Ruth what to do only in case of her imminent demise.
Any number of things could go wrong. She could die before the transfer was complete, valuable information lost as brain cells holding it became degraded, began to disintegrate. The process itself was, at best, a guess. It could have never been meant for this particular action. A failsafe might kick in and halt it. It might overload the ship's systems and destroy Osco, the vessel, and anyone aboard her. Things Ruth couldn't even fathom might occur.
Ruth had no choice at this point but to stand back and wait. It could take minutes for the transfer to be complete, or hours, or even weeks. She wouldn't know if it succeeded until the clone took its first breath, spoke for the first time.
She could be lost to me, even now, she thought, and her hand slipped into Osco's fevered palm. She could already be lost forever.
One thing she did know for sure. Whether it passed in minutes or in weeks, Ruth was in for the longest wait of her life.
