Chapter Two: The Shepard VI
He spent the night in the main battery, keeping himself awake and distracted by calibrating a gun that would probably never fire again. The truth was that he didn't want to sleep. He was exhausted. He felt stiff in every joint, and his head pounded from the effort. But he couldn't afford another dream that he wouldn't want to wake from. It was becoming too much.
He'd lost Shepard once, and he'd nearly followed her, being sucked down into the world of questionable honor and mercenary tactics where dying was as good as any other option. When she'd come back, raised from the dead by Cerberus, he'd thought she was truly invincible. The Collectors failed at taking her out. The Reapers hadn't managed, either. So long as there was a shred of genetic coding, science could apparently find a way.
But he didn't know what happened after the run to the Conduit. She hadn't been among the casualties when Cortez swooped in to pick them up. She had gone silent on the comms. Hackett even metioned that she hadn't been able to finish a sentence, that she sounded tired, out of it, that her voice trailed off... Garrus squeezed his eyes shut. No. She hadn't died. Not Shepard. She activated the Crucible. She made the Reapers leave. For all he knew, she was still on the Citadel, or back on Earth, or out in space somewhere looking for them. That's just what she did.
And they were in a system with no Mass Relay. On what was apparently dubbed Planet Normandy. And their distress beacon could only signal so far.
His eyes wandered over to his workbench. The transmitter box was sitting there, James having given it to him anyway for when he was ready. The truth was, it was so damned silent here. Only what was needed to power the electronics was actually running, so the constant thrum of the engines, of the mass effect core, was distinctly lacking. He blinked slowly, swallowed a lump in his throat, and walked over to the table. He switched on the transmitter box after steeling himself, knowing that what he would see would still hurt. It would simply lack the element of unwanted surprise from earlier.
Shepard's image stuttered into view and became gradually sharper as the generating light warmed. She stood at parade rest, her face straight forward and expressionless.
"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite spot in the universe. Looking good, soldier."
Garrus wondered what all this VI had been programed with, how accurate it was intended to be. Given what he'd already heard, it pandered to the common public and was based on newsvid propaganda. There were a few ways to test that.
"Commander Shepard, what is the status of the Reaper threat?"
"There's nothing this galaxy can't beat if we all work together."
The same thing from earlier.
"What is your processing power?"
"I'm programmed to emulate the real Commander Shepard with 17% accuracy."
That didn't answer his question, but it did answer quite a few others. He switched off the transmitter and pulled out the memory chip. He held it up to the harsh white light of the workbench to get as good a look at it as possible. If all that was on this thing was an image of Shepard, a true-to-life rendering of her voice, and enough to make her be "17%" accurate. In other words, there was probably a hell of a lot of memory free that he could play around with. Well, he couldn't. He knew guns not software. But there were other options.
He took the chip and walked over to his terminal and inserted it into the slot. The screen was suddenly filled with coding he only understood on a basic level. What he wanted took expert skill, and Tali was probably still somewhere in the Sol system.
"EDI."
"Yes, Garrus," the AI's voice crackled over the loudspeakers. Despite all the changes, she was still partially integrated with the ship.
"I'm trying to...upgrade this Shepard VI...make it better."
There was a moment of silence as the coding on his screen flashed up and down as if someone else were reading it at lightning speed.
"Just about any change made to this software would be an improvement," was EDI's terse reply. "I can scan the Normandy's memory banks, but it would still be an imperfect model. If you are trying to 'fill the void' as Jeff believes, I suggest considering something that would bring closure rather than causing further torment."
Garrus crossed his arms defiantly and stared up at the speaker, even though he never was completely sure if EDI could see as well as hear the different parts of the ship. "And what exactly would you suggest?"
There was another pause, longer. The turian cleared his throat when it seemed that EDI had mentally wandered off.
"I can think of no satisfactory means for you to achieve closure in the situation regarding Commander Shepard," she said at last. Her voice was still measured and even, but that organic thread that was starting to course through it these days seemed to thicken it with feeling. "A more accurate VI, however, would somewhat simulate the Commander's presence. She would have a searchable memory archive and be able to hold some level of conversation."
"That's all I'm asking for," the turian replied, relaxing his stance a bit. "I think." He honestly wasn't sure why he was suddenly so intent on doing this. Activating the VI was just as bad—if not worse—than the dreams he'd been having. With this, he'd be exposing himself all day and all night, but a part of him thought it would help him work through it. The constant interaction with the VI might even dull the dreams, make them vanish. Maybe it was just his longing affecting him in such a way.
"Do it," he said finally with a sharp nod.
"Very well. Analyzing."
It took several minutes for EDI to scan through databanks and security footage, message archives and the AI's own experiences, but Garrus watched intently as the screen before him filled with new and even more complex coding. There was nothing to tell him what it all meant, but the more information he watched be poured in, the faster his heart pounded. It was not Shepard. It would never be Shepard. But Joker was right. He desperately needed to fill the void until they got some damned answers.
While EDI worked, Garrus went back to the calibrations, his hobby that bordered on obsession depending on the day. Lately, if he wasn't cleaning his guns, he was down here. And if he wasn't down here...well, that was a rare thing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually been to his bunk. There was one night he'd tried to sleep in the Loft. He had just laid upon the bed, staring at the tank of exotic fish that somehow survived everything that had been thrown at them (they weren't kidding when they said that VI would take complete care of the aquarium). It was soothing in its own way, but it only made him more aware of Shepard's absence. The pillows and sheets still held her scent. Her officer's uniform was still haphazardly cast over the arm of a chair almost exactly as she'd left it.
"I believe I've done what I can." EDI's voice cut through his thoughts. "Should I stay online as you test it?"
Garrus shook his head. "No, you've done enough, EDI. ...Thank you."
"My pleasure, Garrus. I do advise exercising caution, however. It is still only a VI."
The turian didn't respond. He merely went back over to his workbench and inserted the chip back into the transmitter box. The program was a little slower to boot up, but the image of Shepard that generated was more accurate. She was the right size, her face sharper and showing better the signs of war-weariness. She was in her Alliance uniform and standing straight with her arms at her sides. Still expressionless, her eyes stared ahead of her, completely ignorant of the surroundings. Just a VI.
Garrus crossed his arms over his chest again. Standing directly in front of the Shepard VI, he put all his weight on one hip and cocked his head to the side. Were he facing down any other living thing, they might have perceived it as a challenge.
"What is your name and rank?" he asked. It was a simple question that even the previous version should have been able to answer...but only to a point.
"I am Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy and captain of the Normandy SR-2."
"Your first name, Commander."
The VI continued to stare but responded all the same. "I hate my first name. I was named for my grandmother, and she hated her name, too. So far as you're concerned, soldier, I'm Shepard. Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy and captain of the Normandy SR-2."
The turian's mandibles twitched, his jaw parting a little in what passed for a smile. No propaganda VI would have been programmed with that. In fact, he doubted most people that knew Shepard also knew that tiny little fact about her. She'd told him once over turian brandy with a suicide mission looming before them. Only once. But the Normandy—EDI—remembered.
"That's my girl." His voice broke and was barely above a whisper, but the VI nodded in return.
"What's the next mission?"
"Finding out where we are," he replied more strongly, heading back to the main battery. "And figuring out how to get back to the others." He looked around the curved mass of metal to where the VI stood, still staring vacantly out into the space in front of her. "And finding out what happened to you."