Chapter Nine: Deus Ex Machina
Garrus was reluctant to open his eyes. He slept less and less these days, and the grogginess that would dog him for hours was not a thing he looked forward to. It was his own fault, he had to admit. His dreams were sometimes less a healing balm and more a reopening of a poorly sutured wound. He expected the hum and ambient blue light of the aquarium. Instead, he was greeted by a white light aiming to be natural daylight reflecting off a pale ceiling of indeterminate composition. It didn't shine, didn't seem to be metallic in any sense, but he couldn't quite identify it.
His vision was also a tad blurry...that could have been a part of it.
He draped a forearm over his eyes and let himself sink back into the pillow. The alarm clock was gloriously silent. No Frank Sinatra. No randomized electronica that sounded like it belonged blaring from the sound system at Afterlife. Just silence.
Silence broken by muffled giggles.
Garrus let his head fall to the side, one eye peering out from beneath his arm to try to see whatever was making the noise. The pitch was too high to be anyone on the Normandy, and the resonance was distinctly not human. Did he leave a vid playing? He couldn't recall having even watched anything for days before this. To the right of the bed, where he expected to see Shepard's armchair and the great glass wall of the aquarium, he was instead greeted by a fully stocked bookshelf and a wide set of glass doors. The doors stood open, a gentle breeze coming through, and beyond lay a balcony bathed in light. He could just make out lush greenery peeking up over the balcony's low wall.
He rolled from the bed, his bare feet hitting the floor with the gentle tapping sound of his carapace meeting textured metal sheeting. He didn't notice how cold it was. That was not a level of sensation his turian skin effectively communicated. The softness of a carpet nearby was met with the same indifference. But sound affected him. Sight was something he was acutely aware of. Figures moved beyond the open doorway, dashing back and forth upon the concrete of the balcony floor. A larger, shadowed form was nearby, long, low to the ground, and almost completely still.
Garrus stepped out into the light and started when it suddenly felt like he'd stepped right into a trap. His knee was held fast, weight pressing down on the top of his bare foot. Glancing down, he saw the pale, bare head of a small child...turian...mostly. Something was off about it, though he couldn't explain precisely what. No…. The little face was looking up at him, mandibles drawn out in what passed for a grin. He could have sworn in that moment that his heart stopped beating in his chest. When those little arms hugged him tighter, feet balancing upon his toes, he couldn't hold back the smile of his own.
He grunted when something ran headlong into his other leg to grab it up in a similar fashion. Whipping his head around, he was even more surprised to see what could have only been a juvenile (a very, very small juvenile at that) krogan.
"Ashley, I told you to be careful."
Shepard.
"What's going on here?" Garrus asked, trying without success to extricate himself from the miniature life forms.
Shepard smiled up at him from where she lounged on a patio chair, her body cushioned by vinyl padding that had been trendy on the Presidium when such things still mattered. She was in her black and red N7 casuals, and her brown hair was only loosely bound up in a bun at the back of her head. Strands had fallen out to curve alongside her cheek and jaw. The carefree look to it all was even more refreshing than seeing her in a formal gown and actually able to dance.
It was moments like these that made him wish he could just stay asleep forever. But what good would that do? For all that had happened, he had a greater responsibility to those that had survived the war with the Reapers and the subsequent crash on Planet Normandy. He'd had countless conversations with James and Chakwas on that point and one particular urging from Liara where she threatened a mind meld. "Threatened" wasn't the correct term. She had suggested it as a friend, as a way to help. His lack of sleeping had turned into an avoidance of eating, and if the main battery being under lockdown that one day about a week ago hadn't been some sort of intervention, he was an idiot.
But the dreams, as much as they tormented him upon waking, were a haven while he was in them. A haven the Shepard VI could not replace no matter how many conversations he'd managed to have with it. Those had always eventually hit some sort of data loop.
"You remember that time on Omega where you nearly got yourself killed because the batarian bartender hated humans?"
"We showed him, didn't we?"
"That turian you managed to incite"-Garrus couldn't help but laugh-"that was the best part."
"There's nothing this galaxy can't beat if we all work together."
"Paranoia always wins in a gutter like that."
"There's nothing this galaxy can't beat if we all work together."
"Yeah…. That, too."
This Shepard was different. For all she was ultimately intangible, this Shepard was Shepard. Smarter than any VI, even more real than the best AI he had ever encountered (...which was EDI), this memory trapped amidst the geth chatter only she could perceive was almost as real as the real thing. And that was as maddening as it was beautiful. The smile on her face was serene. The ease of her posture made him relax just a little. There was no threat here. There was only Shepard, himself, and two very curious children on a balcony overlooking the Presidium.
"We have Ashley for the day," was Shepard's reply. "Mordin can't have her in the lab while he works on a few tests-a new treatment for some sort of asthma the quarians seem to be experiencing."
Garrus shuffled his way over to a lounge chair next to Shepard and tried to sit down himself. There were giggles at his knees from the toddlers that refused to let go. With a mockery of a growl, he swooped down and gathered one up in each arm, squeals of delight meeting his ears as he let himself collapse with the two of them onto the chair. Ashley prompted her miniature turian companion to slide with her down the leg rest. They each gave exaggerated grunts as they bumped over the horizontal pads and laughed out loud when they plopped gracelessly onto the floor.
"And what good is that going to do?" Garrus asked. He tried to keep his tone as conversational as he could. This was not a time for bitterness. He had already learned that this Shepard-unfortunately like the VI in the main battery-had little concept of exactly how impossible everything felt outside of all this utopian illusion.
Shepard shrugged and went back to reading whatever book she had open on her datapad. "Tali's been visiting. She and Geth Prime are working on something Earthside, but the quarian scientists are having some difficulties acclimating." Her smile broadened though she didn't look back over at him. "And that's why I really hoped you would come today. Prime thinks he figured out what I am."
"Geth Prime. A geth and Tali...are working together…?" He knew she had said something after that, something important. However, he had to admit that it was hard to mentally process that first bit to any reasonable degree.
Another shrug. "She eventually trusted Legion."
"Barely. And Legion was a special case. They were in close quarters for months, forced to cooperate-with you to guide them!"
"War changes people."
"So, geth are people now." There it was. The incredulity would not be kept out of his tone that time.
"Garrus, just listen to me...because I'm honestly not sure how much longer I can do this. Geth Prime thinks, based on information collected throughout the network and what has been reported by other survivors, that I'm the ghost in the machine. A better term, according to Mordin, is that I'm more the deus ex machina in its classical definition, but I think that's taking it a little far."
She turned off her datapad and set it aside, twisting her body so that she was looking at him full in the face. "If Prime is right, it makes me little more than a sentient program on a network that doesn't have the same infrastructure it used to. At the same time, he believes that it's growing, that every subconsciousness is reflexively connecting, uploading, and the only description he could supply that I would understand is that it's becoming full of souls." Her expression soured. "I was never one for philosophy, but hearing it come from a geth makes me want to listen.
"They're going to try to give me my own memory core-Tali and Prime. I'd be just like EDI at that point."
Garrus balked. "They want to turn you into an AI?"
"Essentially. Temporarily." Gray eyes hardened, but it wasn't with anger. It was that familiar determination that he always saw flash just before the squad set itself up against impossible odds. "They've told me similar things to what you and the others have. Joker, EDI, Liara-everyone has said that they've become afflicted with an inexplicable condition. Shimmering circuitry under the skin...the ability to eat things that would have killed them before. In EDI's case as well as the geth, they've developed the ability to eat, period. You've told me as much."
The turian couldn't do anything but return a shallow nod. He was waiting for the bad news to drop. Shepard almost never had this much to say about anything unless she was drunk or had bad news to deliver. Sometimes, it was a mix of both. But Garrus was having difficulty thinking of what could be worse than being told a living soul basically existed as little more than an AI-or would exist as such. He held his breath as he waited for Shepard to make that fateful confession.
"It's going to take time," Shepard went on, "but if the pattern continues, Prime thinks that I'll adapt like everything else. Adapt and, hopefully, come out of it with all my memories intact."
Garrus swung his legs about so that his feet were on the ground. Elbows upon his knees, he leaned forward, eyes level with Shepard's as best as he could make them.
"Adapt? They're going to turn you into what that will adapt?"
The determination faltered. Her eyes fell to the concrete that had been painted the same pale gray as the underside of the virtual clouds projected upon the Presidium inner ring. Those clouds drifted past, ignorant of what went on beneath them. In fact, the air about them was alive with familiar noises of how the Citadel used to be, but that was furthest from Garrus' mind. He didn't care if a krogan were boisterously laughing at some joke told by an unidentified female companion. It was immaterial that even two juvenile beings were playing on the far side of the balcony with a toy drone. There was nothing-nothing-that mattered outside of Shepard and himself for so long as he was slave to her illusion.
Eventually, she shook her head. "I don't know. Prime is convinced the technology is adequate, that once they have key records, they can do even better than...better than Cerberus."
Garrus huffed. "For all I despise Cerberus, they did a damned fine job the last time. What does a geth know about what makes you you?"
"He doesn't need to. Whatever still exists of me is preserved in this program. Otherwise, Tali said she'll do what she can." Her eyes met his again, and the silver shone almost aquamarine with tears. "But they don't know what it will mean overall. I might be able to reach out to you and the others through the mainframe. I might not." She steeled herself, feet meeting the concrete opposite Garrus and mimicking his posture. "There's a chance we won't be able to speak like this again, or...at least for a while. EDI has given me all of her observations on star positions that she's gathered. Liara fed me a report on atmospheric composition."
Her hands reached up and held his face, kept him looking at her, kept him with her even though he was beginning to feel that waking up might be in his best interests. He knew it wasn't. The long months had proven that the dreams of Shepard were far more than that. It wasn't just a lovelorn turian going mad. It wasn't just a squad pining for its beloved leader. It was Shepard letting them all know that, somehow, through the vastness of space and the greater realm of improbability, she was still here.
"I will find you, Garrus Vakarian," she said, the determination in her voice even if it wasn't captured in those all-too-human eyes. "I will find you. I will find the Normandy. We've come back from worse than this."
She leaned in and kissed him, then. Despite the illusion, he felt it, the warmth, the feeling, the urgency he had long since grown to appreciate. Two suicide missions had taught them both to cling to what was most precious, no matter how small. Right now, hope was small, and Garrus didn't need Shepard to tell him anything to make him want to cling to it.
He held her close until the virtual sun of the Presidium began to set, the two of them fitting themselves onto the same lounge chair with all the ease of squeezing into the same bunk on a military vessel. No officer's bed, just a narrow thing barely wide enough for a grown human. Neither minded. For Garrus, the sensation-no matter how fabricated within the realm of his subconscious-was enough. He'd give up every doomed conversation with the Shepard VI for five seconds of this.
And he might lose that.
Shaking his head, Garrus held Shepard even tighter and looked over the slope of her shoulder to where the children were. They had rolled out mats and lay upon them, sleeping as though their long hours of play had truly worn them out. They slept as Shepard slept, the whole environment around them shifting to match the whims of its master control.
Shepard. A program. An AI. A soul trapped somewhere that she didn't belong.
And, of all the things in the galaxy-no, the universe-that might be inclined to propose a solution, a geth and a quarian thought they might know.
I hope you know what you're doing, Tali, Garrus thought to himself as he felt the tug of reality. There was a low noise, grating and persistent. The alarm clock...he forgot he'd changed its sound. Bring her back. Bring her back to me.