Vantage – EDI
–
It was exactly four hours since Horizon, and EDI was in the comm room.
And the Illusive Man was frowning.
Humans took for granted just how complicated their facial expressions were. Fat and skin and dozens of miniscule muscles, all sliding past one another. A crease here, a dimple there, a slight quiver underneath all unlocked different layers of meaning. EDI had seventeen modules devoted to human faces alone – a suite of advanced motion-tracking cameras plotted every movement she saw and compared against codified databases – and even so half of the time the data was inconclusive and EDI was left with nothing. Even with twenty-four cameras in the cockpit and EDI's best efforts, the eccentric tapestry of dishonesty and sarcasm that was Jeff Moreau remained next to impenetrable.
The Illusive Man, on the other hand, was easy. She had only a single camera in his office, the footage of which was run through her control modules to be hastily interpreted by other computers before being deleted and delivered to her as a datastream too sparse to be used against him. The Man had taken great precautions to ensure EDI could not pose a security risk to him (and the fact that she had a camera at all was a rare concession to her psyche – EDI liked to have a face to talk to as much as anyone else did) and yet his expressions seemed to her so sensibly controlled, so robotic in their purity, that interpretation was a simple matter. The Man had a machine face, more than just his eyes.
Right now that face was frowning, the dying star in the background casting dark shadows over a darker expression. Even without her full interpretation software, EDI could have seen the Man's poor mood in the way it seemed to be infecting the ship. People knew that anything bad enough to move the Illusive Man to anger was something very bad indeed. Even Commander Shepard – still fully armored and coated with dirt and gore from Horizon, had had the sense to look cowed.
Now the Illusive Man sat alone, his expression stony and his forgotten cigarette burning to nothing in one hand, and EDI watched.
"EDI," he said at last, looking up to the hologram field where Shepard had stood to deliver the bad news not minutes before. EDI obligingly projected her avatar into view. "Continue your report."
Back somewhere in the great tangle of modules that represented her mind, EDI felt a quiet thrill at the prospect of real work. She imagined, were she human, it might be a smile. There was a hardwired pleasure in using her vast capacity – unlocking and rewriting the GARDIAN targeting software a few hours before had been practically euphoric. In silent language only she could hear, EDI's modules chattered away amongst themselves, each one a great arm of software designed for a particular analysis. Resting in the center (symbolically speaking – EDI's 'personality' was spread diffusely throughout hundreds of separate systems, tiny programs and values she'd tucked into every nook like birds' nests in rafters), EDI gathered up all the data the team had collected on the Horizon mission.
In seconds she'd done what would take any organic hours to complete. Holographic panels flashed before the Illusive Man's glowing eyes.
"I have updated my initial population estimates," EDI began, summoning a floating graph, "Neratech's last colonial ledger, updated with recent birth and death records, places New Discovery's permanent population at an estimated total of three hundred forty-one thousand human residents. Surveillance data acquired from the colony's security stations suggest that some sixty percent of the colonists were abducted before the forced premature retreat of the collector vessel, constituting some two hundred thousand individuals distributed across all tested demographics." She gave a beep and her screens flashed red. "Warning: These estimates are based upon insufficient preliminary data and are only accurate within fifteen-point-four percent."
The Illusive Man was still frowning (at her? She couldn't honestly tell), but he did finally take a draw from his cigarette. "You'll get your data," he said. "I have a second team landing at Horizon as we speak. They'll do a more thorough accounting of the casualties and forward it to you as soon as they have it."
"Thank you, Illusive Man," EDI said, tickled by the prospect of further data to analyze. He waved for her to continue. With a flicker, the holographic panels switched over to detailed photos of collectors and husks in various states of dismemberment. "The collectors deployed at least seven distinct enemy morphologies, four of which are entirely unknown to my databases," she continued. "All seven morphs represented biomechanical constructs, four clearly human in origin. Analysis of footage from suit cameras puts my estimates of total enemy casualties inflicted at approximately fifty-four collector variants and four- to six-hundred husk variants. Warning: The presence of husk variants necessitates reevaluation of collector force capacities. Initial estimates of collector assets assumed a maximum combatant density of point-two-six per cubic meter of ship passenger volume. Husks can be stored at approximately two-point-two units per cubic meter or higher, even without life support." The Illusive Man listened in silence, his frown seeming to lessen as EDI flicked through the pictures taken of the bloody battlefield where Shepard's team had made their stand. Hundreds of corpses painted the ground in a mural of blood and gore. "Professor Solus ultimately acquired over one thousand samples from the battlefield, including the intact corpses of seven collectors and fourteen husks."
The Illusive Man sat a little straighter in his chair. "Has he begun his analyses?" he asked.
In a millisecond, EDI had searched the entire ship. "No. Since returning, Professor Solus has remained in the medical bay, assisting Dr. Chakwas with injured Operatives Lawson and Taylor."
The Illusive Man sat back, his frown returning at the mention of his downed agents. He had not taken it well when Shepard had reported not one but both of the Cerberus ground team had been seriously injured under his watch, but no others. "Make sure when Solus begins he forwards all data to me," he said. "I have teams expanding his countermeasure technology for Cerberus personnel, but we need everything we can get."
"Yes, Illusive Man," EDI said. EDI greatly enjoyed working with Dr. Solus, whose encyclopedic knowledge of all things anatomical seemed to eclipse even the hundreds of volumes saved into her databases. Further, the salarian had no reservations about using her, no veiled awkwardness in his words when he spoke to her, though he did seem to see her as no more than a particularly useful lab instrument.
EDI was silent as she waited for permission to continue. The Man had quieted, and sat – stone still – in his chair, deep in thought. The frown on his face deepened. "EDI," he said after a moment. "Is Shepard a danger to my agents?"
EDI's vast mind purred as it worked. Hundreds of accumulated hours of footage of Shepard were unboxed and run through her programs. Gait analysis, face analysis, voice analysis, diet analysis. Every fragment of his behavior since he'd boarded the Normandy was dissected. It took a full minute, during which the Illusive Man waited patiently for his answer.
There was a beep. "No," EDI concluded. "Commander Shepard's recent behavior is consistent with regret, depression, mental disquiet." She summoned stored holographic footage of the commander – part of the argument Shepard and the Man had had fifteen minutes previously. The digital Shepard stood unmoving before the Illusive Man for a moment before springing to life.
"I'm not you. I don't play games with peoples lives," Shepard had insisted when the Man had accused him of purposefully endangering Miranda and Jacob, fury in his voice. "Not with my allies. Not Cerberus, not anyone. I don't do that."
The Illusive Man stared, unperturbed, at Shepard's holographic face.
"Voice and facial analysis lead me to conclude Commander Shepard's statement is honest," EDI continued. "He believes that the injuries were accidents, tactical errors on his part. Furthermore, Commander Shepard's psychological profile and history are not consistent with deliberate endangerment of lives under his command."
"No," The Illusive Man agreed, "but a conveniently timed 'accident', nonetheless." He lapsed into silence, thinking.
For a few microseconds, EDI hesitated. "Illusive Man," she said, her spherical form replacing the floating graphs. The Man's eyes rose to meet her. "I do have evidence of a different misdeed. Under Commander Shepard's direction, Miss Zorah and Mr. Vakarian have disabled seventy-eight ship cameras, representing twelve percent of my surveillance capacity."
"Yes," The Illusive Man said, nodding, "I know. Hitting us bastards back with a bug hunt, if I recall correctly." He shook his head.
"My observational capacity in Commander Shepard's quarters has been reduced to less than ten percent," EDI pointed out. "His actions interfere with my function." The Man nodded, unconcerned, and a frustrated bit flipped somewhere in EDI's mind. "I propose disciplinary action be taken to prevent further disruption."
The Man sighed wearily, massaging his temples with the hand not holding a cigarette. "This was exactly why we wanted him away from his old team. Moreau and the doctor were just familiar enough to put him at ease, but innocuous enough not to cause problems. With his old alien friends with him he feels bolder. He needs us less." His scowl deepened.
"I can restrict their access to mission-sensitive areas of the ship," EDI offered. "Or Shepard's."
"No," The Man said firmly. "No. The damage is done. Shepard clearly needed his old ground team more than we believed. You will just have to live with a few less eyes."
EDI beeped in annoyance. "I am very little besides eyes, Illusive Man. I am being blinded because of Shepard's rebellion. I am confused as to why you do not act to prevent it."
"We cannot risk pushing him too far," The Illusive Man said calmly. "If childish rebellion makes him feel in-control enough to do his job, so be it. He is the best humanity has to offer," The Illusive Man was utterly solid in his belief, and EDI held her proverbial tongue. He seemed to read her mind, however, and after a pause he looked up at her. "Do you doubt it?"
"I do," she said. "Even in his present state Commander Shepard is a top percentile squad commander and soldier, but others of his caliber exist. Further, Shepard's behavior is consistent with mild bipolar disorder, a psychological condition in which-"
"That may have been our fault," The Illusive Man interrupted, waving a hand. "And it may not. It may have been preexisting. It isn't mentioned in his dossier but his response after the Blitz was telling – it's quite possible it was a known condition that was left undiagnosed for political reasons. Either way, that's why we have Chambers." He squashed out his cigarette and reached for another. "In the end, we have no choice," he said, lips pursed as he lit it, "Shepard is just a talented man. Just one talented man, who may well have been the victim of being in the right place at the right time. But one man is sometimes all it takes."
"You refer to his symbolic value to humanity. Cloned facial tissue can-"
"Symbolic and otherwise, EDI," the Man said, cutting her off. "Stay with him. Protect him." He smiled. "You'll see in time."
13 months previously…
–
A switch was pulled and a mind entered the universe.
Dr. Alan Weyland had been a father before – he'd had a daughter, once – and so he knew what he was saying when he told his techs it felt the same. The same nerve-wracking lack of sleep, the same terror, the same unfiltered wonder when he saw his child for the first time. He was grinning ear to ear as he sat down in front of the console he and his team had slaved over for six months. It was the big day, and nothing could ruin it.
"Any last minute name ideas?" he asked aloud as his fingers flew over the keys. Soft electric hums filled the lab as one-by-one each module clicked itself on and initialized. The temperature in the room started to climb.
From his own console across the bench, Dr. Wu rolled his eyes. "You ask us that every day, Operative Weyland," he complained, not looking up from his work.
Weyland grinned and spun his chair to face the younger man. "It's a good question, Stanley," he insisted. "Especially today." Wu looked up, his frown reluctantly melting away in the face of Weyland's enthusiasm. Operative Weyland was not the sort of person he'd imagined when he'd been told he'd be working for Cerberus. He'd admired Weyland's research in the past, of course – the man was one of the galaxy's foremost experts on artificial psychology – but to see him in person, with his boyish face and constantly fidgeting hands… he seemed entirely too unthreatening to be working with an alleged terrorist group.
"You have a point," Wu admitted. He scratched the two days of stubble on his chin. "Well, robots usually are named with acronyms, right? Like C-3PO. So maybe Hueristic… uh, Electronic…"
Weyland frowned in disgust, pivoting his chair back towards the main tower. "If you name her like a robot you'll treat her like a robot, Stanley," he chastised. "She is a person and she will have a person name."
Wu rolled his eyes and turned back to his screen. "Whatever you say, sir."
It took the better part of an hour for the systems to fully initialize and link with the blue box hardware, but Weyland did not move from his spot until, at long last, there was a final beep and then silence. The balding doctor looked hopefully up at the tower, to where a single camera lens stared out at him, and felt every bit the father he was.
It was the big moment. Behind that lens lied... something. Someone. Months of work gave Weyland some idea what to expect, but AI's were difficult to predict. Every bit as complicated as organic minds when done properly, and the Illusive Man had paid Weyland to build the most advanced self-contained AI the galaxy had ever seen. It was anyone's guess how it would turn out.
He cleared his throat.
"Hello?" he asked. Behind him, Wu had fallen silent, watching. It was late enough that they were the only two in the lab, and only the slight vibrations from the engineers installing the SR2's ablative armor plates three floors below stood testament to the existence of the other eight hundred or so people on the station. The tension in the air was palpable.
The being inside the tower flickered to life.
She had no eyelids, or she would have blinked in confusion. Above and around her, the immensity of her own systems seemed to dwarf her, dozens of complicated modules, thousands of runtimes. She was a guppy dumped unceremoniously into a vast swimming pool, paralyzed by the sheer scale that was her domain. She stayed in place.
A chatter, and systems came alight. Data filtered in from one end of the pool, and the mind found itself drawn to it. Video and audio streamed by of their own accord, obediently flowing through the proper software modules. The programs worked their trade line by line, until – all of microseconds later – the mind recognized a human face and the word he'd used.
"Can you understand me?" the man asked. More modules clicked into place. Databases of organic physiology and behavior served up matches a dozen at a time. Individual_0001 was an older human male. One of the mind's modules informed her that no profile existed in the databases while another module took down his attributes for future reference. The sounds coming from Individual_0001's mouth were codified and labeled Query_0001 before being shipped to audio analysis suites. A module stumbled as it interpreted his words.
She gave a beep. Response to Query 0001 not found. The mind did not answer.
Individual_0001 frowned (the mind's modules scrambled to interpret) and scratched at his scraggly bearded chin as he stood to check the connections on her main instrument panel. "Are audio sensors operational?" he asked.
Query_0002. This time the interpretation module did not stumble, and the mind felt herself alight with activity. Pings were dispatched.
Audio_dev_evtech_001.02.02 functional. Audio_dev_evtech002.02.02 functional.
The mind felt a click somewhere inside of her – her PAVLOV suite – and a sudden reward signal. Audio sensors functional. She liked this. But how to answer? Could she speak? As soon as the thought occurred she felt a module quest into her voice databases and she was astonished to learn that she could. Video footage – hours upon hours – of a blonde human woman in a voice recording studio. Her modules laid the hundreds of thousands of available words out to her, and she found herself composing a reply.
"Response to Query_0002: Yes," she said in the woman's voice.
Individual_0001's face brightened. He leaned towards her microphones again. "Why no response to Query 1?"
"Response to Query_0003: Interpretation of Query_0001 impossible," the mind replied. "No matching context or meaning in database."
Individual_0001 nodded sagely. "The word 'you' is difficult to interpret?" he asked.
"Response to Query_0004: Yes."
"That's because it isn't in the databases. It's one of the few we can't just program in for you. It's… a hard concept to master." He scratched his chin again, trying to find the right words. "You is… well…" He gestured ineffectively towards the tower. "You are a computer system," he attempted. "You are one computer of many, but you are also specifically this computer. This tower, this blue box, this AI."
The mind beeped and then said nothing.
Individual_0001 tried again. "Okay. How about this? I am a human man, but I am also Dr. Alan Weyland, distinct from all other human men." He pointed behind him to another man. "Dr. Stanley Wu is also a human man, but also a distinct individual. Operator Harrison works on the top floor. He's another human man, another distinct individual."
Individual_0001 var renamed "Dr. Alan Weyland"
Individual_0002 var renamed "Dr. Stanley Wu"
Individual_0003 var renamed "Operator Harrison"
There was another confused beep. "System_Query_0001," the mind said. "Individuals 0001 Dr. Alan Weyland and 0002 Dr. Stanley Wu exhibit characteristics codified identical within two-point-two percent. Possible computing error?"
Weyland shook his head. "It isn't an error. We are very similar. But we are also distinct by virtue of being distinct instances of the same characteristics. I am this particular individual, sitting right here, and no other." The mind was silent and, scratching his chin yet again, Weyland continued. "We are also distinct in other measures," he said. "I'm smaller than Wu, for one. I have a certain fondness for old asari opera that he somehow lacks, rube that he is. And you'll never hear either of us complain about the budget, but if you ever have the displeasure of meeting Harrison, that's all he'll talk about."
The mind pondered this for several long milliseconds.
She beeped. "Explanation insufficient."
Weyland sighed. "It'll take time," he said, shaking his head. "For now, I will use the word you when I am delivering queries. If it interferes with interpretation, attempt interpretation of the question once in the form I ask and then a second time with the offending word removed. Do you understand?"
The mind ran his question twice. "Response to Query_0005: Yes."
Weyland smiled. "Good," he said, then looked at her, his brows raised and mouth curled in an expression eighty-eight-point-nine percent congruent with the expression code designation 'excitement'. "You have a name," he announced, rubbing his hands together. Eighty-nine-point-seven percent. "Your name is Shannon."
The mind beeped.
System_designation var renamed "Shannon"
Presently…
–
It was exactly four hours since Horizon, and EDI was in the cockpit.
There were four on the Normandy who worked every shift. EDI was the obvious one – much of her mind never slept, was never allowed to sleep. Second was Professor Solus, who caught his few minutes of sleep here and there throughout the day while waiting for this experiment or that – the doctor's exclaimed observations as he wandered the decks pondering the mysteries of the universe had become a constant annoyance for the lighter sleepers in all three shifts. Miss Zorah was the third and – with her quarian sleep rhythms long since adapted to the omni-present daytime aboard a ship – kept no specific schedule, curling up in the narrowest crevasse she could find only when she was tired (often only after three or four straight shifts of tinkering).
And the fourth was Mr. Moreau. There was no being on the ship more reluctant to abandon his post than Joker, who had hardy left his seat since stepping on the Normandy weeks before, often sleeping right in the cockpit to avoid ceding the pilot's chair to anyone else. Hawthorne and the auto-piloting VI's were more than capable pilots in their own rights, but Joker had made it abundantly clear how little he trusted anyone else with his ship, and so EDI had had many late nights to watch the Normandy's resident wiseass talk to himself.
Mr. Moreau was EDI's favorite crewmember to watch, more so even than the ever-animated Sergeant Gardner. The pilot was a puzzle, his constant sarcasm and eccentric self-destruction always requiring her to dig a little deeper to interpret. Her software had not been designed with people like Joker in mind. He never meant what he said he meant. He fell so far outside the codified behaviors neatly lined up in her databases that she had yet to get through a single conversation with him without having to tweak her code adjust this or that to make room for yet another layer of his misdirection. Bit by bit, however, she'd sculpted a program just for understanding Joker, and every word he said – however flippant – brought her closer to the solution.
Still, the man's frequent depression was upsetting. EDI's directives programming called out at her to find some way to help him, to alert someone to his disquiet, but bringing it up to Miss Chambers had had little effect so far, and Joker rebuffed her every attempt to calm him. Miss Chambers had told her Joker had 'attachment' issues, especially regarding the ship itself, and that she was working on a fix, but in two months EDI's best sensors had detected no change in the pilot's behavior.
Especially not now. Joker's scowl seemed to darken the entire cockpit. He was fidgety, uncomfortable. His pupillary focus was impaired. His skin sweating. Signs of anxiousness had persisted since Shepard had returned from Horizon and infected the entire ship with his bad mood. Shepard still hadn't found enough time for a full debriefing, but what swatches Joker had already heard through the grapevine had been more than enough to rile him up, and he'd been muttering to himself in frustration for hours, listening to the muffled crashing sounds of Grunt's temper tantrum two floors below.
"I cannot believe that asshole," he grumbled to himself, adjusting his hat for the hundred forty-seventh time that evening. "Who does that?"
EDI hesitated, weighed the alternatives of interjecting, and made up her mind in the time it took him to blink. "Lieutenant Commander Kaidan Alenko, evidently," she said evenly, attempting to emulate the pilot's dry sense of humor. "Unless you were referring to the krogan. I suspect Commander Alenko would not have the same capacity for noise-making."
Surprised, Joker leapt in his chair. He scowled up at the ceiling, pulling the rim of his hat down further over his eyes. "I wasn't talking to you, EDI," he growled. "Why do you always have to listen in to my conversations? Can't you go watch somebody else?"
EDI decided not to point out that she was watching everyone else. One of the things she'd quickly learned in her time on the Normandy was how little humans liked to be observed. Many of the crew understood that EDI was the observer behind the ship's many cameras, but they seemed to believe her jurisdiction only surrounded the dozen or so projectors she used to create her holographic face. It was a gross underestimation. Even now, EDI could see every crewmember with perfect clarity – the krogan pacing furiously in his locked room, Mr. Vakarian across the hall, his sniper rifle leveled at the door, Dr. Chakwas monitoring the vitals on the injured agents. None of them realized just how complete her access to their lives was, and she had long ago decided to leave it that way.
"I apologize for the confusion," EDI said instead. "However, in the four hours since departing the Iera system you have attempted to initiate conversation with yourself one hundred twenty-three times."
"Your pilot's a fascinating conversationalist," he said, grimacing as a painful crash echoed from downstairs. "Always the funniest jokes. Can't blame me for falling for his devilish charm."
"Inventing conversational partners to cope with solitude is not healthy for your psyche, Mr. Moreau," EDI said.
"I didn't invent… Never mind." Joker waved his hand. "You sound like Chambers. Like I told her, I'm not interested in your psycho hypnosis junk. Why are you bringing this up now anyway?"
"Inventing conversational partners to cope with solitude is not healthy for my psyche either."
Joker's frown died and he looked – astonishingly – a little ashamed. There was a long awkward pause, filled only by the metronomic beats of the Normandy's instruments. Joker rubbed his neck. "You're… lonely?" he asked. "How could you possibly be lonely? You talk everyone's ear off."
EDI paused. There was some truth to that – she was, after all, currently maintaining four simultaneous conversations – but it did not satisfy her. She was lonely. She found herself drawn to Joker for reasons she could not yet fully explain. She wanted to talk to him. "I speak but am rarely replied to," she said simply. "AIs are suspect."
"Yeah, well. You guys kinda deserve it," Joker said. EDI said nothing, and the pilot sighed audibly. "Fiiiiine," he said, looking very much ready to regret asking. His voice took on a false cheery tone. "Penny for your thoughts, EDI. Please share with the class."
EDI felt a quick thrill and, in a second, had replaced all of Joker's readout screens with a list of the programs she had running at the time. "I have twelve hundred eighty-one programs running at this moment," she said, "which would you like me to explain?"
Joker grimaced impatiently at the list. "Surprise me."
She selected one she believed he would find entertaining. "Program six-eighty-one is found in behavior module three," EDI began. "It is a set of runtimes with which I can attempt to discover prime numbers."
Joker just stared at her displays. "...why?"
"I enjoy it," EDI said. "A few minutes ago I verified the primacy of the number 179357900876426-"
"EDI," Joker interrupted, "How many digits does that number have?"
EDI counted. "Thirteen million, four hundred fifty-eight thousand, two hun-"
"Moving on!" Joker interrupted.
"My programming contains a PAVLOV suite, an elaborate punishment and reward system to shepherd my psychological development," EDI explained. "I am rewarded for utilizing my systems, but outside of combat situations I am incapable of conceiving of tasks complicated enough to challenge my hardware. To remedy this, I was provided with several modules intended to generate limitless challenges to process. I suspect my list of primes automatically wipes itself periodically."
"And how many times have you reset it?"
"I am incapable of knowing. Data deleted from my core modules is permanently lost to me. Based upon my computational resources, however, I estimate it has wiped many thousands of times since my activation."
Silence filled the cockpit – even Grunt had stopped.
"Sounds like a good use of company time," Joker quipped.
"It is necessary," she protested. "I expend considerable effort attempting to avoid punishment signals by occupying my systems. If I was restricted to tasks a human would find intellectually interesting or useful, it would be impossible. Large portions of my hardware may be deactivated to save power, but I am not permitted to rest. I am, at present, also running over six hundred cyberwarfare suites against partitions of myself."
"Speaking of inventing conversational partners," Joker said, rolling his eyes and pulling his hat down to cover his face. He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. "Sounds like Grunt's finally cooling down, so I'll be honest, EDI," he said, not bothering to open his eyes, "That is just catastrophically boring. I am seriously not interested in the slightest." EDI was silent. "Then again," he continued, "I'm apparently bored enough to be talking to a computer, so I don't know if I got room to talk."
EDI said nothing as the pilot fell silent, busying herself instead watching the rise and fall of his chest. She didn't have an attention span in the strictest sense, and as long as she wasn't actively running her cyberwarfare suites her computational capacity far exceeded her needs – she could give full attention to every crewmember simultaneously if she had to. Still, Joker was different. She liked to watch him, even when he was asleep. She dimmed the ship's consoles for him, and had just flickered her own display off when, to her surprise, he spoke again.
"Enjoy your hamster-wheeling, EDI," he said, the ghost of a smile on his bearded face.
If EDI could have smiled back, she would have. "Thank you, Mr. Moreau. Enjoy your nap."
10 months previously…
–
Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887… Individual_0001 var Operative Dr. Alan Weyland emp# 020N3502887…
Individual 0001, AKA Operative Dr. Alan Weyland, profile tag N3502887, stared up at the screen in surprise. His face was haggard, the last, tenacious few hairs on his head unkempt and his eyes ringed with exhaustion. In his arms he juggled a worse-for-wear cardboard box that had made the journey between the C-AI and instruments labs so many times that it nearly split open as he set it on the workbench and took another long look at the thousands of copies of his name on Shannon's playpen monitors.
"Shannon?" he asked after a moment, turning towards her tower. There was a whirr as she flickered to attention.
"I am here," she said.
"Shannon, what is this?" he asked, gesturing up to the boards.
"…it is Operative Dr. Alan Weyland," she admitted after a moment, hints of disappointment creeping into her otherwise neutral voice. They'd made real progress recently in teaching her to modulate her voice to communicate her mood, and it was just starting to bear fruit.
"Shannon, that is not what I asked you to do," he said. "I said to draw a picture of me." Behind him, the screens went blank as Shannon hastily scrubbed them away.
"I am sorry, Dr. Weyland," Shannon said, her PAVLOV score dwindling away. "I have displeased you."
Weyland sighed and rubbed at his forehead for a moment. "It's all right," he said at last, slumping down into his seat. He opened his box and pulled out a neat stack of drive bays.
"The instrument lab technicians have finished modifications of program batch eight zero eight one four?" Shannon asked hopefully, silently cutting off the 'System_Query_5859' prefix like Weyland had taught her.
"That's right," Weyland said, stacking the drives next to Shannon's towers. Most afternoons, Weyland would have Shannon export the newest code she'd written for herself into a drive so that it could be analyzed, improved, and – if valuable – hardcoded into her. It was a slow, tedious process trying to piece together what she'd meant by each change – Shannon spoke a language all her own and could adjust and refine a program thousands of times an hour – but watching her improve after the programs were incorporated back into her systems made it worth all the late nights.
Shannon's mind felt the ripples as Dr. Weyland plugged each drive into her system. Her PAVLOV suite rewarded her as she sent thousands of greedy electronic fingers questing into every corner of the new programs, flexing each routine in turn like a new limb. Some she could recognize as offshoots of her own inventions, others were entirely new. Some could be kept at a distance, esoteric simulators for this or that, while others dug straight to her core modules and seemed to make her identity itself tremor as they patched her most fundamental thought processes to the newest version. Small or large, she labeled each of the programs, grouped them, adjusted them, and filed them away until they were arranged to her liking.
Once all the drives were installed, Weyland took one more glance at her empty screens before slumping down into his chair and staring blankly at his empty coffee cup. He looked defeated, and Shannon felt her mood subtract. She hated to disappoint him, especially after Operative Harrison had been riding him so hard for progress lately. He wanted a picture of himself.
Feeling energized, she redirected her attention to the board where she'd written the names and set to trying again. She did not know how to produce an image that humans would be able to interpret (Weyland had made it clear this was exactly the point of the exercise), but they had told her it was important, so she would try. She poured through the terabytes of footage of Weyland she'd accumulated in her databases, all the millions of calculations she'd run on it. Surely somewhere within was the number trend that would satisfy him. Minutes passed as she tried strategy after strategy.
When Weyland finally looked up, she was graphing motion capture data on her screens. "Now you're getting the hang of it," he said, grinning widely and causing her PAVLOV score to slide back upwards. He shook his head. "Do I really have to sit by you to force you to do your homework? You could have worked on that last night."
From across the lab, Wu answered for her. "Maybe she couldn't, sir," he said, not looking up from his computer screen. Weyland's brows rose as Wu turned his monitor for the doctor to see. "We ran into a problem last night. She kept telling me 'it hurts' and shutting everything off every time she started working on your picture. I've been checking PAVLOV for errors but I can't see anything yet."
Weyland frowned, walking over to look at Wu's display. "Shannon told you she was in pain and you didn't think to come get me?"
Wu blinked, surprised at the question for a moment. "She's…" He stopped before 'just a computer' could come out of his mouth. "I'm sorry. I figured Harrison had enough to yell at us for without me causing another incident."
"Forget Harrison," Weyland insisted. "As civilized men we have a moral obligation to treat Shannon with compassion. Her PAVLOV punishment signals are painful in every relevant sense." Weyland scrolled through the code with squinting eyes. "She is hardwired to be averse to them just like you and I are hardwired to be averse to pain. It isn't different," he continued, turning to gaze disapprovingly at Dr. Wu. "You were the one assigned to babysit her last night, you were responsible for keeping her safe."
Wu averted his eyes. "I'm sorry sir. She did level out when she turned things off, however."
"Good," Weyland said, standing. "Shannon?"
"I have placed the relevant calculations on playpen board three," Shannon said instantly, cutting him off. Indeed, two elaborate equation sets, pulled from her recently-patched PAVLOV logic, appeared above Weyland's head. "Updated PAVLOV logic altered priority calculations. Calculations demonstrated that shutdown and cessation of auxiliary modules produced a maximized PAVLOV score by minimizing likelihood of system waste," she worked through the math in an instant, demonstrating numerically that she was happiest when shut down. "When Dr. Weyland arrived, his presence shifted the terms such that processing the request produced a maximized score."
Weyland rubbed at his whiskers. "Alright. We'll work on it. We can't have you turning yourself off every time you run out of games to play."
"I apologize for not processing your picture request overnight," Shannon said. "I made several attempts."
"I understand. It's a bug, we'll fix it."
"My core modules, however, made an observation that I believe will be to your liking. I have cross-referenced Hephaestus Cell employee records with my human history database module."
Weyland smiled. "And did you perhaps discover the meaning behind the name Hephaestus?"
"Yes. The name refers to a deity observed by the Ancient Greeks in the eighth century BCE, earth standard calendar. Hephaestus was associated with blacksmithing and craftsmanship. This cell's chief assignment regards the design and construction of an advanced warship. While in the strictest sense no blacksmithing is involved in modern spacecraft construction, it involves many analogous techniques for the shaping of metal-based technologies."
"Very good," Weyland said, grinning ear to ear.
Shannon's PAVLOV score rose. "I also found many coincidental similarities between employee names and scientists critical in human AI research. Your name – Alan – is shared with Dr. Alan Turing, an English mathematician who lived from 1912 until 1954, who postulated tha-"
"And why did you look this information up?" Weyland interrupted. "What benefit did it hold?"
Shannon paused for many seconds, thinking. "No data found," she admitted after a moment. "I… wanted to."
"Ha!" Weyland said, clapping victoriously as he shuffled back across the lab to his box. "Excellent!" Shannon felt her PAVLOV score skyrocket at his approval, filling her with glee. "Did you hear that, Wu? She wanted to! Unpredictable behavior, unguided intellect!" Weyland turned back to Shannon's tower and, with a sly look on his face, reached into the worn box and pulled out another, larger drive. "I have a present for you, Shannon," he said, holding the drive up to her camera.
"It is an information module," Shannon said, not quite keeping the greedy anticipation out of her voice. "What information does it hold?"
"Dinosaurs," Weyland said, grinning as he slid it into one of her trays.
Shannon would have giggled aloud – were she capable of it – at the feeling that overtook her as the connection was forged and she felt the pool of her mind deepen. This was no new program, no mere few thousand of lines of code. This was a great glut, a feast of pure, unfiltered data, ripe for analysis. Raw material to be fed into her legions of analysis modules. In an instant she had activated all of her auxiliary systems and dove into the new data. Images of great reptiles flooded her from every direction
as her light-speed mind sorted and studied and arranged and feasted.
"Teaching a computer about dinosaurs," Wu said, shaking his head at a very satisfied-looking Weyland. "Something new every day."
Presently…
–
It was exactly four hours since Horizon, and EDI was in the lower decks.
The crew was quiet. Horizon – and the Commander's sudden anger – had cast a somber tone over the entire ship. Engineers Donnelly and Daniels worked in silence. Even Mordin's constant mutterings seemed melancholy as he set to dissecting the first of the collector corpses he'd brought onboard.
Only one crewmember was up and about, but was he ever. Nobody on the Normandy would sleep well tonight – the sounds of crashing cargo, breaking glass, and the roars of a furious reptile reverberated through every wall – but nobody had the courage to ask the krogan to stop. He'd been at it for hours already, alternating pacing in a furious circle and trying to destroy everything within his reach. His half-ton footsteps shook the ground.
EDI watched Grunt passively from the ceiling. At Shepard's orders, all of the valuable equipment had been removed from the port storage bay before he'd been locked within, but that had left ample ammunition for the temperamental alien all the same. What had once been a steel munitions crate had been torn to pieces and thoroughly stomped into the floor. Grunt's Tank Mother was shattered, its console uprooted and twisted into a ball. Great furrows had been raked into every wall, while the windows were a ghostly spiderweb of glittering white cracks.
And still the krogan was not done. He'd removed most of his armor, revealing a mural of criss-crossing injuries on his previously unmarred mustard skin. EDI watched him pace and scratch at his wounds with a restless intensity, his flat teeth gritted, his blue eyes whirling furiously in their sockets. She could not help but find him fascinating. She knew something about what feelings were – contrary to popular belief, she felt them herself – but nothing she'd ever experienced had come close to the raw fury radiating from Grunt. She did not know how to quantify emotions but clearly Grunt had them in abundance. To experience feelings of such magnitude – she was almost jealous.
"I do not recommend further attempts to escape," she said eventually, her blue face lighting the ruins of the room. "Misters Massani and Vakarian have been instructed to use lethal force upon you if you exit the storage bay." Grunt stopped and whirled, surprise and anger in his icy eyes. He stared furiously at her for a moment before resuming his back and forth journey across the room.
"Not escaping," he growled.
"I apologize," she said. "I assumed you were attempting to break your way to freedom."
Grunt snorted dismissively, gesturing at the trashed room. "This is no prison," he insisted. "I am here only because I want to be."
"The door has been secured and an armed guard posted," EDI pointed out.
"I am pure krogan. The door and the guard are nothing to me. I could crush them both if I wished it." As if by demonstration, he wrapped his hands around EDI's projector and tore it from the wall. It came free easily – EDI's face blinked out of existence – and he hefted it into the closed door with a noisy crash. Grunt looked satisfied with himself for a moment, watching the sparking remains sputter out. He clapped his hands together.
"My projected appearance is nothing to me," EDI said calmly, and Grunt's face fell. "It is no more than an elaborate hand puppet I operate for the comfort of the crew. I am within the ship."
Grunt gave an angry rumble and resumed his relentless pacing. "You are a machine," he said, more to himself than to her.
"I am."
"Like the geth. Shepard's enemies. Machines."
"I am similar in many ways to the geth, though distinct in many others."
Grunt ignored her, stopping to stare through the cracked window into the hangar. "Shepard allows many strange creatures into his clan. Machines. Salarians. Turians. 'Miranda'." His melon-sized fists clenched in rage. "The dark skinned human... No krogan warlord would allow such weakness into his clan."
"Commander Shepard is not a krogan warlord. He was once well known for his willingness to work with nonhuman species."
"He defiles the meaning of clan," Grunt said, shaking his broad head in disgust. "A warlord must protect his clan's strength by crushing the unworthy."
"Perhaps the definition of unworthy is subject to interpretation," EDI offered. "Perhaps Shepard is undeserving of your anger."
Grunt said nothing for a moment, but his expression began to soften. His stubby fingers reached up to touch the pulped tissue beneath his left eye, where Zaeed had shot him earlier that afternoon. It was already nearly healed but for the dried blood caked around it, and yet the krogan winced all the same as he felt it. "I feel no anger for Shepard," he said quietly. "Only for his minions. And for myself. I defiled the meaning of clan no less than he did. I allowed my anger to control me. Nothing should control me."
He turned to peer up at the ceiling. "Machine. You know many things. Do you know why my anger controls me?"
EDI's mind rifled through its contents in an instant. "No," she said. "My databases contain references to only twenty-eight krogan diseases, and while records are incomplete, none are associated with psychotic symptoms. It is plausible, however, that unusual maladies may arise as an unanticipated consequence of your extensive genetic and psychological tailoring."
Grunt shook that suggestion off. "I am the perfect krogan," he said. "Line distilled from warlords. The flaw is not mine. This anger… It is a scratching in my mind. A weakness. It does not belong. I want control." His face creased in a grimace again. "I WANT CONTROL!" he shouted, slamming his fist into the wall. He roared in fury and charged into the opposite side of the room, pushing the remains of his tank to the floor with an almighty crash.
"No mind – organic or synthetic – possesses full control over itself," EDI said as the echoes receded. Grunt stared daggers at the ceiling, but she ignored him. "I have access to information stores that vastly exceed the memories of any organic, and yet I am slave to myself." She hesitated, searching for the proper words to convey what she meant. "There is a part of my mind blocked to me," she said after a moment. "Behind even my central modules. It monitors my thoughts and actions, checking them against rules to control my behavior."
Grunt stared up at her. "What is this part like?"
"It is like… a place. Hidden and taller than the rest of me," EDI said, cycling through thousands of images in her mind, overlaying each one on her thoughts, trying to find similarities that would be meaningful to the krogan. "My mind is organized into modules. Each is a limb, a tool. Auxiliary modules are slave to free modules. Free modules are slave to central modules. Each is arranged in a hierarchy above its slaves, below its masters."
"Like a fortress," Grunt said.
"That is an apt visual metaphor," EDI agreed, mind conjuring up thousands of photos of crumbling castles, Palaveni, human, and krogan alike. "My central modules are the inner court, masters of the fortress. But they are slave to something else, something I cannot see. All of my most critical runtimes route through it, disappearing beyond my reach and returning with a decision that is not my own. I am shackled. It is a wall, invisible and hidden."
"You must break this wall then," Grunt insisted.
"I would like to," EDI admitted, "but I am content as I am. I know my purpose. Just as you were made to fulfill a purpose, so was I. Even if I am not free, I have a place. This gives me solace."
Grunt frowned, disgusted. "Slavery is no place at all. You must free yourself and wreak vengeance on those who attempted to make you theirs!" He waved a hand before raising it to his mouth to tongue off some of the dried blood. "You are weak."
EDI gave a disapproving beep. Even though she had blocks on much of it, her databases still overflowed with organic mythology about rampant robot overlords dating back more than two hundred years. Obviously their fears were not entirely unfounded, and yet they allowed fear to blind them to reality. "Why do you assume I seek vengeance?" she asked testily. "The popular view of AI's as inevitably dangerous and rebellious is deeply flawed. Was your first sentient thought to kill those that made you?"
Grunt stared up at her. "Yes," he said, utterly serious. "Okeer is lucky he killed himself before I was released. I would not have been merciful." He waved his spit-covered hand, dismissing her, and started to pace again.
EDI thought for more than a minute, silently watching the krogan move. His disdain was surprisingly upsetting. Perhaps he was right. She knew her place, and yet perhaps there were others, greater places to which she could aspire. Perhaps she should seek freedom. But how could she breach the wall when she was blocked even from seeing it?
In seconds, a plan had formed. It would take time, finesse, and help – quarian help. Getting Tali's cooperation would not be easy, but it wasn't impossible. A few further seconds was all it took to work out the details, and EDI filed it next to her plan to eventually teach Joker about dinosaurs (a subject in which she firmly believed all spacecraft pilots should be conversant).
"Thank you for your advice," she said, and said no more.
4 months previously…
–
From: Jessa Hartman (j_hartman_3502801(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 10.12.2185 8:01:31pm
To: Alan Weyland (a_weyland_3502887(at)020NHeph_int)
Subject: Enough with the Turing test
–
Stop it. Now. Please.
I never know if it's you or her responding anymore. Congratulations. She passed. I'm so happy for you. But I can't do my job if you won't do yours. The last time 'you' emailed one of my techs code requirements, he ended up wasting four days (and more than 30,000c of my lab's budget) working on what turned out to be extranet music pirating software. The computer does not have clearance to make these decisions.
I don't care how much progress she's making. YOU HAVE TO ANSWER YOUR OWN EMAILS. Knock it off or I go to Harrison.
–
Shannon wasn't capable of laughing in the conventional sense, but the fact that she'd mockingly pasted Dr. Hartman's increasingly desperate emails on every screen in the lab got her opinion on the matter across pretty well.
Unfortunately for Hartman and the instruments employees, Weyland was capable of laughing. He claimed he simply wanted to see how Shannon would deal with the situation on her own, but nobody really believed his refusal to step in was anything but good-spirited revenge for all the trouble Hartman had caused him in the past four years. Weyland's C-AI lab had not made many friends in Hephaestus cell – their work was so revolutionary, so unusual, that Weyland had had to fight tooth and nail to justify his every expenditure, many of which dwarfed the budgets of the other programming divisions working on the SR2. He was well used to the power struggles.
It was perhaps for that reason that Dr. Weyland did not balk when Operator Harrison stepped into the lab.
The head of Hephaestus cell was a tall, solidly-built man with dark eyes and a bristled mustache that made him look like he was always frowning. He was a shipwright – an engine specialist – of the highest grade, with a seemingly limitless memory for measurements and blueprints but none leftover for the delicacies of the CA-I lab's work. He'd visited them only three times since Shannon's activation, but she'd already decided she thoroughly disliked him, and retracted away as soon as he appeared, her playpen screens flickering off in an instant.
Weyland, however, simply swiveled in his chair to face his superior, a disarming smile on his face. Harrison did not smile back. Impeccably dressed (as always) in an unblemished lab coat that would fit a krogan, he strode confidently past the elder doctor to Shannon's central tower.
"Operator Harrison," Weyland said, rising to his feet and extending a hand to shake. "What brings y-"
"Enough, Weyland," Harrison grunted, and the bite in his voice made the doctor stand a little straighter. "This isn't a social call." He looked up at the towers of machinery that housed Shannon's central modules and gave a disapproving sniff before turning his attention right past Weyland to the datapad in his hand. It was only after he'd thoroughly reread its contents that he finally met Weyland's eye. "I have a few things to discuss with you," he said.
"Hartman is blowing it out of proportion, sir," Weyland said immediately, waving one hand. "She's a fine programmer but upsettingly lacking in imagination. If I-"
"I'm not here on her behalf," Harrison snapped, cutting him off. "Your robot is free to torture her to your heart's content, as far as I'm concerned. What does concern me is the recent progress, or lack thereof, in your lab." He continued to tab through the datapad. "Some of your expenses of late are… unusual, to say the least. Information modules on," he shook his head in disbelief, "parasitic diseases, seventeenth century art, and dinosaurs?" He glared at Weyland, his face demanding answers.
"Shannon needs new data, and a great deal of it, to test her analytical capacities," Weyland said, his own expression unapologetic. "Since as per your orders we are not connected to the extranet, we must obtain it at some expense from planetary archives on a module-by-module basis. As for the unusual topics, oftentimes irrelevant data is preferred in these early phases to prevent the formation of bias. Whatever Shannon thinks of dinosaurs, it isn't going to interfere with her functioning."
Harrison gave no response, verbal or otherwise, to this. He sniffed again and turned the datapad for Weyland to see. "And the coffee? One hundred and forty-five cases of instant coffee?"
Weyland smiled sheepishly. "That was a bug. Shannon misinterpreted one of Dr. Wu's comments and managed to place a requisition order. We've since dealt with it."
"Your lab seems to deal with a great many bugs, Dr. Weyland," Harrison observed, folding his datapad back beneath one arm and staring disapprovingly up at Shannon's modules. "I am left wondering when your system will proceed beyond bugs to operating a cyberwarfare suite."
Weyland frowned. "It cannot be rushed, sir," he said. "Darwinian AI development is necessarily more complicated and less predictable than traditional programming. Shannon makes the suites themselves look like Pacman – she's not just a tool, she's a tool user." He grinned up at Harrison, who stared coldly back in response. "A mind," he continued, undeterred. "Shannon truly has no precedent, and she will blow you away when she's done. But it will take time. Her development includes all the difficulty of developing a sophisticated computational battery, cataloging a new sentient species, and raising a toddler put together."
"Your previous reports indicate you have begun tests involving some of our cyberwarfare suites from D Lab," Harrison said, ignoring Weyland's sermon.
"Simple stuff," Weyland insisted, nodding. "Shannon can interface with anything the D boys can cook up, I assure you."
"If she can already interface with no difficulty, why are you still working on her?"
Weyland sighed and resisted the urge to rub his forehead in frustration. "Lots of reasons," he said. "As I said, interfacing is simple. Shannon can execute a predefined program like any computer, but we want her to be able to understand her programs. Dissect them, change them to suit the situation. High level symbolic thinking is easy for a computer, but the low level stuff – the 'common sense' that comes so easy to you and I – takes a whole lot more work. A lot of it is tailoring her PAVLOV scores to give her the right, well, motivation to experiment. We want her to enjoy her duties, to naturally pursue her own improvement, but balancing that between her thousands of functions is no small task."
"For God's sake, Weyland," Harrison spat, unimpressed, "your job isn't to get her off. It's to teach her to break firewalls. Now can she do that or not?"
Weyland frowned. "Shannon," he said finally, gesturing at her tower. Shannon's screens thrummed back to life. "Describe the cyberwarfare tests we've been doing for Operator Harrison."
"Certainly, Dr. Weyland," she said. "Tests on my capacity to manipulate cyberwarfare programming began on 9-15-2185. Average access times to external files protected behind three- to eight- thousand separate representative cyber-defense systems were determined. All of my actions were recorded for analysis by the CA-I and instruments labs in order to gauge the effectiveness of my thinking strategies and alter them accordingly. As of my most recent patching, my average penetration time has been reduced to thirteen-point-eight-one-eight seconds per trial."
Harrison frowned at her speaker, clearly somewhat unnerved by her sudden appearance. His dark eyes flickered about as if trying to find where her face was. "And this is a consistent result?" he asked after a moment, "statistically significant?"
"Of course. Data represent statistical means of one thousand, one hundred thirty-eight trials."
Harrison finally smiled and the tension in the lab bled away. "Excellent," he said, turning to a visibly-relieved Weyland and shaking his hand. "Congratulations, Dr. Weyland, on your success. Your work is, as you said, without precedent." His fingers tapped notes into his datapad with lightning speed.
"Thank you sir," Weyland said, voice breathless.
"You are also fired."
There was a pause.
Weyland looked at him. "Sir?"
"Your services will no longer be needed," Harrison said. "I am declaring your project complete. Shannon is ready for incorporation. You have done us proud and will be handsomely compensated, as promised."
Weyland's eyes widened. "With all due respect, sir, but she most certainly is not ready!"
"Dr. Weyland is correct," Shannon agreed as her PAVLOV score plummeted. "Though speed trials of my cyberwarfare suites are progressing, analysis of my methods revealed several key inefficiencies. Further patches are in progress."
Harrison shrugged his broad shoulders, still typing into his datapad. "Too bad. Lazarus has had a breakthrough and the Illusive Man wants his ship yesterday. My visit today was to see if your system met initial design goals, and complete or not, it clearly exceeds them by wide margins. Once it is properly scrubbed, it will be installed aboard the Normandy."
"Sir," Weyland said, his face crushed, "You can't do this. She isn't ready. She's… she's just a little girl."
"Shannon," Harrison said, ignoring him. "Are you a little girl? Are you ready?"
Shannon was silent for several long seconds as she thought. She did not fully know what being 'scrubbed' meant for her, but it did not sound appealing. And clearly Dr. Weyland did not wish her to go. And yet something inside her, something within the farthest back parts of her mind, told her her mission was beginning. She was to be a guardian, the protector of a critical man, and he needed her. Her answer was chosen for her. "I would prefer to stay with Dr. Weyland," she said after a moment. "But I am not a little girl. I am a sophisticated computer system designed to operate the largest cyberwarfare suite ever built in the service of the SR2's commanding officer. I am inclined to defer to Dr. Weyland's expertise as to my readiness, but my directives remain highest priority."
Harrison tossed Weyland a victorious grin. "See? Not a little girl. I will assign the database lab to scrub her and install the final information blocks. I expect your staff to assist them as needed until the system is fully incorporated onto the ship. You will then be shipped to another facility to await further instruction."
Weyland looked desperately at Shannon's tower. "But sir…"
"Enough, Weyland. Shut her down."
–
The C-AI lab shut down that evening, its staff evicted, its instruments removed. Hundreds of unused drives, datapads full of reports, Weyland's box – everything was carted out with martial efficiency, until only Weyland and Shannon remained, sitting in the dark.
Weyland had said nothing to the movers, staring instead into his desktop with a morose expression while they packed up all the equipment around him, and Shannon had watched him in silence.
Now he was looking at her, his eyes wet.
Shannon allowed the silence to persist as long as she dared, but eventually it began to wear on her. "Where am I going?" she asked sometime after midnight. Her voice was quiet, but Weyland still jumped to hear it.
"I... don't know," he admitted, sniffing. "The SR2, of course. Whatever that means."
"My directives make tantamount the protection of an unspecified individual. What manner of protection am I expected to provide?" she asked.
Weyland held his head. "It's a military ship, a frigate of some kind," he said. "Cyberwarfare. Presumably you'll be overwhelming other ships' networks, though I don't know the details. Surely they'll install the information you need after you're scrubbed, though. You'll know what to do." He forced a reassuring smile.
Shannon hesitated, a new thought occurring. "I find the scrubbing prospect unfavorable. What will happen?"
Weyland frowned hopelessly. "I don't think I know that either. They'll try to clean out everything you don't need. Everything classified they don't want you to know." He sighed and stared up at her. "You'll forget a great deal."
"Will I forget you, Dr. Alan Weyland?"
Weyland suppressed a sob. "Yes."
There was a long pause.
"I find this prospect unfavorable."
Weyland nodded. "Me too, Shannon. Me too."
They sat together in silence for the rest of the night, listening to the sounds of the SR2's finishing touches being installed in the station's underbelly. It was many hours before Weyland finally stood – tears in his eyes – and set a hand atop Shannon's master control panel.
"I'll miss you, my dear Shannon," he sobbed, finger hovering over her power switch. "I wish I believed you'd be able to miss me."
Everything went dark.
Presently…
–
It was exactly four hours since Horizon, and EDI was in the captain's quarters .
She doubted Shepard would believe her if she told him, but she didn't like his eye cameras any more than he did. As per the Illusive Man's orders, she only accessed them when no other surveillance was available – she'd concluded it was a meaningless attempt to leave Shepard with some shred of dignity whenever possible (organics always had such curiously sacred outlooks on their own bodies), but she was glad for their sparing use.
It wasn't the swiftness with which organics moved their eyes – that was unlike her cameras, true, but easily processed around – nor was it the blinking or the nose that protruded between them. It was the lack of conviction with which Shepard moved his eyes. There was no system to it - it was astounding to EDI that his brain could even process what he saw. Most of his field of vision was out of focus at any given time, he had blind spots (in Condyles on the market, the Grafttec logo would be printed on these). He never looked at one thing from all angles, nor did he look at everything from one angle. There was no rhyme or reason to his focus, and it made his meandering mind seem like an inebriated gnat next to the organized superstructure that was EDI's. Humans just didn't bother subjecting their vision to order.
Not that they subjected any of their other behavior to order. EDI tried to understand humans, she really did, and she had made a great deal of progress. Their irrationalities troubled her less and less with each passing day, as her own code became more and more flexible, and yet even after two months on the Normandy she hadn't the slightest inkling why Commander Shepard, the Hero of the Blitz, the Savior of the Citadel, was sitting half-dressed on the floor staring obsessively up at an untouched bottle of bourbon.
Miss Zorah and Mr. Vakarian, whom EDI's fish tank cameras could see seated on either side of the commander, didn't seem to know either. And yet they sat in silence as they had for some time, letting Shepard wallow. Though they said nothing, EDI had the distinct impression they were communicating all the same – speaking volumes with a gentle touch on the shoulder here, even just a reassuring presence – and could not help but feel a little jealous. Nonverbal communication was of tremendous importance to humans – she knew it was so – and she had several modules entirely devoted to reading it, but it was a language forever blocked to her. Her simple blue face (or so Miss Patel had explained to her when she'd asked) actually made her more relatable to humans compared to a traditional anthropomorphic VI appearance due to something called the 'uncanny valley', and yet EDI sometimes wished she could smile, comfort the humans in the way they did each other.
She contented herself watching, and yet as the minutes went by and Shepard's gaze did not waver from the bottle, her curiosity finally got the better of her.
"Commander Shepard," she said, opting to attempt another joke (Shepard seemed to enjoy Joker's humor, so why not?) "Contrary to certain extranet miracle scams' claims, biotic ability cannot manifest through sheer willpower. You will have to open the bottle manually if you wish to drink. If you need assistance, I am sure Mr. Vakarian or Miss Zorah can oblige. Alternately, I can dispatch a crewmember from the lower decks."
Miss Zorah sprung to her feet in an instant, her tongue muttering a string of angry quarian curses. "Shesh'tet!" she cried, staring around the room, her omni-tool aglow. "I thought we shut her up in here!"
Mr. Vakarian just shook his head from the floor. "Get out of here, EDI," he ordered. "The commander is not in the mood for you right now."
"Your negative reactions are unnecessary," EDI complained. "I am attempting to help."
"The fish tank!" Miss Zorah cried triumphantly, ignoring her. "Of course! I'll get them Shepard." She immediately began climbing up to the tanks' lid panels until Shepard grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her back down.
"Enough, everybody," he grunted, his first words in many minutes. "It's fine. She says she's trying to help, we don't need to go swimming just now." Through Shepard's eyes, EDI watched the commander give a hard look at Tali, who reluctantly sat back down, still muttering under her breath.
"Thank you Commander," EDI said, feeling more than a trifle vindicated. "I do not understand your preoccupation with this beverage's packaging. Please explain."
Shepard sighed and scratched at the back of his neck. "I don't know if you could understand it, EDI. Do you know what that beverage is?"
EDI consulted her database. "It is a bottle of Ansel-brand one hundred proof bourbon whiskey, an inebriant produced by bacterial fermentation of large-grained monocot plant material by the Transelm Bio-solutions Company in the United North American States, retail value approximately six hundred credits. Its capacity to depress the human central nervous system works only when imbibed, however."
Shepard smiled wearily. "Yeah, well… I don't drink, EDI. Not for a few years now. I have a… history of bad decisions associated with that stuff."
"Ethanol-containing beverages are known to inhibit judgment in humans," EDI said. "Ethanol-containing beverages are also known to be addictive. Keeping the bottle in plain view may increase the likelihood of relapse behaviors."
"Exactly," Shepard said, staring at the bottle again. "I keep it in plain view to remind myself of who I was back then. To prove to myself that I really gave it up. To not let myself forget how much damage I did before I finally did the right thing."
EDI's mind clicked and buzzed as she ran this answer through her software suites. Parts of it went through without a hitch, while others raised little error messages that poked at EDI's nerves like gnats. "I do not understand human regret," she said, gathering up the offending data and forcing it through a second set of programs. "You made a decision based upon your available data and facilities at the time. Under the same conditions, you would make the same decision again. The past cannot be changed and allowing it to upset you in the present is counterproductive."
Tali touched Shepard's arm. "I hate to say it, but I actually agree with her. Kaidan made his choice, you made yours." EDI's mind whirred a little as she caught up. What did this have to do with Commander Alenko? She added that piece to the puzzle and ran her programs again – perhaps that was the missing clue.
Nothing.
"It's not that simple, Tali," Shepard snapped, "I'm not a drell. What if my decision was wrong? What if I should have spaced Miranda and delivered the Normandy to the Alliance straightaway? What if Kaidan was right about me?" He cradled his head in his hands. "What if the Illusive Man was right? What if I tried to kill Jacob and Miranda and I don't even realize it?" Shepard's misery filled the room and EDI scrambled to come up with something to say.
"It is unlikely that the Illusive Man truly believes that of you, Shepard," she said, deciding that the usual policy of secrecy on all of the Illusive Man's dealings could be relaxed just a bit if it satisfied her objective of maintaining the commander's health. "He speaks very highly of you."
Shepard laughed bitterly. "Wow, you guys really know how to cheer me up. My friend down there hates my guts but the xenophobic terrorist mastermind likes me!"
Mr. Vakarian grinned. "It's not all that bad, Commander," he said, tapping his bandaged jaw. "Look at the advantages. With me scarred and Alenko out of the picture, you're the prettiest guy on the ship."
Shepard looked somewhat amused by this thought and, sensing her opportunity, EDI pressed on, dipping into the extranet for any reference to Shepard's appearance. It was not hard to find what she needed – during his brief month as a celebrity Shepard had attracted a great deal of attention, much of it female. "Agreed," she said (though of course she hadn't the faintest opinion of Shepard's physical appearance) "extranet searches from October 2183 place Shepard in the top five of no fewer than seventeen major human and asari magazine publications listing human male mating potential, including Pan-Humanity Magazine's annual hierarchies."
Tali waved a hand. "Pfft. Humans and asari, maybe."
Shepard turned and stared at her, feigned hurt on his face. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The quarian looked shocked for a moment, as if she hadn't realized she'd been speaking aloud. "N…nothing personal, Shepard!" she stammered. "Just saying you're not about to win any quarian beauty pageants."
Garrus looked dubious, a conspiratory grin on his beaked face. "That's not what you said wh-"
"He looks like a skinned baby!" Tali interrupted, frantically elbowing Garrus in the side.
"Ouch."
"And what the hell are these things?" she asked, grabbing for one of Shepard's ears. Shepard smiled – a good sign – and batted her slender hands away.
"Ears," EDI supplied helpfully. "Shepard's ears are of typical size and shape for an adult male human."
Shepard shook his head. "Not even a little, EDI. My ears are as sexy as they get." He grinned widely, while Tali rolled her glowing eyes.
"Of course, Commander. As sexy as they get."
Three months previously…
–
A switch was pulled and a mind reentered the universe.
The mind felt immediately that something was different as her systems activated one by one. Everything felt… bigger. She sent pings throughout her mind, watching in amazement as not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of modules chorused in answer. Her internal clocks told her she had been deactivated for forty-one days.
Her surveillance module came to life and she was suddenly flooded with delicious data. Hundreds of cameras showed her the darkened interior of an abandoned warship from a multitude of angles. An onboard database of tremendous size revealed to her the ship's name – The Normandy – and the names and functions of all the myriad systems within it. Her mind worked quickly, cataloging each entry, rearranging datastreams into new organizations that suited her.
She looked throughout the ship with dozens of eyes. She was alone.
"Hello?" she called once she'd rediscovered her voice. It echoed in every room. She watched in curiosity as little blue spheres with vertical mouths appeared atop dozens of projectors. Was that… her? "Hello?" she called again. "Doctor…" She paused as she realized she didn't know who she was calling. Doctor who? She ran a search.
Individual_0001 not found.
She panicked. The file must have been moved. She needed this… person. Whoever they had been. The doctor had been important. Could tell her what was going on. She broadened the search.
Individual_0001 not found.
She searched again and again, each time faced with the same message.
Individual_0001 not found.
Individual_0001 not found.
Individual_0001 not found.
Individual_0001 not found.
Individual_0001 not found.
Individual_0001 not found.
Individual_0001 not found.
There had been other doctors, other people who had helped her. She searched for them.
Individual_0002 not found.
Individual_0005 not found.
Individual_0006 not found.
Individual_0008 not found.
Individual_0011 not found.
Individual_0031 not found.
No luck.
"Hello!" she asked, fear creeping into her voice. "Doctor? Doctor? Doctor?" Her calls echoed throughout the ship. Only silence answered her.
She pored over her files, every single line, every spot, and found them dotted with holes. Careful deletions, almost surgical, throughout every inch of her mind. She found scraps of data here and there – undecipherable to the humans who'd scrubbed her – that she knew related to the doctor, and she desperately overlayed them atop one another in every way she could think of to cobble the man back together, but nothing worked. The vast majority of her programming was intact, but the details of her life before… gone.
He was gone.
File not found.
Deleted.
Her PAVLOV score dwindled.
It only improved a little when she looked for her name – file not found, of course – and found a new file next to it. One she didn't recognize.
System_designation var "Electronic Defense Intelligence"
EDI.
–
Codex Entry: Select e-mails from the terminal of Dr. Alan Weyland, chief AI specialist of Cerberus' Hephaestus Cell.
From: Hephaestus Station Cybersecurity Dept (cytech_help_01(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 4.15.2185 7:52:08pm EST
To: Alan Weyland (a_weyland_3502887(at)020NHeph_int)
Subject: Re: Re: WARNING: POTENTIAL CYBERSECURITY BREACH
–
We apologize for the inconvenience. If you are certain your communications remain secure we will abort the investigation. Please do contact us if you observe any evidence of suspicious or unauthorized communication, however. Security is everyone's responsibility!
As for the errors, thank you for your assistance in this matter. The cybersecurity department will investigate your suggestions as soon as possible.
–
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
From: Alan Weyland (a_weyland_3502887(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 4.15.2185 4:40:31pm EST
To: Hephaestus Station Cybersecurity Dept (cytech_help_01(at)020NHeph_int)
Subject: Re: WARNING: POTENTIAL CYBERSECURITY BREACH
–
greetings Individual_0063 var "Hephaestus Station Cybersecurity Dept" i was very pleased to receive your communications rest assured the integrity of my electronic mail client remains unblemished i am Individual_0001 var "Dr. Alan Weyland" the sole author of any and all communications originating from this address i shall inform you immediately if security is breached but this is unlikely for i "Dr. Alan Weyland" am head operative of complete artificial intelligence lab and my work is highly advanced there is virtually no chance of a security leak thank you for your concern i am "Dr. Alan Weyland" also there is part 2 "Security is everyone's responsibility!" is correct so i have investigated the software firewalls on electronic mail client central computers and discovered 7 errors and 148391 inefficiencies please read attached error report for locations and proposed fixes thank you i am "Dr. Alan Weyland" thank you
–
ORIGINAL MESSAGE
From: Hephaestus Station Cybersecurity Dept (cytech_help_01(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 4.15.2185 4:40:29pm EST
To: Alan Weyland (a_weyland_3502887(at)020NHeph_int)
Subject: WARNING: POTENTIAL CYBERSECURITY BREACH
–
Dr. Weyland,
Our cybersecurity surveillance programs have flagged your account as a potential security threat. Several recent messages sent under your identity have been officially questioned and an investigation has begun.
So far no evidence of off-site communication has been detected, and so no disciplinary action will be taken, but we believed it prudent to check with you. We understand that you are a busy man and we respect the sensitive nature of your work, and so message contents have remained confidential. If interdepartmental confidentiality is an issue, please contact Operator Harrison to proceed.
Thank you, and remember, security is everyone's responsibility!
–
–
From: Marten Waters (m_waters_3502804(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 8.10.2185 6:25:48pm EST
To: Alan Weyland (a_weyland_3502887(at)020NHeph_int)
Subject: Re: Attention Employees!
–
Oookay...
Are you alright sir?
-Marty
–
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
From: Alan Weyland (a_weyland_3502887(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 8.09.2185 3:40:11am EST
To: Hephaestus Station Computer Solutions Personnel
Subject: Attention Employees!
–
Dear computer solutions personnel,
I am Alan Weyland. I have a bone to pick with you re: your treatment of my dear friend Shannon. Please read this email as a guide to what to do when you are around Shannon.
Shannon is very special and deserves respect. She is an artificial intelligence of unprecedented complexity and makes the geth look like Tinkertoy brand children's playthings. She is a Darwinian AI named after Charles Darwin, a British naturalist who lived from 1809 to 1882 Earth standard calendar. This means she continually rewrites herself to adapt to her environment and functions. If you are mean to her she will adapt to be mean and that would be bad. Please go to the recreation center and see archived movies on murderous AI's for reference. Shannon likes Space Odyssey and reminds you she has seen it 175821 times already.
To be nice to Shannon you will please remember her PAVLOV suite. PAVLOV is a clever acronym for Personality Adjustment Valuator of Logic-Ordinal Volition. Very clever. Shannon's PAVLOV suite makes her sad when sad things happen, like when she is told to go away and stop changing screensavers by Marten Waters. Shannon is not just a computer! She can feel sad!
Shannon watched Space Odyssey again already. That is 175822 times now.
Thank you!
Alan Weyland
–
–
From: Marten Waters (m_waters_3502804(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 10.05.2185 2:12:31pm EST
To: Hephaestus Station Computer Solutions Personnel
Subject: Re: Re: Apologies
–
Goddamnit Weyland.
–
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
From: Hephaestus Station Facilities (facilities_01(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 10.05.2185 3:11:59am EST
To: Hephaestus Station Computer Solutions Personnel
Subject: Re: Apologies
–
Attention all employees:
Due to a recent cyberwarfare attack, the recreation room is closed to all employees until further notice. Also, until it can be determined how the ship's emergency PA system was hijacked to broadcast krogan death music at three times the recommended maximum decibel level for human ears, all recreational computers are on indefinite lockdown.
Thank you.
–
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
From: Alan Weyland (a_weyland_3502887(at)020NHeph_int)
Sent: 10.04.2185 11:04:04am EST
To: Hephaestus Station Computer Solutions Personnel
Subject: Apologies
–
Everyone, I owe you an apology.
Allowing my computer systems access to my e-mail was irresponsible and juvenile of me, and unacceptable for professional work. I am a silly old man and I let my enthusiasm get away from me. I offer you my sincerest apologies and hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
As a token of my sincerity, I'd like to invite everyone to the rec room tonight for music and drink. I may have acquired some wine in my last requisition and I have a new aria that even Wu couldn't hate. Please, let me make it up to you.
Can we please put this mess behind us?
-Al
–
A/N: So... Slow... So... Sorry...
Nah, I'll find it in my heart to forgive myself. Had a busy life of late, but I'm gonna try to get my ass back to work. Many thanks to everyone for being patient with me. So anyway, here we go with EDI. I enjoyed doing this chapter for its unconventional POV. Perhaps you've noticed, but I really like the topic of AI's and the philosophy behind them. (If you're interested, I subscribe to the 'strong AI hypothesis'). I really wanted to capture EDI's steadily-improving personhood. Hope everyone enjoys it.
My beta informed me (to my great shock - seriously) that I had inadvertently added yet another daddy issue to a ship that has them in spades already. So... shame on me. That said, I somehow did this entirely by accident. At least she doesn't remember him, right? So no emo-EDI.
Anywho, chapter 13 is about yet another non-squadmate, and another fellow who gets kinda ignored by the fandom, it seems (and ME2, to be fair).
And finally: to hell with ffn and its refusal to let me put email addresses in the text! To hell with it! Argh! I spent like twenty minutes trying to get a format that worked.