Reaper Threat v2
Chapter 18
Phoenix Massing, Aite, Overlord outpost.
All over the compound, Geth were falling as multiple fire teams made their way through the sprawling Overlord complex. Meanwhile, above, the action was being watched, and recorded by the Normandy.
Commander Alexa J. Shepard loaded a new thermal clip into her assault rifle and took aim on the head of another Geth target, when EDI, the ship's AI contacted her.
"Shepard," EDI began, "The VI is moving the transmission dish into position for use. I think it's trying to escape the planet."
"Could it hack its way onto the Normandy?" Shepard inquired.
"No," EDI answered, "I have erected multiple firewalls to protect against hacking attacks, but it could get out to other ships, and that could have disastrous results."
"Our weapons can't take out that dish," the commander informed the AI, "Contact Naruto. This will be up to him."
Fire team Shinobi
"Naruto," EDI told the blonde ninja, "We need you to take out that huge transmission dish. The VI is trying to escape the planet, and we can't allow that."
"Teme, Sakura, Gaara, cover me," Naruto ordered as he bit down on his thumb, drawing blood, thinking, "Gonna need you, Kurama." His friends all jumped into action taking out numerous geth and giving the blonde time to work.
"Ready when you are, kid," the Biiju replied back as Naruto cycled through the necessary hand signs.
"SUMMONING JUTSU!" Naruto slammed down his hand to the ground and out of a large cloud of smoke appeared the enormous Nine-tailed fox. "Kurama, we need to take that huge dish out."
"Oh, this'll be fun," Kurama quipped and started gathering energy in his mouth. When a large enough energy ball had appeared, the fox swallowed it, and then launched a massive beam attack at the dish, causing it to explode.
Zaeed's fire team.
"Gotta give it to the kid," Zaeed Masani says, "he sure knows how to blow stuff up."
"Hold on," Kasumi tells her team lead, as she checks her omni tool, "That mech that Shep wants is in that building over there." She points to a small building off to the side of the main research building.
"Then let's go get it," the mercenary replies, "Then we can get back up to the ship. Lead the way."
Miranda's team
"Interesting," Mordin Solus notes, tapping commands into a console, "Cerberus was building AI here, using EDI as basis, but taking away all self-awareness, and making it little more than a more advanced VI. They wanted to prevent it from gaining a conscience and turning against them like EDI had."
"Is the mech body compatible with EDI?" Miranda Lawson inquired
"Quite, with just a couple of fixes," Mordin reported, "These are all things I can do when we get back to the ship."
"Upload the schematics to EDI and let's continue on," Jacob advised. Mordin did what was required and the fire team continued on their way.
Shepard's Team
Shepard turned a corner, her rifle still up and her eyes alert. She, Garrus, Tali and Ashley had entered the main control complex, and each was keeping an eye out for any sign of survivors. She spots a shadow around a corner to her left and signals for her team to follow. Shepard quickly lunged around the corner and her rifle came to bear on the head of a man in a Cerberus lab uniform.
"Don't shoot," the man said, throwing his hands up, "I'm the one who sent the distress signal."
"And you are?" Ashley queried.
"Dr. Gavin Archer," the man answered, "I run project Overlord. It's a good thing your people destroyed that dish, or the VI could have gotten out."
"Just what are you working on here?" Shepard asked the man, then thought, "As if I didn't already know. Anyway, I guess now all there is left to do is see just how low he's willing stoop for this project."
"Project Overlord is an attempt at communicating with the Geth," Archer explained, "Any war we fight with the Geth will be bloody. The Battle of the Citadel proved that. Cerberus was looking for a means of communicating with the Geth, in an effort to stop such a war from happening."
"In other words," Tali interceded, "You're looking into ways to hack into and control the Geth."
"Yes," Archer replied, "But we had not had any real success, until just a few days ago."
"What happened?" This came from Garrus.
"An Epiphany," Archer continued his explanation, "My brother, David, is autistic, but he's also a mathematical savant. He figured out the Geth's binary language, and was able to communicate with them."
"I'm almost afraid to see where this is heading," Shepard thinks, then looks at Archer and asks, "Just how was he able to figure it out?"
"The geth mostly exist as data on a drive," Archer told the Commander, "Only when they upload their runtimes to the mobile platforms, do they have an actual body. They exist as data, and their logic is based around math. David's autistic mind was able to comprehend the Geth's language." He then continued to explain, "From there, we had him communicate with the Geth we had pulled from a downed ship. The ship is now part of our project base. We had seen real results, but the Illusive Man was getting impatient. He wanted more, and he wanted it fast."
"That sounds about right," Miranda commented as she and her team entered the room, "We completed our objectives, Shepard, all the geth in our sectors were destroyed."
"Ours too," came Naruto's voice as he, and the shinobi dropped down from the ceiling, and Kurama wanted me to thank you. He enjoyed blowing up that dish."
"Anyway," Shepard told Archer, "Finish what you were saying, Doctor."
"When the Illusive Man gives you a deadline, you either finish it, or you're dead," Archer began again, "I've done some horrible things in the past few days. We hooked my brother directly into the VI construct. It was after that that the Geth all around the base started to activate, and then slaughter everyone in the complex."
"This doesn't sound good," Sakura notes, "Even the most ingenious human mind couldn't even begin to comprehend the complexity of that kind of digital construct."
"If we shut down the VI, then we can possibly save him," Jacob tells Shepard.
"I'll take a small team to go after the VI," Shepard started, "Naruto, you're with me. Sakura, we could use your medical knowledge, and Miranda, you're with us, too. Everyone else, return to the ship. Garrus, confirm with Kasumi that everything's been procured for the next phase of the operation."
"On it, Shepard," Garrus responded, and the teams separated.
Shepard's team
"Don't tell me all Cerberus research projects are handled like this," Shepard inquired of Miranda, "Was Lazarus handled as ethically lacking as this one seems?"
"We were bringing you back from the dead, Shepard," Miranda reminded the redhead, "Some would say we were playing God. Honestly, though, after hearing about your exploits at Elysium, and the Citadel, you became somewhat of an icon, or an inspiration, to humanity, so, per the Illusive Man, we couldn't afford to lose you. We went with the cybernetics, not because it was the easy way, but because it offered us the best chance to bring you back as you were, and even that was difficult. Seriously, though, I'll let history decide if what we did was right or not. I just did what I had to do to bring you back."
"Back in Suna," Sakura said, "they developed a jutsu that allows you to bring a person back from the dead, but it costs the user his or her life. It was called a reanimation Justu."
"I thought the Second Hokage created the Edo Tensei," Naruto commented.
"Not the Edo Tensei," Sakura corrected her friend, "The one Chiyo used on Gaara when the Ichibi was extracted from him."
"Oh, that one. Sorry."
"Your culture still amazes me," Miranda commented to the two shinobi, "To have such powerful abilities, yet still remaining human."
"We did go through 4 different shinobi world wars to get to where we are now," Naruto reminded Miranda, "and several generations of wars between the individual clans, too, before the formation of the villages. Believe me, we're not perfect by a long shot."
"Quiet," Shepard told the group, "Geth up ahead." She put her assault rifle up and got out her sniper rifle to check with the scope. "They look like they're inactive," she thinks out loud.
"The door's sealed," Sakura informs Shepard, after checking it out.
"Surely one of these panels around here will open it up," Alexa thought out loud as she started checking panels. She came to one across the room from the door, when a shock went from the computer station and into her omni tool. "What the hell?" she thinks as she starts to see the room as only data. She then walked over to the door and it opened, allowing her and the group through. Shepard brings her assault rifle up again and starts looking around. She then bounds into cover and starts acting like she's firing at a group of Geth.
"What's up with Shepard?" Sakura asks.
"Don't know," Naruto answered and walked over to his lover, "Alexa, you ok?" Shepard doesn't reply, but continues to act like she's under attack for a moment, then stands there looking off into space as if she's watching something.
"EDI," Naruto said into his comm, "Something's wrong with Alexa. Can you access her omni-tool and visor and send the feed to my visor?"
"Of course," the AI answered, and within a few seconds, Naruto sees what Shepard is seeing.
"This is freaky," the blonde notes, "She's seeing things, but it's showing her what happened here. I'm seeing how they found out this guy can communicate with the geth. He was actually able to use their own language." They continued to follow Shepard as she "fought" her way through the base, seeing more and more about how David was subjected to more and more tests until he was forcibly hooked into the machine. The more Naruto explained, the more sickening it got to Sakura.
"Naruto," EDI stated, "The VI is trying to hack into the Normandy through Shepard's Omnitool."
"That's not good," Naruto noted, "How do we stop it?" He then sees through Shepard's feed that she was fighting against the VI itself to stop it.
Her battle soon finished, and the VI deactivated, to show David Archer, hanging in the center of the machine, with tubes hooked into his arteries and veins, as well as 3 large ones feeding him through his mouth, and clamps holding his eyes open. Sakura was just plain disgusted, while Naruto and Miranda were more pissed off than anything.
"Is this what you call taking care of your brother?" Shepard asked of Archer, drawing down on him with her pistol as he walked into the room, "I've seen my share of atrocities in my day, but this takes the cake."
"You have to understand," Archer began, "It was either do this, or we were all dead. The Illusive Man does not finance failure." It was then that the man went flying across the room, and hit a wall, thanks to a certain pink haired medic.
"That is no excuse," Sakura told the man, "You effectively tortured your own BROTHER. He's your family. He's…" She didn't get any chance to finish as an enormous rasengan stopped right in front of Archer's face, compliments of Naruto.
"Consider yourself lucky we sent Sasuke back," the blonde sage continues, "He had to watch his own brother slaughter his entire clan. He wouldn't be as merciful as we are. As it stands, you get to live, but we're taking him out of here."
"Doctor Chakwas and Sakura can take care of him until we get him to an alliance outpost where he can receive the care he needs," Shepard finished, "Grissom Academy is set up to accommodate people like him, without the torture. Miranda, get him out of there."
Within a few minutes, the shuttle was taking off from Aite, leaving Archer behind.
NORMANDY SR-2.
Once on board, Sakura helped David to the med bay while Naruto and Shepard were stopped on the CIC deck by Garrus, who leads them to the bridge.
"The mech is on board," the Turian sniper informs his friends, "Mordin's going through the design schematics with EDI to make sure we have a seamless transition for her from the ship to the new body."
"Actually," EDI interceded, "I will still exist mainly on the ship. Like the Geth, though, several of my runtimes and programs will be transferred into the body, and will communicate with the rest of my programming through the tight beam transceivers on board the Normandy. Mordin is also creating a synthetic skin for the mech body, so it will pass for human, when we return to the Alliance."
"We've already got a cover story for her made up," Garrus noted, "She's Joker's accessibility mech, and operated by the Normandy's VI."
"Got to put those disabled benefits to use somehow," Joker chimes in, "Besides, she's just as much a part of this crew as we are, right?"
"Yeah," Naruto nodded, "Alexa, I'm going to check in on David with Doctor Chakwas and Sakura."
"I'm going to go talk to Mordin, and then grab a bite. Meet me in the mess?"
"Sure. See you there."
"Hang on, Naruto, I'll join you," Garrus said to the ninja
The group dispersed as Naruto headed to the lift, followed by Garrus. Shepard then turned and walked away from the bridge.
LAB
"Shepard, glad you came. Going over intelligence data gathered on Aite. Treasure Trove," Mordin said in his usual fast paced way.
"What've you got?" she asked, now curious.
"Cerberus looking at attacking Shadow Broker," the salarian explained, "had sent out spies and special ops teams to locate Broker's ship. Succeeded. Have location of Shadow Broker ship."
"Liara would love to hear that," Shepard thought, then said, "EDI, tell Joker to set course for Ilium, and send a message for Liara T'Soni to meet us at the Nos Astra spaceport."
"Of course, Shepard," the AI replied, "While you're taking on the broker, Mordin and I can finish uploading my programming into the mech body. It should be easy with his work done on it."
"Works for me," the commander stated, "Mordin, good work."
"Thank you, Shepard." Having said all they needed to, Alexa made her way out of the lab, and to the lift.
MED BAY
"Hey, Sakura-chan," Naruto said as he and Garrus entered the room, "How's David settling in?"
"Doctor Chakwas is taking care of him," Sakura explained, "We have no such conditions like his on our world, so I'm at a loss as to how to communicate with him. That's why I'm glad we've got Legion on board. He's helping Doctor Chakwas right now."
"Good thing we've got a geth around then," Naruto noted, "I think we'll be going after Cerberus soon."
"How's that?" the rosette inquired.
"Mordin was able to download the Cerberus network files from the Overlord base," Garrus informed her, "He told me that he found a treasure trove of information that could help us."
"Well, it'll have to wait," Doctor Chakwas advised the Turian, "That boy need specialized care. Shepard was right in suggesting Grissom Academy. I'm going to take a shuttle with Legion and take him there, then rendezvous with the Normandy before you all face Cerberus."
"Have Crewman Yates fly you," said Shepard as she entered the room behind, "We're going to Ilium to pick up Liara, then it's on to take out a Shadow broker, before we finish off Cerberus. "
"We know where the Broker is?" Garrus asked of his longtime friend.
"Hagalaz," Alexa smiled, "THIS is going to be fun."
END CHAPTER 18
NEXT TIME: Lair of the Shadow Broker.
Long overdue author's note: It's been several months since my last update of this story, and I feel I owe you all an explanation. I work, and the work I do has me exhausted every day when I get off from the job. Not only that, I'm out of state and away from home and my xbox, where I can't exactly play though Mass Effect 2 again for ideas.
As I said before, I REFUSE to abandon this fic, and I will continue to write more and more, until I get through Mass Effect 3, including DLC missions. I ask that you all bear with me, as I keep writing.