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Chapter 7

She Said

"Garrus, what the hell are you doing?" I demanded.

"He drew first, Shepard. I'm not going to let him shoot you!" Garrus snapped, glaring at Kaidan.

Anderson stepped out from behind Kaidan and I nodded and stepped out from behind Garrus. "Stand down, both of you!" Anderson ordered in his well-trained parade-ground voice.

"I will if he does. Sir," Kaidan responded, his pistol still aiming at Garrus.

I rolled my eyes and walked around to stand in front of Garrus, putting myself directly in both lines of fire, and put my hand on his rifle, gently pushing its muzzle down. He looked away from Kaidan to stare down at me. For a long moment, I watched him process the situation. He straightened up and slung his rifle back over his shoulder. I dropped my hand and the turian crossed his arms and leaned back on one leg, gazing a challenge at Kaidan. I turned and found the pistol pointed at me, now.

"You're beginning to make me a little nervous, Commander," I told him, eyeing the muzzle of the gun.

"And here I was hoping to make you very nervous," he retorted, holstering his pistol.

"All you have to do is breathe in my vicinity for that, Alenko," I muttered under my breath. He looked at me, startled. He heard me? Dammit. But no matter the attraction, he had trust issues. With himself, and apparently, with me.

"Shepard, a geth?"

Something beeped and I glanced back at Garrus. He'd activated his Omni-Tool and typed a command into it. "They're here, Shepard."

I looked back at Anderson, "The only way I can make you two believe he's friendly is to introduce him to you." I glanced at Garrus and in that short hand we seemed to have developed from going through hell together so often, he nodded and went to stand where he'd have a clear line of fire. I trusted Legion, but I'm not stupid.

A quarian, a krogan and an asari walked through the door. I'd giggle at the setup for a bad joke, but Grunt was carrying a folded-up, inactive Legion and straining under the AI's weight. The red and white stripe of my old shoulder piece welded to it in a hurried patch job still gave me the creeps, but since Legion couldn't tell me what prompted him to use it, I tried not to worry about it.

"Did you have a lot of trouble?" I asked.

Tali shook her head, "No, it managed to launch itself away from the Normandy and toward the dock. It hid until we got there."

I nodded, and knelt next to my oddest crewmember. I hoped he'd programmed himself to turn on at the sound of my voice. "Wake up, Legion."

Lights in the conduits of the metal body flickered on and Legion slowly began to unfold himself. "Shepard-Commander?"

I stood up, "Status, Legion?"

"Shepard-Commander. We attempted to comply with the order to preserve the one named EDI. We were unable to completely download EDI." I wanted to swear, but I held my tongue and only clenched my fists in desperation. We needed her whole to take the ship back when we got to the Normandy. God knows what Cerberus would do to her when they got her, what programs they'd put in to endanger her, us, and my ship.

"Did you get any of her?"

Legion's head flaps moved up, then down and he cocked his head. I'm not entirely sure about everything he said, his explanation deteriorated into a technobabble I couldn't follow. I looked at Tali, and from the set of her shoulders, she was amused. When Legion wound down, I asked, "Translation?"

But before Tali could answer, I heard Kaidan's voice, "He basically got just her personality and some of her memory files, Shepard. He's integrated her into his systems, somehow."

I looked behind me and saw Kaidan standing close, but not too close. I couldn't tell if he was wary of me or the geth. I looked back at Tali, "Would that be enough to restore her?"

"It should be, Shepard. I doubt Cerberus will alter its functionality files. And EDI itself is loyal to you. That should be enough." The quarian replied.

I looked at Legion, "Can you function while carrying her?"

"No, we cannot. EDI's runtimes slow our own reactions. We would be useless in a crisis," Legion stated, his head plates somehow giving me an impression of sadness.

"Would she 'fit' in mine or Tali's Omni-Tool?" I asked, activating mine.

Legion seemed to consider this question for a while. "You do not use your Omni-Tool very much, Shepard-Commander. Yet it has the same capacity as Creator Tali'Zorah's. We would suggest allowing EDI to be downloaded into your Omni-Tool."

"How long will it take?"

Legion rattled off some astronomical number and added the word "seconds," after it. Tali laughed at my expression, "About a quarter hour, Shepard."

I glanced at Anderson, "Can we stay here that long?"

Anderson walked closer to Legion, his hands clasped behind his back, the way you do when you don't want to accidentally touch something. "I think you will be able to be here that long." Legion followed Anderon with his flashlight head, his flaps standing up inquisitively. "Why does he have a piece of N-7 armor welded to him?"

"He doesn't know. I think it was an impulse to do it, one he's not sure of. It was mine. He found it on Alchera."

Anderson looked at me, startled, "He welded your armor to himself?"

"Yeah, he's not sure why. He said 'insufficient data,' when I asked him," I held out my 'Tool for the geth platform. "Go ahead and start it up, Legion."

"Commencing, Shepard-Commander."