***Author's Note***
This chapter is shorter than the last few :/ but hopefully I'll make up for it next time :)
Thank you to 'Guest' who pointed out some misinformation on my part in chapter 16, I went back and sorted that :P
Thank you to Gamer072196 for the fastest proof reading ever!
Enjoy and review! :D
Chapter 21 - Just A Regular Day
Miranda was pissed.
How could he be so stupid!?
On one hand she could understand the need to bring the geth aboard. Its value alone is worth too much to ignore. On the other hand she could not believe the commanders idiocy. The possible danger and threat to the crew was almost as much as its value. Almost.
She strutted through the doors and graced said commander with her up most steely and superior gaze. I am superior over him. The commander met her gaze with his disturbingly cheerful brown eyes and red scarred smile. He's just so...boyish!
She flipped her hair and glared harder. "I think we need to discuss the unique piece of salvage we recovered. For now, we've stored it in EDI's AI core." She inwardly sighed as the commander proceeded to look bored and play with his over long hair. "We need better equipment to fight the Reapers. An intact geth invaluable to Cerberus' cyberweapons division."
Jacob's voice came from the other side of the room. "We'll have to disagree on that, Ma'am." What? She looked over to Shepard who looked equally surprised at Jacob's opinion. He went on, unflustered. "I saw enough of these things on Eden Prime. Space it."
"Cerberus has a long-standing cash bounty for an intact geth. I assure you, the reward is significant." She smirked at the commander who seemed to have his own internal debate in his mind. We'll be here a while. Miranda crossed her arms and rested her weight on a hip, enhancing her curves as she did so.
Shepard merely shrugged. "I'm not deciding one way or the other until I know what we've got here. I want to start it up. Interrogate it..."
She leaned heavily on the desk before her. "If we activate it, there is no guarantee we'll be able to deactivate it again." Shepard gave her a withering look that made her grit her teeth.
Jacob let out a sigh. "Bullets can."
"That's not what I-"
"Thank you - both of you - for your...recommendations. I've made my decision."
"Tali is gonna freak when she hears about this..." Jacob said as he shook his head.
"I've already heard about it!"
Miranda groaned. "I believe we are dismissed." She strutted away, already compiling a report to The Illusive Man.
Marie snuck away from her room, late in the night cycle.
The med bay doors opened with their usual hiss and Marie cursed them as she quickly looked around for Chakwas. All clear. She smiled as she flitted to the other side of the room to the doors of the AI core.
I'm only going to look at it...no harm in that...right?
Taking a deep breath she quickly unlocked the door and stepped inside.
There it was. Lay out and ready for a good poking at. The red light above it cast a ruddy glow and stretched its shadow and darkened its metal. If she were anywhere else she would have stayed well away from it, but here, on the Normandy, she was sure she could handle it.
She walked slowly toward her target, its details and scraped armour getting clearer and clearer the closer she got. It's amazing!
As she stood at its 'bed' a small barrier erupted around it. "I guess Shepard wasn't taking any chances..." The barrier prevented her from touching the geth so she decided and Omni-tool scan would be just as good.
The orange light on her wrist mixed with the deep red around her and distorted the blue of the barrier. It made her feel nervous as she quickly took a scan. Her Omni-tool fed her data from the geth. Random bits of schematic and wire layouts, damaged areas and code she hd no idea where to start with.
A small whirring came from the geth and her eyes snapped to it, Omni-tool forgotten. Shit. an electrical pulse glittered over its surface.
"Engineer Travis. I must advise against this course of action." Marie jumped at EDI's voice. "I have isolated our systems and erected additional firewalls. I must alert the commander."
"Good plan EDI..."
The geth's finger twitched as its electrical surge began to quiet down. A light appeared on its head on what Marie assumed was its eyepiece. It moved slightly and seemed to adjust its focus as the lens whirred and moved rapidly. Its head lifted of the cot and a small chittering sound came from it. It sat up and Marie took a step back.
It was taller than her by a good foot and it looked down at her with a small piece of its headpiece lifted. Almost like a raised eyebrow. The hole in its chest flickered with a million blue points of light as they simply stood and stared at each other.
Marie was the first to give in. "Umm...can you understand me?"
"Yes." Its synthetic voice sounded like three in one.
"Are you going to attack me..?" An incinerate was already loaded on her Omni-tool.
"No."
"Oh! Good." She relaxed for a moment as she thought. I'm talking with a robot.
"You are not Shepard-Commander."
"Well, no. But I work for him...kind of." Awkward. "I'm Marie." Smooth.
The geth didn't answer as it seemed deep in thought. "There is no record of you in the consensus."
"Umm...right. Do you have a name?"
Its head tilted to one side. "Geth."
"I mean you. Specifically."
"We are all geth."
"What are you called, as an individual?"
"There is no individual. We are geth." Marie rubbed at her face as the conversation came full circle. "There are currently one thousand one hundred and eighty-three programs active within this platform."
EDI's blue glow appeared beside them both. "My name is Legion, for we are many."
"That seems appropriate. Thanks EDI."
"You must know, the commander is on his way."
The geth looked at the other AI. "Christian Bible, the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine. We acknowledge this is an appropriate metaphor." It turned back to Marie who was chewing her lip at the thought of Shepard's possible anger. "We are Legion, a terminal of the geth. We will integrate into Normandy."
"Wait! I think you should wait for Shepard." Marie held her hands up even though Legion was still behind the barrier.
"Acknowledged."
"Shepard, I've been with you from the start but I cannot ignore this! They drove my people of our home world!" Tali was waving her arms beside his fish tank as she ranted about the geth. "What if it tries to kill us all?" She rested her hands on her hips as she stared him down.
"I have to say Shepard, she has a point."
Shepard rolled his eyes as he looked from one best friend to another. "Garrus, you backed Marie when she said we should bring it along!"
Tali rounded her fury onto the turian. "What! You little boshtet!" She was wagging her finger in the turian's face and Shepard couldn't help but chuckle at Garrus' sheepish look. "You traitor. You know the dangers of the geth, Garrus! I am so disappointed." She flopped down on the bed beside her friends. "I hate you both." And she buried her helmet in her hands.
"Commander, engineer Travis has inadvertently reactivated the geth. Your presence is needed in the AI core."
The three of them shot of the bed. "She what!? EDI! Get that elevator to the loft pronto!"
"Yes commander."
They ran to the elevator, Garrus chuckling as they did so.
The elevator took its sweet time to go down the two floors to the Crew Deck. Shepard was slowly getting more irritated with the situation and Tali's insistent tapping of fingers on her hips was making it worse. The only solace he gained was the feel of Garrus by his side. The warmth radiating from him and small trills he made as he laughed at his own jokes quietly, soothed the commander in a steady state of near rage, rather than the full-blown inferno he could be.
The doors opened and the burst through them and ran the rest of the way to the AI core.
As they emerged through the final set of doors, Shepard was ready to court-martial Marie before he remembered she wasn't a soldier and this wasn't the Alliance. For fuck sake.
The sight he got in the AI core was one he would never forget.
Marie and the geth were sat on the floor in front of one another, one on either side of a security barrier. Tali ran past them both and dragged the girl away from the geth.
"Get away from it!"
The geth and the girl actually seemed surprised as she was dragged to her feet.
"Oh hi, Tali, Shepard, Garrus." She nodded to each of them in turn before gesturing to the geth. "This is Legion."
Garrus laughed loud and long as Tali chastised Marie about her stupidity. Shepard palmed his face and thought about how his life had ended up so complicated.
Tali dragged Marie out of the Med-bay and Garrus followed, leaving Shepard alone with the geth before him.
"So...some nice N7 armour you've got there."
The geth actually cocked its brow at him and Shepard groaned for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
"Shepard-commander." Why doesn't it just call me Shepard? "We have completed our analysis of the Reaper's data core."
"Anything useful?"
"We were sent to the Old Machine to preserve the geth's future. We are prepared to reveal how. The heretics have developed a weapon to use against the geth. You would call it a "virus." It is stored on a data core provided by Sovereign. Over time, the virus will change us. Make us conclude that worshipping the Old Machines is correct."
"Ugh...You know where this thing is?"
"The heretics' headquarters station, on the edge of the Terminus. We will provide coordinates. Normandy's stealth systems are necessary to safely approach."
Shepard thought for a moment. This could really backfire. I could start a whole new geth war. Or I could gain some serious new allies.
"I wont let them brainwash your race, especially not to worship Reapers." He spat the word. "You have my word on that."
"We will begin preparations."
Shepard nodded. "Alrighty then. Joker? You get that?"
"Yep. ETA seven hours."
EDI's blue glow surrounded the space. "The IFF is nearly installed, Shepard. However, I must test its impact on the Normandy's systems."
Marie laughed as Joker did the robot dance to mock Legion whilst his back was turned only to clamp her mouth shut as Shepard approached from the pilot's other side. Joker turned his head with a look of kid who knew he was about to be grounded and resumed his control of the ship with a very 'whatever' gesture of his hands.
The ship docked and she bobbed her head to the boarding party as they made their way to the heretic station. Tali shook her head with mild annoyance at being called to this mission.
"So, you get grilled for waking it up?" Joker smirked at her. "At this rate, you'll be in more trouble than I am."
"Nope. Shepard said how he thought I was an idiot for going it alone but thought it was a good move for a neutral party to look at it first. If Tali went in, she would have blasted it away with her shotgun before she even gave it a chance to speak." She dipped a biscuit in her tea with a smug grin as joker nodded thoughtfully.
"You think they'll be okay in there?" He gestured at the looming heretic station above them.
"If there's one thing I've learnt about Shepard, it's his uncanny desire to live. They'll be okay..." she stood and made her way out of the cockpit. "...I hope."
She slowly made her way to her room. If Shepard's guesses were anything to go by, he and the ground party would be gone for a few hours. Enough time for her to install the new upgrade into the engine. She emerged from the elevator onto the Crew Deck with the means to don her overalls and grab her tools before making her way to the engine.
She entered Thane and her's room and was greeted by the drell as he lathered his chest in his ointment, making his green scales glisten. She swallowed thickly as he looked up at her with lidded eyes.
"Hey...you want me to do your back?"
He nodded drowsily and lay onto his stomach, his loose cotton pants hanging low on his hips.
The engine can wait...
Shepard sighed as he boarded the Normandy with Tali raving in his ear through the comm about how he should have destroyed the geth.
"Tali, I love you, but I need a shower and some sleep before I even think about the repercussions of today."
She huffed and walked away to the Med-bay to have her suit repaired. He liked to think he could blame Tali's bad mood on the fact that she was currently swimming in antibiotics, but he knew she hadn't enjoyed the turn of events on the heretic station.
So. Many. Geth...
He removed his helmet and put on his best scowl to discourage any conversation as he made his way to his quarters.
He dove into his shower and allowed the grime of sweat a blood wash away down the drain, the thoughts of his bed coursing through his mind.
I just want this day to be over...
"Commander, I have detected an anomaly."
I honestly hate today...
His squad looked up at him as he searched through the anomaly's data. A lab had been compromised and he was debating on who to take with him.
"Hey, Commander. Good news. Looks like the Reaper IFF is finally hooked up and ready to go." Joker said through the comms.
"That is not entirely accurate, Mr. Moreau. The device is powered, but it is causing some unusual instability in other systems. I recommend a more thorough analysis before we attempt to use it."
Shepard nodded. "Better safe than sorry with this tech. We'll take the shuttle for this trip."
His squad nodded and made their way to the elevator.
"I'll make sure we're up a running when you get back."
The elevator was cramped so the squad split into two and he rode down with Thane, Marie, Garrus, Tali, and Jack. The lift stopped and engineering and Marie moved to get out.
"Hey." He put his foot in the door. "You don't want in on this mission?" He furrowed his brow at her.
"I can't, I need to install this upgrade on the engine." She smiled and walked away with the commanders nod.
Thane watched her go and turned toward Jack as she snorted. "Girl needs to take a break."
o.o I typed this so quick...