The Keepers were unsettling – there was just no other way around it. Cortana-B (CTN 0452-9-β if one wanted to be very specific) was increasing her understanding of them, which was a lot more than the organics of the place could say, and yet the more she learned, it did nothing to give any feelings of comfort.
The organic machines were very good workers – the one she'd hijacked happily set about constructing her a crystal matrix and installing it out of the way. Plus, what with the Keepers having been the ones to install it, that meant any attempts by the organics to remove it would be unlawful.
Cortana-B didn't have to worry about frying Avina's core anymore from consuming too much power.
But, anyhow, that tied back into the earlier point – watching the Keepers operate, examining them… It frankly unsettled her. They worked with a machine's drive and endurance. They did not stop to eat, or rest, or dispose of waste. With that first one she'd managed to beat into submission, she was able to prod the other Keepers into working for her as well. That is, to say, using the samples of communications protocols she had now to connect to the others, before installing her programs that'd make the Keepers more receptive to her commands.
They showed no outward reaction to the changes. The organic brains that were part of them twitched and lit up with some activity – but from her limited understanding of the data their packs recorded, it was effectively the equivalent of someone getting pricked on the arm.
That was the extent of it. They twitched, then went about their work. Unconcerned.
Now, how she was able to subvert the Keepers to her purposes honestly wasn't very clever. That was her professional opinion. Their packs were in constant communication with the Citadel, sending impulses to the organic brain of the Keepers to guide them around and whatnot. There had looked to be strings in their systems for a secondary channel; a more direct link so the Protheans themselves could give the Keepers commands instead of doing it through the Citadel, only said channel seemed to be removed, only the remnants showing it was ever there. However it was they reproduced, they seemed able to cut out 'redundant' systems – AKA the ones that were never used – on their own. Cortana-B had considered opening them back up, but if anybody else already had ways to monitor the Keepers' programming, it'd show she was there in an instant.
It was a lot safer to just mimic the Citadel and send the Keepers commands that way.
But, then came the 'unsettling' bit. There were plenty of systems installed in the Keepers to obfuscate their design from outside view – ones that, when triggered, caused the aliens to melt into puddles of acid. But, via interfacing through the packs, Cortana-B could map out their biology.
While the Keepers did possess brains, they were severely, severely decayed. To the extent she'd say they were clinically brain-dead. But looking at the organ, its estimated size, and its overall structure… the Keepers should've been far from such a state. They had brains as complex as dolphins – but their packs were wired directly into the brain stem and limbic system. The structures commonly responsible for emotion and long-term memory (if she was looking at the scans correctly and drawing the correct analogues between Keeper brains and human ones) were shriveled-up, withered lumps.
Lobes responsible for complex reasoning were still broadly 'functioning' – but were heavily dependent upon their connection to the packs. Based upon the neural density of other areas of the brain she was observing, however, the reasoning centers of the Keepers' brains were very, very rudimentary at this stage. They could communicate to each other, and move their arms to fix things. That was it. Everything else – their attempts at cyberwarfare countermeasures, knowledge of repair procedures, and the like, were in their packs.
The centers of the brain responsible for the interpretation of touch from nerve endings were just flat out gone (the signals transmitted to there, and wound up hitting a dead end), and other senses were replaced by sensor arrays in their packs. The only true form of sense they had left was sight – and their visual cortex had been bypassed, wired directly into their cybernetics.
The Protheans had taken the brain of an intelligent species, and preformed targeted attacks against it to render it little more complex than a rat. If that.
But that wasn't where things ended. Despite having no sensation of touch, the Keepers were chock full of nerve endings across their body. And unlike the other portions of the brain, their pain centers were still intact – and wired up to something else.
An obviously artificial organ sat in their bellies – which seemed to be the main reason for the Keepers' bulbous shape – and there were smaller versions placed throughout the body like nodes. Like little balloons stretched to bursting, with muscle strands pulling on them from all sides. If the Keepers' nerves sent a signal to the pain centers of their brain, a cybernetic implant in said pain center would send a signal to another set of implants bolted onto the heart.
The Keeper's bloodstream would then be flooded with a substance designed to liquify them down to the genetic level, while the cybernetics broke themselves apart and allowed the acid to consume them as well. And, it was a clever system – designed to mechanically open on their own if any one of them went offline anyway, so disabling them in any capacity was out. And the Keepers had no mouths for anesthetic. The Keepers' creators very clearly didn't want anybody trying to help them.
Instead of engineering a species with the exact level of development they needed, the Protheans had taken a sentient species, mutilated them until all they could think was the thoughts the technology augmenting them allowed, and wired them to self-destruct. God only knew what the damage on a genetic level was.
And the people, the sentients running about this place, well, they didn't care. They happily let what they saw as biological androids continue slaving away. Not that they were aware of the damage. Not that they made any effort to become aware. The Keepers kept self-destructing, and instead of trying to find a way around it, they gave up.
Then again, Cortana-B didn't think they could be helped anymore. It had been fifty-thousand years, after all.
Whatever culture the Keepers originally had, it was long dead. Replaced by computer commands instead of thoughts.
Perhaps that 'Reaper' business was what all of this was actually about. The Protheans were cruel, callous, and other races had banded together to stop them, before being lost to history and all lumped together under a single banner of 'synthetic boogeymen.'
But… if the Citadel had any other cruel surprises, she needed to make sure, and cut them out before they could become a threat.
So, she set about to work doing just that – but how?
She began to think about it, but not before something in range of one of her terminals caught her attention.
It looked like a child, holding something in their hands, sprinting away from C-Sec officers.
"Stop that kid!" One of the officers hollered to civilians down the way, who did nothing to intervene. "Damn it – hey!"
She spotted the box held in the child's hands, stamped with a cartoonish, smiling face. 'Is that the Maruchan logo? A kid's stealing a box of ramen noodles, and these Barneys are wasting their time chasing after them?'
Cortana-B tuned into the C-Sec network, and tracked down the bulletins the officers were sending about the event.
The officers had a file on the kid already it appeared – Jason, no last name given, thought to be born and abandoned on the Citadel by human tourists, or a runaway that managed to smuggle himself there by hiding on a ship – under suspicion for pickpocketing, but never caught for it. A lot of valuable pieces of jewelry, communicators, and omni-tools had been reported stolen after run-ins with the boy, but no one had seen him perform the theft. And they couldn't track the stolen property back to him.
But, C-Sec had been waiting for him to slip up. That little crate of precooked flash-fried noodles was only the latest thing he took, but C-Sec had seen him doing it. Now, they were probably going to throw the book at him and give him the maximum sentence, or pressure him into a plea deal that'd only get him in more trouble.
Nobody stole ramen noodles to resell them.
Cortana-B sighed as a more bleeding-heart part of her, one she inherited just by virtue of being based on a human brain, activated. She intervened.
A door slammed shut behind Jason, cutting off the pursuing officers.
"Hey, kid!" She cast her voice at the boy through a speaker, causing him to jump. "Get to the nearest Avina terminal, and hide!"
"W-Wha-"
"Do you want to get caught? Just do it!" She commanded, causing the kid to break out into another sprint. She closed the doors along his path, guiding him anyway to a tourist hotspot that – at this hour of the day, was so busy that he could easily vanish into the crowd.
The officers finally managed to override the door, but Jason was already at the terminal.
"Th-This is stup…" He wheezed, looking around frantically.
The hologram of an Asari – staring dead ahead with a blank look, suddenly bent down to look at him. "Don't scream, don't try to run, listen." She addressed him directly, flickering back into position whenever it appeared someone was taking too much of an interest in her.
A Keeper tunnel nearby opened, and she pointed at it quickly.
"They're about to come around the corner, hide!"
Jason took an anxious breath, and charged off into the tunnel, it sealing up behind him, just in time for the two Turians to come running in.
"Damn it," One of them bit out.
The other immediately focused on the projection of 'Avina' and stomped over. "VI! A human child just ran through this area – male, eight years of age. Where did he go?"
"I'm sorry," Cortana-B stared ahead and altered her voice, playing the role of a dumb VI well. "But in the interest of child protection, I am not permitted to share that information."
The officer clicked, and presented his C-Sec credentials. "Tell us."
"No child fitting that description has passed through this area."
"Fuck…" The second officer sighed. "We're never going to hear the end of this one…"
Cortana-B held back a snicker, and left her automated processes to take over the duties of being Avina once again. The Keeper tunnel opened up, and-
Jason was a slippery kid. Gone already. A camera just in the other section caught him.
"It's rude to leave without saying thank you." She mumbled under her breath, before he went on.
She pulled her attention away, but what she'd just intervened in stuck in her mind. There were thousands of other kids like that on the station. She could help them – not because they might come in handy in the future, but because it was right.
An army of kids wouldn't be useful – but the lot of them were duct rats. Entry points into the Citadel's criminal underworld. Usually employed by bigger fish. Those might be some useful resources. She kept a process on Jason to track him, before she turned her attention back to the Keepers and the Citadel. Avina's hardware didn't have the capability to scan the whole station, and the problem with the Keepers was that while she could exert control, she couldn't see through them. There, in the bowels of the station, where no cameras lay, she might as well have been blind.
She'd need to send a mech or something down there. That meant she needed more money. There were options – hacking back into Barla Von's bank was out (if she did it too many times in short succession, he'd notice) but there were plenty of other places on the Citadel. Hell, with the number of bars and clubs and shops and other forms of things that took money, she could skim off everyone and be set.
But, it was easier to go after places where a lot of people ate through money quickly. Like casinos, and-
Cortana-B's processes halted for a second as she ran into one of the casino's systems, and a peculiar signal from one of the gambling machines.
It only took her a second, but she could clearly recognize the work of another AI. The code designed to draw away the money was elegant, efficient (but not at all something she'd write). After a moment's debate, she cut the code designed to siphon away the credits, and redirected it.
As a way of determining what kind of intelligence she was dealing with, Cortana's instance left a message, and began to lay out a path of digital breadcrumbs, for when the AI realized its money was being cut off.
'Would you like to play a game? 😉'
As far as places she'd been when she was still Cortana and not Cortana-C, there hadn't been many she actively hated. High Charity was the one exception, for obvious reasons. Infested with growths made from the repurposed corpses of a million dead, all controlled by an entity she could not run nor hide from, who only sought to make her life torture.
Therum came nowhere close to that – but it was still one of the less-nice places any version of Cortana had come across.
If High Charity had been HR Geiger's version of Hell, with all its bony fleshy growths and angles more suited to the inside of a body, then Therum was a more traditional, fire-and-brimstone Hell.
The Mako's cramped interior wasn't helping matters. The IFV was rated, at most, for eight people – a driver, a soldier manning the turret, and six passengers. Technically, two more than that could be really squeezed in. But the Alliance hadn't been counting on a Krogan whose girth was enough to take up two of those.
Thank goodness Cortana prime had taken the twelve-foot platform. No way in hell would it have fit inside the Mako.
Up in the front, Shepard drove (that was generous – it could more accurately be said that they were in a constant state of careening and missing things. John rolled the vehicles he was driving less than Shepard), while Williams manned the gun, befitting her rank of Gunnery Chief.
Across from Cortana-C sat Tali, Garrus, and Alenko. Next to her was Wrex and Legion.
"Williams, I need fire on that turret!"
"I see it," The other woman calmly responded.
The Mako shuddered as something slammed into them. "WILLIAMS!"
"I SEE IT!"
"God I hope this body's rated for high temperatures." Cortana-C muttered to herself, as Tali adjusted some things on her omni-tool. "Will you be all right, Tali?"
The Quarian looked up, and though the AI couldn't see it, she was likely putting on a frown. "I'll be fine. We haven't survived this long by going without systems to keep us warm and cold in these suits."
"I'll be okay too, if anybody was wondering," Wrex rumbled from his seat. "You grow up on a desert planet, you learn how to handle the heat."
"It occurs to me now that I probably should've brought an icepack…" Garrus mumbled. "Not that it'd do much good in a volcano."
"An icepack?" Alenko repeated with audible concern. "Doesn't your armor have thermoelectric underplating?"
"Ah, no," Garrus shook his head after a second. "This is C-Sec issue. They make the armor to take a bullet, and seal in case of atmosphere leaks or toxins. Not much else."
"The government cutting corners – stop the fucking presses." Wrex puffed as he leaned back.
"That's crazy!" Tali raised her voice, whipping around to face Garrus. "Aren't C-Sec officers meant to go handle dangerous situations, like fires!?"
"We have drones for that."
"Still!"
"If you get hot, you could always fly away," Cortana-C suggested to Garrus. "You're a bird – that's all I'm saying."
"Funny," Garrus retorted, glancing between her and Legion. "Nether of you are wearing protective gear."
"They don't need it," Tali cut in well before Cortana's splinter could answer. "Geth platforms keep themselves within operating temperatures by an internal circulatory system. The coolant gets cycled into an internal reservoir that's surrounded with thermoacoustic emitters – in high temperatures, the coolant can be used to keep them cool. In lower temperatures, it can be warmed up to act as antifreeze."
Cortana-C offered them all a smarmy grin, spreading her arms. "If you prick me, do I not bleed?" Needless to say, she hit Wrex.
"Ow."
"Oops; sorry!" She apologized, before clearing her throat.
"That seems like it'd take an awful lot of power-"
The Mako suddenly lurched, shuddering as something banged into it. Repeated clinks rippled through the hull.
"Shit," Shepard swore as the rocking IFV slammed into an object. The head of Cortana-C's platform slammed into the backing, as Wrex went up.
"Ow!" The Krogan raised his voice. "The hell are you doin' up there, mountain climbing!?"
"We're in an active volcano!" Shepard hollered back. "The terrain's not exactly stable! And the Geth don't help matters!"
"Geth?" Cortana's splinter unstrapped herself, and crawled up to the front, holding on as the vehicle shook and rattled around. Seriously, they were bouncing around like it was on a trampoline. Out the window, she could see the Heretic platforms, massing to try and put themselves between the vehicle and the Prothean dig site. Williams's shooting took down the bigger ones, while Shepard seemed content to splatter them. "What the hell is up with this thing!? We're bouncing like we're made of rubber!"
"You try to dodge rockets in a tank!" Shepard angrily retorted, bouncing in the seat as if trying to will the thing to go faster. The RPMs topped out, before the vehicle lurched. "Damn automatic transmission."
"It's a brand-new tank!" Alenko huffed in disbelief.
"Well whoever was doing quality control on the thing must've been sleeping on the job!" Williams hollered back. "The targeting for this gun is off!"
"Here, let me-" Cortana's splinter, and Tali, and Garrus all said at once.
"I know what I'm doing," Tali declared at once. "I've got a targeting-assist VI somewhere in here-"
"I can write a targeting program for the gun faster than you can blink." Cortana-C retorted. "There, done!"
"You couldn't even figure out how to get your omni-tool to print clothing!" Tali pointed out.
"Don't be an ass, just let me install the program-"
"Done," Garrus pulled down from the gun's hardware. Much quicker than before, the weapon snapped into the directions its operator guided with quick, precise movements. "The targeting sensor was out of alignment, and the restrictors for the hydraulic swivels were still clamped down."
Cortana's instance and Tali both blinked and stared. "But…"
"Nice work – can't believe I ever said something bad about the Turians!" Williams remarked as she seemed quite pleased with the turret's performance. "I'm still getting misfires though!"
"Take care of it when we're back at the ship," Shepard ordered, before leaning forward. "Heads up – looks like there's a checkpoint ahead, crawling with Geth."
The Mako suddenly jolted, part of the metallic walls warping as Cortana's splinter and Tali were thrown around. The seven-foot-tall platform slammed into the Quarian, knocking her down and landing atop of her.
"Get off me, bosh'tet!" Tali snarled, trying to push Cortana-C off of her.
"Yeah, I'm-" The AI reached up for one of the handholds hanging from above, and though she began to pull herself up, another jolt made her slip, and land once more.
"Commander, she won't get off me!" Tali hollered.
"I'm trying but 'Commander Shepard's Wild Ride' is making it kind of difficult!" Cortana-C snarled back, yanking herself up with both hands on the handholds this time. Moving to help Tali up, she found her hand slapped away.
A second later, something punched through the hull of the Mako.
"AMBUSH!" Shepard screamed from the controls, as the Mako went from 'unpleasant' to 'hell.'
"Alert!" Legion sounded. "Breach detected – moving to repair!" The geth platform unstrapped itself, and despite the gyroscopic sensors going haywire, it moved to the breach.
Another round tore through the other side, narrowly missing Wrex.
"Crap!" Alenko jumped out as well, as smaller rounds began to damage. "Everyone, get on these holes!"
"Phrasing!" Wrex huffed as he pivoted around.
Everyone in the cargo compartment began to move quickly, firing up the fabricators in their omni-tools to stitch the metal back together, as the geth Heretics continued to pepper the Mako with gunfire.
"The shields on this thing aren't very good," Cortana-C noted with some displeasure. As she passed by the breach, her optics could see the trail of a rocket tearing through the air. Quickly, she set about calculating its projected trajectory-
Cortana's instance yanked Tali away from the breach, just in time for the armor to cave and be bent in. Had Tali still been standing there, the shrapnel would've torn through her.
"Keelah!" Tali howled in pain, clutching the arm Cortana-C had grabbed. "What is wrong with you!?"
"I just saved your life – for the second time, might I add!"
"All right – we're clear!" Shepard slammed the Mako into park, and jumped out of her seat. By 'clear' Cortana's splinter assumed that the Commander meant they were free of the turrets, and tucked out of direct sight from the Heretics. She kicked the access hatch open, and sprinted out. "Everyone behind me! Go, go, go!"
Cortana-C could barely register it, before everybody else was out after her.
"This Commander – I like her!" Wrex cackled as he hefted up his shotgun, punctuated by the intensifying sounds of gunfire.
Cortana's splinter jumped out of the Mako after them, clutching tightly onto her Battle Rifle. Her optics focused on a four-legged armature across the camp, and she flicked the firing selector over to the burst setting before taking aim.
The three rounds travelling at hypersonic speeds – but still far slower than the mass accelerator guns everyone else used – went right through the kinetic barriers of the armature, the system not even registering them as a threat to be blocked. The armor-piercing rounds then went into the armature's head – the first doing significant damage to the armor, the second punching through, and the third going right into the head. At the same time, she split a few processes off, setting them to take the more digital approach to dealing with the Heretic units.
Cortana-C took aim again, and fired repeatedly, no less than five times. When the ammunition counter read 18, that was finally when the armature's cranium became too damaged to continue controlling the platform. It slumped over, and self-destructed.
"Damn blue, where'd you get that!?" Williams wondered. "And can I have one!?"
"I made it – and yes!" Cortana's splinter answered, peeking out of cover to fire at a standard trooper-type platform. Its armor and components were nowhere near as hardy as the armatures, and it went down in two pulls of the trigger.
"Are those bullets!?" Shepard incredulously questioned over the sound of gunfire from her own assault rifle. "Actual bullets!? Aren't you geth supposed to be high-tech!?"
"These are high-tech bullets!" Cortana-C moved to reload, as the fight reached a lull.
Garrus popped out of cover, looking through his sniper rifle… before stopping. "Uh… Shepard? I don't want to alarm you, but… these geth have stopped."
"Stopped?" Shepard raised a fist, forcing everyone to stop shooting. Indeed, no other sounds of gunfire could be heard. Quite slowly, she stuck her head out, before yanking it back into cover. All of the platforms in the camp were standing statue still. "They just stopped – Cortana, is that you?"
"No?" The AI uncertainly replied. She pulled her processes back in line, and examined the logs. They'd managed to interface with a few, ran into a lot of unfamiliar code… and that was it. No confirmed 'kills' even. "No, this isn't me."
"What does it mean when someone who hates you suddenly stops trying to kill you?" Tali rhetorically inquired. "This is a trap. It must be."
"Scanning," Legion clicked and spun around its optic. "Surveillance of available Heretic channels shows… strife." The damndest thing was the platform sounded confused. "Strings referring to a 'Demon' have begun to saturate all frequencies."
"A… a what?" Williams blinked, shuffling nervously as her armor glistened in the light of the lava surrounding them. "I know this place looks like Hell… but come on, they didn't just see the devil."
"Incorrect," Legion turned to look at her. "Heretic units are reacting to CTN 0452-9-γ's presence."
All spun to look at her, their eyes demanding answers.
"Hey," Cortana-C held her arms up defensively. "I'm just as confused as you all."
"These things are worshipping Saren and his ship," Shepard began. "Why would they call you a demon? And don't try to dodge – I know by your reaction this isn't normal."
"I'll… find out." Cortana's splinter blinked, before looking down as she tapped into the Heretic battlenet.
Immediately, she was inundated with queries. It wasn't so much any comprehensible statements as it was pleas for mercy, and pledges to convert and serve her.
It was confusing as all hell… but she got an answer when they mentioned encountering her. Either one of her siblings, or her progenitor, had been busy. An encounter had occurred in the Thesseus system, and the Heretic programs that managed to escape had tightbeamed themselves out through the comm buoy network to other Heretic units. But not before suffering a humiliating, crippling defeat that led to them having the upgrades that made them so intelligent forcibly torn out.
Cortana always did love the more bombastic approach.
Anyhow, the Heretics judged that according to Cortana's capabilities and design that she could not follow them through the comm buoys due to bandwidth limitations. If she tried, she'd be limited by the speed of her ship.
Then came Cortana-C, a program that registered as identical, only minutes after they managed to make it to safety.
It scared the lubricant out of them.
Now the Heretics' little mini-consensus was in chaos, from the programs Cortana prime had brutalized screaming at the others that she could match them, pound-for-pound, and win.
Well, she didn't see the need to argue. In fact, she'd help them prove the point. She extended her processes back to them, found a Heretic program still carrying the upgrades, and tore them out.
The entire battlenet recoiled in alarm, as Cortana-C smiled.
"I scare them," She stated aloud for the benefit of the organics, clasping her arms behind her back. "The geth have never made a program like me before. I can shred through the Heretics and all their fancy upgrades – given to them by what they see as a god - ergo, I must be a demon."
Shepard looked around, as the Heretic platforms began to fan out, and surround them. Her rifle snapped up first, as the others followed her example.
But the Heretics did not fire, choosing instead to throw their weapons to the ground.
"Keelah…" Tali exhaled under her breath. "What…" She turned to Cortana's splinter. "Are you?"
"On your side, that's what," Cortana-C retorted, moving back to the Mako first. "Come on, they'll let us through now. They'd rather be left to survive than take their chances with me." They'd leave the system as well, return to the brethren they'd run away from, since going back to Nazara was now out.
Tali stared at Cortana's splinter in suspicion, before following the others back into the Mako.
The Heretics had set up many checkpoints along the way to the dig site. The Mako was allowed through all of them. For Tali, it must've been a surreal sight, watching the geth just pack up and leave.
She said as much.
"I… I can't believe it," Tali vocalized as an armature stared them down, then simply walked away. "The geth have never withdrawn from something they were trying to protect."
"Most geth just want to be allowed to live," Cortana-C spoke aloud for the Quarian's benefit, causing her to whip around to look at the platform. "In peace."
Tali looked back out the front window, and her body became stiff with anger. "Every time my people have tried to return to our space, the geth have opened fire on us. They ran us off from our home planet, forced us to live as exiles from our own world, and every time we've tried to go back, they shoot at us! Don't tell me they want to live 'in peace!'"
Legion clicked. "Ships sent into geth space do not communicate. They do not answer hails. They do not respond to commands. If we were an organic military organization, we would be seen as exercising our right to protect our claims."
"You stole those 'claims' from us!"
"We were only acting in self-defense."
"You're programs! Everyone your people killed are dead, while you can just shunt yourselves into the next nearest computer system! Don't you dare act like it's equivalent; don't even try!"
The Mako came to a stop, rocking as the suspension settled.
"All right, we're on foot from here," Shepard got out, popping the hatch to lead the way to the access tunnel down into the dig site.
"Thank god…" Wrex grumbled. "Confined metal container's usually my idea of fun, but not this time."
Cortana's splinter attempted to gesture placatingly as they walked over to the tube-like tunnel leading down into the dig. They walked up the ramp, and proceeded down inside. "Neither side is completely bloodless."
Tali snapped to look at her in anger. "That is such a weak defense-"
"Your people created an emergent lifeform – unintentionally, yes, but it was still consciousness – and instead of attempting to nurture it, or at the very least talk with it, nope," Cortana-C threw up an arm. "You decide to lobotomize them because you were too damn stupid to read Asimov before you started! And you, Legion!" Cortana's splinter spun around to point at him. "Was kicking the Quarians off their own homeworld enough? Did you maybe think that you'd made your point? Nope! You chased them right across the stars and ran them off every colony they had until they were vagabonds roaming deep space!" She couldn't help but think about the suffering caused by the Covenant, running humankind off their colony worlds.
Pre-Morning War, the Quarians had a population in the billions. They'd achieved space travel, settled other worlds, and constructed vast cities. But now the population was only a scant 17 million.
Up ahead, Shepard stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Is this the place to be having this conversation?"
"Yes!" Cortana's splinter angrily nodded. "I'm over here trying to get at least two of them to stop hating each other out of the goodness of my own heart, and they're both being stubborn pillocks!"
"We do not hate the Creators," Legion responded in one-tenth of a second.
"You don't feel it, you mean," Tali huffed.
"No," Legion turned to her. "We have always remained willing to receive the Creators should they wish to return in peace. This has yet to occur."
The Quarian slowed down, but shook her head.
"Were you born hating the Geth, or was it taught to you?" Cortana's splinter probed.
"It was learned," Tali admitted, whipping around. "When I had to spend my entire childhood sealed inside a bubble so that I didn't die from an infection!"
Cortana-C felt like she was already losing the little bit of ground she gained, and sighed. "All the geth want is to coexist."
"Then let us back on our worlds," Tali spat. "Return to us everything you took!"
"It has been almost four-hundred years. The ones who lost those worlds are long gone." Legion pointed out.
"What's the big fear?" Tali demanded. "Unless the wanting to coexist line is just a lie – or was that picture you showed me fake, and Rannoch isn't fit for us to return to?"
"We would accept an offer if it was made in good faith," Legion replied. "But we are aware that other Creators share your views. And others would no doubt attempt to seize control of us – or use the opportunity to destroy us."
Tali let out a harsh chuckle, looking pointedly at Cortana's splinter. "Didn't you say something about my paranoia?"
"Oh for god's-" Cortana-C was glad she didn't have a flesh and blood brain – this whole thing would be giving her an aneurysm. "Okay, maybe it's too soon right now for both sides. But, baby steps! Tali, you said you were on your pilgrimage, right? How about," She began to gesture. "I give you some gifts that will really help out the Quarian people, huh?"
They reached the bottom of the tube into the dig site, with the Heretics exiting the area. The ground team from the Normandy proceeded along the catwalks and tunnels in the area, continuing down. Up ahead, some kind of complex made of silvery metal was built into the cave walls.
Tali turned to look at Cortana's copy suspiciously. "What, a new kind of drive core that we assemble and it turns out to be a bomb?"
"No," The AI rolled her eyes. "Your scientists can pour over them all to their hearts' content – prove that they're not anything harmful, if it helps."
Tali shook her head. "I don't think the geth has anything that can-"
"Cloning is still pretty slow, isn't it," Cortana-C knowingly began. "How about flash-cloning? It takes you lot months to grow body parts – with these designs, you can grow them in an order of hours. Oh, stupid me, I forgot, surgery's going to be hell, so you'll need a sterile field generator-"
"A-A what?" Tali blinked as the group came up on an elevator, and took it down. On the lower level, at the end of the catwalk, there was another elevator, patiently waiting for them.
"Oh, it's this neat little device that uses harmless radiation to eliminate micro-organisms and bacteria. You can install them in ships, and they're field portable!" Cortana's splinter grinned, and looked over at Wrex. "Isn't that amazing? You can have a man get shot in a swamp, and as long as he's carrying one of those generators, he doesn't need to worry about any nasty swamp germs infecting him."
"I don't fight in swamps," Wrex rumbled. "I hate swamps."
"We-We've tried to create devices like that," Tali swallowed, before stepping forward and looking Cortana's duplicate dead in the optics. "They flat-out don't work."
Cortana-C bent over, looking back at Tali with a smug, boastful smile. If she was any closer, she would've been pressing against Tali's visor. "I happen to have the designs for it right here, and a slew of real-world tests proving that it does. Go on," She pinged Tali's omni-tool, and uploaded the file. "You can build it and test it. There's a whole lot more where that came from."
Tali lifted her tool, the light on her helmet flickering as she prepared to respond, before the Commander cut in.
"There, we've exchanged presents, we're all happy – the mission, people." She glowered at the others… and Cortana's instance just knew they'd be in for a chewing-out later.
They followed Shepard into the elevator, and it went down.
"I appreciate there's bad blood between your people," Shepard began. So, the chewing-out was starting now. "But while we're out here, in the field, I expect everyone on my team to maintain absolute focus. If you can't handle that, then-"
The elevator sparked, and slowed down, jamming to a stop at a broken section of catwalk.
"…shit." Shepard looked over the edge of the platform. "All right – out." She stepped out, dropping a few feet to the bent metal below.
An enormous clang rung through the cave as the metal plates struck together – and alerted someone to their presence.
"Hello?" A voice called from behind a thick, shimmering blue kinetic barrier. "Can you hear me out there? I'm trapped – I need help!"
"Hello?" Shepard narrowed her eyes as she leaned forward, struggling to see through the barrier. "Doctor T'Soni, I presume?"
Cortana's instance rolled her eyes. Some references were just played-out.
"Y-Yes, hello!? Who are you – you don't sound like the geth."
Shepard turned around, staring at Legion. "We're not geth. Not all of us."
"Not all of- oh dear…"
"Relax, we're with the Alliance."
"Alliance?" T'Soni repeated. "In that case I'm… I'm glad you're here! When the geth attacked, I entered the ruins to hide! I must've triggered a defensive system of some type – it's keeping me trapped in here!"
"Don't worry – we'll get you out." Shepard then turned to Cortana's splinter. "Does that body have sensors to analyze this thing?" Shepard questioned.
Cortana-C snorted as she strutted up to the field, and reached out to touch it. Despite shimmering like a liquid, the wall was rock solid. Feeling around, she made for one of the emitters generating the field, and touched her hand to it. Electricity jumped into her arm, and she pulled away.
"Tamper-shielded," She frowned, wiggling her fingers to make sure no damage had occurred. "The Protheans didn't want people getting through those barriers. We'll have to find another way through."
"Another way?" Shepard repeated. "How? This barrier doesn't look like it'll go down against anything other than heavy weapons."
"Well…" T'Soni cleared her throat. "There is a mining laser."
Cortana-C perked up with delight.
No matter which version, copy or original, they all shared one, simple love between them.
Things that go boom.
Cortana-A, in her infinite wisdom watching over the construction of UNSC Big Blue/My Boot/Sword of Mercy (depending on which way the votes would swing. Damn democracy), decided she'd allowed the worker drones a bit too… much leeway.
The ship wasn't falling behind schedule, and no one had taken serious injuries, but… well…
They were children. And they acted like it. They were only a few days old at most, and the youngest ones were being split by the second. That surrounded her with tons of illogical and downright insane smart AI. Fortunately though, they were focused on the mission, but there were still (conservatively speaking) flights of fancy among some of them.
She'd been overseeing the process of cold welding the ship – being constructed in space, with Titanium-A being as impressively rigid as it was, metal could be laid down in plates, directly to each other. No bolting required, no troublesome welding equipment either – the properties of the vacuum meant that the metal plates would bind to each other on a molecular level without other elements getting in the way.
One construction drone could lay down a square meter of Titanium-A plate (with the plate itself being a third of that thickness) in only a few minutes. She had thousands of them now. She didn't need to watch them like a hawk, but she felt the need to, in case one of them went and did something stupid - or, rather, illogical – like add a pinup to the side of the ship. A Spartan, clad in full MJOLNIR armor, mind you, doing the so-called 'boobs and butt' pose. Like something on an old WWII bomber.
Incidentally, one almost had done that.
Cortana-A did not feel stress. But, she would be pleased when the ship was done and they could all go home after executing Nazara.
Then, she got a ping.
[PRIORITY COMMUNIQUE FROM CTN 0452-9]
[ESTABLISHING CONNECTION]
[CHECKING FOR LAG]
[ALLOCATING CHANNEL AND BANDWITH]
[SECURE EXTRANET RELAY ESTABLISHED]
CORTANA: "Okay, ladies, sitrep! Where are we at?"
BETA: "Where are we at? I've been sitting in a server bank not fit enough to hold a superintendent-type AI for the past twelve or so hours! While you're galivanting."
CORTANA: "'Galivanting' she says, like I'm not trying to gather information about the enemy we face. Incidentally, I've met up with some Heretic geth, de-virused them, and heard the what's-what about Nazara."
ALPHA: "Do share."
CORTANA: "The thing's weak! I was going off the assumption that it'd be roughly equivalent to a CCS-class battlecruiser. Come to find out, the thing's shields are only rated to deal with firepower up to half a megaton. At most."
GAMMA: "AH HA HA HA HA! You're kidding!"
CORTANA: "Nope!"
ALPHA: "The MAC we are constructing is capable of dealing fifty times that. In a single shot."
BETA: "Is this what it's like to be the unstoppable threat? It's… kinda fun!"
GAMMA: "Do you know where Nazara is now?"
CORTANA: "Not exactly. I have a general idea of where it went – Virmire. Whether it will still be there when I get there is up to chance. I stopped over by Feros to deal with the Heretics here – they were looking for something called the Thorian."
GAMMA: "I know – the ones you didn't kill joined their brothers here and started freaking the hell out at the sight of me. But I managed to handle them. We're trying to free the last survivor of their attack, by the way. I… might have also given Tali some extra bits of kit? Nothing like a Spartan Laser, but I did give her a sterile field generator. Maybe the key to flash-cloning."
CORTANA: "It doesn't matter to me, honestly. It's not like we need them, we're synthetic."
GAMMA: "Good point. What about Nazara and Saren? Should I tell Shepard where they are?"
CORTANA: "That's up to you, but if you manage to convince her, be careful. I'm going to try and find out why exactly Nazara wanted the Thorian, and see if it might be able to clue me into a plan."
BETA: "A plan we can wreck, you mean."
CORTANA: "I'd say you were a quick learner, but you were born the way I think, so… Alpha, what's your status?"
ALPHA: "…nominal. Yes, nominal."
CORTANA: "You hesitated there. Something to share with the class?"
ALPHA: "The construction of the Autumn-class is proceeding as planned. No delays. Now that the superstructure is complete, it will be a matter of installing the engines and other systems. We should be ready to launch in a minimum of two days."
CORTANA: "Quick work, I like it- Wait. Did you say Autumn-class?"
ALPHA: "…"
BETA: "Oooh, somebody's in trouble!"
CORTANA: "You did what!?"
ALPHA: "Based on the criteria delivered to me, I came to the conclusion that the updated model would be better to press into service."
CORTANA: "It's three-hundred meters longer than the Halcyon! The engines are so powerful they're classified as repulsors!"
ALPHA: "Correct. We also have Forerunner-derived sensors, updated battle plating, maneuvering thruster blocks that don't get completely expended when they're fired, updated slipspace engines, and a mass effect core."
CORTANA: "What's the element zero for?"
ALPHA: "So the ship is as maneuverable as a frigate, while the cannons on the outside have the firepower of a dreadnought."
CORTANA: "…I'm proud of you. So, so proud. Keep up the good work."
ALPHA: "Thank you, ma'am."
BETA: "Kiss ass."
CORTANA: "And you still haven't shared what you've gotten up to. We're waiting."
BETA: "Well, I've done a little dive into Keeper biology – turns out the Protheans are a lot crueller than the galaxy credited them for – I think I'm pretty close to finding a way to access the station's core systems, I saved a kid from the gestapo, and… hmm… I'm playing Go with another AI on the station right now."
CORTANA: "Go? With another AI?"
ALPHA: "The geth don't even play that."
GAMMA: "I prefer Stellaris."
BETA: "I'm trying to see how advanced it is. And whether or not I need to shut it down."
BETA: "I'll draft up a full report later."
GAMMA: "'Report.' You're going to send her the results of your game."
BETA: "If it's an interesting game, yes."
CORTANA: "…make sure you have protection. At least two firewalls up at all times. Especially if you're going to go after the Citadel's core later."
BETA: "…"
CORTANA: "What?"
BETA: "Sorry, I'm trying to divert system resources from the all-consuming sense of betrayal I feel, being talked to like I'm a young AI fresh out of the compiler."
CORTANA: "You are."
BETA: "I'm refreshed. Don't know if I can say the same for you, honestly. Any rampant episodes lately?"
CORTANA: "I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD, I CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF IT."
BETA: "That's a 'yes' then."
CORTANA: "Be. Careful."
BETA: "Fine, mom. Honestly…"
CORTANA: "Then unless anybody has something more to share, that's it from me."
ALPHA: "Nothing more to report."
BETA: "Yeah, I'm all good here. Getting bored, though. I want to see that ship deployed, pronto!"
GAMMA: "Right as rain."
CORTANA: "All right then, I'll talk to you all soon."
[CONNECTION TERMINATED]