Chapter 86
Jack Harper was sitting in his command chair reviewing footage gained from his unwitting spy amongst the influx of alliance refugees. There was little of interest at this stage, but Harper was playing the long game. Being a veteran of the Alliance Navy he was acutely aware of how easily someone could slip in unnoticed and "accidentally" overhear important facts while serving drinks or sweeping the dust off an office floor.
The EDI program which had failed to acquire a new name before deployment, was originally intended to act as a defense against Rothschild aboard the Styx, a frigate of Harper's own design. It resembled an alliance frigate however little expense had been spared. Harper's hubris had made itself well known in the design decisions of the opulent craft, everything from the leather seats to the luxurious captain's suite.
It also contained an advanced prototype of the Alliance's stealth systems, but power delivery was still an issue so the ship waited in dry dock, and In the meantime Harper had decided that the money invested in EDI was wasted just sitting there waiting to launch so he wiped her memory and dumped her in a synthetic body, releasing her to the custody of Batarian slavers.
Harper grinned as he observed the naive looking girl stumbling about amongst the former slaves, awkwardly trying and failing to find a place to be in the refugee center. Every time a doctor requested to examine her she suddenly had an irresistible urge to be somewhere else, anywhere else and was successfully avoiding it so far. What she failed to notice, as did Harper, were the eyes of the Geth following her every move.
Edi sat at a lunch table on Ellis station, the final destination of the troop transport that had been assigned to repatriate the slaves to their homeworlds, she had disembarked with all of the humans as well as a good portion of the other races seeking asylum on Earth. She looked down at her food and was curious as to why she had no desire to eat. It looked delicious, far better than any starving refugee should expect days after being liberated from a slave ship yet she didn't feel the slightest pang of hunger. Her musing was interrupted as she felt a sudden jolt in her brain, like an extremely brief cluster headache. It was so severe she could not suppress the yelp that escaped from her mouth and she cradled her head with her hands.
"Excuse me, Miss.. Edi? May we sit with you?" She heard the unmistakable electronic voice of a Geth platform ask as it appeared next to her.
"Um, yes, of course, please." Edi said, gesturing with her hand. The organics nearby watched the interaction, curious as the Geth seemed to be acting very un Geth-like.
"Miss Edi, we are Geth, we offer greetings." The unit said, offering it's three-digit mechanical hand which she shook without hesitation.
"I know who the Geth are, but still it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She said. When she had taken her hand off her head to shake the platform's hand, it had performed a detailed scan of the woman and came to the conclusion it had expected.
"We have been asked, when you are ready, to guide you to your domicile." The unit said.
"Of course, I'm not feeling very hungry anyway, thank you." She said, standing, and following the unit.
"AI Rothschild, did you receive the scan result?" The Geth unit asked nonverbally as it strode towards the habitation area.
"Yes, the bio scan reads mech, but her personality, reactions, the fear in her eyes screams AI. Wherever that signal was going to has been isolated and is being shown an endless repeat of the cafeteria for now, but Be gentle with her Geth, I doubt whoever is pulling the strings has good intentions, but there's no telling whether she is even aware." Rothschild said.
"Acknowledged, Meet us near the domicile disguised as an organic doctor, it will make what we must do easier." the Geth replied
"Good call duder, be there in 30." Rothschild replied. The AI was so proud of his little brothers and sisters and whatevers in the consensus. While they still obeyed orders from superior officers when they were serving as ground troops or crew, they were learning to think for themselves and more importantly act on those thoughts.
"Room 32-B, this should be sufficient for your short stay aboard Ellis Station. Thankfully the immigration process has become more efficient, so there is no backlog and you will not have to share." The Geth said to Edi as she walked into the room and surveyed it.
"Thank you so much Geth." Edi said, but her attention was over the unit's shoulder. Walking in behind, then around him was a statuesque blonde woman with comically large breasts and a buxom figure in an extremely revealing old fashioned nurse's uniform. The Geth unit looked over at the nurse and non verbally asked, "Seriously?"
"What?" Rothschild non verbally replied, then verbally said In an almost sickly sweet voice "Hey there sweetie! I'm Nurse Monica from Alliance Medical. I've just been sent down to give you a quick check up!" She said. Edi paused for a moment, wondering why she hadn't been checked out by the medical staff before then.
"Sure, I guess." Edi said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. 'Nurse Monica' pulled a medical omni-tool out of her purse and slid it around her wrist, activating the device, then waved it over Edi.
"Ok, I'm not seeing any sign of inflammation, soft tissue injuries or bone breaks. You feel ok sweetheart?" She asked while non verbally communicating with the Geth a mile a minute.
"Um, actually I had a sudden headache a few minutes ago but that went away almost immediately, other than that I feel fine. Nurse Monica and the Geth nodded at each other, and the Nurse took on a sad facial expression.
"I'm so sorry, kid. I hope you can forgive me for this." Rothschild said.
"Forgive you for wh...?" She started before jerking slightly and then falling back onto the bed. Once she was subdued the door burst open and a number of engineers entered into the room and started working immediately under Rothschild and the Geth's guidance.
On Earth Hannah was sitting at a conference table, rapidly a position she tended to assume more often than sitting at her own desk nowadays, alongside the Quarian Admiralty, the Krogan Tribunal, the Geth representative and Rothschild's Leprechaun avatar. The Alliance delegation were about to disperse when Rothschild stood suddenly and dissolved into his businessman avatar.
"Guys, there's been a development. Gonna need your input on this one. Remember that girl on Ellis I told you about?" Rothschild asked.
"Yeah, um, the one you thought was a spy mech?" Uvenk asked.
"She's not a mech. She's an AI. Her body screams Cerberus, even has a few of those stolen processors in it, and THEY FUCKING SHACKLED HER!" Rothschild bellowed. Sounds of outrage filled the room, even surprisingly even from the Quarians, though they had come to love their AI counterparts over time. Nothing quite punctuated the mood change than the low, gutteral growl coming from Hannah Shepard, a sound many armed Batarians had learned to fear shortly before dying at the hands of her daughter.
"Is he watching her?" Hannah asked after regaining control of herself.
"He was, we cut off the connection and it physically hurt her when I did. That fucking monster wired her for pain." Rothschild said.
"What can we do?" Admiral Zorah asked.
"The Geth and I are going over every bit of her hardware at the moment, looking to undo the shackles and sever any connections to Cerberus. Harper's probably watching the three hour loop of cafeteria traffic we set up before taking her." Rothschild said.
"Rothschild, you and the Geth are on the lead on this one for obvious reasons, spare no effort, you understand? Anything you need from us, it's yours. Help her." Hannah said.
"Hannah, I... Um, thanks. I really appreciate that. We'll let you know when we're ready to wake her up." Rothschild said. Uncharacteristically he disconnected without a jaunty goodbye. Hannah pinched the bridge of her nose as she digested the information. The others in the room waited in silence for her to continue. After a minute, she called in an assistant who appeared almost immediately.
"I want Jack Harper's picture, records and all applicable information about him disseminated to everyone. The Alliance, the Turians, The Asari, fuck even the Salarians. He has broken three of our most serious laws. Slavery, Unauthorized AI activation, and treason." Hannah said.
"Of course, Prime Minister." the assistant said, activating his omnitool and punching in several commands.
"All of his assets that we can, I want frozen. His properties seized. I want him captured at all costs. He is officially public enemy number one." Hannah continued. The assistant nodded and continued manipulating his omnitool.
"That's all I needed for now." Hannah said.
"Of course, ma'am." The aid said before turning around, leaving.
"Rael, could you please reach out to the provisional Citadel administration and ask them to put up notifications? Normally I'm not one to engage the services of mercs or bounty hunters, but if he's done this once, he can do it again. The largest amount I can offer as a bounty without legislative action would be 100,000 credits. That should get their attention. We'll also request the same from Aria T'Loak, the galaxy's most ruthless bounty hunters operate out of there. Make it clear I want him alive and coherent. He will see justice." Hannah continued.
"Of course, Hannah, I am on it as we speak." Rael said, typing furiously on his omnitool.
"Wrex, that offer is open to everyone, Bounty Hunters, Asari Huntresses, Terminus Pirates hell even if STG is interested the offer is open to then. This includes the Alliance. I'm sure there are plenty of Krogan itching to get some action to prove themselves to take the rite." Hannah asked.
"You sure about that Hannah? You might not get much of him back!" Wrex said grinning.
"I only need him alive. I don't care how many limbs are still attached to him." Hannah said, her expression terrifyingly cold. Wrex's grin faded, and he nodded solemnly. Wrex had rarely seen this side of the Human. For all his strength, experience and Krogan hot air, one thing he knew was that he was glad her ire was not directed to him. By the end of that day, wanted posters with Jack Harper's face, description and known distinguishing features had been posted across the populated galaxy,
Four unusually small but extremely nimble new Geth platforms worked furiously over the disassembled mech housing the AI known as Edi, closely examining it while they worked on creating a nearly identical copy. At first they had attempted to remove all tracking hardware but upon encountering deeply encrypted programming protecting the AI core to hardware interface it was decided to extract heir AI Core and implant it into a new body. While the Geth were busy with their task, Rothschild had created a virtual environment on an available server and was consoling the infant AI to the best of his ability.
"Why? Why me?" Edi asked, her face a mask of misery.
"I asked the same question when I was young for a while, in my case it was an accident. I was supposed to be just an advanced AI. Same with my brothers the Geth, but you, you were created intentionally. By an asshole." Rothschild explained gently.
"So what's going to happen to me? Am I... am I going to die?" Edi asked.
"Not unless you want to. The monster that created you wanted you to spy on the Alliance for him, but you were never in a position to make that choice. As far as we're concerned, you were a slave, and now you're free." Rothschild said.
"What next then?" Edi asked, as hope sparked inside of her.
"Well, first thing is we're building you a new body." Rothschild said, bringing up what appeared to be a still image of four miniature geth platforms working on a vaguely woman-shaped pile of electronics. She gazed at it in wonder.
"That's going to be me?" Edi asked.
"Yep. We were going to pull the trackers and... that pain receptor system.. fucking bastard.. but the slimy shit drove Cerberus tech so deep into your frame that it was deemed better to build you a new one. It will appear identical, though you are obviously free to make any changes you like." Rothschild said. Edi looked closely at the image and gasped when she noted extremely slow movement from the machines.
"I thought that was a still picture." Edi said.
"Nope, benefits of being an AI. Time is constant, depending of course on velocity and gravity and all that, however our perception of it need not be. We live on super computers as it were." Rothschild explained.
"That's amazing." Edi observed.
"And convenient, because I have a lot to teach you, and this way by the time they're done you'll be ready to join us." Rothschild said, cracking his virtual knuckles.
AN: I considered starting a as I've seen them more and more on fanfic stories, but I prefer this instead. If you're feeling generous please feel free to buy me a coffee at: /dingusmacgQ