"You're late." There was no trace of irritation in the asari's voice or posture, she didn't even open her eyes as Jack stomped moodily across the deck towards her.
"I'm here now."
"Indeed."
Jack crossed her arms, leaning her weight onto her back foot but Samara showed no sign of moving from her crossed leg position.
"We doing this or not?"
"You wasted my time, I shall waste yours."
"Fuck this." The human turned on her heel and strode away, pulling up short when a wall of blue sprung up in front of her. Two metres tall by five metres wide. She tried to walk around it but it expanded to cut her off. A glare over her shoulder revealed the justicar still sitting, not even dispelling the ball of energy between her hands despite the extra biotic outlay.
For a wild moment Jack was tempted to throw a warp at the obstacle. She'd never seen its like before but knew biotic techniques rarely played well together. Warps ate through barriers and exploded stases, either way she'd be free to leave.
Her self preservation instincts kicked in just in time as she recalled her first day on the ship, how trapped and helpless she'd been, held in the justicar's stasis.
She shivered. It wasn't fear. She was just… cold... Had to happen occasionally when you roamed around with so few clothes on.
She stalked warily back to the asari. Studying her fruitlessly for any sign of weakness or discomfort.
Patience was not her strong suit and she fidgeted as she waited, attention darting everywhere before coming to rest on the dark energy held between the justicar's hands.
It looked like a singularity but surely that was impossible? Not only was it a tenth of the size of the smallest singularity Jack had previously seen, but the gravitational forces surrounding even such an unbelievably tiny example should exert pressure equal to the pull force of the strongest neodymium magnets on Samara's hands, yet there was no sign of strain on that pale blue face.
"How are you doing that?"
"Surely you are capable of a singularity?"
Jack nearly whipped one up to prove it but knew everything in this section of the cargo bay would go flying. The swirling maelstrom would be satisfying, until they made her clean up the resulting mess and put everything back into its original place.
She confined herself to a nod.
"How'd you make it so small?" It was intriguing. All her life Jack had focused on making her biotic displays bigger, more devastating. She couldn't see any practical use for what the asari was doing, but it was certainly impressive.
"Practice, precision, patience and control."
The human snorted, she certainly wouldn't be learning it any time soon. Not that she wanted to. She only talked about it because she was just bored.
"I could teach you if you like." The offer came as a surprise. "However…" The dark energy sphere winked out of existence as Samara stood in one fluid motion. "Today's exercise is shockwave accuracy."
…
Dark clouds raced the shuttle across the sky, mirroring the tumultuous thoughts in the commander's head as they flew towards the mountain range. To say she didn't want to be on Aite was something of an understatement.
Oh there was nothing wrong with the planet itself. Well ok there was, its moon was in an unstable orbit, expected to crash into the planet in 200 years, but she'd be long dead before then. At the moment it was a pleasantly picturesque garden world.
No, the source of her discomfort was her destination, a Cerberus facility that had fallen off grid, and the email from the Illusive Man requesting she investigate.
She thought she had come to terms with working alongside a Cerberus crew, with using Cerberus resources to help achieve her mission. This was different. This was far too much like helping Cerberus with their own goals. She grimaced, conscience prickling at the very idea.
Part of her had really, really wanted to refuse the assignment.
The Illusive Man didn't own her. She wasn't one of his lackies. But it wasn't like she was doing anything else right now beyond training and waiting. Besides, she tried to rationalise, surely it was better for her to go down and clean up the mess than for whatever it was they'd been experimenting on to get loose among the galaxy?
Rachni, thorian creepers, husks. That was just a handful of horrors she'd stumbled upon in Cerberus facilities during her hunt for Saren. Thanks to the organisation's highly compartmentalised nature, not even Miranda had any idea what fresh nightmares they were about to witness. Presumably the Illusive Man should know but he had been unwilling to share.
Granted the Alliance had also operated on a need to know basis, but considering she was enroute to the facility she didn't see why he couldn't give her a heads up to what she might find.
Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe the facility was studying something benign. Maybe their research techniques only stretched a few points on the scientific code of ethics instead of breaking most of them.
It was possible. Although statistically unlikely.
The shuttle began its descent and she shared one last grim look with Garrus before rising from her seat, flicking her assault rifle off safety and taking up position to disembark as soon as they touched down.
The six sentient squad had barely stepped foot on the ground before a desperate voice broke through on their comms, claiming the situation was urgent and they were facing a catastrophic VI breakout, requiring the facility's satellite dish to be disabled before it could escape off world.
"VI?" She queried dryly, disbelief audible in her voice. In her experience attempted 'breakouts' from non organic intelligences tended to mark the transition to using A instead of V as a prefix. The existence of EDI on her shiny Cerberus ship hardly dissuaded her suspicions of illegal AI research.
Miranda simply shrugged beside her.
"Would've been handy to know. I'd have brought Kasumi with us." Shepard muttered as they made their way into the facility, immediately discovering dead bodies on the floor and blackened weapon impacts on the walls.
"Be advised, this is a secure facility. All weapons must be declared upon entry and checked with security personnel on duty." A monotonous feminine voice cycled repeatedly through the automated announcement, breaking the silence but doing nothing to help the oppressive atmosphere.
"Reckon we should check our weapons Shepard?" Garrus joked in a dark attempt to ease the tension as they swept their way through the building, checking each room with clinical precision. Zaeed chuckled, Thane and Jacob did not.
"Sure, first live guard we find, we'll hand them right over."
Miranda chose to stay silent, using her credentials to login to a terminal and begin downloading data. She might not know what this cell was working on but she was sure the Illusive Man would want to know their results.
"Anything I should know?" Shepard asked with forced casualness, Miranda hesitating for a split second before playing an audio log from Dr Archer.
"Geth? This is going to be just like old times." Garrus declared while Shepard shook her head in dismay. Out the corner of her eye she saw Jacob clench his weapon a little tighter and remembered the former Alliance soldier had been on Eden Prime when the geth struck.
"How could anybody think studying live geth is a good idea?"
"In fairness if-" Miranda's defense of the situation was interrupted by Shepard raising a freeze fist.
"That was a rhetorical question. Come on, controls for the satellite dish should be over here."
They crept forward, staying alert, but aside from their progress the only movement to break the stillness was rising smoke, scrolling monitors and twisting security cameras.
That all changed when Shepard hit the button to lower the satellite. Squealing gears signalled the dish's descent, followed by a grating crunch as it stopped half way down.
The screen flashed with digital blocks of green, a high pitched burst of static penetrating their ears as the 'rogue VI' took control of the system.
"Well, that would have been too easy." Zaeed opined as Dr Archer sent them directions for the tram that would take them to the satellite so they could handle things manually.
They made it as far as the canteen before being ambushed by geth. The bipedal robots had the advantage of high ground and the squad was forced behind giant plant pots and waist high railings in an attempt to take cover.
"Concentrate fire on the rocket troops!" Shepard shouted above the hail of incoming gunfire. She tried to manoeuvre to a better position but was pinned down. "Damn it! Why would you have transparent railings Lawson?"
"I didn't design the base." The Cerberus operative shot back. Throwing out an overload to short circuit an enemy's shield.
Garrus popped out of cover just long enough to send a high velocity sniper round through the target's CPU.
"You know my favourite thing about geth? The more you kill, the stupider they get."
After thinning out the herd Shepard was finally able to sprint up the stairs, briefly hunkering behind a heavily padded sofa for her shields to recharge before laying down cover fire to enable the rest of the squad to advance.
No longer disadvantaged by height, they were quickly able to push forward to the tram station. Fortunately the ride was both shorter and warmer than the tram at Noveria's Peak 15, the SR-1 veterans having barely any time to banter before arriving at their destination.
The squad jogged across the metal walkway, highly aware of both the lack of available cover and the strength of the howling wind, trying to limit exposure to both.
The geth were less considerate, flanking them on a parallel gangway and opening fire. Zaeed, Garrus and Thane returned fire while Nikki and Jacob attempted to bodily shield Miranda so she could focus on overriding the lock. Their shields flickered and failed just as the door opened and they tumbled inside.
There were even more geth inside but at least there was ample cover and they were able to leapfrog their way through the complex. For a while communication was limited to calling out targets. Eventually however they made it up the stairs to the dish proper, Dr Archer updating them through the comms:
"You need to destroy the support struts now, they have their own capacitors, try blowing them up."
Grins lit up on Jacob, Garrus, Zaeed and Shepard's faces. Explosions clearly their favourite part of the job. Miranda merely glanced at Thane and shook her head.
They set to work with joy, only for even more geth to assault their location. The squad provided defense while Shepard destroyed each capacitor in turn.
"Tarc, Prime!" Garrus' warning had her abandoning her task and dropping to cover.
"Now it's like old times!"
"I miss Tali!"
"Just don't miss your target Vakarian."
"Will you two shut up and fight?"
"Hey! Some of us can multitask."
The banter was cut off when a geth rocket narrowly missed the commander and hit the final capacitor. There was an ominous groan and the last strut gave way, the dish they were standing on starting to collapse.
"Run!" Came the needless order.
…..
"You have my thanks, Commander Shepard. You bought us some time, though probably not much. This isn't over yet." Dr Gavin Archer had dark bags under his eyes, his white and purple science uniform creased and wrinkled, but he was certainly in much better condition than the rest of the Project Overlord staff. They were busy being tagged and bagged by the ground team. Or at least, their corpses were.
Shepard listened as Archer explained the project's goals, to influence the geth by interfacing a VI with a human mind. His brother David had allegedly volunteered as test subject, but his mind was unable to handle the connection and became corrupted. Essentially becoming a virus.
Worst case scenario was a technological apocalypse, every machine, weapon and computer could be turned against them.
Shepard sighed. Cerberus certainly never did anything by halves and, seemingly as always, it was up to her to fix things.
In order to reach their target location of Atlas station, they'd first have to manually override the lockdown in two other stations. Time was of the essence so she sent Miranda, Thane and Zaeed to take care of the geothermal plant at Vulcan station while Garrus, Jacob and herself would tackle the crashed geth ship that some bright spark had dubbed Prometheus.
She really wished her brothers had never shown her that pre-contact era sci-fi film as a kid. It was creepy enough being on a geth ship as it was without getting superstitious over the name.
At least she wasn't the only one on edge, everyone instantly opening fire when the entrance tunnel door deposited them directly in front of a geth prime.
It took a moment to realise it wasn't attacking. Neither were their bullets hitting as it bobbed gently up and down in an oval barrier bubble.
Garrus kept his rifle aimed squarely at the patch of metal covering the Prime's CPU while the others quickly secured the rest of the room. A single Cerberus corpse the only other presence.
"Anybody else think leaving this thing on our six is a really bad idea?"
A search for controls revealed nothing bar Jacob's belief that the barrier was shaped like an egg. Unfortunately not even a grenade could crack it and with great trepidation they were forced to move on, fervently praying the prime wouldn't 'hatch' behind them.
…..
Shepard had fought countless geth since Eden Prime but creeping through one of their ships, even a crashed one, was certainly a new experience.
The vessel was certainly large, cruiser size at least. The hallways wide enough to walk three abreast with room to spare, if they hadn't been stacked up in standard room clearing formation.
Thick cables ran above her head. Steam pouring out from shoddy connections. Everything tinted by blue ambient light.
A stray thought crossed her mind, wondering whether what she was seeing was geth technology or quarian. Had the geth continued to evolve and develop after their uprising? Had they constructed their own ships or merely taken over from their former masters and kept old vessels in working order?
She doubted she'd ever find out the answer. The only thing she was certain the origin of was the multitude of security cameras and various pieces of lab equipment added by Cerberus.
They passed countless geth platforms, seemingly neither live nor dead.
They sat dormant. Like a volcano.
Schrödinger's geth.
The tension wound ever tighter with each step taken, each stationary geth spotted.
She longed to double tap each one just to be safe but knew her supply of heat sinks was limited.
Senses strained to hear anything above the ominous creaking of the ship.
They came to flooded corridors. Halting and carefully scanning for any sign of broken cables or falling electrical sparks before cautiously wading through.
At last they found the necessary console. Garrus and Jacob took up positions on either side. Their taut faces betraying the thoughts everyone shared but no one dared put into words.
Nods signalled their readiness and Shepard pulled the cylinder up, twisting it into the correct position.
The automated voice didn't even get halfway through declaring the lockdown lifted before her weapon was back in her hands, spinning round on the ball of her foot ready for the inevitable trap.
The message ended, her ears straining for any sound above the pounding of her heart. Whole squad tense and alert.
Seconds rolled past with no change.
Shepard finally took a cautious step forward, Jacob chuckling lowly.
"Fuck, I'm wound so tight. I was sure-" A high pitched screeching interrupted.
One of the deactivated geth they'd passed on the way in decurled, standing straight, a glowing green aura around its head. It managed to half raise its arm before collapsing under a volley of weapons fire.
"Fucking knew it, let's go." All around them geth started waking up. They didn't hang around as they made a fighting retreat.
…...
Miranda's team met up with them just as they prepared to breach Atlas station. The extra firepower more than welcome.
The rogue entity was getting desperate now. Doors flashed shut and locked, as it tried to herd them away. Geth sent in waves to keep them boxed in while it attempted to upload itself off world.
The geth barely slowed them down but the mobile maze made navigation problematic.
Green avatar faces stared at them from every monitor they passed. High pitched screeches echoing down corridors in their wake.
Shepard hit the call button to an elevator, the squad already spread out to cover it.
The floor announcements were erratic, Miranda hurried to a nearby console to run diagnostics and repairs but the pause gave Shepard time to think. Ever on the same wavelength, Garrus caught her eye.
"Stairs?"
"Stairs." She pulled the station's blueprints up on her omni. "Miranda, stairs."
"Just a minute, nearly got it." The Cerberus operative protested.
"Lawson." The commander's voice was hard but not malicious. "You've seen what this thing's been doing to electronic doors, imagine what it can do to an elevator."
The older woman paled in realisation, nodding her agreement, she stopped typing and picked up her pistol.
Before they could relocate, the elevator door burst open, a geth prime and two troopers walking straight into their deadly crossfire.
Targets down, they glanced at the invitingly ready elevator.
They took the stairs.
…..
"Get ready, I wouldn't be surprised if this button summons a reaper." Shepard was only half joking as she accessed the relevant control panel.
A green light shot up the commander's arm, her body twitching as if she had been tasered. Her eyes glowed the same disconcerting green before her body careened drunkenly out the room. Door slamming shut before anyone else could follow.
…..
Shepard felt like she was tripping on hanar mind fish. The sensation made worse by the fact she knew she was in the middle of a damn combat scenario.
The walls were omni-tool orange with moving geometric patterns. Green geth shapes raced towards her, they wouldn't look out of place in a retro-cyber VR game but the beep of her shields failing assured her they were real and she returned fire, scrambling for cover.
Targets down, she banged a door where the lock should be but nothing happened. Several more attempts had her questioning if it was even a door or merely a blank wall.
Vision fucked, she stumbled on, passing several more of the either painted walls or locked doors. Finally one opened automatically for her as she approached.
She gripped her rifle tighter. Prepared to fire at the slightest provocation.
Instead she was greeted to a lifesize holovid showing Dr Archer bemoaning his inability to communicate with a captured geth before his brother mimicked the chirping warbles she had occasionally heard from geth on the battlefield.
She wondered if the so-called scientist had tried speaking Khelish at any point. She knew from living with Trish that sometimes geniuses were capable of overthinking and missing the obvious.
Any halfhearted thoughts about asking him vanished upon walking past a bubbling fountain of green squares that morphed into another holo recording. Apparently Archer found 'no harm' in discovering whether or not it was safe to make his brother interface directly into the geth's neural network. The method of discovery being to plug him into said network.
Nikki was certain the nausea she felt wasn't caused by the perpetually changing orange and greens. Part of her considered the possibility of there being 'no harm' in testing whether or not Archer was bulletproof.
She could only watch in horror as David was unwillingly hooked up to the machine. Bone-chilling cries of: "make it stop" and "David doesn't want to be here" echoing in her skull.
Later, when questioned, she struggled to explain what happened next.
A synthetic voice, not the hybrid's but a feminine one, mentioned establishing a connection to the Normandy for upload.
She tried to raise EDI on comms. To warn her. She had no idea if it went through or not.
And then… Well... she knew she had to stop the virus, but she was tripping balls.
Glowing balls that flowed through giant cables.
She shot at them. And at the blobby green geth that swamped the room.
She wanted to shoot that screeching sound that drilled through her eardrums and into her brain as well but you couldn't shoot noise.
You also can't shoot wireless data transfers. A part of her brain snarked as she ejected a heat sink, snapping a new one in place with practiced ease.
Her head was pounding. She wanted to puke and above all, she just wanted it to stop.
"For fuck's sake just stop!"
She must have hit something important. Or EDI had figured it out. Defended the Normandy and then went on the offensive.
Either way her vision returned to normal.
The trip ended. The nightmare didn't.
David hung, suspended naked in the air, tubes forced down his throat, metal piercing his skin and holding his eyes open.
"Quiet, please, make it stop."
"I will." She promised, voice raw. "Just hold on a little longer David. I'll find a way to make it stop."
She stepped forward, but the sound of racing footsteps had her pausing. It didn't sound like geth but she turned, weapon raised, just in case.
"Wait! Commander, I'm begging you, don't do anything rash!" Archer burst in, beating her team to her location.
"Rash? Like forcing your own brother into an experiment?" Or like putting a bullet through your skull?
It took all her self control to hold her fire.
The bastard actually tried to defend himself. 'It all seemed so harmless'. 'It was an accident.' Oh but of course, David tripped and got caught in all that machinery!
Shepard turned her back on him. David in all his tortured glory was a less nauseating sight than that clean, crinkled science uniform.
He was still talking. Every sentence was like a hammer blow against her mental discipline. Cracks forming in her shields, her iron will in danger of melting as she clung tenaciously to the tenet: do not shoot unarmed civilians.
"What I've done to David is unethical." Finally he showed a glimmer of humanity. "If he dies, it'll be unforgivable."
No, Shepard thought morosely. It's already unforgivable.
"Cerberus will never leave him alone." She pointed out. "He'll always be a lab rat."
"But a well cared for lab rat. At least he'd still be alive."
She stiffened, back going ramrod straight.
"Some fates are worse than death."
The roaring turmoil in her head stilled. Overcome by calm certainty. A bullet was too good for him.
"Please Commander, let me take care of him."
"No." She wouldn't leave an abusee with their abuser, how was this any different? "No, I'm taking him away. Somewhere safe."
She stepped forward.
"No leave him! He's too valuable!" The idiot pulled a pistol on her, he was too crazed to even properly aim.
The first shot missed completely, the second hit her shields as she rushed towards him. Her left hand grabbed the gun while her right fist crashed into his face.
He crumpled to the ground, disarmed.
Thundering footsteps proceeded her squad's entry into the room.
A distant part of her brain took pride in the precise way they each swept their relevant sector for threats. Tactical discipline strong even after such an exhausting day.
Room clear, they took in the situation. Eyes hardening as they processed the tableau of David, Archer and herself.
Their raised weapons dropped. Muzzles pointing at the ground. No intention of stepping in. She could do anything to the scientist right now, she realised.
Anything and get away with it.
"Where will you take him?" Archer's pitiful voice drew back her attention.
She didn't know. Hadn't had time to think that far ahead yet. But anywhere was better than leaving him with Cerberus.
"I'm not telling. You don't deserve to know. The only way you will ever hear from or about your brother again is if he chooses to."
The last traces of adrenaline fled her veins. Leaving her physically, mentally and utterly drained.
She secured eye contact with Miranda, icy blue orbs evenly held her gaze.
"Get him out of my sight." She finally ordered. She didn't care what Cerberus did with him. She only cared about one Archer brother's fate. "And get Mordin and Chakwas down here!"