f you recognise it, I probably don't own it. Mass effect belongs to BioWare and Microsoft.

Also before I begin, here are some important stuff.

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

~"AI"~

*Sound Effects*

POV/Location/Time Change.

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Interlude 1

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Feb 17, 2300,

Cerberus Blacksite, Deep Space

Deep within the bowels of the facility, a man was sitting in a comfortable cell, but a cell nonetheless. He has deathly pale skin, but other than that, he looks well-kempt. He is wearing a clean white patient gown, and sitting on a bed. The one anomaly that stands out is his blue-purple eyes and the near inaudible, unintelligible words that he is murmuring ceaselessly. but even through his seemingly insane unintelligible ramblings, a few words can be made out, "Many", "Death", "Trap", "Lie", "Bastion", and "Builders". A guard walks by, checking in on this seemingly insane patient through the large glass window in the cell. He looks up with his unnatural eyes, a sense of hopelessness in them, for a moment, something else seems to flash in them, a sense of recognition perhaps? Then he returns to his mutterings, lost in his mind once again.

Unbeknownst to our Prisoner, he is not alone in his predicament, for in this facility there are dozens of people like him, arrayed in a hallway of cells, each one in a similar form of madness. The Guard walks by each one, a sense of sadness and pity rising within him, seeing such great minds reduced to such a state. At the end of the hallway, is perhaps the most striking scene. in a shadowed cell much larger than the others, a man is pacing around. While he looks completely normal, his cell is full of scratches that appear to be made from fingernails, his bed is torn up, and the furniture is broken and strewn about.

The guard walks up to his cell, looks at the state, and says "Good Morning JC, bad night?"
"Yeah, it's getting harder to control the whispers. Especially during sleep." The man, now identified as JC replies.
"I guess you're gonna need new furniture huh?" the guard says.
"No, I can perfectly use my broken furniture," JC says sarcastically. "So, you proposed to Hill yet? Valentines just went by."
"Not yet, her birthday coming up, I'm planning on asking her then." The guard says with a hint of embarrassment. "So, any requests for Breakfast?"
"Nothing much, just strawberry cheesecake and some BLOOD, I meant juice," JC says.
"OK..." They continue talking for a while before the guard leaves and JC goes back to pacing in his cell, occasionally sitting down.

March 21

JC was thrashing around his cell, breaking furniture, scratching the walls, and screaming. "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!"

The group of doctors who were observing him from outside his cell quietly noted down their observations." That's his sixth episode in the last month. They're happening faster now." One doctor says to his companions. "This one happened when he was awake, before now it was only at night when he was in REM sleep." Another doctor adds to the observation. "He was our best case yet, the only one who hadn't lost their sanity as soon as they came in contact with it" she adds with a hint of frustration.
"Is a cure even possible ma'am?" Someone says.
"I believe so, yes. We know this is not a disease, it is being caused by the nanites in his bloodstream. If we can only find a way to prevent our nanites from being corrupted by them, it is very much possible to heal him and all of the others." She says.
"But how will that be possible when his prosthetic eyes keep producing them? We can't exactly replace them, they've hijacked his frontal lobe, and removing them will trigger the kill switch." the doctor earlier says.
"We can use our nanites to hack into them to make them benign. As long as we can prevent corruption, hacking into the eyes should not be much of a leap." An older man within the group says.
"Yes, we must not lose hope, there's still time, we can make a cure! For them, For All Humanity!"

"For All Humanity!" The others echo the motto of Cerberus.

April 30

"This is Doctor Hill, the patient's condition has grown considerably worse. The periods of sanity between the fits have shortened to such an extent that they are almost equal to the time he spends in his fits. The episodes of madness have also seemingly become more violent. Just a few days ago the patient smashed his vase and attempted to... cut off his own ears. This was the third instance of attempting to cause harm to himself or someone else in the last two weeks alone. This has inexorably forced us to put him in a padded room with minimal furniture to prevent self-harm." Dr. Hill enters into her journal report with a sigh.

"The good news is, the Research team has made considerable progress in improving our nanites, they have been growing increasingly more resistant to corruption from the alien nanites, in some cases up to more than a day. The research team believes we could have a functioning sample in a few months, but I fear that we might not have that long."

June 10

A woman walks down the hallway of cells in a hurry, her heels clicking against the floor. She is covered completely in a black body glove suit, that covers every part of her body except her blond ponytail (imagine 40k Calidus assassins but blond). She walks up to the last cell, a padded room, and peers in through the window. she looks at the man inside. The man is hunched in the corner, wearing a straightjacket, with a truly pitiful look in his eyes.

"Dr Hill, is the antidote ready?" the mysterious woman says.
"No ma'am, the one we have is only temporary, we need at least one more month to make a permanent cure." Dr. Hill replies in a sad tone.
"Why can't we use the temporary one to stall the effects while we wait for a full cure then?" The woman asks impatiently.
"Using the temporary cure might work in the short term but when the new nanites get corrupted the disease will become much harder to remove as these o0nes will be much stronger." Dr Hill says.
"Is there really no other solution?"The woman asks.
"There is one thing we can do ma'am, but it is going to be risky, and not entirely legal..." Dr. Hill hesitantly replies.
"That being?"
"We could theoretically inject him with the cure, and after a few days of letting him stabilize remove his prosthetic eyes. While this would trigger the kill switch, if we can put him in stasis fast enough, we could then externally hack into the system and disable it. But this system is so complex, that we're going to need years to break through the code."
"Do it." The mysterious woman says.
"Yes ma'am!"

A few moments later, the woman enters the cell and walks towards JC, who tries to push himself further into the corner and starts screaming "Don't get near me! They are listening! They can hear us! The Voices! The Voices! THE VOICES!"
The woman walks up to the man, her mask receding in a shimmer to reveal her face, her eyes tinged with tears "Shhh...Shhh... You're safe now..."
She kneels down in front of him and injects the cure into his neck. the man trembles and shakes for a bit and then collapses into unconsciousness. "It's alright now, we're with you, and we'll get the bastards who did this to you... now sleep... rest... you've endured enough." She says tearfully before laying him down on the floor.

She stays there for a while, with him in her arms. Then she gets up with a look of determination in her eyes and begins to walk away. As she is about to leave, JC mutters in his state of unconsciousness "Eva... Eva... The whispers... They are silent now..."
She looks back one more time, her expression now hidden by her mask. "Goodnight Jack"

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A/N

Sorry for the delay my readers, I was and am still a bit sick, So this one is a bit short. But next week you'll get the final part of the first contact, I promise. Anyways here's hoping you have an awesome day/night!