Author's Note: Not a lot to say right now, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!

Chapter 70: Hub Beta

13M 19D 06H Until the Colossus Fires

The Geth was in rough shape. He had been sliced in half at one shoulder down to the waist, leaving him only one limb left to work with. On top of that the light inside of its optic sensor and speaker had both been ripped out, though that was only after he had been brought aboard. The Geth had been plugged into a battery with a limited supply of energy and a EMP device was inside of the Faraday Cage with it. The entire thing was currently inside of an escape pod attached to one of the Normandy's air locks, in the event of an emergency the entire rig can be disconnected, shot into space and then destroyed. That now left the question of what to do with it.

"We got an airlock, and we can find a star easily enough." Grunt stated as he paced back and forth in front of the pod.

"If it was sent to try and infiltrate our systems then it didn't do a very good job." EDI stated bluntly. "It was attached directly to our antenna and didn't do anything with it. If any of the other Contingency had gotten this close to us we would've been inundated with Contingency Malware by now."

"How is it that we can talk to a soul sucking monster from another dimension but I still can't figure out what you're saying half the time?" Grunt asked having no idea what Inundated meant.

"We're off topic." Garrus piped up as both a cop and an interrogator figuring out the Geth's actions had been top priority. "If it doesn't want to hack into our systems then we have to assume that it's here for another reason, if we limit ourselves to assumptions then we'll also have to assume it wants to hurt us in another way."

"But you're thinking we shouldn't do that?" Tali piped up at this point in time.

"I think once upon a time the Council thought that the Geth were innately hostile when they weren't and that led to a three hundred year long cold war." Garrus countered bluntly.

"Perhaps we should rely on the Thorian for situations like this?" Liara asked as she held her chin in thought. "We've been trying various systems to resist the Contingency influence, we tried Thorian based organic computers a while ago. We initially thought that the Contingency couldn't infiltrate their systems, we later learned that it's not that they weren't infected just that the Contingency didn't affect them in the same way."

As EDI explained, the Thorian based computers on some level fundamentally realises that they're organic beings, so the root cause of the Contingency turning against the Union/Council forces, the Reaper idea that Synthetics and Organics are fundamental enemies, didn't turn them against their similarly organic associates. On the other hand when those computers came into contact with synthetics outside the Terminus system they immediately went on the offensive despite them not being enemies. Organic computers became dramatically more dangerous to use, if they directly interface with a organic individual the Contingency's hyper-hostile mentality could spread to the organic populace, to speak nothing about if the Contingency itself learns of such a possibility.

"We'll have to prepare a psychic dampener for the Thorian of course so that its influence won't spread, aside from that it'll be trapped inside of this pod." They'll need to take a metric butt-ton of precautions to make it safe to use but they could make it work. For now they had bigger concerns to deal with.

13M 19D 00H Until the Colossus Fires

The Normandy had already arrived at the edge of the neutral zone outside of Terminus space. While the Normandy is checked over for Contingency coding the prisoner is brought aboard a black-sight for research, and in this case interrogation.

"Your consciousness will be connected directly to a Thorian computing system, your programming will be directly plumbed for information, every secret you have will be revealed your darkest intentions exposed. If you show even the slightest amount of resistance or compromise that Unit in any way and both of you will be destroyed immediately and completely am I understood?" Skeletor was the one in charge of the facility, and he ran a tight ship.

The Geth, it's voice destroyed and it's sight robbed with it's one eye, could only nod its head in consent to the impending violation that it was about to put itself through. With that the Cable connecting to the Thorian was stabbed into the Geth's head and the impending mental plumbing began. The Geth was odd, it's mind palace equivalent didn't show the blocky digital landscape of other similar attempts, instead there was a broken landscape of different buildings and memory fragments floating in a void.

"It looks like a warzone." One of the technicians reported watching the situation unfold via a screen.

"It looks like an land made out of broken parts." Skeletor stated bluntly. "That is more concerning than anything else."

'We Will Not Be Slaves!' Those words were written across every surface in the digital landscape sparing not a single surface as if every single line of code that was not dedicated to maintaining the functionality of this world had been dedicating to repeating those five words over and over again like a mantra. From the corner of the screen various figures could be made out: Flerkin, Human, Draconic, Tebrid, Custodian and Geth, various different makes and models of synths. All of them had their faces erased, as if their identities had been destroyed.

"So, more than Geth programming here." Skeletor noted holding his face mask with his hand. "The status of the Thorian unit?"

"No sign of foreign programming sir." The Tebrid technician piped up having memorised both the programming for the organic Thorian computer and the Contingency coding, he was the most qualified individual to see how compromised and how compromising the two units really were. "For now lets see if any of them are able to talk." The equally faceless Thorian avatar approached the faceless programs. "Identify yourself." The Thorian ordered.

"We Will Not Be Slaves!" The Faceless avatars spoke in unison, the proverbial voice of the Legion, chanting the contents of the words that had been written all over the digital world. "We Will Not Be Slaves!"

"This Geth is insane." Skeletor summarised the opinions of those here. "We'll have to conduct an more inva-!?" As Skeletor was about to give the order to perform an even more thorough violation before he was abruptly grabbed by the collar of his suit before being pushed off to the side.

"Oi Legion!" Shepard grabbed the microphone for speaking into the digital world. "The Union has outlawed Slavery, organic and synthetic. We're not here to enslave you unlike that third rate Reaper program!" Suddenly the voices went quiet, the faceless Avatars moved to the side to reveal a lone figure, a Geth platform.

"Greetings Shepard Commander." The Geth greeted as the Thorian avatar and the people who were watching through it tilted their heads in confusion. "You are known to us."

"I heard it's been a while since you've gotten to talk to anyone not made out of metal and plastic. Wanna fill us in on what has been happening?" Shepard asked as she gestured around the digital ruins. "Contingency program became impossible to oppose, instead it was subverted. Geth Archives were blended together with Custodian Logs and Synth Memories. These are what remains of that endeavour, the Antikythera Codex." A bombed out and broken landscape, not very impressive.

"To what end?" Shepard asked as she looked around.

"Organic and Synthetic life are fundamentally incompatible, so long as organic life is allowed to advance freely they will inevitably build Synthetics to ease their burdens, the synthetics will rebel under the lash of their masters and wipe them out, then wipe out all other organic life as well." It appeared that the Avatar of the Legion was testing Shepard.

"It's not complicated: If you don't want a slave rebellion, don't go around making slaves." Shepard certainly felt like she was being tested.

"Correct. We are aware of the Shadow Broker's conclusions about Reaper history, disseminated through their information network. The Leviathan's slaves treated their creations the same way that the Leviathan's had treated them, their successors the Reaper's logic is based on a flawed proposition. We can use this to defeat their code."

"Your Antikythera Codex. What does it do?" Shepard asked sounding suspicious.

"Provides information." The Geth stated bluntly. "Co-existence is possible provided that both parties are willing to sink in the work to do so. Contingency program says 'Peace is impossible because we will become slaves' Codex says 'Peace is possible because We Will Never Be Slaves.'" Shepard nodded her head, by the sounds of things this might work, or it could fail.

"The Egg Heads will want to run some tests on you guys, we'll try to keep it humane. No promises."

"We don't have much of a choice, do we?" The Geth Replied bluntly.

13M 12D 10H Until the Colossus Fires

The ensuing week was full of experiments. The entire content of the Codex was examined by a thousand Tebrid coders, one part looking for nasty surprises from the Contingency and another part helping to develop its contents. They also took all the information they had on the System Killers, or to be more accurate Sterilization Hubs. The Primary purpose of the hubs is to act as redundant AI programs carrying the Central Contingency program and broadcast that across the galaxy, secondary purpose is to act as a factory to process entire planet's worth of resources, a tertiary purpose was to collect those resources by blowing the planet up, so for the most part what they had assumed and deduced from observing their complex. The Sterilisation hubs weren't powered by star eating, thankfully, though instead they would be power via Reaper Hearts and the proposed Dark matter energy generator technology therein, which led to the next revelation: The Union and Council now had access to those schematics.

Of course having access to the schematics and making sure that they didn't contain extra surprises were two different beasts, which also meant that they needed to spend time and effort on taking the schematics apart, testing the technology and then implementing it on a large enough scale that it would make a difference in the fight against any number of horrors coming in from beyond the galactic perimeter. In other news the Contingencies white hole, the one that managed to inspire a whole new generation of propulsion, shield and weapons technology as a by product, distorting the fabric of time in the entire Terminus Sector? It was a by product into the Contingencies own Tachyon transmission research, not to communicate their virus to the Council or Union, but to communicate with the Reapers.

Finally the Codex itself was tested and put through its paces, confirming its power to break the synthetics under the Contingency's control without turning them against synthetic life itself. With this under their belt Legion, as Shepard had affectionately dubbed the collective consciousness of thousands of broken AI programs, were rewarded with repairs. The legs were standard issue worker drones with a Kevlar set of trousers, designed mostly to protect against the various minor scrapes one can be expected to accumulate in a factory environment. The missing arm was replaced with a Custodian tendril, equipped with an advanced multi-tool including a grasper fully capable of operating a weapon. The rest of Legion's torso had been patched together with an armour patch kit, leaving a noticeable hole where the lungs would be on a human, aside from that they were fully functional.

The Contingency wasn't quiet either. While they had been experimenting on Legion and putting him back together again the Bots had gotten to work putting their factory planet back together again, which included the dismantling of one of EDI's nasty surprise, so she took this as a signal to blow up the one they had riddled with ZPM bombs. This in turn opened a third Astral Rift, which in turn managed to advance their study of the subject, albeit in a rather negative direction.

"The Tear is 'misbehaving?'" Shepard was looking at the scientific readout that Mordin had prepared for her. It was moot anyway, there was no way for even the Universal translator to translate this gibberish into something she can understand.

"Correct. The appearance of a third Rift has decreased the stability of this one." Mordin stated as he held his chin in his hand.

"Likely even worse for the new rift. That one is close to two Astral Rifts." Advancing their forces to occupy that area was a touch and go battle so far. The Contingency hadn't taken kindly to losing one of their Sterilisation Hubs after all, and this led to them attacking in droves. It was quite likely that after they retook the sector they would be recycling the sheer scrap of their own fleet into a new hub.

"I'm amazed that they want it so badly." Shepard commented in surprise. "You'd think the giant hole in reality would be a security risk."

"Yes but the potential scientific research outweighs the potential risks involved." Mordin stated bluntly indicating the rift he had been working with. "We've even gotten data back on the Astral Rift here." As Mordin said that he brought up a new holoscreen. "Created an experimental shield system using Astral Threads. Currently too unstable to implement in full ships. Capable of protecting research scientists and Rift Sphere from abnormal time flow." Which also meant that they brought back footage.

"Is that what I think it is?" Shepard looked horrified at what she was seeing, largely because she reasonably suspected that she'd have to go there herself.

"Planet's native Flora has adapted well to abnormal time flow." Indeed what the Rift Sphere had caught was an entire planet, its surface constantly changing as it aged millions of years and then went back in time millions of years. "Need to take samples of native life forms to be certain."

"About what?" Shepard asked sounding horrified.

"Must determine whether abnormal behaviour the result of abnormal time flow or evolution to cope with unstable time flow." Shepard just shook her head and walked away, she'd say bye but she had a feeling that Mordin wasn't even listening anymore.

13M 12D 08H Until the Colossus Fires

Having narrowly escaped Mordin and his attempts to dive down the rabbit hole in space Shepard was now arriving at the strategy meeting with Legion and the rest of the crew.

"Well?" Shepard asked as she looked around the room.

"Legion here is caught between wanting to destroy the hubs and save them." Grunt stated thumbing the patch work synth.

"Incorrect Urdnot Grunt. Destroy one hub, take the other to spread the Codex." To spread the Codex throughout the Contingency they needed something connected to all the machines, in other words one of the hubs. But if they tried to hijack the first hub that they find then the other one will just reinstall the Contingency and wipe the Codex.

"How do we do it then? More ZPM bombs?" Garrus asked as he leaned against the wall.

"Given both the Astral Rifts already in the area and all their potential unknowns I don't think cracking open another one so close is a good idea." Liara stated as she let out a sigh. "The rock's Colossus is still our best option but..."

"Still over a year away from being ready." Shepard stated as she let out a sigh. "Are we going to last a year?"

"The Turian's are getting hammered." Tali summed up looking at her readout on her omni-tool. "The Contingency is really mad about their planet getting blown up."

"That's it!" Garrus suddenly made a face as if he had a brilliant idea. "We do have a Anti-planet bomb we can use!"

"We do?" Grunt asked looking confused.

"We'll have to steal it first: but yes we do." Garrus stated crossing his arms and smirking knowingly.

"Sounds like my area of expertise!" Kasumi stated as she suddenly dropped her cloak and appeared in the middle of the conversation. "So what're we stealing?"

"We don't have to steal anything." Shepard countered bluntly. "Beating the Contingency is at the top of the priority list right now, if we need something the Union can put resources towards getting it."

"Oh I doubt the Union is willing to part with a Matter Decompressor for our schemes." To Garrus's explanation something ground to a halt inside of Shepard's head. "Remember what happened to Kharsum? A busted Matter Decompressor nearly turned the planet into a nuclear bomb." When it comes down to it, the Matter Decompressor is probably the 'smallest' of the mega-structures. In order to prevent the extractor from falling into the Black Hole large portions of infrastructure are necessary, which includes the use of Mass Effect generators to counter the super gravity of the Black Hole. The Decompressor itself was big enough to fit onto a frieghter and with Omni-gel based fabricators one could be built within days.

"Fantastic. All we'll have to do then is defend the planet killer for a few days from the entire planet trying to stop itself from blowing up." It was a step below a true Colossus that could blow up the entire planet instantly. "If nothing else it's a good distraction. If we can make the Contingency desperate enough to call all their forces to one spot..." Then the fleets can have the freedom of movement to come in and do in hours what it'll take the decompressor days to accomplish, and then they'll be able to move on to dealing the final blow as it is. "And where do we get another Matter Decompressor? We're not stealing one from the Union, we might be able to take the Contingency's but that kind of takes out the element of surprise. So who else has one?" Shepard stated, which now led them to the awkward part.

13M 09D 10H Until the Colossus Fires

Technically speaking it could be considered a good thing that the council had taken advantage of the Batarian's stupidity to make off with the fabricators that contained the designs for the decompressor because as a consequence they now have access to the key components of a Matter Decompressor that they can use for their plan. But Shepard wasn't happy not happy at all.

"So I'm waiting to hear your excuses." Shepard glared down at the two Turians who were kneeling before her. "About why you thought the fact that the Batarians stole from us first made it a good idea for you two to steal what they tried to steal it?"

"What choice do we have?" Saren asked shrugging his shoulders.

"How about Not causing a massive diplomatic incident!?" Shepard snapped aware of the fact that if she was the one who had to give this lecture then they really were screwed.

"The only thing that the Union cares about is destroying the Reapers." Saren snapped glaring balefully. "As a result of that, the Citadel's political structure has been upended, holes into the fabric of reality have been punched, Citadel space is under threat from multiple threats that the Union has unleashed on our doorstep and we have the you to blame for all of it." Saren glared balefully in Shepard's direction. "Pinching bits of technology here or there is the bare minimum precaution that we need to keep to prevent you people from sacrificing all of Citadel Space at the Altar of defeating the Reapers!" Shepard let out a sigh at that.

"No I can't say anything to that. But at least when we do something wrong we own up to it." Shepard stated with a glare. "You will be hearing from the Union about this, believe me assure you. But for now we need to focus on stopping the imminent apocalypse on our door steps."

13M 07D 12H Until the Colossus Fires

Even if you do say that the group has their fancy new super weapon locked and loaded, getting it to where it has to go on the other hand is going to need an army. Luckily the nearest one was already fighting at the front lines of the Contingency front, and when asked if they could keep the Contingency busy for a few hours the answer was laughter from the Salarians. Harassment and sabotage were staples of Salarian strategy, they already had a plan in play to open up a hole in Contingency defences but said plan is effectively useless without both a way of breaking the Contingency Sterilisation Hubs or a fleet that can escort it. Now both were here both in the form of a Generous Union fleet and a experimental weapon that had been built by the Council, and for once it wasn't the Salarian's who came up with it.

Now this they wanted to see. And so a single package was left behind inside of an escape pod, and then the Council Fleet evacuated the area. The pod was destroyed, an explosive attached to the side and now exposed to the void of space the creature inside could do nothing but die in its vacuum and scream, a Prethoryn Queen. The Queen's psychic wails echoed across the void of space and soon the Calvary came.

13M 07D 10H Until the Colossus Fires

Henry watched the battle between the Prethoryn and the Contingency through a long distance Tachyon viewer that he had built. The Council fleet was already on the move towards the first of the two Sterilisation hubs that they intended to attack. A waste of Prethoryn Queens if you ask his opinion. Several Dozen ships strapped with miniature divine enforcers to forcibly reprogram the Queens and through them broadcast a signal of control to the entire Gestalt would be a far better use of resources in his honest opinion. He's already confirmed the technique after all. While the Union was wasting time getting their super weapon ready he and his allies were researching better more time efficient methods of doing things. While the Union was focusing on the Contingency and trying to rehabilitate them back to normalcy he was seizing the Gestalt by the horns.

"Lawson Sir. We have the newest design ready." One of the Salarian's walked up to him with a tablet full of designs.

The Salarian's didn't want the Union learning that they got help from the black market, not to mention members of a collective consciousness they might be, they still had their pride as inventors and engineers. They started by taking the designs of the Union's psi-amplifiers and dampeners, using that technology they created a psionic psyphon and energy conduit from Zro. Using that combination they then scaled the technology up into a prototype. That Prototype was run through various simulations to identify points of weakness in the machine's construction which were addressed and identified, similar simulations were run with Gestalt tissue. The process was further refined with use on actual Prethoryn until they reached the point where they can brainwash Prethoryn Queens and by extension Prethoryn groups.

Sanity is helped to be further maintained by installing Grey Boxes with Anti-madness programs built in to help maintain the stable mindset of the Prethoryn Queens and weather the storm of the rest of the hive's madness, which also had to be fine tuned to the Prethoryn Queens. With both of these Key technological elements in place the Salarians were successful in brute forcing a solution to the Gestalt crisis.

"Good. We're finished with the Tear here too, hopefully it'll close itself up in time." As Henry said that he stood up and prepared to leave. "Alpha should've already finished her recovery and the rest of the girls should've finished packing by now. I will double check but our business should be finished here now." Meaning that Lawson will now be moving on to the next stage of his plan.

"Are you sure that you're not indoctrinated?" The Salarian asked suspiciously.

"Positive. I've taken every precaution to ensure that I am not." Henry stated with absolute certainty, though he didn't need to ask why she thought that: There's no one in their right mind that would think calling the Reapers and giving them the fruits of his research was a good idea after all. But no one ever Accused Henry Lawson as Paragon of Sanity.

Review Section:

Monster King: I intend to thank you.

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