Jacob: The Dark Side of Expedience

Shepard pressed the button on the holographic control, and Jacob's omni-tool burst into green sparks. He stumbled backwards, falling through the door, and when he was able to get up, it had closed behind him. They were sealed in by the VI, and it was also messing with him; the world had turned to an orange color with so many virtual filters.

"This is just great." sighed Jacob. "Now I gotta go in alone, though that's probably what it wants."

"STOP!" came a yell from the VI.

"Wait, that screaming?"

The next halls reminded Jacob of the Lazarus Research Station: just as Shepard woke up, the security mechs were all hacked and deployed against the station staff. And just like then, Jacob was alone, fighting against the rogue machines. There were some differences in that Shepard was now trapped inside another room, and the machines Jacob was fighting were hacked geth. Most notably, there was no orange holographic imagery on the Lazarus station.

After a number of unleashed biotic fields and shotgun blasts, Jacob came to a room where everything turned green, with holograms of the Cerberus staff appearing as white ghosts.

Square root of 906.01 is 30.1. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2," voiced the first hologram

"There are no options left. How to get the geth's attention?" asked the second hologram, Gavin Archer.

There was a lot of geth-like stuttering, before the first announced "The robot says hello."

"Eureka! David, you're a miracle worker."

"Egghead, eh?" Jacob mused, as the world turned from its green holographic color back to orange. "Pretty good to be able to speak geth like that. Something doesn't feel right though."

Two green holographic spheres appeared in the room. When Jacob touched the first one, the world turned back to green and showed David and Dr Archer. Once again, David repeated the first two equations, but then…

"David, can you repeat my notes from Thursday's experiments?"

"Square root of 918.09 is 30.3," continued David, seemingly oblivious.

"David, please pay attention!"

"Loud! It's getting loud in here!"

"I'm sorry David, you didn't deserve that. Would you please repeat my notes from Thursday's experiment?"

"Log 137.3. The experiment yielded no discernable patterns of geth obedience. End dictation now David. Hell, the Illusive Man will have my head for this."

"Thank you. And how you are feeling today?"

"Square root of 924.16 is 30.4… earplugs would be good."

"So he hates loud noise?" continued Jacob. "None of this fits. If he is so sensitive to stimulation, why did his brother say he volunteered?"

When the world returned to its orange color, Jacob moved towards the last spherical holographic disturbance. Hopefully this would provide some answers. For a third time, the world turned from orange to green, and the white holograms of David and Gavin appeared, along with a geth hologram and some holograms of other scientists.

"David, I want you to order the geth to take a step forward," Gavin requested. As David began stuttering, the lone geth was walking in place.

"How does he do it?" asked a nearby assistant.

"David is a mathematical savant. His autistic mind can interpret the geth language in its most basic form, and mimic their phonetics. With his photographic memory, cross-referencing the meaning is a snap. He is literally a human computer."

"Even without the chaos now, I don't like where this is going," muttered Jacob.

"And you think he can interface with the geth's neural network?" continued the scientist

"I see no harm in trying."

"Damn it!" spat Jacob. "This is turning into the Toxic Food incident all over again! I need to find the VI Core."

With this realization, Jacob continued blasting his way through the holographic geth until he got to the main chamber housing the Rogue VI. As he got off the lift that brought him to the chamber proper, the world was once again a green color, with white scientist holograms standing near the Core structure itself.

"Square root of 906.01 is 30.1. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2" David fearfully stammered.

"We're ready. Open a connection to the geth network," ordered Gavin.

"QUIET!" David yelled, his voice now sounding electrical. Geth around the scientists raised their pulse rifles, forcing the scientists back.

"David, NO! Tell the geth to stand down!"

"QUIET PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

"Damn it!" Jacob yelled as the VI started an upload to the Normandy. He had to stop this.

…

Once Jacob finally destroyed the VI Core, he noticed that with the virtual environment finally fading, the body of David Archer was now visible… strung up in some sort of… religious… manner, with plugs pushed through his forearms, his eyes clamped open, and two massive cables running into his mouth.

"Quiet. Please, make it stop," pleaded the man plugged into this sickening setup. As Jacob stared in horror, an unwelcome voice sounded out behind him.

"Wait! Lieutenant!" It was Gavin Archer, the one behind all this! "I'm begging you, don't do anything rash."

"Just stop!" spat Jacob. "You don't have the right to tell me what is or isn't rash after what you've done here!"

"I know how this must look but I never intended any harm to come to him. It's not like I planned this. Seeing David communicate with the geth… it all seemed harmless."

"That's it?! You've got machinery piercing all the way through both sides of his body, and you call that harmless?!"

"You're Cerberus as well! You know that the Illusive Man doesn't broker failure! Any war we fight with the geth will be bloody. I was asked to find a way to avoid that."

"And you're willing to torture your own brother to do so?"

"It is the price we must pay if we hope to make any progress. You and others came to Cerberus because of the Alliance's obstructive red tape; you should know that if left up to them, we would be defenseless. If my work spares a million mothers mourning the loss of a million sons, my conscience will rest easy."

"Goddamnit, don't you see the suffering you've inflicted on your brother?!"

"The damage may not be permanent. He may recover some semblance of his mind."

"Don't you see you've reduced him to nothing more than a lab rat?!"

"A well-cared for lab rat. At least he'd still be alive."

"So you don't care about your brother at all. Everything's all about you."

Maybe it was the way Jacob said it, but something caused Gavin Archer to look again at David. "Square root of 906.01 equals…" sounded David's voice through the speaker.

"30.1," Gavin finished. "What I've done to David is unethical. If he dies, it's unforgivable. Let me take care of him. Please."

"Quiet. Please, make it stop"

"It's already unforgivable," spat Jacob. "I'm taking him away from this hellhole!"

"No, leave him! He's too valuable!" Gavin yelled, firing at Jacob with a pistol. Jacob immediately closed the distance and delivered a punch to Gavin's jaw.

"You, on the other hand, are damn lucky I feel like you're not worth pulling the trigger."

"Where will you take him?"

"You don't have the right to know. But I want you to know that if you try come after him, I will personally maroon you on a planet with toxic food!"

Jacob then switched on his communicator. "Shepard, the rogue VI is dealt with, but we've got a kid in serious need of medical attention!"

…

It had been nearly a year since Overlord, and Gavin Archer had received word of a potential safehouse for ex-Cerberus personnel on the run. It was risky, but it was better than being on his own. But when he opened the doors of his transport, he found a familiar face staring back at him.

"You!" Jacob Taylor spat, pointing an assault rifle at Gavin.

"Jacob, what's wrong?" another person, a woman, asked with concern.

"I know this scumbag Brynn."

"Still seems harsh just outright drawing a gun on him."

"You haven't seen what he did. This monster tortured his own brother just to try understand the geth!"

"How could someone even consider that?"

"It's true," Gavin spoke. "I didn't consider it torture at first, because the Illusive Man was threatening to shut us down. At the time, I saw it as an unfortunate necessity."

"So now why are you here?" Jacob continued, looking as if he had half a mind to pull the trigger right then and there. "I thought you'd be finding more people to torture!"

"No. After you took David away, I gave it some thought. I didn't want to relive that nightmare again. So I've destroyed all my research."

"Doesn't sound like something you'd do."

"Still, it's done. Overlord is destroyed, and the Illusive Man has given all Cerberus soldiers orders to shoot me on sight."

"So you're on the run like everyone else."

The Brynn woman held Jacob's hand, as if urging him to make a decision.

"I can't believe I'm about to say this…" began Jacob, "...but you can stay, Dr Archer. Brynn, let's find a place for him, but considering what he's done, make it a corner of a dusty room with only a single sleeping bag. And keep a very close eye on him."

End note: Was having a lot more trouble than I expected with Jacob, and a long time of writer's block wasn't helping. Several times I was wondering if I should have Kasumi, being the master thief she is, steal Jacob's spot in the story. Otherwise, as I came back to this recently, I realized that Jacob's experiences might have left him with a bitter view upon seeing him trying to find asylum with the ex-Cerberus scientists come ME3, so I tried to work that in at the end.

Next: Kasumi