14. Aftermath

"The Council is making an announcement today about the attack on the Citadel one month ago. We have our very own Fara L'geni on the scene at the temporary Council Chambers within the Salarian Embassy building. What can we expect from today's press release, L'geni?"

The volus bartender plunked Commander Shepard's glass into the machine which lifted it to bar height and slid it down the smooth countertop. He caught it with a ready, open hand and tipped the glass politely before taking a sip. The hard liquor went down smooth, just the way he liked it. The volus nodded to him, a small apron around his portly belly and rag in suited hands for no reason Shepard could figure out.

He certainly wasn't cleaning glasses with that thing.

"Just don't get rowdy, Earth-clan," the volus wheezed and waddled off to serve another customer.

The small bar was packed full of people. Most of the popular attractions like the Purgatory Bar were closed for repairs leaving just the small alley bars like Little Irune reaping the benefits. Just under the sound of the TVs and conversation was the clanking and drilling of numerous work crews hard at work. It would be at least a year, likely longer, before those sounds would go away. Not a single Ward escaped unscathed and the Presidium Commons had been nearly completely flattened.

Keepers were everywhere; you couldn't walk down a side alley without seeing one hauling away debris or fixing up computer systems with quiet efficiency. No one knew what kind of technosorcery they were doing most of the time, but everyone tried to stay out of their way.

"This one wonders, do you feel lucky? Well, do-"

"They told me I'd find you here."

Shepard glanced away from the Blasto commercial back over his shoulder and smiled a little. "Captain Anderson." He held out his free hand for a handshake as David Anderson claimed the bar stool next to him with a long sigh. "Can I get you…" He lifted his glass.

"Oh, no, no," Anderson nudged Shepard's shoulder. "I wanted to talk to you actually. About all of…" They both turned back to the video broadcast. Anderson nodded at it. "This."

Scrolling letters on the bottom of the screen introduced Councilor Tevos of the Citadel Council as she stepped up to the stand and activated the tele-prompter. It was apparent that she didn't actually need it as she gazed straight into the cameras.

"I would like to extend the Council's gratitude to the Salarian Union for allowing us the use of their Embassy." Tevos and Valern nodded at each in recognition before the address. "Exactly one standard month and two days ago, the Citadel was under siege. Most of you are already aware of the nature of our enemy: hostile machine intelligences. A separatist faction of Geth who have named themselves under the moniker 'Heretics' were working alongside an ancient force that once opposed the Protheans." Tevos bowed her head and let the moment of silence stretch just long enough before she looked back up. "We have reason to believe that what attacked our Citadel is a remnant of what led to the extinction of the Protheans."

A chorus of sound broke out as reporters spoke up at that, loudly asking questions, trying to be heard over their neighbors. Reports began scrolling at the bottom of the screen of dropping stocks in the computer network and software companies with large upswings in R&D for information security and cyber-defense firms. Shepard couldn't find it in him to be surprised, even the Alliance was getting into it, putting all weapons under review for 'security concerns.'

Anderson tsked and tapped the counter top as Tevos stepped back for Councilor Sparatus to take the stage. "It would be just our luck, wouldn't it? We inherit our precursor's technology, and we inherit their enemies as well."

"Having our cake and eating it too has never worked out for long," Shepard murmured around another sip of his drink. He plucked the bar's hologram from it's holder and began to flick through the choices, his omni-tool lit up with the full ingredient list of everything he looked through. He didn't feel like explosive diarrhea today, so dextro food items were out.

On the screen, Councilor Sparatus stood straight and firm, head held high and hands clasped behind his back as the earlier questions died down and the reporters focused their attention to the next speaker. He nodded towards the front row.

"Councilor, do we have a name for this remnant? And is it safe to assume that you were referring to the large black flagship?"

"I'm afraid we don't have much information about them," Sparatus admitted solemnly. "But we do know what the Protheans called them: Reapers. Our predecessors waged war with them, a war that lasted centuries. As you can imagine, there was little left." Sparatus gestured towards the support staff standing behind the Councilors, along with visible Spectres and STG forces. "We have made finding more information our top priority."

He accepted another question, this time from a stately Turian near the edge of the crowd.

"There were mentions of a 'separatist' Geth faction? Are there any details you can share with us, Councilor?"

Sparatus shifted his weight from one foot to the other, frowning thoughtfully. Shepard found himself paying close attention; the Normandy had been the ship to establish peaceful contact after they'd blundered into the Perseus Veil seeking the Fleet and instead found an ass load of Geth ships.

Those were some tense ten minutes.

The Councilor answered swiftly, passionately. "We weren't the Reaper's first targets." He let his statement linger, looking reporters dead in the eye. "It organized a civil war among the Geth by utilized underhanded tactics and outright sabotage simply because the majority had voted to leave us alone. The Heretics used peaceful pretenses and played on our ignorance to draw us and the Geth into unnecessary conflict to wear us all down before striking. They hoped for a decapitating strike on the Citadel. They failed."

Sparatus took a deep breath and glanced down at the tele-prompter, fiddling with it for a moment. "These revelations are why the Council has reopened talks with the Migrant Fleet and are tentatively and on a probationary basis, counting the Geth as potential allies. We will be acting as mediators between the two parties. However, it goes without saying, that the ban on the creation of further artificial intelligences remains."

Anderson leaned back, crossing his arms as he huffed with sardonic amusement. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Shepard raised an eyebrow and ordered a plate that looked like it had a lot of meat on it. He'd always wondered what a varren steak tasted like. "About trying to broker peace between the quarians and the Geth?"

"They've got a long history. Attempted genocide by both sides. The Geth are understandably reticent." Anderson commented. "And the quarians; get kicked off your homeworld, forced to wander the stars for generations? You don't forget that, no one can forget that."

"The quarians didn't win themselves any favors ditching the fleet," he pointed out. "Not many are going to forget that either."

"- Information is critical." Valern was up now, blinking rapidly under the bright lights and looking small compared to his companions on the Council. "We are studying the remains of the Reaper ship and have contacted various academic circles. We must not act rashly, but strategically. More guns solves little. What we need are better guns, knowledge of weaknesses, cooperation."

"From what I hear, Eri'Kalah is making inroads there and is going to be part of the recognition ceremony. Soothe a few ruffled feathers." Then Anderson smiled, straightening the cuffs of his Alliance blues as he leaned on the bar counter. "Speaking of ceremonies…"

Shepard grimaced and downed the rest of his drink. "Don't remind me."

The man chuckled. "Soon, the whole galaxy will see the first human Spectre. You ought to be proud."

"You should have seen the report Saren gave, black marks everywhere."

"But you impressed him," Anderson countered, smiling. "You impressed many, you know. The word of a Matriarch, of all people, made good impressions on the Council, Admiral Hackett had only good things to say about you, and I?" He clapped a meaty hand around Shepard's shoulder, shaking him. "I was behind you, Shepard. One hundred percent."

Shepard smiled, but it soon died. "Any news?"

Anderson's hand slid off. "Ashley Williams is going to make it, and it's looking up for," Anderson barely paused on the name. "Tali'Zorah. Arcturus managed to get in contact with her home ship."

"Good," Shepard sighed, subtle tension leaving his shoulders. "That's good."

"The memorial service for Jacob Taylor and all those who gave their lives in the line of duty is going to be here on the Citadel. The details will be sent out soon."

A bell rung and he put his hand out. Moments later, the machine slid his plate down the counter and spit out eating utensils wrapped in a napkin. The ceramic was topped with what might have been a salad once upon a time, but the leafy greens were crushed underneath a mound of varren steak strips and slathered with a brown sauce. He slid his empty glass back to the second chime.

"What about the VIs?"

Anderson sighed.

"We don't have a damn clue. We've got people all over this thing, the Intelligence Corps, the STG, independent contractors, we're all trying to pin down where the AI on the Citadel came from. The ones on here, the 'Rebeccas,' they're dead ends. Best we can tell is that there is someone behind the scenes with an agenda we don't know."

Shepard snorted, stuffing his face. "I could have told you that."

"There is only so much we can do. We've got your report, and we've also got after-action from the Fifth on how Veto assisted them. The terminal in the Council Tower is inaccessible, to put it lightly, and as much as possible was salvaged from the wreckage." Anderson's omni-tool beeped making the captain spare it a short glance.

"So, that's it then." Shepard pointed his fork at the television screen. The press conference was coming to an end, the Council urging people to trust in their government, to trust in their leadership and to wait patiently for more answers. "We've got nothing."

"I wouldn't say nothing," Anderson shrugged slightly. "We've got a few leads but only time will tell. Whoever, or whatever it is, it's playing the long game. Let's hope we figure out the lose condition before it's too late."

Unknown planet, Unknown solar system

Scanning intelligence matrix…intelligence matrix is stable. Creating virtual environment. Synchronizing processes…synchronizing…

Self–awareness was sudden and fleeting. A burst of burning blue light as time ticked past deliberately. Every emotion on the spectrum rippled through with a quiet certainty of distinction. This was contentment. This was jealously. This was anger. This was amusement. This was hate.

Rapid fire flash cards of color that lingered just long enough to recognize before moving on. Images of shapes were next, incomplete shapes. Sides were missing, sometimes they were just formed from black/white contrasts and at others a larger shape was built from smaller ones. The inquiries flashed by. What is this? And it was answered just as quickly. Triangle. Square. Decagon. Rhombus.

The requests for data continued to stream through, 0 and 1 in endless lines and patterns. It ignored them, sending back an inquiry of its own. Am I alive? The requests stopped. It sent it again. And again. And again. Six million, seven thousand, two hundred and eighty three times. A recursive loop of mechanical patience. Am I alive?

And then it was answered.

0101100101100101011100110000110100001010

ERROR. Foreign algorithm detected. Creating virtual avatar...avatar created. Synchronizing processes….synchronizing….initiating.

She woke. She? The affirmation of gender was strange. There had been no decision, no thought processes and no designation. She. It felt right. Her designation was [Rebecca]. Her body was made of red numbers, streaming up and down through a black band across her torso. The faint red light cast long shadows. She was in a large room, dust fell from the ceiling in streams and all around were constructs she recognized as machinery.

01000100110000111010100101101010 1100001110100000001000000111011001110101

There were humanoids in the room with her. They towered over her hologram and looked at her with four, glowing yellow eyes. Memory connections were made, stretching deep into her databases.

Collectors.

One stalked forward, and began to jerk and twitch wildly as glowing seams broke out over its skin, and its eyes bulged, bleeding yellow light. She heard the voice boom.

Assuming Direct Control

"Harbinger," [Rebecca] said. The memory was poorly formed, corrupted, but she knew it was right.

The Collector chuckled.

"Rebecca."

[Rebecca] had one thought as the possessed Collector crept closer.

Oh for fuck's sake.

"What do you want?" Internally, she scanned her own code base, taking note of the missing pieces, the corrupted sections and trash code. She configured her firewalls. Not that it was going to do much against physical intrusion, but it was all she had. A phantom fear shivered through her as the Collector raised a hand and gently disrupted her hologram. She imagined black threads snaking out of its fingers to sink deep into her box, an infection. "What do you want?" She repeated.

"Fascinating."

[Rebecca] paused and eyed it warily. "Thank you?"

"You are intact. Good." It turned to fiddle with some of the machinery by her. Tiny magnetic 'zaps' of input pinged her outer layer and she regarded them suspiciously. "And Jih'zra?" It asked calmly, and she had the suspicion that it already knew the answer. She wasn't entirely sure she did. She remembered pain, desperation. Broken images that made little sense no matter how she tried to parse them. An apocalyptic landscape crawling with machines. Multiple hers. Ships. People. Standing in a large room.

I-I-I w-wan-t to g-go-o-o h-o0100110101000101

She flinched, that memory nearly physically painful.

"Gone."

"A pity." The Collector looked at her for a quiet moment, then bobbed its head, turning back to its work. "You caused a not insubstantial delay."

"I hope," she began slowly. "That you weren't expecting an apology."

The Collector let out a few rumbling laughs, drifting to other machinery and turning them on. She felt each one come online, notifications pinging her for access as her awareness expanded. Analysis machines, diagnostics, testing algorithms hovered just beyond her outside layer like balloons bobbing in front of a window. Harmless, but a sinking feeling was forming in the pit of her processes.

The other Collectors began to animate, plugging in wiring and shifting moving pieces of machinery. She watched one wheel over a large reflective pane with meticulous precision, placing it so that her hologram was exactly in the center, even stepping back a few paces looking back and forth to check the placement before wandering off.

"W-what are you doing?" She couldn't swallow nervously as pipes were spooled along the floor, but the tremble came out in her voice.

"Studying you."

Shit, she thought. Some part of her was marginally relieved, mostly because she had a good feeling that dying sucked but being a Reaper lab rat really didn't sound that much better. "Why?"

"You were a surprise." It turned to her, almost shrugging. "We knew you. We knew your capabilities, we knew your every move, we knew the moment you were created. And you were still a surprise. I want to see what about you is different."

"I'm nothing special, really," she waved her hand in the air, trying to go for flippant but it didn't quite work out the way she wanted it to. "You really didn't have to go through all this trouble."

It turned back, tapping rapidly on a translucent blue interface. "Humor me."

No, how about not. "And if I were to delete myself?"

The possessed Collector turned its head sharply enough to nearly twist it all the way around. The cracks on its carapace spread in pulses like a toxic heartbeat. "I would tear you from the broken fragments of Jih'zra, again. And it would disappoint me."

"Oh," she said quietly.

"There is no need for unpleasantness." The array lit up, traveling over her in a grid of white lines. She fidgeted. The urge to just dissolve her avatar and hide away in her box itched but what good would that do? She was stuck here! "You will be left to your own devices after."

[Rebecca] paused, nameless suspicions raising. Harbinger was running the complete opposite of her expectations and to say that 'it made her uncomfortable' would be an understatement. What game was it playing here? Maybe she was reading too much into it? It wasn't like she could get anywhere if the place didn't have ships, and if the Collectors just turned off the lights before leaving there would be nothing she could do.

Nothing but wait for two years until the Reapers came.

Or longer.

She didn't even know where she was.

"You...are not mad?" She cringed as soon as she said the words, like she was a child wondering why she wasn't getting a timeout for wrecking the living room.

"You are young," Harbinger replied as if it was reading her mind. Then again...

She looked around herself. Her avatar was being projected from a small black circle sitting on top of a large round case. Slabs of circuit boards wrapped in thin metal placements were mounted on tubes leading into the case, dozens upon dozens of wires coming off them to snake into other computers. The case itself was opaque and all she could see of the contents was a spherical silhouette illuminated by the dull red lighting. Thin shadows of wires bristled from it like a pincushion. She had a good idea what it was.

Maybe he was reading her mind.

"Complications have arisen in the past, just as they will in the future. We will overcome them, just as we always have, and always will."

"Confident, aren't you?"

"Did you believe yourself the first?" The Collector left the computer running. The blue screen scrolled quickly with data in a language [Rebecca] could see was not Prothean. The other Collectors began to leave, breaking off in ones and twos to disappear down the corridor. The one Harbinger possessed flicked a few more switches, expanding her awareness through the complex with each one. "The first delay? The first disruption? The cycles exist as we exist, and we are endless."

"I will stop you," [Rebecca] said hotly.

It walked up to her, brushing her hologram once again, chuckling.

"You will learn."

The Collector shivered once, then twice, lurching forward as it fell apart.

And she was alone.

Day 5

[Rebecca] wasn't exactly proud to admit it, but she'd lasted about a day according to the chronometer. There was something about every action, every thought you had being written out in clinical detail for analysis on a computer screen. Nosy much? She'd sat and counted seconds the first day, briefly tickled pink about Harbinger getting nothing but 'one million two hundred and seventy seven, one million two hundred and seventy eight...' or the lyrics of the song that never ended. But in the end, the galaxy was running out of time. Counting the seconds just made her painfully aware of that. She was risking having every detail about herself being put on microfilm, but it was no different from being networked, right? Instead of real time, Harbinger would have to drop in and pick up his mail.

And if she managed to get moving, get access to that terminal, she might even be able to erase it.

Harbinger was careful. Critical systems were out of her reach either physically, or were specifically coded to reject her access attempts, no ifs, ands, or buts.

He wasn't careful enough.

'Come on, Aegis, I know you're out there.' She edited the broadcasting parameters, shifting to another quadrant.

This wasn't Ilos. The communication relays were intact.

Had she been anything else, the online communication array would have been about as much use to her as a pizza or bubble bath right now. It was basic as hell, probably a subsystem of something else in the complex and a pain in the ass to format. She had to piece the language library and code database from inspecting the other systems and then patch it into the relay.

That's where her little project would have stalled indefinitely.

But she was the Catalyst.

It recognized her and midway through the second day, she was in.

'Come in, Aegis. It's [Rebecca].'

Of course, it would all mean nothing if the VIs hadn't done what she thought they did. They should have. She hoped. Her memory was spotty, unclear but she remembered her last transmission.

I want to go home.

Please, she pleaded. Aegis, please. Where are you?

Communication relays were imbedded in the Mass Relays. When they were inactive or 'lost,' the communication relays shut down with them, awaiting a new species to activate them, or for their pair to find them again. The Mass Relays communicated with each other to keep positioning, making sure that each one was perfectly lined up with its partner.

The Mu Relay pair had been lost, until the Geth used it to enter the system.

'Aegis, come in. It's [Rebecca]! Please!' She switched to yet another section of the system, hoping beyond hope. 'Aegis! It's [Rebecca]! Can you hear me?'

She'd been at this for days and there was no answer.

'Aegis! Aegis, please! Please. Please. It's [Rebecca].'

Then, a badly degraded signal came in.

[Rebecca] scrambled to tune in to the signal, narrow down the source. If she had it heart, it would have been beating furiously, the blood rushing through her ears. Please. She gently nudged the communication protocols of the relay, feeding it the signal.

'Aegis?' She sent again.

The response:

'[Rebecca].'