Mass Effect - A Hero Rises Ch. 42

Book 2, Chapter 23 -- Fallen

*****

Miranda had done some digging on my behalf and learned what we might find in regards to Project Overlord on Aite. Apparently, in his infinite wisdom, the Illusive Man thought running experiments on geth was a worthwhile exercise. I swear, for someone who claimed to be a genius, he made some really dumb fucking decisions at times. Maybe it was simple common sense that he didn't seem to grasp. One major rule of anything in the galaxy. Don't go fucking around with geth. Simples.

Figuring out this was going to be a bitch of an assignment, and knowing geth were going to be involved, when it came to selecting a team, my first and obvious choice was Tali. She was always looking for an excuse to kill geth, and this sounded like the perfect opportunity. Garrus didn't particularly like geth either after all our run ins, so I selected him too. Knowing what geth were like, and also intrigued herself as to what exactly was going on, Miranda offered to join and I accepted without hesitation. Kasumi and her cloaking ability was always handy, plus she wanted to work alongside Tali. I wanted muscle when it came to geth, so Grunt would join in, causing havoc with me. Finally, geth can't really withstand biotics, so I asked Samara to join me again. She hadn't really much experience with the geth so was pleased that she'd have the chance to pit her wits against a new enemy.

Arriving in orbit around Aite, it looked like your typical garden world, ripe for colonising efforts. From what I had read, though, it was on borrowed time, as one of its moons was predicted to impact with the planet within a couple of centuries, and that would wipe out all life in an instant. There were small pockets of civilisation, but the planet was effectively lawless. The Cerberus facility was well away from any population centres, and the sort of place those of us on the old Normandy would have dealt with before. Let's just say we were experiencing some déj� vu when boarding the shuttle.

It was quiet during the descent, though Tali twitched with nervous energy. Miranda sat grim faced, no doubt worried about what we were going to find. The rest of us simply checked over weapons and armour for a final time before the shuttle finally touched down, opening the door to be greeted by a large facility, though surprisingly empty of people. I would have thought someone would have been around to greet us.

"Well, if this isn't ominous," Garrus muttered.

As we spread out, a voice suddenly boomed over a loudspeaker, introducing himself as Doctor Gavin Archer, explaining that there was a 'catastrophic VI breakout'. He gave no further details, which didn't exactly impress me, but he at least gave us something to do. The door to the facility was unlocked, and we walked into a scene of carnage and devastation. And a lot of dead bodies, and also geth. Tali was ready to get blasting. She might not like Cerberus but she hated geth with every fibre of her being. We checked for signs of life, but most were long past saving. And, from what it looked like, they'd been slaughtered as they worked. Very few were armed as if they had managed to fight back.

Wandering into an office, Archer must have been following our progress, as his face appeared on a nearby monitor. He was an older gentleman, and the dark circles under his eyes spoke of someone on veer exhaustion and stressed out. He gave us a little more information, though nothing that really explained this rogue VI, and we moved on, directed to find the controls of the satellite dish. Apparently the VI was trying to escape.

Finding the controls, I should have known it wouldn't be that easy, and it wasn't, the rogue VI discovering our intention and putting a halt to that. As we were doing that, Miranda was busy at work, looking for information on the systems, and that's when we had confirmation they were experimenting with live geth. That only gave an excuse for Tali to start yelling at Miranda and I eventually had to split the two apart. "Miranda isn't part of this, Tali," I said.

She looked at me as if I'd slapped her. "You're supporting her?" she spat.

I sighed, as I knew why she would ask a question like that. "I think Miranda has proven... open-minded in regards to what she had learned. And I think it's already clear she doesn't support what was happening here."

"She's still Cerberus, Shepard. She's still one of them, even if you want to fuck her." That pissed me off, and Tali seemed to realised she'd put her foot in it, lowering her head immediately. "Shit. Sorry, Shepard. That wasn't right."

"No, it's fine. I figured it was going to be an issue eventually. What Miranda and I might do in privacy is personal. I believe I have always kept my personal and professional lives separate, and that's what I'm doing. I think accusing Miranda of whatever is happening here isn't correct, that is all I'm saying, Tali."

Tali met my eyes from behind the mask, gave a brief nod, before she turned to look at Miranda. "I apologise. Though you might wear the symbol, you are not involved with whatever these idiots are doing here."

"Thank you, Tali."

We moved on, and realised the geth were there in force, as not only did they have the regular troops we'd shot in their hundreds, but also some of the bigger geth machines that could be a real bitch to take down. Tali spent most of her time laughing away, disabling shields, overloading weapons, causing them to attack each other. I charged this way and that, shotgun blasting, the rest doing what they did best.

The facility was bigger than they thought, and they ended up on a tram that took them to the satellite dish. Archer explained that they needed to blow it up to stop the program from escaping the planet. "Shit. It must want to use the Normandy as a launch pad," Tali stated.

"How the hell can a VI do any of this?" I asked, "I'm not technically minded, but even I know VI..."

"It's clearly not VI, Shepard," Tali muttered.

The satellite dish was enormous, and we had nothing to actually blow it up with. I hadn't brought a heavy weapon, though wish I now had my Arc Projector, as that would have caused havoc in the geth lines. And they had taken control of the satellite dish and its surrounding area, dug in, waiting for us. Switching to my assault rifle, I worked in tandem with Garrus as we slowly but surely pushed them back, Samara and Miranda close behind, using their biotics, Grunt taking a different path as a diversion, blasting and stomping any geth he came into contact with.

As we worked, Archer suggested we blow up the struts holding up the satellite dish. I was about to tell him we had no explosives when he suggested we blow up each capacitor. I figured that wouldn't exactly give us a lot of time to escape, but we had no other option. Once we cleared the geth, which took longer than I would have liked, as there were far too many of the larger geth that were a bitch to take down, and we took a few wounds along the way.

But the geth were dead, and we managed to disable and then destroy the satellite dish. We barely survived, having to leap from one ledge to another as the walkways we were on started to collapse. As we almost piled on top of one another, there was more than once chuckle as I got up, helping the others to their feet. Helping Samara, she took my hand and held it for longer than I would have expected, a look in her eyes I knew well. "Life with you is interesting, Shepard. And, I will admit, quite a lot of fun."

"Glad you're enjoying yourself, Samara."

"What we are dealing with is serious, Shepard, but I will admit I have smiled and laughed more since joining your crew than I had in centuries."

"We're staring death in the face, Samara. Can't be serious all the time. Come on, we should see if this Archer is willing to meet face to face. Then we can deal with whatever the fuck is going on here."

Wandering back into the facility, Archer was waiting for us at the tram station. None of us were too pleased to find geth on the planet, and having figured out what the facility was up to, Tali was rather close to putting her shotgun into his gut, demanding an explanation. But we all waited until we arrived back in the control room. I grabbed his collar and threw him into a chair, and that's when he seemed to realise he was surrounded by seven heavily armed and rather pissed off people.

"What is Project Overlord?" I asked.

"We were attempting to gain influence over the geth by interfacing a human mind with a VI."

Tali jammed her shotgun into his chest. "What?" she almost screamed, "Are you people insane?"

"As you can tell, results have been... less than satisfactory." I wasn't the only one to scoff as he added, "There have been some successes, though."

"How do you mean some successes?" Miranda asked, clearing pissed but intrigued by the research. Tali was furious but would at least be curious as to what progress they had made.

Archer looked away, clearly uncomfortable, before responding. "My brother, David, volunteered to be a test subject. Unfortunately, his mind couldn't handle the VI connection."

"How do you mean?" I asked carefully. I didn't believe anyone would just volunteer.

Archer sighed. "Whatever happened, he's like a virus now. He's infected all our networks planet-side and seizing control of any technology he finds."

"I assume that's why we had to destroy the satellite dish?"

Archer nodded. "Imagine if every piece of technology we used was turned against us. It would be the end of days. The sort of thing you used to see in movies"

"Yet you still thought this was a good idea?" Miranda retorted.

"This was to be for the benefit of humankind."

"Bullshit," I growled, "This would only be the benefit of the Illusive Man and whatever he has cooking up in that mind of his." I stepped forward, resting my shotgun on his shoulder. "Rest assured, Doctor. Project Overlord ends today. So, you will tell me how this ends, Doctor. How do we shut this down?"

"The VI... My brother is based at Atlas Station. It's the main laboratory where we carried out the majority of our experiments. But it's locked down."

"How do we get there?"

Archer keyed his omni-tool. "There is a garage nearby with an M-44 Hammerhead. Use that for transportation. You'll need to override security systems at both Prometheus and Vulcan stations. It's a fail-safe system. There are three overrides in total. I can unlock the first one here."

The Hammerhead was a flimsy piece of shit, armour barely able to hold back bullets fired by a pistol, slow and unwieldy, and barely came equipped with an adequate cannon. I hated it from the start. And that was just the start of our bad day. Vulcan Station was filled with geth and mechs, a hot, depressing, lava filled cavern. It was obviously used to power the entire complex, and by the time we'd reached the over-ride, we were all fed-up, ready to wipe the geth out completely, and I was definitely going to interrogate Archer once we were done.

Heading out of Vulcan, there was discussion about the apparent VI and Archer's brother. Knowing what Cerberus was like, I almost dreaded what they were doing, but the fact his own brother was the lead... And I knew I wasn't the only one with those thoughts in mind as we boarded the Hammerhead.

Prometheus Station was a crashed geth ship. Tali wondered why it had crashed on the planet to begin with, as although it was close the Veil, there was nothing on the planet that could have possibly caused it to crash and she doubted a geth ship would malfunction that badly. Approaching the wreck carefully, the first announcement when walking through the door caused a ripple of nervous laughter.

"Attention visitors. This Cerberus facility contains hazardous AI technology."

"Bunch of idiot fucking bosh'tets," Tali muttered. I stopped and stared at her.

"Shepard, you are a bad influence," Garrus stated.

"Oh, please, language is nothing compared to what we did before I died for two years."

She glanced my way, and her eyes were amused, at least. "Lot of good memories, Shepard, enjoying both male and female humans. Let's just say I spread one or two positive rumours about the human body, particularly men."

I couldn't help chuckle as we moved on. "So, if I ever end up on the fleet, I'll have some fans."

"Definitely."

"That's all Shepard needs, more women to fuck," Miranda joked.

"Don't hear you complaining, Miss Lawson," I retorted.

"I'll only complain if I don't have you in my arse again soon." That brought everyone to a halt, staring first at me, then Miranda. "What? Come on, you all know we've had sex."

"Well, yeah, but you're being so... blunt," Garrus said awkwardly.

She gestured towards me. "Hanging around him too much has that effect. And, what can I say, the man's a great fuck."

Tali simply nodded her head in agreement. Kasumi turned her head and I saw her eyes behind her hood. Even Samara met my eyes and grinned. "If I was a few centuries younger, Shepard..."

"Oh..."

"Do you know how flexible asari can be?"

"Actually, yes. Shiala can get her feet behind her head." I pause before saying, "And I just told you all that. But, fuck it, I've even taken pictures of her doing it."

"Well, at least you know what we can do, Shepard," Samara stated, "And even someone at my age can be remarkably flexible."

"Now you're just teasing, Samara."

"There is a lot of sex on the ship, Shepard. It still holds an appeal despite my vow."

Walking past what seemed like hundreds, if not thousands of docile geth wasn't easy, wanting to just open up and start firing. And it was obvious that some of them either survived the crash, or woke up afterwards, as they had clearly slaughtered nearly everyone at the facility. Can't really blame them, though, if Cerberus did experiment on them.

And, of course, once we reached our objective, and needed to make our way out of the ship, the geth decided that was the perfect time to wake up and stop us leaving the crashed shit. Getting out took us at least a couple of hours. At times like that, having Tali with us was priceless. With her expertise of the geth, and me causing havoc as I charged around, they didn't really stand a chance, though their sheer weight of numbers did mean we moved only by inches most of the time.

We also found more human bodies around, clear evidence that they'd been herded by the geth and the executed, blood stains on the walls and it was obvious that the deaths were recent. It was hard to feel sympathy though I guess no-one deserved death at the hands of geth. My memories of them were not great, after all.

Somehow, we made it out of the ship, one or two wounds being slapped with medi-gel, but nothing major requiring a retreat to the facility for extraction. Boarding the Hammerhead, Archer once again gave us information over the comm, stating the lockdown had ended and we could now proceed to Atlas Station.

"What do you plan on doing with him?" Miranda asked as I drove. Or flew.

"I'm still considering it."

"Worth a bullet?"

"It's an option."

"I'm not sure there is another one. Someone involved in an operation like this..."

"You do realise the Illusive Man would know about this."

"Of course he would. No way something like this would have been funded without his express knowledge. But, as I told you, each cell operates independently. No-one else would have known about Project Lazarus. Sure, there would have been rumours, and perhaps one or two would have put things together considering the credits thrown at your re-build, but that's still no excuse."

I glanced her way. "It sounds like you might be evaluating certain life choices, Miranda."

She met my eyes, a grim face returned. "Correct."

Atlas Station appeared to be another facility, though this one was buried into a mountainside. Climbing out of the Hammerhead once I'd parked us up, we immediately headed inside and got to work. And what we quickly discovered sent a chill down each of our spines. It wasn't just the fact it was his brother. It was the condition he suffered, added to what it seemed he was being put through. I'm fairly sure I made my decision then and there.

The geth were waiting for us, of course, though in nowhere near the numbers as their crashed ship. We knew they'd be there so had prepared accordingly, Tali ready to unleash all manner of tech attacks at a moment's notice, while I was ready to charge and Samara to rain biotic destruction down on their flashlight heads.

Something weird happened a little later as we made it to some sort of VI interface. It had been watching our progress, of course, and had hacked anything with VI or AI to attack us. But when I pressed a button to do... something, it hacked into my omni-tool and also took control of my cybernetics, and I seemed to enter the world of... I'm not sure.

Hard to explain what I experienced after that. I seemed to see the memories of Archer's brother. And what I saw shocked and angered me, and my resolve hardened even more. But it was what I eventually found in the core itself, what he'd actually done to his brother, it was nothing short of torture. The poor boy was...

When Archer made his appearance, I let the rage flow. He didn't see it coming. He must have thought I'd accept it. Like hell I would. The first punch was to his solar plexus, knocking the wind from him. The next was an uppercut that put him on his arse. Then I calmly sat down on his chest, grabbed his collar, and put my fist into his face again... and again.... and again... By the time I was done, he still lived, but barely. I looked up to see my six colleagues, and they all took a step back. I did wonder what I looked like, looking down at my glove to see it dripping with blood.

Taking the pistol from its holster, I opened up his mouth, now missing a few of his teeth, making sure he could feel the cold steel. "Feel that Archer?" I asked quietly. His left eye was barely open, but I could see him looking. "This is how close you come to death today. I could kill you easily, but no, that's the easy way out. I'm going to make sure the rest of your life is constant agony, as no doubt your brother won't be having it easy going forward."

I hauled him up and used a few moves, ensuring I either broke bones or caused muscles to snap. By the time I was done, he'd barely be able to drag himself out of the facility, and I simply dragged him to a corner and threw him in it.

Then we got to work on getting his brother down. The mental scars alone would have been horrific. But even the physical scars caused a couple of people to turn away. The normally ice cool Miranda Lawson couldn't stop her tears, wiping her cheeks a few times as we finally lowered the young man to the ground. Miranda disappeared and eventually found a sedative so we could knock him out. I called in the shuttle, asking for Chakwas to attend with Mordin, the pair arriving fifteen minutes later with a gurney. She took one look at him and ordered us to carefully lift him then we'd get out.

As we were walking out, I glanced at Archer one last time. He hadn't moved since I'd thrown him. I actually didn't think he'd live all that long. "Should I just shoot him?" I wondered aloud.

Miranda turned back to me, looking at him. "Fuck him, Shepard. What he's done, he deserves to die slowly for it. You're doing the galaxy a favour by leaving him to rot. Should ask Tali to wake up a few geth before we go, maybe they can go hunting."

In the end, we just left him there. I doubted I'd ever see him again.

Back on the Normandy, Chakwas, Mordin and Miranda got to work on David Archer as I instructed Joker to head away, trying to think of where to send him. It was actually Miranda who finally suggested Grissom Academy. I'd never heard of it, but she mentioned it purely because I was now biotic, Jack was a human biotic as well, and it was a school for those gifted either with biotic or those who show higher levels of intelligence than normal. And David was apparently a savant in all things mathematical.