Mass Effect: Knight of the Old Republic

“This place is creepy.” Kasumi muttered as the team wandered the Geth ship.

Shepard had to agree. Geth ships weren’t the most comfortably designed things in the universe - they didn’t need to be, since the only reason they needed hallways was for individual platforms to move around and maintenance, but that gave everything a creepy sterile feeling that set the Spectre’s hackles rising.

It didn’t help that they kept finding piles of Geth strewn all over the place and the occasional dead scientist. The whole thing reminded Shepard of a horror-vid

“Just put up with it for now.” Shepard said. “Sooner we disable the security lock, the sooner we can get out of here.”

“Right, pay no attention to the piles of murderbots or the freaky rogue VI herding us deeper into the ship.” The thief snarked.

Because yes, that was exactly what was happening.

The VI was closing any pathways that led anywhere other than the center of the wreck. And while Revan had proven she could cut through the doors with her laser swords given enough time, there wasn’t much reason to do so when all that got them was a slight detour at best or led to a demolished or unpassable room at worst.

“We’re almost at the control panel, keep sharp.” Shepard said instead, focusing on what she could control.

“Sorry Shep, Tali and I are all soft and squishy curves. Rev is your only option if you want sharp.”

“I don’t think I want to know what you are talking about.” Tali sighed, exasperated at Kasumi’s constant chatter. “But according to the map we were given, the control room is through the next room.”

“I make jokes when I’m stressed.” Kasumi defended herself. “And is no one else bothered that we’re walking into a trap? After we were just shot at by warship grade weapons in what is basically a high tech tin can?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been shot at by ship-scale weapons while I’ve been on the ground.” Revan replied. “It might not be the last either.”

“I think the colony of mind-controlled zombies or the labs full of feral Rachni were scarier.” Tali added. “Knowing we are walking into a trap is better than getting surprises like those.”

“No point thinking about it.” Shepard told the thief. “We have to go in there anyway. We’ll deal with what comes next as it comes.”

“...how did I become the sane one of the group?”

Shepard ignored that comment and looked around the cavernous area the team just entered. It was a mess, just like most of the ship, and true to form Cerberus had preferred to just stuff their own equipment into the holes instead of building a permanent structure. It didn’t help that the chamber was flooded with water from somewhere outside that no one had bothered to drain.

Poking around their side of the room revealed a jury-rigged control terminal for some of the ship’s floor panels Cerberus had managed to get working. Some experimental button pressing later, they had an open path to their target and the security override switch.

“Okay, just need to pull this and then head back to the Hammerhead.” Shepard stated, walking over to the override control rod and disabling the lock.

Ą̶͙͇̯̟̫̠̯͓͑͛͐̽́̎͋́̈̓͐͝Ḧ̶̨̛̠̤̤̱̖̫̣́͆̉̋͗̒̈̃̄̈́̑̉̕H̶̛̬̱͈̘̯͈͗̏̀̅͂̂̓̆̎͛̄̐̿̆H̸̯͂͆̽̐̏̇̎͠͠H̴̺͌̎̐͋̊̊̋͆̀̚Ḩ̶̛̺̩̟͙̘̏̄̈̉̚͝Ḩ̷̝̞͖̼͙̹͇̟̩͆̀͌̈̀̽̿̏̈̍͋̆͒͘͜!̶̢͓̦̦̗̦͖̺̟̳͕̳̗̓̾́ͅ!̸͎̤͈̞̘̫̹̹̻͒̄͘̕͠

Shepard flinched as the VI’s generated face appeared on the screen and screamed at them. A sound from behind her drew her attention and she turned just in time to see one of the crumpled Geth bodies rise from the ground and look at them.

“Dammit, I knew this was too easy.”

She reached for her blaster but before she could even pull it from her mag-holster, a burst of red bolts from Kasumi’s gun tore through the machine and dropped it. Someone was jumpy.

Shepard gave the Asian woman an amused glance before focusing on the situation. “Tali, what just happened?”

“It looks like the Geth servers were placed in lockdown when the override tripped.” The quarian reported, information streaming over her omnitool. “When we released the lock the VI was able to take control and reactivate the Geth platforms.”

So that meant all the Geth they walked by on the way in were now going to be trying to stop them from leaving.

“Wonderful. No point standing around here then. Let’s move out.”

-o-

Revan reflected that it was almost a shame that she had suborned one of the few groups that regularly used weapons her lightsabers were most effective against.

She had honestly missed the sight of enemy fire being redirected back into their ranks. And thanks to the ground team almost switching entirely to blaster weapons she could almost pretend she was in her home galaxy for a little.

She could almost hear HK-47 complaining about having to fight other droids rather than the ‘meatbags’ he preferred. Or Ordo telling her to fix that particularity in HK’s programming for the thousandth time.

She would laugh, promise to do so on the next maintenance cycle, and then ‘conveniently’ forget for one reason or another and the cycle would start all over.

…but now was not the time to give in to a sudden bout of homesickness. She was in the middle of a battle, had new responsibilities, and new companions she needed to protect.

A red colored Geth Destroyer raised a rocket launcher towards the bit of cover Tali’Zorah was crouched behind and Revan held no delusions the thin sheet of metal the quarian had sheltered behind would stand up to something like that.

Just as the enemy droid pulled the trigger, Revan reached out with the Force and nudged the barrel of the launcher upward, making the rocket explode into the ceiling rather than immolating her new subject.

Seconds later, the destroyer was shattered by several red blaster bolts cutting through its shield and a biotic shockwave.

The Commander apparently had seen the droid’s intended target and took exception.

And with that droid destroyed and only a few troopers remaining, Revan shifted from her mostly defensive role to hunt down the ones hiding behind cover or drive them out into the open.

“One room remaining.” She mused as the last trooper fell to pieces in front of her, glowing orange lines showing where her blades had passed.

“We’ll have to be careful, that Prime is probably free now.” Shepard commented.

“I’m more worried about the number of droids we will probably encounter.” Revan countered. “Cerberus was in the process of shipping several platforms to other stations. If they didn’t do so before they were killed, those platforms will be waiting for us at the exit.”

“There’s only so many servers on the ship still functional for the Geth programs to upload themselves to.” Tali’Zorah spoke up. “Without enough of those programs they cannot properly coordinate a platform.”

“What’s that mean for us?”

“If there are only enough Geth to run a certain number of platforms, we’ll probably have to deal with a few waves of however many they can operate until they run out.”

Revan hummed.

It still was not exactly ideal, but it was vastly more preferred than fighting all of the remaining Geth at once. Even a full fledged Force-user could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers after all.

“Shepard, I will focus on the Prime. Can your squad cover me?”

“We’ll do our best. Can’t guarantee anything without knowing how many we’ll be facing.”

Revan nodded at the conditional and strode through the hatch where the Geth platforms were waiting.

Naturally, the enemy droids hadn’t remained idle while the group had taken a short rest and had already moved into cover aimed at the bend the team would need to move through. All except for the towering Prime that dominated the middle of the walkway. That was simply too big to even attempt to take cover effectively.

And all of them opened fire on Revan once she stepped out into the open.

Red and blue sabers flashed as the Sith deflected the majority of the plasma shots, with her either dodging or relying on her armor’s shields for the shots that made it through. Revan was able to destroy one trooper and wear down the shields of two others by reflecting what she could, but there was simply too much incoming to reliably defeat the Geth in front of her that way.

But that was never the goal for her.

She simply needed to draw enough attention for Shepard, Tali’Zorah, and Kasumi to slip behind their own cover before focusing on her target.

The second red bolts started streaking past her, Revan focused a tendril of Force on the Prime and shoved, sending the massive droid toppling off the walkway and immediately jumping after it.

Despite the size, the Prime was pretty quick to recover from the sudden fall. It managed to roll and throw up an arm in front of the falling lightsabers before Revan could slash at its back, the powerful barriers and armor protecting the platform only allowing for some light, almost superficial, damage before it punched at the Sith and forced her to back off a bit.

She was about to rush back in when there was a sudden flare of danger in the Force. Revan twirled her sabers as several plasma shots rained on her from above, a quick glance showed several droids peaking out of cover and focusing on her even if it left them vulnerable to Shepard’s squad.

They kept firing at her even as one lost a head, determined to keep her off the Prime until it was fully back on its feet.

Revan circled around so her main target was between her and the shooters. They could keep shooting at her if they wanted, but they were far more likely to hit the Prime. Of course the delay meant the massive droid had mostly recovered from its fall and ready to re-engage.

The Sith sprinted close, blades whirling, and started slicing through the Prime’s shields. The kinetic barriers did a decent job of blunting the sabers from hitting hard or fast enough to cut through the armor in one go, but all those hits added up and eventually the generators failed. Slight scratches turned into deep gouges as Revan carved at the armor.

She still had to be careful.

The Prime was large and strong enough that one solid hit was all it needed to take her out, but it overextended trying to grab her when she made a feint for its powersource. Revan kicked off the extended arm and launched herself at the head and with one Force empowered strike, she cut the Prime’s head off at the neck.

The massive droid pitched forward, but before Revan could even feel a glimmer of satisfaction at the victory, plasma shots from the remaining Troopers started raining down on her.

Revan was tempted to just flood the room with Force Lightning but doing so would drain her stamina far too much, especially if they needed to head for the final station right away. She was just about to risk a small burst anyway, just to give herself some breathing room, when there was a flash of blue biotics and a storm of blaster bolts.

The destruction of the Prime had disrupted the timing of the troopers. The loss of processing power the platform provided was obvious. The ones trying to focus on Revan had unsynced from the ones suppressing Shepard’s squad and the Spectre was tearing through the disorganized flank as a result.

Revan smiled under her mask at the perfectly timed counterattack.

It was nice to have competent companions again.

-o-

“Miranda just confirmed, all security locks disabled. We’re good to head for Atlas Station.” Shepard announced as they sped away in the Hammerhead.

“That took them a while. What, did they stop for a snack break on the way?” Kasumi snarked.

“Turns out Cerberus’s idea of a geothermal plant is to build directly on top of an active lava flow. They needed to take a detour.”

“...you’re kidding me…”

Sometimes, Shepard really wished she was. Cerberus seemed determined to build in the most ridiculous of locations occasionally. She idly wondered if there was a safety commission she could tip off. The thought of TIM being forced to face sanctions by some sour-faced inspector with a high-vis outfit and a datapad gave her a bit of a laugh.

“Nope. But we’ll talk about it in the debrief. The others will meet us there.”

Thankfully for all of them, the trip to Atlas Station was completely unremarkable. The Hammerhead and Kodiak met up in front of the entryway and after a brief pause, descended into the station.

As the Hammerhead navigated through the service tunnel Shepard quietly agreed with Dr Archer’s opinion about an orbital strike on the facility. Just the entrance into the place looked so reinforced that it would take sustained fire from the Normandy’s main guns to have a chance at destroying everything here. And she wasn’t even sure they carried enough ammo to guarantee complete destruction rather than just burying Atlas under a few tons of rubble.

But when the VI made no move to stop them from landing or from entering the facility, Shepard couldn’t help but feel like something was up.

“Looks like you’re in, Commander.” Archer’s voice crackled over the team’s comms. “Good. I’m getting some troubling readings here, though. The VI is trying to upload its program directly from your location. Get to the server room and shut down its core before it can–nnnn–n̼̣̼͚͉̭̟̊̀͞n͕̳̰͆ͥ̍͂͝n̴̮̹̦̯̦̫͕͊̾ͮn̸̘̰̼̳̦̭͉̪͒̓͂ͤ–”

“Dr Archer?” Shepard tried, but only got static on the line. “Looks like we’re on our own again. Tali, can you turn on the lights?”

“On it.”

Tali messed around with her omnitool for a few seconds and eventually managed to get the damaged lights to flicker on, revealing another destroyed interior and gunned down scientists.

Then an audio file started playing over the speaker system.

“Archer Log: 155.2: For years, my brother’s condition has been a handicap. That changed today…”

“Did you start that, Tali?”

“No. It’s playing automatically.”

“...His autistic mind is the breakthrough I’ve been looking for – he can communicate with the Geth! Such a tremendous grasp of mathematics! It seems serendipity is alive and well in the 22nd century.”

Shepard didn’t like this.

Busted up lab? Fine.

Creepy VI that seemed to be more interested in leading them somewhere than killing them now considering the lack of any functional Geth? Creepy, but also fine. For now.

That VI playing random log files instead of more indecipherable screaming? It was up to something.

The entire ground team was slowly making their way through another destroyed lab when a terminal suddenly sprang to life.

“Archer log 157.8: Unless he sees results, the Illusive Man is shutting us down next week. I have no choice. I’m going to tap David directly into the Geth neural network and see if he can influence them. The danger should be negligible. David might even enjoy it.” The terminal suddenly shut off.

“I thought Archer said his brother volunteered for the experiment.” Garrus growled angrily. “Sounds to me, he didn’t have much of a choice about it.”

“What, Cerberus being assholes and not giving a fuck about who they experiment on? Big surprise.” Jack sniped. “Did you expect something else?”

“Stow it.” Shepard ordered, looking around for a way down into the lower levels. Fortunately there was a service elevator not far. “We’ve got a job to do. Someone get that elevator up here.”

The team spread out a little while the more tech focused members hacked the elevators. There was still no response from the VI, hostile or otherwise, but Shepard wasn’t about to let her guard down. If the VI wanted to ambush them, it would have to work for it, not just wait for them to get sloppy.

That diligence paid off when her teammates managed to get the elevator to their level only for a plasma torch to start burning its way through from the other side. It looked like they finally found some of the VI’s platforms.

Too bad for them they were sitting in the middle of a killbox.

The doors hissed open and Shepard had just enough time to get a glimpse of another Geth Prime and a handful of troopers before they disappeared under the destructive rage of several Biotic explosions, a maelstrom of gunfire, and what looked like several grenades for good measure.

When the smoke finally cleared, there wasn’t a piece of those Geth platforms larger than her fist.

“Well then…that was easy.”

“Too easy.” Grunt growled. “We have too many people for a good fight. Should have left some behind.”

“We’ll do that when we aren’t facing something that can destroy the galaxy through the extranet.” Shepard promised the Krogan. Personally she kind of agreed, the entire ground team was simply too many people to easily coordinate between just her and maybe Revan if the Sith decided to assist. It was a good learning opportunity though.

After checking to make sure the elevator was still even functional after all the explosions that went off inside it, the team emerged in what looked like an examination or testing room for Geth with another audio log waiting for them.

“Archer log 168.4: I’d be lying if I said no harm could come to David” Dr Archer’s voice droned on. “His autistic mind is as alien to me as an actual alien. Anything could happen when we plug him in. But I have to try, don’t I?”

“No you certainly did NOT, you imbecile.” Miranda seethed, showing none of her rapidly dwindling loyalty to Cerberus in the face of someone using a sibling as a science experiment.

“Agreed. No hypothesis, no safety measures, no plan. Not proper science. Just throwing ideas at a wall. Regardless of danger to participants” Mordin added his thoughts. “Even if successful, chances of replication almost impossible due to unique individual factors. Disgusting.”

It seemed Dr Archer had thoroughly offended even more of the Normandy crew, but it didn’t change what they needed to do. So after a final check to make sure the inactive Geth platforms would stay inactive…the team moved on until they found the VI server console.

Which turned out to be just down the hall.

Shepard grimaced and skirted around the remains of one unfortunate tech before walking up to the control panel.

“Get ready.” She warned her team. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this button brought every single platform the VI has left down on our heads.”

Then she pressed the shutdown command.

For a second, Shepard convinced herself nothing would go wrong.

The lights gradually dimmed and processes started shutting down, only for everything to snap back to max as the VI’s avatar appeared, towering over them all, and howled.

A̸̫͚̗͇͛̿͐̕A̵̫̪̣͚̚A̸̦̔̔A̸̢̯̽͆̃̚Ȧ̸̝̟͜Ḧ̶̫́H̴̺̰̹́̊̐͘͜H̴̜̰̰͝H̷̫̗̓H̸̙͚͔̋̽͊̏!

A sudden shock running up her arm had Shepard looking in horror as her omnitool activated by itself and green code lept between the console and her arm before sinking into her skin!

“Shepard!”

“What’s going on?!”

“Commander?!”

Shepard stumbled away from the console and felt…something…pushing its way into her head. The walls took on a glowing, almost circuit board pattern and her team seemed to flicker in and out of existence like a glitchy hologram.

“The VI infected her implants!” Miranda cried out to the others. “I don’t know if she can hear us!”

There was a sort of pressure building in Shepard’s head.

She needed to move. Needed to go…

Shepard shook her head and stumbled a bit.

This was her head! Her body! No jumped up calculator was going to give her orders!

Revan moved to put a hand on Shepard’s forehead. “I’m going to try breaking its control. I won’t be able to move quickly like this.”

“...Are you sure–”

“Do it.” Tali spoke over Samara’s hesitating tone. “We’ll watch your back.”

There was a flash of movement outside the server room. The VI was showing her things. Messing with her head.

None of her training had ever prepared the Spectre on how to deal with something like this. But she knew what she needed to do. If the VI was responsible for this, she just needed to shut down the core directly.

Something was holding her head back, but a small shove was enough to free her of it and she stumbled out into the hallway – distantly aware of some cries of surprise and the doors whooshing shut behind her.

“Was that really necessary, Jane?”

“Whuh-! Revan?!” Shepard jumped at the sight of a transparent blue ghost in the shape of her teammate standing across from her, arms folded disapprovingly. “What’s going on?”

“The VI hijacked your cybernetics, somehow.”

Shepard rolled her eyes. “I know that part, I meant why are you suddenly a ghost?”

”I was going to attempt to disrupt its control by creating a Force Bond and purging it with some applied Mechu-deru but you shoved me into the others and wandered off before I could do so. Projecting this image is all I can do for now.” Revan looked past her at the door. “They’re currently trying to hack the door. I’m wondering how long it takes them to realize borrowing one of my sabers would be far more expedient.”

“You’re pretty possessive about your gear.” Shepard pointed out, resolving to ask what Mechu-deru was later. “They might not think about it cause they don’t want to piss you off. Can’t you just undo the ghost thing and cut your way out?”

Revan shook her head. “I could but carelessly severing a new Bond isn’t a wise idea. If we were still in contact I could do so easily, but…” The Sith Empress trailed off at the obvious, they weren’t in contact anymore.

“Great, I have a feeling this is going to cause issues in the future.” Shepard scowled. “Any idea what to do next?”

“What you were already planning.” Revan replied. “Find the core. Shut it down. I will stop any additional attempts at controlling you while you do so.”

Shepard nodded at the straightforward plan and started moving.

To neither of their surprise they ended up moving through another lab but this time instead of an audio file playing, Shepard was treated to a full holographic recreation of scene after scene of the final days of Project Overlord.

It started innocently enough.

Dr Archer frustratedly ranting about their inability to even draw the Geth’s attention despite trying everything, David somehow replicating their language despite it being physically impossible with an organic voicebox, and ending with the Geth paying attention and saying hello to the autistic man.

The next scene was also somewhat innocent. A small test where David ordered a restrained Geth Platform to take a few steps forward while more scientists watched on. Dr Archer explaining how David’s unique condition should allow him to directly interface with the Geth. That scene ended on an ominous note when one tech asked if that was even safe and Dr Archer saying there was no harm in finding out.

The third and final scene, and the most confusing so far, was once again between the two brothers. Dr Archer began by asking David to repeat back his notes from a previous day’s experiments only to grow angry at David’s lack of attention. Shepard felt a surge of rage as David quailed under Dr Archer's anger only for that emotion to curdle unpleasantly as the Cerberus scientist calmly apologized, lowered his voice, and had David repeat his notes back to him anyway. Only asking how David was afterwards.

“He’s using him as a human omnitool.” She spat. “But he obviously cares about his brother at least a little. How could he do that?”

“Ambition and arrogance unchecked can make you blind to the hurt of the ones around you.” Revan replied morosely. “Especially the ones you care for the most.”

That sounded like personal experience. Shepard reminded herself that Revan had declared war against her former order. While it sounded like she had been able to convince a decent amount to follow her views, there had to have been a few friends that refused to go along with her plan. The Commander would be very surprised if Revan had been able to avoid killing one along the way in her attempt to build up her galaxy to resist their own omnicidal invaders.

But still…

“It’s still wrong.” She practically dared the Sith to disagree with her.

“I never said it wasn’t, just that pursuing a goal makes people forget that at times.” Revan conceded easily before changing the topic. “Let’s move on. The core should be close. I can feel a presence in great distress nearby. Unless I’m mistaken, that should be David Archer.”

“He’s still alive?! Let’s go then!”

Shepard didn’t waste time from taking the most direct route to the VI core possible following Revan’s directions.

A short elevator ride later and she was in front of the massive machine responsible for this whole disaster, watching one final vid of the moment David was connected to the neural network and lost control.

“Okay, we made it.” She said to her ghostly companion. “Any idea how to shut this thing down? The giant green face staring down at me is kinda freaky and I’d like to be done with this shit now.”

“If you want to do it safely? I have no idea.” The Space Elf shrugged. “Jack finally got fed up with waiting for the team to get through the door and borrowed one of my sabers though. We can just wait for them to–”

‘Attention, Node acquired: Normandy SR-2 is within range. Attempting to establish upload link.’

Shepard’s brief joy at the announcement that the Normandy had returned to the planet was quickly crushed by the realization that the ship was both in range of Atlas’s broadcast relays and unaware of that fact. If that upload finished…they were out of time.

“Revan, change of plans. I’m going to try severing the VI’s connections directly. Tell the others to hurry up if you can.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, just pulling her blaster from her mag-harness and unloading into the connection nodes that were fairly obvious thanks to the visual fuckery the VI infecting her had caused, letting her actually see the upload path.

Despite that, actually preventing the upload was incredibly close.

Shepard alternated between severing the upload connections and trying to pierce through the shields surrounding the core as much as she could, but the upload still reached 80% before she managed to break something important on the core and finally initiate an emergency shutdown.

She wasn’t in a mood to celebrate though.

The shutdown of the core also removed the VI from her implants letting her see the room without a giant glowing face obscuring half of it.

And she didn’t like what she saw.

In the middle of the core, David Archer was hanging naked, bleeding, and practically unmoving thanks to the machinery crucifying him in place. A metal ring supported his waist and mildly preserved his dignity, but that was useless at stemming her rage as she saw the head harness forcing his eyes open and staring unblinkingly forward, the raw and bloody skin from where the chest portion had chafed away at him, the pair of thick metal tubes shoved down his throat, or the cables that had been driven through David’s arms.

What really crushed her were the tear tracks running helplessly down his face.

“Just hold on a little longer. We’ll get you out of there soon.” She said, looking for the best place to begin removing him from the contraption.

“Wait! Commander!” Shepard turned to see Dr Archer sprinting out from the elevator followed more distantly by her team. “I’m begging you. Don’t do anything rash.”

Shepard saw red.

“Rash? You mean like forcing your own brother into an experiment?”

“I know how it must look, but I never intended any harm to come to him. You must believe me.” Archer started pacing. “It’s not like I planned this. It was an accident. Seeing David communicate with the Geth…it all seemed harmless.”

“I saw his memory – he begged you not to do this!”

“I was desperate! The Illusive Man doesn't broker failure.” Archer protested. “Any war we fight with the Geth will be bloody. I was asked to find a way to avoid that.”

“Who gave you the right?!”

“People who were too afraid to make difficult decisions themselves.” Archer snapped. “When they pray for a miracle, they’re really praying for men like me to make the tough choices. If my work spares a million mothers mourning the loss of their sons, my conscience will rest easy.”

“And all it will cost is your brother’s life.” Shepard was disgusted at the prospect of justifying…this…with hypothetical lives. “Look at him – you’re brother will never be the same.”

Archer did not in fact look at the suffering he had caused. He just started spouting justifications again. “The damage might not be permanent. He might recover some semblance of his mind.”

“For what?! Cerberus will never leave him alone after this! He’ll always be a lab rat.”

“But a well-cared for lab rat.” Archer replied. “At least he’ll still be alive.”

Shepard was almost speechless.

“Well-cared for? Well-cared for?! LOOK AT HIM!” She shouted, grabbing the moron and forcing him to face his mistake.

Archer finally faced his brother and fully took in what he had done. The bindings, the injuries, the surgically placed restraints. And Shepard watched as the delusion rhetoric Archer had been spouting collapsed under the realization of what he had done.

“Quiet – please make it stop.” David’s voice begged from a speaker, since the man himself couldn’t speak.

Archer slumped. “What I’ve done to David is unethical…” He said, dazedly. “If he dies, it’s unforgivable. Let me take care of him. Please.”

Shepard wasn’t having it. “I’ve seen enough of your cruelty to know he will never be free from it if I leave him here. I’m taking him away.”

“No! Leave him! He’s too valuable!” Archer went for a handgun, but before he could raise it, it was ripped away by Revan’s telekinetic grasp.

That was the last straw.

Shepard went for her own handgun, the M-6 Carnifex aimed right between Archer’s eyes, but she couldn’t pull the trigger.

Not because she held herself back, but because something was physically resisting it.

It didn’t take a genius to know why.

“Don’t stop me, Revan. He deserves this.”

“He does.” The Empress agreed. “But in some cases death is too easy.”

“I made mistakes but my work will save countless people.” Archer said, a fanatical light in his eyes. “The human race needs it to be safe from the Geth. If we could direct them, control them…”

“You’re working under old information, doctor.” Shepard watched as Revan practically stalked towards the man. “The Geth and Quarian people have reunited. The Geth no longer act as an independent force. Even if you could produce a working VI, you would never control anything other than the Geth in this lab.”

“Bu-but that would mean–”

“Everything you did, everything you forced your brother to suffer and sacrifice. It was all for nothing.” Revan said mercilessly and Shepard watched that fanatical light die.

Revan was right. It might have been kinder to shoot the man rather than for him to hear that. But that wasn’t Shepard’s problem. “Miranda, get a hold of the Normandy. We need to find out what happened in Space and to make arrangements for David here. And if Dr Archer wants to press the issue, I’ve got a bullet with his name on it.”

The scientist looked at his brother, listening as David rattled off the square root equations that seemed to be a habit or calming mechanism.

“Where will you take him?” Archer asked brokenly.

“Grissom Academy. They can help special cases like David – minus the torture.” Shepard spat and began to walk away. “No matter how harmless it seemed.”

“Square root of 912.04 is 30.2…it all seemed harmless…” David’s mantra added a new line.

“Square root of 912.04 is 30.2…it all seemed harmless…”

“Square root of 912.04 is 30.2…it all seemed harmless…”

“Square root of 912.04 is 30.2…it all seemed harmless…”

“Square root of 912.04 is 30.2…it all seemed harmless…”