Mass Core 2: Crimson Horizon

There were no dreams, apart from the distant sensation of an internal system’s reboot. Then, all at once, Starlight returned to consciousness. She opened her eyes, and saw a blurry and static-filled image slowly resolve as the lenses in her robotic eyes adjusted themselves.

The first thing she realized was that she was on a cold stone floor, and then that said floor was a part of a cell complete with old-fashioned iron bars. Starlight tried to stand, but then slipped and collapsed. She was unusually weak. As she attempted to rise again, she noticed a collar applied around her neck.

“Not this again,” she said, trying to charge her magic to remove the collar. The best she could summon was a spark.

“Don’t bother,” said Jack from across the cell. She was wearing a similar collar. “It suppresses your biotics. Trust me, I’ve had one of these on most of my life. Once it’s on, you can’t get out of it.”

“I know,” said Starlight. She could barely move. “Oh, my head…”

“That’s what you get for trying to overload an AI.”

Starlight rubbed her head, and then looked out of the cell. There were several in what seemed to be an underground block. Her and Starlight were in one, and Beri and Armchair were across from them. Beri was slumped awkwardly, and though her eyes could move she appeared to be paralyzed. Armchair, meanwhile, was much worse off. His body had been mostly torn apart, and several of his limbs were missing. Worse, his eye was no longer lit.

To the left of their cell was an especially large one on the corner where Darien was cradling Zedok. He was completely uninjured, but she was not conscious- -and it was not the effect of her collar. She was pail and shaking, with streaks of red-purple running from the bite wound in her neck.

The final cell contained Flurry Heart, alone. She was curled in a corner, crying.

“Where’s Lyra?” asked Starlight. “Please tell me she’s not…”

“She isn’t,” said Jack. She shifted, clearly with the same difficulty that Starlight was experiencing. “She was the last of us to go down, from what I can tell, but they sure took her down. She’s in ‘interrogation’ right now.”

“Interrogation?”

“Yeah. And knowing synths, she’s not going to be in one piece when she comes back.”

“At least she fought,” said Beri, able to talk even if she could not move. “Rather than surrender at the first sign of trouble.”

“I had to,” said Darien. “Zedok was bleeding to death. I don’t know how to fight, it was all I could do!”

He sounded panicked, and Starlight tried to comfort him. “You did the right thing, Darien. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t make her wake up. She’s sick. Really bad. I can’t- -I’m not a doctor. I can’t help.”

“It’s going to be okay,” repeated Starlight, more firmly. “We need to get her to a doctor. There has to be one here, somewhere.”

“And just how are we supposed to get out?” demanded Beri. “I can’t move my body. The geth hasn’t moved since we’ve been thrown in here. You and Jacqueline are almost as uslesess as the four-ton baby, and Zedock is down. What can we possibly do?”

“Just stop it!” cried Flurry Heart. “Stop it stop it STOP IT!”

“Flurry Heart,” said Starlight, pushing her hooves against the bars that separated their two cells. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You keep saying that! How can you say that? We’re all trapped, and I can’t use my magic! And they- -and they- -why did they have to be so MEAN?”

Starlight smiled. “We’re going to be alright because synths, apparently, are about as dense as their own skulls. They forgot to put a collar on one of us.”

Flurry Heart’s eyes widened, and she looked around.

“You knew?” said a much deeper female voice from within Flurry Heart’s cell. Flurry Heart squeaked and looked around, not knowing where the sound was coming from.

“Of course I did,” said Starlight. “I’m not an idiot. I can tell the difference between metal and something organic.”

The voice laughed. Then Flurry Heart’s armor split, peeling away from her body. The gold undulated and pulled apart, revealing the fact that it was not actual armor but in fact living flesh. Flurry Heart screamed in a combination of surprise and disgust as the armor reared back from her body and dropped onto the floor. It writhed for a moment, and then with a surge of green light condensed into a linear form that rapidly resolved into a large snake.

The snake reared up and addressed Starlight, its blue-green eyes focusing on hers. “I had to accept a substantial mass-loss for her to be able to lift me. Don’t expect anything big.”

“We don’t need big, Chrysalis. We just need something unexpected.”

“Fuck,” said Jack. “You certainly have that. In fucking spades.”

“That- -that was on me?” squeaked Flurry Heart. “Touching- -touching me? How did- -you- -” She shuddered violently.

“Oh relax,” said Chrysalis, slithering into Starlight’s cell between the bars. “You didn’t even notice. And it would hardly be the first time I’ve done this.”

Chryalis reared again and directed her attention on Starlight’s collar.

“Wait!” warned Jack, “it has an explosive device in it! Even if you get it off, it will explode.”

“What?” said Chrysalis. “What kind of a barbarian would build a system like that?”

“Who do you think?” said Beri from across the room.

Several footsteps across the damp stone floor interrupted their conversation, and Starlight saw Chrysalis grin with a wide, toothy snake-smile. “I think I have an idea.”

“Chrysallis!” hissed Starlight. “Wait!”

There was no way she could stop a snake, though, and Chrysalis slithered through the bars of the cell into the central corridor. She shapeshifted again, this time into the image of a cherubic human child. The transformation was complete just as the tall synth entered the room. It stopped, looking down at Chrysalis in confusion as she pretended to cry.

“Please, mister,” sobbed Chrysalis, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t- -I don’t know where I am! I got lost, and- -”

The synth did not hesitate. It raised its gun and pointed it at Chrysalis’s head, then pulled the trigger. Chrysalis’s entire upper body exploded in a plume of green fluid.

“Chrysalis!” cried Starlight.

“Hmm,” said the synth. “That was unexpected. I suppose she was an alien too.”

“God- -damn- -INORGANICS!” cried Chrysalis, her now headless torso standing up straight and roiling as it regenerated flesh. “You would DARE to attack the True Queen of the Crystal Empire! You filthy affront to biological life!”

The room suddenly ignited with green light, and the synth dropped to one knee from the biotic attack. Chrysalis completed her regeneration, and remained as a little girl- -but not a cherubic blond one. She was not a much younger, much smaller version of Jack wearing a miniature version of the long, dark robes that she wore as adult Jack.

She grinned, and somehow Starlight thought she looked even more like a serpent than she had as a snake. “I can’t feel anything from you,” she said. “You cannot love. You are not worthy of existence. I will crush you into oblivion.”

The pressure on the synth increased, and it was knocked to the ground even farther- -but it did not collapse. Instead, its head slowly raised, and its fiery blue glass eyes focused on Chrysalis. Then, with substantial effort, it stood.

“Chrysalis!” cried Jack. “It’s standing up!”

“I can see that!” snapped Chrysalis. She tried to increase her power output, but seemed to be unable to. Her eyes widened. “I can’t- -I can’t increase the gravitation! My body is too small!”

“Organics,” said the synth, taking an immensely heavy step forward. The stone blocks that made up the floor cracked under his mass. “I’m not as weak as you would believe. And I’m not an ‘it’. My name is William. And your behavior will now result in executions for all involved.”

He slowly started to raise his gun, pointing it at Chrysalis. She struggled to keep up the field, but it was already apparent that it was weakening. Suddenly, though, the synth turned his head, looking around. “Which one of you is singing?!” he cried. “Stop it! Stop it now!”

Starlight looked around. Nobody was singing. Before she could even try to understand what he was talking about, the synth dropped his gun and reached for his head. “NO!” he cried. “What are you doing? Get- -get out of my head! GET OUT OF MY HE- -”

All at once, he gave way to Chrysalis’s biotic pressure and fell to the floor. Chrysalis collapsed, breathing hard, but William did not stand up.

“What…what just happened?” asked Starlight.

William suddenly sat up. Everybody who could jumped back, but the synth did not attack.

“Installation complete,” he said. “Systems function nominal. Status: all your CPUs are belong to us now.”

Starlight blinked. “Armchair?”

The synth turned toward Starlight. “Hello, Starlight,” he said. “Oh my. You look excellent in stereoscopic vision. Yes. We are…no. I am Armchair.”

“What are you doing in there?”

“I uploaded a compressed version of myself to this body during the battle. It took some time to unpack it, I’m afraid.” He looked at his old body. “And I’m afraid my old system has been too badly damaged to use.”

“And Arachne?”

“I am Arachne. I am also Armchair. And, at the moment, I am a very, very angry synth named William. It is…difficult to explain.” He stood up, and extended a hand to Chrysalis. “Hello, Queen Chrysalis. I am glad to see you.”

“Great,” she said, refusing to accept his help. “One monstrosity for another.”

“How do we know it’s you?” asked Darien.

“You don’t, I suppose,” said Armchair. He wrapped his hands around the bars on Beri’s cage and tore the door off its hinges. “Oh my. This body is far stronger than I expected. The humans have excellent craftsmanship, even if their designs are less than poetic. Get out of my body, goddamn it. Oop. He’s rebelling. I’m not sure how much time I have in here. But I would like to have one of these bodies. I feel so sexy and confident.”

He reached onto his belt and removed a remote. Upon activating it, Starlight’s collar fell away.

“Neat,” she said, teleporting past the bars of her cell and then tearing them off the wall to let Jack out.

“We need to hurry,” said Darien, with Armchair using a key to unlock the extra-thick bars of his exceedingly tight cell. He picked up Zedok, who frowned and stirred deliriously. “She’s not doing well.”

“What we need to do is to get Lyra,” said Beri, standing up and flexing her arms as though stretching actually did anything for her. “If they didn’t kill her, she’ll be able to blast us out of here easily.”

“She is not dead,” said Armchair. “I will take you to her. Follow. Also fuck yourselves. That was William. My apologies.”

Armchair led them up the narrow set of stairs to the upper part of the complex. There were a serious of small rooms there, and Armchair opened the door to one of them.

Lyra looked up at them. They had put a collar around her, and had apparently partially disassembled her body. Her face was badly bruised and cut, but she looked up at Armchair defiantly.

“Round five, then?” she said. “I’m still not going to talk.”

“Not exactly,” said Armchair, using his remote to remove her collar. “I am not William. I am Armchair.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And it occurs to me that I may have been mispronouncing the term ‘Armature’ for quite some time. Needless to say, I will retain my original name. Because I like it. You idiot, give back my body.”

“This is too weird,” said Lyra. She reached out across the room with her magic, grabbing the dissembled bits of her body. She pulled them toward herself, peeling them apart and reconfiguring them as she attached them back onto her body. She then stood, flexing one of her hands.

“It’s not perfect,” she said. “But it will work for now.”

“Lyra,” said Darien, pushing past the others but being unable to enter the room. “Zedok is sick. Bad. I don’t know what to do.”

“I can teleport her,” said Starlight. “Back to Parnack- -”

“No. You’d cause an outbreak. We have no idea what’s in her.”

“Everything,” said Armchair. “William is attempting to hide the information from me, but it is my understanding that the bites of those creatures is terribly infections. The others in this base will no doubt have a cure.”

“Others?” said Jack. “What others?”

A round of bullets flying in from the far end of the hallway seemed to answer the question. Starlight and Jack both created biotic fields, and Chrysalis pulled Flurry Heart into the interrogation room for safety. Darien really only turned himself sideways, and the bullets rebounded off his thick skin.

Down the hall, another soldier was approaching quickly. He was enormous, but not tall and thin like the synth. Instead, Starlight was pretty sure he was human even with his helmet completely covering his face.

“I’ll take this one,” said Jack, stepping forward and charging her fists. She yelled at the human. “You want a piece of me, little man? Come take it!”

The human pointed his rifle at her, but then suddenly lowered it. “Santa mierda,” he said. “Jack, is that you?”

Jack stopped advancing, but did not lower her hands. “Do I know you?”

The human reached up and removed his mask. He was definitly male, dark skinned and middle aged with gray beginning to form in his hair. He had numerous scars, and a tattoo was visible on his neck past the collar of his armor. “It’s me, Jack. James Vega.”

Jack immediately lowered her hands. “You’ve got to be shitting me. Vega?”

“Who else could possibly be this sexy?” he said, spreading his arms. He looked at the various individuals behind Jack, and appeared confused. “William,” he said, pointing. “You totally got hacked.”

“He did,” admitted Armchair.

James laughed. “Serves you right. I’m surprised you have all your limbs attached, especially with Jack here. And…several small horses. A child. A turian. And a…” he looked up at Lyra. “I don’t even know. Jack, Shepard really did rub off on you, didn’t he? Oh, damn, that sounded dirty. True, but dirty.”

Darien pushed through the group, and James, panicked, reached for his sidearm.

“Tiny human,” said Darien. “Please, help.” He held out Zedok. “My lover, she needs help.”

“Jesus,” said James, looking at Zedok. “What happened to her?”

“She was bit,” said Starlight, stepping forward. “By one of the humans outside.”

“Humans? There’s no hum- -oh no. You don’t mean the wendigos?” He looked up at Armchair. “Shit, Will, you screwed the pooch on this one.” He turned to Jack. “We need to get her to Maria. Right now.”

“Is it bad?” asked Jack.

James just nodded, and led them upstairs.

The facility, it seemed, was a relatively Spartan military complex. The lower walls were old, but built on top of them were a series of sturdy walls built of concrete blocks. The upper level was at least well lit, although it had an air of being old and in mild disrepair despite its near perfect cleanliness.

James led them quickly through the facility, passing rooms that were mostly occupied either with things being stored or lockers of various types. Eventually, he brought them to a large room where a number of thin, simple combat droids were walking around a large table.

“Maria,” said James. “We have a problem.”

“What did William do now?” said a woman leaning over a large projection table in the center. She turned toward them, and Starlight immediately felt nauseous. She was not ugly, exactly, so much as she was extremely deep in the uncanny valley. Her proportions were that of a human female, but her head was made of a hard white save for her face, which seemed like it had only been marginally been designed to look like a human face and simply been tacked onto her skull. Her dead, empty robot eyes looked at James, and then at the others. “Vega…?”

“It’s a bite,” said James, motioning to Zedok.

Maria’s eyes widened. “A bite? On an asari? Why hasn’t she been treated?”

“You can ask William when we get the geth out of his head.”

“Can you help her?” said Darien.

“I don’t know,” said Maria. “But I will try.” Around her, the combat drones converged, walking toward Darien. One of them reached up, and Darien hesitantly passed Zedok to them. “I am loading asari treatment protocols as we speak,” said Maria. “I will get her into surgery immediately.”

“I have to go with her,” said Darien.

“Then go,” said Maria. “But don’t get in my way.”

Darien nodded and followed Maria’s drones as they rushed Zedok to elsewhere within the complex.

“I’m going with them,” said Lyra, following as well.

Starlight watched them go, and Maria sighed in exasperation.

“A unicorn. An actual unicorn,” said Maria. She looked up at James. “Why are there ponies in my precinct? And please tell me that that right there is not Jaqueline Naught.”

“Maybe just a little.”

“And William, are you just going to stand there?”

“I’m not William,” said Armchair.

“Old Judge Willy tried to take down a geth,” explained James.

“A geth…seriously? Did you even pay attention in training? No, of course not.” She groaned again. “I don’t even have the capacity to feel pain, and I’m still getting a migraine from this. And my day was going so good, too. I guess this explains why the wendigoes in sector five are suddenly so riled up.”

“What are they?” asked Starlight, stepping forward. “Those things out there? Those humans? The ones that attacked us?”

Maria looked down at Starlight. Starlight shivered; Maria was not pleasant to look at. She resembled a walking corpse. “They’re not human. Not anymore, at least.”

“Ever wondered why there’s no vorcha on Earth?” asked James, almost intending humor. “It’s because of them.”

“Cannibals,” said Maria. “Evolved humans. Mad, nearly mindless, but lethally intelligent. They will attack anything that moves, including each other. They usually aren’t a problem because they kill each other on sight. Congratulations, though. You’re special enough that you got them to group. They only do that for very special occasions.”

“Are they…people?”

“No. I just said that. All the intelligence and violence of a human without a concerted mind to maintain it. Plus their unusual biology.”

“Let me guess,” said Jack. “They’re almost impossible to kill? To the point where they can regrow limbs, perhaps?”

“Yeah,” said James. “Little bastards…”

“And the problem is their disease load. They are infected. Badly. Diseases that should kill a normal human infest them harmlessly. Your friend? She was just exposed to nearly every pathogen on Earth without any natural immunity to them.”

“Then you should go help her,” said Starlight.

“I am,” said Maria. “She’s in surgery right now.” She sighed, and then lifted herself up, sitting down on the edge of the projection table. “Geth,” she said.

“Armchair.”

“A terrible name. Please get out of William. I did not approve time off for him.”

“I am afraid I cannot allow myself to do that. I need a processing unit to live in.”

“Use the precinct’s central computer. Upload yourself.”

“Whoa, wait a minute!” said James. “Maria, are you sure? You’d be letting a geth into the system.”

“I am fully aware of what I’m doing, Vega.” She shrugged. “If he burns it out, then maybe PD will buy me one that actually works so I don’t have to use my own brain to do everything.”

“Do you have a port I can use?”

“I do have a port,” said Maria. “But you’re not getting anywhere near it.” She pointed to an access panel on the side of the table. “You want to use the computer’s port. Not mine.”

“Ah. That was a sexual joke. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was a ‘I don’t want a geth in my head when I’m controlling half this place with it’ joke.”

“Oh. That doesn’t sound funny at all.”

Armchair walked over to the computer and interfaced with it. His body shook as he uploaded himself, and then William jumped back, drawing his gun and pointing it at Jack.

“Stand down, soldier,” said Maria.

“But these aliens have been convicted of criminal trespass and attempted sabotage of Alliance-critical resources.”

“And I’m about to convict you of insubordination. Seriously. If they were actually threats, wouldn’t you know, have found them in a factory, maybe? Breaking things? Stealing schematics? And why didn’t you file a report when you found them?”

“I was operating with reasonable autonomy. And I am more than within the realm of the law.”

“This is Earth. There is no law.”

“I am the Law.”

James cringed. “You did not just say that.”

“At least two of them are children,” said Maria, pointing to Flurry Heart and Jack, both of whom were standing a distance behind Starlight.

“And one of them was a yahg. Also an asari, a race known for terrorism.”

“I am in a computer,” said Armchair, his voice disembodied.

“And a geth!’ cried William. “There’s a geth!”

“A geth you were foolish enough to get overwritten with. If he had actually been a threat? Guess what: he could have taken down an entire sector. Or implanted a virus that could take down this hemisphere.”

“These aliens violated the homeworld by their presence.”

“Speak for yourself. I was manufactured on Venus Station Five. And you’re not wrong. I myself am extremely curious as to why these various aliens have put themselves at such substantial risk to come to this hellhole.”

Jack was about to answer, but Starlight stopped her. “No,” she said. “I want information first.”

“Hmm,” said Maria. “A bit of a renegade. Well, information for information, then. A fair trade.”

“Where are we? What is this place?”

“Precinct 67185, district ten. Northwestern hemisphere.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes it is. You are just ignorant.”

“What she means is, this is a police station. Basically. Kind of,” said James.

“Police?” said Jack. “Seriously? You?”

“I needed something to do,” said James, shrugging. “You try being a war hero. They just want to make you retire or sit behind some desk. Give speeches or something. That’s not what I signed up to the Alliance for. So I reupped my contract with Planetary Defense.”

“And needless to say,” said Maria, “he has performed excellently. Even if he is much more limited than we are.”

“I would hardly call him limited,” said Jack. “I mean, do you have any idea how many pullups this guy can do?”

“I don’t mean it in a capacity sense. I mean that Earth is inhospitable to human life. No. To any life.”

“Yeah,” admitted James. “Just breathing the air here probably cut twenty years off my life. But hey, why not die young and pretty? It’s better than having to deal with my ex-wife. Or my ex-husband. Damn alimony.”

“What happened?” asked Jack. “To the planet, I mean. It wasn’t like this before.”

“What happened?” laughed Maria. “You already know what happened. You were here. The Reaper War happened. Hundreds, even thousands of ships detonated in the atmosphere. Alliance, Reaper, who knows what else. All that death out there? Eezio fallout.”

“Element zero?” said Starlight. “But it’s nontoxic.”

“To you. To her, probably. But Earth is somewhat unique in the galaxy. It has no natural source of element zero. This isn’t Thessia. Eezio is toxic to Earth life. All those ships blowing up? They killed the planet. Almost everything on it died.”

“That explains the wendigoes,” said Starlight.

“Oh no,” said James. “They’re not mutants or anything. They’ve been here for a lot longer. Somewhere. Somehow. Maybe a real long time. The war just sort of, I don’t know, let them out.”

“They are one of the only things that can survive here,” said Maria. “Apart from synths. The human population of Earth is likely less than ten thousand, mostly engineers for the automated factories. The synth population numbers in the tens of millions.”

“This planet used to have twenty billion people,” said Starlight.

“And then the Reapers came. At this point, the only purpose Earth serves is as a place to keep the factories and as a dumping ground for scrap. And it’s Planetary Defense’s job to protect that sort of stuff.”

“From you,” added William.

“Yeah, like we want any of this stuff,” said Jack.

“Several of the factories in this district are of significant tactical importance.”

“And you just told them,” sighed Maria. “Did your parents invest any money in your central processor?”

“Yeah,” said James. “Not about Willy’s processor. About the freaky stuff they’re making. I mean, that big one, up north? The one that makes the fev?”

“Fev?” said Starlight. “What is fev? You mean FEV?”

“Yeah, the fev. That green smelly stuff. Remember Kevin?”

“I remember the paperwork,” said Maria.

“What happened to Kevin?” asked Starlight.

“He fell in. What came out…well, it wasn’t Kevin anymore. Freaky stuff, man.”

“Which is why PD employs almost exclusively synths. And convicts. James is a bit of an anomaly.” Maria jumped down from her perch. Her body did not react to motion like a human’s would; it was quite apparent that she was built differently, with the intention of being far faster and stronger than any human normally would be. “No, tiny horse.”

“Starlight. My name is Starlight.”

“Starlight. This is a good name. I have a cousin named Star. Regardless of that fact…”

“Your question. I know. We’re here because we have information that Earth is about to be attacked.”

William laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “Attack Earth? Ridiculous!”

“Kind of, yeah,” said James. “I mean, who would want this place?”

Maria did not seem to be laughing. “And you did not contact Alliance headquarters? We have a contact form for that sort of thing.” She sighed. “Nobody ever fills out the contact form…”

“Nothing could attack earth,” said William. “This is the most heavily defended place ever to have existed in the entire galaxy. The system defenses were specifically designed to stop Reapers, should they ever come back. Nothing can get through.”

“You haven’t seen this thing,” said Starlight. “It attacked a fortification that makes the Sol system look like a sandcastle.”

“And we should believe this, why?”

“You don’t have to,” said Starlight. “I’m only telling you why I’m here: to destroy that ship. I did not come to ask for your help, or to warn you. I came here to wait.”

“You came to one of the most toxic and heavily guarded planets in the galaxy to…wait?”

“I just said that. Did I stutter?”

James elbowed Jack. “I can see why you hang out with her. She’s a tough caballito.”

“Indeed,” said Maria. “Fine, then.”

“Commander,” said William, “you can’t be serious- -”

“Does this look like a joking face to you, William?” She pointed at her artificial face.

“No.”

“Then I’m not joking. If the threat is credible- -hell, even if it isn’t- -I have to look into it. As long as they stay in the compound, they’ll be fine. And besides. You have a turian to find.”

They all looked around, and realized that Beri was nowhere in sight.

“Honestly, I kind of forgot about her,” said Jack.

“The rest of you, you’re James’s problem now.”

“Hey, wait a minute- -”

“Or you can go help William find the turian.”

“Eh, no. The first option was better.”

“Good.” Maria looked down at Starlight. Starlight was not sure if her eyes were purely cosmetic or if they actually functioned, but her glare was piercing. “You, though. Don’t go too far out of my sight.”

“Fine,” said Starlight. “Just be ready. Because she will be here. Soon.”