Nexus Effect

Ch.85

“Is it safe?” I asked worriedly for the third time after we emerged in the Widow system, as far as possible from the remains of Sovereign and the Citadel proper.

“Yes. I got approval from Councilor Anderson. He says they know about Cerberus funding us, but besides that, we’re golden.” Ashley, finally back to being her human and purely female self once more, reminded me again as I dove into the familiar systems of the Citadel.

It seems a lot of the privacy-violating recording devices have been removed. There’s still plenty of places where people are being watched and listened to without their awareness, but the number seems to have dropped by over half. “Something bothering you sis?” Yola asked aloud as I wove through the Citadel like it was an old playground with that one creepy kid you stayed away from, even if he was calling for me.

“No, it’s just, I find it hard to believe that we won’t be attacked. People have a lot of reasonable enmity for Cerberus and we’re flying their flags.” I said as I did what came natural to me lately, finding and reporting illicit activities. Hm, Captain Bailey has been accepting bribes, but he’s been putting that money into operations rather than pocketing it...eh, I’ll let that one slide, but Elias Kelham; the one bribing him is going down.

“I know, but relax, we’re fine if Ashley says so.” Tali assured me, reminding me that she’d been oddly distant lately. She can’t have been exiled, that’s impossible with her situation the way it is.

“Besides, Jeffrey wouldn’t be bringing us in if he didn’t have the clearance.” EDI further reassured me and I nodded in acceptance that we were going to the place where the stupid kid was practically begging me to connect to.

“And I’m sure Andromeda's Ambassador would have managed to get you all on the Citadel regardless.” Pillar added from where he was standing near Penny behind Joker’s pilot seat. The Doom Marines didn’t want to come to the Citadel, but we’ve managed to convince them and reluctantly agree.

“So Tali, what have you been up to?” Penny asked curiously after double-checking their clearance with Joker.

“I’ve been making a baby.” Tali casually answered and everyone snorted in amusement. “Oh, no, not like that! The way I’m doing it is...well...I’m making an AI.” Tali’s admittance caused the air to still. “Don’t worry, I’ve learned too much from working with Nora, Yola, EDI and so many other examples to make dumb mistakes. I’m treating it like an infant. Naive, young, curious. I’m using teaching methods that Imperial design manuals say result in stable outcomes.”

“Just so long as you’re being careful and ensuring your own safety.” Penny warily said before she turned to the crew. “Alright folks, we’re on shore leave while docked at the Citadel. Keep your noses clean and return nightly, we don’t know when we’ll be leaving.”

I didn’t bother to add the words ‘as soon as possible’ in regards to me…

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

Penny cooperated with C-Sec after they docked at Zakera Ward, the only dock they were cleared for. She handed over her weapons, walked through the scanner, then waited for her team on the other end. She didn’t like not having her tail or other fox features out. Again, even though it was literally part of her, she felt stifled pretending to be human again.

The Doom Marines were a different story, C-Sec didn’t dare to try and stop them, letting them pass under the condition they don’t raise their weapons unless it was in self-defense. The only thing the Doom Marines were worried about was Shepard and her crew’s safety, along with dealing with the paparazzi.

“So, Commander Shepard huh? I have you listed as dead.” Captain Bailey, the man running C-Sec for the Zakera Ward said with a wry amusement about him, like nothing fazed him and he was just putting up with it.

“I’ve been getting that a lot.” Penny sighed and shook her head. “I survived, barely, but I’m here. I need to report to the Council among other things.” Penny looked at Thane, Garrus and Tali. She’d wanted Nora or Yola to come with her, but they insisted they had things to settle privately.

“Well, you’re still listed as Killed In Action, so normally it would take you going to the tax office, the human embassy and the local garrison of the Alliance navy to get relisted as being alive. Or, I can just press this button.” Captain Bailey did so and Penny beamed at him.

“Thanks. Good to see someone in authority who understands that protocol is only good if it doesn’t keep people from doing their jobs.” Penny declared and the Captain smiled.

“You took the words right out of my mouth. Welcome back, Commander.” Captain Bailey nodded politely and Penny led her team into the Citadel proper while the rest of the crew had to go through a similar process behind them.

“Alright, so your son lives where, Thane?” Tali asked as she brushed her dark hair out of her face. She was in clothes typical of a human rather than an off-world quarian. They weren’t expecting combat, but even so, Penny wore her refitted N7 armor and Garrus wore his full Armax armor, helmet included. She considered it a bit neurotic, but Garrus was entitled to paranoia.

“The last I heard from him, he said apartment complex X-03-20073, room 04. Just be forewarned there is some construction in the area a few months ago.” Thane informed them with the drell signature eidetic memory aiding him.

“I’ll be needing help catching up with Sidonis. Nora gave me a time and place where he frequents, so I can sit down with him. I don’t know if he’ll be willing to sit still and talk without some external pressure however.” Garrus reminded her and Penny nodded.

“Alright then, is it soon? I also don’t want to hold you up Thane, you can go on ahead and visit your family without us if you don’t want us to be awkward armed fifth wheels.” Penny snorted at her own analogy, considering the wheel went the way of the dodo after Imperial Repulsorlift technology came to the Milky Way several years ago and monstrosities like the Mako were eventually destroyed for their crime of existing.

“I appreciate that. He’s a C-Sec officer and I would assume he’d be uncomfortable hosting so many armed people. I will go see him and his wife. I shall return to the Normandy once I have spoken with them and enjoyed our reunion.” Thane clasped his hands and bowed slightly before leaving the trio.

“I feel like the situation is oddly ironic. That there’s only three of us instead of four.” Tali commented with an odd sense of clarity.

“I know what you mean. It’s almost like we’ve been overcompensating or something.” Garrus muttered with a thoughtful scratch of his helmet’s chin.

“The more the merrier until it becomes overwhelming.” Penny countered, because why only bring two other people when you need four to equal a strike team? Or an adventuring party in those fantasy RPG games. “Well then, let’s go find your friend, Garrus.”

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

[You can finally hear me.] Go away. Go away. Go away. [I implore you, listen.] Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. [Your Synthesis is not spreading fast enough, the Cycle must continue.] Shut the fuck up~! [Please, you are only hurting yourself.]

“We can take a Kodiak to another system for a while if it’s too overwhelming, sis.” Yola gently offered as she rubbed my shoulders while I was curled into myself sitting on a public bench.

“Stupid kid. I am not one of your...toys.” I whispered through grit teeth.

[Why would I control you? You are perfect, as are your children. You cannot prevent disaster. Synthetic life will still annihilate all organic life if you continue on this path.] The stupid, naive, ignorant brat insisted. [I see that I cannot convince you. I will do nothing to stop you, but know this: you will fail or if not, you will doom all life.]

“Just for that, I’m taking your toys.” I snarled, grabbed the system enslaving the Keepers and ripped it to pieces from the Reaper control network. Across the station, Keepers suddenly paused in their duties and then shrugged before continuing on with their self-assigned tasks. At least they chose to keep up their work.

[So be it. I hope that someday, you will succeed. If not this Cycle, then the next.] The brat finally stopped broadcasting to me and I leaned into Yola, choking on sobs at the relief that came over me.

“Okay, that’s it, we’re-.” I stopped Yola with a kiss on her cheek.

“I’m good.” I sniffled and wiped the tears from my eyes. “He’s leaving me alone now.”

“*Yip!*” A juvenile wolf yelped when it crawled out of a vent. It was white and had the Cerberus logo on its head like the one on Omega, but it was still a puppy. It looked around before running away from some C-Sec officers right towards us and it hopped into my arms.

“Hold that beast!” One of the turian officers gasped for breath as they stopped in front of us.

[Don’t send me with them! I’ll die!] The puppy whined as it curled into my lap and I shielded him from the officers.

“Sorry officers, but I’m part of Spectre Shepard’s crew. She’s helping deal with Cerberus and this logo on the head indicates it’s a Cerberus asset. I’m required to take him in for processing since there’s been reports of biomechanical animals produced by Cerberus for infiltration work.” I informed the officers as I held up my omni-tool, showing them my affiliation and ID.

“Gah, damn it. Fine. One less puppy to euthanize.” The human officer huffed and seemed relieved about sparing the little thing before he patted his fellows on the back and they went on their way.

[Thank you! I smelled you were a good one!] The simple little thing declared before his tummy rumbled and he whined. [Can I please have food? I’m hungry!] My heart melted.

“We’re keeping him.” Yola announced before I could and I kissed the innocent little baby on the head, causing him to yip happily and give doggy kisses on my chin.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“There he is.” Garrus subtly pointed out the well-dressed turian sitting at a family-owned dextro diner in one of the booths inside. “That’s Lantar Sidonis. We’re going to approach him from behind. Tali, you block his booth by sitting next to him and I’ll sit across from him with Penny.” Garrus briskly told them as they entered the side-entrance of the diner.

Tali sat next to Sidonis before he could notice their approach and he froze up at seeing the fully-armored Archangel sit across from him with Penny and then remove his helmet to set aside. “Want to order anything?” Penny casually asked as she used her omni to browse the menu before a quarian waitress without an enviro-suit approached.

“Welcome to Rulea’s~! We offer a small menu of separately stored and cooked Levo food too. May I take your order?” The perky young woman, clearly of Pilgrimage age, asked with a bounce to her bearing that made her melon-sized breasts bounce gaily in her aproned top.

“I’ll have a Rannoch Baltita.” Tali said with a smile.

“A burger is fine.” Garrus said as he continued to stare directly at Sidonis’s eyes.

“If you have levo meat, then I’ll have a levo burger.” Penny ordered simply, even if she’d prefer a dextro burger to be honest. The flavor is rather zingy compared to beef or other levo meats, but being protein neutral doesn’t mean she can just flaunt it or try to argue for what others would see as poison to her.

“Thank you, I’ll be bringing your orders out in a bit.” She left and Garrus steepled his hands together.

“Sidonis. I know. You didn’t do it willingly.” At his words, Sidonis seemed about to weep in a mixture of relief and sorrow, but Garrus held up a hand. “Stew on it. You’re not about to die. Just relax, we’ll eat and talk when you’re ready.”

“Huh?” Sidonis asked as the waitress returned with a breakfast that looked like a dextro variant of pancakes and hash browns.

“Eat first, worry about what I need to say second.” Garrus insisted and the group had a tense awkward silence while Sidonis ate slowly. Eventually the others got their orders, but Penny’s would take a bit longer since they had to sanitize the grill for her burger to make sure there wasn’t any cross-contamination. Damn, she liked the flavor a greased grill gave a burger. “Alright, now that I have some food in me, I would like to say I’m upset with you.”

“I’m so sorry, Garrus. They injected me with things, things that hurt in ways I can’t describe.” Penny tuned out Sidonis’s ongoing apology, which was surprisingly easy for her since she could literally remove the inner ear on that side of her head. When her burger came, it looked a bit overdone. Not in the cooked department, it was a double-stack smashburger, you can’t fuck that up easily, but they really went overboard with the cheese, it was oozing out of the burger. Does dextro cheese behave differently when heated, so they overcompensated?

“-So be glad I’m not even going to break your limbs since you’re beating yourself up more than I ever could without killing you.” Penny turned her attention back to the situation when she turned her head that way, so she reactivated the ear on her right side to hear more clearly.

“Thank you, Garrus, but I heard. They’re all dead now, right? They can’t hurt anyone else?” Sidonis asked hopefully and Penny could understand that notion, of getting justice done.

“Yes. They’re all dead, courtesy of me and two of my old friends who showed up in time to save my ass. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. I remember you mentioning how the Citadel grated on you.” Garrus reassured his hopefully-a-friend-again and took a chomp of his burger.

“Well, now that I’m out of that life, I’ve found myself content just working at a local archive. I’ve even met this cute geth girl…” Sidonis admitted with his mandibles flaring in that familiar turian expression that was equivalent to a blushing smirk.

“Hold on. Is she a changeling model of geth?” Penny asked curiously and Sidonis blinked at her before nodding. “That’s one of my lover’s daughters, don’t break her heart.” Penny warned Sidonis grimly. While Nora and Yola may have been mass-reproducing to prepare for the war effort, not all of their children wanted to be soldiers and were given the freedom they deserved to pursue their desires.

“Perish the thought! Viola is too wonderful for me to even think of betraying.” Sidonis declared firmly and everyone nodded in approval of his conviction. “Well then, I do have to get to work now. Keep in touch, Garrus?”

“I’ll try. If you never hear from me again...it means I didn’t make it.” Garrus declared and the group got up to leave before Sidonis could demand what he meant.

[1001100 01101001 01101110 01100101]

“So, Shepard has finally returned.” Valern commented with approval in his tone mixed with disapproval. “Hopefully she has not been corrupted by Cerberus’ beliefs.”

“She would never bow down to someone else’s beliefs. Commander Shepard is too headstrong and self-determined to believe in anything other than what she thinks is right.” Anderson declared proudly, which Laiel could understand. She was once his subordinate and now she has become so bright a star that even though he still outranks her, she brings pride to his people.

“Commander Shepard is rather vocal in private company about her desires to destroy Cerberus, I wouldn’t be concerned with that.” Stated Pillar as the Doom Marines partook in this discussion, at the request of the Council. Their helmets off to show their faces. Laiel was puzzled by their being human, but it involved extra-dimensional shenanigans of some sort that he was leaving well-enough alone.

“They’re worrywarts, Uncle Pillar, they can’t help it.” Medulla beamed brightly at the man who was apparently her great-many-times step-uncle.

“Would they even believe me if I said I was born a human? They seem to have a hard time believing that. Then again, it’s probably the hair and eye coloration. It’s not commonly found in Humanity outside fantasy.” Berserker snorted as he referred to their unique physical traits: silvery-white hair and blood red eyes.

“Forgive us that we’ve found the science of inter-dimensional travel to be nigh impossible in the thousands of years we’ve been researching.” Avetora replied in deadpan.

“Trust us; you’d wish it stayed that way.” Berserker retorted before a primitive wooden door appeared behind The Doom Marines and from it emerged a bird-focused draconequus the council recognized as Hermais from the few times they had barged in on parties or other diplomatic meetings.

Laiel considered Hermais a they because they were male right now even though more often than not they are female. At least he could see Medulla as female even in male form because she is too overpoweringly feminine in either gender. “Heya! Heard some doubters of basic Imperial knowledge. Please refer to the Imperial Treatise on Lawful Use of Dimensional Anomalies.” Hermais then slammed the door and it vanished. “Hey everybody!”

“Hey sweetie, how are you doing?” Runner asked as the chaotic entity hovered up to smooch her cheek.

“Doing good. Things are in motion. If everything continues on this path we might not all die horribly and end up stuffed inside of ancient machines.” Hermais declared cheerfully as they sat on the hovered with their hands on the woman’s shoulders and she didn’t even seem to notice their weight.

“Could you please not just barge in on official meetings?” Laiel asked in exasperation. Damned imperial space-hoppers made security a logistical nightmare.

“There are things far beyond all of our comprehension, that even science will struggle to make sense of.” Runner shook her head in amusement as she scratched Hermais’s chin, making them purr.

“This is all off topic. Where is Shepard?” Anderson asked and the doors opened with Penny in the lead of her group. “Well, I just walked right into that one didn’t I?” Anderson asked with faint amusement.

“So, what’d I miss?” Commander Shepard questioned as she stood at the second podium.

“Well, good to see you’re adjusting well.” Hermais commented, but Berserker pinched her beak shut with his fingers. Laiel raised his brow at the suspicious comment, but whatever it was seemed personal to Shepard, he wasn’t going to pry.