by Cole Price
“Then what happened to it in your cycle? Why didn’t you deploy it?”
“We were sabotaged from within. A splinter group argued that we should attempt to dominate the Reapers rather than destroy them.”
“Is that even possible?”
“In theory. The Crucible is capable of altering the software substrate underlying the Reaper cognitive matrix. The difficulty lies in predicting what changes to make to seize control. No such knowledge was available to us. The separatist plan was doomed to failure, and in failing it shattered our order of battle. Later, we learned that the separatists were indoctrinated.”
“Rrrh. I always suspected as much,” muttered Javik.
I glanced at Shepard. “That sounds almost like the Illusive Man, and his obsession with controlling the Reapers.”
He nodded in agreement. “Not to mention that he and all of Cerberus are probably indoctrinated too.”
“This is not a surprise. Our studies of past eras led us to believe that certain patterns persist from cycle to cycle. The same peaks of evolution, the same valleys of dissolution. The same conflicts express themselves in every cycle, different only in contingent detail. The level of similarity is too great to be the result of random chance.”
“The Intelligence that the Leviathans built,” I murmured. “It keeps setting up the same situation, hoping that one day the cycle will somehow yield different results.”
“If I understand your reference, yes. We suspected some force stood behind the Reapers, acting as the master of the cyclic pattern, its presence inferred rather than observed. The only thing certain is its intention: galactic annihilation. You now stand at that precipice.”
I frowned in deep thought.
Interesting, that Vendetta doesn’t know about the Intelligence. The Protheans must never have encountered Leviathan. At least not knowingly.
“There’s still hope for this cycle,” Shepard objected. “Tell us what the Catalyst is, how to integrate it into the Crucible. Trillions of lives are at risk.”
“Trillions of lives are always at risk. If the Reapers have already arrived to end your cycle, this discussion is futile.”
“No!” Shepard folded his arms, staring at the hologram. “We can break the cycle. We found your plans for the Crucible. We’ve almost completed it.”
“Your assumptions are faulty. The Crucible is not of Prothean design. It is the work of countless cycles, stretching back millions of years. Each cycle adds to it. Each improves upon it. Thus far, none have successfully defeated the Reapers with it.”
“Then we’ll be the first,” said Shepard. “Tell us what the Catalyst is.”
“Listen to the human,” said Javik. “He can be trusted.”
Shepard’s head snapped to the side, and he stared at Javik. He probably had never expected anything but cynical pessimism from the Prothean.
“I detect that you are one of us. You are Prothean.”
“The last. Javik Taran, Commander First Class of the Arm of the Unity. I am the final hope to avenge our people.”
“You and your mission are known to me. Do you believe this present cycle can deliver proper retribution?”
“I believe they have earned the right to try.”
“Tell us what we need to know,” said Shepard quietly.
“Very well. If you have followed the plans for the Crucible in detail, I will interface with your systems and provide support for integration with the Catalyst . . .”
Then the VI stopped, motionless and silent for a long moment. I had just enough time to exchange a worried glance with Shepard.
“Indoctrinated presence detected,” said Vendetta. “Activating security protocol.”
The hologram dissolved back into the form of a shimmering sphere, drifting back over toward the beacon.
Suddenly I became aware of a bright light, shining into the Temple’s interior from the entrance. I turned, squinting, not sure of the source. It didn’t seem like anything the Reapers would produce.
A single figure stood silhouetted against the light. Human, male, rather short and compact. Wearing a suit of light armor that bore the Cerberus insignia. Not making any hostile move, not yet.
Shepard’s voice was full of loathing. “You.”
All of us drew our weapons.
“What do you want?” Shepard demanded.
“Your attention,” said Kai Leng.
Chapter 49 : Fall
15 June 2186, Temple of Athame, Armali/Thessia
“Someone would like to talk to you,” said Kai Leng. He reached behind his back to produce a projector drone, tossing the device at us with a gentle underarm throw. Once it became active, he turned to walk away, utterly disinterested.
The drone drifted toward us, shimmering with light, creating an image: a male human in a fashionable business suit, standing in the midst of the Temple.
The Illusive Man.
“Shepard,” he said, not yet glancing at the rest of us.
“How did you find this place?” Shepard demanded, putting his weapon away for the moment.
“The Mars Archives, of course.” Now he did look to the side, his eyes lighting on me with a gleam of malice. “Or did your Shadow Broker miss that one?”
“Show yourself,” I said coldly. “I promise I won’t miss.”
“Stick to your talents, Dr. T’Soni,” he said, his image appearing to walk forward until he could reach up toward the Vendetta hologram with one illusory hand. “You’ve helped uncover the key to subjugating the Reapers.”
“Or destroying them,” Shepard said calmly.
“Damn it, Shepard!” The Ilusive Man whirled, stared at Shepard, and began to pace back and forth. “Destroying the Reapers gains us nothing.”
“I don’t know. How about peace? How about our survival? I wouldn’t call those nothing.”
“Our survival isn’t at stake,” said the lllusive Man, causing all three of us to stare at him in raw disbelief. “The Reapers aren’t after our destruction. They just want to control us. Think about it. If they wanted to destroy all organic life, they could do it. There would be nothing left.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Shepard demanded, beginning to lose his temper.
“I know them, Shepard. I understand how they think.”
“I think you’ve gotten a little too close to the enemy.”
“Your reasoning is flawed,” I put in. “Our encounter with the Leviathans told us a great deal about the origins and purposes of the Reapers. They are not interested in controlling us in any coherent sense, Mr. Harper. Their only intention for us is complete annihilation.”
As usual, the Illusive Man showed a flash of irritation at my use of his true name. “Those so-called Leviathans didn’t give you anything to substantiate their claims, Dr. T’Soni. I’m surprised to see a scientist of your caliber accepting subjective and second-hand accounts as solid evidence.”
“Ordinarily I would not,” I said coldly. “On the other hand, we have more than enough objective evidence to demonstrate that the Reapers are out to see every one of us dead. The fact that you maintain otherwise leads me to question your sanity.”
“I won’t be questioned, Doctor.” He seemed visibly angry now. “My mind is as clear as it ever was. More than clear enough to get the better of a traitor like you.”
“That remains to be seen.” I stepped up next to Shepard, stared into the Illusive Man’s glowing eyes. “I will stipulate that you don’t appear to be suffering from any ordinary form of mental illness. You are behaving as if thoroughly indoctrinated.”
Shepard nodded slowly. “You sound a lot like Saren did, just before Sovereign filled him full of Reaper tech. Convinced that some way existed for organics to survive the Reapers. Rationalizing away every fact that said otherwise.”
“I am nothing like Saren. I have no intention of surrendering to the Reapers, Shepard.”
“Call it what you please,” said Shepard, his voice gone very intense, his
will focused on making the Illusive Man understand. “You’ve spent too much time close to them. They’ve dragged you so far over to their way of thinking, it doesn’t matter whether you believe you’re opposing them or not. If you’re not careful, they will own you, and every action you take will be in support of their ultimate goals.”
“If that has not happened already,” muttered Javik. “Our own separatists believed themselves the bitterest opponents of the Reapers. They fought us with great determination. In so doing, they ensured the Reapers’ victory.”
Shepard nodded. “If you truly care about humanity, you will stop fighting me. You’ll join me. Join the alliance we’ve built.”
For an instant, I thought the Illusive Man actually considered Shepard’s words. Then his face closed down once more. “Don’t ever question my intentions, Shepard. I’ve sacrificed more for humanity than you will ever understand . . . and don’t assume you know me. My methods for dealing with the Reapers are simply more refined than yours.”
Shepard shook his head in disgust. “You’ve forgotten everything you ever stood for. Cerberus was supposed to be humanity’s sword. Not a dagger in our back.”
“Poetic, but as usual you miss the point. You can’t beat the Reapers with blunt force, and since that’s all you have, you will never beat them.”
“With the data in this Prothean beacon, I can end this conflict, once and for all.” Shepard leaned in, staring at the Illusive Man from what would have been deep inside his personal space. “You’re either with me or against me. Make up your mind.”
“Done.” The Illusive Man’s image turned and began to walk away from us, back to where Kai Leng paced back and forth. The assassin had his sword in his hand now, moving like a carnivore waiting for a chance to kill. “Leng, the Commander has something I need. Please relieve him of it, and then bring me the data.”
The hologram shimmered and vanished. Naked once more, the projector drone returned itself to Kai Leng’s hand.
“Understood,” said the assassin, pocketing the drone. Immediately he dropped into a combat stance, about twenty meters away from us, keeping all of us in his field of vision.
He did not attack, merely waited for us.
On the other hand, when a storm of gunfire and biotic energy swept down on him, he did dodge aside from some and put up a solid barrier to block the rest. Even Shepard’s first flare didn’t do any obvious damage.
Shepard gestured to us. We advanced, Shepard up the middle of the aisle, Javik fanning out to his right, me slightly behind him and to the left. We continued to attack Kai Leng with everything we had, and although he showed no signs of worry, he still refused to press an attack of his own.
A roar of noise. White light shone into the Temple from outside again, blindingly bright. Javik seemed unaffected, and Shepard simply tossed his head to slam down his polarized faceplate, but I had to squint my eyes nearly shut. Kai Leng seemed to vanish into the glare.
Then a storm of gunfire slammed into the Temple.
The three of us barely escaped with our lives, diving for cover as something filled the Temple’s interior with death. I found myself separated from Shepard for a moment, as I crouched behind a row of empty seats.
What is that? A gunship, hovering just outside?
It seemed to last forever. I didn’t dare peek out, for fear that exposing my head even slightly would result in its being torn off. I lost track of my friends, lost track of Kai Leng.
I’m not sure what prompted me to look down. Perhaps some part of my mind processed the odd sensation when I shifted my weight, tried to move my hand a few centimeters.
The slight stickiness of the floor, there where I knelt in hiding.
Why is the floor here purple?
Then I gasped in horror, as I saw the deep-indigo stains on my fingers, the palm of my hand, my knees.
I crouched in the middle of a pool of half-dried blood. Asari blood.
I peered under the row of seats where I hid, and came face-to-face with a dead asari.
I recognized her. Matriarch Thessala, once my mother’s partner in their secret cabal, later one of my political adversaries. One of the Matriarchs who knew at least a little about the Reapers, and had kept that knowledge hidden from the galaxy for centuries.
Her eyes were open, her teeth exposed in a rictus of horror, her face twisted with rage. A great gash had been sliced open in her throat.
Now that I was almost on the floor, I could see two more bodies stuffed under the row of seats with Thessala. Two asari I didn’t recognize, wearing jackets typical for scientists.
I barely noticed that the gunfire had stopped, that the light from the Temple’s entrance had withdrawn once more. My mind was leaping forward, a chain of deductions unspooling like lightning.
“Damn it!” a distant part of me heard Shepard shout. “Where the hell did he go?”
Thessala and the scientific team came to meet us after all.
Someone got here first. Killed them. Hid them where we would be unlikely to spot them at first.
Then they put the kinetic barrier back up, so we wouldn’t suspect anything.
I pushed myself back to my knees, leapt to my feet, looking frantically around me.
“Shepard! Watch out! It’s a . . .”
A flicker of movement, much too close. Then a tactical cloak dropped and Kai Leng stood before me.
I had just enough time to start calling up my biotics, bringing my sidearm to bear.
Then his sword lashed out and ran me through.
I stood there, my eyes wide with panic, my mouth open in a soundless scream, impaled on the assassin’s blade. The pain felt incredible.
I could still hear my pulse, so I guessed he had missed my heart, but it seemed quite likely that he had sliced open something else vital. Some cool, detached part of my mind said: Liara T’Soni, you are dead.
I looked into his face, and saw just a hint of satisfaction.
“Liara!” Shepard’s voice, raw with terror.
Leng turned away, whipping the sword back out of my body, and I collapsed like a sack of wet sand.
Suddenly I had an uncontrollable urge to cough. Fresh indigo blood splashed onto the floor, not much, but enough to tell me I was in serious trouble. It took all my willpower not to cough more than once.
My sidearm had fallen out of nerveless fingers. I didn’t know where it had gone, and I didn’t bother to search for it. Instead, with the hand that wasn’t clamped to the entry wound in my torso, I reached up and triggered the medi-gel tab on my jacket.
That helped. The external bleeding stopped at once, and the pain receded. I tried not to think about internal bleeding, a collapsed lung, maybe one of the big blood vessels in my torso severed.
You may be dying, but you’re not dead yet. Get up!
Sounds of combat, not far away. The scuffle and thud of bodies running, jumping, slamming into one another. Shepard growling his hatred and rage, like a great angry beast.
Somehow I pushed myself up on one elbow, gasping for air the whole time, and looked around.
I saw no sign of Javik. Shepard stood a few meters away, engaged in close-quarters combat with Kai Leng. The assassin backed away slowly, sword and kinetic barriers deployed in a defensive pattern. Shepard absolutely blazed with blue-white light, enough biotic power in hand to crush Leng.
Except that he couldn’t quite hit the assassin.
Powerful blows, spinning kicks, eruptions of biotic force, blasts from the Claymore: Kai Leng somehow dodged or deflected every attack, sometimes by the narrowest margins, but always by just enough to avoid Shepard’s wrath.
Oh Shepard. It’s a trap. All of this is a trap. He has you fighting in a rage.
I tried to call out, but I just couldn’t get enough air for more than a bloody gasp.
Too late. I saw the moment when the jaws of the trap closed.
Kai Leng had led Shepard some distance away from me, out into one side of the sanctuary.
One hand flashed back to the assassin’s belt, came up with a small device, just large enough to fit comfortably in his palm. His thumb opened a safety cap, and then clamped down on the button it had just exposed.
The explosions felt like the end of the world. I felt myself thrown about like a limp bundle of rags.
The Temple, mortally wounded, shook and threatened to topple.
I collapsed again, my arms up in a futile attempt to shield my head from falling debris.
Kai Leng, forewarned, could leap back to the central aisle. Somehow, by some accident or malicious intent, that part of the sanctuary floor remained intact. The assassin remained safe.
Great spans of the sanctuary floor to either side cracked, crumbled, collapsed, dropped into the depths beneath the Temple. Priceless artifacts, many thousands of years old, fell to be crushed.
Shepard fell with them, vanishing into chaos.
Given more air, I would have screamed my denial and loss.
I think I must have lost consciousness for a few moments. When I came to again, somewhat surprised to find myself still alive, quiet reigned over the shattered Temple.
I rolled onto my back, blinking furiously to clear my faded vision, and then froze.
Kai Leng stood over me, looking down at me with cool detachment, probably deciding whether to finish me off. After a moment, he contented himself with a sarcastic comment.
“Cerberus thanks you for all your hard work.”
Then he turned his back and left me.
I knew I couldn’t stop him. I had other concerns in any case.
The space seemed very wide, between me and where I had last seen Shepard.
Slowly, painfully, pausing every few moments to cough and splatter more blood on the floor, I crawled.
Outside the Temple, I could hear an engine roar, fading into the distance. Kai Leng, getting away with whatever he had come for.
I glanced at the Prothean beacon, still shimmering in the distance. No sign of the Vendetta hologram. Doubtless the assassin had taken it.
I shook my head, ignoring the darkness that threatened to close down on my vision, and crawled on. Four meters. Six.
