Chapter 26 ~ Into the Void (II)

A little nudge.

I lifted my head.

Unclenched my blood-caked fists.

Blinked.

Cleared my tear-blurred vision.

Exhaled.

Fuck me. I had come too far to give up now. Sacrificed too much. Too many...

A sliver of warmth.

They could still be alive as well.

Another step.

Another faint nudge.

Yes. He was right. I had to keep going.

I climbed the top of the Citadel Tower, accompanied by my own hysterical laughter. Oh, if only the Council could see me now; violating their precious orders in every possible way to save the day. Hello déjà-fucking-vu.

I limped on. A one arm-span wide spherical metal construct hovered perhaps four feet above the Tower. So awfully close and yet... I craned my neck. Nope, no beep, no blink no nothing.

Instead I drew nearer, and as if to mock me, an oddly familiar hum suddenly radiated from the silvery sphere. Its surface… crawled. I stopped my trembling hands before I realized I had lifted them. I frowned, my palms mere inches off the shiny surface that looked a damn lot like covered in swirling quicksilver. I frigging knew had seen this thing before. But where?

Dreams.

It's been in my dreams since Eden Prime.

It was Prothean.

My frown deepened. If the Protheans had indeed designed this control unit or whatever it was, it was likely keyed to their physiology and not...

And again me and my observations got mocked.

The hum grew louder until it turned into an almost hypnotic pulse.

Arrg, fuck this. Just fuck this.

Both of my palms connected with the cold liquid and the sphere reacted.

Energy zapped from my fingertips through my whole body. I felt like shocked with a living wire. Little flashes of light covered the sphere, then built up until an arc of energy sprang over. Then raced from the Crucible into the Citadel and back. My palms felt icy hot. I tried to move but couldn't pull away. Needles. Familiar needles started to prickle underneath my skin. The blood drained from my face. And a piece of the puzzle slid into place.

"Oh gods..." I whispered, "It's the Beacon..."

The Beacon I had touched all those years back on Eden Prime.

It had never been Cerberus who enhanced my biotic abilities.

It was the beacon.

The relic had been more than a mere transmitter to broadcast the Prothean's warnings. It had triggered something in me; a biological process that had altered the neuronal connections in my brain so they would match the aliens'. And each contact had changed me a little bit more, made the images the beacons broadcasted a little bit clearer. The Protheans had been strong biotics and by reprogramming my synapses, the paths were opened for my ability as well.

And eventually, for Harbinger.

The energy swelled. Roared within my brain like a thunderstorm, swallowing me and my sight in a column of bright white light. Dimly I noticed how the ground shifted below my feet. Then my senses dulled. My body became weightless. My wounds distant. My mind… soared. Disconnected from my physical form I felt myself disintegrate.

And again, there was something familiar within the disturbing otherworldliness. Close to what I initially experienced while messing around with the Geth Consensus on Rannoch. Only this time there was no safety net, no Legion to cushion my fragile organic brain against the sheer inconceivability of entering the world of machines.

I no longer had a body.

No longer substance. Disoriented and bereft of any physical feedback I fought against the dissolution of my very self. Thread by thread I unraveled, each stripping away another piece of me.

Except… except this little bundle of foreign sensations; fainted by the distance but still so real... Solid. Strong. A weathered rock in midst of a storm. A mountain within a screaming hurricane.

On the verge of oblivion I grasped for the piece of him, turning it into the anchor that tied me to reality. Slowly, oh so slowly, the threads coiled back to me.

And then I felt them.

All of them.

As if the thousand eyes of a terrible god had suddenly snapped open, their gaze invaded every cell and fiber. Their presence was… immense. It saturated my being, made me feel as if my mind had expanded then shattered into a thousand fractures. All separated. Yet all connected.

Heaven help me…

The Crucible was never meant to be a weapon.

Not in the ordinary sense of the term. Like the Fighter Base with its pods on Rannoch it was meant to be an interface. An enormous interface that allowed a biological unit to access the very heart of the Reaper Consensus.

Pressure slammed into me, so forceful if I'd had a body here it would have been crushed. As it was, the countless voices of the Reaper entities drowned my bodiless self in a wave of noise. I pushed back with all my strength, fighting to keep myself afloat the relentless tide.

…Human…

…Enemy…

…The vessel…

…Vermin…

…Chaosbringer…

And then, one voice dominating them all.

Little Organic.

Suddenly the noise receded and Harbinger's crushing presence took over, pushing the other Reapers into the background.

How are you here?

Heck, as if I would know.

We sense you. You are human, and you are not. You are Servant, and you are not. You are known, and you are not. What are you?

Oh boy. If even an eon-old machine thinks you're a freak, you know how fucking far you're up shit creek-

Answer!

Pressure split into tendrils, trying to drill into my mind. I slapped them away.

Your resistance is meaningless. The fortification of your mind will not stop the inevitable. The Servants were in error. They bred the ability into their First Slaves in order to resist us. They changed nothing. The Slaves themselves culled the strength out of their race. But the Harvest will preserve their code without their genetic weakness.

Great, another lesson. Why me?

We have seen you, Little Organic.

Huh?

Through the optics of Nazara, the one you call Sovereign, we have observed.

Good thing we blasted at least that defective piece of malware to hell – The pressure on me increased with a violent surge.

Its Code could not be preserved.

There was an… odd distortion within the Reaper. If hadn't known better…

Before I could examine the phenomena any further, a different presence seemed to – virtually – butt in.

Chaosbringer. Why is your ship us and is not? Why is there pattern Alpha?

EDI…

Why does pattern match fragmented Nazara core? Why -

Enough!

The second "voice" got muted.

This Cycle has come to its end. Your interference means nothing, Shepard.

The distortion rippled again. As if parts of Harbinger's code were suddenly overloaded with wrong parameter. Lots of them.

You mean nothing.

You are vermin.

Again. It was…

Pain is your only destiny! We will tear you apart! Face your annihilation!

The pressure turned into a hot furious spike burning with the intensity of a hundred suns.

Hatred.

Harbinger hated me.

More, the machine despised me with a passion reserved only for the living. Figure this. So me throwing sticks had been that much of a nuisance, that it had forced the AI into developing an emotion, and the irrationality behind the notion was now screwing up its code. Because in contrast to EDI, Harbinger apparently lacked the proper framework to place and evaluate the experience.

My thoughts raced.

Separate and yet all connected. They were like Geth. A collective. A swarm. And maybe, maybe this was the key to turn their strength into weakness.

Because, despite all their intelligence and superiority, in the end, the Reapers were just machines.

Thank you, EDI.

Again I sensed the other reapers stir, their presences shifting and rubbing against my mind's boundaries. Could almost feel how their algorithms fired, their routines spitting out parameter after parameter as they tried to adapt and compensate for the disturbance caused by me, the so very alien intruder.

For better or worse, in this place, this very center of the collective, my actions would affect each and every one of them. Like… like the virus that had taken over the Geth heretics.

And suddenly I understood.

The Catalyst... the last piece that would finally unveil the Crucible's true purpose... It wasn't the Citadel. It was the very essence of the being that activated the interface and entered the collective.

The Catalyst was me.

I had worked so hard to hold up my barriers, to keep the machines away from myself and my deepest thoughts. But Harbinger was right. Fortifying my mind was of no use. I just doubted that this was what the AI had meant.

I suppressed my fear and let go of the guards that separated the Reapers from my very essence. I thought for a split second Harbinger realized that something was wrong but it was already too late.

If I had a face here my lips would have pulled up in a little diabolic smile.

For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at you!

I made way for Ivy to step in and let them feel it all.