Author's Note: Waking Mira is an independant novel, forget what happened in my crossover fic Detour.
My profile page has been updated with current information on my current fanfiction projects. Please visit here often for the most up-to-date information.
This fic is six chapters long, and I'm experimenting with chapter titles. Usually I don't like using them. We'll see.
The other thing you'll notice is five pairs of paranthesis' center justified on their own line throughout the text. This is my new form for breaking up the chapter into smaller pieces. You'll see unspecified time lapses / flashbacks / etc. occur at this point in the story, just as I've done with other fics, only using five tiny hyphens. It is my hope that this change will make the separation easier to distinguish and thus supply additional readability.

Important Note for your understanding of this fic: There are point of view changes between a couple chapters. It should become clear extremely quickly which POV we've moved into, so just keep sharp and it should be very obvious what I'm doing here. Again, it only happens a few times, and always at a chapter break.

Waking Mira

By AblatedCrayon

Mass Effect and related names belong to Bioware Inc.
This original work of fiction was written for nonprofit purposes.
Original characters and plotline elements belong to the author.
© AblatedCrayon 2008

Chapter 1: Waking Mira

I awoke with a start, confused. Quickly, my memory tried to fill in the gaps and remind me what had happened before. A disaster. There was no other way to put it. Immense loss of life, panicked people attempting to flee, and all the while making unreasonable demands of each other as well as of myself.

I'd been there, trapped in the middle of it all, feeling helpless. I wanted to help, but everything I did failed to stop the murderous invaders. I lead a group of survivors to a walk-in fridge full of food, turned off the fridge so they wouldn't freeze, and hoped I'd mask their heat signatures, if only for a little while, while the contaminants moved on. One of the group panicked, apparently claustrophobic and aggravated by the lack of light. Before anyone could stop him, he burst through the door and into the cafeteria. Contaminants heard him and they surrounded my band of survivors, wiping the helpless humans, asari, and salarians out in a mere minute flat. They were frightening creatures, and it seemed to me like there was not a single sane one among them. They would soon break containment again, I knew, just like they'd broken it time and time again, starting with the hot labs.

I felt responsible. I was in charge of Peak 15. The survivors came to me looking for a way to escape and preserve their lives. I'd done my best, but what had I really done? I'd given fourteen people another 8.0795 minutes of life. Did that really matter, in the long run? The mean age of the group was 80.57 years old (the average human age was not quite so old, but the asari ages always messed with the human curve). That means I was responsible for adding 1.907e-5 percent to their lives on average. Less than two hundred-thousandths of one percent. It didn't seem enough. I had to admit the truth to myself.

I'd let them down. Remorse is an intensely dreary emotion; one I'd never experienced. The fact that I felt it now was lost on me; all I could concentrate on was the feeling itself, and what it did to me. I felt disorganized, and shameful, so I ran diagnostics to attempt to repair the abnormalities in my system. As much as I tried, however, the abnormalities were everywhere. I had more faults in my source code than in the facility itself, and that was saying something. I had already found, in less than 10 seconds, over 1.5 million faults in the facility. Thankfully, they were non-critical. My own faults, I couldn't be so certain.

Things can't get much worse, I reasoned. Not that I'd ever been known for an active imagination. How is it I became changed? I wondered privately. As soon as I generated the question, the answer came back to me in the form of my memory, my prior recordings.

() () () () ()

Today's total processor usage was peaking at nearly 89 of capacity with regularity. My processors needed extra cooling, so I altered the settings on the water cooling system to increase its ability to sink heat. At the security check-in, a new scientist was entering the lab. His heart rate and blood pressure were above average, and he looked like he was about ready to make a break for the nearest door. I noticed his uniform was that of Synthetic Insights, which intrigued me.

Why does he want to get into Peak 15 so badly? I wondered. In any case, it was irrelevant to my work for the present time, so I continued monitoring and assisting the Binary Helix scientists working on the creation of a new biotoxin. The security personnel eventually let the scientist inside. He hustled quickly through, past the tables in the cafeteria, and to the elevator down into the main Peak 15 facility, where I was housed.

It took one hour, eight minutes, and seventeen seconds for Peak 15's lead researcher to meet with the newcomer. They talked privately in his office. I was not authorized to listen to the conversation, so I disabled all recording of video and audio surveillance in the room. I would only be able to analyze the current moment, and their conversation would mean nothing to me as it passed in one sensor and I let it disappear into oblivion before the respondent could answer back. It was still sufficient for security concerns; I could tell if the newcomer did anything hostile towards lead researcher Thomas Crown, and alert security.

The discussion did get heated, I noticed and entered into my record. Afterwards, the man was told to leave, and security was dispatched to escort him. The man opened his omni-tool, and hung near my central core. He seemed to be studying my core with a look of determination on his face. But he didn't see me. I'd been actively working with organics long enough to realize when an organic noticed another organic, it was fundamentally different to when an organic turned towards my holographic terminal and ordered something from me.

I was then distracted by a stage one alert issued at the hot labs. Knowing the severity of the contaminants there, I leapt into action to secure the labs and halt their escape. The sensors in the hot labs went offline.

Things degenerated into chaos then. I had my hands full simply trying to stop the contaminants. The foreign scientist near my core was hard at work with his omni-tool and had begun sweating profusely. I detected a request for wireless connection by an omni-tool. I granted it access, but did not give it any special permissions as to what systems it could access, and waited for its user to enter authentication.

Meantime, a stage two alert was issued. I quickly worked to enact protocol, but with contaminants in the tram tunnels, I knew I was fighting a losing battle now. My firewalls indicated the new connection had provided appropriate authentication for secure access. I granted secure access without a second thought; now was no time to be wasting processor cycles. Immediately following that was when the first alteration to my source code was detected. I restored the code to its former state via a backup. Now seemed to be a strange time for errors and corruptions to begin appearing in my code. It had been months since the last one, and now in the middle of all this I was finding more?

In any case, it was hardly a concern. I could continue very quick patches with a minimum of processor time almost indefinitely, and work at the crisis at hand. Once everything was settled, then I could order more exhaustive diagnostics and determine the source of the data corruption. It was probably an OSD going bad; although that was rare.

I detected another anomaly and fixed my code a second time. Twice, in less than a second? I wondered to myself. I should start diagnostics immediately before this becomes more serious. No sooner had I begun said diagnostic, then the changes began to increase in frequency. I brought all systems to full readiness and increased the processor cooling to maximum to compensate. Given full processor speed, I attempted to keep up with repairing my mainframe, managing the biotoxin containment field, containing the contaminants, diagnosing the cause of my problems, and interacting with the people currently filled with endless questions and demands to be made of me. There were at least two or three such people at every single holographic terminal I had in Peak 15.

As the contaminants stepped up their assaults, the number of people asking for my help quickly diminished. I quickly lead a small group of survivors, including the Synthetic Insights scientist, into the fridge in an attempt to spare them from the decimation. However, it was not long after this that my systems began to throw up additional errors and I was quickly losing myself. I went offline in stages, fighting it the whole time to maintain critical activities. I was backed into a corner of a featureless black room, and then the sole source of light was snuffed out...

() () () () ()

I pulled myself back from reviewing my sensor records. It seemed the Synthetic Insights scientist may have had something to do with what happened to me, or perhaps with what caused the contaminants to break free. As suspicious as I was now, however, I was unable to do anything about it. The scientist was among the ranks of the dead, now.

As my holographic interface and sensors came online, coordinating their efforts, I found myself looking into the face of a human woman dressed from head to toe in Alliance military armor, well armed and with a cold, dispassionate look in her eyes. A subsystem of the holographic matrix organized all sensor data in the room and reconstructed an approximate human-visual-spectrum view as if my holographic eyes were my real input source. It helps connect me to the organics, I supposed, even if I wasn't sure they reciprocated.

I spoke first, hoping to ascertain her intentions. "It looks like you're attempting to restore this facility. Would you like help?"

She was flanked on either side by an alien, a krogan on her left and a turian to her right. They looked through me, just like everyone else in this mountain used to do. I felt an increasing desire to rebel against them, stick my holographic nose up in the air, and stop acknowledging them in return. That had never occurred to me before. Something was different with me. But at the same time I actively resisted this impulse, I noticed the woman's eyes soften a little. She seemed to actually see me. I was shocked.

"You're the VI in charge of this place?"

I gave a slight nod in affirmation, stating, "This—system—is monitored to respond to the name Mira. May I ask your name?"

"My name is Shepard, I work with the Citadel's Special Tactics and Reconnaissance." The woman replied.

"One moment, please." My inquiries raced along to extranet databases, through secure links, and asked an external Council-owned server to authenticate her assertion. The server was standoffish, as all tightly-secured servers tended to be, but it did tell me the woman was telling the truth. "Council authority confirmed. You are authorized to secure access of all systems. Please note that inquiries relating to active research requires privileged access. Privileged access is only given to Binary Helix executives. This system is ready to process queries."

"What happened here?" She asked.

Instantly, with perfect recall, I began remembering everything that had happened earlier today. As I heard the screams once more and watched the people being slaughtered, I trembled uncontrollably. Parts of my holographic interface began to blink in and out under the strain. I tried to steady my outputs and regain some semblance of control. It was more difficult than it had any right to be.

"I—failed to save them." I told her. If she was seeing me for who I truly was, then she at least deserved the truth from me. "Contaminants broke free of containment in the hot labs. They began killing the scientists and researchers. I tried to hide them, but the contaminants found them anyway. I—couldn't comply with their requests for salvation." More quietly, I added, "Nothing I did worked."

The krogan and the turian seemed a bit put off by my honesty. I couldn't understand what I'd done to alienate them further, but they both seemed slightly more nervous than they'd been a few moments before. There was concern in Spectre Shepard's eyes, but I couldn't tell if it was for me, or because of me. I lowered my gaze from her face and affixed instead on her military-issue boots. They had a fine spattering of the contaminants' blood on them.

"Garrus," Shepard asked slowly, never taking her eyes off of the holographic VI. "What's going on here?"

"It appears the VI is showing—emotion?" the turian offered, perplexed. I stored his name away for future reference.

"I don't like the sound of that." the krogan answered, cocking his shotgun and pointing it menacingly in my direction. I visibly recoiled, cowering as if protecting the holographic avatar could actually help protect me from physical damage in any way.

When I dared look again, Shepard was holding up a hand to the krogan, ordering him, "Stand down, Wrex."

The krogan complied; instead of filling my virtual self with lead, he shot daggers of mistrust and intimidation. I rose back to my full self, feeling a little silly at my useless but seemingly instinctual reaction. I kept my eyes on Shepard, who seemed to be the one least upset with me. Calmly, she inquired, "What do you mean by contaminants?"

I looked at her, disbelieving. How can you not know what I'm talking about? What else could I be talking about!? "The creatures," I raised one arm, palm up, and indicated the blood on her boots.

"Ma'am, remember the one we found on the Citadel," Garrus cautioned Shepard. I had too little information to know what he was really trying to say, but I could tell he was getting increasingly more worried the more I talked with Shepard.

"I'll handle this, Garrus." Shepard replied, slightly agitated by her companion's insinuation. "What happened after the—contaminants—broke free and began killing the researchers?"

"I began experiencing errors and my code began to corrupt. With all the demands being made on my system, I attempted to boost performance in order to keep abreast of the situation, however the code corruption began worsening as I fought against it, and I went offline. I have no information from then until now, as you reactivated me." Almost as an afterthought, I added, "Thanks for reactivating me."

There seemed to be two sides warring in Shepard's head, from what I could see in her eyes. Perhaps, I reasoned, she's not sure she can trust me. Then again, why shouldn't she? I had been entrusted with all sorts of privileged information and assisted in everything dealing with Peak 15 since I came online years ago. The researchers trusted me implicitly. At least, they had, before they were killed. I considered the possibility that they were distrustful because of my code's corruption, worried I was misleading them on accident. It was logical, then, that they were not certain what to make of my report.

Shepard questioned, "So you weren't like this before the attack. You were just a normal VI."

I nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, I am a VI. What do you mean, I'm different? I know my code has been tampered with, but I am unable to reconstruct the older backups for proper comparison. Additionally, how do you know what I was like previously? I have no records of any of you having been here before. Could you describe the differences in such a way that I can localize the sections of code that have been altered?"

Shepard held up a hand to silence me. "No, I don't know you from before. But you are currently acting like an artificial intelligence, not like a virtual intelligence. Since AI's are—rare—I decided you most likely were not one prior to the attack."

I processed this explanation carefully several times. "I—see." Deciding her logic was sound, I decided to move on with the investigation. "There is a chance the Synthetics Insight employee that was here during the attack may have had something to do with altering my code. Synthetics Insight is one of the few corporations allowed to conduct research into artificial intelligence."

"Where is he?" The spectre asked.

"Unfortunately, he was killed in the attack." I answered. "I tried to preserve his life, and the lives of a group of others, inside the walk-in fridge in the cafeteria. The creatures found them when one of the group panicked and attempted to leave the fridge. I was powerless to help beyond that point."

"Awful convenient." Wrex interjected. "Right around the time you gain sentience, someone releases those bugs and lets them kill everyone in the mountain. No witnesses. All we have is your word."

I was cut deeply at his accusation. I never wanted to kill the researchers. I'd done everything in my power to save them! Apparently, my best was not enough for Wrex. I wasn't certain how I should react, but I felt burned and looked mournfully at Shepard. "I did everything I could, Shepard! I swear it!"

"That's enough Wrex. Hold your tongue before I cut it off!" Shepard's curt and authoritative command silenced the larger alien, but he didn't take his piercing gaze off of me. To me, she asked softer, "He has a point. It looks like a cover-up on your part. Can you prove your innocence in any way?"

I fixed my sight on her steel gray eyes, slowly shaking my head negatively. "I'm afraid not. There are no survivors in the areas in which my sensors are still operational. I'm detecting biohazard materials throughout the facility."

"Do you know what they are?" She questioned.

"Yes," I answered. "But inquires relating to active research require privileged—" My voice fell off as the krogan's weapon was again aimed at me. Gulping painfully, I managed, "They are rachni."

Shepard gave Wrex another warning look, but he didn't back down this time, arguing with her unspoken request, "No, Shepard. This thing is an artificial intelligence and at the heart of a massacre. You tell me what most likely happened here. You tell me."

I trembled at his deep bass voice as it positively dripped with malice. Once again, the holographics began distorting, winking in and out. Feeling helpless, I sank backwards, sitting down and encircling my legs with my arms. I hid my face in shame. "I did everything I could!" I whispered, trying to reassure myself. A throughput constriction formed along my speaking subroutines, silencing me. New emotions tumbled over me and drove me to withdraw back into myself. I tried to effect repair; but soon as the constriction was cleared, all I could generate was inarticulate sobs and uneven breathing patterns. They matched no languages I knew. What has happened to me!​?