Chapter Sixteen

Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect.

When I met up with Anderson, he told me that he's planning on personally sending me off to Ilos. I don't even want to go to Ilos nor do I see the point even if it was in that vision I had (which I'm still not convinced of) because there's no reason to believe that Saren is there or that it is important. Really, it's probably just a case of Ilos being one of those planets that the Reapers attacked. But I don't want to be here anyway and Anderson is threatening to get the Normandy ungrounded whether or not I go anywhere so I'm going to get in trouble for treason no matter what.

Well, actually, but 'I' I mean everyone but me since I'm a Spectre and the Council never told me anything. Maybe even just Anderson since everyone on the Normandy would be following my orders.

If he absolutely must.

He laid out two plans and only actually said the second when I said his first plan of hoping not to get shot by patrols when he's breaking into the ambassador's security was too dangerous. The plan he really wants to do is the one that involves him going to Udina's office (which, despite what he said, he knows will be occupied because Udina is always there unless he's talking to the Council) and punching him out before using Udina's computer to let me leave.

This plan has no chance of him getting immediately shot but he is so being charged for treason when we're done. Well, if it makes him happy.

And I'm also struggling to understand what Udina feels he is lacking if he has the power to just ground Spectres like that. Is this how the rest of the galaxy feels? Huh.

I was waiting with Joker in the cockpit not because I didn't have faith in Anderson no matter what anyone might say. But since I only stayed until we were cleared for takeoff, no one believed me.

I was mildly freaking out in my room because as much as I have the right to do whatever I want to, I don't want to upset the Alliance and upsetting the ambassador too much might do that. Besides, this is their ship so they can take it away from me and the only way I'm giving up the Normandy is if I'm dead. There, I said it.

Kaidan came by to stop me from freaking out and he said something both extremely sweet and extremely disturbing. He said that everything else, even the Reapers, will all come around again but he and I were important right then and would never happen again. So I was thinking, is he saying that he and I as a couple are unique and there will never be another pair exactly like us even as civilizations rise and fall at the hands of the Reapers or is he saying that we're just going to have sex the once?

Because if he was then I was still up for that but it was not really what I was hoping for.

So yeah, that happened.

I felt like kind of a creeper because I woke up earlier than Kaidan did and got dressed before just sort of staring at him and willing him to wake up. He didn't seem put out which was good because I'd probably have thrown something at him if he did that to me. I wonder if the power of my staring at him woke him up. I know that when I do that to waiters at restaurants, they don't even have to be looking my way for them to know to come over. And yes, maybe that's weird, too, but I maintain that it's better than waving ridiculously at them.

But anyway, right after Kaidan woke up (he literally could not get through saying one sentence to me in greeting) Joker buzzed in and said we were five minutes away from the Muu relay. Nobody actually believes he does that accidentally.

So I went off and fully intend to just not mention what happened and hope that nobody besides Joker knows. Joker sounded a little worried when he warned that there were other ships in the area but since we're in our super-expensive stealth mode our only threat is that someone might look out the window and I'm sure evil people don't bother looking out their windows in space.

My XO (I know his name, I swear I do, I just…can't quite recall it right now) said that the scanners were picking up some strange readings but I did not even bother asking about them. Instead, I ordered us to land but my XO wanted to make that all difficult, too. Apparently there wasn't enough space nearby or something so we'd have to do a suicide drop. Joker said it's not suicide if you don't suck and so we decided to try his plan.

And…we lived so I guess that was a whole bunch of arguing for nothing. I wonder why Joker didn't speak up before. Was he just trying to add to the drama? Because, if so, it worked.

We had to run around everywhere trying to find a way in because of stupid complicated security systems and a lack of a decent map. And my own tragic shortcomings here.

Eventually, we stumbled across this red flickering hologram thing and I was listening in annoyance to it repeating what seemed to be an ancient distress call or battlefield communication when everyone else started discussing how it wasn't surprising that no one understood this probably Prothean signal. I made sure to step as far away from Liara as I could without being obvious before I admitted that I understood it and she still nearly threw herself at me.

I'm surprised she didn't understand it, though, with all that time spent in my head and her carefully viewing every single image I ever got from the beacon. I guess this means that I've been changed in a more fundamental way that just seeing those strange images. I guess that's good because the visions continue to be utterly useless but I also feel kind of weird about the whole being fundamentally changed thing. I mean, who wouldn't, right?

They were all waiting on tenterhooks for me to translate something but really it was a bunch of garbled nonsense for the most part, like interference. I did catch something about the Citadel and being overwhelmed (maybe there was something to everyone's insistence that that was going to be attacked, after all). The Conduit – whatever that is – failed and all was lost. That's no help whatsoever.

After that we were happily driving around killing things in the Mako when we were trapped in on both sides but some weird energy field and Tali decided for some reason that she didn't think Saren had anything to do with this. Well okay then. There was a small door that opened up on one of the walls and so, though this was clearly a trap, we didn't have much else to do but go exploring. I really hoped that that wasn't how we'd die and it wouldn't be just that easy but I figured it was better to walk into a trap and die horribly than to just stand around waiting for people to die off so we could turn into the Donner Party and find out if, though we can't eat the same foods, we can safely eat each other. Or I guess maybe someone might get bored of waiting for us and come out to us but that would still take longer than just following the mysterious door.

We found another AI and this one was somehow able to communicate with all of us. I have to admit that I did resent that a little as I liked being the only one to know what was going on and dole out parcels of information at my leisure. But whatever.

It turns out that the Citadel is actually a giant Mass Relay and is set up in such a way that it encourages every new dominant species to use it and then the Reapers come through it and can kill everyone starting with the seat of government. They created the Keepers to keep things up and running so no one else learns what's going on. I don't know what kind of uncurious people have just accepted that the Keepers handle things and we must not interfere cycle after cycle but clearly the Council and it's stupid 'don't disturb the Keepers' law has a lot to answer for. I'm glad I helped what's-his-face scan them all.

I would like to remind everyone right here and now that I never trusted the Keepers.

Do I believe all of this? I don't know. I do know that since apparently none of us are indoctrinated (how this happened, or failed to happen, I couldn't tell you) and he said this was unlike some other that had passed through, he had probably met Saren and Saren could use Sovereign to wipe out the Citadel even without other Reapers existing so this is extremely serious.

The AI thinks that Reapers go into hibernation and are vulnerable while doing this and live at the edge of the galaxy until the Citadel Relay is activated and they are alerted to this. He said that once the government is destroyed, the Citadel can be used to knock out all interplanetary communications. He said that it took decades (and then amended it to centuries) for the Reapers to kill off every sentient species. Yeah, how the hell did it take a giant army of killing machines even one decade to wipe everything connected to the Citadel out? You would think those Mass Relays would be more useful than that. Or perhaps they just savored their chance to wipe out all life. I wonder about that. If I knew that Reapers were systematically destroying everything I would certainly stop having children but maybe not everyone is so forward-thinking and really would bring children into this world just to be killed by Reapers. I mean, stopping reproducing just makes the Reapers' job easier as they just have to wait for everyone to die off but I just couldn't have a child knowing it was going to be killed before it's time by giant scorpion ships.

Even though there was apparently no communication (or maybe they fixed it?) this AI seems to know all about what happened. They had a lot of problems with refugees because they were usually indoctrinated and helped kill everyone.

When the Reapers left they didn't kill the indoctrinated ones but they were so helpless they starved or faced death by exposure. Well okay then. I hadn't thought indoctrinated people were quite that helpless but maybe their current orders are 'keep yourself alive and x' and when the Reapers retreated there was no compulsion for them to live. How depressing.

But hey! Guess who finally found out what the Conduit is? And, against all odds, it's something useful, too. It's a backdoor to the Citadel that the Protheans created or something. I can understand why the Saren would not want that to be used by sane people not out to commit genocide but why waste all this time searching for it instead of just killing everyone? It turns out that there is actually an answer for that and it's called 'The Protheans weren't totally useless after all.' Those that survived went off to the Citadel (where they eventually probably starved to death) and found a way to block the signal that the Reapers sent to the Keepers to tell them to open up the Mass Relay and so Sovereign and Saren have to manually go in and fix it. Pretty clever of the Protheans. But more talk about decades! I'm starting to wonder if maybe that word does not mean what this AI seems to think it means.

Just for giggles, I asked about why the Protheans didn't surrender. He said it was because no one offered that because the Reapers wanted everything dead. Saren knows this so I don't know why he's being so stupid. Indoctrination, perhaps? Even their so-called indoctrinated 'allies' all died. I mean, unless he wants to be a Keeper or something…

And this AI still doesn't know what the Reapers want. Lame. I refuse to accept that their goal is so far beyond me that they can't even try to explain. They're probably a bunch of sociopaths.

There is a lot that the doesn't know about his own existence (like how he managed to stay hidden) but you know what he does know? The horrific history of how everyone went into a cryogenic state and slowly, to save power, the life support pods were turned off and everyone but the top scientists – who were really bummed about this – were killed. Or at least allowed to die. My team was really outraged, too, but I don't know what they expect. It was impossible to keep everyone alive. They can judge all you want, literally nothing else could have been done.

I mean, I get that what happened was really horrifying but come on! Be reasonable. Demanding alternatives when the only other option was to let everyone die is really stupid.

The beacon was apparently an 'Is anyone still alive?' message that no one received but me. It was coded so only an organic could understand it but, well, indoctrinated. Or 'Damnit Saren!'

We have no way of knowing when Sovereign tried to trigger this cycle of extinction and the AI guessed it might have been a few centuries. So basically…we could have missed all of this and been the first race to the Citadel this cycle! And maybe, without all those stupid 'don't investigate' rules, we would have investigated the hell out of it and figured all of this out and stopped it! Or at least had 50,000 years of being in charge and none of this would be my problem!

Damnit, Protheans!

But what's done is done. Saren was not yet at the Conduit so we hurried to catch up with him. I found the whole thing very upsetting because we were actually in a hurry this time and literally had maybe thirty seconds to make it to the portal before it closed and the galaxy was destroyed forever. Geth tried to slow me down by attacking me but I literally ignored or ran over everything in my path. Who cares if I took heavy damage? This was important.

While I was going, I couldn't help but imagine fondly the moment when everyone realized I was totally right. I mean, if something had to come of this then at least there was that. Try to sideline me…

Although, technically, part of me wonders what the point was of going to Ilos at all. Sure I learned some cool new facts but did I really have to learn any of that? What if I had stayed and been there for the invasion? Surely I still could have done exactly what I had done. I mean, I guess maybe the Normandy would have had to sit that mission out because it was grounded but if everyone was evacuating the station (as they had by the time that I showed up) then surely Udina wouldn't have been so much of a dick that he would have made us stay behind. Right?

Actually, I'm not so sure about that.

The closest Avina I saw was badly damaged and pretty useless but who else could I ask? The Council evacuated on the Destiny Ascension, she can't find specific individuals, but she knew exactly where Saren was (by the Council chamber).

I went to go find him and he threw a grenade at me just like a comic book villain. I don't remember the name of the one I'm thinking of but he's the one who goes around on a hang glider like Saren is and throws grenades at people. So really, the comparison probably shouldn't have needed to be explained.

He said that he should thank me and then explained why he should not. I apparently made a big impression on him by repeatedly calling him an idiot back on Virmire. He wondered if I was right that he was clearly indoctrinated. Sovereign noticed this and implanted him so now he has no more doubts. If Saren weren't…well, I suppose it's unkind and technically inaccurate to call him an idiot so if he weren't indoctrinated then he'd realize that the story he's telling me is the story of how his indoctrination became complete.

Except, somehow, it wasn't. Everyone says that those who are indoctrinated want the Reapers to win and I've even seen a little bit of evidence of that myself. Saren has never shown any sign of wanting them to win. He just thinks there is no other choice. Maybe he's right that, even now, he needs to be more functional and so less indoctrinated (even with those implants far more indoctrinated people have never needed). Even as terribly indoctrinated as he is, he still insists that we have no chance.

It's symbiotic, he says. There is no stopping it, he says. And yet I keep hearing 'we could not stop it if we tried.'

Despite the fact that things are bleaker than I've ever seen them and I knew that logically I should just kill him (ideally in the middle of his ranting so it would be nice and easy) and get it over with, I couldn't stop trying to reach him.

Indoctrination just makes me so…I don't want to say 'sad' because that seems simplistic but I don't know how else to describe it. It's like with Talitha. Maybe they can never be unindoctrinated but I want to try anyway. I want them to try and to break through for even just a little and I kept arguing with Saren, kept asking him to trust me.

Shockingly, he started to come around and suggested that maybe it wasn't too late. That's when the implant kicked in and started to cause him a great deal of pain. He realized the truth, then. I had woken him up to the truth of his situation and, despite the increasing hopelessness, he found he did not want to continue working with the Reapers. I could respect that. More than that, I could admire that. Because, frankly, it's really easy for me to sit pretty nice and unindoctrinated and judge people for acting like a moron when they're indoctrinated and urge them to stop actively aiding in their own destruction but I don't know what it's like and hopefully I never will.

And Saren decided that he would never be free of the indoctrination and that, even if he could in the future, he couldn't afford to wait and see and watch himself help destroy everything.

He shot himself in the head and his last words were thanking me.

He thanked me, a human, for trying to help him when he's hated us since he first heard of us. I guess my actions meant a lot more to him than they did to me and now he's dead because of them.

And OH MY GOD. I talked to someone and gave them such despair (or maybe, paradoxically, hope) that they killed themselves right in front of me.

I can't believe I just talked someone into suicide! It was a complete accident and I didn't want him to and it was so sad and…Damnit Saren!

And now I can't even remember him completely negatively even though all of this was his own fault to begin with. Well, maybe not the Reapers but certainly my involvement and bringing us to this point. He said that somehow he always knew that it would come to the two of us standing there over Sovereign's attack on the Citadel. Well, I didn't and I was the one charged to hunt him down while he had no specific reason to care about me. But I guess he didn't want to believe the cynicism he was drowning in and so any bit of hope, even in the form of a pretty cynical human, was something he was bound to grab onto with both hands.

But, despite everything, I didn't want him to die and certainly not like that. Damn him.

But there was no time to mourn or to do much of anything. I took a moment to process what was happening and then I shook off the horror that had frozen me to the spot and ran to the computer.

I used whatever program thing that that AI on Ilos had given me to wrest control of the station back from Sovereign and opened up the communications channel. The Destiny Ascension wanted us to stop them from being destroyed and Joker and the Alliance wanted to help. Of course, only I could choose to open up the arms and let them.

My party was divided about what to do and it was along some pretty strange lines. For instance, while it does not surprise me that Kaidan wanted to save the Council and Wrex did not, I would not have thought that Tali had it in her to be quite so…uncaring.

I didn't have a lot of time to think about it even if it was pretty calm just there. Wait too long and my mind is made up for me. Even if I would have ultimately allowed the Council to perish, I want it to be absolutely and completely my decision.

What could I do? Many humans would give their lives but it's the damn Council. I don't like two-thirds of them and think they're useless most of the time but it's like letting the President get assassinated. There are some things you just don't do. And how would we ever convince them that we were ready to join them if we wouldn't even risk ourselves to save them?

So I made the call and the casualties were heavy by the Destiny Ascension was saved and, for now, people were grateful. I just have to trust our politicians to know how to milk that gratitude for all it's worth. I never have to worry much on that front.

The battle was still raging on outside but there wasn't really anything for me to do; it was still so strangely peaceful in there. For lack of anything better, I suggested we go make sure that the man who had shot himself in the head was actually dead. Garrus shot him in the head again although I have seen enough zombie movies to know that if you want to be really sure you have to cut off said head instead of shooting it. Really, I have only myself to blame. And probably Kaidan as I'm sure he's seen those movies, too.

Saren was dead, you see, but then some strange burst of red lightning electrocuted him for awhile and got rid of most of his armor, flesh, and muscle and he was mostly a skeleton with his face hanging off of his elongated neck like a mask. His limbs were like living cables. Just what kind of 'upgrades' did Saren let Sovereign make? No wonder he still felt weird about it!

And then Sovereign (for it was him moving through Saren's body) started jumping around like a freaking jumping bean. Or like a damn Geth. It took forever to kill him not because it was difficult to kill him precisely, but because he would not stand still long enough to let us do it. I don't even know why he bothered since he was distracted by his battle outside. Maybe we at least split his focus but, as a computer, I don't know. I guess he was just really annoyed at me personally or something. What an honor!

Once I killed him, I got buried underneath some rubble when the ceiling collapsed. Talk about claustrophobic. Or rather, let's not talk about it because I am kind of claustrophobic and the whole thing was very…uncomfortable.

I walked off smiling, though, half because I saved the galaxy very publicly and half because I was free. I kind of expected something else bad to happen because I was just so happy but it didn't.

Even when I got called before Udina and the Council bad things didn't happen! Well, except for having to have anything to do with Udina.

And since I saved their lives (technically, all I did was allow others who wanted to save them to do so but I'm not about to turn down an accolade) they even met me in person! Or maybe they did that since the Citadel and their Council chamber is all messed up. But whatever! I saw them face-to-face.

They were all very grateful and it was…unexpected. I mean, they absolutely should have been but the fact that they actually were was very odd.

The Turian Councilor (the only one whose opinion I cared about) even called those who died to save them a 'tragic loss' and almost sounded sincere! If that's not high praise, I don't know what is.

The Asari Councilor mentioned 'Sovereign and the Reapers' but I have no doubt that before long it will just be Saren and his crazy and completely unique ship Sovereign (if it's not just Saren pranking the galaxy).

I don't know if I believe that the Reapers are out there – I'm leaning towards 'no' – but if we're still facing the possibility of imminent extinction…Well, I'm not down with that and so I have to at least look into it. Please let it be no, please let it be no…I'd much rather waste my time than have to deal with more of this.

But good news! No one had time to arrest Anderson yet so he was standing nearby and Udina was sporting a large purple bruise. Actually, that wasn't the good news but I still appreciated it.

No, the good news is that saving the galaxy and the Council personally means I finally did my job and we've got a spot on the Council! Score!

And they asked me to pick who was going to be on it. Well, actually they said that they would have a list of possible candidates but my recommendation would be sure to carry weight and that pretty much translates to 'Shepard, pick the next Councilor.'

And, I mean, my first thought was absolutely 'I want to be on the Council.'

But then I thought about it. Not only would it look really bad if I just picked myself and I've got to go look into this Reaper thing because God knows that no one else is particularly competent but that would mean spending a great deal of time with the Council and I don't even like most of them!

Uh, pass.

I couldn't really think of anyone but Anderson and Udina were standing right there and Udina was looking at me expectantly and so I decided to just choose between them.

Maybe if Udina hadn't tried to kill us all by stealing my precious ship then I would have picked him. As it is, this is the perfect way to get around Anderson's forced retirement and save him from any possible consequences of punching the ambassador out (will Udina be out of a job now that we have a Councilor and no longer need an ambassador? Maybe he can work for Anderson. Oh, I crack myself up sometimes…).

I picked him.

The look on Udina's face was priceless. Did he really think I could ever possibly pick him after what he did? He grumbled that Anderson liked to let his fists do the talking.

I don't know that Anderson particularly wants the job but he did look pleased to annoy Udina as he casually said that that was only with him.

The Council barely even knows who Anderson is but they said they had no problems with him being on the Council.

I guess my supposition that I would absolutely get to pick who was on the Council was right after all.

I could have stayed but there was really nothing else that interested me that they could possibly be talking about. I didn't want to help with rebuilding, after all. I said I was going to go start looking for the Reapers even though I have no leads. Ah, well, that's how the last mission went and it was fine.

What I do have is Kaidan and I still need an answer about what's going on there.

Besides, if this new mission has anything like the procrastination and just plain sitting around waiting for something to happen as the last mission did, I'm going to need to get started working on that immediately.

It's the End so Review Please!