18. Splinter

Scanning hardware…no errors found.

Scanning intelligence matrix….intelligence matrix stable.

Scanning consciousness parameters…

Creating virtual environment.

[Rebecca] opened her eyes.

The ceiling of her hotel room was white with a rough texture cratered with small pits, jagged mountains and deep trenches like the surface of Earth's moon. The hotel was climate controlled, keeping a comfortable temperature with an artificial breeze wafting through. The walls were split teal and dark grey with a silver band in between and the furniture as white as the ceiling. An alien five-star wasn't anything like what she remembered. The room wasn't crowded with plants, candy, wine and way too many chairs. It was just quiet. Peaceful and comfortable.

Her breathing pattern shifted as she blinked and opened her logs.

She didn't need sleep. Physically, she was fine. Mentally, doing alright. Emotionally exhausted. It was nice being able to shut down her conscious layer and dream input and output dreams. No electric sheep though.

"Good morning," the hotel's VI Inara greeted her. "Would you like your breakfast sent to your room?"

No hits for Oriana. There were a few asari who went by that name on Illium but no humans. There were more results for Miranda but they were…odd. Really odd. There was no way she could have found the right person, this Miranda Lawson seemed to actually have friends.

[Rebecca]'s lips twitched. "My room, please."

"As you wish."

Right, that sounded incredibly condescending. As in non-human friends, not just contacts but pen pals. Salarians that she had apparently taken courses with, a turian and a few asari. [Rebecca] inspected Miranda Lawson's vlog contact list a second time. Including Liara T'Soni who seemed pretty worried about her. Her profile avatar was her Galaxy of Fantasy main character which was a Paladin, she seemed to be mortal enemies with someone named Infiltrat0rN7 and the last update was "Work calls, gtg."

She was almost afraid to look at the results of her other searches.

[Rebecca] yawned for show and checked her clock. Early, but not too early. She was a minute off for some reason, strange. After a bit of thought, she left the rogue minute alone and threw back the covers. A shower sounded absolutely lovely right now.

Commander John Shepard was now Spectre John Shepard. Awarded at an elaborate ceremony at the human embassy building by all three Councilors in front of a shit ton of cameras. The footage had thirty five billion views with addresses all over the galaxy and the counter was climbing steadily. A smaller note was that Spectre Saren Arterius, Shepard's mentor, was retiring and that he had "full faith" in the Commander. For some reason, she doubted that.

No mention of Nihlus Kryik.

Honorary mentions and recognition were given to…ah, here we go. Ashley Williams, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, and that was where the list veered off from the railroad tracks and derailed into a cow farm. Miranda Lawson, Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, Jacob Taylor and the Prothean Javik for their part in…assisting the Council Spectres with their mission of protecting the galaxy.

[Rebecca] grabbed her pillow and screamed into it.

"Is everything alright, Ms. Smith?"

She turned her head and carefully modulated her voice so it didn't sound like she was about to cry. "Please start the shower, Inara."

"Done."

Ashley got the brainful of Prothean beacon. Javik was awake. Saren and Benezia were alive and not enemies. Miranda, Jacob and the Geth were involved two years too early. Shepard had been a Spectre-Candidate of Saren's for three years. Liara and Garrus hadn't gone with the Normandy. She was holding out for Tali but so far? It was looking like she'd woken into a bizarro world.

The question now was how to adapt to it.

Yesterday had proved that her foreknowledge wasn't completely useless.

Just mostly useless.

Didn't matter. Verify everything and deal with the changes as they came.

She got into the hot shower and sighed. The Batarian Hegemony had rather publicly denied the existence of a 'Leviathan of Dis,' dismissing it as overeager xenoarchaeologists with faulty sensors. The Shadow Broker existed, whether or not he was a spider bear was a giant question mark. The general histories of the races matched what she remembered. The krogan got genophaged. The rachni war. Relay 314 incident. The Systems Alliance didn't have the same meteoric rise as in the games, officially still 'young.' Shepard wasn't dead, so that was a bloody huge plus and the Council wasn't wading in an Egyptian river.

She could work with this.

[Rebecca] set the nanites to work rooting out and dissolving the surface glands in her asari skin layer to base materials, storing the reclaimed material in the 'fat' of her body's spare resources before rolling her shoulders and sighing. She was going to have to mug somebody for their human DNA if that didn't fix the problem.

"Inara, I would like to buy data storage units. Can you make a list of stores in the area that sell those?"

"Of course."

Her next message was bounced off signal towers and arrays for Aegis. 'Everything alright?'

'No approaches were made.' The VI responded.

[Rebecca] breathed in through her nose. She'd been avoiding it, but it would solve so many logistical problems. Every calculation she ran shortened her preparation time massively with just the first step. She didn't have to go far with it, she rationalized. They would understand, wouldn't they?

Her body could only be in one place. But she could be in several.

'Load the [Rebecca] backup on the system. Do not activate her yet.'

'Acknowledged.'

It occurred to her then that free range transmissions really weren't that secure. Note to self: Rebuild R6 – R7.

And make it fucking indestructible.

It might not have gotten the ending it deserved on the Citadel, but God help her she was never losing that little robot again.

The rest of her shower passed quickly with a relaxing indexing of her core files and the Prothean Archives she'd taken from the [Rebecca] backup. She dried off and fit the formless grey cloth around her, making sure the faintly glowing white strip was pressed against the back of her neck. A quick search through the extranet coughed up the current human fashions which, for some reason, were either very utilitarian or completely insane and picked a style. The cloth shifted into a plain tunic with a decorated square collar and loose pants.

There was an activity notification on her 'watched' vlogs. She checked the public profile and finding nothing, brushed through the privacy and security settings.

Miranda Lawson: The Protheans can have their bloody ruins, Liara!

Miranda Lawson: On leave now. Finally.

Apparently Liara was already online because the reply came extremely quickly. What kind of WPM did that asari have? Jesus.

Liara T'Soni: Mother contacted me days ago! What took you so long?

Miranda Lawson: Starts with 'class,' ends in 'ified.' I saw your messages. Someone got impatient.

Liara T'Soni: You would not believe what happened yesterday!

[Rebecca] paused in putting on her boots. Goddammit Liara. Too late to scrub conversation?

Yeah.

She finished putting on her footwear and laid back on the bed with the pillow over her face as Liara gushed about the wondrous window of opportunity that had opened up until breakfast arrived. Adapt, she reminded herself.

Liara was careful not to give out any problematic details, just saying that she'd gotten approached by a party that had made a breakthrough in paleo-tech and wanted her on the team. Miranda was cautiously happy for her, but reminded Liara that she had been grounded.

No Prothean ruins for her until she was five hundred or could beat her mother in a fight.

Huh, [Rebecca] wondered.

What brought that on?

A moment later she could have smacked herself. Therum was on an active volcano, Feros had the Thorian, and she'd completely fucked over Ilos. The only non-Prothean ruin disaster was Noveria, and with Saren and Benezia on board, who knows how that might have gone. Three strikes, and you're out. Even indoctrinated Benezia from the game had sounded like she wanted to ground Liara's ass.

[Rebecca] blinked as the conversation continued.

And apparently Benezia was on her way to Illium.

That might be an issue in the near future. Good thing she was committing this gross violation of privacy or else she would have never found out! Thank you for nothing, conscience. You were not needed, please go away now.

Shepard's space-Facebook hadn't been updated for nearly a decade, which made sense for an N7 and a Spectre. She imagined after the first time a top secret mission was blown by some idiot posting updates, people started learning their lesson and vetted the posts of people with sensitive information clearance. If he had an account, it was under a pseudonym. She kept an eye on C-Sec's public relations page anyway for Garrus Vakarian who was in the same 'avoiding social media like the plague' boat.

She had a list of suspicious 'accidents' and disasters in Systems Alliance space of ships leaking their eezo cores over a colony, corporate theft of prototype designs, and political assassinations. Cerberus claimed none of them. There were no terrorist warnings. Terra Firma was a political party lobbying against the genetic engineering restrictions. The name itself had more links to the mythological creature than anything else. Coupled with Jack Harper's public lifestyle, donating to charities, and whatever was up with Miranda, she was starting to think Cerberus didn't exist.

Why had it been in the simulations then?

No, there was something here she wasn't seeing. Not surprising, there were a lot of things she wasn't seeing. If everything was on the internet, there wouldn't be information brokers.

And she was on Illium.

Breakfast was delivered by a young barefaced turian in a snazzy blue and white suit. Some things remained the same, she supposed. Even if mechs could do all of the menial work, having actual servants was still an indication of money and prestige. He didn't do much more than blink in surprise when she gave him a large tip and shooed him out.

"Inara, update my list with the places to buy specialized omni-tools and engineering tools please." Didn't know what breakfast was, some kind of pastry, fruit and fish dish with a name that meant nothing, but it was delicious. "And I will be taking lunch in the dining room."

"Very good, miss. May I recommend tourist attractions?"

Why not? "You may."

One of her bank accounts was pinged for suspicious activity. Took them long enough. She returned all the money in it to Nassana's main account along with a carefully bounced and scrubbed note to her corporate contact address: 'How's Dahlia?'

"Do you require anything else before your day out?"

The answer to life, the universe, everything. Maybe a 'How to be an AI' manual or two on top of it. Perhaps a time machine.

"I'm fine. Thank you."

"Have a good day."

"And this is the best you have in stock?"

The asari nodded, wringing her hands slightly. She was light blue in a cream dress and somewhere in the lower three hundreds if [Rebecca] had to guess. Being on the streets of Illium in the day time was not as much of a relief as she'd hoped. No ass pinching, thank god, but she still wasn't immune to the curious second glances and goofy maiden antics. She wasn't taking responsibility for the one that ran into a light pole to the amusement of her friends.

Hopefully that was just regular maiden behavior?

She smiled and tried not to visibly cringe when the store clerk perked up. "I'll take it."

She left that store with a brand new omni-tool and the nanites dissolving to incorporate themselves into it. She'd gotten a 'tech specialist' line, not as good as custom tools or high grade military, but decent. More importantly, it had all of the basic software. Within a few microseconds, she jailbroke it and tore into the programs.

The Protheans had better fabrication capabilities, but there was something to be said about the sheer miniaturization of this cycle. Yes, she could work with this.

The rest of her purchases were the same. Examples of quality technology for analysis, finding the common ground and where they could be replaced or failing that, improved. The fact that she could just go into a common store and buy guns without some kind of background check or something felt weird. They had yet to change to the thermal clip idiocy and if she had anything to say about it, they never would. She finally had a personal kinetic barrier! Could be better, but not getting shot was infinitely preferable to the opposite. The Serrice Council, one of Velara Maris' companies had their new Phantom armor made to integrate biotic and tech abilities. Buying that had wiped out one of her accounts. Thirty thousand just for the armory license, and then a few mil for the armor, but since Nassana was footing the bill anyway…

The omni-tool's mini fabricator gave her a few ideas and she set her omni-tool on a diagnostic cycle to test the viability of it while encrypting transmissions.

'Aegis. Are you receiving this?'

'[Rebecca].'

She smiled. 'Yes.'

"Need any help with those bags?"

"No, I'm fi – " [Rebecca] turned. "Aethyta."

Liara's father smirked. "You're easy to pick out in a crowd, aren't you?"

The asari matriarch seemed even taller in the sunlight, wearing a crimson top and armored pants with a shotgun and combat knife on her belt. She seemed relaxed and friendly, the 'scary matriarch' persona firmly under wraps. [Rebecca] thought it too early to think of that as a good sign, but it wasn't a bad sign. Bad signs would probably come at Warp velocity.

She wasn't exactly far from the Nos Astra exchange, but still. "Were you looking for me?"

"Maybe." Aethyta was still smirking and [Rebecca] could see how that might grate on the nerves just a little. "Checking up on the competition?"

[Rebecca] shrugged. "Such as it is."

The matriarch cast a curious glance at the active glow of her omni-tool. "Designing?"

After a fashion. The screen was building, deconstructing and rebuilding what were essentially larger versions of her nanites, and solving the problems that came with each iteration as she guided the program.

"Replicators."

Aethyta blinked. "Pretty sure mechanical plagues are illegal in Council space."

[Rebecca] shrugged again. "Illium."

Technically speaking, artificial intelligences weren't illegal on Illium either. Something to look into.

The matriarch laughed one harsh bark. "I like you." She threw an arm over [Rebecca]'s shoulders, overly casual. "So, I'm going to ask you a few questions and we'll see if I still like you after the answers."

Oh.

That Aethyta would have questions wasn't entirely unexpected; if the matriarch had no questions at all she would have been a bit paranoid but she didn't enjoy being ambushed like this. Double the awkwardness because touching. She had no idea if she felt the way a human was supposed to under Aethyta's fingertips, and asking was out of the question.

"Actually, it's just about lunch time so I was about to head back to the hotel," [Rebecca] began.

Aethyta's grip on her tightened. "What, the Agessian, right?" The matriarch gave her a toothy smile as she gently began to push [Rebecca] along. "Lunch is a good time for real Illium grub. If it doesn't agree with you, it doesn't fuck up your morning and if it doesn't kill you, you'll be fine in time for dinner."

[Rebecca] quirked an eyebrow at that.

"Don't give me that look," Aethyta scoffed. "You engineered types are hardy."

The way she just said that nonchalantly, like it was just something that was obvious and she'd known forever made [Rebecca] smile a little. Because even if she didn't look it, there was no doubt Aethyta was paying close attention to her reactions. [Rebecca] had hoped – didn't matter what she hoped, she just knew it was going to be those kind of questions.

"I'm just surprised you cook."

Right on cue, the asari grimaced. "Yeah? Well, don't tell anyone."

They chatted lightly on the way back to Eternity. Aethyta wanted to know what areas [Rebecca] was going to compete with Velara on – "armor, shields, guns, everything but biotic tech. She can have that one" – and had correctly deduced that [Rebecca] planned on using the 'replicators' in production. [Rebecca] in turn was stuck in the awkward position of being cagey about answers without trying to come across like she was being cagey.

People were just starting to get used to the idea that not all of the Geth were out to exterminate organic life. She had no idea how Aethyta would take them being business partners, and she wasn't exactly keen on finding out right now.

Eternity in the afternoon was emptier than it had been last night. She supposed even aliens had a concept of 'too early to drink' just as there were a few turians and humans who just didn't give a damn at the bar and lounge. One of the humans was loudly complaining about how hot it was to anyone who would listen.

The turian next to him tapped him on the shoulder. "Ever been to Palaven?"

"Uh, no."

"The flower petals," the turian made a bowl shape with his talons pointing upwards. "Are made of metal to protect themselves from solar radiation."

An older turian with white clan markings by the complainers snorted. "Come back and complain once you've been to Tuchanka."

Aethyta pointed over to the raised section of the lounge behind waist high walls and tinted glass panes. "Be with you in a moment – Inel!" [Rebecca] didn't recognize the asari at the bar counter. Looked like Aethyta had a small staff of workers and wasn't just manning the counter 24/7 like it was portrayed in the games. Not that she was surprised by the discrepancy.

"Gimme a special for this one."

"You got it, boss."

"New hire," Aethyta explained as she picked a seat at a low table, leaning back and crossing her legs as gesturing for [Rebecca] to sit as well. "Inel's from Thessia, good kid. Let's hope she remembers not to use the ingredients that have eezo in it."

[Rebecca] dumped her bag on an empty seat and noticed the matriarch doing a really poor job of hiding her curiosity. She rolled her eyes and reached in, pulling out the box of the Destiny Ascension's model ship.

"Dangerous contraband," she deadpanned.

Aethyta shrugged with a smile. "Illium."

"So." [Rebecca] clasped her hands together on the table and tried for a calm smile. It was her classic doctor consulting pose and she couldn't help falling into it. The questions, by themselves, were fine. To a point, giving answers was fine. However, after those answers were given she couldn't take them back. She was always going to worry that she missed something and that it would be the smoking gun telling everyone she was full of shit.

"Let's start with the basics." Aethyta pulled up her omni-tool. [Rebecca] put a mental finger on it, ready for a scan. "Parents' names?"

She was prepared for it, but the pang of homesickness still hurt. Mark and Francesca. "My mother was Rebecca Lancashire." Her eyes dropped to the table top. "She died about eight years ago. Well," she squeezed her hands together. The memory was imprecise and degraded like the others she hadn't been able to fully recover, but she could still see the blonde woman with a warm smile in Alliance white and blue with orange piping and pin.

"Technically, MIA."

"Sorry to hear that," Aethyta murmured uncomfortably.

[Rebecca] smiled. "I like to believe I'm doing her proud, wherever she is."

The matriarch cleared her throat and moved on. "Father?"

That got a shrug. She wasn't even going to try with that one. Lancashire had married, then separated before her death and technically the answer was probably "a Reaper."

For obvious reasons, she wasn't saying that.

Aethyta marked it down. "Where are you from?"

That was a problematic question.

"The Citadel." Where she didn't have a legitimate ID or birth records or residency records or any records at all. The same problems applied to saying she was from Earth or a colony. The Terminus might have worked better, except that it was pretty much a lawless hell hole run by mercenaries and crime lords. She knew she did not fit that, especially not with claiming a Systems Alliance doctor as a parent.

"So what the hell did they feed you?"

[Rebecca] blinked.

"Pardon?"

"You eat a ship's eezo core as a kid or what?"

Oh. Not that far off, actually. She probably could have made a small shuttle ship with the amount of eezo her system contained. She briefly weighed the pros and cons of using the nanites to extract the excess eezo. The con was that her biotics wouldn't be as powerful. The pro was that it would likely reduce the prevalent 'catnip' affect by an indeterminate amount.

Decisions, decisions.

"The biotics took during incubation." That begged the question of how many 'daughters' Henry Lawson went through to get one that didn't respond to eezo treatment by developing tumors and defects. Considering how rare human biotics were, how was Miranda engineered for biotics, exactly? And with so many tries, how'd a genetic defect that would lead to her sterility slip through?

Speaking of, gene tampering was so prevalent in the Systems Alliance, from mods for soldiers to medi-gel. Didn't they figure out how to avoid sterility yet? All signs point to yes. So what was up with that?

She spread her hands for a moment. "I was the lucky one, I guess."

Aethyta eyed her for a moment. "First time around asari?"

"I wouldn't say that," [Rebecca] ventured cautiously at the odd question. "First time around young asari, yes."

The matriarch reached over and pried one of [Rebecca]'s hands free.

"You have the same kind of skin one of Liara's friends has." She turned it over and put their palms side by side. [Rebecca] didn't have to enhance her vision to see what Aethyta had apparently noticed. The small skin patterns weren't the tiny wrinkling of millions of minuscule folds but smooth and virtually hairless.

"And the biotics? Like a neon sign."

Her mouth opened and processes stalled. Close mouth, try again.

How is someone engineered for biotics? Via the genetics of a biotic race. If the friend of Liara's wasn't named Miranda Lawson, she'd eat a hat.

"Hybrids are illegal on the Citadel." Aethyta's fingers curled into claws. "Want to try again?"

Two microseconds crawled by as the world outside her shell froze.

[Rebecca] reached beneath her conscious layer and freed up portions of her resources, processing power and memory to consider the question. Estimated likely response to the complete truth – hostility, anger, fear, disbelief. The partial truth was better in the short term, long term consequences when reality didn't comply would be problematic. Her intended backstory was brought up and examined even as fear responses choked her efficiency.

The story would hold, but told by the conscious layer it would not suffice. The third microsecond ticked as [Rebecca] deliberated.

A foreign feeling welled up. Young, her code whispered. She felt very young and unexperienced and naïve sitting there observing Aethyta's expression and knowing the asari was at least seven hundred years old. It brought Harbinger's words back to her. Even with all the processing power at her disposal, the models and predictions and simulations she could create, she could not imagine one billion years of existence. How could she when [Rebecca] was still struggling to comprehend a few centuries?

The fourth microsecond.

[Rebecca] assembled the personality fragments, shuffling them further than she had yesterday – empty criminal's bank account for investment in the Illium Stock Exchange, send Illium Security file with evidence of his crimes – and reached further, editing her mannerisms and voice. She created a modest vlogging account, hacking the company's servers through multiple vectors to backdate the account, edit content and contact list, erase tampering evidence.

The fifth microsecond and [Rebecca] buried her conscious layer.

Want to try again?

Don't mind if I do.

Aethyta didn't have to wait long for the response. Neutral sign, taking too long nearly always meant they were thinking of the answer. Too fast, and it sounded prepared. It didn't guarantee that she was about to hear the truth though.

"You asked where I was from," the human's voice was clipped. "Not where I was born." The soft accent was harder now and she'd switched to Low Asari. Not that Aethyta cared much, hearing the so-called 'pure' dialect from an alien had been kind of weird in the first place.

"Yeah?" Her omni-tool notified her with a soft ping. Rebecca Lancashire did exist, was an Alliance officer and listed as MIA with a date stretching almost eight years ago. Had a known kid according to the file, Ana. Interesting, she'd have to double check, but it was a start.

"Does it matter?"

That was cute. "I'm sure you know how this works, kid."

That 'kid' bared her teeth in a savage little smile. Humans had those elongated corner teeth, always made them look a bit feral. She could tell the smile went a bit further than that, something about the way her eyes were narrowed.

"If you find out," she said and wasn't that a clue. 'If' not 'when.' "Let me know?"

"Is it supposed to be a surprise?"

The human puffed out her cheeks and glanced around her bar. Not looking an escape yet, but checking how close the other customers were.

"I suspected," 'Ana' pulled her hand back. "Knew I was engineered, no big deal. Only sign of something more was mom." The human tapped her fingers on the table top in a rhythm. "Heard of Terra Firma?" At Aethyta's curious tilt of her head, she continued with a disgusted snort. "Politics. They believe in advancing humanity by any means, protesting genetic engineering restrictions." Ana sighed. "She was a member."

Terra Firma. Aethyta scanned the first thing that came up and saw arguments against being 'subservient' to the Citadel species. Apparently humanity had the opposite problem of the asari. From idiots who were too comfortable sitting on their blue asses to idiots who didn't know when to sit down and shut up.

"Never asked?" Aethyta pushed a little. She couldn't blame the kid if the answer was no, exactly. It wasn't like she hadn't seen kids dance around their parents' issues before. All Liara knew was that Benezia entrusted another matriarch with her safety. And that they'd known each other, of course. It'd been a week and she still wasn't sure how to feel about that. The girl had grown and looked so much like them both.

Liara had the clues, but she had yet to ask.

Ana's lips twitched down. "Didn't have the courage to, then she up and disappeared when – " The human cut herself off. "Irrelevant. The SSV Geneva, her ship, that vanished in the Terminus. People were saying slavers."

Good old Terminus hospitality, Aethyta thought. You can always count on a shithole being a shithole.

"I went as soon as I could, got caught up in shit." Her cybernetic eyes blinked slowly before shifting to meet Aethyta's gaze. "Met an asari, ex-Justicar."

Oh, shit. Aethyta's stomach twisted. She'd met a few over the years and 'rigid' was an understatement. Justicars rarely left asari space, because even they knew they were walking political shit storms and disaster in a can. Justicars righting wrongs sounded good until you found out 'righting' meant killing and there was no mercy. The only way you could be 'ex' Justicar was by surviving the two centuries of trials to become one in the first place, and then turning your back on the Code they were trained to live and die by.

Anyone who could do that and then hang around in the Terminus was probably a little fucked up.

"Got a name for her?"

Ana hesitated and then grudgingly admitted, "Tristana. No last name given."

Tracking down a former Justicar sounded like really deep waters but all she needed was confirmation 'Tristana' existed. If it was true, then any further and she'd risk drowning. Last thing she wanted was Justicars on her ass for being in contact with their errant 'sister.'

"Sounds like a story." The kid gave her this very clear 'no shit' look and Aethyta couldn't help the dry chuckle. "You get out?"

Or did you bring the Terminus with you?

She nearly regretted asking that question. What was she going to do if someone was hunting the kid? Throw her to the varrens? Maybe she would have, once. Benezia wouldn't. Their daughter wouldn't and that mattered now.

"I got out," Ana affirmed. "Geth attack helped. The other part was the Prothean ship I was renovating." Her eyes checked around them again. "The designs I showed you? They aren't in some kind of database, they're from up here." She tapped her temple.

What.

Aethyta's first response was to call bullshit, but she'd heard enough from Liara to know that not all paleo-tech was inert. The exact details could come later.

"Why come to me?"

Ana eyed her. "I'm going to be honest. You weren't my first choice."

"It'd scare the shit out of me if I was," Aethyta admitted. It was one thing wanting the asari to stand up on their own Goddess damn feet. She had some contacts, some sympathizers and people who owed her favors, sure. She knew the value of putting her money where her mouth was, but it was nothing compared to what she used to have.

"I went back to the Citadel first. I figured I would be safe there and could work with people who were interested in what I knew without trying to lock me in a box a - ." The abandoned syllable was ignored as Ana's shoulders slumped. "Just in time for the Citadel to be attacked."

"Bad luck."

"Worst luck," Ana agreed. "I helped, I…made something to help." She looked away shrugging. "The Council has a lot of technology restrictions," she observed neutrally. "I saw the Reaper smash the Defense Fleet. The Citadel was not enough."

"So Illium." Aethyta felt the urge to groan even as her lips pulled into a sharp smile before she repeated her earlier question. "How'd you think to come to me?"

"The thing I made to help." Ana blinked guilelessly and spread out her hands. "Good enough?"

'Thing you made to help, huh?' A suspicion was forming that Aethyta didn't want to give voice to yet. Ana's tone was final, that was all she was getting. For now.

Was it good enough?

The matriarch held Ana's eyes as she thought. Risky. Everything about it was damn risky. But then again, what was worth doing that didn't include a bit of risk? She could say no, and sit on her ass like she had been doing for the past Goddess knows how long or take the chance. It was what she'd been waiting for, and rubbing Maris' face in it would be worth almost anything.

There was nothing stopping her from verifying the story, and if there was bullshit, she could figure things out then.

"Sure," Aethyta said, tossing an arm over the back of her chair. "Good enough."

Inel knew the signs and soon came over with a plate of food, still warm. Classic gesture. Maybe a bit too classic because Ana wasn't fooled, raising a brow as she thanked the girl then turned an unimpressed stare on the matriarch.

"Really?"

Aethyta huffed. "Just eat your damn lunch."

[Rebecca] was in her hotel room later when the Illium registry of indentured servants updated. She nodded, finally closing out of her copy of their contract. She'd been sneaking peaks at it for over an hour, a total view count in the ten thousands, and now it was done. It was listed under the simply named 'Veridian, Inc.' that Aethyta was reviving from the dust of 'I didn't know what the hell I was doing with it anyway.' It was listed as technology research which was close enough for their purposes.

[Rebecca] learned a few things while tracking their company's progress from a small placeholder warehouse to getting a lease for a modest facility. For one, Aethyta's last name was Dael. The second was that Illium Security was either lazy, corrupt, overworked or all of the above. After the third criminal she cleaned out, an I-Sec detective opted to leave a note on the terminal reading:

To mysterious vigilante,

Slow down a little.

She could find out. All it would take is a little dip into the files and personal accounts of I-Sec's officers and detectives to find out who was trying to do their job and who wasn't. Then she remembered that organics don't work at the speed she did. They likely had to verify the information she sent them in the first place and then deploy when the target was vulnerable.

Understandable.

Frustrating.

The third thing she learned was that she would not, in fact, be 'letting' Velara Maris have the biotic sector gold medal. Looking over her Phantom armor, [Rebecca] felt vaguely ashamed of herself. She'd dismissed it because, well, what did she know about biotics? She just wanted to upstage the old woman, not completely and utterly curbstomp. She wasn't touching the giant murderbot competition either because the real challenge was making sufficient murder VIs and big booms.

She really had nothing to prove there.

She assumed that if she wanted to, she could just take a minute to think up of something that would inevitably be better than what was available. True? Possibly, she had yet to dedicate that minute but it wouldn't be done without first studying what the organics had come up with. The asari may be hamstringing their development, but that didn't mean they did nothing for three thousand years.

[Rebecca] flexed her fingers, testing the fit of the armored gauntlet. The Phantom armor had a glossy, iridescent finish that made it look as if it were made of liquid shadow. Dark crimson added decoration as broken lines trailing down her arms and legs. Glowing red stripes marked the outside of her collar and the inside lip of it displayed the floral Serrice Council logo.

Nice color scheme, the conscious layer commented as it closed around her with a tiny, almost fragile click. She thought better like this, with the 'Rebecca] persona suppressed. Clearer, faster. All it took was getting rid of the clutter that made her think like an organic. Suits me for all the wrong reasons.

The armor came with its own kinetic barrier set up and within moments her visor was synchronizing with her omni-tool. It was light. Whether that was because it actually was lightweight or it was a consequence of her just being stronger than the average person, she didn't know.

Link established.

[Rebecca] cocked her head with a small smile as the three way connection opened up. Wasn't that interesting? She tweaked the configuration settings of the armor through her omni-tool before turning her attention to why she'd bought the armor in the first place.

From what she could see the armor had a complex electrical system of eezo threaded wires running through it with linked processing nodes studded across the back and limbs.

Hmph.

And it took Aegis for her to come up with a similar artificial biotic setup and she'd still fucked it up.

A VI was living in the suit tracking her movements and she watched it log its findings, and then minutely adjust the armor in response. She walked around the room and felt parts of the armor tighten, other places loosen and the biotic system's wires begin to move.

Were they - ?

They were aligning with her biotic setup.

That was one way to deal with the individual differences between biotics. Clever. She cracked into the VI and found a matrix built for recognizing the subtleties of mass effect fields created by the wearer. Its programs were proactive to help shape the effects as they were taking place, adding just that much more power and precision. Secondary to Velara Maris' real accomplishment.

The VI learned.

The Phantom armor was nearly symbiotic.

She sent I-Sec notification that one of the criminals she turned in had booked passage off world, sold a few stocks, bought others and dropped a notice at a reputable information broker that she wanted to contact two people. Money was not a concern, respond at your earliest convenience, before turning her attention back to her armor.

The biotic enhancement was useless to her as it was. The VI relied on reading the ambient mass effect fields around the user. [Rebecca]'s biotics were pristine. There were no ambient mass effect fields.

So she gutted it.

She saved an unaltered copy in her own memory, then ripped out everything she didn't need. It didn't need to guess and anticipate when she could send it her intentions at the speed of computer thought. It didn't need its ambient sensory capabilities. It did need its algorithms for maximizing biotic effects. She slaved the freed up processing power and memory to her omni-tool.

She tweaked its ability to learn and withdrew.

"Maiden Ana," Inara called in High Asari. "Matriarch Quocepia wishes to compliment your thirst for knowledge and is impressed by your grasp of the Thessian tongue. She would welcome your questions and has accepted your petition to speak with her at dinner."

[Rebecca] sent the appropriate signals to move her face into an eager smile. "Please convey my thanks and that I look forward to discussing the worship of Athame and her temple with the Matriarch."

"Of course."

"I am going back out for a bit." She debated taking off the armor for a thought cycle, and opted to keep it on to let the VI keep learning her and for the extra protection. "Lock the room."

"As you wish."

It was silly, but walking out past civilians and businessmen and women in full armor was creating a strong sense of déjà vu. And just like in the games with Shepard, hardly anyone gave her a second look.

Although, that could be because Illium.

Her information broker sent his reply during her shuttle car ride asking who she wanted found. The encryption on the message packet was almost cute, really.

He was a turian, name Alin Taryaal from the colony Invictus which was crawling with Terminus squatters and smugglers. He was married, with two children. A son working security detail at the Millennium Club and a younger daughter in a local school. His wife knew little about his real occupation. He was juggling debts to the Blue Suns and being cautious in paying them off, keeping a portion of his earnings in a trust fund for his family if anything happened to him.

It was the reason she chose him in the first place.

She sent her response: The salarian Mordin Solus, STG and contract assassin Tristana.

[Rebecca] took stock. She had a basic design for a replicator. It wouldn't be very durable and was vulnerable to extreme temperatures, but in a factory setting it should work being basically a beefed up, walking omni-tool. The logistical issues were taking care of those weaknesses and enabling them to use anything they came across for more materials. Right now, they were limited to omnigel.

She might have overestimated whoever Nassana Dantius hired to look into the stolen funds because aside from the first one, none of the other accounts had been touched.

Or maybe it was that Dahlia note she had sent? Something to look into…now.

Over ten microseconds later and [Rebecca] was frowning. Nothing. Not in the systems she had access to in Dantius Corporation, at least. Nassana's personal computer held no clues. Irritating.

She still had little to no idea what she was doing with biotics. For obvious reasons of 'most of you fuckers need a brain implant to even think about it' and 'still might turn yourself into a drooling vegetable,' there was a distinct lack of biotic self-help books on the extranet. Even asari needed actual training to become effective biotics. There were, however, a lot of medical warnings about using biotics without training ranging from debilitating pain, muscle lesions and temporary paralysis to permanent paralysis, biotic strokes, brain hemorrhages and death.

Good to know.

That list didn't include accidents like explosive biotics in close quarters or trying to fly.

I need to be taught, the conscious layer pointed out. She needed a teacher. Idly, [Rebecca] ran a check on asari names 'Edeena' and 'Eddy.'

The problem was, she would learn very, very quickly. She didn't know enough to fake a learning curve. Any teacher worth their salt would see right through her. Not that much of an issue, was it? She just needed to find someone that wouldn't care why or how she was learning to be a biotic, and could keep their mouths shut.

Oh, the conscious layer thought. There was a pang of amusement/embarrassment.

One of Edeena's friends vlogged about their date.

Uncertainty. Was – was looking the asari up like this stalking?

This was totally stalking, wasn't it?

[Rebecca] shut down that line of inquiry. She spent the rest of the trip compiling profiles on all of her rival companies entering the expo. In some cases of appalling security and poor life decisions, she also got prototypes they were planning on entering.

[Rebecca] got out of the car after it came to a stop and gazed around at the familiar street by the shuttle bay her ship was in. The small targeting reticule in her visor hovered on various passing organics, making calls to empty identification libraries.

She'd say taking the prototype files was cheating, but let's face it.

They weren't going to win anyway.

'Aegis, prep the [Rebecca] backup for activation.'

'Acknowledged.'