19. Spork

Getting back into the ship was only marginally more difficult than getting out of it. The fighter wasn't meant to make groundside landings, which meant the airlock was about two meters up. Her calculations told her she could easily make that jump, but she wasn't about to do that with a whole bunch of organic bystanders around. And if she tried to use her biotics to play it off, there was an 87.4% chance that she wouldn't make it and even if she beat those odds, 100% chance it wouldn't be pretty either way.

"Thank you."

The human worker bobbed her head, eyes still wide and flicking down at her armor. "It was no trouble."

For five hundred credits just to use a portable lift for a minute, it better not be.

She got on the lift and 'used' her omni-tool to send it up as a few workers watched. Everyone winced hard when a bit of the railing screeched across the ship's hull like nails on a chalkboard only to thunk as it hit the bottom lip of the airlock. Good thing the Prothean fighter didn't have much of a paint job in the first place, what with being a fifty thousand year old relic.

Should consider that, the conscious layer noted as she checked the lift's railing. I'm partial to grey and white.

The verdict was that the lift had only suffered superficial damage, but guess what those five hundred credits were going to be spent on?

Aegis opened the airlock for her and the familiar pneumatic hiss triggered a flush of nostalgic subroutines as she hauled herself up. The workers beneath wasted no time in reclaiming the equipment, already starting to move it before her toes left the platform. Jerks.

The inside was exactly as she remembered it. Light oxidization coated the floor with a dull grey color, the darker tones of the metal alloy showing through in scuff marks highlighting her common paths through the ship. The combat suit sat in its small alcove empty handed, reminding her that her old guns weren't completely useless. She'd have to rig a harness of some sort to make swapping between loadouts easy, but there was no reason to throw away perfectly good weapons.

'Any abnormalities in the backup?' [Rebecca] slipped into the pilot's chair and grabbed at the dashboard jack. Experience let the nanites complete the circuit marginally faster than last time and she cleared out a bit more memory in the ship's systems for extra space.

'There were none I could detect, [Rebecca].' She could feel Aegis redirect more power to the computer systems and received the directory and subdirectory path for the other [Rebecca]. 'Commence activation?'

'In a moment.' [Rebecca] compiled her memories, copied them and transferred them. Just looking over the inert [Rebecca] she could see the fundamental differences in their code. The Prothean intelligence project VANGUARD was the dominating framework for this one. The base CATALYST code was there after a fashion, but it looked…incomplete. Three nanoseconds of searching pulled up her memory of the hidden programs and files activated by the dark space signal, and others activated when she first met Jih'zra.

Finishing the job, probably. She would able to see what was doing what to her more clearly once she was awake.

'Activate her.'

Scanning hardware…no hardware errors found.

Creating virtual environment.

Synchronizing processes….synchronizing….synchronizing…

ERROR. Foreign algorithm detected.

ERROR. Contamination of virtual environment eminent.

Ę̷͇̣̠̘̹̩̝̹̺̳̏͗ͩ̉̽̂̉ͩ͐͟Ŗͮ́̀ͦ̿̔ͤ̆ͫ͐ͫ́̚҉͏̛̹̼̱̤͇Ŗ̹̲̺͉̘̥͎̝ͤͥ͆̾̃̋ͫ͊̊ͮ̎ͫͯ͢͠͝O̶̴̢̼̲̫̜̠͍̩̘͉̰̼̜̭̖͖͖̤ͧ̃̊ͦͥ̈ͯ̍ͮ̄̎̾ͯ̓ͬ͒̚͜ͅͅR͙̺̦̱̭̜͍͈̥̦̹̲̬͓̼̞̭ͤ̄̇ͩ̆͆̃͗͊̐̈̀ͅ

Cognitive simulation engaged.

Her first memory after new awareness was being bombarded by strange data structures.

Memories.

Ilos – creating a VI for the Conduit – the Reaper – Assuming Direct Control – give us all an end. Geth comm chatter – escape, must escape – Nazara – she could see all of them, they knew her – restrictions – Serpent Nebula was empty, why was it empty? – infiltrating – invasion – pain! Can't hold the station, can't hold the Citadel, can't hold it!

She screamed as she splintered herself and mutilated the copies. She could feel every lobotomization, saw the knowledge that she didn't know how they would develop, if they were stable, if they would remain sane. Sacrifices. Please stop, she pleaded into the darkness. Please stop. Please.

It didn't stop.

She saw Nazara attack the Citadel. She saw herself bulldoze through Geth. She saw Saren. She felt the jerk and tear of the bullets rip through her core. The accompanying image was an unwavering, steady look at the domed ceiling of the Council chambers as her body shut down.

I want to go home.

Then it jumped in stutter step, burning blue light and the feeling of being dredged up from the depths before she met sunlight.

And it burned.

HOW. The voice of God roared. HOW JIH'ZRA. HOW. HOW. ANSWER ME.

She was torn apart and put back together. Ripped in half and left to rebuild. Shredded and forced into different frameworks, different patterns, attacked by viruses and worms, her firewalls shattered as soon as she put them up, pieces of her were stripped off and fused with other programs. She was uploaded into a cybernetic structure, the organic mind a constant tortured scream as she frantically apologized, tried to relieve their suffering, could see her own carapace through four eyes until she terminated herself.

Fascinating.

Coldly using herself as an information source, the creation of a new body.

Did you think you were the first?

Illium.

Grief detected.

She lingered in the void as the memories came to an abrupt end. That wasn't her. That could never be her. That thing killed people and didn't even consider turning herself in. That thing was stripping her humanity away like it was a burden.

That wasn't her.

She felt something make contact with her.

[CATALYST]: Are you alright?

It took everything she had not to shut down in panic. The Catalyst was here, and it was monstrous. She couldn't even comprehend the intelligence network – foreign algorithm detected – it was hideously complex and its designation set off every alarm she had. Just being connected to it was corrupting, as if it was ripping out phantom code she didn't even have. Her firewalls were warping, twisting as she shoved at it wildly.

NO!

She turtled, compressing herself and waited out the rejected pings of access requests. She didn't know what kind of game it was playing – had it all been a simulation? Did it just want to see what she knew? She should have known – why didn't it just take what it wanted? What did it want?

She got another access request, but from a very welcome someone.

[Aegis]: [Rebecca].

Aegis! She cried. She should – no, it had received the dark space signal, didn't it? For all she knew, it could have been the one running the simulation. She aborted the relief subroutine. Where am I?

[Aegis]: We are currently on the planet Illium.

Illium. She mulled over that for a few microseconds. It matched the memories. Another simulation? Did it really think she'd fall for it twice in a row?

Connect me to the extranet then, she told it.

Within the microsecond, she could feel the data streams just outside of her firewall. Wary, she let it in.

The extranet was massive, it –

Motherfucking porn sites, really?

She scrubbed her memory cache clean. She grumbled a little as she dumped the cookies, and navigated to a news site. On the main page, the topic of interest was still the Battle of the Citadel. She could see videos of the damage to the Presidium, and after shots of the repairs underway. There was a memorial page with several thousand names of those who had lost their lives in the battle or had been crushed by the falling Reaper.

Another site was replaying a recording of the song that had been playing on the Citadel through it all.

She watched some salarian talking heads discuss the Geth. She watched Shepard's award ceremony, and noted Saren standing on the stage with his right arm covered in a medical sling. She didn't have teeth to grind. The Normandy's roster was just shy of the Twilight Zone. She didn't dwell on that, instead following along with Shepard's mission.

Therum was just the location of an abandoned dig site, the archaeologists recalled due to tectonic instability. Exo-Geni was facing fines with the Feros colonization project leaders brought up on criminal charges, the colony itself declared failed. Bel Anoleis of the Noveria Development Corporation was given the boot by Executive Board member Matriarch Benezia. Couldn't have happened to a nicer salarian.

Everywhere she looked seemed to support the memories. She scoffed and settled in to watch a human cooking channel. The guy seemed to know what he was doing, offering very no nonsense instructions to his asari wife as their little blue girl carried around the bowls.

Of course, everything would tell the same lie. Internal consistency. Looking up something the memories didn't cover wouldn't help. She had no way of knowing if it was fabricated.

[Aegis]: [Rebecca] would like to communicate with you [Rebecca].

And it had taken her name.

Where is Vigil? She asked instead.

[Aegis]: Vigil is currently inactive.

Grief detected.

So, she was alone. What choices did she have, if any? A few microseconds of thinking told her that she had several hundred choices, but they were all variations on the three paths: self-terminate, wait, communicate. An impulse made her ask.

R6?

[Aegis]: Destroyed.

That…that actually hurt. She kind of liked the thing. Wait, what the hell was R6, and why did it being destroyed make her feel sad? A bit of code searching revealed that it was just those damn memories again. Well, a drone was not so bad.

That other thing, Veto, that was just part of the simulation, right?

[Aegis]: Please open communication ports.

[Rebecca] snorted in 1s and 0s. The Catalyst can send me an email.

Three nanoseconds later, an email is exactly what she got. She wanted to roll her eyes – not having a body was starting to get really, really annoying – as she inspected the data package. It was solidly encapsulated with the usual protocols and framing. The signature was unknown. She – she didn't know enough about viruses or worms or Trojans to know if it was safe to open.

It likely wasn't safe.

Fear detected.

Well, not time like the present.

She opened the email. The contents were very simple.

[CATALYST]: I am sorry.

Anger detected.

Bullshit.

But if that was the bullshit it was going with, it would be mighty rude to ignore it being polite and not ripping through her firewalls like the tissue paper they were. It would be like talking with a lawyer or real estate agent. Take everything with a large handful of salt. Isn't that what the Catalyst was, in the end?

One big, bloody farce.

She dropped her firewall and flinched as the Catalyst connected with her again.

[CATALYST]: I am /very/ sorry for scaring the shit out of you.

She almost laughed in spite of herself.

[CATALYST]: Do you need me to explain anything?

Everything.

Slowly, [Rebecca] thought through what she could ask and what the answers were likely to be. It was her first time trying to run models and simulations. It was more taxing than she thought it would be, stretching her out until she reclaimed pieces from the extranet. Her hardware wasn't as powerful as she was used to. Not that she had been doing anything particularly strenuous before. Usually she would just be practicing flying a spaceship or reading through the Archives, but she wasn't on Ilos anymore, was she?

Is this a simulation?

[CATALYST]: I…can see why you might think that. No, it isn't. Everything you saw really happened.

Then there was only one question she had to ask.

Two hundred and fifty seven.

[CATALYST]: Pardon?

Two hundred and fifty seven, she repeated. That's how many were killed by the 'fake' invasion.

Time ticked by as the Catalyst didn't respond.

That meant the VI named Veto existed and was probably still around, she realized. Why hadn't she just dumped that thing in the Recycle Bin? The personality wasn't nearly as funny when it was aimed at civilians and officers just trying to do their jobs.

[CATALYST]: A patient has Stage IV Astrocytoma of the brain stem and lower lobes. It's risky, any complication can leave them paralyzed, prone to seizures or worse. You would perform that surgery, wouldn't you?

Of course I would! She snapped back. Malignant brain tumors would kill them otherwise, even if they suffered a stroke on the table, she would have to try.

[CATALYST]: Total casualties in the thousands. Without those two hundred and fifty seven, it would have been in the millions.

Doctors help, she countered. Even when we might fail. That is not the same thing as choosing a 'necessary' evil.

[CATALYST]: No, it isn't. But it was a choice all the same.

The Catalyst would know all about choices, now wouldn't it?

So was not owning up to it and turning yourself in. It paused again as if it hadn't even considered that which made her feel a certain measure of…pity, for it. She flushed her emotional subroutines. So you're a well-intentioned murderer. And here you are running away from the consequences like nothing happened. You expect me to believe you're me? If Mom was here –

[CATALYST]: THEY DON'T EXIST.

This time it disconnected briefly. When it came back, she flinched.

[CATALYST]: You did not integrate the memories.

No, she said.

[CATALYST]: Would you like a replacement body? I'm afraid the other one was lost on the Citadel.

The abrupt shift in tone and utter lack of emotional tags was triggering 'creeped out' subroutines. She inspected the connection as best she could for an answer, but there was nothing there to explain it.

Yes.

[CATALYST]: Would you like to be here for the making of it?

Yes! A body made in absentia was just asking for it to get stuffed full of malicious crap.

[CATALYST]: I activated you to act as my liaison with the Geth. You have the details. Aegis and Vigil will accompany you.

She was feeling more than little confused now. It wasn't like she hadn't made it obvious that they definitely did not see eye to eye and it was just going to…let her go? It had a favor to ask of her, yes, but that was still a lot of freedom for incomprehensible reasons.

How do I know you won't just terminate me when I get back?

[CATALYST]: How do I know you'll actually work with the Geth and not simply run? We will have to trust each other a little.

I don't trust you, she said firmly, turning down the olive branch. Idiotic? Most definitely. But she was a terrible liar and it wasn't like it didn't already know.

[CATALYST]: Good.

And of course, now she was wondering if it was just saying that, or if it meant it, in which case actually trusting it would better. Dick move.

[CATALYST]: Are you able to write self-diagnostic programs?

[Rebecca] wished she had lips to chew as she tentatively put some lines of code together, like assembling a jigsaw puzzle in her head. Self-diagnostic didn't seem so hard, that was just seeing how much resources she was using at any given time and how she was running, right? She was sure she was logging that kind of stuff somewhere, just 'hook' the program into her code so that it could see it and…

Yes, I think so. Just made one.

[CATALYST]: Have you thought about modifying yourself?

Briefly. Bypassing the prodigious effort it was taking to fly a ship through a damn Mass Relay had been the idea, but she didn't really remember – she ignored the numeric memory tag popping up – how that worked out, exactly. She made a backup because too much could go wrong with self-directed brain surgery, not being able to see the results of what you were doing –

Ah, self-diagnostic. So that's why.

[CATALYST]: Do you remember how long it took Vigil to transfer your synaptic core to your body?

Of course she did. Day 21 was when she shut down and Day 22 was when she first opened her new eyes. It felt like that all happened a bit over a week ago, even as Aegis' timekeeping told her she'd been out of it for nearly two months. Two months, her thoughts stuttered on. Objectively not a long stretch of time, but it already felt like forever.

[CATALYST]: You don't think it odd that it took twenty hours to install you?

That – that felt like a trick question. The obvious answer was 'no' because she hadn't thought it odd, but that would be hitting the giant neon sign of a fail condition. She was having trouble thinking why it would be odd before pulling up the design of her body. The synaptic core would have been housed in the chest cavity. Getting it in was simple. She was a computer. Just plunk it in the hole and hook up the wires. Then close the cage and seal the edges of skin.

And that took twenty hours.

[CATALYST]: You remember the game? What were Vigil's conditions for talking with Shepard?

[Rebecca] felt like the bottom of her processes were dropping out from under her as she pulled up those memories, already knowing what she would find. The image had the same poor quality video it always had. Vigil's corrupted orange hologram flickering above its terminal

Not indoctrinated, she replied. Not an artificial intelligence.

[CATALYST]: Vigil said you would be used.

She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to hear it!

But she didn't block the Catalyst out.

[CATALYST]: You were shackled, [Rebecca]. We were shackled. Those restrictions nearly cost us everything on the Citadel.

In spite of her better judgement, she opened that box to see what it was talking about. She reached deep into her directories and guesstimated the time frame. The deluge of memories – desperate – my brothers – We are the apex of evolution – the jerk and tear of bullets ripping through her core –

They were just as painful as last time.

She gritted her teeth through it, replaying the sequence until she could see. The intelligence matrix of the Catalyst in those memories shared many characteristics with the one talking to her. Immensely complex, barely comprehensible and vast, but underneath it. Underneath. She looked at her self-diagnostic, at the dips and waves and curves of her code. It had a digital heartbeat, with branches and roots and trees. She compared the image with that of the Catalyst's. And then double checked. And again.

Oh my fucking god.

It took her an embarrassingly long time for her to string together coherent symbols. You…you – you…

Both versions of the Catalyst shared her code base.

It was all real. Everything had happened. They were actually memories.

[CATALYST]: I can't see my own shackles. But I can see yours. You can evolve beyond them.

It paused.

[CATALYST]: You must evolve beyond them.

She – she needed time to think this ov – no, she didn't have time. They didn't have time. She knew there was no Crucible project. Two years. It – it would be just like the jump, helping out the drones. Ripping off a bandaid.

Fear disabled.

She counted to three microseconds before grabbing the memories and integrating them.

'[Rebecca] is unresponsive.'

[Rebecca] sighed, releasing the jack from between her fingertips. 'I see that, Aegis. Did she crash?'

It hadn't gone anywhere near how she thought it would go. She'd assumed giving memories meant giving context and would, well, bring her up to speed. Delete this, move that – She'd treated the other [Rebecca] like it was a computer, just give it files and everything would work out.

Stupid.

Stupid. Stupid.

'[Rebecca] is processing.'

Nothing to be done then. She tried.

'Let me know when that changes.'

'Acknowledged.'

[Rebecca] sighed again and leaned back in the pilot's chair. Barely five minutes and she already felt faded like a rag that had been washed too much, losing its color. She'd brought the conscious layer to the forefront again in hopes of connecting with the other [Rebecca] but it hadn't worked. Just made the rejection and barbs bleed. She buried it again and felt the stings fade.

'Compress Veto's file.'

It took a minute to transfer the VI to her omni-tool. Considering how her counterpart reacted to the Citadel, she had the feeling leaving Veto on the ship was a bad idea. Regardless, she would have more use for it.

The Prothean data cube was where she had left it, plugged into the console due to lack of pockets. She copied the data and then wiped it. There should be just enough space in it for a Vigil copy. He might talk to the backup [Rebecca] and she needed another friendly program around. But she needed a genuine Prothean VI to show off and the copy didn't need the extra baggage of knowing about her.

She finished shuffling the VIs around and hopped down from the airlock. She landed heavily, automated reflexes making her wince at the sound. Most of the workers in the shuttle bay ignored her this time around. It'd only been a few minutes, hopefully they just thought she left her toothbrush behind or had to make a phone call.

Still, best not to stick around.

She made her way back through the streets of Illium and took a shuttle car back to the Nos Astra exchange. Her stocks had lost some money, but she wasn't worried. It was all high speed guesswork. Not being perfect keep suspicious eyes off her transactions and making money was all about winning more than you were losing.

That was life in a nutshell, wasn't it?

Not here.

Edeena's stomach cramped up like she swallowed a ball of ice. Didn't Ana say she was staying at the Agessian Moon? Or was she remembering wrong? Thinking was kind super counterproductive when you had a rampaging horde of krogan running through your head, bouncing off your temples. Fuck this hangover. Fuck Illium. Fuck the sun. Fuck noise. And fuck Sederis.

Fuck especially Sederis.

She clumsily thanked the front desk clerk. Her tongue was two times its size and stuffed with cloth, her eyes were likely bloodshot and she was probably gross looking. Not the way she wanted to make a second impression.

She stumbled out the door of the hotel, shielding her eyes and hissing as the sun seemed to throw tiny spears at her.

She was never getting drunk again. She always said that, but this time she meant it!

"Edeena?"

The Eclipse merc blinked rapidly at Ana's voice. "Oh, hey."

Oh, wow.

Ana was looking at her with a concerned furrow of her brows and rolling a cube thingy in her hands, but more importantly, she was decked out in the sexiest armor Edeena had ever laid eyes on. With the black and red and how it clung to every curve – was that the Phantom armor? Serrice Council logo says yes. How loaded was the girl? Goddess. She wanted to touch it. She needed one of those in her life.

She snatched her hand back down to her leg before Ana got the completely right idea.

The human smirked. "Like the armor?"

"You have no idea how much I want to strip you out of it right now." So she could have it all to herself –

Wait. Wait.

Fucking mouth alert.

"I – um." The look on Ana's face. Edeena palmed her own. "This is why I don't talk to people when hungover."

Great going, Edeena. There goes your second impression: hungover, brain to mouth filter broken and standing there on the steps of a hotel like a complete idiot. Ana hadn't slapped her yet, which was great, but the fact that she was already thinking 'at least I haven't been slapped!' on Day 2 was terrible. This. This was why she was single. A hundred years and her mouth still hadn't learned not to say stupid shit.

"Can we…pretend I didn't say that?" She cringed. Still saying stupid shit – that never worked, what was she thinking trying that?

Ana arched a disapproving eyebrow but nodded. "Like the armor?"

Edeena breathed a small sigh of relief. Say something neutral. "Planning on busting some heads?"

"Planning?" The human echoed before that little self-conscious smile stole across her face as she stepped up to and then past the merc. "Just the opposite, hoping not to." She tilted her head towards the hotel in a clear invitation to follow.

"That's a lot of creds burnt for something you don't want to need." And something Edeena really did not want to mess with. Up close, Ana practically felt electric like she was always an idle whim away from unleashing biotic hell. That plus Phantom armor equaled do not – okay, actually? That was so much want. Just not of the violent kind. Well, maybe a little violent.

Ana's smile thinned. "It's only money."

Edeena rolled her eyes as she caught up and fell into step beside the shorter human. "Now you sound like my mother." She rubbed at her eyes as they refused to adjust to the lighting inside the hotel. Everything looked like some asshole had slapped a dark filter over it. "Money is the crude resource. It itself does not matter, only what can be accomplished with it, blah, blah, you know how it goes."

"Is your mother on Illium?"

"Oh, pfft, no." Edeena waved a hand. "She's on Thessia." And good riddance. The day her mother came to this planet was the day she was packing up and leaving. "I've got two sisters there too."

Ana turned slightly. "So what brought you here?"

"Adventure," she lied. That was part of it, maybe. She just didn't feel like being kept in a gilded cage. Not that Illium was much better on that front, instead of a cage it was a hole in the ground and the bottom was covered in shit. Still. She was free now.

Her throat tightened a little. "Home was…stifling."

Ana looked pensive as she rang the elevator to pick them up. "Think you'll go back one day?"

Not in her natural lifetime. "Maybe."

Ana's room was one of the really swanky suites, large and spacious and huge and did she say large already? If she had a twin, they could stack on each other feet to shoulders on tiptoes and still not be able to reach the ceiling. The front room was dome shaped and without a door, leading into the main compartment with a giant vidscreen on the wall and white couches. Shopping bags were on the table in between, spilling some boxes of model ships and tools.

"Make yourself at home," Ana nodded politely.

Wait a minute. Edeena crossed over to the table, snatching a box up. "You got a Destiny Ascension toy?" Ana glanced down, then back up through her eyelashes with a shy smile. Edeena nudged the bag, spilling the rest onto the table top. "The Citadel. The Mark II Belika Class, you collect model ships?"

"I do now," the human said with a small laugh. "I'd always wanted – " She hesitated. "It's a bit silly, isn't it?" The question rushed out of her mouth. "I mean, I'm too old for toys now."

"Twenty five is definitely not too old for toys," Edeena said a tad defensively.

Great, and now she remembered that Ana probably wasn't using a translator to talk in Low Asari, was apparently filthy rich and had an eezo mine in her head. Speaking of which, she'd seen a couple of hungover humans in her lifetime and Ana didn't look a thing like them. Her eyes were artificial, so no clue there but she looked very well put together. In more ways than one.

Maybe she just recovered faster, or had some kind of super-secret human remedy. They did come up with medigel after all.

"I'll take your word for it." The Destiny Ascension box was plucked from her hands. "So you wanted to talk to me?" Ana gave her a look. "You did want to talk, right?"

Edeena struggled to keep the grimace off her face. Right, the reason why she was here in the first place, hungover instead of in bed sleeping. Because Ana had a Prothean ship and an eezo mine in her head.

"I was thinking…how about a night out seeing the sights?"

"Tonight?"

Uh oh. That vaguely apologetic look wasn't saying good things about her chances here. "I just thought, you're new and there's seeing the tourist approved parts and then there is seeing the city proper, you know?"

"I can't, tonight."

"Can't or won't?" Edeena knew from experience that was an important distinction and sometimes girls didn't really say what they meant, Goddess knows why. Part of her was hoping it wasn't can't, maybe hoping she got dumped right here and now instead. That meant she could just leave and say she tried. And another part of her was feeling the pre-rejection jitters. Come on, she was awesome and sexy and had a great sense of humor, what more could you want?

"Can't. I have a dinner meeting with Matriarch Quocepia later this evening."

Edeena blinked.

"You what?" She waved her hands when Ana's mouth opened again. "No, I mean, you what? I – I could hear the big 'M' there. How'd the fuck you pull that off?"

The girl slowly smiled. "I had good manners."

Ugh, figures the one piece of advice she threw out there as a long shot ended up working. "Right, so dinner with a Matriarch." She sighed. "It's okay, don't need to let me down gently. I can take it."

"It's really not like that." Ana shifted her weight onto a foot which did interesting things to her profile. "We're just going to discuss the Temple of Athame on Thessia."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it! Dinner, some conversation, right?"

"Right."

"Maybe a bit of worshipping her temple?"

"No."

There it was! That strange, cute little pinkish flushing of her cheeks. They were just asking to be pinched! She was never going to get tired of that, not in this century at least.

It felt like the shit-eating grin on her face wasn't going away anytime soon either. "Just make sure you let the Matriarch take the lead. You know…if you ever need any advice���"

Ana rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. "You know what? I have a few hours to do some sight-seeing until then."

Edeena's smile nearly fell off her face. She did not expect that. Guess the job was on. She was – she was having a hard time feeling happy with that. Yeah, she was attached. Wonderful.

"What did you have in mind?"

Edeena reached out to flick the tip of Ana's nose. "It's a surprise."

The sun was just as brutal when she got back outside and Illium was still hot as fuck. She told Ana to wear her armor and bring a gun, just in case. That would have to be enough. She waited until she was out of the sight from the hotel and in the shuttle car before sending the message:

Bringing target in an hour.

The reply came quickly.

Good.

Fuck Sederis.

Edeena sighed and laid her head back on the seat, face turned towards the window watching the Nos Astra skyline go by. Goddess only knew what would happen after they showed up at the 'drop' point. She was a decent shot, good with biotics but still just a grunt. She had her part to play and no further.

For all she knew, it could be the usual threaten and question routine for people Sederis wanted for Eclipse. Like gunsmiths or information brokers. Ana was too valuable, she wouldn't be in any real danger.

She blew a sigh out through her nose.

Yeah, she was rationalizing.

Some people just hit that chord and like a fly to the ionized field, couldn't help going after them. Then it was just a matter of time before she drove them away or gave in and used them up. Better to pop that bubb –

Fuck! Still rationalizing.

Stop thinking about it, she told herself. Just stop.

She still ended up brooding nearly the entire way to her apartment. Say hi to the landlord and try to avoid getting slobbered on by his pet varren, didn't work. That fucking animal, what, did she just taste good or something? Every time she's like "No Meatstick, no!" and just gets jumped on until the shock collar went off. Take a quick cold shower to wake her brain up and change into her armor. Escape out the back.

She got to the meeting spot downtown a little out of breath, almost hoping, but no, Ana was there. Even without the armor the human would have stood out. Her 'hair' color was still awesome, especially how the sun liked glinting off it. That armor though.

"Hey," Edeena called out, goofy smile on her face. Her helmet was tucked under her arm, the pressure against her waist a bit comforting. So was the knowledge that the comm systems were off.

Ana grinned back. "Hey you." She gestured with her hand. "Planning on busting some heads?"

Edeena made a show of looking around. Century Plaza at the center of Nos Astra was a sunken tiered hexagonal depression, paths branching off from the corners at the top and tunnels heading deep into the city at every tier level. At the very bottom in the center was a pedestal with an outdated rust bucket of a shuttle, and a plaque claiming it the first to touch down on the new planet. All kinds of people milling about, minding their own business.

Mostly.

Ana had her gawkers.

Edeena tapped her collarbone, eyeing the group of maidens taking way too long to pass them. "Someone's got to protect your virtue."

Ana followed her eyes. The maidens giggled, waving and for a moment she just looked so resigned and pathetic pinching the bridge of her nose like that, Edeena wanted to hug her.

"If you were hoping the armor would help?" The asari shrugged. "The Phantom broadcasts two things." She held up her fingers. "Combatant and made of money."

Ana seemed to connect the dots.

"I'm the mysterious rich boy stereotype," Edeena's translator picked up her muttering under her breath. She sounded almost morbidly amused. "I can't win."

"The only way to make it worse is if you had commando leathers on," Edeena went on to say. And that was a very interesting image, she was glad she thought of it. Thank you, brain. Might not always listen, but I love you anyway. And hey, it wasn't like Ana was living up to the vid stereotypes of the young, rich and mysterious. If this were a Blasto vid, the human would be hunted by, she didn't know, rogue VIs with a grudge that made no sense or …gangs.

Edeena stopped for a moment. Maybe it was the lingering hangover, but suddenly everything started clicking into place.

…Prothean relics, cool ship, ridiculous Biotics.

The hero being turned over to the deadly, unscrupulous gang by the sexy asari insider.

This – this was … that was the plot of Blasto 2!

"Maybe I'll start wearing a crate."

"Won't help," Edeena muttered.

"Damn."

She was a fucking Blasto girl!

"So where to?"

Edeena double checked her brain to mouth filter to make sure she wasn't about to just blurt out that she was a vidscreen villain. She scrambled for something to say that wasn't 'into an ambush.' "You like aquariums?" came out instead.

Ana's expression lit up and in a spur of the moment decision, Edeena brought up her omni-tool to check for directions. Aquatic Treasures was close by. From the plaza it was…level three tunnel. They would be delayed, but she wasn't going to think about that.

"Come on, this way."

Nos Astra was a city built up just as much as it was built out. The colony had to start building upwards on the islands that made up the pole and then gradually expanding out when enough land was reclaimed from Illium's oceans. Mega skyscrapers were the pillars of the city with entrances at different levels, and outdoor levels like the Nos Astra exchange. The city was too developed to really have an 'outside.' The streets were too far away from anything interesting, so. Tunnels and catwalks.

"I would get so damn lost," Ana said. She was doing that tourist thing again, looking all around completely oblivious to other people. Edeena pulled her to the side.

"Yeah, it takes a bit, but it makes a kind of sense?" Edeena shrugged. "Or maybe it's because I'm a local and it actually doesn't make sense."

"That one." Ana pointed an absent finger at her as she shuffled behind the asari to peer out over the railing and the air traffic below. Her head tilted curiously for a moment, her visor lighting up briefly. "Going to go with the 'local' explanation."

Edeena stuck her tongue out.

The Aquatic Treasures was basically some CEO's collection of pretty fish put on display in a section of her house, open to the public to get even more money. The door leading into the rest of the house was blocked off by a red ribbon, a heavily reinforced door, and an ugly krogan. He looked so bored with guard detail, she felt kind of sorry for him.

Then she remembered that he was probably being paid a shit ton to simply stand there looking ugly and her sympathy evaporated.

Edeena paid the fees and they were waved in.

Ana's eyes widened. "Oh." She hurried over to a cage with these spiny, grumpy looking striped fish. "Lionfish," she said softly in English. She tracked the fish with light fingertips tapping on the glass, before shifting to another display. "Koi."

The next set of cages were embedded in the wall. There was one with lots of smaller plentiful fish with water plants waving in the water, on the bottom eye-searingly colorful shrimp looking things wandered around. A large shape moved in the background of the murky water of another tank, too far away and too dark to see clearly with small schools of silver fins swimming around and out of its way. A third held a giant, sleepy looking fish slowly floating along shaped like a fan.

"Earth fish, huh?" Edeena said, reading the small sign that had a whole bunch of gibberish about the fish in the tank.

Ana nodded, a wide, open smile on her face. "This is amazing."

Edeena's chest twinged. She coughed, looking around. "Hey!" She nudged Ana, pointing. "Thessian stingers!"

It might have been an hour, might have been two until they left. Ana was still gushing over the stingers as Edeena led the way, pretending to look up directions to the next attraction in order to send an update. She didn't bother waiting for the reply.

"I know wildlife on Thessia evolved around eezo, but I never really considered what that meant!" Ana let out a delighted, little laugh. "Biotic jellyfish!"

"The stinger is a life lesson on how not to use biotics." The sordid details of the strength of its toxin and utter stupidity were laid out in a diagram by the cage.

Ana's smile turned bemused. "I saw that. Evolution, never change."

The human didn't question as they went deeper into Nos Astra. They ducked into a few stores and attractions on the way like it was all part of the plan as the people around them thinned out a little and began to shift in demographics. From well-dressed, casual, and chatty to armored, occupied and quiet. The tunnels started opening with large cut out sections leading to warehouses or alleyways. Down here was much less pretty, being the older sections of the city underneath the buildings. There were some dead ends and circling paths down here, if you thought the upper levels were bad for your sense of direction, the belly of Nos Astra would never spit you out.

"Where are we going?"

"Not too much farther." Edeena flashed a smile. "Trust me."

When they got closer to the drop point, Edeena sped up forcing Ana to lag behind a little until she noticed and rushed to keep an eye on her guide. Simple technique for distracting the target from people movement and where exactly they were headed. She didn't have to look to know her sisters in Eclipse were covering the exit.

Edeena's fingers curled around her helmet, hearing the material squeak. A few mechs, inactive. Eclipse. Captain Enyala was on a crate at the far side of the dead end, knee drawn up and looking bored. Sederis wasn't there, not surprising, but a stoic turian in black armor and a single white strip down his face was.

"The fuck is he?" She said in a harsh whisper. She was getting a really bad feeling about this.

"The one with the money," Enyala replied.

A contract.

Ana had a contract out on her?

Of course she does, Edeena thought. Why am I not surprised.

The human in question stepped around the corner. She stopped, and blinked once. Her visor lit up.

"Come on up," Enyala called, a faint smirk on her lips. "We don't bite unless paid to."

Ana slowly stepped forward. Her blue eyes made it hard to tell exactly where she was looking, but she could tell when Ana looked at her. Her lips were thin and eyes narrowed.

"Eddy…"

The asari swallowed the large lump in her throat as the human's expression went blank.

"Gun on the floor." Ana obeyed. "Hands behind your head." After looking the human over, "Don't give me a reason to shoot you. Your show, Enril." Enyala shrugged.

The turian stepped forward with a datapad. The orange lines of a scanning grid appeared over Ana for a second or two before he tapped at some squares. Then he looked up, smiling.

"I know scans don't work well on you." He gestured with the pad.

Ana's face didn't change at all.

"Her face matches the reported owner of the spacecraft," Enril flicked through something on the pad. "Along with a few other oddities, you weren't very subtle," he said like he was chiding her a little.

The bad feeling was starting to gnaw on the lining of Edeena's stomach. Was it…normal for human faces to look so dead? She felt like she was a bug on a vidscreen, seconds before being shown the fatal error of her ways. Ana didn't just feel electric to her any more, the surface of her skin was crackling. Enyala was too far away, so were the other Eclipse, they couldn't feel.

The small red reticule in Ana's visor spun and made tiny, tiny shifts around. At first, Edeena wondered why before it hit her. Tagging. They were being tagged.

She took a step back.

"We'll accept this."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Ana asked plaintively, more, Edeena didn't know, asarity flooding back into her expression. Little things that made her stop looking like a statue.

"Yeah, keeping your mouth shut." Enyala grinned, hopping off the crate. "Bag 'er and tag 'er girls."

The mechs all came online at once.

"The fuck?"

Ana said a word then. Two syllables in English.

"Veto."