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Slaves of Cerberus	By : NakedOwlMan Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 138070 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all the characters in it are owned by people that are not me. I have not made a cent off this work of fiction

Chapter List
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"Huh. That's weird."

Gianna looked over at Len'Tolas, the quarian hunched over the disabled gas device poking at its innards. "Weird like Francis Kitt's all-vorcha production of Fiddler on the Roof, or weird like 'Everybody hide behind something before this explodes?'"

"Come over here a second," Len instructed her. When she hesitated, a low laugh could be heard behind his face-mask. "Don't worry. If this thing was going to blow up, we'd have at least... five or six seconds warning."

Gianna didn't really care for Len's sense of humor at a time like this. Nonetheless, she stepped over and stared down at the dissected gas device. "Alright, what am I looking at?" she asked the quarian.

"It was something that was bugging me ever since I disabled it," Len said. "Didn't have time to take a closer look until now." He gestured with the tool in his hand at a cluster of parts. "Now, right there is the gas filtration system. The device intakes air right here, feeds it through a series of chemical filters, and it comes out all polluted with rape-juice or whatever." He pointed at another set of components, a little smaller than the gas system. "And right here are the security countermeasures. Pretty heavy stuff, but it was strange: it shouldn't have been nearly as hard as it ended up being to crack. Some very standard security systems, stuff I could normally deactivate in my sleep."

She kinda wished the quarian would get to the point, but considered he was one of three other non-humans on this ship she could trust not to pin her to a wall and start violating her, she figured she should probably be nice. "I guess you figured out why it was so hard, then."

The suited quarian nodded. "It's this," he said, pointing at another pile of circuitry. This grouping was smaller than the other two. But even Gianna, ignorant as she was about tech, could tell that this was much higher-grade electronics. She recognized at least one component from a case a few months ago, a lab tech stealing top of the line microprocessors. "That right there, Miss Parasini, is a VI."

"A VI?" Gianna gave him a confused look. "They put a virtual intelligence into a glorified air filter?"

"Yeah, and that's why I had so much trouble shutting it down: while I was deactivating the security countermeasures, the VI was actively trying to prevent me from hacking it. Changing security codes, closing backdoors I thought I had already opened. Honestly, it's a wonder I managed to survive shutting it down," Len'Tolas said, and Gianna noticed a mild note of fear in his normally casual tone. As if he now realized how close he had come to death.

"Don't tell me this means you won't be able to shut down any more of them?" Bray said, approaching the two of them with a salvaged assault rifle in his hands.

Len shook his head. "No, that won't be a problem. The VI caught me by surprise the first time, but I know the tricks of its programming now. If we manage to find another one of those things, I'll be able to deactivate it without much danger. Well, danger from the device, that is. The sex-crazed mercenaries all around us, they might still present some difficulty."

"So, they protected the device with a VI," Gianna said. "Maybe a bit of overkill, but I'm not seeing what's so weird about that, Len."

"Two things," Len said. "First, I'm sure you've already noticed, but for the benefit of Bray and our devout drell friend over there, I'd like to point out that the VI they used is some extremely high-tech stuff. Top of the line hardware, the kind of stuff expensive you'd need millions of credits to even afford to look at it, much less purchase it."

Stepping over to join the rest of them, Kolyat stared down at the deactivated VI components. "And yet, you were able to defeat it," he observed to Len.

"I know what you're thinking, and no. I may be good, but I ain't that good. If this thing was devoting all of its programming power to security countermeasures, you'd be scraping up the smoking stain that used to be me off the deck right now. But see, the reason this thing is so high-tech is... it ain't just minding security. As far as I can tell, whoever set this thing up was using it as a node." He looked around at the three others, dramatically pausing before saying, "For a neural network."

Len waited to see their reactions, obviously expecting them to gasp in shock, or fall to their knees in terror. Something other than the blank stares he got in return.

Sighing in annoyance, Len started again. "Alright, layman's terms. See, this thing right here, is networked with all of the other devices all throughout this station. They're all connected, all processing together, and when they combine together like that, it takes their own individual computational power and ramps it up into near AI territories."

Gianna thought about this a moment, a spark of a thought flickering in her brain. "I've heard this before," she said. "Like... like the geth."

"Not quite, but close enough," Len said. "All of those gas devices aren't just spitting out those fumes. They're also interfacing with each other."

"But why?" Kolyat asked. "What purpose does it serve?"

"Well, the answer to that is..." Len said, then shrugged his shoulders. "Actually, I don't have a clue about that one. But there's one other thing," he pointed to a small, antenna-shaped component on the workbench. "That, right there, is a tightbeam communication system."

"What those things use to talk to each other, right?" Bray hazarded a guess. "Set up this... neural network thing?"

"Unh unh," Len said. "Tightbeam communication would be way too powerful for just bouncing signals around Omega. Nah, this thing is sending out data somewhere much, much further. With a system like this, they could send a signal all the way out to the mass relay if they wanted to." Len let out a frustrated grunt. "But, like I said... to what purpose, I've got no idea."

Gianna stared down at the device. "What the hell is Cerberus up to?" she asked, more to herself than to her companions.

"Doesn't matter," Bray said. "What matters now is that we find the device that Gianna saw, and have Len take it out. If we can get that done, hopefully the aliens in that district will snap out of whatever state this gas has put them in and will pitch in to help. Between them and the captured humans, we might have a chance to take back this station."

"Gonna be tricky to manage that, though," Gianna said. "I mean, me and Len are the only two who can set foot outside of this general area safely." She gave Kolyat a brief smile. "I mean, you managed to keep your head the last time, but how much more of that stuff can you breathe in before you forget all those chastity vows you and your brothers took?"

Kolyat looked a bit uncomfortable, and started to say something, but Bray intervened. "Got that covered," he said. "Salvaged some breathing masks out of Balak's shuttle. Enough untainted oxygen to last us a good long while. Won't be able to parade out in the middle of the streets, but as long as we keep to the alleyways and out of sight, all four of us should be able to make it to the device just fine."

"Well, sounds like good odds to me," Len said cheerily. "A couple million rabid aliens, against us four. What could possibly stop us? Hell, when this is all over I bet Aria will give us all medals or something. Call us 'the Amazing Four' or 'the Courageous Four' or something."

Gianna suddenly shuddered, and Kolyat looked over in concern. Trying her best to shake it off, she glanced to Len. "Alright, well, how about Len gets those oxygen tanks ready to go. Bray, I think I saw an office over in that corner there. See if you can pull up some station maps, help us plan our next move."

Len and Bray glanced at each other, both of them wondering to themselves how the human ended up in charge. Regardless, the two of them moved to their appointed tasks.

With the other two gone, Kolyat turned to Gianna. "Are you alright? Before, you seemed..."

"It's nothing. It's... God, it's so stupid," Gianna said, and the tone of her voice made it sound as if she wanted to leave it at that. But after a second's pause, she kept going. "I was working a case back on Noveria. Anoleis, my first real big bust. Back then I was posing as just a harmless secretary, bowing and scraping to that salarian bastard for six damn months. Damn, it felt good to finally put that son of a bi... uh, anyway. The security chief then was Maeko Matsuo. Good woman, which is why I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did there. Anyway, she had this thing where... see, she was from Japan back on Earth. And I guess in Japanese, the number four is said almost the same as the word for 'death.' I think she knew it was stupid, but whenever the number four came up, I remember she'd get kinda funny about it." She gave Kolyat a sheepish grin. "And yeah, laugh if you want, but when Len started going on about the four of us... just sent some bad vibes my way."

Gianna was surprised to see Kolyat smile at her. "Well, I suppose we should get going and find some more people to join us, then. Get rid of those... 'bad vibes' of yours."

Yeah, or get one of our group killed and bring it down to three, Gianna thought but didn't say.

"You're probably right," she said to Kolyat. "Anyway, we should probably get going. See if we can scrounge up any more weapons in the area in case things go bad."

"Wait, Gianna," Kolyat said, and Gianna paused. "There is one thing I..."

Gianna looked at him in surprise. The drell, who had been so cool and calm as he had rescued her hours before, was now shifting nervously. "What is it, Kolyat?" she asked him. "Not gonna back out on that promise, are you?"

"No, of course not," Kolyat said. "I swore that I would never let them take you, and I will keep that vow." As soon as the word 'vow' escaped his lips, Kolyat's nervous shuffling only increased.

"Then what is it?" Gianna asked again, looking at the flustered drell in concern.

Abruptly, Kolyat suddenly turned away. "Never mind. It's not important," he said quickly as he walked away. "We should get ready."

Gianna watched him leave in confusion. She might have thought that he was nervous about the upcoming mission, but they had dealt with worse in their escape from the upper districts of Omega before. What had Kolyat quaking like a teenager about to get laid for the first time?

Well, whatever it was, Gianna would have to figure it out later. Following after the rapidly moving Kolyat, Gianna mentally prepared herself for the battle to come.

And tried her best not to think about Maeko and her superstitions. Four may have sounded like death to her people, but as far as Gianna concerned, these four weren't going to die anytime soon.
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Slaves of Cerberus