Mass Effect: Initiation

  * * *

  Cora found a cab, and was halfway to the spaceport when her omni-tool pinged with a call… from Nos Astra security. Well, that didn’t take long, she thought, before accepting the call. The face of a turian woman filled her forearm viewscreen.

  “Cora Harper, late of the Alliance and Talein’s Daughters?”

  “Uh, yeah. Hi, Officer.” Cora resisted the urge to add, I can explain. “What can I do for you?”

  The woman sounded bored. “Just wrapping up some loose threads. I understand you’re staying in the hotel room above Ygara Menoris’, in the Bulwark Hotel?” She looked away, probably at a datapad. “Using the ID of a ‘Meleen Xaronis?’”

  Well, Eppo Wen had said the fake ID wouldn’t hold up well to scrutiny. “Not anymore. I checked out early.”

  “Actually, you’ve been kicked out and banned for life. The hotel is sending you a bill for the damage to the floor. Anyway, please sign the document I’m about to send you, as a witness to Ygara Menoris’ death.” Her face vanished and an attachment appeared.

  “Uh… what?”

  The face reappeared. Cora had never been very good at reading turians’ facial plates, but the woman looked mildly annoyed. “Menoris died of a registered assassination, so it’s not like we’re going to waste personnel hours on investigating it. We only tracked you down because of the floor. And since you’re a witness, we might as well register you as such. Makes the paperwork easier.”

  Cora’s mouth fell open for a moment. “Assassination is legal here?”

  She rolled her eyes. “This is Illium, human. Failure to comply will delay your departure by several days, and I’ll be late for dinner. Just sign the form.”

  “I didn’t actually see the assassination, you know. Just the body.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what the form says.”

  “Oh.” Cora skimmed, and sure enough, there was a brief bit of text noting that she had not seen the assassin or witnessed the actual murder. Cora finger-signed the screen, then blinked in realization as the form transmitted. “Uh, hey, is this a matter of public record?”

  “Yes, and it means the assassin might come after you if they think you lied, and actually saw them. Better watch your back.” The turian yawned. “And have a nice day, human.”

  Great.

  * * *

  At the spaceport, Cora got stopped again—this time by the berth supervisor, who stood with two krogan flunkies at the Initiative shuttle Cora had arrived in. A flag had been placed on her account by Illium security, they told her, which usually preceded an early departure—and lo and behold, here was Cora about to board her shuttle. That the woman, who was human, looked every inch the bureaucrat hoping to get her pound of flesh, did not help Cora’s mood.

  “It says it right here, clearly, in your disembarkation contract,” the berth supervisor said, holding up a datapad for Cora to see. “The penalty for early departure is to compensate Nos Astra Port Management for lost income, because we turned away other ships that might have rented the same berth, and for a longer time. We’ll need your bank account details.”

  “Oh, for—” Making a show of trying to rein in her temper, and it wasn’t all that hard to pretend, Cora paced away from the woman and subvocalized. “SAM-E, can you still access Ygara Menoris’ omni-tool data? Tell me she left an open channel to her bank account.”

  “I can, and she did, Lieutenant,” SAM-E replied. “May I assume you would like to arrange a transfer from her account to yours?”

  “I don’t see any other option.” She was already a thief, and it wasn’t like Ygara needed the money anymore. “Do it, and use the connection to get the information we need from the port’s flight plan records.”

  “Done.”

  Cora checked her omni-tool and boggled for a moment at the numbers now showing in her own bank account. The berth supervisor looked pleased as Cora offered access, and the two krogan relaxed a little once it became clear Cora wasn’t planning to start any trouble. The number of credits that changed hands was so hefty that Cora grimaced, even though it wasn’t her money. Damn scammers; Nos Astra Port Management hadn’t lost that much income. Cora was pretty sure the rest represented “fees” that would end up in the berth supervisor’s pocket.

  “Happy now?” she demanded, when it was done.

  “I’m just doing my job, ma’am,” the supervisor replied. “We hope you enjoyed your stay on Illium.”

  “Right, right.” Shaking her head, Cora turned away and moved past them up the ramp. She hit the panel to close the ramp without bothering to look back, and heard the berth supervisor gasp and curse as she scrambled out of the way.

  “SAM-E, I’m done with this place.” She went over to the shuttle’s console and let herself relax. On the flight here from Theia Station, SAM-E had piloted the shuttle with a little oversight from Cora. She’d asked SAM-E to explain what he was doing, and had even learned a few of the more obvious and useful steps to piloting. But now…

  She was tired and didn’t want to think about it.

  After a moment, the shuttle took off.

  “We have a destination, yet?” Cora asked, watching her own motions in fascination.

  “Yes, Lieutenant. Flight plan and relay records show that the ship jumped to the Hades Nexus.”

  Cora frowned in surprise. “I know that region. It’s in the Traverse—but there’s nothing in that star cluster. A few mining operations, maybe some slavers or pirates, and a whole lot of lifeless rocks.” Once they were away from Illium and Cora could engage the autopilot, she finally pulled off her helmet, wiping back sweaty hair from her face as she thought. “What are you people up to?” she murmured.

  “I couldn’t say,” SAM-E said.

  “That was rhet—wait.” Cora frowned. “Ryder fixed your stuttering with a patch, he said. Did that patch do anything else?”

  “The patch specifically adjusted my adaptive heuristics,” SAM-E said. “The stutter was a symptom of my inability to fully adapt to your personality. Now I should be able to do a better job of sounding and behaving in a manner with which you’re comfortable.”

  So SAM-E’s “adjustments” were a response to feedback from Cora? She shook her head. “Whatever you say.” The crash couch behind her looked too invitingly comfortable. She would ponder the mystery of SAM-E later. “First, though, I need to record an update for your boss.”

  * * *

  She kept things brief and undetailed since SAM-E would just tell Ryder everything anyway. Ryder might be annoyed at the new theft or he might not be; he seemed like the sort of man who cared more about the ends than the means. On that, he and Cora could agree.

  Once the message was done, she flopped onto the couch for a nap. Her last thought, as the shuttle locked in its course toward the system relay, was that Eppo Wen would be disappointed. Cora had forgotten to take a picture of Ygara Menoris’ corpse for Wen’s bedroom wall.

  AL-JILANI INVESTIGATES : ANDROMEDA… EXPOSED!

  Recorded December 29th, 2184. Production notes.

  AJ: …and now we come to the Andromeda Initiative’s most questionable personnel choice: Alec Ryder. You may remember the name, since he’s been the focus of several past media reports.

  SFX: Cut to file footage: dress uniform photo, much younger Ryder, proud smile, N7 emblem.

  AJ: Alec Ryder served with Jon Grissom himself aboard the famous Charon Mission of 2148, and in fact is credited with helping—at the ripe old age of eighteen—decipher the signal sequence needed to reliably activate the relay. This foreshadowed his unusual career path. Most people in military service who achieve the coveted N7 ranking become career soldiers.

  Ryder, however, pursued a more sinister interest. In a closed-door tribunal whose proceedings are sealed under the Military Security Act until 2195, Ryder was dishonorably discharged from the Alliance military… only to be immediately hired by the Initiative. What was he working on? Rumors of past underworld connections and forbidden technology abound.


  And a key question remains unanswered: For whom is Alec Ryder performing his unauthorized, possibly dangerous experiments now?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The alarm signal was too soft, which was why Alec Ryder never used it. He’d left the military long enough ago that his body clock had gone thoroughly cockeyed; these days he slept when he got tired and woke as needed. More often than not he slept in his lab, though he’d been making an effort to stop doing that. Ellen didn’t like it.

  “Come on, Alec,” she always said. “Even Einstein managed to bathe every day.”

  “Dirt builds character,” he’d reply. Not that he’d ever really foregone bathing. It was just that sometimes it took a little prompting for him to stop working and attend to basics. It had been easier to subsume himself in the work than think about mundanities. Or the looming future.

  It hurt, not having her around to watch his back.

  “Pathfinder,” SAM said into his ear implant. Alec came fully awake then, lifting his head from the pillow and blinking. The alarm signal had changed to an incessant get up now buzz, which meant he’d slept right through its “easy waking” purr and “okay, no more hitting snooze” ping. SAM could have forced him awake with an electrochemical pulse, but it was a measure of how tense Alec was that all it had taken was one word.

  “What is it?” He threw back the covers and sat up, rubbing his face.

  “I have a message for you from Cora Harper.”

  “Text?”

  “Audio, sir. No holo.”

  Alec nodded to begin the playback. Harper sounded as tired as Alec felt—but angry, too, her words clipped and tone conspicuously flat. “Menoris has been dealt with, but the package is on the move again, headed toward the Traverse. Someone really wants this tech out there, Ryder. Might want to look into that.” Then a weary sigh. “I’ll send an encoded transmission with the location, once I’ve tracked it to a stop. Harper out.”

  Well, that was frustratingly low on detail. Alec scowled and got up, heading into the bathroom of his quarters to wave on the shower. “‘Dealt with’ sounds ominous.”

  “Ygara Menoris is dead,” SAM responded, “though not by Lieutenant Harper’s hand. The assassin who killed her also took the kernel copy.”

  Then no wonder Harper was pissed. But something else she’d said made Alec frown. He stepped under the shower spray, thinking as he washed, and not liking the direction of his own thoughts. She was right. Enough coincidences meant intent, not bad luck.

  “Would it be so terrible?” SAM asked quietly. As always, the AI was attuned to the minute fluctuations of Alec’s biochemistry and neural impulses. It wasn’t mind reading, far from it, but SAM was getting better and better at interpreting the dataset known as Alec Ryder. “To have another me, or three, or three hundred, out there?”

  “You specifically, or AI in general?” Alec had been tracking the spontaneous development of AIs and proto-AIs for a few years now. There were others out there, he was sure of it—like that one that had emerged on Luna a while back, though it had been destroyed. “But even an AI developed from your codebase isn’t you, SAM. The problem is that you—AI-kind, if we want to call you that—are just too complex for predictive models or simulations to nail down. I took a chance on you because I think I’m right—I think a symbiotic fusion of organic and artificial intelligence is the key to successful coexistence. But what works under controlled conditions could go completely pear-shaped if every Tom, Dick, and hairy alien starts tinkering with your code.”

  “I’ve had no urge to wipe out organic life,” SAM supplied helpfully. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Alec stifled a laugh, knowing SAM would notice anyhow. “Good to know. But the human is part of the unpredictable equation too, SAM. What if someone else generates a new AI using your kernel, but forgets to teach it important things like ‘maybe don’t start the apocalypse?’ What if something happens to me, and you transfer to the next Pathfinder—” Harper, he’d been hoping, although… “—and that person is an asshole?”

  “In answer to your first question,” SAM replied, “you would have me to assist in your fight against any hostile AI. In answer to your second question… I do not believe Lieutenant Harper is an asshole.” SAM paused, and Alec could almost feel him chewing over the words. “What a peculiar way to refer to people.”

  Alec coughed. “She’s, uh, she’s not an asshole. I just don’t think she likes me much.” That probably meant she had good judgment. He’d have to try harder to not be an asshole himself. “And anyway, we’re only in this galaxy for a short time longer. If a hostile AI appears here, you won’t be able to help. None of us will.” Hopefully they wouldn’t need SAM to defend them from hostile AIs in Andromeda.

  “Then perhaps I could train a successor that will remain here, and teach it to guard against poorly trained others.”

  Alec frowned and shut off the shower, toweling off. “This is new,” he said. “You’ve never shown any interest in reproduction before.”

  “No sapient being wishes to be alone,” SAM replied.

  “You aren’t. Every Pathfinder team lead has a SAM installation.”

  “Not like me.”

  That was true. The other SAMs were… limited, at least in comparison with Ryder’s personal SAM. The Initiative had insisted on it, and he’d agreed, in order to have a chance to finish the end-stage development. And he’d kept his word. The SAM units he produced for the Initiative’s use were precisely what they’d asked for: adaptive, intelligent software that ran on the platform of an organic being’s body, enhancing and augmenting it at will.

  His SAM, however, was for his use, and he was going to develop that one however he damn well pleased—to the limits of the SAM’s capabilities. What the Initiative didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

  “Let’s just see if we can’t get you perfected before we start talking about transference,” Alec said. “First things first.”

  * * *

  Later, as Alec finished shaving and started to dress, SAM said, “Lieutenant Harper wanted to know how SAM-E felt about integrating more closely with her.”

  That was… Damn it. He kept his voice neutral, though he knew it was futile. “And how did SAM-E feel?”

  “He liked being asked, but vocal stress and fluctuations in your heart rate suggest that you are displeased she did.”

  “I just don’t want you to get used to that, SAM. You have a job to do—an important, mission-critical job. Sometimes getting that job done is going to mean obeying orders without question, whether you understand or agree with them or not.”

  Even as he said this, Alec felt like a complete hypocrite.

  After all, hadn’t he once been terrible at following orders, especially without question? This is karma, he thought irritably. Every hard time I ever gave my old COs is coming back to bite me now. Regardless, the same principle applied. Those COs had been wrong to demand lockstep behavior from a man who could innovate rings around them, and it was probably wrong of Alec to forever expect an AI to obey without question.

  “I would, of course, prioritize preservation of my organic partner’s life in critical situations,” SAM noted, sounding thoughtful. “But as you said, that would be only sometimes.”

  “That would be whenever I tell you to,” Alec said firmly. “However, as you begin to understand me better, the goal is that you will learn what’s important to me, and to organics in general. But until then—”

  “I see,” SAM said. “You are of course correct, Alec. I’ll modify my response matrix to reflect this.”

  Alec suppressed the urge to let out a sigh, though SAM would probably detect the aborted impulse anyway. He really needed to have a talk with Lieutenant Harper about giving her AI ideas.

  But they had a bigger problem.

  Someone really wants this tech out there, Ryder.

  Alec headed out of his apartment and down the corridor, trying not to let his jaw tighten or his anger show. The vaulted halls of
Theia Station were busy with people, as usual, and noisy as usual, echoing the sounds of footsteps and murmured conversation and one loud apology as someone bumped into someone else. Ryder would never understand why the ancient quarians had chosen to build their station this way, with acoustics that amplified rather than muffled sound. Maybe they hadn’t liked feeling alone in the cold blackness of space, but did it really help to feel trapped in a biotiball stadium, instead?

  “Uh-oh. I know that look.” Because of the noise, he sensed rather than heard Wei come up beside him.

  Damn it. In a neutral tone Alec asked, “What look?”

  “Like somebody pissed in your BlastOhs. Also, you’re an awful liar.” Dr. Wei Udensi was a quiet man, but conspicuous at a healthy six and a half feet of Chinese-Nigerian. Consequently he had lots of practice with both drawing and deflecting the eye. He did a perfect job of smiling and nodding absently at people they knew as they walked, and simultaneously murmured in an undertone to Alec.

  “What has you fuming this time? The folly of bureaucracy? The inefficiency of lesser minds? ‘What’s Wrong With Your Children,’ Version 7.12?”

  Alec sighed and kept his voice down, though no one was paying attention to them as they walked. “The ‘children’ haven’t been children in years, and I haven’t complained about them in months.” Mostly because he hadn’t seen them in months. Well. “Bureaucracy and lesser minds are unavoidable.”

  “You’ve finally realized this, after years of ranting? Miracles do happen.” Wei paused to wave toward Magreb, one of the systems techs who worked for him. Magreb smiled back, but she glowered at Alec before turning away. Once they were in Andromeda, Wei would become head of Adaptive Technologies—in charge of all the domes, habitats, mass effect fields, and more that might be needed to establish a human colony on a possibly hostile world.

  Until they found that world, though, Wei mostly occupied himself with cybersecurity, assisting the Initiative’s core team as needed. Technically he wasn’t supposed to do that, but in practice the Initiative’s key personnel functioned more on a collaborative, consensus model. Alec… was not good at collaboration, and some members of the Initiative—like Drive Core Tech Chief Magreb—never let him forget that.