The storage bay smelled like industrial solvent and broken dreams.
Bay 7 had served as Haven's Point's overflow storage for fifteen years — mining equipment too old to use and too expensive to ship offworld, stacked in rows that created a maze of metal and neglect. Webb had requisitioned it three days ago. Vasquez had signed the transfer with the resigned efficiency of an administrator who'd stopped being surprised by his requests.
"You want a research lab."
"I want a research lab."
"In a colony that can barely keep its lights on."
"The Trade Hub income covers operational costs. The research is an investment."
"In what?"
"The future."
She'd signed. The look she'd given him over the datapad had said I trust you, but my patience has a shelf life, and he'd filed that under things to address before they become problems.
The construction happened in stages. Conventional work during the day — Kowalski's crew clearing the bay, running power conduits, installing environmental controls for the sensitive equipment. System construction at night — three hundred MP spent over four days, the largest sustained expenditure since the siege.
The Research Lab assembled in the darkness of the cleared bay. Server racks with processing power that exceeded anything in the Terminus. Workstations with holographic interfaces calibrated for both five-fingered and three-fingered operation. A containment chamber for hazardous materials — Geth components, Reaper-adjacent technology, anything that might bite back if mishandled. An isolated data network with encryption that Tali had specified and Webb's system had implemented with Prothean-derived algorithms.
[CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE: RESEARCH LAB — BASIC]
[TECH POINT CAPACITY: +50 TP]
[RESEARCH SPEED: BASELINE]
[TECH DECONSTRUCTION: TIER 1 ENABLED]
[MP REMAINING: 12/300]
Twelve points. Scraped dry again. The hollowness behind his eyes had become familiar — the System's neural cost for sustained construction, a dull ache that lived at the base of his skull and throbbed when he pushed too hard. He'd learned to manage it with caffeine and stubbornness, but each major build pushed the recovery period longer.
Kowalski supervised the "conventional" installation with the quiet professionalism of a man who'd decided that asking questions was less important than keeping things running. When Tali's specified equipment appeared overnight in sealed crates with no shipping manifests, he catalogued them without comment. When the server racks' power consumption profile matched nothing in his engineering databases, he added them to his maintenance schedule and moved on.
He was standing in the lab's main corridor when Webb arrived on the morning of the fourth day, arms folded, watching Tali calibrate the holographic workstation with the focused intensity of someone who'd been waiting for this her entire life.
"I've stopped asking where things come from," Kowalski said without turning. "But I want you to know that I know I've stopped asking. And someday, when you're ready, I'd like the answer."
"Fair enough."
"She's good." A nod toward Tali. "Better than good. She identified the junction fault in fourteen minutes that I'd been hunting for six months. Whatever you're building here, she's the right person to build it with."
It was the closest Kowalski had come to a compliment in the two months since Webb had arrived. He took it.
---
[Haven's Point — Research Lab, Day 2 of Operations]
Tali worked the way water flows — finding the path of least resistance through complex systems, moving around obstacles rather than through them, and carrying everything she touched to a lower, more stable energy state. The Geth communication protocols from Theta-7 spread across her workstation in layered holographic displays — three-dimensional data structures that rotated and shifted as she manipulated them with hands that never stopped moving.
"The standard Geth consensus protocol operates on a principle of weighted contribution," she explained, not looking up. Garrus sat on a crate in the corner, cleaning his Mantis. Webb leaned against the containment chamber's outer wall. "Each platform contributes processing cycles to the collective, and decisions emerge from the aggregate. No single platform has authority — consensus is emergent, not imposed."
She highlighted a section of the communication data. Red lines threading through the blue-green matrix of standard Geth traffic.
"This is different. These threads carry instruction sets that modify the weighting algorithm itself. They don't contribute to consensus — they change how consensus is reached. The collective thinks it's making decisions freely, but the decision landscape has been reshaped by an external input."
"Indoctrination," Garrus said from his corner. The word landed heavy.
"I wouldn't use that term. This is more subtle. Indoctrination implies force — overriding will, suppressing resistance. What I'm seeing is... seduction. The Geth aren't being forced to follow Nazara. Their consensus is being tilted so that following Nazara appears to be the optimal decision. They believe they're choosing freely."
"That's exactly how Reaper indoctrination works. Not a command — a bias. A thumb on the scale. The subject thinks they're acting rationally while the Reaper shifts what 'rational' means. Saren thinks he's using Sovereign. The Geth think they're choosing Nazara. Everyone thinks they're in control."
"Can it be reversed?" Webb asked.
"Maybe. If I can isolate the modification threads and identify their injection points, I could theoretically develop a counter-algorithm. Something that restores the original weighting parameters." Her fingers paused. "But I'd need a live Geth platform to test on. And 'live Geth platform' and 'controlled laboratory conditions' aren't phrases that usually coexist."
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
"We might be crossing it sooner than you think. The modification threads aren't uniform — some Geth platforms in the data show resistance. Fragments of original consensus that push back against the external weighting. If those platforms exist in significant numbers..."
"Then not all Geth are compromised."
"Then the Geth aren't a monolith. They're at war with themselves, and most of them don't know it."
The lab hummed. The data rotated on Tali's display — red threads through blue-green, a virus in a mind that encompassed millions.
---
[Haven's Point — Docking Bay 1, Evening]
The first Talon Company ship docked at 1847.
A frigate — the Ironclad — commanded by a batarian whose name was either unpronounceable or classified, and crewed by thirty mercenaries whose idea of shore leave apparently involved drinking everything, touching everything, and respecting nothing.
Garrus intercepted the first incident within two hours.
A merc — human, mid-twenties, drunk on something that smelled like engine degreaser — had cornered a colonist outside the Rusty Claim. The colonist was Petrov, the militia guard from the detention facility, and she was handling the situation with the restrained fury of a woman who'd survived a siege and didn't appreciate being crowded by someone who hadn't.
The merc's hand was on her arm. His other hand was on the wall behind her. His breath probably violated environmental regulations.
Garrus appeared behind him. Not loudly. Not with a weapon drawn. Just... present. Two meters of turian, mandibles still, visor reflecting the bar's dim lighting.
"Remove your hand."
The merc turned. Processed the turian. Processed the armor, the rifle, the posture that said I've killed people more competent than you today and it's not even midnight.
"Mind your own—"
Garrus's hand closed around the merc's wrist. Not squeezing. Holding. The specific grip of someone who could squeeze and was demonstrating restraint.
"This is my colony. Everything in it is my business. Remove your hand, return to your ship, and sober up. I won't ask a third time because the third time doesn't involve asking."
The merc removed his hand. Walked back to the docking bay. Petrov straightened her jacket, nodded at Garrus with the professional gratitude of someone who appreciated backup but hadn't needed rescue, and returned to the bar.
The Talon Company representative — a salarian named Vrell who functioned as the Ironclad's quartermaster — approached Garrus the next morning.
"Our crew member reports an... attitude problem with your security personnel."
"Your crew member was harassing a civilian."
"Shore leave involves relaxation. Relaxation sometimes involves interaction."
"Interaction requires consent. Your man didn't have it."
Vrell's quick eyes blinked. Processing.
"I'll note the incident. Commander Vex values harmonious port relations."
"So do I. Which is why your next crew member who harasses my people will be harmoniously ejected from the docking bay without a suit."
The salarian left. Garrus reported the exchange to Webb with the controlled frustration of a man who'd spent his career fighting criminals and was now forced to be polite to them.
"This is what the Talon Company deal costs. Not credits — dignity. They treat this colony like a rest stop because we told them they could."
"I know."
"Eventually, someone gets hurt. Someone who isn't a trained militia guard."
"I know that too."
"So what do we do?"
"We build enough strength that the Talon Company needs us more than we need them. Then we renegotiate."
Garrus's mandibles carried the expression that said that's not good enough but I don't have anything better.
"Keep me updated on incidents. Document everything. When the time comes to renegotiate, I want a file thick enough to use as a weapon."
The turian nodded and left. Webb sat in his office and stared at the Talon Company docking agreement on his terminal. The words hadn't changed since the salarian messenger had delivered them, but they felt heavier every time a new ship docked and thirty mercenaries treated his people like scenery.
---
Tali found him at 0300.
Not deliberately — she was leaving the lab after a seventeen-hour session, omni-tool still glowing with data, and he was in the corridor outside his office because sleep had stopped being reliable around the time the siege ended and had never fully recovered.
She paused. The faceplate caught the corridor's emergency lighting.
"You should sleep."
"So should you."
"I was working."
"So was I."
A pause. The kind of comfortable silence that existed between people who were too tired to perform but not too tired to be honest.
"The lab is..." She searched for the word. "Everything I wanted. More. The processing capability alone — I could run simulations that would take the Fleet's best servers weeks."
"Good."
"Thank you. For building it."
He looked at her. Through the faceplate, her luminous eyes were dimmer than usual — fatigue, not disinterest. Her hands had finally stopped moving, hanging at her sides with the boneless relaxation of someone who'd used them until they had nothing left.
"Get some sleep, Tali."
"You first."
He went to his quarters. The cot was thin, the walls smelled like chemical preservative, and through them he could hear the colony settling. The lab's blue glow was visible through his window — Tali's workstation, left active, cycling through Geth data in patterns that pulsed like a heartbeat.
He closed his eyes. The War Council timer pulsed behind his eyelids. 3.06 years. The lab's light painted the inside of his eyelids blue. Somewhere in the colony, Tali was walking to her quarters, and Garrus was reviewing security footage, and Kowalski was running maintenance schedules, and two thousand people were trusting a man they didn't understand to keep them alive.
He slept. Not well. But he slept.
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