Synthesis

Chapter 1

After what felt like ages of nothingness, Commander Victoria Shepard became suddenly and violently aware of her surroundings. But she couldn’t make sense of them. She was standing at the feet of a figure on a table. After a short, disorienting moment, she realized she was looking at her own, unconscious body. Which was lying on a blaringly familiar table. In the Normandy’s subdeck.

“What in the hell.” When one awakens in the afterlife, aren’t they usually in their body, or completely without their body? Not looking at it?

You are not dead, Commander Shepard.

Shepard spun around. There, standing behind her, was the catalyst. Still in the mocking form of the little  boy that she couldn’t save. The little boy that had haunted her dreams for months.

“What happened? Weren’t you destroyed? Wasn’t I?”

When your crucible fired, synthesizing organic and synthetic life across the galaxy, it destroyed the Citadel, my home, not me.

“And me? Didn’t it... ‘absorb my essence?’ Shouldn’t I, I don't know, not exist?”

The intelligence paused for a moment. It almost seemed to be considering.
As I stated at the crucible, you were the first organic ever to make it that far. You surprised us. And brought with you new variables. Another pause. In the time it took for you to reach the synthesis bridge, we ran calculations, and discovered a new option. We joined your consciousness with our own so that it would not be lost. Your essence was still broken down. However, instead of being absorbed, we found that it could simply be... distributed throughout the galaxy. And that, after it served its purpose, we could
gather it back to a location that anchored you.

“Soooo... I teleported?” Shepard responded slowly. Bemused.

The Intelligence made a face. That is one way to put it.

“That doesn’t explain why I seem to be standing outside my body. Or why I’m in the subdeck” It seemed to Shepard that her cabin would have made more sense. Or the CIC. Or the battery. Anywhere else, really, if it was a matter of what “anchored” her.

We... we did not wish to alarm the crew, and this area is never visited. The reconstruction of your cells after such a long journey is not instantaneous. You are in this state because you are not yet ready to awaken, but we found it best to explain things to you first.

“You didn’t wish to alarm the crew? You seem pretty different than before.”

As mentioned, we joined your consciousness with our own. It was the only way to preserve you during the Journey, between that, and the effects of the Synthesis, we have gained a deeper understanding of you. We... will become silent when reconstruction is complete, and you awaken.

“Wait, you’re just going to cease to exist?! Why would you do that?”

We will live on, in your subconscious. In the form of information you otherwise would not have. Because of your actions, life has reached its final evolution. Conflict between synthetics and organics will no longer exist, because they are now, essentially, one in the same. We realized that when Synthesis was complete, we would no longer have a purpose. We were not initially sure why we made the decision that we did, but in the instant after our decision, the Synthesis began, and we understood that, while we would no longer have a purpose, you would. Your purpose now, Commander Shepard, is to live. With your friends and loved ones. In the peace that you fought so hard to create. In that instant, our last purpose became to preserve you. Much to Shepard’s amazement, the Intelligence smiled.