Whole, Part 2 (a Mass Effect fanfiction)

Control

Shepard stared down the barrel of the Illusive Man's pistol. "You don't want to do this."

"Don't tell me what I want. This is what I've been working toward my whole life."

"What? The destruction of the galaxy?"

"No! The elevation of the human species."

"This man is indoctrinated," Javik said under his breath. "He cannot be trusted."

"What do you mean, elevation?" Shepard asked. "What kind of elevation?"

"The Reapers! I can control them."

"They are controlling you! Wake up, man!" Javik shouted.

The Illusive Man frowned. For a moment, he seemed to be considering what Javik said. Then he shook his head violently. "No. No, I know what I'm doing."

"What are you doing?"

"I can use your Crucible, this beam, and the Catalyst. Use them to control the Reapers. All that power at my fingertips!"

"How does that elevate the human race?" Shepard asked.

"Imagine having the Reapers' power in every human across the galaxy."

"Those are called husks. You know, like the kind you made at Sanctuary, killing and perverting the bodies of people who trusted you."

"That has always been your problem, Shepard. You lack vision. You can't see the possibilities before you."

"No, I suppose I can't. Because what I can see is the faces of the dead. I've been out there, fighting these battles, seeing the people we've lost. They were humans, too, and they were not elevated."

"You have to make some sacrifices on behalf of humanity."

"They didn't choose to be sacrificed!" she shouted at him.

"No one does, Shepard. You should know that by now."

Staring at him, she couldn't help but think of the asari who had died trying to get her to that temple on Thessia, Grunt throwing himself in the middle of a whole lot of rachni so she could get to safety. "I did," she said, more quietly.

"What?"

"I sacrificed myself for Joker, when the original Normandy was destroyed. I would do it again. Most people would. What you mean is that no one wants to be used as a guinea pig in one of your twisted experiments, and you're right. They didn't."

"Don't be a fool, Shepard! You and I, we can be the prototypes of a whole new kind of humanity—one where Reaper tech and human imagination coexist in the same body."

"That's not what the Reapers are about! They are about wiping out all organic life, collecting it. They don't have any interest in joining with it."

"They won't have a choice." The Illusive Man's strange blue eyes were lit with a fanatic light. "We can control them, Shepard! I can make them do whatever I want."

"No, you can't. They already own you. Can't you feel it?"

He hesitated, the gun wavering in his hand, then tightened his grip. "No one is telling me what to do! These are my ideas. My thoughts! My vision."

"They are in your head as certainly as you are standing here," Javik said. "Their only purpose is to use you to stop their own destruction. As soon as you are no longer useful, you will be used up and cast aside. I have seen it all, many times before."

"Your people lost! Mine will win, I tell you. We will take victory over the Reapers by becoming them."

Shepard took a cautious step toward the Illusive Man. "For the love of everything you used to stand for, listen to yourself! Becoming the Reapers? Joining with the Reapers? You'd be signing the death sentence of humanity, losing everything that makes us unique or important. Our free will, our hearts, our imaginations ... all of that would be lost."

The Illusive Man stared at her. "No ..." he said slowly. "No. We would keep those. We would use them as part of the Reapers."

"No, we wouldn't, and you know it. Please! People are dying while we stand here, people who don't have to die. Let me finish this."

"Shepard." He was still staring at her, his eyes wide. "I ..."

"Fight them!" she hissed. "Be your own person. You have the power to free yourself."

"I ... I don't think ... I don't think I can." The gun in his hand wavered again, then straightened.

"You can do this."

She could see the tension in him, the way the perspiration stood out on his forehead. Slowly the hand with the gun lifted until it was pointed at himself, at his own temple.

"No!" Shepard cried out.

"I'm sorry," he said to her, and from somewhere deep within himself, he found the strength to pull the trigger.

Shepard caught him as he fell. The Illusive Man was gone, and everything he had been, or could have been, was gone with him. "He had a vision, once."

"Many of us had things once that are gone now. Do not let your world be among them," Javik told her.

Leaving the Illusive Man where he had fallen, Shepard hurried to the console in the center of the beam. She wished for Joker's dexterity, his sure touch on a set of controls. But he wasn't here, and hers would have to do. She keyed in the combination that would allow the Crucible, and Leviathan, access to the beam.

With a resounding boom that threatened to knock her off her feet, pure white light erupted from the console, lighting the night. Was that good? Was it going to work? She swayed dizzily, unable to keep her balance against the onslaught of the light as it spread. Shepard's eyes closed against it. She could feel it buffeting against her body, battering and bruising her. Dimly she was aware of a pair of arms closing around her, someone lifting her off her feet. Javik, she thought hazily. And then darkness claimed her.