The Firefly (Mass Effect Andromeda)

Chapter 20

They decided to collect Nunok before proceeding any further. They took him back to the chasm they had crossed to find Taavos. Eventually they found the slope that took them down, shooting Remnant as they went. Olivia felt a surge of excitement as they followed a flooded path through the twilight luminescence of the jungle until they found Taavos, waiting beside a door.

"This is it." He said without preamble, "Right here." He took a deep breath. "If I just still my mind." He gazed around at the Remnant structure, dotted with glowing plants, "I've been here before. Familiar. One, two, three indentations. Palm here." He mused, looking down at the console before them. Laying his hand upon, they gasped as one as the structure moved, the columns sliding to reveal the entrance.

"Wow." Olivia felt a grin slide onto her face.

"Remarkable." Nunok chimed at her side.

"It worked." Taavos breathed in astonishment. He strode into the cave without fear, beneath the giant blue plants, stepping over Remnant tiles with a kind of child-like wonder. "There were Remnant machines here, but Zorai made them stop." The words came out dazedly.

"How did he know how to use Remnant tech?" Lyora asked.

"He watched the watchers." Taavos said, a little hesitantly. "That's all I can make sense of. The others slept but Zorai...I...stayed awake. Unmoving but seeing. Learning."

"A stasis field." Olivia murmured, "Like the one Scott found at the first monolith. But somehow Zorai was immune."

Taavos found his way through a secret gate, stumbling across an ancient audio log. He knelt down, activating it. "Builder machines exhaust me." A voice said from the past, "Mind and body must be engaged wholly or the attempt fails. I can't stop. Without the monoliths, the vault fails. Without the vault, the planet dies. I'm close...just one more." The voice was female.

Taavos glanced up at them in bewilderment, "The Sages were wrong. Zorai was a woman. That was her voice. That was my voice, once. May I keep this?" He glanced at Olivia.

"Of course. It's yours." After some searching, with Nunok's scanner, they realized they stood atop Zorai's grave. She was buried there. She had never made it to the third monolith. Taavos crouched over it, his hand stroking the earth. Olivia could understand the confusion. This, in some ways, was his body. This had once been him, the woman buried deep below the ground.

He rose, looking drained, "We have to find the monolith. I don't think it's far." He took a breath. "Come." They jogged onwards, Taavos opening doors.

Finally the doors to a cave slid open. The rock opening at the side created a perfect frame to what they'd been searching for. The top of the missing monolith rose up.

Olivia activated the gravity elevator, falling gently, and gasping at the colossal scale of the monolith. It seemed to descend into infinity, within the endless walls of the cavern. Finally, her feet touched the ground. The bioluminescence created a little light of eerie blue, but the rest had torches out.

She could see the console and ran to it, hearing the others feet pounding behind her. "Can you do it?" Taavos asked her with anxious eyes.

"I think so." Olivia said uncertainly. She focused on the console, feeling the Firefly implant stir, and the ancient glyphs dance before her eyes, focusing in and out of their intricate patterns.

With a rush of feeling, the monolith flickered to life. The icy blue beam shot from the tip and out of the cave to triangulate the position of the vault.