Drew Karpyshyn - Retribution

It was possible he was already dead, but she wouldn’t let herself believe that. The Illusive Man was cunning and cruel; he wouldn’t simply execute someone who had betrayed him in the way Grayson had.

He’d have some elaborate plan to exact his revenge.

As grim as this thought was, it gave her some small glimmer of hope to cling to as she analyzed all the disparate data in a desperate race to save him.

When Grayson woke up, he was horrified to discover he was a prisoner in his own body. He could see and hear everything around him, but it seemed surreal, almost as if he was watching a projection on a vid screen with the volume and brightness set way too high.

He rolled over in the cot, spun to put his feet on the floor, stood up, and began to pace restlessly about the cell — but none of these actions came from his own volition. His body refused to respond to his commands; he was powerless to control his own actions. He had become a meat puppet, an instrument of Reaper will.

He briefly registered the fact that his crippled knee had somehow repaired itself overnight. Then his eyes flickered downward, giving him a glimpse of his body, and his mind recoiled in disgust.

He was being transformed. Repurposed. The implants in his brain had spread throughout his body.

The self-replicating Reaper nanotechnology had woven itself into his muscles, sinews, and nerves, transforming him into a monstrous hybrid of synthetic and organic life. His flesh had become stretched and semitranslucent. Beneath it he could see thin flexible tubes winding along the length of his limbs.

Flickers of red and blue light pulsed along the tubes, the illumination bright enough to be visible through his opaque skin.

Even though he was no longer in control of his body, he could feel that the cybernetics had made him both faster and stronger. He was more aware of his surroundings; his senses were heightened to a supernatural level. The melding of man and machine had created a being that was physically superior to any evolutionary design.

But that wasn’t the only change. He was also developing rudimentary biotic abilities beyond those temporarily granted by dosing up with red sand. He could sense his Reaper masters pushing and probing, eager to test the limits of his weak but ever-growing power.

The Reapers turned his body to face the shelf of provisions. Inside he felt a buildup of energy, like a static charge increased a thousandfold. His hand rose, palm extended toward the ration kits. There was a sudden jolt along the length of his arm, strong enough to send a flare of pain shooting up to Grayson’s helpless consciousness.

The neat pile of carefully stacked rations was blown apart by the impact of a biotic push. Boxes shot up into the air, bouncing off the shelves and wall before clattering onto the floor.

It was hardly an impressive display. Grayson had seen his own daughter lift a thousand-kilogram piece of machinery and use it to crush a pair of Cerberus agents. The scattered ration packs weighed less than a kilogram each, and the impact hadn’t even been powerful enough to burst the seals keeping the food inside fresh. But he knew his power would continue to grow, and he sensed the Reapers were pleased.

Grayson lowered his arm, and it took him a full second before the significance of the action struck him.

He had lowered his arm; not the Reapers — him!

The biotic display must have temporarily weakened their control of his body. Recognizing that their domination of his will was not yet absolute was all the encouragement he needed to fight back.

The whispers in his head grew to an angry roar as Grayson struggled to regain control of his physical form. He shut them out, ignoring them as he focused all his energy on the simple act of taking a single step.

His left foot rose in response, moving forward half a foot before coming back down to the floor. Then his right foot followed suit, setting off a chain reaction in Grayson’s body. He could literally feel each individual muscle tighten, then relax, as his mind reasserted its dominion over what was rightfully his.

As he came back to himself, his body began to tremble. His mouth felt dry, his skin itchy. He recognized the classic symptoms of withdrawal. The hit of red sand was wearing off, allowing him to regain his focus and concentration, his most valuable weapons against the aliens inside his head.

The Reapers were mounting a counterassault: pushing in on his thoughts, trying to twist and bend them to their control. But Grayson refused to surrender what he had fought so hard to regain. It was a battle to save his very identity, and he was winning!

He felt a rush of elation and adrenaline … and something else. He barely had time to realize what it was before the warmth of another dose of red sand swept over him.

His head began to swim in an ocean of narcotic bliss, and the Reapers seized the opportunity to wrest control of his body away from him.

Helpless, he could only watch from within as his body walked over to the cot and lay back down on the bed. Lying there in a dust storm fugue, he struggled to understand what had just happened. There was only one explanation that made any sense.

Cerberus was still watching him. Studying him. They knew he was resisting the Reapers; they had dosed him with concentrated red sand to weaken his resolve. Sometime during his previous high they must have surgically implanted a device to allow them to remotely administer doses of the drug to keep him in a perpetual state of intoxication.

It wouldn’t have been hard; a small radio-controlled dispenser under the skin that released the sand directly into his bloodstream would do the trick. At a soluble mixture of near one hundred percent concentration, it would take only a few drops to send him flying each time. Eventually the supply in the dispenser would run out, but that didn’t give him hope: he knew Cerberus would just refill it.

His eyes closed, shutting out the world. The Reapers needed him to rest; the transformation was still in progress. They needed him to sleep, and so he did.

The Illusive Man and Dr. Nuri had watched the entire episode through the one-way glass. The physical changes to Grayson’s body were gruesome, but any guilt the Illusive Man had over what they had done was offset by the knowledge that the data they were collecting could prove invaluable at preventing or reversing the process in future victims. More important, they were learning the limits of what the Reapers were truly capable of.

At first the results seemed to mirror those collected from experiments on the so-called husks: human victims transformed into mindless automatons by the geth during Saren’s campaign to seize control of the Citadel. But the Illusive Man knew the truth about that war: Saren and his geth army had all been servants under the control of a Reaper called Sovereign. And the technology to turn humans into husks hadn’t come from the geth.

But Grayson’s metamorphosis was something more subtle and complex. He was not becoming a mindless slave. He was becoming a vessel, an avatar of the Reapers — like Saren himself. And before his death at the hands of Commander Shepard, Saren had been very, very powerful.

“His strength is growing quickly,” Illusive Man noted to Dr. Nuri. “We won’t be able to hold him prisoner for much longer.”

“We’re tracking his evolution carefully,” the scientist assured him. “It will be at least a week before he poses any real threat of escape.”

“You’re certain of your data?”

“I’d stake my life on it.”

“You already have,” the Illusive Man reminded her. “And mine, too.”

There was an awkward silence before he added, “I’ll give you three more days to study him. That’s all I’m willing to risk. Do I make myself clear?”