88 Mass Effect: Interlude

Commander Shepard enjoyed her retirement in a park on Tuchanka watching a pair of Human and Turian children in a sandbox. Nearby, a pair of Synths waited quietly, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. While much of the built environment around them followed the directions left behind by Grunt in his 'Keikaku if I'm not around anymore' files, the Synths were something beyond the scope of her vanished and visionary first child.

After the Geth finished converting the core of Tuchanka into a megastructure capable of hosting the entire Geth population, robotics and cybernetics began advancing faster than in any previous period and the Geth first proposed the possibility of fusing organic and synthetic consciousness to enable organics to participate in the Geth collective. The Tankgrown Krogan, lacking an identity, were the first to accept the transformative process, becoming cyborgs and living Geth terminals, finding meaning in their role in a greater being. A number of people who lost everything in the war against the Reapers chose to join the collective as well, but at the current rate it would take centuries to match the population of Tankgrown Krogan Synths.

The Commander herself wouldn't need many changes to become a Synth herself as many of the cybernetic upgrades performed on the Synths originated with the research that rebuilt and augmented her after her death by the Collectors. In the fifteen years since Grunt and Jack disappeared she hadn't changed visually at all, the synthetic weaving of her skin, muscles, and bones preventing degradation over time.

The same couldn't be said of Garrus, who played in the sandbox nearby with their second set of adopted children. The Turian had entered his middle age and enjoyed his job as head of the organic police on Tuchanka. With the leeway granted to him by Prime Minister Wrex, Garrus finally had his dream job of enforcing the law his way.

After destroying the Reapers, Shepard and Garrus had wed and adopted a pair of Human orphans and another pair of Turian orphans, all of whom now studied at Solus University in the capital city of New Gatatog. Rather than enjoy an empty nest, bird pun intended, the pair had started the process over again with a new quartet of orphans. The Reapers may be long gone, but the infinite cruelty of the galaxy would always leave children in need of new parents, and Shepard had no problem taking on responsibility.

Or as Grunt would declare, she wasn't afraid of anything, not even parenting.

Reading through Grunt's 'Keikaku if I'm not around anymore' files had been eye opening to say the least. While most of it were plans to try to save any Krogan lives possible, a number of them were designed to maximize the destruction inflicted on the Reapers in an attempt to make this cycle so costly the Reapers would have to rethink their ideology.

The section of plans meant for if the Reapers were defeated and he didn't survive had been more along the lines of fever dreams and grand ambitions, city layouts and lines of new research he thought would be cool. He'd even set aside a set of plans and funds to build mansions for all the people who had fought beside them… except Jacob.

Jacob received an essay that took thirty minutes to read aloud despite never repeating itself on why Jacob was a sack of shit. It covered topics like how fucked things would be if the Commander followed all of the advice the man had given during their mission to take down the Collectors to accusing the man of being a walking ugly stereotype of a black man. That seemed uncalled for despite the evidence cited of his 'loyalty mission' being tracking down the father that abandoned him and him sitting on a beach and impregnating a rando NPC while everyone else was busting ass getting ready to fight the Reapers.

Jacob's long term girlfriend and baby mamma was a lovely competent woman so long as she doesn't think you are interested in her man.

His accusation that Jacob was a Cerberus agent hired to provide her with a regular guy buddy so Cerberus doesn't seem so shady was pretty on point.

'This is getting intense. If I tell you who we work for, will you trust me?'

God above, the man was a completely shit actor.

"Auntie Shepard!" Called out a female voice.

Giala T'soni ran up in all her six foot plus glory clad in a skin tight exercise outfit that showed off the incredibly developed musculature on the fifteen year old's blue skinned frame. She was large and powerful in the way only the daughters of Aria T'loak were, and was their biggest competitor in the Asari athletic sphere.

Shepard kept an eye on the kids while conversing with the young woman. She didn't feel like the best source of information on Asari puberty and how much the enormous growth of a woman's breasts impeded the development of her athletic career and almost found herself giving the girl the same answer her grandmother gave her father nearly seventeen years ago in regards to having a promising pornographic career if her first option didn't pan out.

It made it hard to feel nostalgic about the man when the majority of the pictures of him are pornographic.

Liara had never spoken with Giala about her father, though the girl likely knew. She was ruthlessly smart like her father and independently curious like her mother. It was simply a hard topic to broach.

'Hey girl, that Krogan everyone worships and awaits the return of. He is your dad. Have fun being a demigod.'

Maybe Liara has figured out a better way to break it than that since the last time they'd discussed it.

As Jane Shepard watched the powerful form of Giala T'soni continue her run through the lush park on what was once a desolate world, she knew everything would work itself out in the end.

Or Jack and Grunt would return and restore chaos to the galaxy's hard won order.