Chapter 2
Each of the three beings in the office was aware of something the other two were not. Mordin “Soulless” Solis was perhaps the only one truly aware of what the child laying on the table was going through, “Waxy skin, shot through with fiber, cocoon expected within next five minutes.”
“Cocoon?” Wrex yelled, already certain that if Harry didn’t get up of his own power and walk out the makeshift hospital, he was going to wrap his fist around the Salarian’s scrawny neck and squeeze until he joined the first dead body.
What was left of Harry’s consciousness had been shunted out of the body and was hovering just off to the side of the massive Krogan, fairly certain that it was the first of the three of them to experience what death felt like to live through.
Over on the table, what had, up until that point, been a young human male was looking bloated, waxy, and on the verge of decomposition.
“Ten minutes to full reversal.”
“Reversal?”
“The genetic code wasn’t meant to survive contact with eezo, even on the periphery. Proximity to a mass relay triggered the reversion code tail. Intended side effect to protect the child from being used by unscrupulous types.”
“Such as yourself?” Wrex rumbled.
Mordin Solis looked up at the statement, “Am not interested in what the child’s genetics are keyed to beyond simple scientific curiosity. Her parents recovered the ship from Ilos. Told me to watch over the ship, and show the child to it when she was ready.”
“What do you mean the ship is keyed to her genetics?”
“Cannot dumb it down farther, no crayons. From what I understand? The ship responds only to her presence.”
“When the hell did Shepard and Liara find this ‘ship’? We were all in a made scramble on Ilos to stop Sovereign, weren’t no time for sight-seeing.”
“After Reaper stopped at Citadel, not sure of precise time frame. Have had possession of ship for fifteen years?”
“How? If she’s only eleven?”
“Time dilation, length of planetary revolution, presumed length of year on Shanxi, calculations would match to fifteen on Omega, or nineteen on the Citadel.”
That threw Wrex for a loop, “You saying we would all live longer lives on the Citadel?”
“No, artificially shortened year on Citadel. Age of death higher, but, would be translated to years on Tuchanka, registered as dead at 50.”
“Fifty?”
“Average life span of Krogan, clan leader expectancy much lower.”
“What’s the life expectancy for a Salarian who appears to be letting my charge die on his operating table?”
“Appearances deceptive. The child is in the midst of liquefaction to base genetic level, to rebuild from her core DNA. Built in safety protocol. Parents paid through the nose for the works.”
Wrex rubbed his chin at that, “Where the damn hell did they get that kind of money? Spectre bounties didn’t pay that well, by my memory.”
“You were Spectre? Unaware Krogan were accepted.”
“What? No, Shepard was very… talkative about her situation, constantly looking for input from the crew.”
“Impressed you have held your rage this long. Expected to be attacked. Bunkered in in this room.”
“What?”
Mordin gestured up to the corners of the room’s ceiling, just as several turrets unfolded from the recesses in the ceiling. “Partially paid for by the parents. Other part paid for by Aria, frequently on call to patch her idiots up.”
Wrex was about to reply to that, only for the body that had been Harry to suddenly split down the meridian line on the front of his body, both halves sliding away to either side, revealing a very young Asari. Very likely the youngest Asari anyone in the galaxy had seen without being on Thessia.
“The child. Fantastic. Roll to your left and stay there,” Mordin reached into the box Wrex had brought along, withdrawing a very thin coil of wire, very particularly tuned to things that only Shepard, Liara, and Mordin knew, moving to stand at the back of the child, “This will hurt, but you will survive,” and drew a monofilament scalpel very deftly along the auricle of the asari’s ear, pulling the wound open on both sides to slide the dampener into place at the base of the skull, immediately closing the cut and cauterizing it with the side of the scalpel. The entire procedure was topped off with an application of medi-gel, and there was no longer any sign that she had been tampered with, “Alright, you may get up now.”
“I have a name,” the eleven year old Asari grumbled, sitting up carefully.
“Do you? The parents only called you the child,” Mordin moved to offer a thin, three digited hand to the newly despliced Asari, “Next step, my final involvement. Grab a suit and follow me.”
Wrex, standing near the small pile of folded fabric, dug out something that looked like it would fit his charge and held it out for her to slip into, doing his absolute best not to look directly at her until she was clothed. “How you feelin’, kiddo?”
The child nee Harry blinked, vaguely aware of so many new feelings, voices that should’ve been well beyond hi- her hearing range, the ambient temperature, the incredibly slow passage of time. She sighed after a moment, “Not sure… there’s a lot to take in. Wait… what is that?”
“What is what?” Wrex looked in the direction the asari child was looking.
Harry pointed at an indistinct column of something solid between herself and the doctor. “That?”
“There’s nothing there, kiddo.”
“Incorrect, she is seeing in ultraviolet. That? Is a beam of light. From that hole in the roof,” Mordin pointed a long finger up to the ceiling.
“Weird… I need a name, I don’t like the idea of just being called ‘Child’, and, I have this suspicion that there aren’t many Ah… sarry? Named Harry?”
“None that I’ve ever met, kiddo.”
“No time, must get you to your ship. We go.” The doctor immediately slipped out of the clinic door, leading the pair on a short jaunt through the bowels of Omega.