Interlude: Taylor Administrator
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interlude: Taylor Administrator
The others had moved ahead into one of the lab's many rooms, crowding around Bonesaw — Riley, she was right, I needed to start thinking of her as Riley — as she explained her latest bit of work, while I paced in an out-of-the-way corner office. It didn't used to be like this. I didn't used to be like this. And that made it all the more frustrating.
Apology
I breathed out, trying to ignore my own internal wince. I wasn't accusing her. I was just acknowledging the differences. Maybe it would have been easier if there was actual communication between us. But there wasn't. It was just nudges and impressions and emotions and certainty that I was sometimes we and —
Apology
"Taylor, please calm down," Lisa said, her voice barely more than a murmur, whispering up from my omnitool. The omnitool that I had finally managed to yank off of my armor and plant onto the table so that her hologram wasn't inches from my nose. Because that was the most normal way to talk to the woman I loved.
"I am calm."
"If you keep pacing you're going to literally wear a rut into the floor, hon."
"I said I'm fine," I replied. I didn't stop my circuit of the room.
"No, you said you were calm. And you're clearly not. Which is actually worse. You don't show these sorts of reactions, Tay." I briefly met her eyes, scowling, before continuing walking. "Taylor, will you at least talk to me? I don't understand and I can't cheat anymore."
"You should know me well enough to hazard a good guess, Lisa," I snapped.
"It's… It's been awhile, Tay. You gotta give me something. Why are you acting like this?"
Why was I —
I froze mid-step, shutting my eyes, concentrating on my breathing as I pushed out into the insects all around us. I didn't want to damage the omnitool, but I could destroy a nice little chunk of masonry or hunt down the giant varren that the locals were complaining about and —
"You see? Even Khepri approves of our mission! This will be a successful hunt indeed. Gear up men, we have thieves to kill!"
"The vermin are agitated, Shaman. And on the eve of the Rite of Consecration. Does this mean…?"
"The human goddess' eyes are on us, men! She fought off legions of enemies, you're not going to let her see you stumble to pitiful little pyjaks now are you? Get after those grubby little monkeys and get our stores back!"
"Khepri walks among us. You see the swarm she calls! She who fought her way free of the Void itself, yes, she smiles on us today. Urdnot Drax died a good death and she will usher him into the Void for his next battle!"
As quickly as I had dipped into the swarm, I pulled back to my own body. Even that familiar avenue of relief was closed to me here. I resumed my stalking.
"Oh, oh, okay, I get it now, it's the worship isn't it?" Lisa winced. I glared at her, my lip twitching in a silent snarl. She sat in mid-air, running a hand through her pale-blue, Tron-lined hair. "You know a lot of these Krogan probably don't actually believe in Kheprism, right? The religion is just a good excuse for them. It has a strong moral core while also preaching excessive violence visited upon acceptable targets. It's basically Krogan catnip. And it fits into their own religious fragments without any real problems too. They just have to add that you came from the Void — whatever that is, trying to find details is like asking Dragon about her love life — and, hey, it all fits super nice now."
I stopped, turning to stare at Lisa, a scowl crossing my face before I could school it back into calm. "Do you really think that's my only problem right now? That I'm only upset because the Krogan worship me?"
Lisa glared back. "I don't know, Taylor. You're not talking to me! None of this is going anything like I had imagined and I've had a really long time to picture our fairy tale ending, so excuse me for being a bit out of sorts!"
I grabbed one of the chairs and dragged it over, planting it on the ground in front of the table so that when I dropped into it I was on eye level with her. Taking a second to collect my thoughts I replied, slowly and deliberately, "I was done. It was over. We won, and we were done."
"Yeah, we did win; because of you," she agreed, dropping back down to a quiet murmur. "And then you vanished."
"You're not listening to me. We were done," I said again.
Lisa frowned. Her eyes widened a moment later. "Oh. Your passenger."
"I sacrificed everything to focus on saving the world, Lisa. Everything." I couldn't reach beyond the building, I didn't want to hear the Krogan invoking me again. But I had enough insects in the facility that I could at least keep my hands from twisting around each other. "I left Alec, Brian, Rachel, Aisha… you. I even cut out my dad."
"Danny didn't even try to contact you again after the first two months," Lisa said. "Don't defend him. He gave up that right on his own."
I shook my head. It wasn't worth arguing. "Two years, Lisa. Two years I avoided caring about anyone or anything. The mission was all that mattered."
"I know," she whispered. "I saw. I saw how… empty you were when Scion started his rampage. I tried to help as much as I could."
"I let Bonesaw and Panacea break my brain, because no one would work together. No one had any plans. We were fracturing. Everything was dying. Everything I had sacrificed my entire life for was just going to end in a whimper, as a depressed, pathetic god-child threw a temper tantrum, because no one could be bothered to work together."
"But we won, you got us organized."
"Khepri got us organized," I corrected. "Khepri won!" I couldn't stay confined to the building. But at least I was subtle this time. And I was able to find the varren before the hunting party. Maybe they would thank me later. I hoped they wouldn't. "After it was over, Queen Administrator and I, we couldn't figure out where one of us started and the other ended. We weren't separate. We weren't Taylor and Administrator. There was only Khepri. And Khepri couldn't exist with the people we both cared about. Khepri was not… safe to be around. There was too much Taylor in her and not enough Administrator."
Lisa was silent for several seconds. "I think you have that backwards, Tay."
"When have you ever known me to compromise, Lisa?" She didn't respond, just looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. "It was okay though. Because we were done. We got ourselves away. We kept everyone we loved safe from us. When Contessa found us we had managed to separate enough that when she asked Khepri what we wanted, we weren't sure which of us answered, but it didn't really matter."
"The answer was the same for each of you, wasn't it?" Lisa said. "Taylor, we would have been there to help you recover. Even if no one else stood by you, I would have."
I shrugged. "If we'd had more time to separate, or maybe not been so focused and alone for so long, maybe we would have understood that then. But at the time, it didn't even occur to us. We just knew that we wanted everyone to be safe. And we couldn't be sure we would have been able to stop being Khepri quickly enough for that to happen."
"Taylor, I…" she trailed off, sitting back down in mid-air again, shaking her head. "I really wish I had a fucking body. I want to hug you."
"We were done, Lisa. The world was safe, Rachel, Aisha, you were all safe from us." I paused.
Wall erected
The small warmth that spread through me at that feeling dimmed as I continued talking. "And then I heard beeping, and three people in sci-fi armor were standing over me with shotguns. And there was another war. And just like before, we still can't work together. We still can't stop arguing long enough to fix things. The enemies have been knocking at our door for years and no one cares. The only thing that is different, Lisa, is that this time? It's a galaxy at risk, instead of a planet."
"Tay —"
"I keep telling people I'm not Khepri, that I'm just Taylor. The more I say it, the more I try to believe it. I've been awake a month, Lisa. I am finding it very hard to believe that Khepri is not going to be required to win this war again too."
"Taylor, you don't —"
"And now we're here, on Tuchanka. And wouldn't you know it, Bonesaw is still around. Administrator and I can probably tear down our walls by ourselves. We're pretty sure we know how to do it safer this time. But —"
"But Riley is a symbol," Lisa finally managed to cut in.
"I sent you an email a few hours ago. I've been looking at the mass relays, trying to understand why the Omega 4 one works differently than the rest."
Lisa frowned. "The one about a trap? We know about the Citadel being able to link to dark space. The Council is trying to figure out where the actual relay part is on the station, Tay."
I sighed. "You didn't read the whole thing. The entire network looks like a trap, Lisa. It looks like a hive. The way it's all arranged, the way civilizations are set up around the hubs and the nodes. The Citadel dark space option was probably Plan A. Omega 4 is likely Plan B. Another core node that will let the Reapers start linking to every other hub. Every world will fall before we even know what hits us."
Lisa's hologram flickered as she stared at me. "That can't be right. Hang on, I have to look at this data. I have to review this." Her hologram almost seemed to glitch, freezing in midair for a full fifteen seconds. When it started back up again, Lisa was standing, her eyes wide, her head shaking fast enough that her digital hair was whipping across her face. "Taylor, this can't be right. Have you mentioned any of this to Jane yet?"
"I'm trying not to bring too much up to Shepard all at once. I'm very aware of how uncomfortable I make her. If I push her too much, too fast, with too many wild ideas, I know exactly where that's going to leave me. It's happened before. I need more proof before I can bring it to her."
Lisa was silent as her eyes literally flashed. "There… might be something here. I don't have enough processing power or available data and I'm limited on what I can really figure out on my own. We should talk to her, Taylor. We need to bring more people in on this."
"Maybe. But even if we do, I don't know if it's going to matter. It's been 200 years, Lisa, and nothing has changed. We are all still hopelessly fractured. If anything it's worse because we don't even have superpowers left to fight back with. There's so few of us left. And of all people, Bonesaw — Riley — is still here. One of two people who makes it easy for me to be Khepri. The mass relays are a trap. And we're heading right into the nest, with just a single ship and a hodgepodge crew. I don't know if I can afford to… I think I may need to… Riley is here for a reason and —"
"Yeah. No. Shut the hell up, right now, Taylor," Lisa snapped. "If you think that I'm about to let you go queen bitch again on me when I just got you back because the Reapers are bit scary, then you can go fuck yourself."
I frowned. "Lisa, I'm trying to —"
"No. My turn to talk! Jane can be a bit weird. Her command style is totally bonkers. I get that you are chafing at the bit because you are not the one in control, but trust her. She is good at what she does. And what she does is get the damn job done. We need the Reapers dead? She'll do it. We need the Collectors neutered? Well between the two of you, I think it's pretty clear we've already got that in the bag. We need the galaxy to sit down, shut up, and play nice for five freaking minutes? Give her a few weeks, I guarantee she will get pissed off enough to tie the leaders of each faction to a chair and force them to yell at each other long enough until they agree to work together."
"That sounds nice, but it sounds like a fantasy, Lisa."
"You've been looking up the threats. Look up the history, Taylor," Lisa stressed. "Jane has an excellent record. Everyone in our motley crew does. Hell, give me a week and I can call Dragon and Colin and they will show up with half the entire Geth race behind them asking why Mom and Dad are calling in the big guns. Does the galaxy have problems? Sure. Are the Salarians generally assholes and the Asari usually taking a Holier Than Thou approach? Also yes. Are the Batarians perfect examples of why theocracies are horrible? Definitely. But we're not universally screwed and Riley being here does not imply that you are getting a message from God or something that you need to go full Khepri again! Do. You. Fucking. Hear. ME?!"
Tentative agreement
I felt my lip curl up in a soft smile. "I suppose I can wait a bit longer. Just to see how things go. It is the nuclear option after all."
"Thank you." Lisa crossed her arms, continued to glare at me for another few seconds before sighing and shaking her head. "God, I forgot how stubborn you are. Do you feel better now?"
"A little bit."
"Good. Then go, get back into that room. You're giving the others a heart attack with your swarm and there's only so much I can do to reassure them that you haven't spontaneously taken up your goddess mantle and declared war on the galaxy yourself."
I rolled my eyes as I stood. "You'd think they would have learned by now not to be worried unless I'm attacking something."
"Yeah, well when you blow up at a doctor who's been working on a cure for the genophage after being pretty stoic beforehand they're going to get worried. That's not on them, Tay."
"It's a little on them."
"Stubbbboorrn."
"Says the woman who turned herself into a computer because I vanished," I commented.
Lisa groaned. "Point taken. Truce?"
I laughed. "Truce." As I put the omnitool back on, I looked down at her. "Lisa? Thanks."
She smiled up at me. "Always, Taylor. I love you."
"I love you too, Lisa."
That was at least one thing we could both agree on.
The others had moved ahead into one of the lab's many rooms, crowding around Bonesaw — Riley, she was right, I needed to start thinking of her as Riley — as she explained her latest bit of work, while I paced in an out-of-the-way corner office. It didn't used to be like this. I didn't used to be like this. And that made it all the more frustrating.
Apology
I breathed out, trying to ignore my own internal wince. I wasn't accusing her. I was just acknowledging the differences. Maybe it would have been easier if there was actual communication between us. But there wasn't. It was just nudges and impressions and emotions and certainty that I was sometimes we and —
Apology
"Taylor, please calm down," Lisa said, her voice barely more than a murmur, whispering up from my omnitool. The omnitool that I had finally managed to yank off of my armor and plant onto the table so that her hologram wasn't inches from my nose. Because that was the most normal way to talk to the woman I loved.
"I am calm."
"If you keep pacing you're going to literally wear a rut into the floor, hon."
"I said I'm fine," I replied. I didn't stop my circuit of the room.
"No, you said you were calm. And you're clearly not. Which is actually worse. You don't show these sorts of reactions, Tay." I briefly met her eyes, scowling, before continuing walking. "Taylor, will you at least talk to me? I don't understand and I can't cheat anymore."
"You should know me well enough to hazard a good guess, Lisa," I snapped.
"It's… It's been awhile, Tay. You gotta give me something. Why are you acting like this?"
Why was I —
I froze mid-step, shutting my eyes, concentrating on my breathing as I pushed out into the insects all around us. I didn't want to damage the omnitool, but I could destroy a nice little chunk of masonry or hunt down the giant varren that the locals were complaining about and —
"You see? Even Khepri approves of our mission! This will be a successful hunt indeed. Gear up men, we have thieves to kill!"
"The vermin are agitated, Shaman. And on the eve of the Rite of Consecration. Does this mean…?"
"The human goddess' eyes are on us, men! She fought off legions of enemies, you're not going to let her see you stumble to pitiful little pyjaks now are you? Get after those grubby little monkeys and get our stores back!"
"Khepri walks among us. You see the swarm she calls! She who fought her way free of the Void itself, yes, she smiles on us today. Urdnot Drax died a good death and she will usher him into the Void for his next battle!"
As quickly as I had dipped into the swarm, I pulled back to my own body. Even that familiar avenue of relief was closed to me here. I resumed my stalking.
"Oh, oh, okay, I get it now, it's the worship isn't it?" Lisa winced. I glared at her, my lip twitching in a silent snarl. She sat in mid-air, running a hand through her pale-blue, Tron-lined hair. "You know a lot of these Krogan probably don't actually believe in Kheprism, right? The religion is just a good excuse for them. It has a strong moral core while also preaching excessive violence visited upon acceptable targets. It's basically Krogan catnip. And it fits into their own religious fragments without any real problems too. They just have to add that you came from the Void — whatever that is, trying to find details is like asking Dragon about her love life — and, hey, it all fits super nice now."
I stopped, turning to stare at Lisa, a scowl crossing my face before I could school it back into calm. "Do you really think that's my only problem right now? That I'm only upset because the Krogan worship me?"
Lisa glared back. "I don't know, Taylor. You're not talking to me! None of this is going anything like I had imagined and I've had a really long time to picture our fairy tale ending, so excuse me for being a bit out of sorts!"
I grabbed one of the chairs and dragged it over, planting it on the ground in front of the table so that when I dropped into it I was on eye level with her. Taking a second to collect my thoughts I replied, slowly and deliberately, "I was done. It was over. We won, and we were done."
"Yeah, we did win; because of you," she agreed, dropping back down to a quiet murmur. "And then you vanished."
"You're not listening to me. We were done," I said again.
Lisa frowned. Her eyes widened a moment later. "Oh. Your passenger."
"I sacrificed everything to focus on saving the world, Lisa. Everything." I couldn't reach beyond the building, I didn't want to hear the Krogan invoking me again. But I had enough insects in the facility that I could at least keep my hands from twisting around each other. "I left Alec, Brian, Rachel, Aisha… you. I even cut out my dad."
"Danny didn't even try to contact you again after the first two months," Lisa said. "Don't defend him. He gave up that right on his own."
I shook my head. It wasn't worth arguing. "Two years, Lisa. Two years I avoided caring about anyone or anything. The mission was all that mattered."
"I know," she whispered. "I saw. I saw how… empty you were when Scion started his rampage. I tried to help as much as I could."
"I let Bonesaw and Panacea break my brain, because no one would work together. No one had any plans. We were fracturing. Everything was dying. Everything I had sacrificed my entire life for was just going to end in a whimper, as a depressed, pathetic god-child threw a temper tantrum, because no one could be bothered to work together."
"But we won, you got us organized."
"Khepri got us organized," I corrected. "Khepri won!" I couldn't stay confined to the building. But at least I was subtle this time. And I was able to find the varren before the hunting party. Maybe they would thank me later. I hoped they wouldn't. "After it was over, Queen Administrator and I, we couldn't figure out where one of us started and the other ended. We weren't separate. We weren't Taylor and Administrator. There was only Khepri. And Khepri couldn't exist with the people we both cared about. Khepri was not… safe to be around. There was too much Taylor in her and not enough Administrator."
Lisa was silent for several seconds. "I think you have that backwards, Tay."
"When have you ever known me to compromise, Lisa?" She didn't respond, just looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. "It was okay though. Because we were done. We got ourselves away. We kept everyone we loved safe from us. When Contessa found us we had managed to separate enough that when she asked Khepri what we wanted, we weren't sure which of us answered, but it didn't really matter."
"The answer was the same for each of you, wasn't it?" Lisa said. "Taylor, we would have been there to help you recover. Even if no one else stood by you, I would have."
I shrugged. "If we'd had more time to separate, or maybe not been so focused and alone for so long, maybe we would have understood that then. But at the time, it didn't even occur to us. We just knew that we wanted everyone to be safe. And we couldn't be sure we would have been able to stop being Khepri quickly enough for that to happen."
"Taylor, I…" she trailed off, sitting back down in mid-air again, shaking her head. "I really wish I had a fucking body. I want to hug you."
"We were done, Lisa. The world was safe, Rachel, Aisha, you were all safe from us." I paused.
Wall erected
The small warmth that spread through me at that feeling dimmed as I continued talking. "And then I heard beeping, and three people in sci-fi armor were standing over me with shotguns. And there was another war. And just like before, we still can't work together. We still can't stop arguing long enough to fix things. The enemies have been knocking at our door for years and no one cares. The only thing that is different, Lisa, is that this time? It's a galaxy at risk, instead of a planet."
"Tay —"
"I keep telling people I'm not Khepri, that I'm just Taylor. The more I say it, the more I try to believe it. I've been awake a month, Lisa. I am finding it very hard to believe that Khepri is not going to be required to win this war again too."
"Taylor, you don't —"
"And now we're here, on Tuchanka. And wouldn't you know it, Bonesaw is still around. Administrator and I can probably tear down our walls by ourselves. We're pretty sure we know how to do it safer this time. But —"
"But Riley is a symbol," Lisa finally managed to cut in.
"I sent you an email a few hours ago. I've been looking at the mass relays, trying to understand why the Omega 4 one works differently than the rest."
Lisa frowned. "The one about a trap? We know about the Citadel being able to link to dark space. The Council is trying to figure out where the actual relay part is on the station, Tay."
I sighed. "You didn't read the whole thing. The entire network looks like a trap, Lisa. It looks like a hive. The way it's all arranged, the way civilizations are set up around the hubs and the nodes. The Citadel dark space option was probably Plan A. Omega 4 is likely Plan B. Another core node that will let the Reapers start linking to every other hub. Every world will fall before we even know what hits us."
Lisa's hologram flickered as she stared at me. "That can't be right. Hang on, I have to look at this data. I have to review this." Her hologram almost seemed to glitch, freezing in midair for a full fifteen seconds. When it started back up again, Lisa was standing, her eyes wide, her head shaking fast enough that her digital hair was whipping across her face. "Taylor, this can't be right. Have you mentioned any of this to Jane yet?"
"I'm trying not to bring too much up to Shepard all at once. I'm very aware of how uncomfortable I make her. If I push her too much, too fast, with too many wild ideas, I know exactly where that's going to leave me. It's happened before. I need more proof before I can bring it to her."
Lisa was silent as her eyes literally flashed. "There… might be something here. I don't have enough processing power or available data and I'm limited on what I can really figure out on my own. We should talk to her, Taylor. We need to bring more people in on this."
"Maybe. But even if we do, I don't know if it's going to matter. It's been 200 years, Lisa, and nothing has changed. We are all still hopelessly fractured. If anything it's worse because we don't even have superpowers left to fight back with. There's so few of us left. And of all people, Bonesaw — Riley — is still here. One of two people who makes it easy for me to be Khepri. The mass relays are a trap. And we're heading right into the nest, with just a single ship and a hodgepodge crew. I don't know if I can afford to… I think I may need to… Riley is here for a reason and —"
"Yeah. No. Shut the hell up, right now, Taylor," Lisa snapped. "If you think that I'm about to let you go queen bitch again on me when I just got you back because the Reapers are bit scary, then you can go fuck yourself."
I frowned. "Lisa, I'm trying to —"
"No. My turn to talk! Jane can be a bit weird. Her command style is totally bonkers. I get that you are chafing at the bit because you are not the one in control, but trust her. She is good at what she does. And what she does is get the damn job done. We need the Reapers dead? She'll do it. We need the Collectors neutered? Well between the two of you, I think it's pretty clear we've already got that in the bag. We need the galaxy to sit down, shut up, and play nice for five freaking minutes? Give her a few weeks, I guarantee she will get pissed off enough to tie the leaders of each faction to a chair and force them to yell at each other long enough until they agree to work together."
"That sounds nice, but it sounds like a fantasy, Lisa."
"You've been looking up the threats. Look up the history, Taylor," Lisa stressed. "Jane has an excellent record. Everyone in our motley crew does. Hell, give me a week and I can call Dragon and Colin and they will show up with half the entire Geth race behind them asking why Mom and Dad are calling in the big guns. Does the galaxy have problems? Sure. Are the Salarians generally assholes and the Asari usually taking a Holier Than Thou approach? Also yes. Are the Batarians perfect examples of why theocracies are horrible? Definitely. But we're not universally screwed and Riley being here does not imply that you are getting a message from God or something that you need to go full Khepri again! Do. You. Fucking. Hear. ME?!"
Tentative agreement
I felt my lip curl up in a soft smile. "I suppose I can wait a bit longer. Just to see how things go. It is the nuclear option after all."
"Thank you." Lisa crossed her arms, continued to glare at me for another few seconds before sighing and shaking her head. "God, I forgot how stubborn you are. Do you feel better now?"
"A little bit."
"Good. Then go, get back into that room. You're giving the others a heart attack with your swarm and there's only so much I can do to reassure them that you haven't spontaneously taken up your goddess mantle and declared war on the galaxy yourself."
I rolled my eyes as I stood. "You'd think they would have learned by now not to be worried unless I'm attacking something."
"Yeah, well when you blow up at a doctor who's been working on a cure for the genophage after being pretty stoic beforehand they're going to get worried. That's not on them, Tay."
"It's a little on them."
"Stubbbboorrn."
"Says the woman who turned herself into a computer because I vanished," I commented.
Lisa groaned. "Point taken. Truce?"
I laughed. "Truce." As I put the omnitool back on, I looked down at her. "Lisa? Thanks."
She smiled up at me. "Always, Taylor. I love you."
"I love you too, Lisa."
That was at least one thing we could both agree on.
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