in hell we’ll be able to get you off the planet without being recognized.
“I believe you’re innocent, Kahlee, but nobody else does. They’ll arrest you on sight.”
“So I’ll just stay at the house,” she said. “Nobody knows I’m here. Nobody even knows we’re related.” “Yeah, right. Nobody but me, a Spectre, that krogan… We all figured it out, Kahlee. How long before
somebody else makes the connection and comes snooping around? Before all this, nobody knew who you were; nobody bothered with you. Now you’re a suspected traitor — your name and picture are on every news vid out there.
“Reporters will be digging into your past, trying to find out everything about you. Sooner or later someone’s going to figure out the truth.”
“So what can we do?”
It was Grissom who chimed in with the answer. “Get the hell off this planet,” he muttered. “I know people who can sneak you past port security. Just need to call them in the morning.”
With that, Grissom rolled over and began snoring, finally giving in to the sedatives. Anderson and
Kahlee left the room and headed into the kitchen. “Your father’s a pretty smart man,” Anderson said.
Kahlee nodded, but all she said was “You hungry? If we’re stuck here until morning we might as well have something to eat.”
They found some bread, cold cuts, and mustard in his fridge, along with thirty-six cans of beer. Tossing one over to Anderson, Kahlee said, “He’s probably got something stronger hidden around here if you’re interested.”
“Beer’s fine,” Anderson replied, cracking it open and taking a swig. It was a local brew, one he’d never
tried before. It had a strong bite; bitter, but no aftertaste. “Should go good with the sandwich.” “Not much of a meal,” she apologized once they were sitting at the table.
“It’s fine,” he answered. “Tastes a little odd with the cold bread, though. Who keeps their bread in the fridge?”
“My mother always did,” she answered. “Guess that’s the one thing my parents could agree on. Too bad you need more than that to make a marriage work.”
They ate in silence after that, letting their minds wind down. When they were done Anderson collected both plates and took them over to the counter. He grabbed them each another beer from the fridge and came back to the table.
“Okay, Kahlee,” he said, handing her the can. “I know it’s been a long night. But now we have to talk. You up for this?”
She nodded.
“Take your time,” he told her. “Just start at the beginning and work your way through. I need to know everything.”
“We weren’t working on biotic research at the base,” she began softly, then smiled. “But I guess you already know that.”
She has a pretty smile, Anderson thought. “A good cover story for that Spectre, though,” he said aloud. “If he found out what was really going on… ” he trailed off, remembering Ambassador Goyle’s warnings about the Spectres.
Saren had saved their lives. He wondered if he really could have brought himself to murder the turian if it had been necessary to keep humanity’s secret. And even if he tried, could he have succeeded?
“Let’s just say that was quick thinking on your part,” he finally told her.
Kahlee took the compliment in stride and continued with the story, her voice slowly growing in strength and confidence as she spoke. “Sidon was dedicated to one very specific task: the development and study of artificial intelligence. We knew it was risky, but we had rigid safety protocols to make sure nothing could go wrong.
“I started as a low-level systems analyst at the base two years ago, working directly under Dr. Qian, the man in charge of the project.
“People use the term ‘genius’ all the time,” she said, making no attempt to hide her admiration. “But he really was one. His mind — his research, the way he thinks — it’s on a level so far above the rest of us we can barely even grasp it. Like most of the people there, I just did whatever Dr. Qian told me to. Half the time I didn’t even fully understand why I was doing it.”
“Why weren’t you at Sidon when it was attacked?” Anderson asked, gently nudging her toward the relevant part of her tale.
“A few months ago I noticed some changes in Dr. Qian’s behavior. He was spending more and more time in the lab. He started working double shifts; he hardly slept. But he seemed to have this endless supply of desperate, frantic energy.”
“Was he manic?”
“I don’t think so. I never saw any sign of it before. But suddenly we were integrating all sorts of new hardware into the systems. Our research started going in totally different directions — we completely abandoned conventional practices and went with radical new theories. We were using prototype technology and designs unlike anything we’d ever seen before.
“At first, I just thought Dr. Qian had made some kind of breakthrough. Something that got him all fired up. In the beginning it was exhilarating. His excitement was infectious. But after a while I started to get suspicious.”
“Suspicious?”
“It’s hard to explain. Something about Dr. Qian was different. Altered. I worked with him for almost two years. This wasn’t like him. There was definitely something wrong. He wasn’t just working harder. He was obsessed. Like he was being… driven by some.
“And it felt like he was hiding something. Some secret he didn’t want anyone else on the project to know about. Before, if he needed something from you he’d go into excruciating detail about why your work was important. He’d tell you how it interconnected with every other department on the project, even though I think he knew nobody else could really grasp the full complexity of what we were working on.
“The past few months were different. He stopped communicating with the team; he’d give orders but no explanations. It just wasn’t like him. So I started digging into the data banks. I even hacked into Dr. Qian’s restricted files to see what I could find out.”
“You what?!” Anderson was shocked. “I can’t believe you… how is that even possible?”
“Encryption and security algorithms are my specialty,” she said with just a hint of pride. Then her voice became defensive. “Look, I know it was illegal. I know I broke the chain of command. But you weren’t there. You can’t understand how strange Dr. Qian was acting.”
“What did you find out?”
“He hadn’t just taken the project in a radical new direction. Our research was completely off the grid. All the new theories, the new hardware — it was all based on preparing our neural networks to link into some kind of alien artifact!”
“So what?” Anderson said with a shrug. “Pretty much every major advance we’ve made in the last two decades was based on Prothean artifacts. And it’s not just us — galactic society wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for compatible alien technology. Every species in Citadel Space would still be stuck inside their own solar system.”
“This is different,” she insisted. “Take the mass relays. We only have a limited understanding of how they work. We know how to use them, but we don’t understand enough to try and actually build one. At Sidon we were trying to create an artificial intelligence, possibly the most devastating weapon we could unleash on the galaxy. And Dr. Qian wanted to introduce an element to the research that was beyond even his comprehension.”
Anderson nodded, recalling the infamous Manhattan Project of the early twentieth century from his history courses at the Academy. Desperate to create an atomic weapon, scientists on the project unwittingly exposed themselves to dangerous levels of radiation as a matter of course in their experiments. Two researchers actually died on the project, and many others were stricken with cancer or other long-term consequences from prolonged radiation poisoning.
“We weren’t supposed to repeat the mistakes of the past,” Kahlee said, making no effort to hide the disappointment in her voice. “I thought Dr. Qian was smarter than that.”
“You were going to report him, weren’t you?” The young woman nodded slowly.
“You were doing the right thing, Kahlee,” he said, noticing the uncertainty in her expression. “It’s hard to believe that when all my friends are dead.”
Anderson could see she was suffering from a classic case of survivor guilt. But even though he felt sorry for
