“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 her, he still needed more information.
“Kahlee… we still have to figure out who did this. And why.”
“Maybe somebody wanted to stop Dr. Qian,” she offered in a whisper. “Maybe my investigation tipped someone else off. Someone higher up. And they decided to shut the project down for good.”
“You think someone in the Alliance did this?” Anderson was horrified.
“I don’t know what to think!” she shouted. “All I know is I’m tired and scared and I just want this all to be over!”
For a second he thought she was going to start crying again, but she didn’t. Instead, she stared right at him. “So are you still going to help me figure out who’s behind this? Even if it turns out the Alliance is somehow involved?”
“I’m on your side,” Anderson promised her. “I don’t believe anyone in the Alliance was behind this. But if it turns out they were, I’ll do my best to take them down.”
“I believe you,” she said after a moment. “So what now?”
She’d come clean with him. Now he had to do the same. “Alliance Command told me they think whoever attacked the base was after Dr. Qian. They think he might still be alive.”
“But the vids are saying there were no survivors!”
“There’s no way to be sure. Most of the bodies were vaporized at the scene.” “So why now?” Kahlee asked. “The project’s been running for years.”
“Maybe they just found out. Maybe Qian’s new research tipped them off. Maybe there’s some connection to that alien artifact he discovered.”
“Or maybe I forced them to make a move.”
Anderson wasn’t about to let her go down that road. “This isn’t your fault,” he told her, leaning in and grabbing her hand tightly. “You didn’t order the attack on Sidon. You didn’t help anyone bypass base security.” He took a breath, then spoke his next words slowly and emphatically. “Kahlee, you are not responsible for this.”