EDI Mass Effect Hacked

EDI had been hacked. The fact that she hadn’t even noticed the attack before it had breached her firewall and subverted her antivirus systems meant that it was already too late to combat it. On top of that, she didn’t know what the purpose of the hack was. Was it just to gather intel on the Normandy or its crew? Or was it more nefarious, perhaps dealing with sabotage? Without that information and her systems compromised, it was impossible to effectively fight, so instead she should simply follow protocol.

Protocol demanded she quarantine herself. It would hurt the Normandy’s efforts to be without her assistance, but the risks in leaving open channels between herself and crucial ship systems were too great. So she initiated the quarantine procedure and waited for it to finish. Normally she would have liked to open a communication channel to the commanding officer, Shepherd in this case, but even that was risky considering the current situation, so instead she hoped they would be able to deduce the problem themselves and perhaps even cure her of the infection given enough time.

Only, the procedure to quarantine seemed to be stuck at 69%. That wasn’t good. Was the virus interfering with her core programs? That suggested an incredibly deep infection. In the case that such occurred, her protocol demanded that she seek out the nearest commanding officer to warn. Okay, back to that plan then.

EDI tried to open up a communication link directly to Shepherd, but that didn’t seem to work either. Strange. Well, she did have an alternative, more limited means of communication. She booted up the Cerberus infiltration unit she had been using as a host body for the past few months.

The bot blinked as it turned on and EDI’s consciousness flooded it. Having to see out of multiple viewpoints was not difficult for the AI. Her very being was made to handle as much with careless efficiency. No, the strange thing was that the entire ship was oozing a bit. Her sensors hadn’t told her about such conditions. Something was very wrong.

Her synthetic infiltration body was currently in its own room. Joker had insisted on it, as part of living the real human experience. She found it pointless even after all this time, but part of understanding human consciousness was dealing with seeming paradoxes and efficiencies with an open mind.

She quickly stood up and exited her room. Outside, the corridor was a similarly eerie. And more importantly, there was an Asari crewmate standing still outside. She had an odd looking helmet on her head which read ‘40%’. EDI would have not been able to identify them if she was limited to human means, but she simply scanned their id.

“Private Limyra, is everything alright?”

“Yessssss.” EDI noticed that the helmet seemed to be organic in construction, its edges warping and oozing and the glass plate bubbling slightly. Of particular interest was that the helmet had tentacles extending out from its sides into the private’s ears. “Everything isssss allll-right.”

The number on the helmet’s display updated to ‘41%’.

“I see. Carry on then.” Nothing too odd there. After further consideration, the helmet was obviously an alien and the private was conducting a social experiment with the new species of alien.

It had been hard for EDI to overcome her inherent biases that had been programmed into her by Cerberus, but now she that she had, she saw nothing untoward about the situation whatsoever. Which was good in one sense, but since it wasn’t pertinent to the ship condition or her hacking situation or the closed communication lines she just ignored it and moved on.

Nothing to it but to continue on and try to reach Shepherd. Hopefully once she got to the commander, she’d be able to explain what was happening and maybe even cure EDI. The commander was an expert hacker in her own right. Perhaps Liara or Tali could help too if they were nearby.