April, 2168 CE – Arcturus Station
“So you see, these little exercises are super useful for biotics of all species! To be honest, from talking with our guests, it’s become clear that such is likely even more true for non-Asari. Would you agree with that Petdoria?”
Jane Shepard watched as the Turian guest on the stream considered the question for a moment, flanges moving in a way she was pretty sure indicated careful thought.
“I can’t say for sure, of course. I admit I can see the value, though. I hadn’t even realized that I could do things like that with my implant offline. I mean, I knew super minor telekinesis was possible. Doing that on accident is usually how biotics are identified in the first place for most species, right?”
The Turian, female from the voice if nothing else, frowned and looked at the common mechanical puzzle device that Rylia had been showing the use of as a control exercise. Taloned fingers reached toward it, twisting, and the pieces shifted. The Turian shook her head and looked a little…awed?
“I always thought control required an implant. That I didn’t have enough juice to pull that off without it. But I know I couldn’t have done that before you walked me through the control exercises with my implant off. The amp spikes too much power into the biotics…or so I thought. Spirits, just a few reps and my control is better than I thought it ever could be. I’m going…I’m going to have to tell someone in a command position about that. Hell if I know who though.”
The Asari, who Jane was pretty certain was now her new favorite streamer, was seemingly unbothered by the fact that she’d apparently just blown her guest’s mind. She grinned impishly at the camera.
“See! Now even the Turian Hierarchy Cabals might end up watching my stream! Well, the ones that don’t already do so for the ~fun~ bits!”
That startled a laugh out of the still-amazed looking Turian, and her flanges moved in what Jane was almost certain was a Turian grin. Of course, she was a bit busy blushing too. There might be more than one reason that this Rylia woman was her new favorite streamer. She hadn’t quite been aware she was into girls before she’d seen some of that other content. Did Asari count as girls? She didn’t know, and it was something to deal with later, not now! She was looking for tips on Biotics!
“Well, I’ve got a few more exercises like this, and I’ve even found a human biotic to test some of my exercises! Though they don’t want to appear on stream, more’s the pity. Anyway, look forward to a few more videos on the subject from me! I know there isn’t a lot of information out there on this, since we Asari take it for granted rather than teaching it, and other races all get stuck on the idea of needing implants which you can’t get safely until you stop growing. Hopefully, this helps some of you out there!”
The stream quickly ended, with the usual entreaties to like and subscribe and such. Something Jane did without hesitation. Though she made sure to only do so for the Biotics and Tech channels in case her mom looked later. Not the…other stuff. Blushing again, she shut down the streaming service and thought about the lesson, as well as about where she could find a similar puzzle cube.
Ironically, she’d found the stream because she’d been researching implants and amps, rather than looking for tips on learning Biotics. She’d only been exposed to more eezo in that accident a month ago and was still stuck on Arcturus while they made sure there were no complications, rather than traveling aboard ship with her mom. Or, you know, no complications beyond fairly strong biotic inclination manifesting in a way the docs were sure was permanent.
She’d known from her mom’s stories that she’d been exposed in utero, and showed signs of biotics as a baby that had faded. Apparently a second exposure had done the job of making them stick, though. Which was kinda cool, and kinda terrifying. It wasn’t like humanity had a lot of experience with Biotics yet, or treating those that ended up with them either. Which is why she was stuck on Arcturus, since it was one of the only places with dedicated docs for that.
She’d been doing her research since they told her it was going to last, and frankly what happened to some of people with L2 implants was horrifying. Supposedly, the new L3 was going to be a lot safer, but when reading what little she could find on it that wasn’t classified, she’d stumbled across mention of another new implant.
The MM-1 was an Asari designed implant meant for humans, which had taken her completely by surprise. She knew from some stuff the docs had let slip around her that the Alliance had struggled to get help from Asari companies for anything Biotics related. Apparently, implants and amps were actually somewhat rare for them, even if they were the absolute best at making them. As a result, the handful of major companies that did make them weren’t interested in the ‘minor market’ of human biotics.
Of which there admittedly were precious few so far, so that was kinda understandable?
Following down the rabbit hole she’d found, Jane had been able to find out much more about the MM-1 than the L3, or even the L2. The Asari company, Maiden’s Mercy, was a pretty new medical R&D company that was apparently making waves in everything related to the nervous system, including advancements in cybernetics. It kinda tracked that they’d be interested in something niche like a human Biotics implant, and even sort of made sense that they were being more open about how it worked and what it could do.
They were a civilian R&D firm poking something of little value to them, not an Alliance-backed military project. Why would they care if you knew the general details? Follow the newest chapters on NovelPing.
Using what they’d freely published in academic journals to learn more about implants in general had resulted in looking into the company. Which, in turn, had her looking up the company’s fascinating founder. Which in turn had led to discovering that said founder was apparently a streamer of all things. One with super popular (317 million followers!) channels that covered everything from gaming and tech…to sex toys and biotics.
Super, super weird combination.
Also, however, super helpful if these exercises worked out. Jane had thought she’d need to wait until she had an implant to do much with her new abilities, and that would be at least two years away. Possibly as many as five, depending on when the docs decided she’d stopped growing. Sure, girls normally stopped growing significantly around 16 instead of the 18 that was more average for boys. But Jane had only just turned 14, so she’d thought she wouldn’t be able to do much for a while.
Now?
Now, she needed to find one of those puzzle cubes! As well as watch more videos from Rylia! This was exciting! Also, a great way to focus so she could put off a possible bi-panic until later! Though, watching more of Miss Rylia might not be the best way to put that off, come to think of it…
… … …
May, 2168 CE – Nevos
Miranda smiled as her little sister ran off with hyperactive energy. Orianna had only just turned four. Yet, given she’d been babbling about ancient Asari deep sea creatures while referencing a book clearly meant for someone in secondary education, it was clear she was going to be just as bright as Miranda herself. Not that such was exactly unexpected, given she was almost genetically identical.
Not quite, not enough to be a clone or truly identical ‘twin.’ Their asshole of a father hadn’t quite been able to resist tweaking Orianna’s genetics just that little bit more with what he’d learned from Miranda. Close though, very close. Enough so that the resemblance between them was obvious already, despite the nearly fifteen-year age difference.
As she heard her little sister babbling to the assistant/caretaker that looked after her most of the day, Miranda shook her head and smirked, before turning back to the terminal she’d been working at. She was incredibly grateful for whatever grudge had seen her unexpectedly picked up by Miss Yaoyorozu and the weird Asari that was her nominal boss. She’d been incredibly paranoid about it when it happened, but hadn’t exactly had a lot of options. Particularly when presented with proof that the only other group that had reached out to her, Cerberus, had dealings with Henry Lawson. She could never have trusted them after that.
The…odd people that were her current employers had proven themselves to be more worth trusting, thankfully.
She hadn’t entirely let her paranoia rest, of course, but in the six months she’d been working for them so far, they’d only been good to her. Not just her, either. She hated to admit it, but she very much hadn’t known what to do with Orianna once they ran. Even the short few weeks they were out on their own had proven that fact to her in painfully embarrassing fashion. Her upbringing had been all about being Henry Lawson’s eventually legacy. Which hadn’t exactly included the sorts of life skills that it took to look after an, at the time, three-year-old.
Thankfully, one of the first signs that her new bosses were trustworthy had been them arranging interviews for a caretaker that could help her with Orianna and then letting Miranda run them. Eventually, despite there being a couple of humans on the list, Orianna had settled on an older Quarian, of all beings. One of the rare few that had decided against returning to their fleet and remained among the population of Nevos instead.
The woman had been a deft hand with a wrench when she was younger, apparently. Enough so to have come to outright own a major scrapyard on an Asari planet. She’d been aging too much to manage the place any longer, and had sold the business off to Rylia when the crazy Asari girl had crashed into Nevos like a miniature wrecking ball. At least, that’s the way that Sini'Won vas Nevos had described it in her interview. Having met Rylia on a number of occasions now, Miranda could certainly believe it.
The crazy Asari was absolutely brilliant, to the point even Miranda felt nearly inadequate despite her own intelligence, but she was also had almost as much manic energy as Orianna on a sugar rush. All while also having access to a disturbingly large number of high-tech guns, which Miranda had been invited out to try once, seemingly on a whim. She had no idea how that horrifically powerful rotary ‘Blaster Cannon’ worked, or why Miranda had been trusted with even knowing it existed. She had to admit that it had been incredibly fun to shoot, though. Doubly so when the crazy Asari had produced target drones with Henry Lawson’s face on them.
Miranda had left the cackling to Rylia, no matter what witnesses might say otherwise.
Whatever the Asari was doing with her own projects, which Miranda was very curious about, but not enough to risk ruining a good thing, all three of her ‘bosses’ had been amazing so far. She mostly dealt with Dr. Dalisir, of course. The Matron had proven to be very different to work for that Miranda had first imagined. More than willing to listen to Miranda’s ideas and actively help support her with various projects. Even making sure Miranda got the credit for her breakthroughs.
Very different than what might have happened as a similar R&D company in human space, though Mirana had eventually puzzled out the ‘why.’ It had taken her a while, given that she had Dr. T’naai as an example of Asari inventors, but she’d eventually cottoned onto the fact that Asari didn’t innovate particularly well. Many of them were fantastic at refining new concepts and pushing those concepts to their limits and beyond once someone had come up with a new idea. People like Dr. Dalisir were legitimately talented scientists or engineers who outstripped their human equivalents in almost every way, by dint of experience if nothing else. You couldn’t ask for better iterative scientists and developers anywhere in the galaxy, not even among the Salarians.
They were terrible at coming up with new ideas, though.
Not all of them, obviously. Dr. T’naai proved that readily enough. Yet it had slowly become obvious that Rylia T’naai was a rare exception, not the norm for Asari geniuses. Which neatly explained why Dr. Dalisir and many of her colleagues were happy to let Miranda come up with ideas. Ideas that they then enthusiastically ran with, often leaving her scrambling to keep up with the insane skill they applied to refining those ideas.
It was a genuine pity that humanity as a whole hadn’t run into the Asari first, and that the idiots running the Alliance had somehow latched onto the Turians as the most ‘like them.’ While it was absolutely true as far as political goals went, Miranda’s eyes had been pried firmly open by her time with Maiden’s Mercy. Asari and humans would have complimented each other in a way that the Turians were utterly incapable of. The Turians were too much like an overly militaristic version of humans. New chapters come out on NovelPing first.
Still, stupid as it was, the Alliance wouldn’t change course now. The Turians truly did fit their politics better. Both because the Systems Alliance wanted to expand their military influence, something the Turians honestly approved of as it meant less strain on their own fleets, and because the Hierarchy was a straightforward government to deal with. She strongly suspected human politicians had been put off of dealing with the Asari Republics precisely because of that critical S on the end. The Asari weren’t really a united faction, not truly. Which made making deals with them much harder for a government polity that had, itself, only recently combined into a single conglomerate to deal with other species.
Shaking off her idle musing on that as the terminal reported back with the simulation of her new project, Miranda focused on her work. She’d taken this one home with her, despite lectures on ‘making sure you relax enough’ from Dr. Dalisir. After all, she’d started designing the MM-1 implant partially out of enlightened self-interest. Yes, due to her father’s influence, she’d gotten one of the first L3 biotic implants. Which was a major leap up from the unstable and problematic L2s. Yet it was still absolute shit compared to what the Asari were capable of. Particularly with the new influx of concepts Dr. T’aani had provided. Concepts that seemed oddly geared toward humans to Miranda’s eyes.
Well, wherever the crazy Asari had come up with the numerous cybernetics breakthroughs from, some of them were going to make it easy to upgrade implants. Yet, understandably since Asari generally didn’t need them, the big boss hadn’t come up with a biotic implant among the others. Which had inspired Miranda to design her own. It would help her, it would help her sister since she was already showing biotic potential, and it would even help humanity as a whole. That was something Miranda could certainly get behind.
Particularly if it meant being able to rip out at least one piece of the ‘gifts’ her asshole of a father had given her and replace it with something of her own making…
… … …
June, 2168 CE – Nevos
Aova Dalisir was pleased as punch! Or she suspected she was, anyway. She hadn’t quite figured that particular human idiom out, it being yet another she’d learned from her delightful human! Well, technically Miranda wasn’t her human. But she was Aova’s personal assistant, which was close enough for her! Particularly with how amazing she was at coming up with new ideas for the rest of the team to develop.
Honestly, she’d been happy with just Rylia. Her Maiden boss was an odd one, even by Maiden standards, but part of that oddity was a surprising consistency. Oh, not moment-to-moment, of course. She was as erratic and all over the place as any Maiden that age. Possibly more so than the average, actually. Yet, unlike most of those Maiden’s, she’d created a consistent base to operate around. A reliable business, several of them in fact, which she’d quite intelligently handled over the proper management of to someone more stable.
That said someone was a gorgeous human who Rylia was obviously sleeping with was, Aova thought, probably only a good thing. Humans were, as she could attest from her own human minion, marvelously interesting. Which meant Rylia would likely stick to her human, with possibly another human or two added into her bed for variety, for a good few years. Long enough that her various businesses would likely survive if she lost interest and wandered off.
Which was great for Aova.
Landing this job had been the perfect way to segue out of her own Maiden days and into something a little more stable, without it being super boring. She hadn’t been ready to give up entirely on excitement, even if she’d recognized that she wasn’t happy blowing shit up as a merc any longer. It had taken her four fairly boring years to get recertified for her original doctorates via one of the better Refresher Academies on Thessia, but she’d gotten lucky in hearing about this job before getting locked into a contract somewhere afterwards.
Maiden’s Mercy was honestly just right for her. She was still getting her excitement by being allowed to pursue fascinating new research in multiple fields. Her successes in those fields were building up her reputation nicely, so she’d been ahead even if Rylia lost interest and the company collapsed. Then, of course, she was getting to interact with multiple humans, one of them daily! Her timing hadn’t been lucky enough to expose her to many of them, with them only slowly trickling into the Terminus even as she’d been on her way out of merc work and settling down to refresh her skills.
Yes, between the humans, the new projects, and the quite good money Rylia was paying, this was excellent. Though she was sort of starting to wonder just where the hell Rylia was getting all these advancements. The first few had made a fair bit of sense. The sex toys were a natural progression from her engineering background and Stripper work. (Marvelous things too, she was glad she’d gotten a set as a signing bonus!) Then the nerve-related stuff was kinda a logical progression from there. Even the current cybernetics were related, at least, with a heavy focus on making nervous system connections superior to anything even the Turians had.
Some of the other stuff though…well, she guessed the girl’s random stint working on shuttles recently was her mother’s influence. But where had those labor mechs come from? Or some of the interesting advances in computing? Something wasn’t entirely adding up for her. Though, to be honest, Rylia seemed like a good girl and it was working out for Aova personally. So she was sure it was fine.
Maybe she should sign up a few of her still loyal girls from the old merc unit for jobs in security, though. Just in case? Rylia had been talking about expanding their security force, and having some girls she knew would be just as loyal to her as the Maiden might be a good idea. That way, she’d at least have an escape route at hand if everything went tits up…
... ... ... ... ... ...
A/N 1: A LOT of people have been asking for perspectives beyond Rylia's. I haven't bothered with them until now, since a lot of the perspectives people seem to want...are people who will not have noticed jack squat about Rylia yet. She's been intentionally lying low, and there's absolutely zero chance any of her operations have come to the attention of the Council, or even someone like Benezia yet. On the galactic scale, she's mostly a no one so far, intentionally so. That said, it decided that the version of Shepard I'm going with had a reason to maybe find some of Rylia's content, so that served as one perspective. Meanwhile, Miranda and Dalsir worked well as others a bit closer to home. Particularly as Miranda's bit connects somewhat to Shepard's.