Hestia Harper's page

So, my name is Hestia. Seems like a good place to start, but it's really half a truth. I'm half a Hestia. The psych guys gave me this tablet and stylus and told me to write my story. One guy insisted that wiggling fingers to make letters and slowing down thoughts to tell the story made a difference in how I processed the information. I wanted to laugh in his face, but really, a different wiggling of fingers is what made the difference between hurling a ship across a battlefield or dropping a batallion into a tiny black hole. So I can't really mock him. Maybe it's right.

I'm eighteen now. I've been one of the "Rescued" since I was ten. That's what the Alliance calls us, though I heard a few of them call us "Pound Puppies" and laugh. I don't get it. Old people and their stupid inside jokes. Anyway, I think of us as the Salvaged. The Alliance picks up anybody they think can help, and when they saw a building full of kiddie biotics, well! Can't blame 'em. I was taught to do the same and I would have done it, too. No hesitation.

So, I will write down what happened and you won't believe me, like everyone else, and I don't care. I was born 18 years ago, walked and talked at four months, and was learning to use biotic powers by the time I was a year old. I know it's not done. But it was. We spent all our time as babies exercising muscles and joints when most babies just lie there aimlessly, wiggling. Our movements were carefully chorographed to develop the muscles we needed to move properly and talk, so we did that faster than ordinary kids. Other learning was accelerated, too, especially biotics.

My father's group knew more about biotics than anyone else and they were building a generation of human super-biotics using all the research that had been done over the years. They knew more than the asari, you say? Yes! Because the asari don't have to figure it out from day one. They're born with it. They don't have to study to really understand. See? It's too easy for them. When you have to learn how something works to reproduce it, that's when you really understand it. Like, you can fly in a passenger ship, but can you build one? That's the difference between the asari and Cerberus.

So there were a bunch of us advanced biotic rugrats growing up together. Yeah, people tell me about nuclear families and what I missed, but they don't get it. The Farm was home. It was full of the people I knew and lived with and loved. It was where we slept and ate and bathed and learned and played. We'd go on field trips, but we always came back, always to the same people who cared for us. We weren't prisoners. We weren't experimental subjects. We were just kids. Father called us the best hope of humanity. So put away your pity. We were fine. We were happy, damn it!

The field trips started when we were four. We'd get aboard ship and zip off to some strange planet under a strange star and get to see what the company was doing there: research, engineering, development, management. Father was always our guide for these, because he wanted us to really understand. My group met him when we were two. He said we could call him Daddy. Before you ask, no, I don't know. I guess he could have been our biological father, but he was definitely our... I dunno... spiritual one? I remember marching up to him that day and telling him (and Hestia never objected to anything I did in his presence) telling him that I was too old to call him Daddy, so I would call him Father. Some of our Keepers laughed, but he didn't. He bent down to shake my hand, gravely and respectfully, and said that in that case, he'd call me Daughter. He knew my name, of course, but he almost always called me Daughter, as kind of a joke, but not really. I think it was a sign of respect, too.

So we grew up there like normal kids, learning and playing and developing our powers. We were trusted, right, because of our other selves? They were always helping us find our limits or stopping us from doing stupid things that would hurt us. We learned how to grow up fast from them, always in our heads, always teaching. I've seen the looks of pity from some of them who know. Keep your pity. It was great. Since then, I've seen normal human kids on Earth and with their wonderful families. Bunch of undisciplined, purposeless ninnies. I'd be embarassed to admit ever being that silly. Still, there's a nucleus of potential in every one of them. Father taught me never to ignore that, but to help it grow, like he did for us.

Gotta admit, things were pretty idyllic. I was so proud when I passed the Seven Year Old Exams with really high marks - Hestia wasn't allowed to help on some of the exams, of course, though some were to measure how well she and I worked together. Father came in to talk to the three of us with the highest marks and gave us each our own Crew to command. Their AI was synched to ours... I mean, mine... and Hestia could tell their AI to do things instantly. They didn't have to, of course, but when we went to war, everyone worked together.

So things started changing when I was eight, for the worse. Father didn't come by anymore, and our field trips were directed by others. With the war, they got kind of militant. We'd be brought to the battlefield, directed to put our barriers up, then work together to do something big they needed done - sweep a tank across the field and wipe out a bunch of foot soldiers, for example, or topple a landing craft. Stuff like that. We didn't directly fight or anything. They'd get us out of there really quickly once the tide of the battle had turned. I can't say it was easy. Sometimes it was really hard. But to hear the soldiers whoop and cheer for the one or two things we did.. it was amazing. They'd get all fired up about it and all heartened and stuff. It made me feel really good. Father had explained why we were put into Crews and how the way we could coordinate was better than anything any other race could do, and it was true! He took what was useful from the geth and brought it into humans to help us be stronger. He always said other races had one thing they were better at than us. Our biggest strength was adaptability. We could take all those things and roll them into ourselves, one way or another. It's why we're the hope of the galaxy.

Then came the Dark Days, when I was ten. I don't really know what happened. We'd been shipped to Earth to fight the Reapers, because the Alliance forces sure as heck couldn't do it. Then, in the middle of a battle, everything went dark. I remember waking up in an infirmary in some underground bunker and a bunch of Alliance soldiers were there, a usual hodgepodge of races, with a quarrian in one of those protective suits standing at one side, watching -- maybe supervising? The soldiers didn't pay much attention to him/her, though. Hestia was quiet, which was strange. I counted on her to catch me up with things after I slept, right? The soldiers were getting a bunch of litters ready. When I looked around, I saw my whole Crew there, and others in the family, too. All in bed, all either unconscious or with just their eyes moving. Some of my Crew were awake. I couldn't really move very well and Hestia wasn't helping at all. The soldiers were talking about us, "rescuing" us for the Alliance. One Krogan said it was useless, we were too puny to be anything important.

They kept talking about Cerberus and one of them mentioned that at least the guy in charge was dead. My stomach felt like somebody filled it with ice, and I started shaking. The Krogan said "and the galaxy is better off for it." Then I thought how great it would be if one of the brackets for the litters they were assembling shot straight through his stupid Krogan skull. So I sat up and sent my command and we all should have grabbed it and hurled it through his head. I saw my hand come up and the blue surround me and... the bracket slid off the table and rattled on the floor. I shot a furious glance at my Crew for not doing their part - heck, I was furious because I should have been able to do much better than that - but saw the looks on their faces. It wasn't their fault. Hestia was silent, or... gone? So were their Companions. They hadn't heard me. They were as shocked as I.

That's when the real horror of the thing set in. Some of my Crew started crying. I'd never seen one of us cry before. Our Companions stopped that before it started. I felt like it, too, but stopped myself. What's the point in wailing and leaking fluids, after all? Done is done. Dead or not, I wanted to make Father proud of me. That was always the best feeling in the world. But the soldiers got all excited about how young I was with biotic powers and I said "of course" all scornfully and fell back down on the bed and passed out. I guess they took us away.

So I've spent the last eight years with the Alliance. The first two were dull. I had to relearn how to do everything. The med staff were really nice and said a lot of people had to do rehab after the war. They said our young brains were really plastic, and we'd relearn faster than others would learn to do things for the first time. Walking and talking and feeding and cleaning ourselves were pretty high on their priority list, but I always kept trying to use biotics. Father said it was really important that we have those abilities, so I tried. The meds were afraid of messing with our amps, especially since they'd been implanted when we were so young. They were special models Cerberus had been working on in secret. The meds explained that AIs had all been destroyed in the war, so Hestia was really, truly gone. They reloaded us with a VI and said we were a lot like the upcoming L4 amps with VI, but it's not the same. It's not the same at all. So sometimes it works great, others not so much. I can't coordinate with my Crew at all... not that I'm allowed to see them. Once we were up and on our feet and biotics were returning, we were separated. Each of us was assigned to a different group in the Alliance and scattered to help with the recovery and rebuilding efforts. I can't even call them or anything.

I took a lot of guff from some of the soldiers at times, being just a kid, but I am learning how to keep my mouth shut. It's hard without Hestia. I hadn't realized how much self-control was really her control. Doing it alone is a lot harder, just like everything else. But I also remember what Father taught us, lessons he taught personally because he wanted to be sure we got it. That we needed to control what we said and not give away secrets. That we should always watch and learn from both friends and enemies. That we had to think way, way ahead, like in a chess game, not one move, not five moves, but a hundred.

I asked Father once if I could have eyes like his. He smiled and said no, they were the result of an accident that killed everyone else but not him. I said it must have been awful, but he explained that even though others were killed, he'd gotten those really amazing looking eyes, plus the ability to understand some alien communications. "No matter how bad a disaster looks, we always get something from it, even if it's only knowledge. And if we don't use what we learn, it dishonors all those who were sacrificed to gain that knowledge. Using what results is honoring those who gave their lives for it. Remember that."

So I am learning what I can, but sometimes, when I see the ruined Earth and hear how many perished, I wonder what knowledge could have been worth all these lives? I wonder...

I can wonder all I want. There's nobody to talk it over with. Not Father. Not Hestia. No one. I'm so alone.