A/N: Okay, this is my first time trying to write a humor story, so please be kind and review with advice. Who can find all the references? :)
A/N2: And yes, the whole point is the yellow Babel fish from Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm not trying to pass it off as my own, thanks. I only say this because some people don't understand that "references" mean "things referring to another subject". All other stories I do plotwise are based off of the Mass Effect game structure with original material interwoven or extrapolated. I'm not going for a prize-winning composition here-I wrote this as a lazy and semi-mocking explanation for a particular aspect of the Mass Effect universe built around references to books, movies, music, and TV shows that I really like. If you don't like it, that's fine and please review with *advice* in the context of technical elements. If you do like it, that's fine and please review with the same.
Shepard collapsed against the briefing room wall, clapping a hand to her ear in pain. Well, not exactly pain so much as the kind of sick and squirmy not-so-good feeling that makes you want to cross your eyes and stick your tongue out. It was an overwhelming sensation of absolute wrongness and discomfort the likes of which she had only felt once before in her life when listening to a drunken Udina sing (in the loosest possible sense of the word) Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" at the Council's post-Saren celebration. Five people died that night, and three-point-five were critically wounded. An entire delegation of drell killed themselves weeks afterward to escape solipsism's cruel reminders of the traumatic event. The Ambassador's karaoke had been bad — this was worse.
She crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out. It didn't help. If anything, the sensation seemed to build in intensity until she let out a yelp of squeamish disturbance and felt something small and slick fall into her palm.
She threw it away from her with a very heroic shriek. It sailed through the pretty little hologram Normandy and hit the smooth conference table surface with a distinctly dismayed 'plop'.
"What the hell was that?" gasped humanity's first Spectre, putting her hand back up to her ear to check for further unidentified squishy things. Finding none, she crept over to the small yellow thing that had wriggled out of her ear. It was, in fact, a fish.
Understandably puzzled, Shepard picked it up by its little tail and poked it.
It did not move. In fact, there was a multitude of things that the fish did not do, including performing the elcor national anthem, jumping on a pogo stick, or executing a triple pike half-twist dive off the edge of the conference table, but as "not moving" was the most significant action — or rather inaction — it is the only thing that bears mentioning. Shepard, being sharp of wit, deduced from its lack of definitive reaction that it was a deceased fish.
Hm. This was decidedly strange. A small yellow fish had worked its way from her ear canal and died. This had not, to the best of her knowledge, happened before. Shepard did not consider herself an expert on fishy behavior and practices, but as she had quite a few fish in her over-large aquarium in her quarters, she was positive that this was not normal fish doings.
As was standard procedure for Shepard since the event of her untimely — if rather glorious and romantic — demise and her subsequent (mis)adventures, she decided to see someone who knew more than her and bother them. Mordin's lab was a short walk away — she didn't even have time to hum to herself, which was a disappointment as she regarded herself as the best damn hummer in the galaxy.
The salarian looked up quickly as she strode heroically into the tech lab. He grinned a nervous little grin, and shuffled some important-looking papers out of sight. While this may have been disconcerting considering his predilection for risky experiments widely regarded as mad science, Shepard had more important things on her mind, so she let it slide.
She brandished the small creature. "Doctor Solus! This little yellow fishy — what is it and why the hell was it in my ear?"
He twitched his head, coming around his lab table to examine the fish. He took it from her with a small exclamation, met her gaze, and promptly began babbling in an indecipherable torrent of clicks and pops. If she had thought his caffeinated-hamster speech unbearable before, it was immeasurably worse now that she couldn't understand it.
"This isn't funny, Mordin." She glowered. "Speak English, dammit."
He paused, confused.
"English, mothertrucker! Do you speak it?" Shepard screamed, experiencing the unfortunate dual phenomenon of a hernia erupting and a mild aneurysm.
Mordin began clicking again, pointing emphatically at the little fish in his palm, but Shepard threw her hands up in frustration.
"Almighty Enkindlers — if you exist — preserve me from annoying salarians! I'm gonna go this way — if you decide to start making sense, message me on my Omnitool!" She spun on her heel and exited the tech lab, making for the Command Center.
"Froolp weel, Boggle!" chirruped Kelly happily as Shepard passed her.
The Commander extended her the Finger of Friendship and continued on. Of course Kelly would be in on it — that smarmy quack thought she was so high and mighty, with her fancy Sector Eight psychologist degree and her official Intergalactic Petsitter Certificate… Just because Shepard wasn't a credentialed scholar didn't make it okay to play this kind of cruel prank on her!
Grumbling, Shepard stomped over to her pilot. If he didn't want to talk, she could always "accidentally" trip and break his femur. As always, the prospect of groundless violence made her feel better.
"Joker, you better tell me what's going on here. Why won't my crew talk normally?"
He swiveled his chair to greet her, his wide grin infuriatingly cheerful. "Saffle wump, Chiff. Werb lut?"
Tiny little red dots spun in Shepard's vision, singing in piping voices: "Nyah nyah nyah!" This irritation would not stand.
She clenched a fist. "I'm warning you, Moreau—"
"Shepard, I believe I have ascertained the source of your problem." The little blue hologram popped up, its clear voice cutting through Shepard's mounting fury.
"You… you make sense." The Commander tried to hug the little blue shape, but since it was only a hologram, her arms passed right through and she fell over, eliciting hurtful snickers from her pilot. Exercising her enormous reserves of saintly restraint, she refrained from killing him, settling for a slap to the back of the head. Mollified for the moment, she returned her attention to EDI. "Enlighten me, thing."
"Shepard, I have observed many events during my time as a reasoning and integral aspect of the Normandy—"
"You're a fungus that is attached to my ship. You spy on me for the Illusive Man." Shepard graciously interjected, feeling that she was obligated to clarify the subject of the AI's existence.
"Schmoo clet ful — qaw vit loupla."
EDI was silent for a moment. If Shepard believed it had emotion, she would say it was attempting to gird its patience, but that would be silly. "The strangest phenomena I have observed as… a symbiotic application to the Normandy, is the breadth and ease of communication between sentient beings of different species and origins. Logically, the establishment of a simple lingua franca would take many years and would have to be adjusted for each additional inclusion of space-faring species."
"Bored now. Smaller words." Shepard commanded imperiously. It wasn't that she didn't understand, she just wanted the AI to cut to the chase. Yes, that's exactly what she meant.
"However, I have observed that there is no uniting language. Each and every individual persists in speaking the language that they learned as a child in whatever system they grew up in, and yet for some reason, you all seem to comprehend each other perfectly. I had never been able to understand it."
"So… you speak English?" Shepard tried to bring EDI back to the more important subject of Shepard's dilemma.
The AI malfunctioned, emitting a noise suspiciously akin to an aggrieved sigh. But it couldn't be, because that would be silly.
"Of course. It is like a second language to me. I am fluent in over six million forms of communication. I speak every language in existence and several extinct ones. Every time you hear my audio, it is transmitted with several overlays — the one you hear and comprehend is English. Moreau hears a pidgin dialect adopted by spacers at the founding of the Arcturus Station. Garrus hears—"
"So I can understand you and you can understand everyone else, got it." Shepard walked away, deciding to search for other people who had been born on Earth and, therefore, spoke English. She activated her Omnitool and searched through the crew manifest, selecting and searching for any who'd been born on… Reading is boring. She managed to find three before the little words began to hurt her eyes. She was Shepard — destroyer of evil! She had not the time for menial secretary work.
"EDI! Have Operative Lawson compile a list of all crew born and raised on Earth." A confident grin on her face, Shepard strode to the elevator, pressing the button for Engineering and her first confirmed linguistic compatriot.
She'd conditioned herself to black out for the duration of the infernally monotonous elevator ride, passing the long, tiresome five minutes in blissful unconsciousness.
The doors opened with a self-satisfied sigh — no, they were doors and Cerberus must have programmed some kind of pressure release sound upon their action. To suggest they had feelings would be silly.
Shepard entered the proximity field of one of the section seals, subtly waving one hand as it slid open. Like a Jedi! This cheered her up slightly.
As always, she heard the indistinct noise of bickering before she came into view of the grease-monkeys. As always, their constant assertion of complex sexual tension was irksome. They should be focused on the mission, or at least discussing how honored they were to be working for The Great Commander Shepard and how awesome she was. And good-looking. And a snappy dresser.
"Engineer Kenneth! Your file says you were raised on Earth." Ken and Gaby turned to regard her, residual smiles clinging to their faces like the last of the leftover cake on the cheeks of a rebellious toddler. Oh, that was a good one — Shepard made a mental note to write that down and use it again later.
"Aber natürlich, Shepard. Warum haben Sie—"
"What? Stop that." Shepard's eyes strained to escape her head, her newly acquired hernia throbbed.
He frowned. "Was? Ich verstehe wirklich—"
A primal scream built in Shepard's throat. "ENGLISH! You're supposed to be Scottish, god—if you really exist—dammit!"
"Shepard." EDI's holographic blue bubble popped up from the interface in the wall. Shepard had a brief flashback to her childhood as a gangster on Earth.
This one time, the Reds had raided an old arcade museum. Strangely, museums didn't make much money, so they ended up breaking in for nothing. They did manage to find some archaic form of currency that presumably ran the machines, though, so Shepard and her fellows stayed for a while and played some good old-fashioned videogames. Her buddy Keith found a game called "Whack-a-mole" where this little fuzzy creature would poke its tiny little head out from a series of holes — Shepard snickered — and you could bash it quite viciously with a mallet. Well, Keith was having fun, right up until one of those diminutive fuzzy things actually jumped right up and—
"Shepard." The speakers must have been glitching, because Shepard thought for a moment that she could detect a note of exasperation. But no, that would be silly because that would imply that the AI had feelings. It was obviously a technical error.
The Spectre noticed that the grease-monkeys were staring at her, and smoothly adopted her cool-calm-and-collected-superior-officer face that Joker had once claimed made her look like she'd sat on a pin and swallowed a gallon of bleach-infused ryncol. That had hurt her feelings and she was forced to reprimand him. With her fists.
"Yes, thing, I hear you."
"Mordin is requesting that you come to his lab immediately—"
Shepard sniffed grandly. "I suppose this means he's decided to be civil and speak to me like a normal person."
The blue sphere flared in intensity briefly, then dimmed back to normal levels, as if containing an outburst of frustrated rage. But, as Shepard well knew, that would be silly. "Do you remember anything that I told you in the cockpit?"
"Yeah, you speak English." Shepard left Engineering without bidding farewell to the grease-monkeys. They had incurred her wrath and she decided she would not speak to them for a week. And maybe weld the access doors to Maintenance shut.
A blissful bout of unconsciousness later, and she was back on that one deck she seemed to be on all the time. She made a beeline for the Tech lab. Even if they were cruel, irrational, and, at times, quite inane, Shepard was obligated to Command these people. She would receive the salarian's apologies with a maturity and grace which would inspire him to work on his attitude and become a better person. In a perfect galaxy, everyone would be like Shepard, but she had come to terms with the fact that a.) the large-scale extermination necessary would be impossible, b.) the large-scale indoctrination in light of the aforementioned impossibility of large-scale extermination would be impossible, and c.) that she simply did not have the time to waste developing the technology for cloning herself a sufficient amount of times to facilitate the aforementioned large-scale extermination or indoctrination operations.
"Solus." She sauntered into the lab, arching an eyebrow expectantly.
The salarian looked up from his workbench, a suspiciously wide smile curving his thin lips. He did not speak. On the surface in front of him, a small yellow fish was swimming in a water-filled beaker.
"That's the fish that was in my head." Shepard was proud of her ability to state the obvious and viewed it as her duty to enlighten others. "It's alive."
Mordin nodded and jerked his head to the interface node in the wall beside him.
EDI's holographic blue form appeared almost reluctantly. Shepard had to remind herself to stop using these emotionally-charged adjectives when dealing with a heartless, soulless entity such as an AI, because it would be silly to imply that it had emotions.
"Hello again, thing. You are getting dangerously close to exceeding our contact quota." Shepard had limited the AI to ten face-to-hologram encounters per day after deciding that it was entirely too creepy to be constantly reminded that there was a comprehensive computer virus that originated from Reaper technology aboard her ship, much less that it probably watched her taking a shower.
"Mordin has been studying the life-form for twenty minutes, Shepard. He has concluded that it was in a state of severe physiological deterioration when it… fell from your ear canal. However, he has assured me that it was not, in fact, dead as you had suspected."
"No, it was dead," Shepard said. "Mordin's just a special scientist-genius and he brought it back to life."
"Regardless of its previous state," EDI continued grimly (no, that's silly), "the life-form shows no further signs of distress or ill-health. Doctor Solus was able to ascertain much about its nature, and I believe that even you would find the information of interest."
"I doubt it." Shepard eyed the little fish with passive distaste. "So… I guess I'll just put the little guy upstairs in my little aquarium. It's been empty ever since the Spaghetti Incident, and I've missed having living things under the dominion of my whim."
"Actually, Shepard, the fish has to go back in your ear." The AI sounded apologetic. Actually, no it didn't. That would be silly.
Shepard turned on the hologram, understandably infuriated. "Whatever! I do what I want!" She strode powerfully towards the table, but was blocked by the slender salarian, who shook his head emphatically and gestured in the direction of the blue thing again.
"Shepard, it will let you understand everyone else." EDI's simulated voice was too loud and the pitch was worryingly sharp. Shepard resolved to find a different auditory default mode. Maybe it had a Morgan Freeman option…that'd be cool. This intriguing possibility calmed her, and the AI (god—if a god existed—damn that scheming thing!) took advantage.
"Mordin discovered that this life-form is a symbiotic organism. It enters its host through the ear canal and resides within the brain. It then feeds on the host's generated brainwaves as well as incoming electromagnetic signals. Additionally, it will excrete a form of electromagnetic energy that can be interpreted by the host's brain."
"So it's a fish that lives in your brain, eats your thoughts, and shits in ways that you can understand?" Shepard felt like she must have misunderstood.
"Essentially, yes."
Mordin smiled encouragingly and offered Shepard the beaker.
"I'm not doing it." Shepard covered her eyes with her hands, hoping that if she couldn't see the fish it would spontaneously combust or at least go away.
"Shepard—"
"I don't wanna!"
"I believe Chakwas could be persuaded to give you a… lollipop."
Shepard peeped on eye from her protective finger-shield. "Really?"
"Yes." EDI sounded weary. But that was obviously a trick of Shepard's mind and was a very silly thing to think.
Shepard deliberated. "Okay fine. But I'm setting a course for the Citadel and I'm going to go out for ice cream."
"Of course, Commander." A note of relief — no, that was silly.
Shepard took the beaker from Solus, gave him a glare out of principle, and proceeded to stuff the little yellow fish into her ear. The sensation was more disturbing that painful — reminding her of this one time her good buddy Keith got ahold of front row seats to a musical adaptation of "Schindler's List" with an all-hanar cast. It hadn't been so bad until the third act, when—
"Shepard? Can you understand me now?" The salarian was grinning cautiously.
She shook her head to clear the residual muzzy feeling and glared at him. "I see you've come to your senses and decided to speak properly."
A flicker of frustration crossed his face, but was gone before she could reprimand him.
"Why was the fishy dead?" She picked up the beaker and sniffed the contents.
"It was…" Mordin edged around the table to put some distance between himself and the volatile woman. "Starving."
"But doesn't it eat whatchyamucallit? Brain waves?" She glowered at him, unsure whether he was insulting her intelligence.
"No!" He said hurriedly, almost interrupting her, "No, no, no, it um… it absorbs energy from the host's environment. So…so you'll have to come by here every once in a while so that I can… make sure it's vitals are stable."
"Fine." Shepard pointed dramatically at EDI's hologram. "GTFO, thing. I don't want to see you for the rest of the cycle."
The hologram disappeared without a word, which was a relief to Shepard. She felt better already.
To not be able to understand your minions was torture, she realized. Contact with others was an essential part of maintaining psychological health and overall happiness. Wasn't companionship part of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?
She smiled at Mordin and snatched him up in a quick hug.
"Thank you for doing all this science stuff!"
He squirmed, terrified, and she released him, feeling more normal.
She pumped a fist at him and he shrank back.
"Two for flinching!" She cried gleefully, and punched his arm twice, then left the Tech Lab, whistling.