Disclaimer: I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.
[AN: Hello all, here's another Mass Effect one-shot from the same head-canon set as my others, this time dealing with Shepard immediately after his escape from Minuteman Station (at the beginning of ME2). It's largely just a piece to fill in the lack of reaction we see in game from him/her about the resurrection and the whole Cerberus link, particularly from Sole Survivor Sheps. It also contains technical jargon to help explain some of the cybernetic stuff they added to him (in my mind).
I hope you enjoy the story. /AN]
Location Unknown (October 17, 2185, 1135 hours, Station Time):
The Shuttle ride had been quiet and tense for the last two hours with the two Cerberus Operatives trying to avoid saying anything that might anger their charge and in turn, forfeit their lives. For his part, Shepard was very far from pleased with the situation and ready to act if either of the two individuals in front of him so much as flinched in the wrong direction.
He was also studying the multitude of even, precise scars that ran across his arm and, he presumed, the rest of his body. There was no blood and practically no pain when he touched them and the faint glow emanating from the cybernetics he could see was doing little to ease his concerns.
This standoff continued for another half an hour before John's curiosity overrid his immense distrust and disgust of the organisation represented in front of him.
"Alright Operative Lawson, what the hell did you do to me? All I know at the moment is that I'm not bleeding and I'm not feeling any pain even though I've got open cuts running across my body, which also happen to be glowing."
"Commander, please wait until you've had the opportunity to speak with the Illusive Man, I assure you everything will be ma-" Miranda began, only to be cut-off rather unexpectedly.
Shepard shot up and wrapped his hand around her throat, using his shoulder and superior body mass to check any potential biotic capabilities she might have while his other hand was directing a biotic field to envelope the soldier, Taylor, in the other seat, effectively stopping him from being able to move.
All this had happened in less than half a second
"No, you're going to tell me now, or we're going to find out if Cerberus is willing to shell out the credits to bring you back after you get spaced. Or maybe I'll just crash the whole damn shuttle into the nearest Gas Giant and see what happens then. And you had better damn-well tell me exactly why Cerberus thought it would be fun to resurrect me, especially since I have such a long and storied history with your Organisation." His voice was devoid of any sort of sympathy, mercy or concern and his words were deadly serious. As far as the Galaxy was concerned, he had been dead for two years and he might still be dead now seeing as how he definitely did not feel human anymore; he figured potentially taking out two more Cerberus Operatives before going back to his grave would be a fitting end.
"The-the Reapers…" The woman choked out as his grip began to cut off her airways, struggling for breath. The name stunned him momentarily and for a couple of seconds everything was quiet before he dropped his hand away from her throat, ripped the pistol off her hip and had it extended and pointed at her in less time than it had taken for her to slump back into her seat.
Doing the same to the other operative he held both guns aimed squarely at their torso's where any shot would be guaranteed to hit at this range. The woman rubbed her throat tenderly, where light bruises could already be seen winding their way around her throat as she sucked air into her lungs, before she continued speaking.
"To put it simply, we brought you back because you are humanity's best hope at stopping the Reapers."
"Surely you could have found someone else; I can't believe Cerberus would spend billions of credits to bring me back when that money could have gone into raising an army or a fleet." Shepard sneered incredulously.
"As I'm sure the Illusive Man will explain, you have firsthand experience dealing with the Reapers; that experience is unique, and valuable. And your value goes far beyond your physical or mental capabilities however; you're a symbol for humanity, its greatest soldier and most recent Hero. Having you lead the fight against the Reapers could have wide reaching implications that we can't even begin to speculate on." She responded as calmly as she could manage, given the circumstances. She was doing an admirable job, really, all things considered.
"I'm guessing the Reapers haven't invaded?" Shepard said, still far from ready to trust anyone else on this shuttle.
"No, there's been no activity of any sort, until recently that is."
"What's happening?" Shepard demanded, his irritation rising ever so slightly.
"I don't know the details, you'll have to talk to the Illusive Man." She replied smoothly, meeting his icy gaze with her own.
Shepard clenched his jaw in frustration at how he was being manipulated but he had little choice in the matter; he could tell she wouldn't tell him anything and it was possible she was as ignorant as she claimed, though unlikely; Miranda Lawson did not seem to be the type of woman who would accept being left out of the loop.
"Fine, I assume you at least know what you did to me? I would hope so considering you're meant to be the head of the project." He asked, deciding that if he needed to change the topic, it may as well be one that would be useful to him.
"That I can answer. Your body was recovered two weeks after the destruction of the Normandy SR-1, amid the wreckage. The lower gravity and reasonable atmospheric pressure, combined with your exo-skeletally reinforced armour slowed your decent and resulting impact enough to leave your body largely intact. The below-freezing temperatures and lack of oxygen prevented any decay from setting in and preserved your brain cells, which had survived re-entry remarkably well. Your corpse was transferred to the facility we just left and we spent the past two years attempting to resurrect you. We had to replace a substantial portion of your internal organs and skin with cloned replacements while your left lung, spleen, left kidney and heart all required extensive surgery and repair on a cellular level. Extensive Cybernetics were also added to assist their functioning while your body was still recovering and your brain was still frozen. The cybernetics fulfil a life-support function primarily; think of it as having a medical exoskeleton under your skin rather than in your armour. By now all of your organs should be functioning normally without cybernetic assistance, but they cannot be easily removed and they will greatly aid recovery times after any injuries you sustain. As for your brain, we used an experimental nanite package to remove and thaw the ice crystals that had formed in your brain cells, while also repairing the damaged cell and nuclear membranes, stopping your cells from falling apart as soon as you defrosted. It didn't take long for neurological activity to begin to manifest after that. You are still who you were two years ago Commander, Cerberus hasn't changed that." She finished, clearly picking up easily on his concerns
Shepard wasn't convinced, however.
"You've done something to me though, haven't you? I'm faster, stronger than I ever was. If I'd just come off an operating table after two years, my muscles should be jelly."
Miranda sighed as she realised she would have to explain everything.
"We did also make some… improvements. Your mind is yours and we didn't change that, the Illusive Man insisted we bring you back exactly as you were, but we took the opportunity to make some slight physical changes to assist you in the fight against the Reapers."
"And they are…?"
"We replaced your L3 interface with an experimental prototype L5 implant. The L5 interface is a significant step up from the L3 one, combining the raw power of the L2's with the safety and stability of the L3's while also containing a VI driven subsystem that adapts to the user's neural patterns to enhance your effective control and even predict when you are about to use it, giving a reduction in the time taken to concentrate the Dark Energy. The more you use your abilities, the better the interface adapts to you. We've also provided you with an L5n amplifier that is subdermally located next to your C5 vertebra, to hide it from detection and make it nearly impossible to remove. It's a back up for the one you currently have plugged in, so should you ever be captured or somehow lose or damage your current amp you won't be left defenceless. The L5n is an amplifier specifically geared towards the large scale manipulation of physical properties, such as Throw or Lift fields. In effect it grants more powerful and less draining attacks but at the cost of fine control, so attacks such as Warp and Stasis and more difficult to produce. In order to achieve this, the L5n passively collects Dark Energy around itself and its user so you don't need to waste energy and concentration coalescing dark energy before you use your biotics; based on combat footage we judged that this would be the best fit for your combat style."
As much as he hated to admit it, she was right, it sounded perfect.
John relaxed his grip on the pistols and flexed his hand, watching as dark energy coiled and spun around it. Before, it would have taken a noticeable amount of concentration but now a quick thought and a tightening of his muscles was all it took to produce the effect. He focused his attention back on Operative Lawson as she continued to list his new 'improvements'.
"We have also implanted two custom modified, heat tolerant Savant model omni-tools into your arms, minus their fabrication units, along with micro scale holo-emitters along your forearm to produce the display and we replaced the old haptic feedback chips in your fingers with the latest version. There is a small dock in your arm that will connect your omni-tools with whatever fabrication suite you wish to mount in your armour. Additionally, these have both been tied to your L5 interface, another feature of the L5's that utilises its inbuilt VI, allowing you to activate a variety of programs on your omni-tools with a thought rather than manual input, including communications, hacking programs and any preset manufacturing settings."
Once again, she was right. Looking beyond the scars on his arms he could see the near indistinguishable dots that were presumably the holo-emitters, while the larger metallic port must be the fabrication adaptor.
Just thinking about the device caused it to snap into existence around his arm, no input required just as promised. He idly wished he could talk to Tali about some of this stuff, she had always loved Tech and if anyone could tell him exactly what Cerberus had added to him, and exactly what that would mean in combat, it would be her.
Focusing back on the omni-tool, he could see it was on his (empty) contacts page; clearly the neural interface worked better than he thought.
"A pair of semi-organic ear-pieces and translators were added to your ear canals, which are again linked to your omni-tools and can be linked to your combat radios. A number of micro-scale cybernetics were also added to your muscles, skin and bones to provide you with better protection. The systems in your muscles are effectively nanite controlled filaments of carbon nano-tube that were specifically designed to protect against tears and strains, while also enhancing their contracting/relaxing speeds, granting you faster reflexes and stronger overall results, without the risk of over-exerting yourself. While we were waiting for your body to recover we began a program of electro-chemical physiotherapy to build up your muscle strength for when you did wake up, which now appears to be fortuitous, all things considered. The systems in your skin and bones are rather similar; both are designed to increase their resistance to physical trauma by reinforcing them and by acting as a first line of defence. In effect you have a secondary sub-dermal armour system that will grant some protection from point-force and cutting weapons while your bones will be incredibly resistant to breaking or fracturing. Additionally they both increase the rate at which you will recover from any injuries you might receive by beginning to set and bind any damaged areas while the body repairs itself." She finished, reciting the information as though it should be common knowledge. Even the other Operative, Taylor, looked bewildered.
Unsurprisingly, Shepard was suspicious.
"I've never seen any medical cybernetics that have such noticeable impacts or cause such a visible glow, not even the prototype ones that were being given to wounded marines were anything like these. What aren't you telling me?"
Operative Lawson suddenly looked very nervous, more so than when Shepard was half way to strangling her. The effect was brief and she recovered quickly, but it was there; and that set his nerves on edge even further.
"That's because they aren't based on traditional technologies, they're light-years ahead of anything else in the galaxy at the moment."
Realisation dawned on Shepard immediately and he aimed both pistols directly at the bridge of her nose ignoring the surprised response from Taylor sitting next her, unsure of what to do.
"You put Reaper tech in me?!" Shepard growled dangerously, both triggers just a hair away from firing.
"No, we knew of the possible risks of indoctrination and we couldn't allow that to happen. No Reaper material was used in the construction of your implants, but many of the designs were reverse engineered from nanites and cybernetics found in husks and what pieces of Sovereign we could get our hands on." She replied, keeping her neutral façade in place for as long as possible, carefully balancing her words.
Shepard's mind worked quickly as he processed all this information before resigning himself to his current situation as he fell back onto his chair.
"Your Illusive Man better have one damn good reason for bringing me back like this." He muttered in anger.
The rest of the trip passed in silence.
[AN: So you might think Shepard was a little harsh with Miranda, but I can't imagine him having any reason to trust her, and she's a far greater potential threat as an unknown that Jacob (a known quantity) is.
So tell me what you think, I'm always looking for feedback.
I'll be posting other one-shots and short pieces up sporadically while I try to find the time to re-write my Redemption stories, which these pieces have been pulled from.
Thanks again for reading, and I hoped you found some interest in it. /AN]