Hi everyone, this is the first chapter of my new story, and I hope you enjoy it! For anyone who hasn't read any of my stuff before, a little bit of info: I love Mass Effect and it's universe, but I like to tell my own stories. So while many of the missions will tie in to the games, I often put my own spin on them. For this reason, I also like to mix up the characters (for example, in my last story James Vega played a big part, even though most of it was set during Mass Effect 2). In this chapter we meet some characters who are somewhere we may not expect to find them. Just roll with it, I promise it all comes together!

Basically, try not to get too bogged down with what you know from the games, and read with an open mind :)

I've also included something from the TV series 'Hannibal': my main character has her own 'Memory Palace', which she escapes into from time to time. I just wanted to give credit to the series for that, as I've found it a really interesting way to explore flashbacks.

That's it, I really hope you enjoy this one, I've got a lot of ideas for it!

Every time they strapped Jessie onto the table she went to her memory palace. It was a place she had built for herself, and every room housed a different memory. Though she was young, there were many rooms in her palace, some bright and cheerful, others dark and claustrophobic.

She hadn't always been able to escape to her palace. In fact, for the first few weeks after they snatched her from her home, Jessie had been mentally present for every terrible thing they had done to her. The shockings, the tests, the syringes. She had cried and screamed and fought, but nothing had been any good. It was only when they took some of her bone marrow, using a large needle through her hip, that she had found the key to her memory palace and escaped inside. Within the walls, she was safe from the cutting and the jabbing and everything else they did to her. They still did it, but she was blissfully absent.

Today, however, while lying strapped down on the table, naked as the day she was born, with tubes and wires in various places around her body, Jessie was not in a good room. This was a dark room, one of her darkest. A room holding her worst memory, yet one she could not stop visiting. Especially recently.

Jessica Shepard was sitting on the carpet of their small home. She was playing with her Omni-tool, changing the colour of the display from orange, to blue, to pink, back to orange. Her little brother, Tom, was watching her intently, smiling each time the colour changed. This was not something Omni-tools were meant to do, but Jessie had always had a way with technology (which is why she had been allowed to have an Omni-tool of her own in the first place, most children had to wait until they were at least fifteen). She found that hacking the Omni-tool was incredibly simple if you knew which numbers to change in the programming. At least, it felt easy to her, other nine year olds would probably have disagreed.

While the children sat on the carpet, their mother cooked the dinner, and their father set the table. Jessie no longer thinks of them as 'mom' or 'dad' when she visits this room in her memory palace. 'Mom' and 'dad' are terms which are too painful. They are now simply 'mother' and 'father'. These terms are more distant, less drenched in emotion.

Tom laughed as Jessie programmed the Omni-tool to change colour quickly, getting faster and faster until one colour was no longer distinguishable from the other.

It happened suddenly, the mood changed. There were sounds coming from outside, screaming and gunfire, though at the time Jessie hadn't known it was gunfire. She had never heard it before. She had never heard anything like the sounds outside. Many years later she had researched what had happened on Mindoir: Batarian slavers had come to the colony knowing the Humans had virtually no weapons to speak of. They were farmers. The Batarians had captured a few, but butchered most of the colonists in the space of a few hours.

Jessie didn't know this when she was nine, sitting on the carpet making the lights flash on her Omni-tool. She just knew that something was happening outside. Her father had run to the window, and shouted for her mother to take the children and hide them. Her mother had started to ask what was happening, but father had cut her off. Jessie and her brother were taken to the bedroom, where her mother revealed a trap door under the bed (something neither of the children had seen before). Their mother pushed them down into the darkness, before closing the door. They heard her move the bed back into place.

Jessie didn't know exactly what had happened next. She would find out later that her father and mother had both been killed, and that by the morning, she and her brother would be the only Humans left on the colony. But at that moment, sitting in the dark, she had done the only thing she had the power to do: keep her brother from crying. She continued to hack her Omni-tool long into the night, changing the colours, showing silent animations of dancing robots, creating holographic pictures in the air. He had eventually fallen asleep with his head on her lap, and she had sat in silence, watching as the lights of her Omni-tool slowly flickered as its connection to the power grid (now on fire) was lost.

"Have you got the sample?" Jessie was brought back from her memory by a voice she didn't recognise. A new Doctor was in the room, a tall man with dark hair and a beard, and, unlike the others, he was not wearing a mask. This was unusual, most of them seemed to be under orders not to let Jessie see their faces, which led her to believe that this man was either important, or simply didn't care about breaking the rules.

"Yes Doctor," someone behind Jessie replied.

"Excellent." The Doctor was by her side now, looking down at her. "That wasn't too painful was it?"

Another first, Jessie couldn't remember ever being addressed directly by one of her captors. She wasn't even sure her voice still worked, so she said nothing. The Doctor didn't seem too concerned, as if he had not really been expecting her to reply anyway. He was now looking at a chart. "Ok, this all looks good. We'll need some more blood tomorrow," he was talking to another doctor now. "The last experiment didn't work, so they had to torch it."

"It looked so promising…"

"I know, it's something to do with changing the gender, interferes with everything."

Jessie was trying so hard to take in what they were saying, but in reality she had no idea what they were talking about. What were they using her for? What was this about changing genders? She decided to take a risk, what could they do, torture her some more? They'd been doing that non-stop since she arrived.

"Why am I here?" She asked, surprised at the strength of her own voice.

The doctors turned around, and the one without a mask looked surprised. He looked at the others, "Have you not spoken to her?"

"He told us not to, Doctor. Said to keep a distance."

The Doctor shook his head, "Give us a minute," he said, waving them towards the door.

"Doctor I don't think-"

"Now."

Ok, he's someone important then. But not the one in charge, they were following someone else. Jessie took this little piece of information and hoarded it away, as she had done with the other scraps she had picked up along the way.

When the other doctors were gone, the unmasked one came closer and pulled up a chair next to the table. "My name is Doctor Gavin Archer." He paused, as if waiting for her to introduce herself.

Jessie was surprised to find she could still remember how to be sarcastic. "Oh am I not wearing my name badge? I must have left it in my cell."

Archer actually laughed. "Nice to see you haven't lost your sense of humour in the past three months."

Jessie couldn't keep the shock out of her voice, "Three months? That's how long I've been here?"

Archer nodded. "Yes. And I must apologise for the coldness of my colleagues, they don't have much of a bedside manner."

"And you do?"

"We're talking aren't we?"

Jessie rolled her eyes. "I'm naked and strapped to a table, I don't exactly feel reassured."

Archer shrugged, "Well there's not much I can do about that Miss Shepard."

"Can you tell me why I'm here?"

"Why do you think you're here?"

"I don't know."

Archer leaned in closer. "I've read your file, you're a bright girl. Tell me what you think is happening."

Jessie thought for a moment, what harm could it do? If she played along with this, perhaps she might get some answers for herself. He wouldn't tell her anything important, she could see that, but she might get a sense of something from his reactions.

"You're Cerberus," she began. Archer raised an eyebrow, and so Jessie continued. "You don't have the logos on your clothes, but once when they were taking me in here I saw some soldiers. And another time I saw it written on some documents on a table over there." She nodded to the far end of the room.

"You're correct, we are Cerberus." Archer consented. "Why did we take you?"

Jessie paused, taking a breath. "My brother?" Jessie replied, barely more than a whisper.

"Why would you say that?" Archer wasn't confirming her theory, but he wasn't denying it either, and she knew she was right. That filled her with dread.

"Because he's Commander Shepard. Cerberus brought him back, and then he left them."

"What else do you know?"

"Not much, I hadn't spoken to him about what he was doing, he didn't want me to worry. All I know is he told me he'd left Cerberus, and was going…going back to the Alliance."

She had almost slipped up then, she didn't want this Archer to know that during her last conversation with her brother he'd also told her he was heading into Batarian space to rescue a scientist. She hadn't heard from him since then, and it had been just as she was starting to worry that Cerberus had snatched her from her home. She had no idea where her brother was now, or even if he was still alive. Of course, she'd never tell Cerberus that, however pleasant this doctor may seem.

"He did leave Cerberus, and right at the time when we needed him most."

"Why?"

"Something big is about to happen. We could have used him leading our people for that. Your brother is a useful asset."

"I'll be sure to pass it along. When I'm not tied to a table of course."

Archer raised an eyebrow. Jessie was starting to feel more confident, after all, it wasn't like she had much to lose. "You still haven't told me why I'm here? If you're so interested in my brother, why have you got me?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

Jessie shook her head. "I'm not bait, you wouldn't be so interested in my blood and everything else if that was the case."

Archer smiled a half smile. "I can't see the harm in telling you the truth. We're taking samples in order to create a clone."

Jessie was taken aback by how forthcoming he was. "Why would you want to clone me?"

"Not you, a clone of your brother."

Jessie shook her head. "That won't work, we're related but you can't clone him from my DNA."

"We brought him back from the dead Jessica, with enough money and the right people you can do just about anything."

Jessie's mind was working overtime, "And if it works, what happens to my brother?"

Archer got up, "I think you can imagine."

Jessie's stomach sank, she suddenly felt light headed. "Please," she heard herself beg. "Please don't hurt my brother."

Archer sighed, "I'm sorry Jessica, that's not something I have the power to control." And for a moment, Jessie thought she saw something that looked like regret in his eyes. But perhaps it was nothing, as within moments he was allowing the rest of the doctors into the room, and soon the injections and scrapings continued. Unfortunately, she was far too alert to return to her memory palace today.

Jessie woke up in her room. This was usual, she often passed out during her time with the doctors, and awoke here. Calling it her room was probably pushing it, it was a cell, no more, no less. She had a bed, a desk and chair, a toilet and a sink. No books, no paper, nothing to pass the time. Jessie sat up in her bed, slowly putting her legs out onto the floor. Getting up was always tricky after a long session with the doctors, she was never sure exactly how much blood they had taken or where they had cut. There had been a couple of occasions where she hadn't been able to walk for several days because they had cut into the soles of her feet (for what purpose, she didn't know).

Jessie heard the sound of her door open, but instead of the usual Cerberus grunt bringing in her food, it was someone new. A tall woman with dark brown hair, wearing a skin tight white body suit. Jessie knew this woman, she had met her once before, but as she went to speak the woman interrupted.

"My name is Miranda Lawson."

Jessie was confused, she knew that, her brother had introduced the two of them months ago. But for some reason Miranda didn't want to acknowledge that, and Jessie would play along for now. She nodded at Miranda, who placed a tray of food down on the table.

"I asked to be assigned to this project," Miranda continued, seemingly speaking to the room rather than to Jessie. "I'm very interested in this assignment, and I hope you will continue to behave in the way you have been for the past three months. Know this, we are always watching you." Her eyes flickered to the top left corner of the cell, where Jessie knew there was a small ventilation grate. She was now surer than ever, though, that there was a camera in that grate. Jessie nodded.

Miranda looked at the tray on the table, "Enjoy your lunch." Then she slipped out of the cell.

Well that was odd. Why didn't she ask me about Tom? Why is she pretending we haven't met?

Trying not to look too eager, Jessie moved to the desk and sat down. She could see it, a napkin under her bread. She was never given napkins, this was something new, and she was sure it contained a message. Hoping her back was blocking the view of the camera, she slipped the napkin into her sleeve, and ate her meal as normal. Afterwards she waited twenty minutes, then headed for her toilet, the one place where she had a modicum of privacy due to the little curtain she could pull across. She sat on the toilet seat and unfolded the napkin. Sure enough, there was a short message written in the corner, in beautiful handwriting.

He knows you're here. It won't be long.

Jessie felt a smile spreading across her lips, and she hugged the napkin to her chest. She felt tears fall down her cheeks as she read the message one more time, before flushing it down the toilet.