Mass Effect is own by BioEAWare. Concept based off the A&E Entertainment program 'LivePD'.
Unnamed Corridor, Stayn District, Block 3821 (Orlop Wards), Zakera Arm, Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula, February 15, 2175
FADE IN
[POV is moving, swaying left and right slightly with the sound of heavy breathing and running as low-rent buildings pass by either side. CORPORAL JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD is running just ahead. The sound of running footfalls is heard]
FADE OUT
DISPATCHER: ALL UNITS, BE ADVISED, 314 IN PROGRESS, SUB-BLOCK 3875, ORLOP OUTER TRACT ZAKERA. BE ADVISED, 314 IS IN PROGRESS.
Title Credit
LiveC-SEC
FADE IN
[POV is running with SHEPARD just ahead]
CORPORAL JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD: [Yelling from ahead while running] Keep running, cookie dough!
MICHAEL PATRICK GREENE: [Huffing and yelling] We're running into a firefight!
JCS: [From ahead] Run faster! Weren't you the wide receiver or something back in high school?
MPG: That's American football!
FADE OUT
DISPATCHER: ALL UNITS IN VICINITY, PLEASE RESPOND. SHOTS FIRED, SUB-BLOCK 3775, ORLOP OUTER TRACT ZAKERA. CALLING ALL UNITS IN VICINITY. 314 IN PROGRESS, SHOTS FIRED, OFFICERS IN DISTRESS.
Title Credit
SEASON 2
FADE IN
[POV is panting as it is chasing SHEPARD, passing by buildings as random CitCitz slide by in a blur as the sound of running is overheard. In the distance, gunfire occurs]
MPG: Jesus-[beep]ing-Christ-Jesus[beep]ing-Christ-Jesus-[beep]ing-Christ…
JCS: [From ahead] We're almost there, cookie dough!
[SHEPARD rounds a corner and heads down a narrower corridor. POV follows]
[An ASARI in multicolored armor appears from a doorway, wielding a two-handed rifle-looking weapon with a large tubular revolver underneath. It is a grenade launcher]
[SHEPARD runs right towards the ASARI and full-body tackles her to the ground with an audible crunch of armor as both go down to the ground]
[A nearby gunshot ahead is heard OFF-SCREEN]
MPG: SHEPARD!
FADE OUT
DISPATCHER: BE ADVISE, SUSPECTS ARE AT LARGE, AND ARE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS. I REPEAT, SUSPECTS ARE AT LARGE AND ARE CONSIDERED;
Title Credit
ARMED AND DANGEROUS
Apt. 1408, Stannis Fields Building, 3125 Block (Lower Wards), Kithoi Arm, Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula, February 8, 2175
MPG: So what made you want to be a cop?
Title Credit
JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD: THE INTERVIEW
[BEGIN POINT-OF-VIEW RECORDING]
[POV show a Turian-oriented domicile; the home of Shaltis Adepdos. In front of POV is CORPORAL JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD, sitting in a Human-oriented chair in from of a way with a cloth tapestry of a scenic Palaven. Instead of wearing C-SEC Armor, SHEPARD is dressed in a C-SEC Duty Uniform; periwinkle blue with soft black-colored shoulders and underpanelling. Sitting next to her is CENTURION GARRUS KAALDOR VAKARIAN, sitting in a Turian-oriented chair, also dressed in a C-SEC Duty Uniform. This is an interview]
JCS: My dad's a cop, so there was certainly that. Not that everyone ends up in the same profession as one of their parents, but in certain jobs, there's probably a greater percentage of those who wish their children do the same thing. Doctors, lawyers, business owners, cops, nurse, that kind of thing. I guess the reverse is kind of true too; there's professions that children will look up to more if they see it as more honorable or more beneficial. Mom was a medical technician, so it's probably easy to think that between the two of them, civil service and duty ran pretty high in the family.
MPG: Was that the case?
JCS: Oh yeah. It was all my brother could talk about, doing his stint in the military and becoming a cop like Dad. [SHEPARD looks over to VAKARIAN with a smile] The sun rose and set with Dad in Garrus' eyes.
GARRUS KAALDOR VAKARIAN: I was not that bad.
JCS: [Smiles and looks to VAKARIAN] Oh yeah you were.
MPG: So I have to ask; what it was like? I mean, as far as anyone's aware, you're the only Human/Turian family. Turians wouldn't know what it was like, and neither would Humans. Your family were pioneers.
JCS: My first memories were of the Vakarians. It was all I knew or had ever known, and it didn't seem strange to me. I mean, yes, I knew I was of a different species. But growing up on the Citadel with its many species and its diversity, it was the perfect setting, really. It was life, it was my life, and there was no need to physically accept it; it just was.
GKV: Jane was what you would call a toddler or small child at the time, approximately three years of age. I was ten, and Sol, our sister, was five. Solona really just grew up having a sister that didn't look like us, but that was really it in her mind. For me it was a little different; I was older, and I was just old enough to know what had happened concerning the Relay 314 Incident. I didn't get the politics of the time, but I knew that my species and Janes' had just fought a war, and that she was a survivor of it.
MPG: You're a Shanxi survivor?
JCS: I was found by my Dad, Castis, in a house where my birth parents had been murdered by other humans. My mother had lived long enough to tell Dad what had happened; that Resistance fighters had come to my parents' home to take their food by force.
[There is an obvious pause, and VAKARIAN places a gentle taloned hand on SHEPARD's shoulder for comfort and support]
JCS: They… shot and killed my father. They beat and abused my mother badly enough that Dad found her laying in a pool of her own blood, dying. He didn't know anything medical related to human beings, so he did the only thing he could do with a species he couldn't hardly understand; he held her hand and made sure she didn't die alone. I was three years old when I watched my mother die.
[Pause]
JCS: There's a recording that my mother made at that time. She explained what happened and asks for someone to look out for me, to raise me and…
[There is another pause, and VAKARIAN squeezes SHEPARD's shoulder]
JCS: My mother's last words were for me, a lifetime of hope and love and regret compressed into a few minutes. Dad kept the recording and a picture he had found of my family, gave them to me when I started asking questions that weren't so childish, when I was old enough to understand. Those… were different times back then.
GKV: I remember your Asari diet.
JCS: I still hate the sight of goosha paste.
MPG: Asari diet?
GKV: There weren't any Systems Alliance diplomatic missions to the Citadel for years, so Jane grew up knowing almost nothing of her own people, and certainly none of their food or culture. Our dam had to trail-and-error levo-chiliary food that Jane would eat because there simply wasn't any Human foods available. Come to find out Human children are finicky eaters, and she certainly would not eat Salarian food.
JCS: Still won't. Our tongues aren't like Salarian tongues, and the flavors come out all wrong. Asari food is palatable, though most of it is sea-oriented. Telling a kid to eat their seaweed and kelp? I'm sure Mom had fun with that.
GKV: It might have been used as a projectile device a time or two. [SHEPARD laughs]
MPG: So you really grew up not knowing anything?
JCS: I was the first Human on the Citadel, and the only one for… five years, I think? I still remember meeting my first Human, actually. Older gentleman in a suit, Hugo Depardieu. I had no idea at the time who he was, his title, any of that. I just remember being an eight year old little girl about to meet another member of my species for the very first time when I saw him exit the diplomatic mission vessel that came to the Citadel for the first time. I was really excited about it.
GKV: I remember that. You wouldn't stop talking about it for a week. [To POV] Jane was very much looking forward to meeting someone like herself. I was too, actually. I had never seen another Human outside of pics save Jane, and it was important to her. So it was important to me.
MPG: That's got to be a first; meeting your first Human being. How did that go?
JCS: [Sighs] Extremely disappointing. Broke my heart, actually.
MPG: Wait… really?
GKV: She didn't know any of the languages from Earth. She knew some words from before, but she was very young and we didn't know what they meant. She naturally forgot them as we conversed with her in our own language. She grew up learning Unifying Cipritine because it was the only language we knew, and the Systems Alliance wouldn't send anything for us to help Jane discover her own species.
JCS: Yeah, they thought their culture was too precious to share. [SHEPARD's tone is heavily laced with scorn] That wasn't exactly the answer verbatim, but it was pretty close to that.
MPG: You went up to the diplomatic mission wearing Turian clothing and speaking Cipritine hoping you could learn more. And… they brushed you off?
GKV: Worse than that, actually. I remember, I was there.
JCS: You were there for me. Like a brother should. [SHEPARD smiles at VAKARIAN] So the diplomatic mission shows up with… I think fifty or so Humans, mostly representatives of the various governments and a few interested parties willing to learn and explore. It was a pretty big deal for the Citadel at the time, and there were some dignitaries and politicians there. Dad got the Ambassador…
GKV: Telnar Korvac.
JCS: …to allow me into the ceremony as well as the welcoming committee.
MPG: Um, it just occurred to me. Are you a Citizen of the Hierarchy?
JCS: Yes. Seventh-Tier. Would you rather me walk around being an undocumented person?
MPG: No! It just… [Pause] They rejected you, didn't they? The diplomatic mission?
[There is a very heavy pregnant pause]
MPG: They did worse than that, didn't they?
JCS: We'll just leave it as a 'yes'.
MPG: So if you're a full Citizen of the Hierarchy, that meant you served in the Hierarchy Military, right? That's how I understand it.
JCS: Yes. [Smiles. It is obvious this is a more pleasant topic] Went to basic at fifteen and served three years in the Hierarchy Auxiliary Corps. First of my kind, though I was hardly the only non-Turian to do so.
MPG: I know that there are Volus who serve in the Turian Military, being a client state. Were there others?
JCS: Volus, Asari who were daughters of Turian sires, a few Drell who weren't under the Compact. The AuxCorps is still mostly populated with Turians who were injured or crippled from battle or the performance of their duties, but were still willing to serve. Main duties consisted of disaster response and relief, emergency services, civil obedience issues…
MPG: Um… civil what?
GKV: Jane slugged it out with the Seppies more than a few times.
MPG: Seppies?
JCS: Separatists. Bunch of back system idiots who reject their own government as being unacceptable and too oppressing. [SHEPARD does a curious hand gesture; it looks like she turns an invisible door knob open in front of her, but only with three fingers. It is obviously a Turian gesture] Think that hording a bunch of guns in remote bunkers while building improvised bombs and praying for, I duuno, some solar flare to knock [beep] out so they can have their day in the sun. It's one thing to think you're sticking it in the craw of the Hierarchy by having a subscription to some left-wing survivalist ExtraNet channel and pretending that you're living in the Tenth Century before the Hierarchy joined the Council. It's another to bring harm to citizens or start taking potshots at the military. That ends with you getting turned to glass. [SHEPARD shrugs] I got to be the glassmaker. Did three years of that, mostly on Taetrus. Turned eighteen, went back home, joined C-SEC.
GKV: [To SHEPARD] Our sire was quite proud of you when you graduated the Academy with such high reviews. Let you get the duty and posting you wanted.
MPG: Wait, so C-SEC Officers are generally assigned their postings, that I get. And I know that they're like the Mexicano Federales in which C-SEC covers a great deal of departments and bureaus, so it makes sense that they would assign people based on their scores and strengths. But if you score within a certain percentage…
GVK: The top ten percentile.
MPG: …you get to chose your job and location?
JCS: That's right. It's a good incentive to do well in training.
MPG: And you picked beat cop? In what you call the worst section of the Citadel?
[There is a pause]
JCS: [With pride] Yes.
END INTERVIEW
Orlop Sub-Precinct, Access District, Block 3750 (Orlop Wards), Zakera Arm, Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula, February 12, 2175
CORPORAL JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD: [Voice-over] They say in the center of the galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole.
[BEGIN VIDEO MONTAGE]
[POV is at corridor-level of the Orlop Ward of the Outer Tract District of the Zakera Arm, a trigital neon sign displaying the name upon a massive pillar that goes from deck-to-ceiling in a skyless underground city. The pillar is the turbolift access for the Lower Wards/Orlop Wards. There is a gated platform where sapients of all races move onto the massive elevating platform that only goes one level, the platform guarded by a secure turnbuckle gate with Electronic Identification Access that one scans o activate the gate to allow one person to pass]
JCS: [Voice-over] And it's said that that SMBH will eventually be the death of us all, slowly pulling that galaxy closer and closer in, dragging us in to crush us to death, the inevitable end.
[POV switches to a small building just outside the protected turnbuckle of the platform; in neon blue letters 'C-SEC' is displayed on its wall. Sapients pass by it without so much as a glance as an even dozen Officers man the access points of the turnbuckle. Sapients come into the turnbuckle with a flash of blue for access above the gate, some denied passage with a flash of red for denial. One instant happens with a Turian male in what appears to be civilian-oriented battle armor decorated in a motif of cabalistic symbols along the trunk. The male immediately confronts the Salarian C-SEC Officer in his booth, belligerent and insulting before pulling out a handgun from a secreted compartment in his armor before the screen cuts to black as a gunshot is heard]
JCS: [Voice-over] Sounds peaceful.
[BEGIN POINT-OF-VIEW RECORDING]
[POV is following DECANTUS/CORPORAL JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD as she walks in full C-SEC Armor down a broad corridor with hundreds of sapients moving to or fro towards their individual destinations. SHEPARD has a Smith and Wesson Model 44 Magnum-Weight Duty Pistol on her right hip, an Elkoss Combine Avenger Mk. IV Assault Rifle on her chest, and an Elkoss Combine Scimitar Mk. II Shotgun mag-locked vertically to the left side of her spine. There is also a brace of PacRods on her left thigh, Pacification Rods for non-lethal deterrents. The buildings to either side, known as HabStacks, look poor and the worse-for-wear. So do the sapients moving in and out of them as well as walking down the corridor]
JCS: [Voice-over] The Scows; the section that's known as the Orlop Ward of the Outer Tract of the Zakera Arm. It's five kilometers wide by five kilometers deep, going under the hydroponic lake of Zakera that feeds into the Citadels' biomass plant. Down here, you don't see the trigital sky, the Serpent Nebula, the ships that fly by, or down the length of the Arm.
[POV goes to SHEPARD walks into a small business connected to a HabStack, where three Turian youths dressed in drab robes printed with popular vids or Batarian rock artists are being talked to by the Human female C-SEC Officer, having caught them tagging the interior walls of a reclamation stall with gang glyphs]
JCS: [Voice-over] Down here, there's no stars to look upon, no dreams to be had. The poverty here is thick, and crime is rife. You can find it in every sub-block and every corridor, a people lost, a people without hope of their lives ever getting any better. It's as if the galaxy has taken the forgotten and despised and turned the Scows into the collective dumping point.
[POV sees SHEPARD watching over a game of LaserTag, two teams of Turian boys in a section blocked off and called a park. No trees or grass grows in the area; instead, it is merely a concrete pad where items have been fabricated for use; here a bench, there a spinning contraption for toddlers, but mostly one sees youths of several species hanging out together. The games that they are involved in aren't so much childish as they are depressing. There is an active game of what appears to be 'cops and gangers' where no one wants to be the cops. SHEPARD watches on as the young sapients play and interact, most giving her a wary eye]
JCS: [Voice-over] Times are tough with the galactic economy in its' fifth straight year of a major recession. Rent has steadily increased with each political session while cost of living adjustments across the board have been sadly lacking. The taxes and budgets that would help the Scows be better maintained have taken cut after cut as the people here struggle to make ends meet. Lights and living conditions continue to worsen while people are forced to pay more for less services available. It's no real surprise that people are having to turn away from the right path in the name of family and survival.
[POV follows SHEPARD into a local convenience store where the male Drell clerk serves a male Salarian customer behind ballistic glass. The shelves are rather bare of items, and the atmosphere of the store is dark and dingy. SHEPARD grabs a Tupari from the icebox after waiving at the Drell behind the roundproof station for him to unlock the door for her from his spot. SHEPARD pays for two Tuparis through a tiny slot in the roundproof alumniglas]
JCS: [Voice-over] Down here, the gangs are in control. There are so many of them that you can't walk without bumping into several from a couple of different groups. It's a varren-eat-varren world down here where the gangs are all territorial, and walking down the wrong sub-block or HabStack will have someone beaten within a centimeter of their life… and that's the happy scenario. Sometimes the small raids and hits for control of a sub-block corner or a HabStack turns to open warfare as dozens armed with illegal weapons modded for auto fire and loaded with illegal ammo blocks turn an area into a casualties can run as high as the hundreds in a couple of minutes, guilty and innocent alike. Especially when someone starts pulling out the explosive munitions.
[POV follows SHEPARD past a wall tagged heavily in several languages and glyphs from OmniTools, declaring names, ownership, and what one could do with oneself. The most common thing seen is '[EDITED] C-SEC']
JCS: [Voice-over] I know what the politicians say about places like the Scows, the breeding ground of criminality and terrorism. They hope that the animals wipe themselves out, too busy shooting at each other instead of getting together to make themselves something more of a political or economic presence. The only time those elected officials will look down here from the safety of their gated communities and nice office spaces in the 'sidium is when their polls are trending downward. That's when they rattle the cages and send us Blue Shirts down in droves to round up the usual suspects or whoever is the target of the hour. They use cute terms like 'being tough on crime' and 'cleaning up the corridors'.
[POV sees SHEPARD slip towards a boarded doorway where a huddled figure tucks itself into the recess of the doorway, covered by a robe and almost disappeared in its cloth. SHEPARD moves the hood aside to see a Turian male with plates sagging with age, mandibles pitted and twisted, plates cracked and deformed. She puts two fingers under the jaw for a moment, and then slowly pulls them away beofre touching the forehead and slipping the hood over the face. She then gets on her BlueTool to call it in]
JCS: [Voice-over] Drugs and weapons are everywhere in the Scows. Prostitution is merely a way of life for all species and gender, not even a social stigma. Bars serve both liquor and blood where people who seem to be too poor to fund their domiciles somehow always have Credits to drink their sorrows away. Back corridor gambling dens, flop houses, illegal fabrication suites, narcotics labs, weapon print shops, shackled AI programs, slave markets, combat mechs smuggled and reprogrammed, explosives, cloned organs, exotic creatures, species you'd swear having even invented lighter-than-air flight; you'll find all that down here and much, much more.
[POV shows Shepard detaining an Asari citizen, frisking them and pulling out several items from their dress. One is a small stoppered bottle with an eyedropper as a companion. POV shows the young Asari Maiden with bloodshot eyes and slight red stains to the corners of her eyes as the Thessian sneers at POV]
JCS: [Voice-over] They say it's worse on Omega and Cartegena Station. I can't imagine how.
[POV shows tough-looking Salarians, Turians, and even Krogan hanging together, sporting the same glyph on their respective clothes as SHEPARD walks by. The obvious gang members all stare at SHEPARD as she saunters by, barely giving them a second glance]
JCS: [Voice-over] And yet… there is life here.
[POV shows SHEPARD leading towards an education center where Asari Younglings walk to the location, several of them pointing out SHEPARD and actually waiving to the Human, who waves back, a little surprised. The scene shifts to the inside of a school room where it is easy to tell that it is a poor location; there are no terminals, no DataPadds, and no holographic projection screen as a female Turian educator teaches lessons with aid of a cheap lightboard and a stylus to write down math equations for a classroom filled with Turian youths that have yet to hit their fifteenth year. The scene shifts again to a Turian male sire with his hatchling riding on top of his cowl as they walk through a corridor, the boy hatchling with his arms sticking out as he make purring noises, as if flying. The scene shifts to an Asari Matriarch in the robes of a Priestess of Athame, tending to those who seem to live in a corridor, delivering food packets and clothes. The scene shifts to a Turian Valluvius Watcher of Spirits tending to a Shrine, where Spirit Totems and Spirit Banners decorate the walls, the Turian Priest invoking the Spirits for those who visit to remember loved ones. The scene shifts to an old Drell female wearing a breather cup on her face as a young Drell male escorts her tenderly, his arm fed through hers, obviously family]
JCS: [Voice-over] Every time I think I've seen all, I'm surprised. I'll see a cold-blooded murder in the same building where I see a single father raising three children, making it work. I'll walk these corridors of the forgotten and dejected, and yet they haven't forgotten who or what they are. I see friends get together, I see the young fall in love for the first time, I see elders grouse on how easy our generation has it! Despite what fate has delivered them, these people have survived and persevered. There's something… special about them, to walk such a hard road so easily, fraught with such dangers and be completely inoculated to it.
[POV shows SHEPARD standing in front of a lightboard advertisement of her own face promoting 'LiveC-SEC', in which someone has tagged it with some rather colorful commentary about what she could do about herself and anatomical references to her. SHEPARD points them out with some amusement]
JCS: [Voice-over] When that black hole finally comes and swallows us all, guess where my Credits are going to go on who survives?
Stayn District, Block 3821 (Orlop Wards), Zakera Arm, Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula, February 15, 2175
[BEGIN POINT-OF-VIEW RECORDING]
[POV shows a narrow corridor in between two tall buildings where most of the lights are out, the corridor has a great deal of trash and tags, and DECANTUS/CORPORAL JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD is in the middle of stopping a mugging involving a robed Salarian male and a suited Volus. The Salarian is holding a piece of cloth to the back of his head while the Volus is seated on the ground with a pair of SnapCuffs around his suited wrists behind his back]
CORPORAL JANE CATHERINE SHEPARD: I wouldn't recommend just walking around with that, Mister Ingree. I don't want you wandering about with a concussion or a possible fractured skull. I can escort you to the nearest clinic to get it checked out while your new friend Mister Jahleed-Clan here gets to explain to a Magistrate while bonking you over your head for your OmniTool seemed like such a good idea before I made him regurgitate his lunch in his own suit.
INGREE CHORBAN: I assure you I am hard-headed, Officer Shepard. My sister insists on telling me this every day. [SHEPARD snorts at that] Thank you for your timely intervention, but I believe I can make my way to the Stayn Clinic on my own. If I need to, I can call my sister or one of my brothers for assistance. Being away from here and my assaulter is likely for the best.
CUR JAHLEED: [hwurk] He lies, [hwurk] with every breath.
[SHEPARD turns to the seated Volus, CUR JAHLEED]
JCS: Jahleed-Clan, you are being charged with first-degree assault upon a sapient, possession of a weapon with the intent to use, and felonious larceny. You have the right to refrain from self-incrimination. Anything that you say, text, send, or receive will be used as testimony in a Judiciary Tribunal. You have the right for legal council upon the completion of your processing at a Citadel Security Precinct Station. If you cannot secure legal council for yourself, a public council can be provided to you by your species' Embassy for any questioning sessions, court dates, and appeals process. Is there any questions in the rights in which I have explained to you?
CJ: He was trying, [hwurk] to scan Keepers, [hwurk] with that modified OmniTool!
[SHEPARD looks to POV and rolls her eyes]
JCS: You do realize that you are in the act of self-incrimination without me asking any questions in relation to the crimes I am charging you with, Jahleed-Clan? If you admit to anything else, the charges will increase. [SHEPARD looks to INGREE CHORBAN] Go ahead and head to the clinic, Mister Ingree. He might claim you're growing Eezo in your culinary next.
IC: Yes, Officer Shepard. Thank you. [INGREE bows slightly, wincing as he holds the cloth to where he had been hit on the back of the head, and turns to leave the corridor as SHEPARD turns to the Volus]
JCS: You and I are going for a little walk, Vol-Clan. See some sights, meet some people, grace some cells. You be a good boy and I won't stuff you in Pedigree Row with the Batarians and the Vorcha.
[SHEPARD's SquadComm squawks]
DISPATCHER: ALL UNITS, BE ADVISED, 314 IN PROGRESS, SUB-BLOCK 3875, ORLOP OUTER TRACT ZAKERA. BE ADVISED, 314 IS IN PROGRESS. ALL UNITS IN VICINITY, PLEASE RESPOND. SHOTS FIRED, SUB-BLOCK 3775, ORLOP OUTER TRACT ZAKERA. CALLING ALL UNITS IN VICINITY. 314 IN PROGRESS, SHOTS FIRED, OFFICERS IN DISTRESS. BE ADVISE, SUSPECTS ARE AT LARGE, AND ARE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS. I REPEAT, SUSPECTS ARE AT LARGE AND ARE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS.
[SHEPARD looks to POV, eyes a little wide]
JCS: [Touching ear] Dispatch, this is Unit 10-35, currently located at 3821 Stayn. Moving to location, advise who the Officers are. [To POV] Get your running face on, cookie dough, we're about half-a-kilometer away. [To CUR JAHLEED] Stay put or make your way to the sub-station, otherwise I hunt you down while you're still manacled, Jahleed-Clan. [To POV] Let's get moving, cookie dough! [SHEPARD begins to run down the narrow corridor towards an intersection with a larger one as POV chases her, bouncing and swaying with the act of running]
MICHAEL PATRICK GREENE: [While running] What's a 314?
JCS: [While running] Gang warfare!
DISPATCHER: Unit 10-35, Units 10-18 and 10-19 are on location. [SHEPARD swears out loud up ahead] Be advised, multiple suspects and two factions involved in territorial dispute. Code 245, Code 996, Code 298 have been reported. Unit 10-18 reported as Status 1144. [SHEPARD swears again as she and POV run, turning down a broad corridor]
JCS: The AutoWalk!
[SHEPARD runs right for a moveable sidewalk that has several sapients standing prosaically upon it as she shouts to clear the way, gaining speed on the traveling flat conveyor. POV is right behind her as sapients move out of the way, squawking as SHEPARD barrels down the path at full speed]
MPG: What are we running into?
JCS: A [beep]ing nightmare! Keep running! [SHEPARD barrels down the AutoWalk as she shouts at sapients to move out of the way. One Batarian deliberately gets in front of her and SHEPARD backhands the Khar'shanian without breaking stride as POV barely gets a glance at the male Batarian cradling a possible broken face while still running] 245 is the illegal weapon usage code! 996 is the explosives code! 298 is the homicide code! Means were running into automatic fire, some [beep]hole with grenades or a missile launcher, and probably a pile of dead bodies!
MPG: And we're running into it?
JCS: Jovis is just a rookie on her second month, cookie dough! And she's by herself looking at a massacre!
MPG: Where's her partner at?
[SHEPARD just looks back and glares at him as she runs]
MPG: Oh. Oh [beep]. That's what 1144 means.
[The sound of distant gunfire is becoming apparent as POV runs with SHEPARD just ahead]
JCS: [Yelling from ahead while running] Keep running, cookie dough!
MPG: [Huffing and yelling] We're running into a firefight!
JCS: Run faster! Weren't you the wide receiver or something back in high school?
MPG: That's American football!
[POV is panting as it is chasing SHEPARD, passing by buildings as random CitCitz slide by in a blur as the sound of running is overheard. The gunfire is getting louder]
MPG: Jesus-[beep]ing-Christ-Jesus[beep]ing-Christ-Jesus-[beep]ing-Christ…
JCS: [From ahead] We're almost there, cookie dough!
[SHEPARD rounds a corner and heads down a narrower corridor. POV follows]
[An ASARI in multicolored armor appears from a doorway, wielding a two-handed rifle-looking weapon with a large tubular revolver underneath. It is a grenade launcher]
[SHEPARD runs right towards the ASARI and full-body tackles her to the ground with an audible crunch of armor as both go down to the ground]
[A nearby gunshot ahead is heard OFF-SCREEN]
MPG: SHEPARD!
Author's Notes: Cliffhangers; the gift so nice I gave it twice. In the same chapter, no less, in the same exact way.
I had originally planned to detail's Shepard's unusual childhood later on whenever some jerk Human points out that her parents were killed on Shanxi in the First Contact War, assuming that it would have been Turians that had done the deed, but then the story would have come out. Instead, I decided to have the Vakarians known as her adoptive family earlier on and make her background and service history (Adoptee/Heirarchist) known earlier on as a way to show why Shepard became a cop instead of joining the Systems Alliance Military. There will be some more to it, but the basic premise is that Jane grew up with the Vakarians, raised on the Citadel, went Turian Military, and then C-SEC.
I made Turian Separatists into what we commonly think of American Separatists; the Turian version of nutcase rednecks living out in the woods prepping for the zombie apocalypse.
Yes, I brought out the 'Scan The Keeper' guys.
This isn't actually the first time I made a Mass Effect version of the Miranda Rights; in Where The Law Stands Tall and A Fox Amongst The Wolves, Marshal Samantha Collins delivers a Systems Alliance version a few times to arrested persons. Here, Jane uses one that's similar, though I change the names to sound more different than the American version, and then add the fact that the 'free' lawyer comes from a citizen's embassy.
The codes are based off the old-school LAPD codes; a 314 is actually an indecent exposure code, 245 is assault with a deadly weapon, 996 is the explosion code, and 298 is actually the 187/homicide code with one added to each number. Code 1144 is actually a part of the '10' codes, and 11-44 is a possible fatality call.
