Author's notes:
Welcome to my AU story - The Silence In Between.
So I've been playing around with an AU take on Mass Effect for a long while.
First I began like (I guess) many do, with a First Contact story. I've outlined the general plot and the themes I wanted to explore and wrote about 20.000 words. Then I somehow felt stuck, could find a way to go on and I lost interest.
Time passed and I started with a new story, this time set on Omega and I had drafts for every chapter and the first two ready to publish. But, because I'm a perfectionist I didn't start to post that fic either (only the first chapter, few of you might've noticed - but I deleted it), I've felt unsure about the validity of the plot and the characterisation of nearly all my characters. Or at least their evolution or lack thereof. Sure, there was awesome action, but that isn't all there is to a story. So I paused again for a few weeks or months, I don't quite remember.
One dreary evening, with nothing better to do, I picked up all my notes again and started to flesh out my Shepard's backstory and upbringing a bit. After putting the finishing touches to my character, this creation of mine first came into being.
As a consequence of this story being set inbetween Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, it'll hit the floor running and I'll throw a lot of things (also past choices and events) at you, which you might or might not associate with the Mass Effect universe at large.
I've not yet decided if there'll be an actual pairing or rather if the planned lenght of this fic would even be suitable to develop such a complex thing. But there'll be relationships of some kind, however short or self-serving they are.
This story and every bit I've written of my aforementioned literary miscarriages were inspired by the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy by Richard K. Morgan. I urge you, check it out.
Disclaimer: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3 and all related characters and trademarks are property of EA/Bioware. Takeshi Kovacs trilogy belongs to Richard K. Morgan. Rated M for language, violence and suggestive (maybe even explicit) themes.
If you have any questions, write me a review or PM me.
Please, enjoy.
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[h+]
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The Silence In Between
Chapter I
A Change Of Pace
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[h+]
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The Hero of the Citadel groaned awake.
Groggily, he rubbed rheum from his eyes, finding that it didn't drove the arid soreness away.
A betrayer to his race they'd labelled him. The monster which waited at the end of the dream. Some even dug out his old moniker.
The Butcher.
Johann Shepard had never asked for their gratitude. Or their gene-deep hatred. It was just the way of his people. Everyone liked to hold on to a good grudge, an impersonal target, best far removed from the common citizen, to vent all their frustrations and fears on.
Yet, they never cling to such pettiness for long. Move on, they then tell themselves. It's what any decent human being would do. And thus their conscience feels soothed. They've forgiven a worse person out there they don't even know or have met, so, surely, their own, lesser sins can be forgiven, as well.
Lust. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Wrath. Envy. Pride.
The list grows larger with each passing minute. A testament to the human race. To each individual. Because they're somebody, not nobody, and the galaxy cares about their pains and failures. Least, that's what everybody tells him or herself when they slip off into slumber.
Makes them feel better. Appreciated. Warm balm for the soul.
It's not so much the fact that they don't like to hold grudges, sitting upon their high ethical horse. They do. People just have a short memory. That's all.
The sort of clinical calculation needed to see the light at the far end of the tunnel filled with darkness and smoke and gunfire, which enables people like Johann to sacrifice thousands of lives, it frightens them beyond reason, limited by myopia, blinded by the radical truth itself.
In all of the possible outcomes having been run through his head, Shepard would've never even suspected to be able to last as long as he did. In a strange way, a detached happiness vibrated through him at the thought. It's good, to be able to still surprise yourself.
Three months, by now. Exactly.
The iron Envoy conditioning was a gift and a curse at the same time. It rather depended on the situation he found himself in. It wasn't helpful, in so far, that the total awareness kept you apprised of even the smallest shifts in your surroundings. Or the lack thereof. Combat trimmed senses stirred and howled at the absence of movement and motion. The oppressing weight of nothing changing spoke against every fibre of Johann's being.
Waking up every day, already knowing what he was in for another twenty standard galactic hours on the space station located at the heart of the galaxy, as it is so romantically called, well, with that it certainly helped.
Patience. They taught him, ingrained in him. And he exerts it when found suitable.
Always the same four walls drawn up around to greet him by the sprawling artificial grey of dawn. Always an upset crowd of protesters outside, dulled only by the closed window and the soft hum of the ventilation desperately trying to clean the room of any residual curlicues of smoke. At the very least, the crowd changed day by day, though the overwhelming amount of human members was never usurped by alien ones. It filled Johann with a certain comfort of predictability.
Things never change.
If one were bold enough to take a step back and gaze at the bigger picture, they'd see. This flat disk, the circular current of endless iteration rushing on, never tiring. Repetition on a galactic scale, and each and every one of them just a drop. A mere blip of sentient biological existence, so convinced that my, oh yes, my life matters in this chaotic maelstrom called order. This peaceful existence of bliss, this feeling of security. How self-obsessed these naïve fools were, never once asking who kept the bad man from knocking on their door.
By now, his Citadel-based apartment resembled a warzone. Only the purifying heat of an all-out fire would be able to remove all the emptied bottles, crushed aluminium cans and smears of long since dried food.
With his upper back leaning against his bedraggled bed, long legs splayed out in front of him, Johann took a deep drag of his cigarette. Uncaringly, he used his bedroom's carpeted floor as an ashtray.
Sneaking a glance at his dimmed omni-watch through narrowed eyes, so as to not flood his visual sense with the current equivalent of a flashbang, Johann Shepard found himself mildly surprised.
11:03 am. Local time.
He hadn't enjoyed his first smoke that early since a few hazy days. Turning away from the watch, he dismissed the numbing proliferation that came with self-destructive behaviour in between states of inebriation and during the silence of loneliness. When only one's self is available and inclined to share company.
The mystery of one's self, locked up within the same four walls. An infinite debate over matters important and trivial never voiced out loud, never turning sour. Bitter, maybe. Some would be driven mad by the unabating proximity of one's self, the absence of community.
Grinding out the remaining stub of his cigarette, Shepard looked over his shoulder. And the refreshing sense of mystery residing there. To forget something as an Envoy was virtually impossible. The rigid Envoy conditioning came hand in hand with total recall, even if your sleeve wasn't outfitted with a greybox.
All those augmentations were to the flesh. But Envoy training attached itself far deeper. The mind, broken into pieces and re-forged. Grafted onto the psyche. The only thing as of yet untouched. Pure. When your consciousness speeds through the yawning blackness of space riding the currents of an interstellar quantumcast transmission and you get downloaded and decanted inside a new sleeve then your mind hasn't changed. Not one bit. You don't even realise that time has passed. Just a blink and you open your eyes again, wearing flesh that isn't your own.
A bit less than five decades and an interspecies war ago that's been the preferred method for humanity to venture among the stars. Mankind hadn't yet developed even the most basic mass effect engines and ships were still propelled by antimatter, taking them weeks or months, sometimes even years to arrive at their destination.
'Simpler times,' Johann sighed to himself. But not necessarily better.
Fighting with his hungover sleeve over dominance of motor control, he struggled to his feet and, once again, regarded the mysterious display of dishevelled blankets and damp temperfoam. Not even sure with what kind of race or gender he'd had sex with just a few hours ago, Shepard's hand flexed as if to touch the picture of fading hedonistic debauchery. He thought better of it, refraining from letting curiosity take over.
Warming to the idea that he'd never really know, Shepard's lips twitched into a tired half-smile. Must've been one hell of a hangover if it even managed to disable his eidetic memory. Probably, narcotic-induced or aided.
With all the subtly of an ultravibe grenade going off, his hysterically beeping omni-tool caught him standing on the edge of self-doubt and yanked him back into the moment.
Already knowing the identity of the caller – callers, to be precise – Shepard answered the encrypted transmission channel with a nagging feeling of prejudice.
'Councillors,' he said to them, intonation flat.
Surprisingly, Shepard didn't had to forcibly suppress a flinch trying to dart through him at the ebony face among the Citadel Council. And the expression of disappointment it wore. Just there, one the leftmost position. Even though it was human in nature.
As always the asari councillor spoke up first, 'Agent Shepard. We have a matter at hand that demands a Spectre of your particular skillset.'
Information began to trickle down.
Shepard absorbed everything.
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[h+]
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Feeling adventurous, Shepard decided to travel to Illium per civilian charter spaceship instead of quantumcast transmission.
With all the things going on right now, he just didn't want to wake up in a foreign sleeve. The alien feeling of unfamiliar flesh draped over your body like cloth didn't sound particularly inviting at the moment, a stranger's face staring back at you in the mirror. The gut-wrenching nausea, the disorientation shaking into your limbs, the small kinks and pains in places you've never felt anything alike, all feelings he gratefully avoided. Even though Envoys were trained for just that.
And, truth be told, the sentiment of interstellar flight had grown on him during all the time spent aboard the Normandy. The blue-shift of faster-than-light speed or the tranquilising stillness of the ship itself during transit.
Internally frowning at him, Shepard's Envoy conditioning pushed the reminiscent mood out the door and clamped shut.
They broke atmosphere with a short quiver of metal until the inertia negation dampeners kicked in. A few minutes later the overlapping protective layer outside the window of his private cabin retracted upwards, granting him his first view of colourful Nos Astra.
A forest of elegant glass spires reached up beyond the cover of clouds, reflecting Illium's waning sun in a breath-taking violet. Crisscrossing lanes of skycars zipped throughout the city, glimmering like miniature stars waiting in line. Organically winding arcologies towered over pristine corporate skyscrapers. All it managed to do was hide the toxic smog and run-down slums underneath from plain sight.
Soon after, the Nos Astra spaceport drifted into view. Shuddering, as if the civilian transporter had caught a nasty cold whilst crossing the sea of stars between Illium and the heart of the galaxy, they docked. Throwing over his carbon nanotube reinforced leather jacket, Shepard shouldered his duffle bag after checking up one last time on his Diamond Back revolver holstered under his left armpit.
Just outside the docking tube and through Customs, where he flashed his Spectre credentials and was simply waved through, a bulky skycar with Illium Law Enforcement printed on the hull parked. Around, four similarly outfitted troopers waited, looking decidedly bored. The fifth perched atop the flooring of the powered-down skycar, legs crossed and with the opened hatch above her like a sunshade. All of them were asari.
Only when it became apparent for them as well, that he'd simply walk by them, they began to scramble into movement. Two of the troopers blocked his way forward and the other two halted a few steps behind him. Shepard felt the dire need to sigh but kept his features composed.
'Commander Shepard.' First mistake. He didn't hold that rank, at least not at the moment. He let it slide. 'We're here to escort you to your apartment.' The ILE trooper addressing him indicated towards the skycar. 'And the lieutenant would like to have a word with you.'
Johann looked over, contemplating. 'Right.'
Without another word, the four ILE troopers filed into their transport and readied it for take-off. The lieutenant looked up from her position, surveying him with an expression bordering on open hostility.
'The Hero of the Citadel,' she drawled. 'Never thought I'd have the honour.'
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[h+]
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Lieutenant Iresa picked at her nails.
How long could it take a Spectre to wave his badge and prance through Customs? The human, the fresh hero sure had taken his sweet time. Only to be insolent enough to idly stroll by them, as if they were nothing but a tedious piece of looped advertisement.
The man looked different than on all the holo-posters and vids. Not in the way like those on quaint lists like sexiest CEOs of Nos Astra did. Standing tall, his figure still built like a swimmer's, yet he looked . . . unkempt. His hair longer, bound back high in a short ponytail, rebellious strands escaped here and there. Jaw shrouded behind a thick stubble, eyes sunken and the area around them darkened as if smeared with charcoal. Haggard, dishevelled, pretty much the opposite of what Iresa expected. Not very reassuring.
And even though you couldn't really trust any human to be who he said to be, Iresa could read it. In his gait, in the way his eyes surveyed the bustling spaceport. In his relaxed stance while he stood surrounded by four of her troopers, undaunted.
To her baiting offer of welcome he responded flatly. 'Didn't realise the Council would send me a tourist guide.'
'I'm not your fancy asari tourist guide, Spectre,' Iresa snapped. 'Better get that out of your head.'
Gaze outwardly empty, he said, 'Why're you here, then?' After a few heartbeats, his expression turned smug. 'Ah, you have to. Stepped on someone's toe?'
Iresa reassured herself not to be rattled. 'Well, I guess then we'd have something in common.'
The man scrutinised her as if she were just another part of the skycar. 'Nothing of consequence, I'd wager.'
She scoffed, fed up with his antics. Never met one of the SA's psychospiritually conditioned killers, but they sure as hell take all the fun out of it.
'Lieutenant Iresa,' she said, by way of introduction.
'Shepard, Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance.'
'I know.'
He shrugged dismissively and entered the skycar.
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[h+]
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Welcome to Illium.
I guess.
It seemed even asari partook in some form of dick-waving contest. Cover up all those nasty insecurities. Better that way, lest someone would actually spot them.
Two of the troopers had vanished into the pilot's compartment, whilst the rest stayed with Johann. They sat in tense silence. Lieutenant Iresa seemed to be trying to burn holes into his face with the sole power of her glare. Admittedly, she managed a quite convincing one, just not to an Envoy. The fire in her eyes wasn't even half-burn. She could do better, surely.
If there ever existed one singular rule he'd learned and experienced throughout his years as a member of the Envoy Corps, then it'd have to be the fact that, sometimes, you simply have to push people in order to drawn them out. Anger. Fear. Love. Just buttons to press. So when Shepard settled into a more relaxed position – as impossible as that sounded – and began playing around with his omni-tool he actually had to consciously suppress the impish smile just dying to escape him at her reaction. Her scoff actually sounded quite . . . attractive. In a way. Mentally he shook his head. A fucked up way.
As an involuntary consequence of his inner monologue, Johann's eyebrow twitched up at his own thoughts. Sloppy.
Of course, watching him like a hawk, the lieutenant misunderstood the gesture. She seemed ready to biotically rip his head off by now.
'What?' she growled. 'Something amusing you, Spectre?'
The two ILE troopers with them inside the compartment froze, eyes darting around in equal amounts of shock and panic. Seeking a way to escape the cramped interior should the need arise.
Shepard let it hang there in the silence for a few charged seconds.
'Nothing immediate.'
Her voice turned hot-blooded. 'You know, I never liked your kind.' She crossed her arms. 'I might not know much about you Envoy psychos, but Spectres. Well. I've met a few of you in my time. Acting all superior. Everyone else just knows jack shit. Not even worth your consideration. Are we?' Tiredly indicating towards him, she added, 'You just don't give a fuck. Do you?'
Lieutenant Iresa shook her head, looking down. The absence of anger. Deflation. The good kind. An angry rant could do that very effectively.
'Well, I do.' Now, she just sounded plain wrung out. Time to throw the punch.
Johann cleared his throat. 'Tell me about the bodies.'
She looked up at him, a badly imitated frown wrinkling her brow. 'If you think that I-'
'Oh, I know that you do, lieutenant. You're upset. I get it. I'm on your turf, stepping on your toes. I'm guessing there was no conclusive evidence.' Without waiting for acknowledgement on her part, he rushed ahead. The Envoy training in full stride, rushing through him like a feeling of past youth. 'So you closed the case. Officially or unofficially?'
Lieutenant Iresa blinked at him. 'Officially.' Shepard could barely catch her answer.
'Right. So let's dispense with the bullshit. And. Get. To. Work.'
She'd misjudged, that much was clear. The expression flickering over her face bespoke of bewilderment and re-evaluation. Lieutenant Iresa's features hardened, a glint sharpening her eyes.
A single nod. Careful. Unsure. But not outright hostile any longer. Hopeful even? Shepard could work with that.
'The bodies?' he pressed.
'Two of them. Both human. Both female. Pumped full with drugs. Pretty obvious signs of sexual intercourse . . . and one of them was Sani Shelani.'
'Should that mean something to me?'
'I guess not.' She shrugged. 'Illium Entertainment's Sexiest Human Alive. Big time celebrity.'
Johann breathed out. 'Both RD'd?'
'You mean if their stacks were destroyed?'
'Yeah. Real Death.'
'They were, in fact. Pulsejet blaster, found in Shelani's hand, but she's already running around again. Alive as ever.'
Backup storage. Should've expected as much.
Of course, such lofty measures were only available to the outrageously rich. The small percentage of truly immortal humans among an unending ocean of mere mortals. Having numerous cloned sleeves on ice as well as a periodic wireless backup of your cortical stack has quite a price.
'The other one?'
The ILE lieutenant shook her head. 'Nothing. Anybody could've worn that sleeve. And with her stack turned to slag, we've no way of finding out who did.'
'Facial recognition?'
She snorted, faintly amused. 'That'd be a shot in the dark. Even if the lower half of her face weren't missing. Especially, with our limited resources.'
'Limited? I'd assumed you'd be given the exact opposite with a public figure involved.'
'Well, we weren't. They just wanted us-,' she indicated towards herself, '-to perform a miracle and close this case asap.'
'They?'
'Mira T'armali. Shelani's partner . . . in life. Though how they manage that, I can't possibly imagine. T'armali is even bigger than Shelani. Double her money, double her beauty. Double the cunt.' The lieutenant made a gesture as if to swat an annoying insect aside. 'Or something like that. Anyways, my guess is, she bought off someone higher up the ladder in ILE to get this whole thing settled.'
'Bad press?'
Lieutenant Iresa grunted. 'Sure. All that. T'armali just wanted to hear a convenient lie everyone could live with and one the wizened hags up top in ILE could forget about real quick. For the right price, naturally.'
'So I told them what everybody wanted me to tell them. Rich-ass celebrity goes out and wants to have some fun. Gets herself a whore ready to do anything. They inject, inhale and ingest every drug they find. Because, you know. It's fun and famous people do that kind of stuff all the time. Kinky turns into something else. Shelani whips out her blaster and torches the hooker's stack for sexual thrill. Comes down from her high and can't live with what she's done.' Through the sneer twisting her features, her voice sounded even more sardonic. 'Voila. Crime solved.'
Incredulously, Johann simply had to ask, 'Where does someone like Shelani get high-grade military weapons like that?'
Much less be able to shoot someone's cortical stack to hell. Not an easy task, even for a trained marksman. These things were miniscule. Implanted just at the base of the head. And she supposedly did that, full of drugs.
'Fuck, Shepard! Did you even listen?' Her voice rose, angry, but not at him. 'They wanted me to drop the case! Shelani's walking around anyways! Just another dead whore! No one up there fucking cares!' She visibly reigned herself in. The two ILE troopers shuffled around uneasily. 'They just wanted it swept under the rug. Never to be spoken of again.'
The impertinent question to Shepard now was why. Just publicity. His Envoy sense tingled, whispering no. But that would have to follow in due time. First he had to absorb. Piecing together a picture he could actually draw conclusions from. And for that he simply didn't have enough facts. Just a lot of wild, baseless theories. And the biased opinion of one very upset ILE officer.
'So you contacted the Council.'
Lieutenant Iresa laughed. An infectiously bubbling laughter that sent a twitch down his spine. 'Oh, no. I mean I know someone in the information broker business. But even they wouldn't get that far to get the Spectres scrambling.' She sobered up. 'Actually it was Shelani who requested it. Behind T'armali's back, no less. Seemed she was the only one besides me dissatisfied with the conclusion of . . . her suicide/murder case. Pretty upset about the whole idea that she killed someone. Said she'd never do such a thing. She was one hell of a sobbing mess when I told her.'
That managed to grab Johann's undivided attention. 'That so? Tell me, do you know how old she is? Subjectively, of course.'
'About seventy. Came to Illium rich already. Why?'
'Just looking for an angle,' he deflected.
One of the pilots looked over her shoulder, informing them that they'd arrive at Shepard's interim abode in just a few minutes.
Lieutenant Iresa looked at him, wide-eyed, as if she'd just received an epiphany out of nowhere. Maybe divine intervention. 'You do realise that you won't encounter any friendly faces. Stirring up all this mess again. Could get pretty ugly.'
'I know.'
It seemed she didn't pick up on the irony. The reversal of sides.
She bid him goodbye for the time being with a lazy wave of her hand and shouted after him – mind you, when he was nearly out of earshot – that she'd pick him up tomorrow at 9 a.m. to take him to the crime scene.
Shepard watched the bulky ILE skycar glide away until he lost it in traffic.
He took a deep breath, tasting the air. Then lit himself a cigarette.
The air might smell cleaner up here, but hidden beneath interplanetary webs of deceit and trickery hid nothing less but the same sense of danger he'd experienced on Omega. But where Omega showed everything of its violent detail shamelessly, Illium shrouded itself in the games of subterfuge and cloak and dagger.
The view's better, at least.
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[h+]
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Miranda Lawson rose out of her kneeling position. Cocking her head to the side, she took a few seconds to appreciate the elegant curves of the piano manufactured from dark wood. Real wood, imported from Earth.
She answered the quantum-entanglement feed, still up and running. The man on the other side stayed silent, letting her reach her own conclusions in response to all that had been said by now.
'How doesn't this deteriorate our position any further?' she asked.
'It won't.'
'They sent their poster boy. Who shut down several of our operations in the Traverse.'
'I remember. While I appreciate your concern, Miranda, Shepard's judgment can be trusted. No matter his past actions against Cerberus.'
Of different opinion, Miranda grimaced. 'If he detects our connection to all of this, he's going to follow the smell of blood, like a tenacious bloodhound. And Cerberus might well be on the receiving end of his ire.'
The response came, calm. 'Tell me, these projects, what's your assessment of them.'
Running over the facts again, she answered, 'Limited gains, mediocre success rate, radical tendencies to achieve minor results. All in all nothing that'd hurt Cerberus if they were to be shut down.' It lit up, like a treasured book thrown into the fire. 'You threw the Alliance a bone.'
'Exactly. Shepard looks good to the rest of the Council races and we don't have to dirty our hands with it.'
'He'll follow the facts. And the facts will lead him somewhere else. If you manage to stay out of his way, he'll never even suspect our involvement.'
A part of Miranda, buried deeply, clawed its way to the surface. 'Manage?' But the Illusive Man chose every word with care, so there'd be a reason.
'Don't underestimate him, Miranda.' A pause. If contemplation could be ascribed with a sound, it would be just that. 'We've met once. He and I. A long time ago. I've got a sense for the man that day and we came to a certain understanding. Every single one who disagreed with that ended up dead.'
'I am positive that the understanding we achieved on that day still stands and will continue to do so in the future.'
'I see.' Enough, for now, at least.
'Good. If you think bringing Shepard into the fold on this will bring harm to Cerberus, then don't. I trust your judgment, Miranda. Otherwise you wouldn't be there.'
With that the connection was cut.
Miranda went back to work. Planting bugs was rather tedious. She should've sent a team.
But they'd probably botch it up.
That wouldn't do.
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[h+]
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Each of the luxury suits was composed of multiple disks, sometimes adjacent to another, sometimes on top of one another, linked by short gangways.
The entire apartment – one of three available and reachable only per private elevator – was built in a modular way on the arched top of Blue Interstellar's soaring spear-like edifice. All three combined gave the renowned hotel an abloom appearance, like a flower yearning for the sun to rise.
A genteel, female voice greeted him as Shepard entered his apartment's living room.
'Welcome, Spectre.'
Light gradually awakened to life, a warming golden glow dimmed to a minimum illuminated some of the flooring. A more clinical whitish-blue shone down from above on the high ceiling, bathing everything in a shimmering ocean of pale colour.
The opulence of the place bled through, thick and obvious. Like an expanding pool of blood on a white tiled room.
Two short steps led down into the sprawling circular area. To one side a hearth cackled delightfully, surrounded by leather seating furniture. Most likely made from adaptive temperfoam to accommodate any race. The curving wall to both sides of the fireplace was filled with rows of books, some of them looked positively ancient.
On the opposite side of the room a stairwell crawled up, leading to the terrace of the apartment, covering half the roof. The other, transparent, was covered in glass, through which the dying rays of sunlight peeked in. Sprouting from the sun deck, another gangway, exposed to wind and weather, stretched towards a private landing pad.
In front of the steps stood a sleek piano, made from tasteful dark wood. A large vid-screen hung down from the middle of the ceiling, currently powered off.
Johann stepped further into the apartment, approaching one of the oval gangways.
'The Council sure as hell ain't paying for this,' he muttered to himself as he reached the entrance to the bedroom. Everything was covered in rich velvet, the furniture carved from something akin to cherry wood, yet not quite like it. Another gangway led from the bedroom to the bath and sanitary facilities.
The artificial voice piped up again. 'Actually it was Ms Shelani who covered the expenses of your stay, Spectre.'
Huh.
Dropping his duffel bag, Shepard strolled out into the living room again to explore the residual space of his palatial apartment.
Head half-cocked, he asked, slightly irritated, 'Who're you? You're no AI.'
'Correct. Even though common on Earth and its colonies, Illium has not yet adapted such controversial practices. My name is Cara, I am the in-house virtual intelligence.'
'In-house. You mean the hotel?'
'No. Just this particular apartment.'
Wonderful, a virtual intelligence bored out of its intellectual capabilities with nothing better to do than record his movements all day long. Nonetheless, better than a full-blown AI, when they became bored it was seldom an enjoyable experience. Cybercrime gained a whole new meaning since then.
'You record anything of your customers?'
'Normally, yes. Seeing as you are an agent of the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance I am legally prohibited from doing so.'
Well, being a lackey to the Citadel Council had its advantages. Few, but they existed. 'Good.'
Deciding to take a shower and let his cramped muscles relax from the journey, Shepard shrugged off his clothes and armaments.
The passage of time became of no essence to Johann. His senses shrunk to the sensation of heated water pouring down his naked skin.
As such he didn't know how much had passed.
The virtual intelligence construct actually managed to convey a sense of urgency.
'Spectre!'
But, in the end, a virtual intelligence stayed a mere virtual intelligence, restricted in its options, in its view of worldly matters. Its computational capacity had its limits. Maybe an actual artificial intelligence might've spotted it.
Glass shattered explosively.
Up this high, above the cover of clouds at the tip of Blue Interstellar the currents rushed in like water tore through a broken dam.
The tell-tale sound of engines as well as the whine of hyper-velocity slugs as they shredded the interior of his apartment spurred Shepard into action.
Damned VI.
An ultravibe grenade went off with a blood-curling screech.
Too late.
His ears rang, a thrilling echo of sensory overload.
Too fucking late.
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[h+]
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Thanks for reading,
fjun
20150217 - Edited some typos. Hope I caught them all.
20150423 - Changed a few paragraphs.
