Alrighty guys, this is my first Shakerian/ME fanfic so be nice to the rookie! :)
I hope I can live up to the high expectations that has been created here on this website... I am very excited to see what you think!
Enjoy!
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o
'Stranded at the Drive-in... Branded of a fool-'
"The hell is that?" Shepard turns to the working turian behind her as he grabs some scrap metal lying on the ground.
'What will they say... Monday at-' (blip) he instantly turns off the somewhat quiet music coming from his omni-tool. "Nothing, nothing..." he says picking up the foreign object to take it on the other side of the ancient site.
"No, really... What was that?" Shepard smiles. "One of those cheesy porno songs that are supposed to set the 'mood'?" she quoted in the air.
"I just looked up the term 'Drive-in' and that's the first thing that came up... Not my fault."
"Mmhmm..." Shepard smiles even bigger. "And what did I say about mood music?"
"It had the phrase 'drive-in' in it."
"You sound a little tense, Garrus. Lost that reach already?" she stopped what she was doing to leisurely walk to him, looking as provocative as possible.
"That depends. Are you volunteering to relieve me of said tenseness?"
"Only if you set my favorite mood music of... screaming, explosions, and lots of gunfire."
Garrus hums in satisfaction as he pulls her closer. "'Die Hard'. You know me so well-"
"Well, I believe that we can all use a little break, don't you think?" Liara suddenly comes up from the old dirt pathway with lovely looking beverages for all aliens upon this vast piece of forgotten land. She finds a large, safe surface to set them all down. Ruining the moment, Joker suddenly speaks.
"Isn't that why we kinda, you know, started this project? To get away from endless work and crap in the world?" Joker asks as he makes his way to the yellow, cool, sweet liquid for humans.
"But, this is kind of fun. I can't wait to see what this place does," Tali says with a hopeful sound in her voice as she pops a straw in her Quarian labeled drink and sucked it through the removable air vent in the front of her mask.
As everyone grabbed a cool lemony drink on this rather hot day, they observe this beautiful fallen place that they have found in this forest and shamefully, yet rightfully, compare it to Earth.
It has been three years since the attack of the Reapers; three years since the Mass Relays have been destroyed, and three years since the fall of all synthetics. It has been a rough rebuild for everyone, especially the crew of the Normandy SR-2. The loss of EDI and Legion was nothing short of heartbreaking for everyone, especially for poor Joker, but the loss of Admiral Anderson was the one that hit Shepard the most, a man that had treated her like a daughter and had given her everything.
"Well, we can't make this place work unless we find anything useful," Jack starts in impatience. "I have yet to find any good shit anywhere."
"Will you relax? We're gonna find it..." Shepard calms her friend down. "I...don't exactly know where yet, but we will."
"At least we have that." Vega says pointing at the rather large white cardboard looking screen, big enough to land a hover car, if it wasn't set sideways. The edges of this large white screen is covered in vines that had crawled up its wooden braces over the years. "Me and Jack can clear all the greenage." he says as she shrugs her shoulders and they start making their way up the ladder aside one of the braces.
Throughout these three years, the crew became stranded here, whoever had family here on Earth, were given immediate permission to go straight to their loved ones. But many were alone. As everyone started rebuilding the Relays, anyone foreign to this place became... stuck, which is dangerous for aliens like Quarians and Turians. It's a good thing that backup generators were stored in Quarian ships for their suits as well as dextro food for both Quarians and Turians, but that food was very limited, and the aliens couldn't survive on it for long. It wasn't until scientists found and used scientific concoctions that they could add in certain human food for Turians and Quarians to eat, mainly anything processed, or anything that is not Earth grown. The crew became close, helping one another with various turns of homesickness and depression. Yet through everything, they have become nothing but as close as family.
"Look at all of these spices and old foods," Samara says entering the large, old and rundown shack about 20 yards from the large white screen. "There is so much here." Her angelic voice caught several ears as she pulls many different empty bottles and old foods up from some of the shelves and even a large box that says "Popcorn" on it.
"Believe it or not, we still eat that." Shepard smiled a little as she headed towards the Asari. "Is there an expiration date anywhere on it?"
"A what?" she asks in confusion. All of the humans in the circle giggle.
"An expiration date is what is put on various foods to show how long we have to eat it." Joker says with a smile.
"It's something that humans do to keep from harming themselves with food that can go bad and hurt their bodies." Shepard said factly.
This... Place that they have found is nothing more than a run-down facility, hundreds of years old. It was found by some of the crew as they went on a walk within the forestry one day on Shepard and Garrus' land. After the war, Shepard and just about everyone else retired from the life of saving the galaxy every six months. She and Garrus settled and found a small tropical island just off the coast of southern Hawaii to own and share with the crew since they were going to be here for awhile. With all of the credits they got through royalties and such, half of it went into making homes with as much comfort for the crew as possible while the rest of the money went back into helping Earth get back on its feet. Everyone has jobs to do to help Earth or to help with the Mass Relays, but one week out of every month or two, the Normandy crew, all of which who did not have families to see, come together and stay together, needing to be around familiar faces and to get away from the sadness and grief that they are trying to fix.
"Oh my..." Kasumi suddenly voices for the squad to hear as she brushes dust and dirt off of a flat, strong, iron clad door closed upon the ground of the old shack. "I really think that I have found something!" seeing the handle popping out of the door, she uses all of her might to twist the handle for the door to pop open like a time capsule just waiting to be explored. Everyone gathers around as she makes way for Shepard to grab a flashlight and look inside. The first thing that is seen is stairs that walk into a very dark tunnel-like place. People murmur their thoughts and gasps as she starts to make the first step down.
When the group first found this land, they were baffled. They were so curious beyond belief they just stood in awe of the large screen that just stood there... Completely okay... Everyone wondered how it was okay. After some intense research, they learned that the large white screen was most commonly used for Drive-in theaters. Back in the mid 1900's into the 2000's they were vastly popular, watching movies in their car. It was when times were simpler, where vehicles were mundane and used wheels to maneuver on the ground, much like the vehicles used on army sights and planets with low gravitational pull. It was just as intriguing for the humans of the group to learn about their own past culture as it was for the other aliens. This place endured 250 years of madness. 13 wars, weather made for wear and tear and a Reaper Invasion. Yet... This place is still standing.
Shepard tried to raise her flashlight for the light to bounce off any surface to gain more light in the room, and as the room got bigger in scope, more people piled in, until there was more than enough light and more than enough people to explore inside. As the light filled the room, all that was stacked in the place was large circular metal wheels.
Everywhere.
Shepard dropped her flashlight in awe of the amount of metal that was stored in this underground tunnel as well as some very useful looking machinery that was taken for observation by Tali, Liara, and Garrus. Grabbing the first wheel she saw, she looked closely to see the markings on the label only for it to be too smudged to see what it said. Observing it further, she finds a crease within the sides of the wheel-like thing and twists it open with ease. As she opened it, there was a ribbon-like substance inside and it made her smile wide.
"Film." she whispers as she turns around for everyone to see.
"Huh?"
"This is actual, true, authentic film!" she says holding a piece up to show everyone. "These are all canisters full of film."
"Oh man, that's some old shit!" Joker smiled. "What movie is it?"
Film. Shepard had to explain it to a few of the crew members on what kind of film this was, and when no one understood, Liara was more informational upon the subject: A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images. A film is created by photographing actual scenes with a motion picture camera. These, inside of the canisters, were movie films and were originally recorded onto the plastic film, that they are holding which was shown through a movie projector onto a large screen much like the one that stood firm outside. Nowadays, people use more modern techniques such as wholly digital filming and storage. In today's society, they are so tech, no one uses actual film anymore. Most don't even know what it is.
"Well, would that piece of machinery that Tali took be the projector to show this film?" Kaiden asks picking up another film canister.
"Well, we better go see," Shepard led everyone out.
Commander Serenity Shepard. It is a name that is not taken lightly in the universe. She is the reason that people knew that the reapers were coming, she is the reason that the reapers are dead, and she is also the reason that all synthetic life was dead too. She was up there, in a fucking reaper ship, having to decide. The whole war was based on one thing: Death of the Reapers. And that was what she intended to do. There she was, half dead, half determined... And all she remembered was waking to a very worried turian and a dead Anderson on a bed next to hers. She had chosen to kill the Reapers regardless of the circumstances. It wasn't until later when she was told of the repercussions.
"Do we have any sort of plug socket generator or a socket battery of some sort? This... thing runs on electricity through stupid light sockets!" Tali shouts in anger.
"Don't worry. We'll figure out something. There must be a way to cheat the system. Let me look," Garrus says popping the top off of the projector as he searched through the piece of baby tech.
"May I make a suggestion?" a very feminine robotic voice came from a part of the working field.
"Go ahead, EDI. Take my place. I need to get away from this thing anyhow." Tali says backing away to sit for a minute. She has been at it for a while.
EDI was announced dead, as was all other synthetic life within any system that contained a Mass Relay. The blast of the Catalyst was too great to not effect anything even remotely technical, which meant that it was almost as if mankind had to evolve all over again. For about a year, Joker mourned EDI until a Kennith and Gabby came up with a hypothesis to get the AI to work again. -If they keep the memory and body of the said AI they can somehow connect her to a husk generator that was left on Earth from the war, Once connected, they could transfuse the synthetic particles that could be used for several husks and create enough juice to combine together to create one synthetic creature. Their hypothesis was announced crazy, mainly due to the fact that the synthetic particles that are used in husk generators are, in fact, Reaper synthetics. But Shepard needed a little hope. She needed to see a miracle. She wanted to try and save EDI... Being the reason for her death... It was a selfish thought, but she needed this. So she said to go ahead and try it. And they did. After several hours of working out kinks and glitches, EDI awoke, she had to load her memory for a bit, but remembered everything. That knowledge from Kennith and Gabby made them famous and they became notorious for the new program called "Re-Creation", bringing synthetics back to life - all accept reapers, of course.
"Do any of these have names at all?" Vega asked as he rummaged through the many, many, many movies stored within the cellar.
"Well the names are there... Just hard to read." Kasumi says doing the same. "They almost look like Japanese symbols." she giggles as she separates the canisters on each side of her body, one side being completely unreadable to the other side being able to read a letter or two.
"Jeez, look at all this goddom dirt. Did we have any hygiene skills in the 21st fuckin' century?" Zaeed says on his way down as he swats all of the cobwebs out of his face.
Most of the crew had survived, which was nothing short of a miracle of the mess that had gone down down that day. So many people, of any and every alien race had died. Its heart- wrenching to even think about. But, if the crew didn't survive- if Garrus didn't... Shepard can't even think of how she'd live without him... Without any of them. She shudders even making a note of it in her head. She has been there for all of them, but Garrus... They are both pretty sure that they can't live without each other. Garrus had told her how he found her, brittled in every way in between the harsh rubble of the remnants of asphalt. He ran to her, saw her matted and mangled, sure that she was dead. Defeated, he could only stare into her with tear-filled eyes wondering how- how he would live without her...
Until that breath.
That life saving breath.
One little rise of her chest; one little gasp of desperate hold of air, and he was already cradling her bloodstained body as close as physically possible to his own as he raced to the Normandy. She was unconscious for a few days, as Dr. Chakwas did everything within her power to help her commander again.
"Welp, we did it." Garrus slaps his hands together to sweep the dust off. "I don't know how, but we did it." he shook Tali's hand.
"Hell if I know." Tali seemed to smile in her voice as she accepted the shake.
"You're shittin' me. You actually found a way to get that piece of crap to work?" Jack says in disbelief walking to the two. "Looks like all that calibrating actually helped you pull something out of your ass for once." Jack smiles beating Garrus' back in congrats.
"Well, we think so. We will have to see if it will work with the electron generator that EDI pulled from a Reaper ship a few miles away." Tali says factly.
"It should prove more than sufficient to create enough electricity needed to power this machine." EDI says as humanly as possible.
"That's my little busty biotic bombshell," Joker says holding EDI close.
"What. Did you just say?" Jack slowly turns to see the cap-wearing ass.
"I believe Jeff was referring to my unrealistic body formation, as an attempt to compliment my features, though my physical features contributed nothing to the... thought... process that created the hypothesis to make this idea work." EDI says with a smile.
"I should make him eat those words anyway." Jack says conforming a blue hue from her hands.
"Whoa there, little lady." Zaeed suddenly grabs a hold of her arm to stop her.
"Get the fuck off me-"
"Don't go killin' someone who doesn't 'ave a chance to defend himself. It's unsportsman-like and takes the thrill away completely. Besides," she forces her arm away, "You don't want to dent those dainty little 'ands of yours."
"How about I shove my dainty little hands up your-"
"Generator is up and running!" Shepard says loud enough to cut off the human pistol.
"Don't tempt me," Zaeed smirks to Jack and walks away. It took Jack a moment to understand his code.
"Oh Go- what happened to you hitting on Samara?!"
"He knows that it is no use," Samara replies from behind "If he wishes to maintain his health." she says in seriousness. Jack nods in agreement.
"I like you more and more every day, Samara." Jack says walking away.
It has been a little tense with people here and there. Being stranded on Earth is like being stranded on an island, and they can only take one another's crap for so long. It wasn't until they found this place that they had a chance to take their mind off of Earth and put their minds together to re-create something just for the hell of it. It was like a treasure hunt, no one knew what was in store, but now they are excited to see what will become of this little project. They have been working on and off for the past four days, just maneuvering things around and trying to get things to work. After they found out how the damn projector turned on they realized there wasn't any sound... Until they looked up and realized that they used car radios to hear sound from the various tower frequencies. After Tali dug deep through the many air-wave frequencies that transcended through the old telephone poles that still stood, she broke through invisible sound barriers and heard sounds from older stations that looped and played. After much trial and error they finally put all of the pieces together and got it to work.
It wasn't until a sun setting night that they decided to see if the infamous drive-in movie would work, and if it was as good as everyone mad it sound in the extranet. They made meals, set up comfortable spots to watch, much like an outdoor living room, and picked any movie, the first one they saw, really. No one can decode any names on the rundown name tags, so they will have to just re-label them all.
All 313 canisters.
This is going to prove interesting.
Garrus popped the film on the spinner, closed it secure and flipped on the switch. Everyone got the decoding formula that Tali had cracked and typed it in on their omni-tools and as everyone sat comfortable, the previews started.
So did Shepard and Garrus...
O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o
Welp... This WAS going to be a little oneshot... But I guess not! It ended up being A LOT lot longer than I anticipated, so I am spreading it out into two separate chapters, just for length issues. The rest is coming soon. Don't worry...
NOTE: The film definition part of this chapter, got straight from wiki... felt a little lazy... But the husk generator thing for EDI... Completely pulled out of my rear. I'm proud of that!
So, I originally had this idea for a little story to base off of a fanart that I found. She said that anyone is more than welcome to write a fanfic about it, and I accepted... It is actually the art piece right up there on the top of the page. - The image will make sense in the next chapter... Promise!
Why do I make things way more complicated than they need to be?
~I.L.C
