PROLOGUE: Garrus Vakarian's POV
You know, sometimes you stop on your way through life and ask yourself what purpose we have when we are brought to this world. We are born, we live and we have to fight. Fight, but for what? For liberty? Our lives are all having the same conclusion, death. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, healthy or terminally ill, strong or weak, the death is inevitable. However, this absolute truth, this postulate, axiom, dogma, whatever you want to call it, was proven wrong five years ago.
I've met a human. His name was Daniel Husk. The things that made him so special were many. Since the first time I had the opportunity to work with him, he was mostly troublemaker. He was autistic, very good at math, but there was more to it. He wasn't from our century but woke up in it after cryo-stasis. Soon we all discovered what was so important about him that we all had to watch him. He was the one who convinced me about the false statement that death is inevitable.
Back in his previous life, he worked on project called Soma. It was meant to scan somebody's brain and transfer a mind into synthetic body. I was skeptic but Daniel made it. He bypassed death and transferred himself into a Geth body, but why? The reason was that Daniel had a bad luck in personal life and so there was nobody he could love. He found our Geth companion, Legion, who understood Daniel and was capable of feeling emotions so Daniel decided to do this for him. It was coincidence, but Daniel as a human experienced ordeal that issued him coma and so the Geth Daniel was activated.
In the meantime, in the great war between Reapers and the union of races in Milky way, I managed to find myself somebody as well. Tali'Zorah became my girlfriend and we were able to bring our turian son Denos to the world. Our commander Adrian Shepard and Liara T'Soni managed to bring Mira, their asari daughter to world as well. We all thought that Daniel would never wake up from his coma, but we kept him on ship anyway because you never know. Although we did so, we had to abandon him after an unexpected attack of batarian terrorists on our ship.
Former Normandy SR2 went down in flames and so did Daniel who was in coma. After that, we thought that Daniel is lost for good. There was nothing we could do to save him, but actually we made a grave mistake. Daniel survived and unfortunately, his hatred to take revenge over Shepard and us was growing. He became emperor of batarian nation and with his biotic powers he recreated Cerberus and became Wraith. He hired Grunt, Jack, Jacob, Samara and Kasumi to his team. They trusted him blindly because he did everything so it looked like he was doing good to the galaxy.
Actually he did. The crime in galaxy lowered to a minimum. All thanks to Daniel and his people. Of course, it was too perfect and Shepard sensed something wasn't right. Cerberus and the Alliance started war in the Attican traverse and we had to stop this so it was time to reveal Wraith's identity which was Daniel. I saw Daniel, the new one. He was merciless, hateful, he wanted to destroy the entire galaxy by turning every star into a black hole and causing chaos by that. We cannot save him I thought. I was thinking there was no way on saving the man that Daniel became.
I was wrong again. Shepard had a plan. Thane Krios came with David Archer and the funny fact was that another autist with savant syndrome managed to change Daniel to what he used to be. With math questions, Daniel realized what he was, he overcame his hatred and stopped himself from destroying the galaxy. He was back, we were all happy for that guy, but once we escaped the Cerberus base with batarians invading it, we knew that this Daniel needed help. We wouldn't be able to take care of man like Daniel.
He was stressed, anxious, depressed and so Shepard decided to put Daniel to a better place, to a mental hospital for therapies. He was given great doctor, Herald Tate who was turian but no ordinary doctor. Doctor Tate was doing his best to help Daniel from falling into darkness. We were visiting Daniel, but with each visit he was getting only worse until Legion and Shepard visited him alone and both of them were shouted by Daniel to get lost. Doctor Tate wrote report which clearly showed that we lost Daniel, our friend. He didn't remember us.
It was our fault. We didn't have enough time to visit him because there were assignments to do. One day, the 'black day' I would say came and Shepard received call from doctor Tate who announced him about Daniel's suicide. None of us wanted to believe that Daniel voluntarily killed himself. We visited the hospital and talked to doctor Tate who obviously took Daniel's demise hard. Once doctor Tate read out a paragraph from Daniel's book, I knew that our friend was at the bottom and there was no other solution for him. The funeral was set and we continued living our lives.
Now, after three years, Shepard couldn't handle the guilt he felt for letting Daniel die. We all tried to convince him that he wasn't responsible, that there was no other way. Shepard understood, but he was never able to do any missions again because everything reminded him of Daniel. Normandy's crew officially stopped existing and we all dissolved, parting into smaller groups. Joker, our main pilot, along with Steve Cortez, our shuttle pilot, continued in their service with the Alliance Navy. Shepard and Liara went to Thessia to live together. I and Tali, we remained on the Citadel.
Tali had it really hard because she was practically the only quarian who survived the massacre before the great war. Her protégé Veetor vanished, we didn't know where. Well, everybody would think that Daniel never existed, but he left his copy, the Geth version of him. That Daniel along with Legion returned to a Geth fleet. My story starts at this moment…
NOTHING IS COINCIDENCE
Garrus Vakarian finds himself naked lying on the ground in pitch black space with nothing around or under him. The turian is woken up by an echo. He opens his eyes, trying to process where he is. He sees nothing but black and looks around. Nothing seems to show him where to go so he tries only to walk around. It was stupid idea that came to his mind but he walked around for a while and suddenly he could hear the echo becoming more clear. Garrus realized he had to follow the sound in order to get out.
He was following it. The echo was getting sharper and it changed to quick sobbing. Vakarian continued towards the source of sound. As he was approaching, another sounds joined the sobbing. These sounds were voices. However, aggressive voices. They sounded like somebody was screaming through microphone and so it was buzzier. With approaching distance, both, the voices and the sobbing were intensifying, adding on volume. Garrus tried to recognize what those voices screamed. He heard: I'M SICK! I'M SO SICK! I'M SO FUCKED UP! KILL YOURSELF! KILL YOURSELF!
"What the hell…?" Garrus said quietly, confused. He went further. The sounds started to feel very uncomfortable. As they were getting louder, the turian felt the buzz crawling inside his brain. He had to cover his ears and kneel down. Garrus closed his eyes, hoping he could ignore it. Something was wrong. Even Garrus had closed eyes and covered ears, he heard the sounds still the same way as without doing all the stuff. They weren't getting quieter but still loud.
"What is this place?! What are those sounds?! This is insane!" Garrus thought, also thinking he was going crazy. He wanted the sounds to stop so badly but no matter how badly he wanted them to stop, they didn't stop and they kept torturing the turian. Garrus was stuck at one place and needed to move. He had to find the source of these sounds and destroy them.
"I must keep moving!" he thought. He raised himself from the knees and spotted something in the distance. The turian noticed somebody in the far blackness and it was strange. There was nothing, pure nothingness around and suddenly he could see a man in the far blackness even there was no light. He continued to walk, sounds were rushing through his skull. Garrus was breathing, his steps were becoming heavy. Trying to stay focused, the turian was closer to the man and he could recognize things.
A wheelchair, uniform, the figure itself that was turned with back to Garrus. It was sitting to the table, doing something and Garrus realized that this man was source of the sounds. He was approaching him, more and more he was recognizing the figure. Finally, he managed to stand behind the man, the sounds stopped and Garrus placed his talon on the man's shoulder.
"D-Daniel…?" Garrus said and the man he called Daniel froze in what he was doing. He was writing a book. The pen was laid next to the book and Garrus observed closely how will Daniel react. Something was happening. Garrus' heartbeat was accelerating and his body was becoming sweaty.
"Garrus…" Daniel said and his head jerked around, revealing face covered in blood, murderous look and then everything brightened as Garrus immediately opened his eyes wide. He was sweaty, lying in his bed, breathing quickly.
"It was just a nightmare…" Garrus thought, realizing it was another day. He rolled on his back and noticed that his beloved Tali was not there. The clock next to his bed showed 7 AM, "I should be getting ready for my shift or executor Pallin will feed Nathak with me…" Garrus said and got up. He headed to take a shower since he was all sweaty from the nightmare. Soon he was clean and dressed up in his C-Sec uniform with his eye visor on. Garrus thought he would look for something in the kitchen so he wouldn't be hungry during his shift.
"What is this…?" Garrus asked himself as he noticed a sticky note on the fridge: I had to take Denos to the doctor because It looks like he has some infection. I hope it's nothing serious. I should be back by the time you return and I made you something sweet so you don't starve during your shift. Love, Tali. Garrus read and smiled. He looked at the clock again, "7:45… shit! I got only fifteen minutes to get to the C-Sec! No time for breakfast!" Garrus thought and left their apartment quickly, almost forgetting to check whether it was locked.
He arrived at the C-Sec late and avoided executor Pallin as he rushed to get to his workplace before he would notice anything. Garrus sat right at his table and switched on the console while he tried to catch breath.
"Being late?" Another turian asked as he came inside.
"Chellick… just a little bit."
"I saw you only a few times running, Garrus. Never thought it would be so soon!" Chellick chuckled.
"I cannot afford losing this job, Chellick."
"It's alright, Garrus. I know there's much pressure at you right now. Losing job as a crewmember on Normandy, having family that you need to keep fed…"
"And I'm not sleeping well, forgot to mention that. I wish I could get one peaceful night but I am getting nightmares constantly!"
"You seem to take your responsibilities seriously. I was thinking that you should find some time for yourself as well."
"Heh, are you suggesting something?"
"We didn't have a drink together for a long time, colleague. You think we could go?"
"Hmm… two male turians together at bar getting drunk. How weird can it look?" Garrus chuckled, "I'll call Tali. She's expecting me to be at home once I'm done here so I must ask."
"Do what you have to, Garrus. I'll be at my office if you change your mind." Chellick said.
"Yeah, yeah. Now I need to start processing these reports before-"
"Garrus Vakarian to my office." Executor Pallin said through com-link.
"Shit… here go problems…" Garrus shook his head and stood up from his table.
"Good luck there, Vakarian."
"Thanks…" Garrus said and left to the office of his superior, executor Pallin. He was afraid of what Pallin had to tell him so important that he had to call him. One thing was sure, Garrus didn't feel well. He was hungry and tired. He wished Pallin never called him to his office so he could complete his assignment and all the paperwork that was actually piling on his table and in his console while he was going to talk to his boss. Pallin wasn't entirely C-Sec leader. Since C-Sec consisted of many races, each race had its own representative as their leader. For humans it was captain Bailey.
Garrus was asking himself: Am I gonna be fired? What does he want from me?