Remnants
Bleak, thought Samantha Traynor as she looked out over the desolate remnants of the city of London. I'll bet the whole planet looks like this.
Over to her left, Liara was typing something into a console. A message, most likely.
Traynor stretched out her hand to open the window, and her eyes ran over the green circuitry of her arm. That's…still hard to get used to.
A light breeze was blowing; one that hit Traynor directly in the face once the window was open. It felt good…one of the best things she'd felt in a long time.
She yawned at that moment, having been completely unaware of how tired she was.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" asked Liara.
"No," Traynor replied. "You kept me awake."
Liara raised an eyebrow but didn't reply immediately. When she did, she said, "Are you thinking about something?"
Traynor shook her head. "No…well, maybe a little."
Liara stood up and walked over to her. "You're thinking about Shepard, aren't you?"
Samantha didn't look at Liara, but just gazed out the window. "It was just too fast." She sighed. "I mean, she had something with you for…what, two years? Ours only lasted about three weeks."
"The best three weeks of your life, if I recall your words correctly," said Liara. "You were planning a future with her…weren't you?"
"Are you telepathic?"
"No, just intuitive…and observant." Liara put her arm around Traynor's shoulders. "Everything turned out alright in the end."
Traynor smirked. The only reason the two of us are together is because of that one connection…Shepard. She was that gravitational force that pulled everything together. Without her…
Traynor didn't want to think about it.
"I guess everything did turn out alright," replied Traynor. "Unless you're just telling me all of this to coax me into sleeping with you again."
Liara chuckled. "Tempting, but you need your rest."
The comm pinged at that moment, snapping both of them back into reality.
When Liara answered it, she found Garrus on the other end. He was wearing some new suit of armor and carried a sniper rifle, as though he was geared up for another war.
"Garrus," Liara said, "aren't you through fighting yet?"
Garrus laughed. "I don't think so. Besides, the Alliance needed help getting everything back together. They weren't turning down anyone's offer of help."
"That sounds about right," replied Liara.
"Look, I called you for a reason." Garrus glanced around nervously. "We've been getting reports about some sort of Cerberus remnant operating in the New York area…whatever New York is."
"It's one of the human cities, Garrus," said Traynor, who'd just walked up next to Liara.
"Thanks, Sam," said Liara. She nodded at Garrus, "Please, continue."
"The other bit of news," Garrus went on, "is that we believe that this is only one of their cells. There may be more spread around the rest of the planet. We don't know what they're after, but we have enough experience with Cerberus to know that it can't be anything good."
Liara nodded. "Right…I'll dig up what I can on the subject and let you know how things turn out."
"In the meantime, we're going to investigate this Cerberus cell and see if we can't shut it down." Garrus paused. "Be better if we found out what they wanted."
"Just be careful, Vakarian," Traynor said. "I'd hate to hear that you led your squad into another death trap."
"History will not be repeated," Garrus said. Then he sighed and added, "At least I hope it won't."
"Goodbye, Garrus." Liara turned the comm off at that moment, and then looked over at Traynor. "You should get some sleep. You've been awake for far too long."
Traynor nodded. "I suppose you're right."
# # #
A dark forest stretched on for as far as Samantha could see. Overhead, the sky was dark and a hint of thunder permeated the air every so often.
It could have been the middle of the night, but it might also have been early morning or late evening. It was difficult to tell, but Samantha doubted that it really mattered.
Ahead in the distance, she could see someone. It was a woman, and she was kneeling down next to a child.
Samantha instinctively started walking toward them. As she did so, she became aware of certain sounds around her, like echoes from the past.
"You're turning into a regular marine, Traynor."
"Yes, well, I guess you're rubbing off on me."
"I hope so."
Traynor remembered that conversation that she'd had with Shepard, though it had been quite a while back.
Samantha was walking faster now, but she was getting nowhere near the woman and child. Even from a distance though, she thought she could recognize the woman. She looked familiar, but before Traynor could place the long brown hair and sharp facial features…
Samantha's eyes snapped open. The room was dark, save for a single lantern at the end of the room.
God, she thought, that dream felt like the ones Shepard used to tell me about. The dark forest, echoes from the past. It felt exactly the same.
Samantha could hear Liara breathing softly next to her. She rolled over onto her side and tried to get back to sleep, but she lay there for hours with thoughts of that strange and foreboding dream running through her mind.