To Follow a Shepard
Preface: My name is Milo Talon, I'm 24 years old born July 8th 1988 small town in northern British Columbia Canada. I'm married and work as an IAT which is an Industrial Audiometric Technician. Basically I test people's hearing. I play way too much video games and read a lot of fantasy. Then one night I decide to go out with my friends for a night on the town.
"My god I'm never drinking again." I say as I lift my head of the park bench were me and friends were drinking last night. The light is bright enough I can't focus with the migraine already forming.
"Are you alright there mister?" I look up and can't get my eyes to focus enough to make out who's talking to me but I'm pretty sure it's not a cop so I'm safe for the moment.
"Ya I just had one too many last night… I think anyways I forget after my friend brought out the whiskey. Where the hell did they go anyways? Oh man, don't tell me they abandoned me here?"
"Well I haven't seen any other humans in this area or anyone near you so I'm not sure. I just wanted to make sure you were alive." Wait… what? Humans near me? I squint my eyes trying to focus on who's talking to me. As my vision clears I jump off the bench in absolute shock as I realise a Salarian is standing in front of me looking startled at me for jumping off the bench. "What? What's wrong?" He said making what I would assume is a look of concern on his face, though it's kind of hard to judge since I've never seen a real live Salarian. But just what the hell is going on, as I look around I start to realise I'm no longer in the park by my house. Well that's putting it mildly as I see that I'm definitely no longer on Earth let alone in the park.
"I uh, nothing I just felt ill is all."
He visibly relaxed as I say this. "Oh all right then. Sorry I don't know many humans so I'm not always sure what your reactions mean when you do them. My name is Tiften by the way." He holds out his hand. I hesitate only for a second before taking his hand.
"I'm Milo, nice to meet you. Thanks for checking on me, I'm pretty messed up still do you mind telling me where am I?" Trying to only look as confused as someone waking up with a hangover would look, not someone about to have a major panic attack.
"Oh you're on Kanto ward in the public park. Where were you at last night that you remember?" I try to dredge up a name and can only come up one.
"Zakera ward I think, it's kinda fuzzy."
"Wow you are a long way from there my friend. Well I hope you feel better, look me up some time if you get lost here again." He gave me a smile and shook my hand again.
"Well what the hell do I do now?" I start looking around and really taking in my surroundings for the first time. I notice it looks like a standard park other than the fact I can see some buildings in the distance that are way too futuristic and way too tall compared too anything I've ever seen on Earth. I see a bunch of aliens walking around the park, I see Turians, Asari, Salarian's, Elcor and some humans. I look down at myself and I seem to be wearing something from this time and not my own. As I look at my clothes I move my fingers and to my surprise an orange interface pops up. "Sweet I have an Omni-Tool." I do a little mini happy dance at this discovery, much too an Asari's amusement as she walks by giggling at my antics. I promptly start blushing like an idiot. So to hide my face I start looking at my tools interface screen. "Let's see what this thing can do." I look through the main menu and see pre-set selections for a new tool and some saved items. "Well it seems I have an id on here and it says my name is the same. Well at least that means I won't be arrested by C-Sec for not having an id." Just to be sure I look at my birthdate so I know some info about myself in case I'm asked then it will match. Well I was born on the same day and month but the year is listed as 2155, that would make me 25 instead of 24 here. Says I was married but she died back on Earth three years ago. Her name was listed as…. Danny. "No!" I break down and cry as I realise even if this wasn't my original wife that my actual wife has been died for a long time. I bawl into my hands for what seems like hours. When I regain my composure I see it's been about forty minutes since I broke down. People seem to try and avoid me as I look a complete mess. Well let's see I was born in the same town but it's a bit bigger now but still not a major city. Most of my background is the same but all my family is dead and apparently I just moved here from Earth. I have an apartment here on the Citadel on Kanto ward. According to a built in map it was a short walk from where I was sitting.
"Well I may as well sit there instead of out here and it's starting to get late anyways." I get up and start walking towards my place all the while checking out my surrounding's. As I put my hands in my pocket I find what appear to be credit chits. A couple of thousand chits and some assorted small ones. "Well I don't think I'll be in any state to cook so may well grab some food." I stop at an Asari restaurant as I'm always trying new food. I walk up to the Asari server. She was about 5' 5" just three inches shorter than my 5" 8", a pale blue complexion with thin white tattoo's running down her crown.
"Hi my name is Amaya, how can I help you?" Giving me a small smile.
"Hi, I've never had Asari food before I was wondering if you could recommend something for take-out? What's your favorite dish?"
Giving me a grin she says "My favorite is Kanafin, it's a pasta with seafood sauce dish from my home colony."
"Well I'll take an order of that with whatever you recommend for a drink as well." I hand over some credits for payment.
"I'll be back with your food in just a few minutes." While I waited I looked up a codex from the Extra-net to start brushing up on my history and technology usage. Shortly there after she returned with my food and asked me to come again. While handing me my bag of food letting her hand brush my a little more than she needed. Giving her a smile I took my food and continued on my way to my apartment.
Arriving at my apartment I found myself at a complete loss as to how to unlock my door and had to spend a minute looking it up. Once inside I proceeded to eat while reading up on myself and everything I might need in the immediate future. Sitting there I stopped to try and figure out how I actually got here. In all the excitement I didn't even think about what might have brought me to what I was going to assume was an alternate reality. "Hmm I can't think of any technology in this universe that could have brought me here." "Well I'm gonna need to figure out something I can do to try and join Shepard since I don't doubt at this point that I'm gonna be going home."
When I woke up the next morning started to look at employments that could help me gain skill to work towards helping Shepard. Now wait a minute… who was the Shepard in this particular universe. I had to stop and look up everything on Shepard that I could find. It seems Shepard is called Erin Shepard and is female in this universe. Not much on what her class might be or abilities. Nothing on her history other than apparently she was on Elysium during the Blitz and won the Star of Terra. Other than that I couldn't discern whether she was a renegade or paragon.
After my little foray into Shepard I continued looking for employment and found that C-Sec was hiring and training constantly and they did all their training hands on. Well then I had an idea of what to do, now to go and do it. After I took a ride in an automated taxi which was one of the weirdest experiences of my life I arrived at C-Sec academy wondering around trying to figure out where to go for recruitment.
"Excuse me sir do you need any help?" I stop dead in my tracks. I know that voice! Turning around I almost have another giddy happy dance because I'm face to face with none other than Garrus freaking Vakarian!
"Um hi my name is Milo I'm looking to try and enlist in C-Sec could you tell me where I can look into recruitment?"
"My name is Garrus Vakarian I'm a detective here I can show you the way if you like?" Cue another barely restrained dance.
"I would greatly appreciate it if you could."
"Right this way, since I'm not currently assigned any cases I can do your initial questionnaire and testing. We just have any officer that's free do these things so it's no trouble." Walking behind him I must have looked like a complete moron because I had a massive grin plastered on my face and was just about bouncing in a state of absolute giddiness. I was brought to a small cramped office with two desks crammed into a space barely big enough for one let alone two. All over the desk that Garrus sat behind were stacks and stacks of papers, the other desk was oddly bare.
"Well let's get started, what's your last name?"
"Talon."
"What makes you interested in this kind of work?"
"I want to be able to help stop the terrible things that happen every day to regular people." From behind his computer controls were I'm guessing he had my profile pulled up he gave me an odd look then proceeded to start marking some things down on his interface. So it went for almost two hours, questions of morals and aptitudes to see if I was C-Sec material. When finished he sat for a few minutes in silence going over my answers all the while I had to sit in silence feeling much like a bug under the magnifying glass.
"Well" he said looking up finally "I think you might work out for this. I want you to come back tomorrow morning at seven and I will be taking you to be outfitted for our basic training. So the procedure here is whoever the officer is that does your basic introduction will be the one to do all your training and if you are found capable after the initial training, they will become that officers partner unless they already have a partner, or if they don't get along with said officer will be paired with another officer. Now in light of the fact that you are human I'm required to ask if you would umm… prefer an officer of a different race?" This last part he looks almost embarrassed to say and totally stumped me as to why he would ask. I must have looked perplexed because he seemed to take pity on me and said "You know because of our species having been in a small war recently?" He now seemed perplexed as to why I would look relieved for the explanation.
Quickly I cover myself by saying "Oh I'm sorry, I was raised to never judge anyone's race because of the actions of a few or when something like that misunderstanding happened so I honestly just didn't think of that as a reason." He seemed to accept this explanation and just nodded.
"Well then I will be your instructor for the basic training," note I almost did another dance again "so tomorrow morning at let's say 7:30 meet here at my office and I will take you for training introduction. I look forward to working with you mister Talon." Garrus says standing and shaking my hand.
"And I you Officer Vakarian, and it's just Milo please."
"Only if you will call me Garrus." He says with a smile.
"Sounds good Garrus."
Well I have a job and now I have a way to be able to meet Shepard when she comes here. Making my way home I think of how I have already made so much progress in such a short time then I realise that I have a ton of work before I'm whipped into shape enough to be considered an asset for what's ahead.