(A big thank you to htewing for proof reading this for me, I am truly grateful)
(Please note, this work will stick to the layout of the game as much as possible, there will be some changes in the dialog, which is due to the fact that I can't find the right audio files, as well as some of the equipment used in-game; call it creative freedom if you will and before any one complains I have slightly fiddled with the timeline so that something's fit in better with the story)
(Thanks to all of those that have read the last chapter and enjoy this one)
(Sincerely Gods-own)
Chapter 2: through fire and flames
The prisoner paused in thought as if to say something else, but the moment passed and all that remained was silence.
"That's it?" Mr Smith enquired, as he raised an eyebrow in silent, unbelieving opinion."No beatings, no police report, just join the scholarship programme and forget all about it." The tone in the man's voice indicated what he thought of Shepherd's story, it didn't go unnoticed.
"They got me to sign a form the thickness of a brick and then I was led off to a private academy run by Synthetic Insights." The restrained figure glanced over at his interrogator as he continued talking. "They didn't need to beat me up or called the police, because as soon as I signed that legal document I became the property of the company in mind, body and soul" there was an unnerving silence as this statement was spoken aloud, even his shadowy jailer seemed to be momentarily taken aback by this unpleasant revelation, but as soon as the stillness had descended it vanished as the smartly dressed figure quickly waved a hand through the air, as if to brush away the unpleasantness of the previous comment.
"Not meaning to interrupt the flow of this particular interrogation but I have to wonder why a company like Synthetic Insights would go to all the trouble of recruiting a particular individual like you into their organisation, it's not like you're overly talented when it comes to I.T. or mechanics." The question brought an all onto unpleasant smile to the commander's face as he heard this.
"Synthetic Insights recruit a wide range of people, some of them fix computers, some of them mop floors and some of them…." He left the sentence hanging in the air as if to allow the unwanted associate to finish it, which he duly did.
"Kill people." calmly stated the professional, his prisoner nodding in silent agreement before continuing.
"Every corporation has its own private security contractors, tech experts, even hackers, but what marks the major contenders from the rest is their investment in company agents, individuals who work behind the scenes to make sure that everything runs smoothly as clockwork and that nothing will get in the way of business." Shepherd closed his eyes he said this, as if recalling far off memories.
"The individual who shot and subdued me was one such agent." He stared at the ceiling as he continued talking. "Though I didn't know it at the time." This seemed to please his keeper, who leaned backward into the chair as if he were listening to a bedtime story.
"For the next three years I worked myself to the bone in the scholarship programme, Synthetic's didn't seem to mind, in fact they actually encouraged my rapid development, no tutor was too expensive, no any fitness programme too easy; by the time I was nearing my twentieth birthday I had fully surpassed the original expectations of company observers to such an extent that they transferred me out of the scholarship programme and into an actual working environment in the main office on Earth." The faint recollection of this brought a smile to the storyteller's face.
"Impressive," replied Mr Smith, as he reached for another cigarette.
"I thought so at the time too," respond Shepherd as he began to mentally relive the memories.
"My future was laid out in front of me. I was going to become a "made man," to use a twentieth century film quote." The sad sigh which escaped from between his lips after saying this briefly hinted at what was yet to come.
"So what happened?" calmly enquired the smartly dressed figure, who had the feeling that the next few minutes would be not worth missing for anything.
"Akuze happened," came the reply.
"Corporal Shepherd, Corporal Toombs, fall in at the double!" I heard Sergeant Fergus bellow over the roar of the dropship's engines.
"Yes sir!" we shouted as both of us raced to undo our safety harnesses; moments later we found ourselves stumbling queasily down a cramped crew cabin towards our superior officer as the vehicle entered the planet's upper atmosphere.
"About time ladies," snapped the squad leader as he effortlessly rose to his feet in front of the faltering marines.
"I was about to do my nails and go to bed." As he said this, a withering grin spread across his scarred face; from the day I was forcefully signed up to the Alliance Navy by the company to the time I mustered out, I never once met someone quite like Sergeant Fergus of the Fifth Fleet marines. An old school soldier in every sense of the word, he had fought his way through nearly every major Alliance engagement in the last thirty years, including the First Contact War and now he was stuck with a pair of inexperienced NCOs who couldn't even seem to under their safety harnesses properly.
"But since you're here we better get down to business." Even as the words were leaving his mouth, the sergeant was silently tapping away at his omni-tool with an outstretched trigger finger. "As you pair greenhorns probably already don't know, we're in the middle of a rapid deployment to the planet Akuze to find out what the hell is going on down there. The bulk of our unit is being dropped into the main colony by navy air unit's." We both nodded in cold agreement, since we'd both been at the briefing only half an hour earlier.
"So were we, but shit changers." The hairs on the back of my neck stuck up at hearing this.
"Our ship in orbit has picked up a weak emergency signal coming from a small satellite settlement, about fifteen clicks south west of our original target. Captain Lee wants us to investigate and see what's going on."He suddenly glared in our general direction while saying this."And what the captain wants she gets. Do I make myself clear marines?" he roared.
"Sir yes sir!" raucously replied. This seemed to bring a slight smile to the old man's face, which quickly vanished as he got back to the task at hand.
"When the bird hits the ground I want the squad to split into two teams, Shepard, you take your half and search the settlement; there should be only about half a dozen houses at best from what our scans can pick up."The commanding officer glanced over at Toombs, who was standing beside me.
"Corporal, you and the rest are with me, I want an effective perimeter around the compound; do I make myself clear?" It wasn't really a question and we both knew it.
"Yes sir," my comrade eagerly replied, a split second later the co-pilot's voice smashed its way through the pleasant atmosphere which had developed in the cargo bay.
"ETA ten minutes and counting marines!"Sergeant Fergus spun around to face the entire squad as he heard this."You heard him marines, lock and load!" A nearly deafening response echoed back up the cabin towards him before the words had completely left his mouth."Damn straight." I heard him whisper as he pulled his helmet back down over his head.
The door dropped to reveal a landscape shrouded in think, orange dust as the engine kicked into reverse.
"Fire team two with me!" I bellowed mere moments after the vehicle came to a shuddering halt; the soldiers scrambled in behind me as our little group thundered towards the nearest objective.
"Everyone stay close." The order hung like cold morning porridge in my mouth as the door to the first building gave way under the weight of my boot."Search the dwelling!"They spread out to cover every inch of the structure, but even this didn't seem to be enough as all they found was dust and desolation.
"Next building move!" I barked, in a calculated attempt to distract my men from the unnerving atmosphere which seemed to be permeating in from every angle, but as time went on all we could find in the ghostly village was desolation and despair, as every subsequent installation turned up empty.
"Where did everyone go?" questioned a private standing a couple of metres behind me.
"I don't know but I'm going to find out." I retorted as the last target came into view, it appeared to be the main faculty building in the settlement and unsurprisingly had a second level due to its importance.
"Listen up marines; this is what we going to do, I want a total sweep of that installation, no cock ups, do I make myself clear!"A bellow of "yes sirs" echo down my earpiece as our little group stormed the final residence. After several minutes we eventually found something, and whatever it implied was extremely disconcerting.
"What do you make of it, sir?" enquires one of my subordinates as he gently poked the emergency beacon with the tip of his boot.
"Hell if I know," I replied."But the Sergeant needs to see this." Everyone nodded in silent agreement at this decision; after all, it seemed the most sensible thing to do."Sergeant Fergus, do you copy?" I politely demand into my mouthpiece. A split second later an all too familiar voice snapped back at me through the wireless feed.
"I copy greenhorn, no need to shout; what's the situation?" I paused briefly as I silently thought out the reply in my mind; unsurprisingly this didn't go down with my superior officer too well.
"Corporal, respond!" he bellowed over the head set, much to the cringing of my damaged eardrums.
"The entire settlements abandoned sir; no one's been here for several days judging by the amount of dust residue build u." I heard him curse on the line as I continued my field report."We did manage to discover the emergency beacon in one of the buildings, but something is really off sir." This statement seemed to cause the Sergeant to focus back into the topic at hand.
"Explain?" he enquired in flustered tones.
"It looks like the signal emitter has been tampered with to only release onto a low bandwidth setting." Unsurprisingly, this didn't improve my commanding officer's mood at all.
"Theories corporal!" he demanded, I desperately attempted to recall what I'd been taught about signal strengths at the Academy.
"If I had to guess sir, I would say that it was to make the emergency transmission look like it came from relatively old equipment, like the kinds of things that a start-up colony such as this would have."
"The transmitter isn't old?" my Sergeant enquired, only this time there was an uncertain note in his voice that I didn't recognize.
"No sir, this thing is brand new; it still has some of the warning label stuck on it." That was all Sergeant Fergus needed to hear for him to make up his mind.
"All marines fall back to the LZ, on the double!" he bellowed over the entire wireless network.
"You heard the man!" I roared as my squad frantically sprinted towards the edge of the settlement; we never reached it.
"What the hell is happening?" shouted a terrified trooper as the very ground beneath us began to tremble and shake.
"Shut up and run!" I yelled as we court sight of the other fire team coming out of cover towards us; then the world shaken to its core as a humungous tower of earth was rocketed into the sky.
"Incoming!" Cpl Toombs bellowed as something straight out of a horror film rose up in front of us.
"Open fire!" I can't seem to remember who gave that particular order, but all of the sudden the very air around us seemed to ignite as every conceivable firearm was unleashed upon the monstrosity that had materialised as if from nowhere.
"Pour it on marines" roared the Sergeant as he came thundering towards our position, but this only seemed to piss it off as it slashed a gigantic claw through the entirety of fire team one, bits of bodies, bright blood and broken equipment were sent somersaulting in all directions.
"Shit!" screamed a private as the monstrosity turned its unwavering attention onto us.
"Spread out!" I frantically ordered as the thing reared its head back as if it were going to be sick; in a way it was, as it unleashed a bubbling cauldron of bile towards what was left of the squad; the moment that it hit, I had a stomach churning feeling that it was bad news. Seconds later as the green ooze eat its way through a nearby rock my fears were wholly justified.
"It spites acid, don't let the stuff touch you!" I yelled as the monstrous opponent unleashed a second, long range attack, only this time it didn't miss. The fluid slammed home into a couple of my team who weren't fast enough on the uptake, and all I could do was watch as the concentrated liquid, seemingly with effortless ease, eat its way through their hard suits and into the soft tissue underneath. After a short moment I was forced to turn off my wireless receiver, which was becoming rapidly overwhelmed by the pair's unearthly shrieks as the venom dissolved them alive (or that's what I told myself, anyway).
"Stay focused marines!" angrily shouted Sergeant Fergus as he unloaded what seemed like an entire rack of missiles into the thing's neck, which definitely seemed to hurt the coleuses because moments later it suddenly hurtled back underground away from view.
"Toombs, are you still alive?" I shout as the surviving members of the squad nervously glanced around in dazed bewilderment.
"It's not over yet Greenhorn!" Yelled my commanding officer as he slammed a fresh salvo of rockets into his heavy weapon; unsurprisingly the Sergeant was right, for moments later the thing came roaring after us once more This time it seemed to have learned, for instead of erupting nearby and showering us with acid the monster dug its way directly beneath our feet.
"Move!" someone shouted, but by then it was already too late. It sent most of the survivors hurtling through the air at bone shattering speeds, myself included; the ground rose up to meet me like an old friend, but it hit like an ex-lover, the sudden shift in momentum sending my broken form somersaulting through the air until I slammed bodily down into the hard earth, the world went bright white as pain overwhelmed me, my body felt numb (not a good sign) and I couldn't move my right arm or leg.
"Medic!" I screamed, but I must have realised that no one was coming. Something else had know that too, because out of the corner of my vision I spied the monstrosity turning its bulbous head towards me, leaning back as it built up pressure to unleash a final corrosive crescendo in my stranded direction.
"Time to did, Toddy," coolly whispered the unwanted watcher in the back of my mind.
"Time to die!" roared the voice, which had suddenly dropped in tone and with good reason as out of the misty haze barrelled the Sergeant holding his ever trusty missile launcher. The first two rockets slammed into the thing's face like an angry housewife, sending the prepared putrefying projectile splattering off course.
"What's wrong, freak?" laughed Fergus as the towering abomination spun around to face him.
"Do you want to live forever?" This particular statement seemed to enrage the opponent even more, as it throw back its head and unleashed a bloodcurdling roar that seemed to shake the very fibres of my foundation.
"Thought so," chuckled the officer as he calmly reached for a pair of anti-tank grenades strapped to his chest.
"Well, are you going to eat me or not?" shouted the lone figure as he charges suicidally towards the mountainous outline; it eat him unsurprising, with an almost unmistakable air of gratification if I might add, which duly dissolved in a rainstorm of bleeding crimson and bodily bits that seemed to shroud the surrounding world form view as the heavy duty ordinance exploded in thing's mouth; but this was all rather second stage to me as my vision suddenly crashed as black shadows rushed up from all around.
"Time to sleep, Toddy, time to die" softly muttered the voice as an all-too-familiar coldness took hold.
The interrogator glanced up from where he'd been silently listening to the unfolding descriptive show, an almost unreadable expression seemed to flash across his usually ice cold features.
"Sounds like hell," he politely stated.
"You've got no idea," quietly replied the commander as he allowed himself to slip back into reality.
"No I don't, that why we're doing this," coldly snapped Mr Smith as he gestured to someone out of view.
"So what happened next?" the jailer politely demanded.
"I remember waking up," stated Shepherd as he continued to stare unwaveringly at the ceiling tiles.
"In an Alliance hospital?" came the enquiry, which generated a silent denial from the restraint detainee.
"Where then?" there was a long pause as if the storyteller was thinking over the details in his mind before continuing.
"I woke up initially in a faster than light spaceship which was hurtling towards Earth." The memory suddenly demanded an entrance as they forced their way to the front of his vision.
Hazy images and shadowy forms; they were the only things that could be seen out of his ruined vision as he was dragged rudely backing into the waking world.
"Were in heaven's name is that heavy strength medical-gel!" frustratingly shouted a voice seemingly hidden from view.
"We ran out ten minutes ago. We're down to using standard strength sachets and tourniquets to stop the bleeding." This particular remark didn't go down all too well with someone, as moments later there came a noticeable thud, that shook the entire compartment.
"Get it done!" growled a deep voice that was all-too-familiar, but at the same time alien, to the ruined man.
"But the ship is still three hours away from Earth and the medical bay is almost exhausted of artificial blood!" nervously explained the first voice as a hand suddenly came into blurry view.
"Then drop him into a drug induced coma and lower his heart rate to stop the bleeding!" ordered the invisible speaker as his tone took on a threatening tone.
"But the gel won't be as effective with reduced blood flow and the acid burns are extremely extensive to his right side!" There was an unnerving silence as the unseen observer absorbed this information.
"Don't make me repeat myself again doctor," the phantom quietly stated as it walked softly away, judging by the disappearing footsteps.
"Yes sir" whispered the presumed specialist as there came a sharp sensation from the base of his neck.
"Injecting the Propofol into the spinal cord now." The darkness closed in once more, and the only thing that could be heard was the thumb, thumb, thumb of a human heartbeat.
"Not meaning to sound rude Commander Shepard, but you have the worst kind of luck." The comment was wearily meet with sad agreement from the prisoner, who turned his head to glance into to a shady corner.
"Not going to argue with you there, Mr Smith," muttered the reluctant visitor as braced himself for the next chapter in his story.
"I was brought out of the coma in a Synthetic Insights recuperation ward." The man flexed his cold digits as he remembered this."The first thing I noticed was that everyone was attempting to avoid meeting my gaze and at the time I wondered why the staff where being so elusive," The marine chuckled sadly as he tapped a finger against the metalwork of the chair.
"It wasn't until I tried to shade my eyes from the glare of a medical lamp that I realised what they done to me" He glanced down at the gleaming, carbon fibre coated prosthetic that stretched all the way to his right collarbone.
"I remember screaming like some kind of wounded beast as I attempted to leave my sick bed."An unreadable expression seemed to slowly rise its way to the fore of the man's face as the memories brought up unwanted emotions.
"It was only when the bed covers were off that I saw the true scale of my "life-saving operation," for lack a better term." Shepard grudgingly allowed his gaze to drift ever downwards towards the myriad amounts of cold, hard prosthetics that had replaced both sets of arms and legs as he continued talking.
"They had to knock me out eventually, by all accounts." He turned to look at his jailer as he said this. "I was attempting to rip off my own arm the doctors' said; it's all a bit hazy to tell you the truth." Mr Smith silently nodded in acceptance as he furiously typed away on his notepad.
"How much of you did they augment, if you don't mind me asking?" Enquired the interrogator in gentle tones.
"Including my visible augmentations?" The man paused as if in deep thought before answering.
"I would say about two thirds. I'm not counting the cloned organs and the like that were added due to blunt force trauma received from the thresher maw attack, by the way." This remark brought his unwanted companion to a grounding halt, which was noticeable by the way that he abruptly removed the personal secretary from view.
"That breaks a number of galactic laws on both species enhancement technology as well as the legal restrictions of transhumansim, which were agreed by both the System Alliance and the Citadel Council." This didn't have the intended effect as the restrained individual gave his waiting warden an unbelievably sceptical look before interrupting.
"I read those particular laws that you mention, Mr Smith, they break down into three main points. The first, no individual can have more than one third of their body mass augmented either by genetics or robotics, unless it would lead to an improved quality of life due to a pre-existing medical condition; second point, no institution or employer can discriminate against those that aren't augmented; and finally point three, which states that any and all enhancements done to an individual must be carried out with that individuals conscious legal consent." The commander pause to catch his breath, which allowed his interrogator to get a word in edgeways.
"And Synthetic Insights broke rule number three when they robotically augmented you without your express permission." But even as the well suited man said this, he could tell that the answer would not be pleasant.
"Didn't I already tell you that I signed away my mind, body and soul to the company?" the prisoner muttered sadly as he locked eyes with the interrogator.
"The contract," breathed the jailer as reality struck home.
"Well done, Mr Smith," the forlorn figure whispered as he continued his tale.
"I read back through that document while I was in rehab. In the section under defaulting, it clearly states that in the event that the signature owner fails to meet the pre-stated standards required in the document at any time, then the corporation has every legal power to move to protect or recover its investment in the individual." Shepard finished this particular statement with an extremely pained expression on his face.
"I was later told by the company director that Synthetic Insights wasn't going to allow their financial investment in me to go down the drain due to the crippling nature of my injuries sustained on Akuze." He chuckled bitterly as he said this.
"He said that the doctor had already surgically removed my shattered right limbs by the time that the board was assembled to discuss the matter, and it was decided by them to complete the amputations so that I could have full functionality of my body with company prosthetics." he looked up at the shrouded figure, allowing the light to bounce off the optical implants that glinted like gold in his eyes.
"Most people seem to forget that Synthetic Insights made nearly all of their money before the development of V.I software in the field of mechanical augmentations. Even today, they're one of the largest manufacturers of artificial limbs in the galaxy, both for military and civilian sectors." He paused after saying this, as if chewing over an idea in some far corner of his mind.
"Do you really want me to continue explaining my past to you, Mr Smith?" the commander politely enquired, but all he got for his question was a vague wave of the man's hand to continue talking.
"Ok, but it only gets worse from here." The unnerving smile which followed the statement even brought a chill to the official looking figure's spine, and for good reason.
Thanks you for reading this, please leave comments, no one has yet :(
(Sincerely Gods-own)
