Author's Note:

Yes, believe it or not, this is the second chapter of Heroes of Future Past! As I explained once upon a time, this fanfic was put on the proverbial back burner due to writer's block while other fics—A Naïve and Sentimental Hero, The Hero Rises and Aria's Lament—had their time in the spotlight. But now Heroes of Future Past is back—and expanded to three chapters!

As many readers and reviewers have guessed, I drew some additional inspiration for Heroes of Future Past from the TV series Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis. I just didn't mention it initially to avoid spoiling the twist at the end of the first chapter.

Please note that this chapter will be narrated from the perspective of Stephen Shepard—a.k.a. Dad. Also, there will be some bouncing back and forth between different time periods. Time jumps aside, this fanfic is intended to take place before Priority: Thessia (Chapters 41 and 42 of The Hero Rises).

Chapter 2: Tempus Fugit

Charles wasn't as surprised as you might expect. I guess that made sense. He did receive a data dump from a Prothean beacon into his brain—and if that was anything like downloading data or software patches into a greybox, then it's incredible he's still alive. He'd fought a wide and bewildering range of adversaries, including mercenaries, geth, rachni, Collectors and Reapers. And his crew included what could very well be the last living Prothean. For anyone else, this would be mind-boggling. For my son, it was just another Monday.

My son. I never really thought I deserved to call him that. Mostly because I felt completely out of my depth. It's been that way since Hannah first told me she was pregnant. She was excited. So was I, at first. But the more I thought about it, the more panicked I got. What did I know about parenting or raising a child?

Some people admit to feeling the same thing, only to have everything change when their son or daughter is finally born. They experience some revelation that makes everything better or gives them the confidence to bear their newfound responsibility. Me? I felt sick. I still didn't know how to be a father. I still didn't know how to raise a son. I just knew that somehow, some way, I'd screw up.

Deep down, I think that's why I kept accepting all those consulting jobs, despite the growing reservations about the ethics and morality of what I was doing. Not because I could tinker with cutting-edge technology, push engineering principles to the next level, or work in an environment where my strengths and talents were recognized. No, I kept going back because it offered a refuge. I could bury myself in work and forget about being a parent. I could run away from the most important role of my life and my feelings of inadequacy.

Oh, I'm not proud of that. If there is a Hell, I'm sure there's a corner set aside for guys like me. But I can't deny that I ran from my responsibilities as a father whenever the opportunity arose. That includes my decision to destroy my work on greyboxes and go into hiding. Going on the run meant I wouldn't have to be a father in Charles' life.

There were lots of ways I could justify the choice I made that day. I could say it was for everyone's good. That my research was being abused and I had to stop. How I monitored my family from afar rather than cutting my ties entirely. But the end result was the same: I've spent my life—my son's life—running away. Every time it mattered. And by the time I realized that, I almost didn't make it back.

Part of me still couldn't believe how my son reacted so well to my return. Oh he was mad—and he had every right to be. He clearly had so many issues that had been building up inside him, and who could blame him? The things he said… he said he could've taken his own life. His own life! He must have been in so much pain and anguish for all these years to even consider such an act. I caused that with my absence, my failure to be there when he needed me. The fact that he grew up to be the man I saw sitting beside me, the inspiration and leader for so many people, was a miracle. The fact that he chose to listen to my story, one I had been waiting to tell for so long, was another one. I couldn't take credit for any of that. But I could take advantage of this second chance, even if I didn't deserve it.

Charles finally realized that his mouth was hanging open. He closed it, licked his lips and gathered his thoughts. "So Javik wasn't the first Prothean you've ever met?"

"Is that his name?"

"Yeah," he nodded sheepishly. "Sorry. I guess I forgot to make introductions."

I waved his apology off. "Even if you did, I probably would've forgotten. Memory's the first to go, right?"

"That's what they say."

"'They' say a lot of things."

"Yes, they do."

"Um, anyway…"

"Right." I shook my head before I could get sidetracked again and sat down beside him. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. Strange that I had spent all this time dreaming about returning to my son, but none about what I would say when the day finally came. "As I was saying, I did encounter Protheans before your friend Javik," I began. "Only it was about fifty thousand years ago…"

His name was Ksad, Charles.

I later learned his full name was Ksad Ishan; one of the Prothean Empire's most respected scientists and Chief Overseer of this facility on Ilos. To me, though, he was just Ksad.

At the time, I thought he was trying to go easy on me. That he didn't want to give too much information at once and overwhelm me. Which would have been fair: I was really confused. Looking back, I think he was just a humble man—Prothean, whatever—who didn't want to parade his titles or accomplishments around. Which was pretty amazing considering he was dying.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We exchanged introductions. Ksad confirmed that he was, in fact, a Prothean. He also told me about the fascinating ability of his people to 'read' the genetic memory of other species, which allowed him to understand my language and talk to me. After grilling him on the kinds of things he could pick up using this talent, my next question was "Where am I?"

"Ilos. In one of the underground catacombs common to this continent."

"Right where I started, in other words."

"Same place, yes. But not the same time."

I stared at Ksad blankly. "What?"

"Based on quantum dating, I'd say you travelled forty-nine thousand, two hundred and seventy nine years into the past—your past, that is. Plus or minus a few months, of course."

"Of course," I managed, as if we were talking about simple statistical analysis and not time travel. Time travel. For real, not in some vid. Time travel. Hoo boy.

"So, um," I tried for casual nonchalance. "If I went back in time about fifty thousand years, that would make you a Prothean."

"Just so," he nodded.

"Any other Protheans hiding about?"

"If you had arrived last week, I would have said yes. I might have even introduced you to them. Though perhaps I would have given you fair warning first: some of my colleagues can be arrogant. Could have been arrogant, I should say. They're gone now."

He went on to explain what you already knew. How centuries ago, the Reapers had begun invading the galaxy and slaughtering every organic civilization that existed. How the Prothean Empire, at the height of its glory and power, had failed to stop it. How the Protheans on Ilos had been spared because the records of their facility had been destroyed during the initial series of attacks.

Ksad explained that the staff had quickly concluded that they could not hope to defeat the Reapers. They could only wait them out. To that end, they put themselves into cryogenic suspension until the Reapers had finished and left. Vigil was tasked to wake them up when the Reapers were gone.

Unfortunately, it took centuries for the Reapers to leave and the Ilos facility simply did not have enough power to maintain so many stasis pods for so long. In an effort to conserve power, Vigil began deactivating the pods one by one. By the time the Reapers left, only a dozen Protheans—the top scientific minds—were left. When I marvelled at how Vigil was capable of making such a decision on his own, Ksad grew very still. After a while, he quietly admitted that he had anticipated certain worst-case scenarios and added certain protocols to Vigil's programming to cover that eventuality. He never imagined that Vigil would go so far to carry out his directives. If he was human, I'd say he was feeling terribly guilty about what he'd done. But who's to say guilt was a strictly human feeling? There was certainly a poignant silence that lingered for some time.

Once the scientists had awoken, they began to see if any other pods were viable. They soon discovered that most of the pods had been deactivated—and the Protheans stored within had died. Several more pods had readings that suggested the viability of life, but time after time those signals proved to be errors and glitches. After the 374th 'fatal error,' the scientists gave up.

In any event, it was obvious that the Protheans as a species were doomed. Twelve Protheans were not enough to repopulate their people, much less the Empire. So they decided to rededicate their lives to ensuring that future species would not suffer their fate.

One of the goals of the Ilos facility was to research mass relay technology. To that end, they'd created a pair of prototype mass relays, independent of the mass relay network that spanned the galaxy. One of them was situated on the Citadel, the centre of galactic power for the Prothean Empire—and for countless species over countless cycles, as intended by the Reapers. The other relay was here on Ilos. The scientists had determined that the keepers, the indigenous species on the Citadel, had been engineered or reprogrammed to maintain the Citadel's systems—until they received a signal from the Reapers. Once they got the signal, they would turn the Citadel itself into a mass relay, opening it to dark space where the Reapers waited and allowing them to enter the galaxy and begin the next invasion.

The Protheans had also discovered that the keepers had evolved so they responded to signals sent by the Citadel, not by the Reapers themselves. Normally that wouldn't be an issue: the Reapers would simply send the signal to the Citadel, the Citadel would relay that signal to the keepers and the keepers would activate the Citadel's mass relay function. But if the Protheans could alter the signal sent from the Citadel to the keepers, it was possible that they could short-circuit that entire process.

At this point, I couldn't help but blurt out the correction that the Reapers didn't send the signal from dark space. Rather, they had left one of their own behind as a vanguard to monitor the technological progress of the various species and send the signal when it judged enough progress had been made. But I digress.

After successfully activating their miniature relay, which they called the Conduit, Ksad's colleagues departed for the Citadel. Unfortunately, the relay was in its prototype stages and only worked in one direction. Which meant that, unless they could find a ship or means to leave the Citadel, they would be stuck there to die. But they were willing to make that sacrifice, given that their Empire and people were already in their dying days anyway, if it meant that future cycles would be spared their fate.

Ksad, however, had chosen to stay behind. He had wanted to add some additional programming to Vigil's code so it could provide information for any Protheans who might somehow make it to Ilos—a Hail Mary if I ever heard one, but what could it hurt at this point? He also had the hopes of using Vigil as a time capsule for future cycles. Finally, there was the slight chance that the Conduit would not work, in which case someone had to devise one last plan to thwart the Reapers.

As it turned out, he had just finished inputting his updates and was wondering what to do next when the time machine materialized out of thin air. He approached the machine, managed to open it up, saw my unconscious body in the cockpit and brought me to a more comfortable place until I woke up.

Now that he had explained his side of the story, it was my turn. Not that it lasted very long. When Ksad had 'read' me, he had learned all sorts of things. He was fascinated to hear that so many species that the Protheans had monitored, protected and—apparently in some cases—nurtured had progressed to the point where they made it to space and were now travelling amongst the stars. He couldn't believe that the majority of those species existed semi-autonomously under a central authority, rather than a single interstellar empire like the Protheans. He was overjoyed to hear that his colleagues had succeeded in delaying the Reapers' next invasion for so long and that Vigil had helped you thwart their next attempt. Nevertheless, he was saddened to hear that, despite all our accomplishments and the efforts of his people, the Reapers had returned.

"Which is why I'm sure you'll understand my desire to return to the future, to my people," I said. "To my family. The time machine may be my only chance to return home."

"Yes, I do understand," he replied. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Well now. That was easy.

So that's how I wound up back in the underground chamber where I first found the time machine. Only this time I was about fifty thousand years—I wasn't going to be as exact as Ksad—in the past. With a real, breathing, honest-to-gosh Prothean helping me figure out how to get the damn thing working again.

You see, Charles, the power core had been depleted during the trip back in time. Which meant the time machine was a very large and high-tech paperweight. Ksad had a few ideas on how that happened. Trying to figure out what he was saying, the ideas that he threw about only to reject just as quickly, the underlying principles and concepts… I prided myself as being fairly knowledgeable, but I don't think I understood more than one out of every three words. It was quite humbling, actually.

After an hour of this, he saw my confusion and… well, if he didn't dumb it down for my benefit, he certainly began explaining things in clearer detail. Between the two of us, we spent the next few days cobbling together some kind of generator. It didn't look as clean and streamlined as most of the Prothean tech I had seen during my brief time there, but it looked like it would do the trick. Anyway, we brought it to the chamber, pried off an exterior panel from the ship and plugged the generator directly into the power core.

Various panels on the core lit up as it hummed to life. We burst into cheers. Ksad started talking excitedly, speculating on how long it would take to power up.

I was about to join in the conversation—or at least turn it from a monologue to a dialogue. Then I saw an arc of electricity crackle over the core. It came and went so fast, I thought I was imagining things. "Um… Ksad? Did you see that?"

He didn't pay any attention to me, too engrossed in zero point energy or something like that.

Another arc danced from the core. Okay, I told myself. I definitely wasn't imagining it. "Ksad?"

Still nothing.

By this point, there were a lot of erratically blinking lights. The soft, gentle hum that had heralded us when the core first powered up had now become an alarmingly insistent whine. And there was now a steady sizzle of energy dancing all over the core. "HEY! KSAD!" I shouted.

He finally stopped chattering away and turned to me. I pointed to the core as sweat broke out on my forehead. "I think we've got a problem."

A few seconds later, I found out how much of an understatement that was.

With a sharp crack, a beam of brilliant blue light burst from the centre of the power core, narrowly missing me. Then another beam flashed out. And another. We all slowly edged away, instinctively avoiding that particular area.

The fourth beam hit a nearby crate, bathing it in radiation from one end to another. Nothing happened for the first couple seconds.

Then it… changed.

Before our eyes, half of the crate melted, sloughing off and pooling onto the floor like melted ice cream. The other half changed colour, turning darker and redder with each passing second—it took me a moment to realize it was rusting right in front of me.

Then the energy beams began to blast from the core in earnest. And I ran.

The direction of the beams seemed random, as did the interval between them, but the effects were undeniable. I saw a beam carve a deep gouge in the wall. Another hit a crate and made it vanish into thin air. Yet another hit the ration pack I had been munching on and turned it into melting, rotting sludge—something that, up until that point, I would have sworn was impossible. An errant beam ran over a nearby chair and desk, taking them away in a blinding flash of light before returning them… fused together.

I just kept running. I had almost reached the exit…

…then I felt something hit me…

…my insides suddenly felt like they were being torn apart…

…and the world vanished in a blaze of blue light…

When the light faded away and my eyes cleared, I found myself in a very different place.

There was no time machine, for starters. No power core shooting out beams of death. No extraneous pieces of equipment. No Ksad. I was underground, for what that was worth. At least, I think I was underground. Everything was pitch black, you see. I couldn't even see my hand when I waved it in front of my face.

My head jerked upward as a deep percussive noise rumbled overhead. I froze in place as several more percussive booms rang out. Then there was a pause. Taking a deep breath, I slowly lowered my head—only to jerk it back up and freeze as a new noise reached my ears. It sounded like something falling down. And because I was effectively blind as a bat, I couldn't see squat. Even if the noise was a portent of something dangerous, I wouldn't even know where to run.

Silence came back. I slowly exhaled.

Then I heard a crackling noise

I flinched as a crack of light burst through. It was small, almost like a pinhole at first. But then it grew. I watched it spread like some kind of crude animation on a vid-screen, zig-zagging back and forth before splitting at some invisible fork and continuing to grow. Before I knew it, the one hole had spread into a veritable spider-web of cracks…

Cracks.

Aw, crap.

With a loud thunderclap, the 'ceiling,' for lack of a better word, collapsed above me. I covered my head with my arms, closed my eyes and ducked as a storm of boulders rained down. Miraculously, none of them hit me.

Maybe it was my imagination, I could've sworn I heard someone laughing over the roar. I chanced a look upward and started as I saw someone falling. Whatever had been going on up above, it had caused the rock to collapse, allowing the ambient light from above to filter down. Now that I could see what I was doing, I braced myself, gripped an outcrop of rock the best I could and reached out…

…and almost got jerked off my feet. The laws of physics—namely gravity and momentum—came this close to overwhelming me and pulling both of us into the abyss. But I managed to recover in the nick of time. "I gotcha!" I cried out.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled with every ounce of strength I possessed. Somehow, I managed to get the person back on the ledge with me.

"Hi, Dad. So this is where you saved me."

…

You have no idea how shocked I was to hear that, Charles. After years of being separated from you, to hear your voice again—to see you once again—was almost more than I could bear. I stared at you in astonishment for what seemed like an eternity.

Then what you said finally sunk in. "You… you knew I was going to be here?" I sputtered.

You nodded. "I didn't know on which planet we'd cross paths again, but yeah. I knew. You told me."

"'Again'," I said. "So we've met before. But… I don't remember."

"That's because it hasn't happened for you," you smiled. "Not yet. Not for you. But for me… it's like it happened yesterday."

Because it probably did, I realized. I must have been struck by some kind of temporal energy from the time machine's power core. That energy, by luck or by fate, had brought me forward into the future, to the right time and place to save your life. And you knew that—because of this conversation we're having now. Just a little hint of what's to come, Charles. Um, maybe don't put that in any kind of official record. You don't want to screw up the timeline. Trust me.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was talking about how I realized that I had just saved you from certain death and, by doing so, was finally reunited with you.

"Outstanding!" I burst out, matching your smile. "What more can you tell me? Did I—"

"Look, I'd love to stay and chat," he interrupted, "but we'll do that later. For you, I guess. Earlier for me, later for you."

I felt a sharp twinge in my side. Muscle cramp, I thought. Great. Just what I needed.

You looked up, staring at wherever you'd fallen from with concern. "I gotta get back up there and…"

If you said anything else, I didn't catch it. My stomach was seizing up—no. No, it felt like every organ in my body was being pulled in a thousand different directions. My hands tingled.

"Dad?" you asked in concern.

"I can feel it," I gasped. "I can feel it. It's happening."

"What's happe—wait. Now?"

"Yeah," I nodded. This was it. There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn't have the time. So I had to boil it down to what was most important: "Now. I… listen to me, Charles. In case I don't get a chance to say this, in case I forget to say it when we meet again, I just want you to know: I… am so proud of you. I always have been."

Everything started to flicker around me, an effect that quickly escalated to a jarring vibration that I could feel in my bones. I was about to disappear at any moment. I could feel it. But I hadn't left yet. So I had just enough time to squeeze out one last thing:

"Remember that, Charles: I am proud of you."

I winced as a particularly vicious lance of pain stabbed into my side. A groan escaped my lips.

And then my eyes were filled with a blinding blue light…

When my vision cleared up, I found myself back in the underground cave with the time machine.

The time machine! Still remembering how it had inadvertently sent me on that short little jaunt to the future, I whirled around until I could see it. To my relief, it was powered down. I guess Ksad had managed to disconnect it from the generator before it could cause any more—

—Ksad! With a start, I saw him lying down on his back. I scrambled over to see him. "Ksad!" I yelled. "Are you okay?"

The strain in his voice answered my question, though I did sense a wry undertone of humour. "That would depend on your definition of 'okay,' Stephen."

Once I got closer, I saw what he was talking about. The bottom half of his robes—oh, did I mention he was wearing robes like some kind of monk earlier?—was soaked in blood. "What happened?" I asked.

"The time machine 'happened," Ksad replied.

"One of those beams hit you," I guessed.

"It did. Though I feel it would be more accurate to say that it filleted me."

Ouch.

"While I was trying to shut down our makeshift generator, the beam hit me just below my ribs and carved its way down to my groin. My guts have been chopped into ribbons and will undoubtedly begin to decompose in short order. The massive internal bleeding has caused my blood pressure to plummet—which is why heart is under such terrible strain.

"Now I can use my biotics to keep the remaining tubes and connections stabilized, but eating would be next to impossible. Given the extent of my injuries, any food I consumed would probably rot anyway. I suppose I can still drink a little, but I would undoubtedly die of blood loss or infection long before I die of starvation."

I felt myself drop to the floor in shock. Somehow, I managed to assume some kind of seating position. "Ksad… I… I'm sorry."

"There's hardly a need to apologize, Stephen. If anything, I owe you an apology."

I stared at him blankly. "What?"

"It was my hope that once we had powered up the time machine, that I could use it to go back in time and warn the Empire of the coming Reaper threat. With the knowledge I had accumulated over the years, I suspect my people could do a far better job of fighting the Reapers. Perhaps we could even win. Of course, the changes that would cause in the timeline would alter your future in turn. There was no guarantee that it would reunite you with your family again. But I confess I did not really care. I placed my desires over your needs. For that, I sincerely apologize."

Maybe I should have been mad at him. Furious at this apparent betrayal. But if I was in his shoes, would I have done anything differently? If it was the Alliance and the rest of Citadel space that had been wiped out, and I suddenly had a time machine that could offer a do-over, would I really pass it up? Besides, he was no longer in any kind of shape to carry out his plans. Looking in his eyes—all four of them—I could see that he knew the same thing.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked. "Do you need any rest?"

Ksad gave me a wan smile. "I will have all the rest I need very shortly. In the meantime, we need to get you home."

Well, it wasn't quite as simple as that.

First, I had to run to Ksad's quarters—after a few failed attempts where I got turned around and hopelessly lost—to get the Prothean equivalent of a medkit. He took enough drugs—or painkillers—to stabilize himself. Then we got down to work.

While I was off visiting the future, Ksad had been doing a lot more than just shutting down the generator and keeping his insides on the inside. He'd run an analysis on the power core and determined why it was… leaking radiation, for lack of a better phrase. Long story short: containment fields weren't aligned and there were some microscopic cracks in the power core. Once we fixed that, we plugged the generator back in and turned it on. This time, the power core started charging up without giving us any unpleasant—or, in Ksad's case, terminal—surprises.

But that wasn't all. He'd also taken a ton of readings on the time machine—both from when it first popped up in the cavern and during our initial power-up attempt when the damn thing went berserk. Based on his findings, he believed he had figured out how to attune the time machine's fields so it would go where—and when—the user desired.

Within a few days, we were done. The power core was fully charged. All systems seemed to be in the green. And I'd managed to set the controls to take me where I wanted to go.

Which left me with one last task.

Ksad had put up a good front, but he was definitely on his last legs. His skin had turned a sickly pale hue. At least one of his four eyes were glazed over at any particular time. And we had to replace his bandages several times because they kept getting soaked through with blood, pus and… other things. "I believe this is where we say farewell," he croaked.

"Yeah," I swallowed. "I… I wish things had turned out differently."

"So do I," he rasped. "Then again… maybe not. I spent the last years of my life accepting the fact that my people would go extinct. That our time in this galaxy had passed. I spent that time working to ensure that the next cycle would be better. That the people or peoples who grew up to travel amongst the stars and inherit our legacy would be in a better position to fight the Reapers when the time came. If what I've done in the past couple days was merely the continuation of that, then I am content."

I found myself humbled by how serenely he'd accepted everything that had happened. How I wished I had the eloquence to say what I wanted to say. But words have never been my forte. Instead, I held out my hand. He took it. Read me one last time. Sensed my thoughts and feelings, which spoke more eloquently than any speeches I could offer.

"It was a privilege to meet you, Ksad," I finally said.

"Likewise, Stephen. Now go. Your family is waiting for you."

With one final nod, I entered the time machine, hit the hatch controls, and turned around to face him. To cast my eyes on a living, breathing being from the past one last time. Once the hatch was closed, I went to the cockpit. I did one last status check and double-checked the coordinates in time and space. Everything was operating within what Ksad and I had determined were normal parameters. I was as ready as I'd ever be. So I initiated the transit sequence.

I heard the time machine power up. Saw everything outside the cockpit begin to vibrate, randomly flickering in and out of existence. My stomach twisted into knots.

Then the world disappeared in an azure flash.

The first thing I did when my vision cleared and my stomach stopped turning itself inside out was to check where I was. When I found out, I was… overcome with so much emotion. Relief that I'd made it. Astounded that the calculations Ksad and I had made were accurate after all. Overjoyed that I got it right on the first try.

Why, you ask? Because I'd arrived in another cave—I knew that because a nearby tunnel allowed some wan light to stream in, unlike the sealed cavern on Ilos where I had started from. More importantly, the communications satellite I'd managed to connect to—I was honestly surprised I could get any kind of reception, but I wasn't complaining, confirmed that I'd arrived on Mindoir—I had been sent here in 2164 on another job, and had explored this very cave during one of the few times that I hadn't been working, eating or sleeping. More important was when I had arrived: 2166. I picked that year for a specific reason. After all, it was the year I'd gone on the run. The year I abandoned you and caused you so much unnecessary pain and grief. But not anymore. This time, I would do better. This time, I had a plan.

Over the next few months, I hacked into online scientific journals and submitted academic papers as part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to discredit greyboxes. Some of them warned that greyboxes could cause undesirable and possibly dangerous personality changes—up to and including overwriting the user's original personality entirely.

Others warned that the greybox was incompatible with human physiology, and attempts to use them would overload the user's brains, leading to brain-death or insanity.

Still others warned that prolonged use would cause memory loss. This amnesia could be anterograde—the loss of the ability to create new memories following the activation of the greybox—or the more commonly known retrograde form. Either way, the effects would be progressive, cumulative and ultimately irreversible.

While the papers covered different conditions, they all had the same theme: that greyboxes had a limited ability to retain memories and information. That they were rife with errors and serious side-effects—the kind that would render the user a drooling vegetable. My hope was that if I could disprove greyboxes as a viable technology, then maybe their use would be discouraged. Maybe the Alliance wouldn't bother using me to weaponize them. Maybe I wouldn't have to go on the run.

The only problem I could see was that the resulting change in the timeline could wipe me out from existence. I mean, if I altered history so I never left, then I wouldn't spend a few decades scuttling from bolthole to bolthole, which meant I would never discover the time machine on Ilos, which meant I would never go back in time to meet Ksad, which meant I would never travel forward in time. Oddly enough, I was okay with that. If giving you a family again meant that I—or this version of me—never existed, I was okay with that. Making you happy again was all that mattered.

It wasn't until the third or fourth e-mail that everything started to change. The light panels providing illumination began to randomly flicker. With each flicker, something changed. The computer screens displayed different menus. The lights on the console had a different arrangement. The seat next me swivelled to a different position. Even the rocks outside seemed to… to move. Faster and faster the changes occurred.

Then everything vanished in an explosion of light…

"Dad!"

I jerked to a sitting position. My eyes popped open to see… you.

Well, a younger you. A twelve-year old you. Looking very impatient. "Dad," you cried—well, whined, actually. "Come on. It's time for you to make breakfast."

It was? It took a few seconds before I found the chronometer. It was… 0630?

"Come on!" Yes, you were definitely whining. "You said you'd make pancakes. And I've been waiting forever."

"You did make a promise," an amused voice said. A very familiar voice. I turned to my left and saw… your mother. God, it was… how long had it been since… I…

"Stephen," Hannah frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Um… yeah," I managed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Pancakes. Breakfast. Right. Pancakes, coming right up."

Being the very model of grace, I got my feet tangled in the bed sheets—because I was apparently in bed—and fell out onto the floor. I'll spare you the comedy of errors that played out between the bedroom and the kitchen, a farce that was extended because I didn't know where the hell the kitchen was. And I'll spare you the details on my laughable attempt at breakfast. Let's just say my first dozen pancakes were best suited for chinaware. Charred black chinaware.

It took me a while, but I eventually determined what had happened. It seemed that the 'other' me and the rest of the greybox team had read the anonymous articles and ran their own tests to duplicate the published findings. They didn't verify everything, which made sense considering some of my claims were very theoretical, but they managed to replicate enough data to confirm the serious risks of expanding the application and weaponization of greyboxes. The powers that be determined that further experimentation would not be a good use of resources and, ultimately, the project was shut down.

Without any further work, I went back home and basically became a stay-at-home dad. I was there when you came home from school. I helped you do your homework. I helped make meals depending on when your mother was working and apparently became a pretty decent cook—which was why you and Hannah were surprised when I botched the pancakes so spectacularly.

Anyway, the bottom line was that we were happy. The three of us, together. We were happy. So happy that when her term of service came to an end, your mother decided not to re-enlist. She managed to get herself an honourable discharge. Not that she would be twiddling her thumbs, mind you: she got herself hired as the deputy marshal of the Alliance farming colony on Mindoir. Where she was now residing, along with her son and husband. The latter being me. Well, this version of me. Complete with all my memories and experiences—the abandonment, the time travel, everything. Of all the scenarios that could have unfolded, this was not one that I had anticipated.

But maybe this was meant to be. Maybe the universe had decided that I had suffered enough. That I had learned my lesson. And maybe this was my reward: the right to reunite with my family. Who knew? I certainly wasn't going to question Providence.

So I settled down on Mindoir. Officially I became one of the colony's computer technicians. Not a supervisor or anything with any kind of seniority, mostly because I spent a lot of my time fixing random things that broke down—and on a remote colony, there's always something breaking down. But I was content with my lot in life, as my job really was secondary in importance. For the next four years, I devoted myself to being the best husband and father possible. The kind of man that you and your mother deserved.

And we were happy. You were happy, Charles. Well, you were happy when you weren't hungry. Growth spurt, you see. Your mother and I sometimes wondered how you would feed yourself when you went to college. Oh yes: sixteen years old and you were already thinking about applying for early admission. You had your heart set on computer engineering, and you had the grades and drive to do it.

Unfortunately, galactic history and politics were never really my strong suit. If they were, maybe I would have realized the significance of where Mindoir was: inside the Attican Traverse, on the frontier of Citadel-controlled space, far too close to the Terminus Systems and all the pirates, slavers and other criminals that called that lawless expanse home. And maybe I would have remembered that it had been attacked by batarian slavers in 2170.

But I didn't. So I was blissfully unaware of our fate until it was too late.

It was a bright sunny day when the slavers attacked.

I had been near the outskirts of the colony since the crack of dawn, fixing some irrigation equipment that had broken down. After running the usual maintenance checks and going down the list of possibilities, I ultimately determined that the filter was completely clogged. Not to mention a couple tubes weren't firmly connected. Once that was done, the machine was right as rain. So I was pretty satisfied and content when I hopped back into my skycar and began the short flight back to the colony.

My first hint of trouble came as I was flying through a ravine. All the rock outcrops were blocking my view, but I could see a lot of smoke floating up. Smoke that was too dark and thick to be a simple bonfire or barbeque—especially as it was too early in the day for anything like that.

Then I emerged from the ravine.

Several small gunships were flying overhead, strafing the colony as they flew back and forth. Shuttles and larger craft were on the ground, lineups of people trudging up the lowered ramps. Most of the outlying buildings were on fire—the source of the smoke I had observed earlier. Gunfire clattered in the distance, interrupted by screams of agony and cries of sheer terror. I watched with horror as the tranquil, happy world I had worked to build for my family collapsed into a nightmarish hell of pain and suffering. Even an absent-minded civilian like me could put two and two together and realize: a) we were under attack, b) we had been for some time and c) there was nothing I could do but run or die.

Scratch that last part, I realized. There was something else I could do.

Planting my hands on the controls, I spun the skycar around and headed back the way I came. About five seconds later, the proximity sensors went off. Glancing down, I found out that my presence hadn't gone unnoticed. One of the gunships had broken off and was pursuing me. I tried to get every last ounce of speed out of the engines so I could go faster. Faster would definitely be better.

But the gunship caught up with me. It fired a few shots before its nose grazed my right engine—or maybe I should say port. Or was that starboard? Whatever: that brief contact was enough to knock the skycar sideways. It was all I could do to regain control.

I wondered why the gunship hadn't just blown me out of the sky. Then I realized the pilot (pilots?) wanted to get up close and personal before killing me. Or capturing me—it suddenly occurred to me that the parade of people heading into those ships was probably slaves. Which meant our attackers were slavers. Or batarians. Or both.

Whatever they were, they were closing on us. Spotting a cluster of rocks up ahead, I adjusted my vector to tilt towards them. At the last second, I swerved aside so I just barely grazed them. The impact was enough to send several rocks flying into the gunship. I watched with satisfaction as it spun out of control before I entered in a new set of coordinates and continued on my way.

You see, I had an idea. The time machine that I had used before was still here on Mindoir. Believe it or not, handing it over to the Alliance or some other galactic authority did not seem like a good idea at all. If the educational and teaching aspects of the greybox could be so thoroughly misused, I shuddered to think at how the ability to alter time could be perverted. And yet, that was what I had in mind: to go back in time and change the course of history. Again.

At last, I arrived at the cave where I'd hidden the time machine and touched down. The engines were still cooling down when I popped the hatch, jumped out, ran into the cave and found the time machine. I fumbled with the controls until I remembered the sequence of keys needed to open it up.

Unfortunately, it had spent the past few years entirely dormant. Getting it up and running would take some time.

Time I no longer had, I suddenly realized, as I saw some movement in the shadows. Maybe it was survivors from the colony. Or maybe that gunship had recovered, followed me to the cave and dropped off some slavers to continue the pursuit.

Sure enough, it was the latter. A dozen or so batarians, clad in rough, industrial-quality leather. All of them had scowls on their faces and guns in their hands.

I felt my stomach twist, though that may have been more from the panic and stress I was feeling than from the time machine. Panic that only escalated as the batarians began shooting at me. Over the ambient hum of the time machine powering up, I could hear the bullets hit the hull. Hopefully the time machine was bullet-proof. Otherwise, I was in big trouble.

The lead batarian holstered his rifle and crouched down. When he stood up, he was holding a Really Big Gun. Or maybe it was some kind of rocket launcher—the batarian did have to balance the weapon on his shoulder. Either way, I had a sinking feeling that the time machine wouldn't be able to withstand this latest weapon.

Frantically, I began checking the controls, thinking of anything I could do to hurry things along. But the transit sequence had already been initiated and I simply didn't know any way to make it go faster. All I could do is cross my fingers. The time machine's hum reached a fever pitch as everything began to shake. My stomach was definitely trying to turn itself inside out. I looked out the viewscreen just in time to see the batarian fire his really big gun/launcher/whatever. A huge glowing fireball seemed to burst from the barrel and fly towards me. My hands clamped on the chair's armrests as I braced myself.

As the now-familiar blue flash blinded me, I could swear I felt the time machine jerk violently to the side...

As soon as I could see again, I ran a diagnostic. The results were as bad as I had feared.

The hull had indeed taken multiple hits. Thankfully, most of them consisted of a series of small dents. While I wasn't all that familiar with weapons, the average size of these malformations seemed consistent with bullets. Unfortunately, the last hit had landed with a far more explosive impact—right on the exterior panel that allowed access to the core. If I had to guess, I'd say that the explosion had caused a power surge. Alternatively, the detonation may have somehow affected the temporal field created by the core. Either way, there was no longer any guarantee that I was where—or when—I wanted.

My next thought was to run a scan for any satellites or comm buoys within sensor range. Or star formations that I could run against the navigational computer's records. But I couldn't pick up anything. It was like something was blocking my scans. Then I looked at the viewscreen.

And gaped.

Outside, the sky was completely covered by dark, stormy clouds. A flash of lightning provided some momentary illumination before everything went dark. In that brief glimpse, I saw I was in some kind of courtyard. Or clearing. There were buildings all around me. Sort of. Some of them were in ruins. Others had collapsed entirely.

I must have stared for quite some time, because I didn't even realize I was no longer alone until someone banged on the hull. Jumping in my ship, I saw several people in military armour. All of them armed. All of them pointing their weapons at me. Just like the batarians. This really wasn't my day.

Given the amount of damage the time machine seemed to have sustained, I wasn't confident that it could take another hit. It certainly wouldn't be able to make another jump through time before these people opened fire.

One of them pulled off his helmet, revealing a human face. His features suggested some Indian ancestry. "Open up and raise your hands," he shouted. At least, I think that's what he shouted—I couldn't really make out what he was saying. I was basing his orders on his lip movements. That and the banging on the hatch behind me.

Seeing no other possible course of action, I gave in and complied. The hatch opened up. I heard footsteps behind me, just before a pair of rough hands hauled me from my seat and dragged me out.

"Who are you?" the Indian man shouted.

"S-Stephen Shepard," I replied shakily.

"Well, Shepard, you're in big trouble," the man scowled. "See, we cleared this area. Then you and... whatever this thing is just pops up out of nowhere. This some kind of stealth ship? You trying to ambush us?"

"No."

"Well, maybe you're one of those guys who got brainwashed by the Reapers. Is that it? You indoctrinated?"

If I was, it didn't matter what I said. But I didn't think now was a good time to point that out. Not with a very unfriendly face glaring at me and a gun jabbing me hard in the back of the neck. "No, I'm not indoctrinated," I said.

"Then where did you come from?"

"The past."

"The what?" someone else asked.

"Fuck this shit," a third person—female by the sound of her voice—spat. "He's not one of us. Just shoot him and be done with it."

"He's unarmed!" yet another voice argued.

"He's probably a spy. Or indoctrinated."

"We don't know that."

"It's not our call," the first guy intervened. "Ramos, Ogawa: secure this… whatever it is. Everyone else: take this guy into custody and take him to the commander. She'll figure out what to do with him. Come on."

They searched me—roughly—emptying anything that might have been of value before surrounding me and taking me away. We marched quickly. I remember the air was cold, with a faint taste of ash. At first, we were just making our way through rubble, passing through the ruins. Then I saw a pair of soldiers, clearly on lookout. Then a turret of some kind. Before long, I was in the middle of some kind of camp, made up of makeshift tents and prefabricated buildings. I was pushed into one of the latter. We hurried down a cramped corridor, squeezing past wounded men and women, crates and soldiers heading the other way.

Finally, we reached a small room. Well, cell might be more like it. Nothing but a bed on one side and a toilet and sink on the other. I was shoved inside. The door closed. I heard the telltale click of a lock. And I was left in silence.

I don't know how much time passed before I heard footsteps outside. They stopped right in front of the door. "All right, what's this all about?" a woman's voice asked.

"We were on routine patrol. At 0920, an unidentified object appeared five klicks southwest of the base. One second it wasn't there. The next second, it was. Just popped up out of nowhere. There was one person inside—human. Male. We took him into custody."

"All right. I'll take it from here. Open it up."

The door slid open and a woman walked in. She was dressed in armour, just like everyone else I'd seen. Her hair was cut short, military-style. She might have been young once, maybe even pretty. But her eyes were old, hardened by seeing things that no one should have seen, her gaze cold and implacable. The left side of her face had been badly burned, long ago; skin blackened to a crisp. Her left eye had been removed, replaced by an ocular implant that blazed with cold blue light. In the cruellest of ironies, the burns and scars had twisted one side of her mouth up into a permanent, bitter smile.

"Um… hi?" I tried.

"You're gonna have to do better than that," she snapped.

"Okay. Though it might be easier if I knew who I was addressing."

"Fine. I'm Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams. Who are you, and what the hell are you doing here?"