Deus Ex Human Revolution is the property of Eidos and Square Enix

Mass Effect is the property of Bioware and Electronic Arts

Mass Effect: Human Revolution

-Chapter 1-

Adam couldn't bear to look into her eyes.

He had seen the same look in the eyes of a dead junkie lying down on a bench in the subway. It was on his first day on the job as a patrolman back in Detroit: the junkie was 17, had apparently been kicked out of his home, ran with the wrong crowd, got hooked to the needle, and caught a disease. Typical story. No health insurance. No education. No prospects. No one to give a helping hand.

No future. No hope. And he knew it. It's why he injected himself with a triple dose, but not even the incredible heroin high could dispel that look of hopelessness in his final moments.

Junko Zayne Shepard was staring out into nothing with the same expression. She would never fight again. She would never be a hero again. She would never be able to retire. She would never be able to settle down, get married, have kids – the whole white picket fence package. Did she even want it? The discoloration on her ring finger suggested to Adam that she might have, once upon a time.

The knife in her heart put a stop to that notion.

Soak it in, Adam told himself. Remember that someone's responsible for this, and it's your job to put him in a tiny windowless cell for the rest of his natural life.

Adam resisted the urge to close Junko's eyes, his training reminding him not to contaminate the scene. He scanned the room again, making mental notes of any objects of interest: The body, the knife, the blood on the sheets and on the floor. The Holomonitor mounted on the wall. The medical scanner with its monitors turned off. The IV drip. The emergency cart complete with defibrillator. A bouquet of flowers - Cherry Blossoms - was resting on the commode. He turned to the forensics tech, an Asari Matron named Euridycia. She was busy scanning and cataloguing everything in the room with her Omni Tool for further investigation in a VR simulation of the scene. She and Adam's feet were floating an inch above the bloody floor thanks to a mass effect field put in place to prevent contamination of any potential evidence.

"Euri?" asked Jensen. "What have you got for me?"

Euri, always all business, answered in her detached manner: "Victim: Lieutenant Commander Junko Zayne Shepard, Alliance Marine Corps. Human (of European and Russian-Japanese descent) female of twenty-nine years of age. Height is one meter and eighty-two centimeters. Weight: 82 kilos. Cause of death…"

She motioned towards the blade buried in the corpse's chest.

"…severe trauma to the heart due to a bladed weapon."

"Can you tell me anything about the murder weapon?"

Euri typed on her Omni Tool. A holo of the weapon hovered above her hand.

"It's a Type 98 Alliance Navy utility knife. Standard issue for any Marine. No fingerprints."

"How hard is it to get one legally?"

"Not very. Military surplus stores sell them. Since it's not a mechanical weapon, there's no need for a permit to carry one on the Citadel."

"Hm, well, that's something to work with."

"Anything else?"

Something was bothering Adam: the last time he saw Shepard, she looked healthy and ready to take down a Spectre. What was she doing in a hospital?

"What was she being treated for?" he asked. "Some kind of disease?"

"No, she's an L3 Biotic," said Euri, as if the answer was self-evident.

"…That doesn't really tell me anything."

"Really? I thought it would, since you're a cyborg. Look, human biotics technology is still in its infancy: the implant architectures your scientists come up with have these quirks. L2 architecture implantees suffered from some pretty nasty side effects…but they could take their medicine without too many problems. The L3s were supposed to be more stable, except that all L3 Biotics don't react very well to Neuropozyne. A small percentage of them, which our victim was unfortunately part of, react really, really badly to the compound."

To Adam, the existence of Neuropozyne in the 2180's was one hell of a surprise. When he was thawed, Adam figured Sarif or someone else had reconstructed Megan's research into the gene therapy necessary to make Nu-poz completely obsolete.

"What kind of reaction do they get?"

"The implants cause every single element zero node in their bodies to flare. They essentially Warp themselves apart. It's not pretty. In order to counteract this…"

Euri brought out another file in her Omni, and then continued: "…the L3 is given a specialized artificial enzyme - an acetylcholine inhibitor- along with the Neuropozyne to shut down his or her peripheral nervous system and her eezo nodes along with it."

"So she was effectively paralyzed?"

"Yes."

She couldn't fight back, Adam thought to himself bitterly. "Any other health issues?"

"Yes, the enzyme can also cause moderate to severe memory loss. In order to deal with it, she got this."

Euri brought out another holograph out of her omni. To Jensen, it looked a lot like a neural hub, only smaller. "What am I looking at?" he asked.

"A graybox," she answered. "It's basically a memory recorder."

That piqued Adam's interest. Getting a look at Shepard's last moments could be useful if any other leads dried up. Euri sensed Adam's intentions from his expression and smiled.

"I've got a request to extract the implant all typed up and ready to send to C-Sec Legal. Once they get permission from next of kin, I'll be able to get her final moments on video."

"Send the request. I'll take what I can get. And while we're on the subject of healthcare…" Adam pointed at the medical scanner. "Wasn't this monitoring her vitals? Shouldn't the nurses have been alerted the moment her heart stopped?"

Euri simply walked up to the machine and turned it on. It kept on beeping, signaling a rhythm that was no longer there.

"Hacked," Adam concluded. "Inside job?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Euri answered as she silenced the machine. "The machine does have a data jack for updates and maintenance, but it is also linked up to the local network. I have a tech at their server room looking over the logs."

"Let me know when he finds something."

"Will do. Is there anything else?"

"Got anything off the floor?"

"Just bootprints. It was difficult finding the residue on the cold, self-sanitizing metal floor (the blood didn't help) but I managed to stop the auto-cleaner in time."

"Anything out of the ordinary?"

Euri brought out several 2D holographs of shoe prints. "Not really…mostly nurse's clogs. There's a few prints of a marine's boots, men's size…" she winced. "…eleven? Confirmed to belong to Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko of the Alliance Marine Corps. He was the visitor that found the body and alerted the staff."

Adam quickly scanned the shoe prints with his eyes: most of them were partial and incomplete, but two sets of the marine boots' prints were complete and clear…and one was a bit smaller than the other. He pointed at it.

"I'm pretty sure this set of boot prints is ten and a half. We've got someone else in the crime scene, looks like."

Euri was a little flustered, and then realized her mistake. "Goddess! Thanks! I can't make sense of your human measuring systems! Your Canadians say it is eleven, your Chinese call it twenty-six...Can't you just go by metrics?"

"Right. Honest mistake." Adam tried not to sound too condescending.

"Mistakes like this can ruin a case, Jensen. You know that." Euri sighed and promptly reorganized the holographs.

"Where did you find those size tens?"

"There," she said, pointing at the spot. "Right by the left hand side of the bed."

Adam walked over to the spot and briefly put himself in the killer's place. Yes, definitely the right spot to plunge a knife into someone's heart.

"So, our killer is likely an Alliance Marine," said Adam.

"Or an Alliance fanboy," commented Euri.

"Either way, this was definitely personal. A good hitman knows how to make a kill look like an accident. Pretty good opportunity for that here: Victim's got a severe medical condition. Just stop the IV from giving her the enzyme and wait as her Eezo nodes do the rest of the work. We dismiss it as an accident. Case Closed. But then our killer ignores that and goes for a knife kill?" Adam pointed at the blade stuck in Shepard's chest. "And then leaves the weapon in the body?"

"You're assuming a hitman did this. Could just be a nutcase."

"Then we've got a meticulous nutcase. I saw her alive at the presidium some eight hours ago. During that time, our killer found out about her medical condition, where she was going to get her treatment, potentially did a hack job on the hospital's network, and got into this room without anyone noticing. That takes planning. Professional planning."

"And hacker support."

"That too. I think I've got what I need here." Adam activated his Omni-tool. "Give me what you've got so far."

Euri complied, and a radial progress bar appeared between their Omni tools. "I'm almost done here. I'll have the body transferred to the morgue soon." Her Omni beeped, signaling a complete upload.

"Right, let me know if you find anything else."

~[h+]~

Ashley Williams was standing next to Lieutenant Alenko in the patient lounge, unsure as to what to do…even though she knew she should. When her father passed away, her whole family had come together in mourning. She had given a shoulder to cry on to Sarah and Mom, an attentive ear to Lynn, and a hug for Abby. When it came time for the burial, she recited Ulysses aloud, and every year since then, Ashley had Ulysses. It's how the Williams had overcome their grief.

And yet, she couldn't bring herself to comfort the lieutenant. She could see he was crushed, slumped on the red corner couch looking more silently devastated than any soldier ought to be for his CO…which made things all the more awkward for her. It didn't help that she knew him for a grand total of two days. Likewise for Shepard. How do you approach someone in grief when you barely know them?

You owe them both your life, she reminded herself. Try.

She walked over and laid an armored hand on his shoulder. "LT?" she asked. He barely reacted. "…I know what you're going though."

Alenko didn't say anything.

"…I don't know how close you and the commander were…"

Still nothing.

"…but if you need someone to talk to…I'm right here, you know?"

Again, nothing. Dammit, I'm not a grief counselor, she though. I just shoot things. She nodded, and then proceeded to maintain a respectable distance from the Lieutenant. Minutes passed. Then:

"We were going to get married," said Alenko, more to himself than Ashley. As he said this, she could hear the door behind her hiss. Ashley took a quick glance behind her. Blue Coat. Ballistic Jacket. Shades. Poorly maintained pointy short boxed beard. Aw, crap.

Kaidan continued: "We did our best to keep the relationship a secret. Regulations and all that. After Torfan she decided that 'life was too short to wait'. And then she gave me this." He fondled his silver engagement ring.

"Interesting," said Adam Jensen as he approached the two marines. "That's one question off the list."

~[h+]~

CODEX ENTRY: Neuropozyne

Neuropozyne, or Nu-poz, is a compound that prevents and cleans up the buildup of glial nerve tissue around the nerve/electrode junctions required for mechanical prostheses and biotic implants to function in humans. Without Neuropozyne, the "nerve scarring" would eventually disrupt the connection between implant and implantee, causing a painful rejection syndrome.

Before the Collapse, Versalife corporation was the only holder of the patent to produce the drug. After the Collapse, samples of the drugs made their way to other biotech firms. Despite the ban on human augmentations, there was still a market for fully functioning prosthetic limbs for amputees. This encouraged research into improving the formula. Today, a single dose of Neuropozyne can stave off rejection syndrome for as long as 3 months. Biotics, however, due to the mutagenic properties of their Eezo nodes, tend to suffer moderate to severe side-effects when taking a dose. Improvements to the formula are being made every day. Research into alternative methods of preventing implant rejection (such as gene therapy, hypoallergenic nerve junctions, or even a completely different compound) is ongoing, but so far no results are forthcoming.

Author's notes: Oh man, what did I get myself into? This wasn't supposed to be a murder mystery! But hey, Jensen's a cop, and I had to come up with a plausible way for him to get involved with the main storyline without making him a human Garrus. How will he land in the Normandy? Stay tuned and find out!

My apologies to any Neurobiology and Forensics buffs reading this. I admit that my knowledge of such matters is limited to TV, LA Noire, and whatever I read on Wikipedia. Feel free to point out any glaring errors, I'll correct them.