Chapter Two - We Don't Need Roads
"Anderson?" Tom asked as they approached the device.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't stop them. Dammit, I told them we needed more security around here..." The older man said as Kira moved over to the controls.
"It's them outside, isn't it? The Reapers." She asked as she started to pull up data records.
"I'm afraid it is. I'm just glad they sent you thre- Wait, where's Caius?" He asked and Kira stiffened, although she kept on working.
"He's not coming." Tom said and Anderson gave them both a pitying look.
"Right. I've keyed in the nearest date and transferred the databases from both the original timeline and the new one. It should give us a starting point." Kira said before moving to the device.
"Wait, you're not seriously considering using that thing, are you?" Anderson asked and she nodded.
"Of course." She said and Tom took a moment before nodding.
"She's right, Anderson. It's the only way to fix things." He said and the old man shook his head before bringing up his own omni-tool.
"You're going to need credibility. Those databases should contain both Alliance and Turian ident codes but here; give this message to me when you get there. I'm afraid that's all the help I can give you." He said and Tom nodded.
"That's fine. You're needed here." He said and Kira started the countdown.
"And one more thing." Anderson said. "These aren't the people you know. Don't treat them as such. Good luck."
"Thank you, Sir." They responded in unison and Tom couldn't help but smile a little. Anderson must be the only person in the whole goddamn galaxy that could make his sister show respect.
"Hey, what's with the face?" Garrus lifted his head from his datapad to see his friend, and Spectre mentor, Nihlus leaning against the wall at the far side of the room.
"My father." He replied, indicating to the datapad. "Who else?"
"Let me guess; he wants you to quit?" Nihlus asked and Garrus sighed.
"We both know that he'd never use the word 'quit' but he's been pulling strings to get me reassigned to C-Sec and make it look like a promotion. He only agreed to let me sign on for Spectre training in the first place because of the war." He answered, his tone a little bitter.
"I take it you turned him down." Nihlus didn't need to ask. He knew Garrus too well.
"Of course I did." He said and Nihlus sighed.
"Not that we're actually doing anything now that the war is over." He said and Garrus nodded.
"'Keep quiet and stay out of trouble'. They have to be the most boring orders ever. Of all time." He said.
"You're just pissed because you can't see your girlfriend anymore." Nihlus teased and Garrus rolled his eyes, letting his sub-harmonics trill with annoyance.
"You're never gonna let that go, are you?" He asked and Nihlus grinned at him.
"Nope. Face it Vakarian, you've seen more of that woman than any other since I met you."
"I suppose it doesn't matter that we both spent all of that time trying to kill each other?" He asked and Nihlus shook his head.
"The line between hate and love is such a fine one." He joked causing Garrus to sigh with annoyance. The joke was an old one and had stopped being funny several missions ago.
"Stop projecting your own deviant behaviours onto me. I like my women turian, thank you very much." He said and Nihlus shrugged before moving away from the wall, heading towards the door to the corridor.
"Your loss. Anyway, come on. I think I've found something to cure your boredom." He said, grinning, and Garrus followed him out of the room.
"Where are we going?" He asked, suddenly very curious. As far as he had heard, nothing had happened on the ship all day, apart from that small spacial disturbance they hit a little while back.
"The medbay." Nihlus replied and Garrus let his sub-harmonics trill with intrigue.
"Why?" He asked and Nihlus grinned back at him.
"You know that disturbance we hit about an hour ago?" He asked and Garrus nodded.
"Yeah."
"It dropped something off." He said and Garrus's sub-harmonics conveyed his surprise.
"What did it drop off?" He asked.
"More accurately, who did it drop off? We don't know. But do you want to know the really weird thing?" He asked and Garrus raised a brow plate.
"Weirder than someone appearing out of thin air on a ship in the middle of deep space?" He asked, sub-harmonics trilling with disbelief as Nihlus nodded.
"Yeah. It took me a good few minutes to figure out that he wasn't you. I swear, he could be your twin." He told him and Garrus shook his head.
"I don't have a twin. Or a brother, for that matter." He said and Nihlus nodded.
"I know. That's not all, though. We tried to access his omni-tool for ident codes, to figure out who he is, but it's like nothing we've ever seen. The same could be said for his armour and weapons. They're way more advanced than anything we've ever come across." He explained and Garrus frowned.
"So, what? He's some kind of black ops agent?" He asked and Nihlus shook his head.
"Not that we've been told and we can't ask him yet. However he arrived, it knocked him out cold." He said as they arrived in the medbay. Only one of the beds was occupied and Garrus was taken aback to find that Nihlus had been right, the turian in the bed did look almost exactly like him and even had the same, deep blue colony markings. It was more than a little unnerving.
"Hey, doc. Looks like he's waking up." Nihlus observed, calling over the doctor, as the turian in the bed tried to sit up. That was when the main difference between he and Garrus became apparent. The turian in the bed had deep brown eyes, almost black in colour. It was more than a little strange to see on a turian, although Garrus had seen asari with similar eye colours.
"Shit. What happened?" The strange turian asked and Nihlus folded his arms as he regarded him carefully.
"You appeared out of thin air." Nihlus told him and the turian groaned, shaking his head.
"And I hit my head on impact?" He asked and Nihlus nodded. "Figures. I bet Kira landed perfectly. Where is she?" He asked and Nihlus frowned.
"I'm sorry but you were the only one who arrived." He said and the turian in the bed nodded.
"She'll have keyed in separate destinations. Probably best." He muttered and the doctor moved over to him, scanning him with his omni-tool.
"What's your name?" The doctor asked.
"Tom… Viktal. Tom Viktal." He said and Garrus got the distinct impression that the surname was a lie by the way he had to think over it. Although what struck him more was the strange first name.
"Tom?" He asked and the turian shrugged.
"I know, I know. Blame my mother. I always have." He joked as the doctor shut down his omni-tool.
"Rank?" He asked and Tom sighed.
"Commander." He said. "Kind of."
"Kind of?" Nihlus asked and Tom shrugged.
"Well, I was a commander when I left the military a few years back." He explained, his hand moving to rub the back of his neck as if it were causing him pain.
"Who do you work for now?" Nihlus asked him.
"The Council. Unofficially, of course." He said and Garrus frowned a little. Was he another Spectre?
"What year is it?" The doctor asked, trying to determine if Tom was concussed. He frowned at that.
"Kira said she keyed in 2183 and…" His gaze came to rest on Garrus for a moment before he nodded. "Yeah, 2183 looks about right." He said and Nihlus frowned at him.
"What are you talking about?" He asked and Tom sighed as if he were trying to figure out how to word something.
"Time travel." He said simply, ignoring their dumbfounded looks. "Bitch of a way to travel but it works." He said and the three turians quickly came to the conclusion that he had hit his head harder than they had originally thought. "Look, I have ident codes on my omni-tool. They won't prove that I'm not crazy but they will prove that I outrank you." He told them before activating his omni-tool and transferring the ident codes. Nihlus's brow plates rose at the fact that he was a black ops agent with authority that outranked a Spectre.
"He's right. He may be crazy but he outranks us." Nihlus said and Garrus frowned.
"But he's crazy." He countered and Nihlus shrugged.
"Maybe but we should at least hear him out." He said and Tom shook his head.
"Gotta love the professional attitude here." He groaned. "Kira would love you two."
"You mentioned Kira before, who is she?" Garrus asked and Tom frowned a little.
"My sister. She was a part of my team." He said before his frown deepened. "I probably shouldn't say anything else until I've spoken with her."
"You're not the CO?" Nihlus asked and Tom laughed a little.
"I'm meant to be. But Kira doesn't take kindly to being given orders and Cai can be just as stubborn when he wants to be." He said before activating his omni-tool, frowning. "Nobody hacked my omni-tool, did they?"
"No. Too advanced. In fact, if anything proves you're from the future, it's your tech." Nihlus said and Tom nodded.
"Okay. Is there somewhere I can make a call?" He asked and Nihlus nodded.
"Sure, so long as the doctor says you check out." He said before turning to the doctor who shrugged in response.
"You're fine as far as I can tell. Your implant got a little rattled but your biotics should be safe to use in another hour." He said and the other two turians frowned a little. Biotics were rare amongst turians but it went a way to explaining his high rank.
"Garrus, can you show him to a secure room?" Nihlus asked and Garrus nodded before leading Tom down the corridor. He noted how the other turian walked straight, like any respectable officer. Garrus wondered how someone like him became a black ops agent.
"So, how far into the future are you from?" He asked, still not believing his story exactly but lacking another explanation for his advanced technology and method of appearance.
"Far enough." He said, his sub-harmonics clearly telling Garrus to keep out of his business. Garrus shrugged as he opened the door into a 'secure' room.
"Thank you." Tom said before entering the room and closing the door behind him. Garrus headed to the room next door and activated the listening devices in the next room. They needed to know as much as they could about their visitor.
"Hey, Tom. That you?" He heard a female voice ask and he figured that it was coming through Tom's omni-tool.
"Yeah. Where are you?" Tom asked the voice.
"Headed to Eden Prime right now." The female voice answered and Garrus frowned. As far as he could recall, Eden Prime was a human colony.
"Should we meet you there?" Tom asked and Garrus's frown deepened. Even if he and Nihlus just took Nihlus's small ship, they still couldn't go near a human colony without being attacked by the Alliance.
"No. Why would you?" The female voice asked, clearly surprised by Tom's suggestion.
"Nihlus is here." Tom clarified and Garrus wondered what Nihlus had to do with anything.
"Ah..." The female voice replied before going silent for a few moments. "No. Head to the Citadel. One more on our side will only increase our chances and we might need someone with full Spectre status later on. I know the Council won't do anything to help, regardless, but we could do without them hampering our progress." She said and Garrus wondered just what exactly they were planning to do.
"I hate this. You know I'm shit at all this sneaking around stuff." Tom told her and Garrus couldn't help but agree.
"Price you pay for being the good child, I'm afraid." She said, confirming Garrus's theory that the voice belonged to Tom's sister; Kira. "Wait, you didn't do anything monumentally stupid like use your real name, did you?"
"Well, I used Tom but... I told them my name was Viktal..." Tom said softly and there was no reply for several moments as Garrus wondered why Tom had lied and what exactly about his last name had bothered his sister so. "Kira, you still there?"
"Yeah. Obviously, I would have done the same but... I just went with Luna." She said.
"That brings back memories. Most of which involve dragging you out of shady bars when we were kids." He joked and she laughed a little.
"Yeah, yeah. Hey, I just thought, I don't have to remind you to check for listening devices, do I?" She asked and Garrus cursed as Tom responded.
"No. Of course not." Tom replied before the devices went dead, leaving Garrus to ponder what he had just heard. He hadn't learnt anything new, only had his theory that Tom was lying about his name confirmed.
"Learn anything new?" Nihlus asked as he entered the room.
"Not really. He called his sister just as he said he would. She's headed to the human colony of Eden Prime." Garrus said and Nihlus frowned.
"Why is she going there?" He asked and Garrus shrugged.
"No idea. But he also gave us a fake name." He said and Nihlus nodded as he thought.
"I figured as much before. I've just been talking to the techs. As far as they can tell from the internal scans, he arrived via a mini wormhole." He said and Garrus frowned.
"I'm not going to pretend that I know the first thing about physics but that doesn't seem possible." He said.
"It's possible but way beyond our current capabilities. Everything seems to back up what he's saying."
"Of course it does. I'm telling the truth." Tom said as he came up behind them. "I can't believe was naive enough to think you wouldn't spy on me..." He muttered and Garrus shrugged unapologetically.
"We had to confirm that you were telling the truth." He reasoned and Tom shook his head.
"Fine. Any burning questions? I'll answer what I can." He said and Nihlus turned to Garrus, having not heard the conversation for himself.
"Why are you here?" He asked and Tom folded his arms.
"To fix the timeline. You're off track and I have to correct it." He told them.
"Off track how?" Garrus asked.
"I can't tell you that. I can only tell you where you should be." Tom explained and Garrus narrowed his eyes.
"Eden Prime." He said and Tom shook his head.
"No. Well, kind of. It's complicated. But we're gonna skip that part. It doesn't end well." He said cryptically before sighing. "Look, I'm a terrible liar and I'm not good at navigating the time stream so can I please just tell you what I know I'm allowed to and we can take it from there?" He asked and Nihlus nodded.
"Fine. Tell us what you can." He said.
"My sister is with a team headed to Eden Prime where they will encounter Saren Arterius." He explained.
"Saren?" Nihlus asked, frowning and Tom nodded.
"You probably won't believe this until we have proof but he's gone rogue." Tom said and Nihlus shook his head.
"You're right. I don't believe it." He replied and Tom shrugged.
"Anyway, we're not headed there. My sister will deal with Saren and his geth-"
"Geth?" Garrus interrupted and Tom nodded.
"Yeah. After they deal with that, they will head to the Citadel to speak with the Council before gathering some proof. We'll team up with them there." He said.
"Team up with who? Who is your sister working with?" Garrus asked and Tom sighed.
"I know you're not going to like this but you're going to have to trust me... She's working with Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy." Tom said and Nihlus grinned before nodding.
"Okay, sounds like fun. Let's go." He said and Garrus let his sub-harmonics trill with annoyance.
"Shepard? Really?" He asked and Nihlus continued to grin at him.
"We all know that you're smiling on the inside Vakarian. Come on, let's get moving."