Chapter 3

I read a book once, a little before I found myself in that white room with Angor, entitled 11/22/63. It was about how a time traveler went back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination. The one thing that the main character stressed above everything else was that he should not interfere with the time-line, because in the strange world he found himself in, the knowledge of the future was the only thing he had. Interfering with the time-line could cause fluctuations and disrupt the known future and compromise the only advantage he carried. I, however, did not share such an approach. While this character was burdened with saving the life of one man, I was burdened with saving the lives of billions.

Damn, no pressure.

As soon as we jumped through the Arcturus relay, I saw Takis' expression changed. I still couldn't read that Salarian's expressions.

"That's weird," he commented, his hands moving with pristine dexterity on the holographic interfaces, "I'm picking up some Alliance chatter. This area's usually pretty quiet." I remained silent; he would figure the reason behind it soon enough on his own. "Usually these ships don't have stealth systems, but Spectres can requisition top of the line technology. I got her outfitted not too long ago." Takis told me proudly. "I'm engaging it now."

"You might want to take my cuffs off." I told him calmly, changing the subject. He looked at me in a curious manner, the way a cat might look at a trapped mouse. The look caused my hair to stand on end.

"Can't do that, Jack. You could be leading me into some sort of Cerberus trap. I need you as leverage." he said plainly, as if taking me hostage would be as simple as putting butter on bread. Well, at least he's honest about it. I guess I couldn't blame him, it's asking quite a lot to believe in this.

"That Alliance chatter? That's Alliance troops on Eden Prime getting decimated by Geth." Well, maybe he won't find out on his own.

"I'm not reading any Geth ships in the area. Matter of fact, I read no ships in the area." Takis told me. That's because one of them is the SSV Normandy and the other isn't a ship at all. It's what's going to be what we're fighting here in three or so years.

"You'll see." I said.

As we approached Eden Prime, Takis suddenly realized something wasn't right. Red lights began to pop up, which made me uneasy.

"Red lights? That can't be good." I murmured.

"Distress beacons." he replied. I couldn't read his voice, but he immediately undid my handcuffs. "If you really aren't Cerberus," he began, still managing the red lights that popped up, "then I'll assume you won't know how to handle a combat situation?" I shot a pistol once...back before I came here...but I've never shot anything bigger. And I haven't even had a chance to try biotics at all. Was I even capable of biotics? I've never been exposed to eezo so I shouldn't be able to, but why else would Angor give me this amp? I guess I was going to find out. I shook my head, indicating that I was as green as the grass on Eden Prime.

"So why are we here?" he asked. "I better have a good reason to save human colonists if I'm going to risk my life." I averted my eyesight. He was right, it was asking a lot for him to do this. I supposed that it was time to tell him the truth: why Eden Prime was so integral.

"A Prothean beacon was uncovered not too long ago. I don't know if you heard about it or not but Alliance is swooping in to pick it up. The Spectre Saren is on this planet, trying to get his hands on it before the Alliance does."

"Arterius? What would he want with a Prothean beacon?" Takis asked. He seemed a bit confused, but no longer incredulous. It was quite possible that he was beginning to believe me. Orange light surrounded his left arm as his omni-tool came to life. I looked over his shoulder as he began to double-check the information I had told him. The council should know, or they wouldn't have sent Nihlus. Everything on there would check up.

"It will make more sense when we get there." I told him, regardless of the proof he was reading, "The Alliance is sending the Normandy where Commander Shepard and Spectre Nihlus will pick it up." Nihlus won't make it. That thought rang through the back of my mind. I could see clearly Nihlus trusting Saren, and how Saren slowly raised his pistol. Then the echo of the gunshot. I found myself cringing. Orange light still illuminated the cockpit. It replaced the red lights that had appeared on the dashboard earlier. He had turned them all off.

"If that's the case, then the situation should be handled. Spectre's Saren and Nihlus always produce clean, reliable work." he said plainly. Jesus, he's just like Mordin. The ends justify the means. But now I had a decision to make: save Nihlus or let him be killed. Perhaps if we had the chance, we could kill Saren right here. No, no, can't kill Saren. Sovereign must attack the Citadel so that Cerberus eventually picks up the looming threat of the Reapers. If not, Shepard won't capitalize and the Collectors will never be fully connected to the Reapers. Saren must live. But Nihlus? He didn't seem so bad. Aside from that whole Samara situation...

"We should take off our stealth systems so that the Normandy will raise us." I told him hopefully. Going in with Shepard will definitely put me on the right track. Takis shook his head.

"Not compromising our stealth systems. I believe you enough to drop down and take a look for that beacon, but we can do it without the Alliance. Then we can get the correct people to pick it up and brought back to the Citadel where proper researchers can take a look at it. I'm sure Nihlus will be seeing to that regardless." I gave him an offended look.

"What, you don't trust Humanity?" I yelled. He looked at me calmly. "Plus, Nihlus isn't even there for that reason! He's there to see if Shepard is worthy of Spectre material."

"Do you trust a child with your treasures?" he asked me. The question caught me off guard and I sat back in my seat. I had forgotten that this was before the first human Spectre, and before we were trusted as a race. We were still young spacefarers, so I could understand his caution. However, if things worked out like they did in the game, Shepard would receive his vision and the beacon would be destroyed. I just hoped that he was already here.

I didn't know it then, but Takis was becoming more and more suspicious of my knowledge of extremely classified happenings. I didn't even know until he told me later that he was resting his left hand on the grip of his pistol.

We went in silent: no docking station, no 'permission to land'. We just fucking flew down from the sky and parked ourselves in a nice little field. Pnuematics hissed as the cockpit opened, revealing a beautiful horizon. If you liked red sunsets and black clouds, that was. Because it looked like we stepped into the depths of Hell. The sun could be seen behind the hazy, ominous clouds of smoke but at least the grass was green. It would be a nice place to visit and relax if people weren't being turned into reaper-zombies. A thick, black column of smoke could be seen from the distance. I hopped out of the fighter while he grabbed his equipment. A pistol, a sniper, and an assault rifle. He hopped down and held the pistol out to me. All I could think about was: How is it we pull up right on time? That can't be coincidence.

"If you even come close to aiming that thing towards me, I'll kill you." he said, as if negotiating some business agreement. I took the weapon hesitantly. "It's an Armax Brawler. Heavy but powerful. It's all I have."

"You really believe me don't you?" I asked as I took the gun. He didn't answer, but began to walk towards the smoke. I looked over the double-barreled pistol and walked after him.

"Hey, wait, I don't have any armor. No shielding. One shot will kill me!" I shouted, walking after him. He didn't stop or hesitate, but simply turned his head and told me "Well don't get shot then." Jesus.

We hiked for a little while towards the smoke when Takis suddenly stopped.

"That's not geth." he said grimly. I looked at him and noticed that he was staring into the smoke column. Dim red lights pulsed weakly behind it. A sudden break in the thick smoke revealed and what he was looking at. My jaw dropped. Sovreign, hidden by the smoke plume, standing like a fucking mountain in the sky. Those are the things that will drop down on the Earth and slaughter everyone? My God, that is going to be fucking terrifying. Seeing one of those things in fucking person was completely different than seeing them in game. I would not have given Shepard any shit if he saw one of those things and high tailed it in the opposite direction. That's what I felt like doing.

He looked at me, but I could barely read the expression. Fear? Was that there? I couldn't tell. He slowly unfolded his sniper rifle and began walking again. I gripped my own pistol tighter; I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking. "Takis...I really need armor. I don't want to die here." I told him. He stopped and tapped on his omni-tool. I walked up to his position and he looked at me after a couple of seconds.

"You're in luck. There's an Alliance armory about 2 kilometers northwest of here. We'll see what they have. Don't worry, Jack, you won't perish today." Today. That word echoed through my mind and was suddenly accompanied by Angor's grin. A chill surged through my body. I caught up to him so that I was walking right behind him.

"Shouldn't you call out on radio to see if there's anybody in the vicinity? You know, so they can back us up?" I asked, looking at his omni-tool. He held out a fist: the universal signal for stop. I stopped and he peered through his scope. I couldn't see that far up, and wondered what he was looking it. He handed me the sniper rifle.

"Look." he said simply, and pointed in the direction he was gazing out at. I took the sniper rifle, handing him my pistol because I had no holster. It was much heavier than I thought it would be, and it took me a bit of strength to raise it up to my shoulder. I looked through the scope and at first saw nothing.

"It's all black." I told him.

"You're scoping in on the ground." he told me. My cheeks flushed.

"Oh, well, shit, that's probably it." I remarked, and raised the barrel. I saw the side of a building, perfectly intact, and guided the scope right. It gave way to a sidewalk...littered with dead bodies. Dragon's teeth lined the perimeter of the sidewalk, holding up dead humans as if saying: All humans here are dead, and you will be too if you come closer. I had never seen such gore in my life...but it all seemed so fake that I didn't even register it. I slowly gave him back the sniper rifle and took my pistol back. Are we too late? I quickly answered my own question with a quick glance at Sovereign. If I remembered correctly, Sovereign left sometime after Saren put a bullet in the back of Nihlus' head.. And that was right when Shepard rode the train in to the Spaceport...

"We'll make for the armory and then the dig site. I have the coordinates here." he said, bringing up a interface that resembled a GPS.

"It's not at the dig site. At least, not any more. It's at the spaceport." I told him. He looked at me with that unreadable face.

"You're saying that my information is out of date? The Alliance intel says it was last at the dig site, which is about ten kilometers north." I nodded.

"It's at the spaceport." I repeated.

"For someone who's unaffiliated, you sure do have a way of keeping yourself in the loop of things." he said. Damn, and here I was thinking that he was starting to believe me. Does he think I'm Cerberus again, or perhaps Alliance? Does he regret that he's given me this pistol? I was immediately answered.

"Mr. Salazar, I would be grateful if you didn't walk behind me." he said cautiously. I could understand. So far, Takis was my only friend here. I needed his trust. I had to gain it any way I can.

"Sure, I'll take point." I said nonchalantly. Well, as nonchalantly as I could. The idea of being the first target a geth could pinpoint terrified me. Plus I still had no god damn armor.

"This would be a lot easier if you had an omni-tool." he said. I nodded. Yeah, no fucking shit. A laptop I could carry around on my arm? One with built in swords? Actually having one boggled my mind. I cleared my mind as I reminded myself that I had to carefully watch for Geth. We continued walking, finally exiting the field...

Takis directed me along and we encountered no resistance. We took back routes and alleys that didn't have piles of dead bodies in it. Takis hated the smell of the dead as much as I did. It smelled awful and made me want to retch. I hadn't taken a close look at a dead body yet so there was that to be thankful for, but I'm sure that my first experience with a close dead body was right around the corner.

I wasn't wrong. The armory was surrounded by dead Alliance soldiers. I made a mistake and looked at their faces. Imprinted on them was a look of absolute terror. They were twisted by fear: the knowing that they were going to die. That their time in this universe was coming to a close. I looked away as my stomach turned. Suddenly hot something came up, and I opened my mouth to let the contents spill out onto the ground. I recognized the taste: Lasagna from my last night in my old life. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time: that lasagna traveled with me from home to Angor's timeless room to the 22nd century in a different universe. This was all so fucked up. Suddenly something touched my back and I jumped. I held my pistol in my hand but it didn't even cross my mind to use it. I just jumped and cowered. It was Takis' hand.

"Your first time?" he asked. We both knew what he was talking about. I nodded. "It's rough, but we must push on." he told me. Was he still concerned about my 'affiliation'? I couldn't tell. I just nodded. I spit, wiped my mouth, and followed him into the armory. He had replaced his sniper rifle with an assault rifle at some point in time; I guess when we entered close quarters he didn't want to be caught with a sniper. Couldn't blame him.

We entered the doorway to a completely dark room. A quick reading from Takis' omni-tool told us there were 'No Power Signatures'. Lovely. He used his omni-tool to pull up a flashlight and quickly searched the room. The doorway immediately put us in the largest room in the building. It had a front desk and then rows of weapons and armor.

"Find whatever you need, I'm going to take a look around. And keep an eye out on that door." he told me, and then disappeared into the darkness, waving his light around. I wanted to call out to tell him I didn't have a light, but he was out of sight before I could open my mouth. I fumbled around the front desk and found a headlamp. It was shaped weirdly but it did the job. I strapped it on let the cone of light illuminate my path. I marveled at all the weapons but walked directly to the armor. I quickly found a row of different armors all along the back wall. I began to finger through, browsing, but couldn't tell the difference between any of it. I picked out some desert-camouflage looking shit that was exactly my size. On the breast was a icon and bold words that read "Aldrin Labs". Under that was "Hydra" in finer print. It was light so I guessed it would do the job. I preferred to be more agile than protected, anyways.

I quickly unclothed and when I had just taken off my pants three loud pops echoed from another room. The gunshots surprised me to the point of falling down. I grabbed my pistol and scrambled away. Fuck, did Takis just get killed? My heart immediately was racing at full speed, and adrenaline had kicked in fully.

"Jack," called Takis from another room. I exhaled a sigh of relief. "you should come see this." I quickly stood back up, still naked, and began to dress in my new armor. My entire body was still shaking from the scare and it took me a while to fit into the skin-tight armor.

"J-Just a second!" I called after him. I donned the armor and it fit like a glove. I grabbed my pistol and rushed into the other room where I saw a second cone of light. It was trained on a creature with blood pouring from its head. It smelled awful and the stink saturated the room. I immediately gagged and covered my nose.

"What the fuck is that?" I asked. But I already knew. It was a Husk.

"Not sure. It had no legs; it had been stuck in this room for a while. Looks like a human. Whatever it is, dead now."

"It used to be a human." I told him, and he chuckled at that. It sent a chill down my spine. The light turned to me, and blinded me.

"Nice armor. You going to get a new pistol or hang on to mine?" he asked. I gave him his pistol back, which he thanked me for and holstered, as I returned to the other room. The lack of dead Husk smell was quite refreshing. I grabbed a magnetic holster, which Takis pointed out, and donned that. I then browsed the weapons, picking out a Hahne-Kedar Lancer assault rifle and Kessler pistol. The pistol was extremely lighter than the Brawler but probably didn't pack as much of a punch. The assault rifle felt alien cradled in my arms. Takis quickly showed me how to collapse, holster, and uncollapse both of the weapons.

"Be sure not to accidently press this button when firing at an enemy." he told me plainly, pointing the button out on the Lancer. I almost wanted to laugh at it. Just think of the irony: I accidently collapse my gun in the middle of the firefight and that was what ended me. Angor would be fuming.

"You ever...fire a gun before?" he asked. I had, but nothing like this.

"No," I admitted, but he didn't seem surprised. The cone of light that I associated with him disappeared and then reappeared quickly. He walked over to the front desk and then back.

"I set up small boxes over on that desk. It's simple. Aim, then pull the trigger. Don't yank it, and don't forget to breath." he told me. I knew how to fire a gun but if it was as simple as it was 200 years ago then I didn't need any further direction. I pulled the handgun from its magnetic holster and lined up the shot. I could see the box with my head lamp now, it was about 10 feet away. The iron sights swayed only lightly.

I was prepared to pull the trigger when suddenly, near the desk, there was a loud bang and light flooded into the room. Shadows pressed against the wall that I could only recognize as one thing: Geth.

And that's when the bullets began to fly.