Chapter 4 - Questions and answers

The Alliance people were surprised to see a barefoot human girl clad in 21st century clothing among the aliens, when they politely walked us to their ship, pointing the way with their assault rifles. They didn't exactly give us a tour, but I don't think that their ship in question was any big: we were all led into a same room, which seemed like some sort of a cargo hold. Three guards were left to keep an eye on us. The turians, now stripped from their weapons, measured the guards with their eyes, but to my relief decided not to take over two ships a day.

I hadn't been happy that I had had to leave Altun behind to the marines scratching their head (they were trying to figure out how to move a wounded elcor around without hurting it any worse). He had been kind with me, I think. As slow and careful elcor are, I find it hard to believe that there could be any evil ones around. Anyways, sitting by him had been giving me some kind of comfort, and now I was feeling very, very lonely.

I closed my eyes, count to ten, opened them, and was still in that cargo hold. I repeated that some times, only to open my eyes to see some crates and aliens, to hear the hum of the life system. I silently pounded the back of my head to the wall I was sitting against, before deciding that pounding it hard against it wouldn't wake me from this place. I had already had a good hit to my head during my time here.

During the flight (can I call it flying?) to Horizon I had time to think my about my situation. I remembered reading about people being tortured: to escape the pain they would go to this imaginary world, where they lived their lives the way they always did, but later would find a note telling that they must wake up. I didn't think that was my case. Yeah, someone ill in their head could have captured me to have some kind of sick pleasure torturing me, but this wasn't anything like my every day life.

I began to wonder... That maybe Josh was here somewhere, with me. He had been playing his game before disappearing, and so had I... I rubbed my face. Ugh, was I in some kind of scifi novel? Josh had been missing for almost 16 hours... So, if whatever happened to me happened to him as well, that meant that time kept going on back in our world.

That didn't make me feel better at all.

I stared in front of me, seeing nothing. How the hell was I going to find him? The moment I'd step my foot on Horizon I'd be thrown to jail. Maybe Josh had been already thrown to jail somewhere else.

Maybe he had not landed on a garden planet, but found himself in the middle of the darkness between the stars, and got spaced... No! No!

Yeah, I was getting more anxious by the minute. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was Josh who had gotten us here somehow. He was obsessed about Mass Effect but could it really be that he had found a way to get himself in it...

That's just impossible. He was just a guy who after graduation had not been able to find a job he liked. I was quite sure that he was no rocket scientist or anything.

I cursed him to deepest pits of hell for making me worry myself sick.

ooOoo

The marines walked us out of the ship just the way they had walked us in: they simply announced that we had arrived to our destination and pointed us to the right direction with their guns. I didn't really pay attention to my surroundings before wind hurled my hair around my face, causing me to shake my head and take a look around me.

I must have halted my walking because the salarian behind me nudged my back to make me move again. I flinched when I walked on, and stared at my surroundings.

We were at a port, I'd say. There were two ships in my sight besides the one we arrived on, shining in the sun, their massive forms towering above us. I'd seen some ships and shuttles in games and movies, but now that I was walking by them...

They were huge!

A lot of people were walking around. Some were guarding us, some were busy unloading cargo from the ships, but still managed to glare at us every now and then. It made me nervous, and I did my best to avoid eye contact for the rest of the way. Instead, I studied what I have named 'container village' in my head.

I couldn't see a single building that looked like it belonged where it stood. I guess these habitable containers were handy when colonizing places, but they lacked... personality, individuality. I'd get lost here easily without guidance.

Before I had been surrounded by steel, but now... It took me some time to realize I was waiting for some kind of glitch, some pixels to give away that I was in a game. But everything was HD, no, beyond that. Everything had a scent that floated in the air, and everything had a feel when touched. All these people looked different, not repeating same clothes, hair styles and faces.

I wasn't in the game, but this place was certainly based on the game.

Or was the game based on this place?

A door slid shut behind be, and I was left alone into a little cell. It was small: maybe one and a half meters wide, and two meters deep. I wondered if they had enough cells for all the aliens they just brought in.

After standing still for some minutes, I finally ignored the small bunk and sat on the floor in the corner opposing the door. I don't find pulling my knees to my chest a very comfortable position, but I did so anyway. I could not hear a thing happening outside my cell, and that silence started to get on my nerves. I started to hum to calm myself down.

ooOoo

I don't know how much time had passed before the door to my cell slid open. I was feeling like crap. I ached all over, I was hungry and tired, but I was too afraid to take a nap. I felt like a little creature had moved into my head and decided that it had to be renovated, and was banging a hammer against my skull. I still cradled my knees against my chest, and had lowered my head to rest against my knees. I fluttered my eyes open before raising my head to see an Alliance person standing just outside of my cell.

"It's your turn, get up," the man said, suggesting that I should follow him with a nod of his head at the hallway. I stared at him for good long seconds. My turn for what? To be executed? To be thrown into a bottomless pit? I decided I didn't care. I had no idea where the currents were taking me, but I was too battered up to fight against them, physically and mentally. I managed to scramble to my feet, and stepped into the corridor. There was a guard standing at either side of my cell. They followed behind me as I followed the Alliance guy to a bigger room near the corridor's end. There was only one door leading to the room, the one we stepped in through. A table made of steel (or something like it, I couldn't be sure) was placed in the middle of the room. There were two steel chairs by the table, on bolted to the floor, and one on the other side of the table. That's the chair the leading man sat into, and he gestured me to sit on the other. I turned my head when the door closed with a hiss to see that the guards did not enter the room, but had taken positions outside it.

"Please, have a seat," the man said while fiddling with a datapad in his hands.

I slowly walked to the chair and sat down. I was quite sure I was about to be interrogated, and I didn't know how to feel about it. The man had lowered his datapad on the table and was now doing something with his omnitool.

"What is your name?"

"Haidee Ek." My voice was coarse, and I cleared my throat a little. The man typed something on his omnitool before he rested his arms on the table and turned his full attention to me.

"Haidee. Do you know why you are here?"

I started to shook my head, half nodded, and shook my head again. "No. Kind of... It's... not making any... nothing's really making sense to me right now," I replied silently. The man leaned back in his chair, studying me. His face was almost void of emotion: the little I could read from him was curiosity.

"You are here, because when our troops followed a distress signal to it's source, they found an unregistered pirate ship full of scientists and other personnel from an illegal facility that (he glanced at his datapad) was reportedly destroyed by yet unverified reason twenty hours ago." His eyes studied my face. "You don't strike me as a scientist or a security guard."

There was a question behind his words which I decided to be left unanswered. During our brief silence he stole a look at his 'tool before reforming his question.

"The science team has told us you are not part of their crew, yet you were brought to the ship with them. What were you doing at the facility?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it when I didn't know where to start. I stared at the omnitool on the man's toned wrist, trying to figure out what to say.

"I was at my friend's place. He... His parents had contacted me, he had disappeared. I was in his room, when..." I fell silent, shook my head slowly and lifted my eyes to the ceiling. "I woke up in a forest, not knowing how I'd gotten there, or where I was. I was trying to find... something, someone, when... Altun found me." I looked at the man again. He seemed to have slightly more interest on his face, but I could have imagined it. "I followed him, and then we saw some cars (the man raised one of his eyebrows) destroyed, and then I got this." I pointed at the side of my head where I had been struck. I didn't know if I had a bruise or anything, but I sure felt it enough that it should be visible to others. My hand dropped into my lap and I was silent for a moment. "I'm quite positive that I have lost my mind," I told him sadly.

My last statement seemed to surprise the man. He straightened his back and shifted slightly in his chair. "How so?"

I did not respond to that, but looked at his omnitool. "Have you found anything on me yet?"

He glanced at his 'tool again, but did not respond.

"I was born in 1988."

That made his eyebrows fly to his hairline. He stared at me, and I returned his doubting gaze with my own, sad eyes. "I wouldn't believe me either."

The man was about to say something when his omnitool pinged and cut him short. He took a look at it, looked at me, and read again whatever message he had gotten. He finally got hold of his emotions and stared at me blankly, making me shift in my chair. Finally he just stood up and left the room without saying a word.

After the door slid shut I slumped down in my chair, musing over the conversation. What was he going to do with me now? Send in a psychiatrist to see me? Huh. I had told him the truth, I don't see how anything good would have come from lying.

A hiss pulled me back from my thoughts, and the man returned to his seat. He was gone a minute, and he was already back? He leaned his left elbow to the table, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his fingers covering most of his mouth. He didn't speak, just stared at me, the fingers of his right hand tapping at the table every now and then. He was making me feel extremely uncomfortable, and I lowered my eyes to my lap to avoid his stare.

When the door opened ten minutes later I was happy the man got a reason to look somewhere else. Before anyone entered the room my interrogator stood and walked out to the whoever was waiting outside. Only after the door was securing me from the man who now creeped the shit out of me I raised my head and left out the air from my lungs. I actually jolted a little when the door opened again, but to my relief neither of the two men who entered were the man from before. My relief was short: I was bothered by a feeling that I knew one of the men, but I just couldn't quite figure out how...

Only after he spoke I was able to make a connection. "How are your injuries?"

Snap, my brain cells made new connections at his husky voice. Snap, small scar on his lip and one below it, snap, raven black hair combed back and sideburns, snap, an Alliance officer on Horizon.

I covered my face with my hands and I started to cry.

Author's note:

I got to spend a weekend with my friends. It was good to see them again. School starts again, and I'm having doubts at what to do with my life. Have I taken a wrong path after so many right ones? I might need to back-trace my steps, but I'm not stressing over it. Bring it on, come what may!

I just saw a shooting star. My wish has never come true this far and I doubt it will this time either... But I keep wishing. Every time I see one.

I'm starting another fan fic, which I plan to be a one-shot. I won't let it in the way of updating this one, but it is something I need to get out of my system.

I'm too poor to eat at school at the moment, and it's been an experience bringing my own lunch. Well, just one more week, and I'll have little money again. I've proved myself that I can survive with less. Luckily I've been able to afford milk to my coffee, it's not like I couldn't survive without milk, but that's how I take my coffee, and I get withdrawal symptoms if I don't drink it every morning.

I hate these stupid banana flies. *swats at them*

In case you might find my A/Ns confusing, let me tell you this: I usually start it before I start the actual chapter, update it during the chapter, and finish it after I've finished the chapter. That way I won't forget anything important.

I haven't been able to write as much as I'd like. I wake up, go to school, go to work, come home, go to bed. I'll be having less work shifts in the future, and I'll be traveling home next weekend, which should give me time to write: not much else to do on a train.

I had much trouble trying to find English names and idioms and words for things in this chapter. Everything seemed to be out of my expertise.

I realized having a deficiency in my last chapters. Now that I've taken a thought about the matter, the writing process should be easier for me, and hopefully it will improve my writing's quality. (Not that I'd been getting complaints, no, only words of encouragement. Thank you all.)