Chapter Four:
Shout At the Devil
"I said you got me where you want me again
And I can't turn away
I'm hangin' by a thread and I'm feelin' like a fool
I'm stuck here in between
The shadows of my yesterday
I want to get away
I need to get away."
Back Against the Wall, Cage the Elephant
20:89, GST
A sensation.
Stimuli.
Movement.
I was trapped in a game of tug of war, sliding in and out of the threshold.
My head lolled to the side and water poured out of my mouth. Something was beating my chest.
Voices from across an ocean. Someone shouting.
Back down under.
1:02, GST
"Clear!"
The world came into blurry focus with an electric snap. Water choked my lungs. I coughed and spat into an oxygen mask that squeezed my face. Nearly drowning in my own lungs, I tried to rip it off.
"Hold him down!"
My arms snapped back down and I felt plastic strips tie themselves around my wrists. This, of course, only made me struggle harder. I started kicking and felt solid contact with one swing, followed by a grunt. Then those got tied down too. Completely strapped down, the rain in my lungs turned into a monsoon and I was left trying to bite my mask off like a cornered animal.
There was a pain in my arm, sharp and sudden. Then warmth slithered along my bicep and up around my chest. The warmth left numb flesh in its wake. When a good chunk shot up my carotid and exploded in my brain, I went limp. The edges of the world faded away.
Consciousness slipped back somewhere in my skull. Right before I conked out, I heard someone say that I would be alright and, strangely, that made me feel a little better.
8:59, GST
I've always recognized hospitals by the smell of antiseptic and infected bodily fluids.
Case in point, I woke up with a dull throbbing pain in my chest and got a whiff of a room soaked in isopropanol. Dead giveaway, if the dried paper gown and thin mattress bed wasn't enough. For a while, I didn't even open my eyes—I just breathed, in and out, fast and slow, relishing it. I was alive. That was either good or bad, depending on how I wanted to look at things. At the moment, it was the former.
A dull pain in my chest hit a spiky high note. I tried bringing an arm up but couldn't.
I opened my eyes and noticed the handcuffs chaining me to the bed railing.
They were thick rings with electric blue smiles running along the edges. I didn't get angry. No, I got scared. C-Sec had noticed me. That was really, really bad. Panicking wouldn't get me anywhere so I took some deep breaths and began improvising.
It was just my right arm that was leashed. I went over the cuffs with my left hand meticulously, prodding for weaknesses. If spending countless lunchroom detentions with future criminals had taught me anything, it was that every lock could be picked. Or broken, if need be. That's why, after finding nothing worth exploiting, I skipped over trying to wriggle out in favor of finding something to smash it with.
Unfortunately for me, my hospital room was bare bones. One single mattress bed, a few cupboards, a wall window overlooking the clogging traffic of space, and nothing else. I looked over the side and saw a bedpan. When I picked it up, ignoring a tearing feeling in my chest, it did that warping noise that thin metal does when you shake it. That was a no go. This thing couldn't break a hymen.
Actually, I could wriggle out of it if it wasn't for my thumb. That goddamn thumb. This little knob of bone at the base of it meant no matter how much I flattened my hand, I couldn't squeeze out. I'd have to dislocate it, probably even break it. I measured it out. If I pulled the thumb all the way into my palm, the bone I needed to move—or break—was on full display. I had to jam it back hard, snap the bone from the ligament, and then jerk it back into my palm. I probably could've just jammed it against the bed railing over and over again, but that was too unreliable. I needed precision because this was going to fucking hurt.
I grabbed a wad of my collar and stuffed it in my mouth, biting down hard. I wrapped a hand around my thumb.
"What are you doing?"
A human nurse was standing in the open doorway, a heavy shade of cocoa tucked into a marble white. She seemed right on the edge of alarm.
My collar fell out of my mouth. "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Yep."
"Nothing at all?"
"Nope. I'm an angel."
She gave me the look of a tired parent. "If you're looking for free meals, go down to a shelter. Vagrants with death wishes drain our resources."
"Believe you me, doc, I don't wanna stick around."
"I hope so. Last vagrant we had in here kept snapping her fringe to get morphine." She took my file off the foot of the bed and skimmed through it. "Alright, Michael, you've—"
"Don't call me Michael."
"Excuse me?"
"Don't call me Michael."
"Fine, Mr. Quinn. You—"
"Or that. Especially not that."
"Okay, sir, you're mostly fine. You had some minor tissue damage and a couple broken ribs from CPR but a few tissue and bone weaves took care of that. You also had a mild case of hypothermia which we fixed with warm liquids. And a concussion, but it's minor enough to heal on its own." She looked down at me with a blank face. "It says here you were clinically dead too."
"Dead?"
"Yeah. Two whole minutes. You're lucky you don't have brain damage. As it is, you're ready for release."
I jerked the cuffs. "Well, if that's the case, I'd like to be cut loose. Chains in bed isn't really my thing."
"Standard policy. Someone comes in with a bullet in them and we have to tell C-Sec."
"How is that, by the way?"
"Skin and muscle weave took care of it. You're lucky it wasn't a few inches to the left. Despite what you see on vids, you get hit in the shoulder and you'll need months of physical therapy to get back full range of motion." She put the file back on the stand. "Just to let you know, we're also supposed to tell them about any escape attempts."
"I'm sure you don't need to share that information."
"I don't know. Seems like something they might want to know."
"How about I hurt a few people, get more business sent your way?"
"That's not funny."
"So . . . gift card then?"
The door opened and a turian so tall he had to duck through the doorway walked in. He was dressed in C-Sec armor and had an Avenger assault rifle straddled around his waist. I had to wonder if the gun was necessary.
"He's all yours," the nurse said. She gave me a look but left without saying anything.
The guy unlocked my cuffs and told me to get up. It sounded like he had something in his throat, but the order is pretty much universal. I felt a draft at my back when my feet touched the floor.
He nudged me out the door. I obeyed with a sinking feeling.
8:92, GST
Thirty minutes or so later, I was sitting in a C-Sec interrogation room, in the bowels of Zakera's resident station. I knew I should've been scared but the room looked exactly like one you'd see on all those cop dramas on late night TV. Small room, metal table with rounded edges, two chairs and a blacked out window staring at me. I kept expecting David Caruso to walk through the door.
They'd left me to stew in here. I had done my best to look inconspicuous—looking bored, tapping my knuckles on the table, picking my nails—but my heart rate was steadily climbing the whole time. I hadn't done anything wrong, I knew that. I had the witnesses and medical records to back up my story. But this was the first time I'd been caught by the law and I kept thinking that one little slip-up in my story would end with me doing twenty five to life. The worst part was I knew that wasn't true and I was still worrying about it.
Swimming in the Presidium lake was illegal. Avina had told me that herself. If they really wanted to be assholes, they could charge me with attempted destruction of public property for clogging up the sewage system. The charge wouldn't stick but it'd be enough to keep me around. And if I stuck around, Gatsby would have a better chance to rope me back into his schemes. He obviously still wanted me alive. The ball was in his court now, but I wasn't planning on staying for the rebound.
Finally, after twenty minutes of counting the sweat drops rolling down my cheek, a turian walked into a room with a datapad in his claws. Even if he didn't have the classic blue and black armor, the unconscious swagger, the gray plates, and the cobalt colony markings, I still would've recognized the visor from anywhere.
Garrus Vakarian was my interrogator. Talk about a fucking curveball.
He sat down with the kind of resignation a man gets when he stays up all night. He went to talk but I cut him off.
"Look, pal, I don't have a translator, so you might want to use that two-way interface on your tool."
I thought he'd be shocked but he took it all in stride. Orange flashed under the table and when he rested his forearm on the table, there was a thin rectangle with a flat line on his tool.
"That better?" he asked.
Same voice, double-flanged from delayed translation. Surreal didn't cover it and a "dream come true" would mean I'd been wishing for it. In any other situation, it would've been cool as hell.
"Yeah."
"Good." He scrolled absently through the file. "Michael, I'll be blunt. Right now, I've got two dead bodies in the Wards, dozens of frightened citizens, many with trampling and bullet wounds and two dead gangsters along with a wounded officer. Both the officer and multiple witnesses claim a human who looks an awful lot like you was present at all the recent shootings. And then you were found not far from the crime scene with a gunshot wound. So," he said, dropping the datapad on the table, "care to fill in the gaps?"
And just like that, all my confidence went out the window.
"Shit, did I do all that?" He managed to say "hurry up" without moving. "The two bodies in the Wards, it's an asari and salarian right?" He nodded. "Well, those two dead gangsters robbed the asari and shot her. I saw the whole thing so they chased me and killed the salarian trying to kill me. Of course, their aim wasn't that shitty and they managed to clip my shoulder during the chase."
"And the shooting in the market?"
"They followed me in there. Fired some shots to get the crowd on the floor but made them panic instead. I got into one of the elevators to the Presidium, they followed me up, and when I was trying to tell the officer what was happening, they came out firing. The rest, well, I'm sure you know more about what happened afterwards."
I said all that in a single breath and had to nearly gasp when I was done. Garrus leaned back in his seat and stared at me.
"That doesn't explain why you were found in a sewage treatment facility."
I cleared my throat. "Well, uh, during said firefight, I kinda, uh . . . well, I got distracted and fell in the river. I swam down to avoid the bullets, you know, and got sucked into the pipes."
He gave me a hard look. "You expect me to believe that? Those facilities are checked constantly to stop trash from getting in the water. Far as I know, humans can't hold their breath that long."
"Well, what the hell do you want me to say? That some god-like deity pulled me out of there? Look, that's what happened, and it's your choice to believe it. I'm not lying."
He kept up the stare. His mandibles came down just a tad, enough to see a shark's mouth peeking out at me. With their spiky heads and plated faces, turians sure as hell could look scary if they wanted to. If I hadn't been used to staring at his face, I would've squirmed.
Time passed.
"Your story checks out," he said eventually, typing on the datapad. "I would've said it was too perfect with the amount of witnesses you have, but my gut tells me you're not that type."
"So . . . I can go then?"
"Sure, if you want." I went to stand but he held up a talon. "Few more questions, though." I sat back down, a clock ticking in my head.
"Many of the witnesses said that in the elevator, you told them to run for C-Sec while you distracted the gangsters."
"Yeah . . . and?"
"That was brave of you."
I shrugged. "I just made sure they had a chance. People break down in those kinda situations."
"You seem fine."
"I'm crying on the inside."
"I'm sure." He looked at the datapad for a while, then sighed with his mandibles. "Well, if you want to press charges, you should know we have a full team of lawyers ready to—"
"Whoa, slow your roll there, buddy. I don't wanna press charges."
His mandibles fell. "You sure?"
"Yeah. I mean, it's not C-Sec's fault I fell in the river. I'm just happy I'm still alive."
He seemed shocked for a while, then laughed it off. "I'm sorry. In this situation, most people want to sue anything with a badge."
I looked at the datapad. It was written in turian script, which looked like a chicken scratch version of Japanese, but had these lines running between words. "Is that a template?"
"This happens more than you might think."
I leaned back in my seat and laughed. "People like to think they're entitled to everything, don't they?"
"You have no idea. Had an asari a while back complain that there were too many humans in her neighborhood. She didn't like it when we had a human officer take her statement."
"Did you do that on purpose?"
"I might've had a hand in it."
I laughed again. "Shit like that makes me glad I don't work at C-Sec."
He tilted his head. "I thought you were applying here."
"What?"
"Yeah, there's been rumors of a human joining Investigation. All the human officers won't shut up about it. When I read your file, it said you were waiting for approval."
"Well, that's not right. I have no interest in working at C-Sec."
"I understand, this job's not for everyone." He pulled up a hand to his tool. "If you can wait, I'll message Pallin and let him know you're not interested."
"Thanks. Let him down easy for me."
"I'll give him a good shoulder to cry on."
Garrus went to typing and I rubbed my head. I felt like shit. Despite what the nurse had said, I was getting a headache like I was missing chunks of my brain.
Okay, game plan. I doubt Gatsby's gonna let this go unpunished. If I'm being realistic, there's probably nowhere I can hide from him. Being omnipotent usually means you're omniscient as well. But this wasn't really about escaping anymore. I knew from the start I wasn't going back. This was just a big "fuck you" to the big man, a wrench thrown into the gears of the universe. Gatsby may have the power to rope me into his schemes, but he'd have to drag me kicking and screaming.
Right. Get off the Citadel. As long as I don't end up on Omega, destination doesn't matter.
"Garrus," I said with my head down, "do you know any transports off the Citadel?"
Silence. With my eyes closed, it felt like I was alone.
"Garrus?"
Nothing. I looked up.
Garrus was sitting still, talons splayed on his tool and his mandibles slightly out. This wasn't him being deep in thought or anything. His eyelids were halfway closed like he'd been blinking. I watched him long enough to see he wasn't breathing too. I got the impression I was staring at a very well-done statue.
"Garrus?" I tapped the table. He didn't move. I snapped my fingers in his face a few times. No results. "Come on, dude. This isn't funny."
There was a heavy silence, like everything in existence had just . . . stopped. Frozen in time.
I got up and walked around the table. I poked him in the neck, which felt like a strip of warm leather. I grabbed his mandible and wagged it back and forth, even yanked it down for a spurt of pain. When that didn't work, I gave him a shove. He tipped over in a sitting pose like a rigid statue and hit the floor, not breaking position. He didn't try to get up.
Gatsby.
I went for the gun at Garrus' waist, the same type of blocky pistol I'd gotten from Peter. I waved it around the room wildly, nearly tripping over myself, trying to keep every corner covered at all times. I couldn't breathe. My legs backed up towards the door. I reached out for the door control and punched it. When I didn't hear the whoosh, I hit it harder. Finally, I took a step forward and kinda did a backwards kick, which, along with aiming the gun at everything, made me look like a capital T. It stayed closed.
I went for Garrus. When dragging him didn't work, I picked him up like a damsel in distress, one arm under the legs and another around his back. Now, turians in full armor are really fucking heavy so when I got him to the door, I just threw him at it. By some miracle, his hand hit the door control and it opened. I nearly forgot to jump over him on the way out.
I ran headfirst into an asari standing right outside the door. She stood still like a mannequin as we both tumbled to the floor. The gun went off because I didn't know what trigger discipline was. The asari looked like a life-size action figure toppled onto its back, frozen in a standing position. I scrambled to my feet, accidentally kicked her in the face, and started running.
"I'm losing my mind, I'm losing my mind, I'm losing my mind. . . ."
I saw more frozen people. A patrolling turian was caught mid-yawn down the center of the hallway, teeth looking like spears. Two human officers were walking side by side with a shared datapad between them, the one on the right sipping coffee while the other laughed. I ran past a room stuffed with salarians on computers and caught images of camera footage, half-written reports and a few colorful games. I was lost in a mesuem, the only visitor in a sea of exhibits.
"Oh, Jesus Christ, what the fuck?"
I turned a corner too fast and slammed into a turian. Again, the gun went off, but this time the bullet sailed right into the guy's stomach. There was no grunt, no flash of pain, he just toppled over in a rigid pose. I stopped for maybe a second to check the wound and sprinted off.
I was hallucinating. This was all a very elaborate hallucination, brought on by psychosis. I've gone fucking looney tunes, man. Up and over the high side. Now my dream land had glitched and I was stuck in the reboot, trapped forever. Just wake up. Insanity is just a bad dream and you can wake up from those. Oh, please God, wake me up. I'll take shitty asylum food over this place any day.
Somehow, I found the front lobby. A salarian was in the process of tripping and flinging a large amount of datapads into the air, which hung there without wires or support. They clattered to the floor when I ran through them like a swarm of bees. The front door was two planes of glass that were supposed to slide out of your way. Except they didn't and I bounced off them at Mach speed. I stood up and shot the right panel a few times. It crinkled into an opaque wall but then I kicked it and the sheet fell loose off the edges. I slipped through.
A flurry of gray kicked up in my face, specks of ash and dust choking both me and the air. It was so thick I couldn't see three feet in front of me. I staggered forward, collar over my nose and a hand in front of my eyes. Instead of metal underneath me, I heard the crunch of ash and felt the heat of embers. Every breath was loaded—I tried holding my breath but that just made me need it more, and eventually I was gasping in large amounts of ash. Squinting, caked in layers of gray, I trudged on to the next obstacle.
This obstacle turned out to be the ground ending at an arbitrary point. My foot came down for support and dragged the rest of my body over the edge. Luckily, or not, the edge curved outward like a crescent moon and I just ended up tumbling down a steep hill instead of falling to my death. Hooray. As it was, though, the hill was ashen as hell and kicked up clouds and clouds of the stuff when I rolled over it. Every attempt to stand or grab any sort of leverage made me flip head over heels over and over again. After about half a minute of tumbling, I went passive and waited to roll off a high cliff.
Of course, that didn't happen and I rolled onto a rocky little plateau built like a bed of nails. Lying on my back, I caught a glimpse of a gray sky marred with bright streaks of orange. Then all the ash I'd breathed in caught up with me and I coughed like a life-long smoker, keeled over. It was cathartic and very painful.
"Get up, Mr. Quinn."
Oh, I did. Fast. Fast enough that I maybe tripped myself on the way up but I had my feet planted and my gun pointed in no time.
Gatsby stood smiling in a veil of ashes, smiling like we were two friends out to get lunch. His white suit wasn't stained in the slightest—in fact, it looked like he'd just gotten it pressed. His eyes were ruby red and flickered like there was a fire burning behind them.
He laughed while shaking his head. "Ah, Mr. Quinn, you certainly are a tenacious one."
I brought his head into the crosshairs. "Go fuck yourself."
"I think I'll take that for you." The gun flew out of my hands. I mean flew, shot out right into Gatsby's hands like it was a magnet. I managed to let go just in time for it to not dislocate half my fingers. "You'll get this back once we're done."
"What am I, a fucking child?"
"If you behave like one, I will treat you as such."
I did a little gape before regaining my composure. "Fuck you. I'm not doing this."
I turned and went to walk off, even though I knew I was on a plateau. Then a wall of fire rose up in front of me, arched high over my head while dripping drops of flame. It was so scorching hot that the flakes of ash seared themselves into my skin. I backed up wildly until I slammed into Gatsby, then brought up an instinctual elbow to his face. It went through him and I ended up spinning so hard I fell onto my back again. I got back to my feet choking on ash.
"Alright, alright, Gatsby. You wanna talk? Fine. Maybe I'll listen."
The smile stayed bright and prominent. "You are so gracious, Mr. Quinn." The flame wall disappeared behind me. "Do you know where we are?"
This is about the time I took a look around. We were on the edge of a valley, the plateau cut into the slope like dented metal, two hills shaped like a decapitated C jamming their toes against each other. Everywhere you looked was gray—gray hillsides with burned out foliage, gray ash falling like snow, a gray sky connecting seamlessly with a gray horizon. Farther down the valley, where a river should've ran if it wasn't clogged with ash, was a gutted city with blackened buildings crumbling over cracked streets and burned out husks of cars. I got a flashback of some National Geographic documentary about what would have happened if Khrushchev hadn't been such a pussy and launched all his nukes.
"Never-Never Land, I don't know."
"Earth, actually. The city is not important—there are thousands more like it."
I took another look at the city, where a skyscraper crumbled like it was made of dust. "Things don't seem to be going so well."
"Mr. Quinn, this is the year 2188, two weeks after the end of the Reaper War. This is what happens if you don't intervene."
"So?"
He did that little head lean people do when you say something they don't expect. "So? So this is the end. The end of humanity, all the current civilizations of the galaxy. The Reaper cycle will continue, condemning trillions upon trillions to certain death."
"I don't care."
The smile faltered for a tiny second, but oh man, it felt fucking great. "You don't care that your entire species was destroyed? That thousands and thousands of years of progress was snuffed out like a swatted fly?"
"Nope. Not even a little."
His demeanor retreated a little, enough to study me. His eyes were the color of lightning. "Mr. Quinn, please, I don't think you're fully grasping the ramifications of—"
"Oh no, I do. Humanity lost the war. Woopty fucking doo. If you hadn't fucked up the timeline, I'd be dead by now so, tell me, why should I care?"
"Don't you think that is incredibly selfish of you, Mr. Quinn?"
"Yeah, it is. Who said I had to be a nice guy?"
He nodded with a slightly restrained smile. "Maybe I need to switch tactics."
He snapped his fingers and we were back in the interrogation room. I mean, shit, I wish I could describe it has something cooler, something like the walls flying through the sky and rebuilding the room around us. But, no, it just happened in a poof. A blink of an eye. Same table, same chromium walls, hell, it even had the scratches I'd carved into it. Gatsby took a seat and pushed out a chair with his foot. When I looked around and saw the door was missing, I sat down without another word.
"So, Mr. Quinn," he said, interlacing his fingers, "why do you think you're not good enough?"
"That's an awfully big assumption there, Doc."
"It's true, though, isn't it?"
"Oh, yeah, it is. I just don't want you assuming anything about me."
He laughed with his old humor restored. "I believe I know more about you than you think, Mr. Quinn."
I didn't say anything.
"You can answer at any time."
"Fuck off. I'm not doing shit for you."
The smile waned again. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to refrain from swearing, Mr. Quinn. I find it . . . unsavory."
"Go fuck yourself."
I was expecting the smile to fall more, but this time it grew into a belting laugh, a real knee slapper that had him going for a while. I ground my teeth until the crown broke.
"Ah, Mr. Quinn, you surprise me, really, you do. After all you've seem me do, all I've put you through, you still find it wise to insult me."
"It's more cathartic than logical, really."
"Still remarkable, nonetheless. And you haven't answered my question."
"It's not a matter of not being good enough, although that definitely factors. It's the fact that I don't want to. You see how that might be an issue, right?"
"Why don't you?"
"Why don't I? Why the fuck should I? You can't honestly expect me to just willingly give up everything I had to be something I never wanted to be. That's fucking stupid."
"I only ask because, well, most others take to their duty much more immediately than you."
"Others? Are you—did you do this to other people?"
"Mr. Quinn, are you familiar with the multiverse theory? It's very true. An infinite amount of possibilities are occurring in an infinite amount of universe at different locations, events, times. You are not the first to be in this situation and you will not be the last."
"So . . . everyone who's ever existed has gone to Mass Effect at some time, in some universe?"
"Yes, and not just this universe. In fact, right now, you yourself are exploring Rapture before the fall, wandering Sera as a Stranded, surviving experiments at Black Mesa, along with infinitely more situations that would take me far too long to list. Your situation is far from unique, Mr. Quinn."
"So that makes it okay then? It's all justified?"
"No, of course not. It just makes it a fact. Sad but true, as they say."
I took a look over at Garrus, still frozen solid. Still alien looking. "You know, Gatsby, you're doing a very bad job of convincing me of anything."
"You don't want to be convinced, it seems."
"Yep, you're right. If you don't mind, you can just send me home now. You know, anytime."
"Is that what this all boils down to, Mr. Quinn? Wanting to go home?"
"Yes! Did you not get the fucking memo?"
The room was heating up, slow enough that you couldn't really notice it. Gatsby's eyes had clouds of color to them, like dye in water, along with a glint at every angle. Right now, they were somewhere between a burning orange and a velvet purple.
"Mr. Quinn, I'll 'level with you'. You're never going back. No amount of cajoling, threatening, pleading will change it so strike the thought from your mind. It's not my choice and, frankly, even if it was, I would still make the same decision. This is just the way things are and you need to accept it."
Ice cold, man, right in the gut. Like getting slapped with a sledgehammer. I blinked a few times and saw nothing.
"Now, let's focus on the present. You have shown remarkable tenacity and a rather admirable sense of pragmatism."
I'm never going home.
"When you woke up hundreds of feet in the air, held aloft by thin metal vents, you not only managed to survive but avoided the dock workers as well, even pulling a gun on one to secure your freedom."
Never going to say goodbye.
"Then, instead of entering a rather dramatic existential crisis, you immediately sought action and ways to spite me, even going so far as to sell your belongings to garner resources. Defying deities is mythologized in your culture but you decided to do it anyway, even when you knew you couldn't win."
Never.
"Then, when faced with three armed killers, you managed to use your environment to escape and bring down your attackers. Like it or not, you—Mr. Quinn, are you listening?"
I nodded.
"Good. Like it or not, Mr. Quinn, you are far more capable than you give yourself credit for. This is something you were meant for."
I put my face in my hands and dragged down, stretching the skin. "I don't care, Gatsby. Don't you get that? I just want to go home. Please."
"It's not an option, I'm afraid."
"Completely off the table?"
"It was never there to begin with."
Both my hands flew up in defeat. "Well, what other fucking option do I have? Suicide?"
"Whatever you want, within reason. I can't force you to do anything, Mr. Quinn. I can only explain to you that doing as I say is in the best interest of both parties."
"And how, exactly, does this benefit me?"
"A life of adventure and camaraderie, of course."
"Or an early death."
He shrugged. "Anything can happen. But thinking like that will only make it inevitable."
I rested my head on my palm and stared at the table. Seconds ticked by and minutes dragged on. I probably should do a little monologue here, turn towards the audience and bleed out my soul. Nah. If I did, it'd just be a repetitive, angsty mess of "b-but muh family", and I'm sure no one wants to see that. Just know that, at the time, I was angsting pretty hard, at levels even the most cringe-worthy fanfiction hadn't seen. It's reasonable, I know. I just don't want to get into it.
"So, say I do agree, go along with everything. What then?"
"Training. You have three years and, while that might not be enough time to fully prepare, it should be enough to ensure you'll be exactly where you're needed."
"Which is?"
"Right here. At C-Sec. Then off with Commander Shepard. I'll explain more when the time draws closer." He examined me with a smile trying too hard to be sympathetic. "Never forget, Mr. Quinn, you are very important. Stay safe, or things might get . . . complicated."
"You know, Gatsby, I don't like you very much."
"I think you've demonstrated that rather clearly, Mr. Quinn."
"Just making sure we're clear." I tapped my knuckles on the table. "So, fuck it, I'll say yes. You win. What happens now?"
The smile returned to its former glory. "Destiny, Mr. Quinn."
He snapped his fingers.
Gatsby, in an instant, was replaced with Garrus, this time moving and breathing. I think it's a testament to how much I'd been through that I barely flinched.
He stopped, muttered "what?", and went for his waist. His gun was back in my hands. I cleared my throat and held it up. His mandibles flicked a few times before he took it back. "How did you do that?" he asked.
"Old human secret."
"Right." He put his gun away while keeping an eye on me. "Anyway, I finished the message. You sure about this?"
"Actually . . . no, I've changed my mind. I've, uh, given it some thought and C-Sec seems to be the best choice. At least for now."
"Really? You sure?"
"Yeah. Sorry for making you write it all out."
He stood up. "It's fine, not like there's anything more important to be doing." I think he smiled but it was hard to tell. "I'll get someone down here to take a report and you can go. That alright, Michael?"
"Sure. It's Quinn, by the way."
"Hm?"
"Quinn. Just call me Quinn."
"Right. Have a nice day, Quinn." He left.
Well, time to become the savior of the galaxy.
Here goes nothing.
