Sorry this took a little longer than I had anticipated. Uni work et al. Also, apologies for the length. The next chapter will be longer.
Dave had come home from another day's work and was reading the latest update on Bioware's website regarding the effort to get Jed out of the game.
The DLC they had promised was still coming (by this point so many noises were being made by Jed's family, if not the international community, that not doing so would probably have ruined them in both legal fees and public outcry), but it was taking longer than Bioware had expected to make it: they put it as "technical difficulties", which everyone who knew anything about mods took to mean they had run into the same issue those modding the game had.
Dave shuddered when he thought about it. Technically, it wasn't illegal to deliberately do that to the character, nor was it illegal to put videos of on YouTube. Technically, he was only a video game character: a few dozen lines of code with an audio track, and people found amusement from watching the results of modding.
Dave knew that he was anything but a mere video game character. It baffled him that people could put up a thing like that - showing the torture of a human being - and be fine with it, even though he was real. Dave had never thought human beings could prove so malicious, but one brief look - screams and yelling and begging the pain to end - at a video of a "modded" version of Jed was enough to show him that they were.
Ah well. Dave couldn't do anything about that, and if he succeeded in what's he was endeavouring to do, he might well save Jed from any further unpleasantness - if indeed "his' Jed had ever experienced any. That was "the plan". One thing Dave was doing in the meantime was continuing his efforts at romance with Liara. He had booted up his save, and had Katarina walk into Liara's cubicle to talk with her. Oddly enough though, Liara didn't want to discuss any romances.
"Shepard," she said as Katarina approached her, "I would like to know something about Jed."
That caught Dave by surprise: it wasn't normal for characters to discuss other characters in this game in this manner. Then he dismissed that thought with an internal sneer - this game had a bloody real person stuck in it for God's sake. 'Normal' had decided to say "f**k this I'm out" ages ago, and anything that happened past this point was the realm of bullshittery and Fantasy.
"Why?" "What?"
"What about him?" Shepard asked at Dave's prompting. Dave frowned at this, suddenly worried about what the other crew's reactions to Jed might be, and more importantly what prompted this particular change.
"Several of the other members of the crew are concerned about him," Liara said softly. She sounded worried. "They don't know where he came from. He isn't alliance military, nor is a mercenary or a C-Sec operative, none does he have any special knowledge. And yet, here he is, on the crew of the Normandy. Some of the crew are concerned he has some... undue influence."
"Are you concerned?" "Undue influence?" "Don't be stupid."
Dave didn't offer any response yet. This was troubling.
Among the many things puzzling gamers and scientists alike with regards to this phenomenon was the brief reference Jed had made to the characters not staying in their allotted areas - that they were "alive". That had prompted some serious debates about how alive the characters were to Jed - and if that meant that they were somehow alive (not to mention having the rather humorous side effect of a lot of Renegade players swearing off playing renegade ever again). More to the point though, Dave realised, that meant that the characters could react to how he was, and he had introduced himself to the characters by basically owning up to the foreknowledge.
Dave had to make a choice, though. He had to address this somehow. But what kind of repercussions might it have? Would his choice be a wrong one?
"Are you worried that he might be a spy?" Shepard finally asked as Dave picked the Paragon option.
"I don't know what he might be," Liara replied seriously. "But others on the crew are concerned about whether he is completely trustworthy."
And now, the worst thing Dave could have imagined happened.
"I'll be careful." "So am I." "I don't trust him."
Dave had never liked false choices - he felt they cheapened the experience. this was worse than normal false choices though: the game looked like it was about to steamroller Dave into saying something he not only didn't want to say, but categorically wanted not to say. None of the options looked like admissions of completely trusting Jed, and the worst was an outright admission of the opposite.
"Shit," Dave muttered. "Shit!"
What the fuck was he supposed to do? None of these would be any good at all. And yet he couldn't just stop, could he? He had to make a choice.
He hated it. For the first time he remembered, he actively hated all the choices this game was giving him. It wasn't a feeling he enjoyed.
"I can't deny there's something a little off about him," Shepard finally said, at Dave's prompting. "But he's not done anything to threaten the ship yet, so I won't mistrust him. Certainly not just because of an off feeling."
"I hope your trust is not misplaced, Shepard," Liara commented. "Now, was there something else?"
Dave excused himself from the conversation, and quickly saved and quit. He was now too anxious to continue playing: he just hoped he hadn't made things any worse for Jed in there. God knew the guy didn't need that.
Liara arrived at the mess later that usual. There was only Jed sat there, a dark liquid in a glass before him. Liara wasn't quite sure how to approach him but felt the need to: she needed to know whether he was trustworthy.
"May I speak with you, Jed?" she asked.
"Dr T'Soni," he replied, in a slightly deeper voice than his normal one. Then, to Liara's surprise (and mild irritation) he smirked, a slight snort escaping his nose.
"What is it that you find amusing," she asked, trying - and failing - to keep the annoyance from her tone.
"Oh, just a conversation I heard once," the human replied, leaning back and staring up at her. "I imagine you'll understand what I mean someday. I rather hope you do, it should be more than a little interesting."
Liara sat down opposite him, giving him what she hoped was a serious look that communicated serious intent, although she didn't know human facial expressions that well - despite their obvious similarities in facial structure, humans were sometimes incredibly inscrutable. He stared back evenly, a slight frown developing on his face.
"Ok," he said, leaning forward again, "now I know something is up. What did you want, Dr T'Soni?"
Liara was pleasantly surprised that he had noticed her annoyance so quickly. It made her life a little bit easier.
"I need to know who you are and why you're here," she replied, evenly.
He blinked, and leaned back in his chair again, looking away briefly. Liara waited for his reply, but he seemed to be deep in thought.
"No," he said finally after the long pause. "You want to know, but need is a different thing."
"We can argue semantics, or you can answer my question," she said, now getting steadily more irate as the conversation continued.
"Semantics aside," he countered, "you don't need to know. It won't affect your life, but you want to know anyway."
"On the contrary," Liara said, almost sharply. "I do need to know. If I go into battle with you at my side, I need to know you won't shoot me in the back."
"Ah," Jed said, an almost cheeky grin forming on his face, "but that's a different question."
To her own surprise, Liara slammed her palm down on the mess table, and Jed's grin quickly subsided.
"Are you incapable of answering a simple question?" she asked, now positively angry.
"I am perfectly capable," he replied, his voice almost echoing her tone. "Are you incapable of realising that the answer is an irrelevancy? You ask for my life story. If I said I didn't want to give you it, that does not affect my trustworthiness on the field. I would hope you realised that I'm not going to shoot you."
"I am not the only one concerned about your trustworthiness," Liara blurted out in a rush of anger, and then she stopped, eyes wide. Jed's eyebrows shot up.
"I though that might happen," he said, sounding almost sad as he said it. "It's too much to hope that things ever go smoothly, and it's too much to hope people take you on your word, or faith." He sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I can only assure you that whatever my origins, my purpose is to help Shepard."
"That isn't enough assurance," Liara said coldly.
"It'll have to be," Jed said, his tone cooling to match hers. He stood up and moved to walk away from her. "Ask Shepard if you want more details about me." He began walking away from Liara towards the lift.
"Shepard doesn't trust you any more than I do," Liara threw as a parting shot, more out of spite than any desire to continue the conversation. To her surprise, Jed stopped and turned to look at her. The look on his face was cold, but in his eyes there was a melancholy she could not place.
"Trust me or not, all I want to do is help, so I can go home," he said softly. Then he walked away, leaving Liara sat at the mess table. She sighed: that had been more...confrontational than she had hoped.
The strange man assured no malice, but gave no explanations. There were two possibilities that Liara could see. He was lying through his teeth, or he was being vague because he felt it would be detrimental to his genuine desire to help. Liara felt no desire to do as he had suggested and ask Shepard again but what else could she do?
"He say anything?" came a voice from behind her. Kaidan sat beside her, and Tali opposite. Though Tali's face was covered, her body language suggested something was unnerving her - and Liara could easily guess what. Kaidan looked worried as well. A moment later, Garrus and Ashley Williams sat down too. It had turned into a little conference almost.
"Shepard is being careful," Liara reported. "She doesn't mistrust him as such - he hasn't done noting threatening yet - but she's as aware as we are that something is off about him."
"Of course she is," Kaidan said softly. "She's not stupid."
"So what do we think he is?" Tali asked. "I don't know of any way anyone could know what he knows about us."
"There are plenty of espionage agencies out there," Garrus said thoughtfully.
"But none of them can give that much intel to someone," Ashley put in. "And none of them can find that kind of intel out."
"And the way he was waiting for us, too," Kaidan put in. "How do we even begin to account for that?"
"I could bug him," Tali suggested. "That might give us something."
"Does he have an omni-tool?" Liara asked. "He might have a diary or journal we can read."
"Good idea," Kaidan said, looks around the table. "We gather intel about him. He has intel about us, so it's only fair. Ad if he turns out to be a threat, we tell Commander Shepard."
"Tell me what?" a voice cut in. The crew turned, to see Commander Shepard leaning against a bulkhead, arms crossed, staring at them.
None of the conspirators wanted to look her in the eye as she slowly eased away from the bulkhead, dropped her arms, and wade towards them. She walked around the table, looking at each of them in turn.
"What's all this about?" she asked, the timbre of her voice laced with a deliberate, almost icy calm. They looked to each other, none of them wanting to speak. "Well?" she asked, sounding more annoyed.
"Jed," Kaidan said, his voice toneless and resigned.
"Of course," Shepard said, unsurprised. "Trust issues?" she added with a pointed look at Liara.
"Can you blame us?" Ashley said, almost yelling. "We don't know anything about him!"
"You don't," Shepard replied sharply. "I do. And what I know is enough for me to trust him. Is that understood?"
"It's understood," Kaidan said, looking at her, "but I don't think it's fair for you to ask us to trust him based solely on his word."
Shepard narrowed her eyes at him.
"Don't you mean, it's not fair to ask you to trust him based solely on my word?" she asked, the accusatory tone making Kaidan look away. One by one, she looked each of them in the eyes and each of them looked away, unable to look her in the eye. "I'm not an idiot. My eye is on him. But I need you to trust me when I say that, and I need you to work with him. Understood?"
One by one, they murmured their assent, Kaidan and Ashley being the last.
"I'll talk to him about telling you all," Shepard said. "Then maybe we can get on with our real mission."
She walked away, leaving all of them to ponder their next course of action.
Next Chapter will be the "talk to Jed DLC". Can anyone say nightmare fuel?
