Mass Effect: Surreptitious
Chapter Four:
Another cold afternoon had come to Noveria. However, this day was different. A Matriarch was coming to the planet along with a huge shipment of something. Nobody really knew the details besides that. Other than that it seemed like an average day working in the Noveria facilities. Noveria security detained an outsider for attempting to hack into their company files and discover more about this Matriarch and what kind of shipment she was bringing along.
"This is a pretty serious crime you know, hacking into company secrets especially with a high profile individual involved."
Noveria security walked back and forth in a room, with another individual sitting in a chair tied up.
"Not going to talk are you? Well that's alright we have ways of making guys like you talk."
One of the guards strikes the individual in the face with his fist. The guard noticing it barely fazed the person in the chair continued to swing and hit the individual tied up.
"Alright that's enough for now. We don't want to kill him before we have any answers."
The guard who was hitting the individual gave a small chuckle and punched the person tied up one more time.
"Yeah I guess you're right. Once we break this little punk his ass is mine. I'll send him a message about what we think of hackers."
Just as the guard was going to hit him again, security alarms started going haywire. A computerized voice came through the speakers all over the facility.
"Alert, alert, alert…Security breach in the loading bay area. Shots fired… all security personal report to main building immediately."
The two guards immediately ran out of the room leaving the individual alone in the room tied up. He began to wiggle around relentlessly in the chair trying to free up his limbs. After a few minutes he successfully managed to get both of his legs free. Not being able to use his arms would be a challenge, but the guards had no idea who this man was.
"Humph, amateurs."
Blood still flowing from his nose and cuts on his face the man made his way over to the door and managed to open it using one of his feet. There was nobody in the hallway. It seemed as if the building had been completely evacuated. Making his way down the hallway he came to a storage room for the guards. One particular item lying on a desk caught his eyes, it was a knife. Quickly rushing over to the desk he attempted to grab the knife and cut through the rope. After a few minutes of trying he successfully managed to get completely free.
Gunfire was intensifying as he moved through the halls. The facility was so loud it sounded like he was in the middle of a warzone. Peering around a corner he had to now be even more cautious, being so close to the fighting. Then out of nowhere an eerie silence fell upon the facility. The man saw this as an opportunity to run. Getting up and moving as fast as he could he made a run for the docking bay. As he was running he attempted to turn left at the end of the hallway only to run into a girl.
"Ouch! Ahhhh! Get him Axel!
"He's not a guard; he may just be a civilian."
The man then grabbed Sara and brought her to her feet and held her hostage with his knife. Axel immediately pulled his gun on the guy.
"Alright bud, I don't know who you are, where you came from, or what you've done. If you don't let the girl go however, ill add your dead carcass to the pile of guards we killed."
The man carefully observed Axel to see if he was bluffing. He was about to let her go when suddenly Axel acted. Using his biotics, he pulled the knife away from the man, and then he threw his arm forward and threw the man backwards into the wall. The fatigue was starting to catch up with Axel, he fell down to one knee clearly exhausted.
Sara rushed over to Axel to make sure he was okay then turned her gun on the man.
"What do you want to do Axel? You're clearly fatigued I don't think we'll survive against too many more waves of guards."
The man Axel threw slowly made his way to his feet.
"I am sorry I meant you no harm. I have obtained important data from the company's computers and need to get off this planet as soon as I can."
Axel and Sara stare at the man still holding him at gun point.
"What kind of information are we talking about here?" asked Axel.
The man clearly didn't trust Axel or Sara, but didn't think he had to many more options of escaping this planet with the two of them.
"If you can take me off this planet and lead me to the citadel, I will show you the information I hacked and received."
The man hoped this would be enough to get them to allow him onto their ship.
"Unless that information contains information about Saren or Commander Shepherd you're shit out of luck my friend."
The man seemed surprised.
"It is information about Saren."
Axel looked at Sara and the two nodded. The three rushed back to Axel's ship and took off heading for the mass relay as quick as they could. The three sit down at a table to discuss the next step in their journey.
"Thanks for taking me with you, I'm sorry I held you hostage Sara, I didn't know if you were working for the security teams there. My name is Chris. Your biotics are very impressive; if I wouldn't have been so worried about getting out of there I would have used some biotics of my own."
Axel just glared at Chris. Sara seemed to be very interested in conversing with him.
"Are you only a biotic?" Sara asked curiously.
"I know many biotic powers, but my real skill shines in the technology field. If you couldn't guess, I excel the most in hacking."
Axel at the point was becoming clearly irritated with Chris talking to Sara. Axel jumped up from his chair and pulled his gun on Chris.
"Enough bullshitting, it's time to give me the information before I shoot your ass and throw your body out into space."
Sara seemed intimidated and a little frightened of Axel's sudden outburst, but remained silent. Chris stared at Axel an evil glare.
"Strict business I see is the only thing you care about. Very well, a deal is a deal after all. If you can direct me to your ships computer I will upload the information."
Chris gave Axel a sinister smile. Axel motioned for him to follow. Chris stood up and started to walk away when Sara grabbed his arm to wait.
"I apologize; he's not normally like that from what I've seen. When you two are through, I would like to talk more with you if that's okay."
Chris looked at her, smiled, then walked ahead to meet up with Axel. Axel pointed the computer out to Chris. Chris sat down and inserted the disk into it. A few menus popped up and then an AI was released into the ship.
"Damn you I should have known!" Axel yelled.
He smacked Chris in the back of the head with his pistol rendering him unconscious. Sara came running into the room to see Axel pointing his pistol at Chris's forehead.
"Axel do not do this!" She pleaded.
"The son of a bitch put an AI into the ships system! For all we know we could be on a first class ride into the nearest sun."
"That is where you are wrong. My name is VBI. I am an AI unit created by Chris to assist him with his missions. The current course is to go to the citadel. You cannot override my commands yourself; you will need Chris to do this."
Axel was furious. He wanted to shoot this newcomer and just toss his dead corpse out into space. That however was no longer an option. Sara walked up to Axel to try and calm him down. He pushed her away and stormed out of the room.
"I believe that man has quite the temper. He has nothing to fear of myself or Chris though." Said VBI.
"I can't believe an actual working AI. I thought having any form of AI was illegal?" Asked Sara.
"You're correct. I am not considered legal. However, Chris has put a lot of time into developing me, I will not cause harm to anything unless I am instructed to by him."
Sara looked down at Chris. She threw his arm over her shoulder and picked him up. She took him down into the tech labs and laid him down there. Sara then left and went to find Axel. Axel was down in the cargo bay kicking a wooden box.
"You know if you want to open that it would be easier to just pull the top off of it."
Axel looked up at her with a disgusted look on his face.
"I can't believe I allowed that to happen. I may not ever have control over this damn ship again. When he wakes up he is going to remove that AI, give me the information, and I am going to put a bullet between his eyes!"
Sara looked down at him confused. Maybe it was just her love for technology that kept her so intrigued of Chris and VBI. She turned around and left to go and study VBI. A few hours later Chris woke up from. Sara was sitting next to the bed he was laying on leaning on it herself fast asleep.
"What a headache, I hope I wasn't using my biotics while I was asleep again. Why is she here? Where am I? How did I end up here?"
Chris was talking to loud, but it awoke Sara.
"How are you feeling? Axel kind of overreacted and hit you in the back of the head with his pistol once you put VBI into the ships systems."
Chris gave a chuckle and smiled.
"Well he did ask me for the information, and VBI is the one who has it all. All he did was delay getting his information by knocking me out."
Sara burst into laughter.
"Yeah he was down in the cargo bay relieving some of that stress by kicking a crate around. We should be pulling into the citadel in a few hours. What do you have to do there?"
Chris didn't want to tell her everything, but he felt he could trust her.
"I have some information I am selling to the Shadow Broker. Luckily for you guys I am giving it to you for free!"
As the two were talking Axel came bursting into the room.
"Get your ass up and give me the information."
Chris sighed and jumped up and did some stretches.
"You know when somebody wants some information they usually ask nicely and get what they want."
Axel threw his arm back and then forward sending a push force attack at Chris. Chris knocked Sara backwards and did the same thing. The force from both attacks hitting each other nearly destroyed the tech lab. Axel surprised by what just happened left the room angrily.
"What's with that guy? He could have hurt you, or ended up killing us all."
Sara looked to Chris and shook her head.
"I don't know, I just hope we survive the rest of the trip to the citadel."