A/N: Beta'd. this will be the last reposting of this chapter baring a massive rewrite. Enjoy.

Chapter 4

Fun Times Had By All

1123 hours

I never realized how boring spaceflight could be, sure the first couple hours you re just in shock n awe of the fact your space traveling; once the initial shock wears off you re left feeling kinda empty...then again this is space. Have to say, the blue suns sure do have some nice ships. I wasn't the only person being sent to purgatory; though I was the only one in this section of the ship. I was a last minute addition, so It s just me and the guards; oh and Jenny.

According to my evaluations; your diagnosis is high functional sociopath with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Jenny states clinically.

hmph; Why must you persist with the psychology questions?

You created me to help you deal with your mental well being. She glibly replies.

...Details; details.

While I laid in my hammock which was provided after agreeing to leave my guards alone; after nagging them with questions about the various different species in the galaxy. Which turned out to be a refresher of the games codex at least in terms of the species themselves and the general impressions given to me from the guards. I didn't have an omni-tool so I couldn't just look this stuff one asked me what it would take to shut me up, I replied glibly that a hammock would do. I was kind of surprised when they actually provided me with a hammock just to shut me up.

Well you were badgering them when we first arrived. So what do you plan to do if no one intercepts us? She queries.

Call it a gut feeling; don t think it s happening. I flatly retort back.

What is the human saying; hope for the best plan for the worst? She admonishes.

...Point...well the obvious is breaking out of here and finding a way off the ship. Wish I paid attention to the type of ship we got onto. Smaller than a frigate, but seemed bigger than a corvette. There are two guards at all times with two rotations. Doesn t appear that they are running double shifts so they have the crew compliment to sustain. So a crew between twenty to sixty would you say?. Worst case scenario I have to take over Purgatory.

Is that the best you have? She asks incredulously.

Well; The Warden always stuck me as a schemer. He likely has a personal escape plan should things ever go fubar.

Again you are making assumptions with unreliable Intel. She berates.

Well what do you want me to do? I sigh. I m doing the best I can with what I got. Each situation is an evolving mesh of variables that I can't control. The trick is not to plan for every possibility; but be adaptive to any given situation.

So here I sit; cuffed, bored out of my mind and wondering why I haven t slipped these cuffs, killed the crew and taken the ship for myself.

That is precisely what you should have done. She tersely responded.

Meh too extreme, why make myself infamous at this point. Besides I like doing things the hard way.

I am star... I get thrown from my hammock as everything begins tilting hard to starboard.

See told you.

Shut up!

I turn my feet quickly towards the incoming wall and braced for the impact. I landed, but slipped. My ass taking the brunt of the force.

Grrrrr. I growled, that didn't feel pleasant.

You are fine. You need to get off this ship before it explodes. She states calmly.

Why does that not surprise me? I roll left through my brig door and catch onto a nearby table. I scan around looking for where to go; the area is in complete disarray, blood and food appear splattered everywhere. I see the two who were guarding me; one is impaled through his chest on a chair leg, the other is tied up in electrical wires and looks like he's been electrocuted. There are spots here and there where I can actually see out in space, a hole here a tear there and there is some kind of field that appears to be holding in the atmosphere. I wasn't going to wait around to see how long they would hold. Then my focus stops on a trio, one male and two females; staring at me with their guns trained squarely at me.

Do not sa... "Hey there, don t mind me; just hanging." I say with a grin. You just had to say it, didn't you? she sighs.

I thought it was funny. The male and one of the females turned to and exit and appeared to be on lookout duty. The other female in the trio stepped forward. She had this presence that dripped power and authority about her, probably the leader. She walked over to me slipped on a pair of mag boots. How do I activate them? Just then they activated and my feet magnetized to the hull with me landing flat on my back and smacking the back of my head against the floor; or is it the ceiling?

Nice landing. She snarks.

...Shut up.

I stand up too quickly and my stomach roles making me nauseous. I force it to settle quickly. I look up to be met by the trio still all pointing their guns at me.

"So who do I have to thank for the spring job?" I ask.

The male of the group turns towards me and hands me what looked like a breathing mask. I put it in place and a field appeared around my body.

Atmospheric seal. It s designed to keep atmosphere within a small radius of you; in case you happen upon an area where the atmosphere has been vented. It will protect for a brief period of time. However keep in mind that prolonged exposure to the vacuum of space is not recommended. Jenny explains informatively

...Ah...Am I suppose to be able to see the field itself though?

Not normally. Then again you are not normal. Was the AI's only response.

The one I thought was the leader gestured in the direction behind her and we start our trek off a ship about to explode.

Details; details. She snarks.

I follow as we break out into a sprint towards wherever there evac point is. Why we didn't just use one of the many holes in the ship is beyond me. We jump out and there waiting shuttle picks us up...

Interesting.

...What?...Now!...

We are not running at peak.

?! Why not!

We are only running fast enough to keep pace with lead.

I'm sent crashing into the wall followed by a loud clang just in front of me that left me dazed. I open my eyes and not three inches from my face embedded in the wall is a console that had been on the opposite wall. With a quick glance back I saw our rear guard, the male of the group; impaled through the side of his head by a beam.

Not now; more important matters at hand!

The two others were quickly recovering. I righted myself and we turn left into a hallway as surrounding superstructure of the ship start buckling like a coil. Metal and live wires were flying everywhere. Well there goes the artificial gravity. The lead raises her arm doing something with her omni-tool as we exit out into another area that looked like a hanger with bodies added to the mix of debris of things that were flying around. We take an immediate right.

Interesting.

Again with the interesting.

I did a quick scan and notice it's a pod that could fit six people. so not an escape pod, more like a drop pod. The pod launches throwing me towards a nearby wall. I snap my cuffs and manage to get myself strapped into the safety harness. The pod starts rocking so violently that all I could do was hold on to the harness with everything I had. I swear I could hear things banging and scraping against the hull. Then there was this loud crack followed shortly by a booming thud that left my ears ringing something fierce. And the rocking came to an abrupt halt leaving my equilibrium off.

Interesting.

Say interesting one more time and I'll start singing this is the song that never ends.

...

Glad we have an understanding. I scan around the pod, everything is tossed about; but the structure looks intact. Sure make these things sturdy. My rescuers aren't moving so If I had been normal I probably would've been out cold like them.

Correct. Jenny Succinctly replies.

Yay! Yahoo! Yippee! I can t wait to find out all the nifty little things they built into me. I chirped back sarcastically. Ah...systems check?

Your ribs were fractured, but the nanites repaired them. Though they will feel sore for some time. A concussion that the nanites are currently treating. No other injuries at this time. Jenny stated clinically.

I unstrapped myself and fall forward catching myself from a face plant with my hands. I felt the soreness she was talking about. Not painful, but very discomfortable. I right myself slowly and search around the scattered debris, found a case with the word emergency on it. I open it up and find a pistol with spare thermal clips and a belt with several pouches and some kind of device on it. I put the belt on and a blue field surrounded me just outside of the breathers...seal for lack of a better term. Guess the device is a shield generator. I fill one pouch with the spare clips and take the pistol checking to make sure it s loaded. There s also two tubes labeled medi-gel which I stuff into another pouch. I walk over to my rescuers taking a good look at them. While they are both female, I still can t decipher species as they are fully kitted in armor; best I can do is Alliance, Cerberus or Asari. I bring the leaders arm closer to my face, activate her omni-tool, open the communications app and speak clearly. Hi, this is Razor McCutchn. There are heretic run times in your base processes. and sent it off.

You are an idiot! Why did you wait until the pod to snap your cuffs...Did you just send a message to the Geth? Jenny asks

Oh hello again. At least it won t be boring I jibe. I start removing my rescuers weapons and bringing them to the far wall until they were both completely disarmed. With that done I walk back over to the leader and activate her tool once more. Time for some information gathering.

1155 hours

I lean against the wall of the drop pod, my rescuers weapons beside me as I let what I've learned sink in. The good news is; the omni-tool is a really advanced Android which can have an attached fabrication are a few variations; but the most popular are bracelet, ring, or implant. The bad news is there are two types of omni's. The built into kind, generally used by law enforcement, military, and your everyday citizen. These are always connected to the network of some central database, be it C-sec, or the military or the Citadel itself. What asshole politician agreed to this? Right just give the governing body the ability to trace any and everything you do. The other is a stand alone, which is used by merc organizations and those who want to leave as little a digital fingerprint as possible. It is also illegal in Citadel space. The downside to these is that you re not always connected to a central network; so if you re in a remote region in space or on a black op and something happens. No one will know and they won t come looking for you. Basically it means you re off the grid until you manually connect to a network and you better have good firewalls. Because if you re caught in Citadel space with a stand alone omni-tool, it s thirty years in prison. I can tell I don't like this Council already. A very shrewd way to spy on the populous if you ask me. I also found out what gun I have, which is an M9 old reliable if memory serves. Even looked up thermal clips, though I didn't get far with that one. They just anonymously appeared on the scene last year. No one really knew from where.

Makes sense if it was the Geth. Jenny offers up.

How so?

Well in the game they were observing organics to better understand them; one of the more common way of doing this is leak tech that is a few generations more advanced and watch how the others adapt to it. She answers.

I can see your logic; but there are two other possibilities that are just as equally likely and bother me more. The first being the Reapers as this is known tactic of theirs ala the Citadel and the relays.

True, and the second.

There s another person or being that has the same knowledge as me in this Galaxy.

I do not see your logic.

Duality...

My attention was immediately distracted by the stirrings from my rescuers. I watched from the other side of the drop pod as the one on the left was the first to spot me and immediately went for her weapon which she no longer had. She touched the others shoulder and pointed to their weapons that sat at my feet.

"Here s how we re going to do this. I m going to ask some questions; you re going to answer them. And we ll move on from there." I say in a flat tone.

The one on the right checked her omni-tool. "We don t have time for twenty questions; our extraction window is closing and we have one and a half kliqs to the extraction point." she shoots back in an authoritative tone.

"Then let s start with names; we can talk while walking." I say unfazed.

She looked at me for a moment, I got the distinct impression that she wasn't use to being told no. "Tela Vasir; Council Spectre." she answers pointedly.

"McCutchn. Question 1;" as I walked over to their weapons and started tossing them back. "What the fuck is a Council Spectre?" I ask

"Got a first name McCutchn?" Vasir asks as they check over their weapons.

"Yup." I answer as I finished tossing back most of their weapons. There was this one sniper rifle that was just too good to give back. It s an HMWSR, the spectre rifle you can buy in the first game. Most likely Vasir's and in no way am I letting this baby go.

"Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?" Vasir asks. "And that s my rifle, I expect it returned once we've extracted." she adds as we made our exit from the pod.

"Lady; we just met. McCutchn is good enough for now. And you still haven t told me what a Council Spectre is. As for this rifle, we ll see." I snark back.

"Have it your way; Razor. Spectre's are agents of the Council. We maintain galactic stability and make sure it runs as smoothly as possible." She replies back. Then she turns on a dime, gets in my face and glows blue. "And you will give that rifle back to me once we re extracted." she menacingly retorts.

I tilt my head slightly. Not a name gotten on a first guess. I notice she didn't say protect the Galaxy. Nor did she really answer the question. She wants me to make my own deductions; she s fishing for info and quite subtly at that. Though I must admit she has a presence about her. I m sure if I were a normal person I'd be scared shitless. Why aren't I scared shitless? But then why go through all that just to kill me now; so all I do is stare at her until she turns and we start off our journey for the extraction point.

More probable is that she is in a rush and does not have time to...what is the human saying; chit-chat. Jenny interjects.

...Point; but I m not convinced. And just my luck; it s the Asari with their long view are the ones to spring me. I bet they ll lay the blame on Cerberus to cover their tracks. These are after all the same people who made the law of sharing all Prothean tech, all the while hiding from the Galaxy that they have a fully working beacon.

At least it will not be boring. Jenny adds whimsically.