Alright guys sorry for the delay! Anyway so here's this months Chapter, it took its time but I managed to get it done! So enjoy this month's chapter!

If you see anything that doesn't quite make sense just let me know and I'll sort it out!

So once again with the blanket statement that I own nothing and have nothing to do with Bioware the creators of Mass Effect or Irrational the creators of Bioshock, with nothing left to mention I say onwards with the story once more!


Chapter 8 The Three Explanations

"Ok hey, wonderful, Jack meet Delta, Delta meet Jack, right can we get onto the Normandy, please?" Shepard looked over his shoulder to check down the hallway. "Look, Kuril said he had information, he didn't, what he had was an open video communication with one of the Blue Suns division heads, ok? And we may have killed him in the fight and now the Blue suns are now gunning for us and may be in system within the next hour so can we please get moving?" Asked Shepard with a hopeful look on his face.

Everyone else just stared at Jack, ignoring the Commander, still shocked by Jacks outburst, Grandfather? The Crazy Biotic serial killer, kidnapper, arsonist just asked if Delta, two hundred year old Delta, found two thousand meters under the sea, was her grandfather... -today is going to be a very interesting day- thought many of the Normandy's squad members.

"Guys?" Shepard asked as everyone was still ignoring him. "Ah... we need to move?"

"He's right, as much as I hate sayin it, but the blue suns probably wont let this go." Said Zaeed as he began walking his way to the docking tube and subsequently, the Normandy. "Might as well get moving, they'll either cut Kuril off as a idiot, not hard now he's dead, and recoup their losses, i.e. getting Purgatory back or they'll look to get even."

"Either ways not good so lets get out of this system and consider our next moves, Miranda?" Shepard turned to Miranda who was still staring at Jack, who in turn was talking animatedly to Delta about something. "Miranda?"

Miranda shook her head and turned to the Commander as the squad began making their way back onto the Normandy. "Yes Shepard?"

"I need you to get Jack some standard equipment sorted for her, at least until we can go to either Omega or the Citadel for resupply. And..." Shepard paused as he looked at Jack and Delta. "See if you can find out what happened to her." Another pause from Shepard. " And also why is she so attached to Delta?"

(Thanks Anonschmanon, reading your comment gave me the idea to put it in!)

"It turns out... that Jack is Deltas grandfather..." Said Miranda.

Shepard looked at her before smiling. "Really? She only looks around twenty-five."

"You know what I mean. Hopefully we'll know more once you debriefed her."

"Hope so." Said Shepard as he and his squad mates began to board the Normandy, -The de-briefing will be very interesting one too- he thought.


"Ok, where shall we start?" Asked Shepard once he, Miranda, Delta and Jack were stood in the Conference room.

"All right, I'll start. Why the hell is Cerberus after me? Again?" Jack started off by demanding answers, which was fairly understandable considering they just executed a prison break in order to get her out and hadn't told her anything yet. "And where the hell did you find my Grandfather?" That however, was a question that really begged answers, from her though, and along the subject heading of 'How did you know about Delta?' and 'How the hell are you related to him?'. Important questions.

"Ok-" Shepard started first. "-lets start with your first question, Cerberus doesn't want you, I'm building a team to fight the Collectors, I'm the one who wants you on it." Seeing as how Jack still looked pissed, that answer wasn't good enough for her. "Look, the Collectors are abducting humans from all over the Terminus systems, whole colonies vanishing over night as if everyone just got up from dinner and left. There's no evidence and the council won't help because its in the Terminus systems, can't risk starting a war with the Terminus systems just over some humans can they?" Shepard added angrily to himself. Politics with the Council was a combination of 'Don't rock the boat' and 'Don't upset your neighbours too much', though normally that involved the Council turning a blind eye to Batarian slavery just to keep the 'status quo'.

"So?" Jack asked, clearly not interested. "That doesn't mean much to me." She looked at Delta, a shrewd look appeared on her face. "But... I could be persuaded to help..."

"I'd rather you didn't." Delta said, his face looked as if it was set in stone.

"What! Why not!" Jack almost screamed at him when he said this, much to Shepard and Miranda's surprise.

"You're my granddaughter." Delta let this sink in a moment before continuing. "Not only that, you're the one relative I know for certain is still alive and I intend to keep you that way." Delta had a rueful smile on his face as he looked at his granddaughter. "I couldn't protect your mother properly when she was a child-" Delta recalled the day he died, unable to do anything, all control ripped away... leaving him as a puppet to the puppet master, forcing him to point that gun at his head, leaving him unable to protect her. "- but I can keep you safe." He smiled at her. "You're not the grandchild I was expecting, you're just like your mother there-" Jack turned away from Delta at that statement, just to hide how red she had gone when Delta compared her to her mother. "but you're my granddaughter, who I intend to keep safe."

Shepard scratched his head, this was going to make this awkward, the squad was clearly missing a biotic specialist but if Delta continued they wouldn't have one, he needed to change the subject... quickly. "If you don't mind me interrupting, but earlier you asked why Cerberus was after you again. Can you tell us a bit about that?"

At the mere mention of 'Cerberus' Jacks expression changed from proud to rage as anger swiftly clouded her face. "Cerberus?" She hissed. "They bought me and some other kids off some Batarian slavers when I was a little kid, I thought I had been saved but instead the fucks tortured us for years... trying to increase my already substantial biotics and trying to make the other kids biotic too though Eezo exposure." She took a breath to calm herself. "Once they found that that didn't work, they brought biotic kids into the project, trying to make them like me, they'd make us fight using nothing but biotics, they'd shock us with control collars if we didn't fight and give us drugs when we did. It didn't make us all that much stronger, some of the kids flourished in the arena though but regardless the kids hated me for it, because I was the reason they had been taken from their homes. I was the reason they got tortured and experimented on, day in, day out. They hated me..."

Nobody said anything, Miranda looked away awkwardly, understandable really with her past and current relationship with Cerberus, Shepard started to add more to his list of things he didn't like about Cerberus and Delta... Delta held himself still, desperately trying to control the rage burning inside of him...

Another family member, hurt, experimented on, tortured, for what? A better biotic? A better fighter? One way or another, if Delta ever met The Illusive Man there would be bodies.

"Jack... why don't you start at the beginning?" Asked Delta, in as much to distract Jack from dwelling on the bad memories to sating his own curiosity of the years he missed with his daughter and granddaughter.

She took a breath and let it out... and then promptly slammed her hand into the table... leaving a similar sized dent next to the one Miranda left the other day, obviously still slightly upset.

"Ok..." She started, after another deep breath. "Well, me, mom and Alicia used to move around a lot... I don't remember much but it felt like we'd only settle on a colony for only a few months before leaving again." Jack closed her eyes, reliving moments from the past. "Each time we'd do the same stuff, mum would go out for the first week we were there just doing research and stuff, that's why we had Alicia with us, she would teach me and look after me while mum was away. And when mum came back she'd bring gifts for me and Alicia, she'd always apologise for leaving us on our own... she liked to bring back sea shells and cool rocks." Jack smiled as the memory came to her, her mother graciously gifting her with a rock that shone so many different colours... before playing their favorite game of 'Chase the Fishy'... as a six year old Jack loved it, both Eleanor and Alicia trying to chase a hyperactive six year old with budding biotics... Delta smiled when Jack mentioned this.

"And then we'd have a holiday as such... but one day we landed on this colony... back end of no where if you'd believe me." Jack paused in thought. "You know I think that was the first time I ever saw a Volus, he got so angry when I called him a bowling ball..." Miranda unintentionally giggled at Jacks childhood when she heard her say that.

"Shut up cheerleader." Jack shot at her, more out of embarrassment than malice.

"Girls, c'mon behave." Said Shepard just as Miranda was about to reply.

"Anyway-" Said Jack as she stared pointedly at Miranda, almost daring her to laugh or giggle again. "- as I was saying, we landed on this one colony and yes there was an angry bowling ball shaped Volus..." She squinted at Miranda, searching for even a hint of a smile before turning sober and continuing with her story. "-but it was there that things went... wrong...mom did her usual, scouted round the colony gathering data on who knows what... rushed off to do research, but as soon as she got back she got a message from a friend."

She paused a moment before continuing. "She left the colony after making me promise to stay with Alicia and to behave while she was gone." She laughed, but it was a sad laugh, filled with regret. "But a week after she left the colony it was hit by a Batarian slave raid." It had been quiet in the room while they listened to Jacks story, but the moment she said that it was as if someone had pulled a blanket over the entire universe, silencing even the quiet hum of the Normandy's engines.

"The colony didn't have a chance in hell, no surface to air defences, no military presence, even the distress beacon didn't work right... but it still took the Batarians several days to subdue the colony-" She said with pride. "-rather than the afternoon they thought it would take... though that was mostly due to the few policemen on the colony and Alicia and the Volus guy... who knew he was a biotic? Eventually everyone got captured... but they had to make an example..." Jack grew quiet as the memories began to over come her, regret and shame breaking through into her voice as she described what happened next. "They made us watch as one by one they put a gun to everyone who protected us and pulled the trigger... Alicia... she never stopped talking to me, reassuring that everything would be alright... even when they lined up the gun to her head..." Jack didn't say anything to object as Delta enfolded her into a hug, she didn't cry, weep or show any signs of breaking down... she just lent against Delta, her eyes blankly gazing into the distance, drowned in her memories of the past as Delta gently rocked her back and forth.

Shepard didn't know what to say, Delta actually started to look his age, gone was the bruised and scarred man who fought through a city filled with enemies to save his daughter and in his place was a grandfather, trying desperately to comfort his granddaughter. After seeing that Shepard turned to Jack only to see another change there, gone was the hardened criminal who was wanted for a multitude of crimes and in her place was a twenty-something girl who's lost so much that she should be in therapy, not prison.

Jack blinked, the blank gaze in her eyes faded as looked around the room, and then she went beet red when she realised she was still being rocked in Delta's arms...

"Hey, Hey! I'm ok!" She almost shouted, jumping out of the hug Delta had enfolded her in. "Jeez, I-I'm fine." She looked at Miranda, promising all sorts of horrible stuff if she said anything. She shook her head. "Anyway, after that they put collars on us and loaded us into a shuttle, three to four of us per cage... I... I don't remember much after that, but the next thing I do remember is waking up in a shipping container with a bunch of other kids, at first th scientists there told us it was an Alliance rehabilitation centre.. they did a load of tests on us... to see what our mental state was like and what our biotic capabilities were to... once they figured it out that I was the strongest even without a biotic amp they started to show their true colours... the other 'tests' began later that week, seeing what the could do to make us stronger, faster... better."

She sighed. "When that didn't work they started to try and train us, that didn't go down so well with the rest of us so we demanded to go home... and then they got the shock collars out. That's when the torture began for all of us, either pumping us full of drugs or fucking around with our bodies, lowering our core temperature, exposing us to ultra sonic frequencies, basically throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, only I was the control group... Subject fucking Zero... they'd test the dangerous stuff out on the others first... see if it did anything and then if it worked they'd use it on me."

BANG

Another dent in the table, it was starting to get a collection of them. -I hope those dent's don't mess up the com-link to Cerberus- Thought Shepard as he looked at how deep the dent went...

"Of course it didn't work on me, cause I'm different from the run of the mill biotic... so in the end the other kids died for nothing..."

This got Miranda's attention. "Wait you're different? How different?" She asked.

Jack looked at Delta before nodding to herself and looking back to Shepard. "Yeah... I don't have a biotic amp, when I was four mum found me playing with a frying pan, I was lowering its weight and throwing it as high as I could, great fun as a kid, only the biotics nodes didn't form right in my nerve clusters... several scans later and they found out I had stage four biotic tumours growing on my organs. I didn't think much of it at the time but I found out later from the other kids that that's terminal, still that didn't stop mum from fixing me."

She paused in thought, once more delving deep into her memories. " Even now I remember the sensation of space being... distorted around me after she gave me the injection. And no-" Jack held up her hand, forestalling Miranda's question. "-I don't know how she did it, all I knew is that I didn't get tired that easily then and now my natural biotics are on the same level as an Asari Matriarchs who has an amp."

Shepard whistled in surprise, Asari Matriarchs are famed as the best biotic users in the galaxy, no exceptions, Krogan's came second and all the other races kinda just bounced around the bottom line, some getting better biotics when they come up with a new amp based on their species but aside from that everyone else was stuck in third place in the biotics scale...

"Adam." Delta typed, startling everyone. "It's the only thing that would make sense, that sensation, distorted space? Each plasmid gives you a different sensation, Electro Bolt feels like lightning channeling it's way through your nervous system while Winter Blast feels like frost-bite... only everywhere, each one has it's own distinct feeling."

"...How many plasmids did you take in Rapture?" Asked Shepard.

"Too many, only thing keeping me together was the treatment I went through to become a Big Daddy."

Shepard nodded, even with the records they managed to get from Rapture they had no real idea what process a person goes through to become a Big Daddy, they had some clue's from the condition they found Delta in but aside from that there was nothing else, either the information was never recorded in Rapture, it was kept in a different area or it was deleted. "Fair enough, Know any more about this Adam? It's got Mordin bouncing off the walls since we found a sample in the mini-armoury just off the room from your medical bay in Rapture."

Delta started to type away on his Omni-tool. "I know some information from the files Eleanor left for me." Delta said in his slightly monotone, computerised voice. "I'll go over it after Jack finishes, it might shed some more light on what happened to Rapture."

Shepard nodded in agreement, no point getting distracted from the main point of this conversation, though Jacks dossier will get massively expanded upon by their resident psychologist.

"Anyway... I... I think I was there for a couple of years, the first round of experiments didn't improve my biotics but it did impact on the other kids they had kidnapped, so Cerberus tried to get them to my standard, so Cerberus started to use me as target practice in the arena to test the kids capabilities." Jack shrugged wen everyone stared at her. "They shot us full of drugs and kept shocking us with shock collars until we fought, either ending with someone dead or unconscious, I- I don't remember it all that well because of the drugs but... but I know I killed, the other kids hated me even more then but the researchers all thought it was great, I didn't sleep for three weeks after that... sometimes-" She gulped, almost afraid to continue. "-sometimes I can still hear the guards chanting, telling us to kill, encouraging it..."

She shivered but shook her head at Delta when he tried to fold her into a hug again. "Anyway-" She went on. "because of that I started to get really good at using my biotics... eventually I over heard the guards talking about a shipment of supplies coming later that day. That night I smashed the glass window in my room, once the guard came in to investigate I threw the desk at him using my biotics, grabbed his gun and ran... I set off a load of alarms on the way out though, I must have had every guard in the facility trying to stop me... and of course in the process of my escape I hit the control centre and opened every door in the complex."

She had a bloodthirsty grin on her face at this point. "The smart kids of the group knew what to do, they started to go around the facility in packs, killing anyone wearing Cerberus colours. After a while I made it to the shuttle bay... I don't remember what happened next though... one minute I'm in the middle of an escape and the next I find myself waking up in an Alliance medical facility, a real one tis time, I panicked and ran." She looked up from the table to see raised eyebrows on everyone. "What? I didn't know who they were! Just lucky I didn't kill anyone." She muttered. "Anyway a few days later a street gang found me and I ended up running with them for a while... after that, well you probably know."

"Sounds familiar, used to run in a gang myself when I was a kid." Mused Shepard absentmindedly as he wrote some of Jack history on his Omni-tool. The room fell silent.

"What?" Jack asked, wondering how the famous Commander Shepard, ended up in a gang.

"Huh?" Shepard looked up from his Omni-tool.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You can't brush it off that easy! Spill! I told my story, your turn." Said Jack looking pointedly at the Commander.

"Wait, what?" Asked Shepard, clearly confused about was going on.

"About what you just said! About you being in a gang!"

"Oh... maybe next time."

THUD

"Now." Said Jack, her fist embedded in dent number four.

"You know Commander, you don't say much about you're past... and Jack did share her story..." Miranda eagerly said while Delta nodded beside Jack, there was no way the Commander was getting out of this.

"Alright, alright." Shepard held his hands up in defeat. "Ok... so what do you know about me?"

Miranda started. "Earth born, no information on family nor any history before your eighteenth birthday were you signed up with the military, from there its all on either public record of your service history like what happened at Akuze or classified since you became a N7 operative and further classified with admittedly heavy encryption since you became a Spector." Everyone looked at her in surprise. "What? I studied your records intently to make sure we brought back the real you, with all your memories and skills intact."

"Oh... ok, so just my childhood, yeah?" After getting several nods from the other three occupants of the room Shepard began his story. "Ok, so I was born to one Hannah Shepard, never really knew my father, but then again I didn't really know my mother really either, I was only two when they died." He sighed. "But I do know that my mother met him in the military, from what I've been told he was a marine who had a fling with my mother, but when they found out she was pregnant, well... they had a shotgun wedding, really nice one too apparently. Anyway, moving ahead a few years my parents took me to a local hospital for a checkup, I had a reaction to some Eezo exposure so they wanted to get me checked out."

Shepard paused as he tapped away at his Omni-tool, a small 'Ping' and a moment later he displayed a news article on his Omni-tool. "Ah here it is, does anyone remember the terrorist attack on Oaken Park hospital in London? Where they blew up one of the wards? That's where we were that day, the bomb had taken out the lower floors of the building but it had severely damaged the structural integrity of the building, firefighters were evacuating the building but before they could get everyone out the building collapsed..." Shepard fell silent, letting the people in the room absorb the information.

"I had heard about it, but I heard that a small unknown group claimed responsibility for the attack but disappeared a few months later." Said Miranda as she too began typing away at her Omni-tool. "All the evidence found was CCTV footage showing an individual carrying the bomb in a rucksack into the reception area before the bomb went off as he or she removed it, there was nothing left of the body for forensics to identify the individual..."

"Shit Shepard, who knew..." Said Jack.

"Yeah well that was just the start... ever heard of the 'Tenth street reds'?" Jack perked up at this name.

"Yeah! I met a few of those idiot racists on Omega one time! They tried to recruit me, said that my biotics were meant to be used on and I quote 'Xeno's', never met a group of idiots like that before, I almost did Aria a favour by killing them but it's more fun to annoy her so I left them alive... I left them with a few bruises and a lot of broken bones... but I didn't kill them!" She added quickly when she saw Delta looking at her disapprovingly.

"That's the guys, they were only just starting back then, no more than twenty or so members, anyway almost immediately after the building collapsed they started to scavenge for equipment and supplies... they also found two year old me, wrapped in the arms of my parents, they managed to protect me from most of the rubble and the main collapse of the building but... they didn't survive.

But the gang were all for either leaving me there or for holding me for ransom to any surviving family, in the end one of the older members of the group, a girl called Fez just made me an honorary member of the gang, I was a courier for the group, take this parcel to this address, tell this 'guy' in this 'gang' that the deal was going ahead.. stuff like that."

"Jeez, that's a shit life for a two year old to have." said Jack.

"I can't really complain compared to yours though, it was hard work and it got me in more than enough trouble with the gang when I refused to do anything involving violence but it kept me off the streets, Fez helped quite a bit there actually, she had an old tree house in the park near the gangs main HQ that she let me sleep in." Said Shepard with a faint smile on his face. "So that was my life for like... four years? Maybe five... and one day, a woman called Maria pops up in the area asking questions about me, anyway the Tenth street reds didn't like someone butting in on their business, especially when that person is asking questions about their 'bestest little courier' yet. So they decide to lure this woman in and ask her a few questions of their own, on their own terms if you catch my meaning." Seeing all three people nodding in understanding, Shepard continued on with his story.

"So one of them posed as a 'concerned citizen' and told her that he had information on me, so he tells her about the old tree house I slept at and stayed if there was nothing to do, of course this is just bait to get her away from any witnesses so they can ask their questions.

So she gets there an hour or so later only to find herself surrounded by eight of the Tenth street reds, all armed with steel pipes they managed to get from a construction site and me who had been tied up and left at the base of the bloody tree, all so they could 'Educate' as to what would happen to me unless I cooperated in the more violent aspects of the gang." Shepard started smiling as he told the next bit.

"As soon as she go to the old park she knew it was a trap, but she still kept walking, even when they started to surround her she didn't seem the slightest bit worried, instead she ignored everyone else and looked at me and smiled, 'So this is where you've been all these years.' she said."

"Turns out she was my aunt and that she'd been looking for me since just after the attack at the hospital." Shepard looked at the stunned faces of Miranda, Delta and Jack. "Yeah and it was at this point the Tenth street reds tried to attack her, emphasis on the 'tried', they didn't get very far before she had both disarmed all of them and made sure they wouldn't be getting for a good while at least."

"Damn! She sounds badass!" Said Jack whilst nodding approvingly.

"Well she was N3, it really didn't take her much effort. After that she untied me and asked if I wanted to go home." Shepard shrugged. "I said yes. Roll on a couple of years and she'd officially adopted me, I was her son in all but blood but even that was pretty close considering she was my aunt, she was the one who told me what happened to my parents, she even went and told me why it took so long for her to find me, she'd been hunting down the group who carried out the attack while thinking we had all died in the attack, couple of months after she'd finished putting them down she found out that whilst my parents bodies had been found - mine hadn't, that's when she took up the search, hoping that I was still alive. A few more years after that I joined the military like everyone else in my family, she was so proud the day I finally told her I was N7." Shepard smiled at the memory. "And well, you know the rest."

"It seems like you've lead an interesting life Commander." Typed Delta.

"Sure have, though considering the squad members we have on the Normandy no one has had a 'normal' life have they? Anyway back to the main point, Delta I know you're against this but we need Jack on the team, look you know how serious this is we have no biotic specialists and without one we aren't going to get far when we go up against the Collectors." Asked Shepard.

Delta sighed, Jack was looking at him with hope filled eyes, just begging to be released upon the galaxy with something destructive in mind. "Fine, but I'm not taking the blame when we find your mother and she asks what you've been up to but-" Delta held up his hand to forestall Jack's 'Woop!' of success. "- You're not wearing that."

"What? What's wrong with what I'm wearing? Demanded Jack.

"Do you want your mother to see what your wearing?"

Jack was about to answer when she took a moment to actually think about what it was that she was wearing... and what precisely her mother would say when they finally found her. "Alright I get your point, but I'm choosing my wardrobe!"

Shepard smiled, that was one part of the equation, now to solve the other half they needed to know what Jack wanted in exchange for working with them.

"So Jack, you mentioned you could be persuaded to help us, what are you thinking?" Asked Shepard.

Jack didn't even hesitate. "Access to Cerberus files, help with finding my mother and a really, really big bomb."

"What?" Butted in Miranda. "Why the hell should we give you those files!"

"I want to drop the bomb on the place that tortured me all those years ago."

"I'm with Jack on this."

"That... I can understand." Conceded Miranda after some hesitation, obviously finding out how Cerberus had already betrayed her trust once already had impacted on her trust with the organisation.

Shepard nodded. "Miranda, if you can get Jack file access once we're finished here and some more... appropriate armour and clothing for on the Normandy."

"I'm not wearing Cerberus colours!" started Jack. "I want nothing to do with them! And I want a chair in here! I'm not standing around for hours on end again!"

"Ok fine! Maybe Kelly has some civilian clothes you can borrow until we get to Omega or the Citadel... though having chairs in here doesn't sound like a bad idea..."


A few minutes later and Jack and Miranda had finished their rather vocal... discussion on clothing choices for on and off the Normandy, so Shepard decided to bring the meeting to a close.

"So have we covered everything then?"

Delta shook his head. "Not yet, you were asking questions about Adam earlier, still want to hear?" With everyone nodding in interest Delta began to tell them what he knew and what he'd found out so far from the files Eleanor had left him.

"Adam is the source for all Plasmids, without Adam to implement the changes for the gene therapy then it's entirely likely that it'll take years for the changes to take effect inside the body or it might just outright kill the individual when it attempts to overwrite DNA, without Adam, there are no Plasmids. The main problem being of course that there's not much left, if any." Taking the silence in the room as an invitation to continue, Delta did so.

"Originally Adam was harvested from a specific species of sea slug that lived at the same depth as Rapture, when simply harvesting them wasn't enough to keep up with the demand, Fontaine come up with a plan. Said plan involve implanting them into girls, it gave the slugs everything it needed to grow and to grow and as a result more Adam was created from them, when that wasn't enough the 'Little Sisters' as they had been dubbed, were let out into Rapture to harvest more Adam from the dead, again increasing the yield of Adam gathered. However Eleanor and I managed to save the Little sisters just before I died, for the second time.

All that were left was the sea slugs at the bottom of the ocean. Here let me play the audio clip that Eleanor made." Jack perked up at this, she hadn't heard her mothers voice since she was a child.

"Is this thing on?" Came Eleanor's voice from Delta's Omni-tool. "Ok so, what happened after we got out of Rapture? Well after we managed to get the Little sisters out of Rapture in 1968 it well, it began to fall apart, since there were no Little Sisters, Adam production went down to almost none existence. And of course by that time the Splicers couldn't have children, their bodies were barely holding together as it was so even they few who knew how to make Little sisters couldn't, there was no children anywhere in Rapture... So every Splicer in Rapture immediately started to go after what few sea slugs were left on the ocean floor while anyone who was sane enough to use a Bathysphere got out while they still could, none of the Splicers from what I can find managed to make it out though, they just went insane, not even thinking of leaving, just searching for more Adam." There was a pause and what sounded like paper shuffling in the background.

"So for a long while Rapture was in decline with people killing each other over what few drops of Adam was left, the Big Daddy's continued to maintain the city, all while looking for Little Sisters to protect. At this time people realised that even a Big Sister would have some Adam on them, if only left over from when they were a Little Sister, but the Big Sisters simply left to go to other parts of Rapture that had been cut off, like Minerva's Den. Eventually the Splicers all died out, still at this point there was still some sea slugs surviving, just in area's people couldn't get to."

More shuffling paper could be heard, along with a few choice swearwords. "Well father, after you passed away... again, in 1968 we left Rapture... I-I pushed your body back into the water... though considering the fact that I'm recording these in the hopes you'll hear them one day... well, I might have been a bit pre-emptive when I pushed you in." A small, sad giggle could be heard from the audio clip.

"Anyway me and the other Little Sisters we saved were on the surface in Sinclair's escape sub, once we got to shore we managed to get in contact with Dr Tenenbaum and Mr Porter, they let us live with them until we could look after ourselves while she got committed to a care home in France where no one understood her, anyway the surface was a very weird place at the time father, oh and I didn't find this out until much later but Dr Tenenbaum and Mr Porter both had there genes 'fixed' so they could continue their research without worrying about time constraints, they were a... weird couple, more on that later though. Ok... ah yes here I was, in the end though we never really moved out, I just helped them out with their research while trying to keep the Little Sisters in school and out of trouble, surprising hard when I was outnumbered by them... still it was full of good memories..."

"Of course that wasn't to say they stayed forever, oh no, by the time that 1986 came round they had all moved out with their respective boyfriends and husbands, one of them even had kids on the way... and the nerve when one of them tried to set me up with someone..." Jack let out a soft giggle when she heard this.

"Anyway once they had all moved out I breached the subject to Dr Tenenbaum and Mr Porter, about going back to Rapture and saving the Big Daddy's and Big Sisters... turns out they had the same idea, turns out that Mr Porter had been a big Daddy, one of the Alpha series like you father, it also turns out that they used The Thinker to calculate the required genetic sequence to return Mr Porter back to his non-Big Daddy self."

"So with several plans in mind we returned to Rapture to save as many as we could, however as I said earlier, during our time away from Rapture all the Splicers died, leaving the Big Daddy's who were maintaining the city and the Big Sisters who had gathered at Minerva's Den, as we had planned we went to help the Big Sister's first, it was easy enough to help them, some of them still remembered when Mr Porter was a Big Daddy, others remembered when I was a Little Sister just like them, but they all remembered Dr Tenenbaum, they trusted her from when she tried to save them when they were still Little Sisters.

After a year of tests upon tests upon tests, we found a cure for them, in fact it was the same cure she used to return me to being a normal girl again, but more importantly the Big Sisters got their minds back and broke the brainwashing that had been used on them from when they first became Little Sisters, we brought them back with us to the surface in order to rehabilitate them back to normal life, it took sometime I can tell you that but it was worth it! But because of the treatment they went through to become a Little Sister they couldn't age properly, Dr Tenenbaum explained it to me but once they hit their early to late twenties they simply stopped aging, like me in that respect, something to do with the Adam in their bodies just stopped their aging process."

-I really hope to god that no one like Udina hears about this, real immortality? The galaxy would go crazy.- Thought Shepard as he listened to the audio tape.

-Wait, my moms how old? This makes her like...230ish years old!- Was Jacks reaction to this.

"So in 1988-" The audio tape continued. "we went back to Rapture to save the Big Daddy's, only this time we weren't so confident we could convince them that we were there to help, in the end though several of the ex-Big Sisters insisted on coming along with us. Not that we had much to worry about it seems, the Big Daddy were to heavily brainwashed for them to take notice of us, even so we began running tests, trying to find the best way to return them back to normal. The only effective way it seems to turn them back to normal was using the cure The Thinker used for Mr Porter, so we set up a computer, not unlike The Thinker but with far more processing power to run the calculations for the gene sequence to turn each Big Daddy back to a normal regular human, along with a lab underneath the computer to create the plasmid for each Big Daddy."

"And it worked, sure we had to get them out of the suits they had been encased in and then perform surgery to return them what was effectively an Alpha stage Big Daddy, but we were getting them back to normal, the only problem was the sheer quantity of Adam needed for each person, but so long as we took our time there was enough Adam. You see the sea slugs had begun increasing in numbers again, the problem being however the Oil Tanker leak of 1992, a massive oil spill on the surface managed to pollute the water as far down as Rapture, killing off any surviving sea slugs." Shock filled the room, Delta paused the audio clip.

"Without the sea slugs Adam can't be created, it can be recovered by the Big and Little Sisters if they still had their slug implant, we removed the slug implants so that we could free the Little Sisters but the Big Sister's only took Adam to heal themselves in a fight, without them getting hurt in the first place they don't collect Adam, it's likely that all that's left is in Mordin and Eleanor's hands." Typed Delta, who then pressed play on the audio clip.

"As you can guess without Adam there can't be any Plasmids, not a bad thing in the scheme of things but the problem is that we were partway through curing the Big Daddy's.

So we were forced to halt all progress on curing the remaining Big Daddy's left in Rapture and instead used the formula made by Dr Tenenbaum to ensure that the genetic degradation caused by Adam wouldn't effect them and would buy us enough time to find another method to return them to normal."

"After that it was a mad dash across the ocean floor, trying to find even a single surviving sea slug, but to no avail... but we did find something else father! We found you! We found your suit part buried in the silt and sand, the Big Sisters were the ones to spot you first, thy alerted me to a Big Daddy they had found just on the outskirts of the city, they brought you back for a proper burial... but once I saw it was you I... I couldn't let you go... Dr Tenenbaum suggested that we could bring you back.

She suggested that we use the Lazarus vector to repair your body, after copious amounts of surgery over the following years and returning the Adam I took from you, we managed to bring you back, though you were stuck in a comatose state.

Despite all our efforts we couldn't wake you up, you just remained comatose for years on end... in the end we left you down in Rapture on life support while we made new equipment and new medical practices, all to wake you up and to save the other Big Daddy's. Sometimes we would travel the world and try and find more of the sea slugs but with each passing decade our hopes grew dimmer." A soft sob could be heard from the Audio dairy.

"Anyway, so I'm recording this message for you before I leave Earth to search other planets for more information, perhaps these aliens I keep hearing about have more information, but it'll take some time for tensions to settle between us and the Turian's unfortunately, thankfully there are the Asari and Salarian's out there too, along with a whole multitude of other races.

I'll explain them in a different audio diary, maybe once I have more information, no point bombarding you with all the information until I have now is there?" A chuckle could be heard from the audio clip.

"Alright I'm signing off now on the twenty-third of August, 2158. See you soon father." The audio clip cut out.

"So Eleanor went traveling the galaxy then?" Asked Shepard after the clip ended.

"Seems so, and every time you stopped at a colony she must have run scans for environmental similarities for anything close to Raptures." Miranda mentioned to Jack.

"So no more Adam? Mordin's going to be upset, Miranda, you get to tell him." Said Shepard.

"Wait, why me?"

"Because your the only one so far not to give a story." Shepard said. "Also we'll need to get that bomb sorted out for Jack." After a quick nod from Miranda she left the room to start sorting everything they need out.

"So Jack, are you with us?" Asked Shepard.

"Just tell me where I can bunk."

"Jack, so long as the space isn't already occupied by something or someone and not in the way your welcome to it, just be sure to grab one of the collapsible beds from Kasumi, I know she's 'borrowed' them. Delta, do you want to give her a tour of the ship, show her around?"

Delta nodded and led Jack out of the room. "Hey EDI?"

"Yes Commander Shepard?" Came EDI's voice but surprisingly not her avatar. Shepard shrugged.

"Can you connect me to The Illusive Man? We have a lot to discuss."


Alright guys that's the next chapter done! Sorry it took so long to come out, I had a hell of a time with writers block and nothing seemed to come together quite right, but I got there! Sorry for the long walls of next as well, just with so much back story to cover I thought it best just to get as much out the way as I could and as you can guess this is the major start of the detour away from the original plot of the Mass Effect series, most of the events will stay the same, after all there's not much you can do to stop the Reapers actually arriving in the first place right? But there may be more changes to the original plot t come as yet, it'll depend on how this goes, anyway! See you guys next month for the newest chapter!