19 August 2186 || 00:30 NDT || Newfoundland, Canada, Earth
[M: What's this I'm hearing about a living Prothean being spotted on the Citadel? With Shepard?]
Marie switched back to the blog of a Citadel freelance journalist she often followed. Normally, she would dismiss such a ridiculous claim without a second thought. But, with all of the other craziness going on, Marie was willing to believe practically anything. Besides, this particular blogger was normally very reliable.
"Shouldn't you be asleep?" – Marie turned toward the sound of Danny's voice. He was walking toward her with a concerned expression. – "We have to be up in, like, five hours."
"So what are you doing awake?" Marie shot back, feeling an almost maternal stab of protectiveness. She had been unable to convince Danny to stay in North America, much to her dismay. But, Marie figured she should at least be able to convince her EP to get a decent amount of sleep.
Danny sat down and poured Marie a cup of hot tea from an Alliance-blue thermos. "I'm taking care of my boss."
"Thanks. But, I'm not much of a boss at the moment," she muttered. "Total embargo. What a load of crap. I know better than to write anything that would give away troop movements."
"The Alliance will let up once we get to England," Danny said confidently. "With everything that's happened, though, moving Anderson so far has them on edge. At least they're still letting us hang around."
Marie made a low noise of assent and took a sip of tea. The drink burned her tongue, and tea was out of place on such a muggy night, but she took another sip anyway. She just needed something for her hands to do, until her Omni-tool pinged.
[J: Are we on or off the record here?]
Marie smiled and looked over at Danny. "I've got company now, Granger. Go get some sleep. That's an order. Or something."
Danny snorted but obeyed, shaking his head all the way back to the tents. He had sided with Andre in finding Marie's relationship with James quite amusing. Marie would be annoyed, but Danny's ability to make fun of her came as a relief. At the start of the war, Marie was originally worried that the young EP had a crush on her. It was not really the violation of professional ethics that concerned Marie, though. It just would have made her unusual relationship with James all the more awkward. But, it turned out that Danny was either very professional or just not interested. Both possibilities worked in her favor, at least for the moment.
[M: Off. Not really my jurisdiction.]
[J: You remember the first time we hit a Cerberus raid? On Eden Prime?]
[M: No, but … you found a Prothean?!]
[J: Yup. He's called Javik. Was in cryostasis, until Shepard woke him up. He's fighting with us.]
[M: That's quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.]
[M: What's he like?]
[J: Honestly, he's kind of a prick.]
Marie chuckled. If only Claire was around. She would have a fit. In life, Marie's sister was fascinated by the Protheans. The extinct architects of the mass relay filled Claire's games of make believe as a child, and then they became the subject of her life's work. Looking back, it was always obvious that Claire would end up in archeology, even if she took a rather roundabout way to get there. She enlisted with the Alliance at eighteen, her grades too low to score a university scholarship. It was not that Claire was dumb. She was fucking brilliant, easily one of the smartest people Marie had ever known. She just fell in with a bad crowd after Marie went off to university. Claire then vowed to be a pilot, but the harsh realities of flight school knocked that idiotic notion out of her head. So, she ended up working in an Alliance lab instead, and it eventually led her back to the Protheans when the Alliance started taking the Reapers seriously.
Marie considered telling James some of that, but her fingers halted above the haptic feedback range of the keyboard. As she told Andre earlier in the week, Marie had yet to cope with Claire's death. It was filed away somewhere, to mourn over when the war was through. At least, Marie hoped she would make it that long. There were too many ways in which a breakdown now could get her killed.
[M: That's some great irony. The universe has one hell of a sense of humor.]
[M: So, what are you up to today?]
[J: Rescuing some Cerberus defectors.]
[M: Why?]
[J: They can help the Alliance. And they're not bad people.]
[M: They're Cerberus.]
[J: Defectors.]
[J: Mar, even Shepard worked with Cerberus. To take down the Collectors. The Illusive Man's gone off the deep end, but that doesn't mean everyone's just as loco. Or evil.]
[J: After what happened on the Citadel, it sounds like a lot of people are realizing their mistake.]
Marie was unconvinced, but she decided to drop it. Cerberus was a terrorist organization. They always had been. Anyone who had been working with them instead of the Alliance for even part of this war had a messed up set of priorities.
She was not biased by the fact that they killed her sister. And Andre's mother. Not at all.
[M: Whatever. After that?]
[J: Sounds like we're trying to get the Quarians on board.]
[M: Good. We could use their fleet.]
Marie almost instinctively switched to an extranet window, to run a search on the Quarian. It suddenly occurred to her that the biggest fleet in the galaxy had been strangely absent from recent reports. There could be a story in the silence. However, Marie's automatic switch into journalist mode was interrupted by a text from someone else.
[SMS Conversation: Steven Cortez]
[S: Hey? Do you have a minute to talk?]
[M: Of course. Everything okay?]
[S: Do you remember when you met Robert?]
How could she not? It was almost four years prior, when Marie was still stationed on the Citadel. Claire came to visit for a few days. At the same time, some of Claire's old friends from basic training were on shore leave, including Steve and Robert. Claire convinced Marie to come out with them for drinks at Purgatory, and the night quickly devolved. Marie woke up in bed with an ANN reporter from the vid side, leading to six months of pure awkwardness during random encounters in the elevator. She had never quite forgiven Steve for daring her to try that shot of watered-down ryncol, and Claire had never again convinced Marie to come out with the boys.
[M: I remember the first couple hours.]
[S: Ha! You know, he really liked you. Wanted to set you up with a friend of ours in the unit.]
[M: What happened?]
[S: You went home with that chick from Entertainment Tonight. Or did you totally forget that bit?]
[M: That was your fault.]
[M: You know, she's married to that vid star, now. The one who was in the latest Blasto movie. All things considered, I'd say I did alright.]
[M: Anyway … are you okay?]
[S: Yeah. I think I just wanted to talk to someone who knew him. I left a picture of him at this wall on the Citadel, a memorial the refugees set up. I think I'm finally ready to move on, but…]
[M: Part of moving on is being able to look back at the happy memories.]
[S: Yeah.]
[M: I remember really liking Robert. You, not so much. But he just seemed like a genuinely good guy. And he was funny. I think he made me spit out my drink over an asari dancer at one point. I don't know. Everything's kind of fuzzy.]
[S: Oh my god. I forgot about that. She was pissed. I thought she was going to get us thrown out.]
[M: Oops.]
[S: That was the last time we saw each other before Vancouver, huh?]
[M: Yeah. I have to confess, Claire invited me to hang with you guys a few times over the years. But … I always found some reason not to.]
[S: Why?]
[M: Because I'm really bad at knowing my limits, as you learned. You're a dangerous influence, Steve.]
[M: But, I'm glad I eventually changed my mind.]
[S: Me, too. I think this would have made Claire happy. Us being friends.]
[M: Yeah. She was always trying to stitch all the parts of her life together. Make everyone get along. I hated it, when we were kids. Now I just wish I'd gone along with it more.]
Marie was jealous, when they were kids. Claire never had a hard time making genuine friends, while Marie always felt like she was just pretending. Their sibling rivalry was almost unbelievably like something out of a sitcom vid. Marie hated Claire for her popularity, and Claire was always annoyed at how easy academics were for Marie. It was part of the reason they drifted apart as teenagers, even as the two of them proved remarkably similar in their interests later on.
Whatever chance there was of reconciliation and bonding, however, was long gone.
[S: You okay?]
[M: Let's just say I'm not where you are. Not yet. It's still raw. Can we talk about something else?]
[S: I can tease you about Vega.]
[M: Why am I friends with you again?]
[S: Because I'm generally awesome.]
[M: Nah. I think it's just you being on the Normandy. You're a good source. Once this war's over, I probably won't have much use for you.]
[S: Jerk.]
[S: So, about Vega ... he's totally pissed that you're texting me instead of him.]
[M: Ooh. I just found another use for you.]
[S: Making him jealous? Sorry, Marie, but I don't really see you that way.]
[M: Ha. Ha. Seriously, though, teasing him is one of my new favorite past times.]
[S: It is pretty fun. A little too easy sometimes, though.]
[M: Somebody's gotta keep that oversized head from getting too big.]
[S: A public service. I like your way of seeing things, Rai Mercier.]
21 August 2186 || 17:00 GST || S.S.V. Normandy
James cracked his neck as the elevator door opened onto the shuttle bay. He came from the cockpit, where James watched the events on the Geth dreadnought alongside Joker and Garrus. The whole affair left the marine buzzing with anger. Those pendejos fired on Shepard. On Tali'Zorah and Liara. They couldn't wait five freaking minutes. Their bloodthirsty impatience was infuriating. If the Quarians killed Shepard, they could have lost the whole damn war right then. The only consolation was the particularly satisfying sight of one of the admirals limping out the airlock back to his ship. James was about sixty percent sure that Shepard sucker punched the bastard.
James was about to recommend that he and Steve get very drunk while Traynor tried to pin down Admiral Koris's crashed ship, regulations be damned. But, from the look on Steve's face as he approached the elevator, there was only more bad news to come.
"You need to talk to Marie," he said. "I told her about the Quarians and the Geth. Figured she'd get all weirdly excited, getting the scoop on a story like that. Going to war with each other instead of helping the fight, I mean. That's like Christmas for her. But, she just ignored me. Something's up."
James groaned and ran a hand over his skull. This day just keeps getting better and better. First the Reapers are helping the Geth. Then Shepard almost dies. And now this, whatever the hell this is.
"Yeah, alright," James agreed, walking over to his corner and pulling up his Omni-tool.
[J: You okay?]
Marie was listed as online, but there was no response. James started pacing. Then, he lifted some weights. When a full half hour went by and he was really starting to sweat, James became worried.
[J: Mar. Come on, we talked about this. Just let me know you're not dying or something.]
[M: Not now. And I'm physically safe.]
James frowned. She might not be in physical danger, but it still sounded like something was wrong. Her addition of the word "physically" was suspicious, as if she was mentally unsafe.
[J: What happened?]
[M: Not now.]
Damn it. James was usually the one stonewalling her. Being on the receiving end was decidedly unpleasant.
[J: Marie Rai Mercier. Tell me what the hell is going on.]
[M: No.]
James angrily shut down his Omni-tool, his rage at a select few quarians bleeding into this particular exchange. He was not mad at her, not exactly. He was more frustrated about being light years away, unable to do anything to make her talk. Shepard was probably not in the mood for James to commandeer the vidcomm, after all.
"She's evading you, too, huh?" Steve called over from the procurement console.
James walked over and stood across from the pilot, replying sullenly, "I don't like this. Something really bad must have happened."
"I wonder – you don't think someone on the ground got killed? That resistance fighter? Or that reporter? Or–"
Priya. James hated to admit it, but this level of response from Marie might very well be because something that terrible happened. He wanted to keep pushing her, but Marie's curt "no" seemed pretty final. It was hard enough to maintain a relationship via text. James figured he should try not to break it with one.
[J: Okay. Look, when you're ready to talk, I'm here.]
22 August 2186 || 09:00 GST || S.S.V. Normandy
[SMS Conversation: Marie Rai Mercier]
[Monday, 19:03. You have to admit, Lola's pretty loco. I mean, she's trying to end a war between the quarians and the Geth, just to get a fleet. As if curing the genophage wasn't enough, right?]
[Monday, 19:21. You know, I've got some pretty juicy details on what happened. It's quite the story.]
[Monday, 19:45. The Quarian fired on a Geth ship, while Shepard was still on board disabling some Reaper tech.]
[Monday, 20:25. You could even use me as an on-the-record source for all this.]
[Monday, 21:00. Lola punched one of the admirals. In the stomach. EDI told me.]
[Monday, 21:15. Huh. I thought that one would really get your attention.]
[Monday, 21:16. Totally true, by the way.]
[Monday, 22:30. Do I need to bug Anderson? Cause I'll do it.]
[Monday, 23:03. Damn it, chica.]
[Today, 00:12. You know what? Fine. I have to catch some rack time. I'm in the middle of a warzone right now, by the way. A giant fucking firefight between the Geth and the Quarians. Thought you ought to know.]
[Today, 01:20. I'm sorry. That was out of line. We're okay. The Normandy's stealth drives are damn good.]
[Today, 03:44. Can't sleep. You awake?]
[Today, 05:30. Come on.]
[Today, 09:00. Damn it, Mar. Now you're really starting to scare me. Look, I have to go. We're dropping onto Rannoch. Don't do anything stupid down there, okay?]
22 August 2186 || 06:00 BST || Islington, London, Earth
Andre caught Marie's eye and climbed angrily out of the shuttle. "Oh, hell no. You are not coming with us."
"Anderson just gave the green light," Marie said, shifting the camera tucked under one armored arm. "So, yes, I am."
"This is bullshit, I'm going to–"
"We need to head out. Now," the shuttle pilot called out.
Marie stepped past Andre and climbed into the shuttle. "You coming, soldier?"
Andre glared at her the whole way into the city, as Marie looked intently at her Omni-tool. She was, unnecessarily, adjusting the camera's software. She would probably do nothing but mess up the framing algorithms, but Marie needed something to focus on. As soon as she stopped, the vivid images her mercilessly active imagination kept conjuring of Tiptree would come flooding back.
She felt the bile rise in her throat and stumbled back, the Omni-tool's screen unyielding in how it followed her crash to the ground.
No. God damn it, no.
[YELLOW ALERT. HUMAN COLONY TIPTREE UNDER ATTACK BY REAPER FORCES. CURRENT REPORTS INDICATE NO SURVIVORS. ASARI MILITARY SOURCES CONFIRM FAILED EVACUATION ATTEMPT. ALL MILITARY FORCES RETREATED.]
Four sentences. Four sentences that told her she was alone. Even as she read them over again, Marie realized she had already known. She had already assumed that her parents were dead. So, why did it hurt so badly? Why did she want to go running out into the streets and throw herself into the crossfire?
Andre saw her fall to the ground from across the camp and ran over. He was asking her something. Yelling at her. But, his words only added to the ringing in her ears. How long had it been, since she'd talked to them? Weeks? Months? It wasn't like they were a close-knit family.
So why did it hurt so much?
"Approaching the LZ. Good hunting."
Marie snapped her head up. She had spaced out for the whole ride into London. She climbed out onto the street with the unit and winced as she recognized their location. Well, she thought she did. The whole block was leveled, but the unusual shape of the intersection looked right. There had been an ancient, narrow bar to her left, where a crater now carved into the cobblestone. Marie would frequent it with coworkers, when she was working for the Telegraph. It had been a cozy place. Couldn't fit more than twenty people inside. The Four Horsemen, she remembered. They served a great curry.
She shook her head and powered up the camera, as the sound of a Reaper's laser could be heard in the distance. The unit commander, a Major Coats, was flagging them forward down Farringdon Road. The rubble-strewn block was abandoned and eerily silent. Sky cars were crashed in the middle of the road, and a nearby building was on fire. But, there were no people. No survivors.
No Reaper forces either, at least for the moment. Marie kept her gun at her side, finger off the trigger, as the camera followed with a low whirring noise behind. The N3 she was training with, Cantor, insisted on Marie carrying an old Avenger around whenever she was outside the camp. Marie was still a pretty lousy shot, but having it at hand did make her feel safer. She walked quickly in the middle of the fifteen-man unit, Andre at her side. He was still shooting worried glances over at her every thirty seconds.
"Hey, focus on the perimeter," she whispered. "I'm fine."
"Like hell you are," he whispered back.
They were not being as quiet as they thought, based on the look Coats shot in their direction. "We're approaching the signal," he said in a low voice, only audible over their in-ear radio channel. "Stay alert."
A moment later, the unit came to an abrupt halt when three people darted out into the street, hands above their heads. Two men and a woman, all looking as if they had not changed clothes or bathed since the start of the war. There were copious amounts of fresh blood on the dingy grey button-down of a man who was yelling in a panicked voice.
"Don't shoot! We've got a kid here! He needs medical attention!"
Some of the resistance soldiers put down their weapons, but Marie noticed that both Coats and Andre were among the few who kept their guns at alert. They were not actually pointing them at the civilians, but they were still on guard. Marie understood why, even if the greener soldiers in the group were confused. They had yet to run into indoctrinated forces, but Andre had told a couple chilling stories from deployments over the past couple weeks.
"Are you the ones who sent out the distress call over an Alliance channel?" Coats asked.
"Yes," a woman answered, stepping forward slightly. "There was a soldier with us. He – he didn't make it. Please, you have to help us."
"Show us where he is," Coats called out. Then, only quiet enough for the unit to hear, he added, "Stay alert."
The civilians led them into an abandoned corner market with broken, boarded up windows. It was incredibly exposed – those boards could hardly stand three minutes of sustained attack from a Cannibal – and even Marie found herself wondering how they had lasted so long. But, her suspicions softened at the sight of the boy on the ground. He could not have been older than thirteen, and he had a compound fracture in his lower leg. Marie had never actually seen a bone sticking out of a person before, and she now hoped never to see it again. She was hardly squeamish, but Marie still had to turn away for a moment. The stench of the room – it was quite clear that no one had access to water or a toilet – did not help her nausea.
Coats still did not relax his weapon as he directed the medic on their team to help the kid. Marie pulled up her Omni-tool, to check that the camera was framing them well in the shot. She suspected Coats would try to shoot her if she started a report right now, so Marie decided to do a voice over later. It was still good footage, even if ANN might try and censor the gore.
She was looking around, trying to size up different members of the group for interviews, when a terrifying sound broke the tense silence. It was a high pitched scream, like something out of a horror vid.
"The fuck was–"
The cursing of one of the resistance fighters was cut off by the sound of a gunshot. Marie felt herself slammed to the ground, pain shooting up her shoulder at the impact, as someone fell on top of her. Her gun, only loosely held before, flew out of her hand and slid across the tile floor.
Son of a bitch.
"Delta team, get rid of that thing!" Coats called out. "Alpha team, open fire!"
The sound of gunfire in the shop was deafening. Someone was still on top of Marie, pushing her to the floor and shielding her, although Marie could not see who it was. She tried to get up, and he pushed her back down forcefully. The room erupted into chaos, and Marie found it impossible to tell who the bodies falling to the floor beside her belonged to. Then, someone was dragging her against the wall, below a broken window where some of the boards were still intact. She was able to sit up and see Andre next to her, looking through a gap in their shoddy cover with his assault rifle drawn. Her friendly barista was gone, replaced by a calculating, professional soldier.
And then she saw it through the slats. "Tell them to get the fuck away from that thing! Now!" Marie yelled.
Her warning came too late. The Banshee brought its long fingers to a point and shot its arm through one of the soldiers, cutting through armor and flesh with a sickening noise and ripping through to the other side. It held the dying soldier in the air before flinging her to the ground like a toy.
"We need immediate evac at our coordinates!" Coats yelled over the radio, ducking down behind cover to reload a new thermal clip. "Delta team! Get back behind the wall!"
Marie heard crying coming from the other end of the room. The kid. Oh my god, he's still alive. She heard a scream of anguish behind her that could only mean the Banshee had grabbed someone else.
No. We can't die here. He can't die here. We can't leave Priya alone.
There was the sound of heavy munitions, and the Banshee gave another unnaturally high scream. The Kodiak they flew in on had arrived, and the Banshee was no match for its guns nor the marine inside working a turret. The other Reaper ground troops – mostly Cannibals, with a couple Marauders – were cut down quickly. Then, before she had time to properly react, Andre was pulling Marie toward the landing shuttle.
She tried to rip her arm free of his grasp. "Wait! That kid! He's still alive!"
Andre shook his head and someone else pushed her roughly forward, and Marie caught sight of another Banshee teleporting down the street. Marie screamed out in protest, but then the shuttle door closed behind her and they were ascending rapidly.
"We can't just leave him!" she cried angrily.
"He could have been indoctrinated, like all the others," Coats said firmly. "They're not above using children."
Marie's legs buckled underneath her, and she hit the floor with a dull thud as armor hit metal. She looked up to see that the damn camera was still following, apparently having made it onto the shuttle. The urge to smash it to a thousand tiny pieces was almost overwhelming, but she managed to instead grab it roughly out of the air and hit the manual shutdown. She slid the camera unceremoniously across the floor, and it hit the opposite wall of the shuttle with a crack.
She could not cry. Not in front of a bunch of soldiers. She had to be strong enough to deal with something like this. She had dealt with worse, all through this damn war. But, the urge to break down overwhelmed any sense of dignity or stubbornness. She curled into a ball on the floor, the weight of everything bearing down at once, and she soon felt Andre's arms around her.
"Shh. It's gonna be okay," he whispered, tucking her head under his chin. Her tears spilled over, getting trapped between her cheek and his armor. "I've got you. We're okay."