Just then, Mordin stepped into the briefing room.
"Hello. I am back. Picked up supplies for lab and tests for Collector tissue. Will be there if you need me." Just as he left, he noticed the newcomer in the room.
"Ah, on-board meeting and casual conversation indicate greeting, possible recruit? Wear of armor suggests extreme age. Special forces? No. Biotic? No, suit too rigid. Mercenary? No, lack of insignia or any major distinguishing insignia. Must work alone. Appearance suggests human, but eye colour not common in human gene pool. Numerous bullet holes and cracks indicate many violent confrontations. Suit and weapon reinforced heavily with use of cybernetic enhancements..." He stopped talking and stared at him for a few more seconds, his Salarian mind stumped.
"Very good. Mordin Solus I presume?" The Wanderer asked.
"Yes. Pleased to meet you, but who are you?" the salarian responded.
Shepard nodded in his direction. "EDI, bring Mordin up to speed on what has happened here."
"Of course, Commander." EDI said, sending the entire recorded conversation to Mordin's omni-tool.
Playing the video at two times the speed due to the fact that Salarians think twice as fast as humans, the doctor was quickly brought up to speed as he memorizes the conversation between Shepard and the "Wanderer". He looks up from his omni-tool, astonished.
"Incredible! Origin dated to pre-Prothean. Not human. Not mercenary. Suit and weapon of extreme age. You are here to help." His eyes light up. "Must take a DNA sample! Imagine the possibilities! Great potential stored in a new species. Must take tests and confirm suspicions." he said. "Do you mind?"
Shepard looked at the Wanderer. Shepard generally distanced herself from Mordin's experiments, but this time it piqued her interest. In fact, everyone in the room had their interests piqued.
"Do you?" she asked.
"No." The Wanderer said.
"To the lab!" Mordin exclaimed triumphantly. He had indeed struck a goldmine of information. Everyone shuffled out of the briefing room and down to Mordins lab, which was right next door.
.
"Mordin, do you mind getting as much medical info as you can. He has no offical records and he'll need them if he's staying."
"Of course, Shepard."
The salarian started up the various machines and equipment around his work station. He then instructed the Wanderer to remove his armor.
The Wanderer gave a nod and began the lengthy process of removing his suit. It was mainly composed of a sealed outer layer of hard-suit, its armor connected to an underlying flexible material that stuck close to his body. Upon laying the plates and sections of his suit on the table, the audience could see the soft green glow being emitted by circuits interwoven with the hard-suit begin to fade, as if inactive. These 'circuits' were etched into each plates surface and seemed to be interwoven in the fabric beneath the armor.
Next he grabbed the underlying flex material in an attempt to remove it and all the ladies in the room held their breath.
The warrior looked up to find all present members of Shepard's squad eying him up. He sighed and removed the last layer of the suit. And they found out he was topless under the armor he was wearing.
All their eyes were fixed on his chest. Save for Mordin who was busy looking at his computer screen in an effort to scan the armor.
"Wow." was all that Kasumi could whisper.
He was truly a sight to behold. His body was completely rippled with lean, hard muscle. Years of training clearly evident, every movement he made caused the women in the room to stare. Proportions were all right and among his heavily built body were numerous faded scars consisting of bullet holes, grazes and blade slices. The most intriguing of all were a set of three parallel lines that ran down his side resembling claw marks from a very large animal. Shepard felt her cheeks warm. She glanced at Miranda and found the normally pale woman to had gained a rose color to her face.
EDI interrupted their ogling. "Commander, Garrus and Tali have just boarded the Normandy."
"Okay, thanks EDI" Shepard said quickly, without lifting her gaze from the man a few feet away from her. She could hear Garrus talking to Tali as they neared the lab.
"… I'm telling you, Tali, the contact we met took on the entire Eclipse group. Most impressive of all was that he used a sword..." Garrus said, his voice getting louder as he neared the lab.
"Garrus, how many times do I have to tell you, there's no way anyone..." The sound of something hitting the floor caused everyone to turn their head in the direction of the sound.
There, in front of them was Tali and Garrus standing in the doorway.
Upon reaching the doorway, Tali had dropped whatever she was holding and stood looking at the fit, half-nude man rippled in muscle. She joined the three other female members who stood there admiring him.
Being the gentleman that he was, the Wanderer walked over, picked up the fallen food supplies and handed then back to Tali.
"You must be Tali'Zorah vas Normandy."
"Ye..s.." She managed to stutter.
"Pleasure to meet you" He said with a wink, just for fun.
If anyone could see under her mask, her cheeks were bright red.
"Wanderer, please allow me to take a blood and skin sample for DNA" Mordin said.
The Wanderer held out his arm and the Salarian doctor extracted a blood sample using a syringe. Immediately upon the syringe exiting his arm, the ruby red blood turned a light shade of green.
"Is.. that supposed to happen?" Shepard asked.
"Yes. Data from the blood sample indicate his blood is iron based like humans but uses a mixture of chlorocruorin solution of twenty-five percent. Blood becomes a reversible oxygen carrier. Chlorocruorin was likely substituted artificially. The pigment becomes green when dilute, but vivid red at higher concentrations."
The Wanderer stepped into the array of scanners to the right of his desk. Tera-bytes of data began streaming down the Salarians screen. His eyes darted to and fro as the information compiled itself.
"Biological age impossible to determine in relation to human age standards. Impossible to determine true age from current sample size of one. DNA does not resemble human. Levo DNA. Internal organs share no biological similarity with humans. Fully developed and heavily dense muscles indicate top physical condition. Extensive internal biological and cybernetic enhancements. Variety of neural implants in brain. Able to integrate seamlessly with A.I. and other legacy information sources. Naturally occurring carbon fiber reinforced bones. Useful. Joints have been strengthened with a variety of naturally occurring substances..." Mordin stopped talking for a second.
"Strange. Subject has immense magnetolectric radiation field being emitted from his body. Never seen at this strength before. But there. Will investigate further." Mordin's hands danced across the keyboard.
"Interesting. Field being emitted biologically and internally, not with help from implants."
"Radiation? Is it harmful?" Tali exclaimed.
"No, no, no, no. Subject is emitting magnetolectric radiation. Not electromagnetic, or nuclear/x-ray. Polar opposite of electromagnetic radiation." He rambled.
Before any of them could ask him what he was talking about he wheels another machine next to the Wanderer. It was a machine to detect changes to biological tissue from different kinds of radiation.
"Wanderer, please rest hand on sample one tray." He did. Next Mordin placed a fauna specimen on the second sample tray.
Starting the machine up. Mordin's eyes zipped across the screen as it gathered data. His eyes light up.
"Fascinating, but as predicted. High intensity magnetolectric field stops the cellular aging process and induces a negative entropy onto living cells. Only seen previously on very small scales." he chatted with excitement. "Robust immune system and field work in conjunction to repair cell telomere's and damage from reactive oxygen byproducts."
"Mordin please repeat what you just said in layman's terms please." Shepard said.
It was EDI that spoke next. "What Mordin is saying, is that the field the Wanderer is emitting stops the forces of aging by assisting healing in any living thing within its range. It would not give you damaging radiation, instead it would actually be beneficial to be in proximity to him. In theory long periods of close proximity could potentially increase an organisms life span as its cells would be able to repair themselves more efficiently."
"Subject would be able to heal subtly automatically." Mordin said. "Reproduction of this effect is difficult. Once suggested that one would need magnetic fields of 13, 000 Gauss, or a magnet 26, 000 times more powerful than planet Earth's magnetic field. Impossible to render as non-magnetic." The Salarian doctor held up a ferromagnetic item to the Wanderer's skin. It was not attracted. "Will investigate later." He walks over to the Wanderers armor, picks it up and placed them under another scanner.
"Suit is composed of lightweight ultra-strong metals and interweaves with sensors to be transmitted directly to brain through implants. Suit powered wirelessly from contact with subjects flex under-suit using magnetolectric field." Mordin is streaming out data as fast as his mouth could pump out the words. "Suit in dire need of repair. Falling apart." Just then Jacob stepped into the room, bewildered to find every female on the team staring at this random stranger.
Woah, hes jacked. He thinks. His biceps rival even mine...
The Wanderer spoke. "Unfortunately because of this ability I am unable to carry or use kinetic shield barriers. They malfunction when too close. This hard-suit is the only physical protection I have."
"Could you tell us more about that? When we were at the rendezvous point, I swear I saw you move faster than my eyes could keep up. How doesn't your heart burst?" Shepard asked.
"My body can move at great speeds through a variety of reasons. A lifetime of training, mostly. Training has also taught me to control my heart rate so it is ready when I need it to speed up. However it puts a tremendous strain on the joints and can overheat the muscles. Implants control some of the temperature, and my healing ability ensures my joints don't burn out. But even then, I can use it only sparingly. That kind of power can be dangerous if I am not careful. I can move faster without my suit, but that leaves me open to damage. My suit is semi-powered to ensure it moves quickly, and the circuits you see are the result of integration with my senses." he stated.
"Integration with your senses?" Shepard asks.
"You have neural implants since being rebuilt by Cerberus, am I correct?" He asks.
"Yes."
"Miss Lawson, when Shepard was revitalized, did Cerberus include a certain implant...a L2d Nerual opt. Channel 5.0 if I'm not mistaken?" He asked.
"Yes, they did" She answered, interested as how he knew about such an implant. It was still in beta, and it allowed the users brain connect with some outsides sources.
"Excellent. Here Commander, put on my helmet." he held it out to her.
She hesitantly took the helmet, unsure what she was expecting.
She slowly put the jet black helmet over her head. It was much heavier than hers. With her head fully held within the helmet, the Wanderer pushed a button on the side of the faceplate.
"My suit has been interfaced with omni-sensors. They work with just about anything. Here, it should be syncing with your vision now. You should see something in a few seconds." He said.
All Shepard could presently see was pitch black in his helmet. A dot appeared in the centre of her vision, and slowly got brighter, and brighter then... light exploded all around her. She could see.
She waved her hand in front of the completely polarized face plate. She could see it, as if the helmet were not even there!
"Damn, this is some level hardware!" She yelled, with no sense of professionalism or restraint whatsoever.
She looked around the room, seeing everything as if she was wearing no helmet. Perfect vision. No obstructions.
Suddenly a virtual H.U.D. booted up and the screen was covered in text and symbols she couldn't understand. It vanished and she was left with the previous screen with an added position orientation, zoom, thermal imaging and every module she could think of.
The Wanderer carefully removed the helmet from her head.
"Like it? I can give you the full hardware specs if you want" he asked. "Although some prefer using their eyes."
Shepard nodded her head like a bobble-head.
Mordin interrupted. "Please can we continue the examination?"
Everyone sat down.
Mordin lift up the Wanderer's sword and was surprised my its weight.
"Sword is especially unique. Weight of twenty-three kilograms." he started. "Composed of... unknown metal." The salarian was stumped. "No sign of oxidization. Acid-proof. Extreme temperature has little effect on its metals state. Small scratches and dents made from repeated usage. Not very sharp, but weight and a little momentum could crush or slice through even a krogan." He continues. "Same markings as ones on suit. Possible integration with suit. Seems to hold internal cybernetic enhancements. Most durable metal I have ever encountered. None exists like it. A discovery in itself."
Garrus was skeptical. "Wait, twenty-three kilograms for a chunk of metal? I've seen some two-handed antique swords from earth and palaven, and they were max five kilos."
The Wanderer looked serious for a moment as he contemplated something.
"Would you like to test it out?" He asked.
"Sure." Said both Garrus and Jacob simultaneously. They both look at each other, as if surprised to see the other person standing there.
"Me first." They said in unison.
"If anyone's going for a test run, its gonna be me." Shepard said with a smirk on her face. "And yes, that's an order."
The Wanderer picked up his weapon effortlessly. "Where can we swing this around?" He asked.
"Shuttle bay should be an alright place. And kasumi, bring him a shirt, he's distracting." She said, exiting the room.
Kasumi gave a giggle and disappeared.