Chapter 21: The Day of Rest
"The sound of the geth's cries haunted me for days and days after. Even with my beloved tight against my body, I could not help but hear the cries. When I talked, my voice would mimic that cry. When I ate, my teeth would chatter as the dying lights had. When I made love, my lover's cries of pleasure turned static and synthetic. I was trapped in a machine, a nightmare, a green and white creation of madness.
"A week passed. Then two. Then I realized I had been counting the days, the hours, the seconds of agony. Nothing was the same. It came to pass that our unit had to delve into a civilian metropolis on some planet I have forgotten. Isn't it funny that I can remember the date, April 1st, 2184, yet I cannot fathom for the life of me where it happened. I guess we are all machines in the end. All we are; numbers that stack on top of numbers creating the building blocks of our days. I had been stationed on the ship; a recent promotion had granted me a seat with the captain and some of the best military strategists of our time. It was a great honour and often my lover would touch my cheek and tell me that she was proud of me, proud of what I had accomplished. In the end, I was proud that she was happy. That was all that mattered.
"The mission kicked off smoothly. There was a distress call and parts of the city had been hit by an earthquake. Our team rushed in, scooping up civilians. It was simple; a hit and run, so to speak. We went in from three different entrances and exited from one. But then something happened. One of our transport ships was damaged and had to evacuate. That left only two teams instead of three. That wasn't the problem though. The problem was the earth creaking and screaming against the sky, our teams faced with an impossible decision: get out now and leave a third of the city to die, or risk our lives to save the rest.
"I, of course, picked the former option. But my lover did not."
It was around this time I had started having dreams. A nightmare, may be a better term for it; only because I woke from this recurring state in a cold sweat.
In the dream I was standing in a white fog. Thick. Opaque. Then there was a flash of light and falling, falling endlessly down through the fog, or clouds, or steam that burned my face and hands. At last I smashed into the ground. It was thick and slick with grease and oil. To my surprise the colour of this liquid was white, translucent in the light. I looked up. Before me stood a hooded figure, wings sprouting from its back causing feathers of light to gracefully fall to the ground. Then, a flaming sword slick with the same grease came from the cloak and the great beast pointed it at me. A flash of light. Now the point was facing him and I was holding the sword. I felt so much rage, so much hate. I despised my hands that were covered in grease, now smelling like blood. I was so filled with vengeance that I pierced the great angel's chest, running it through with my sword. The angel careened back and looked to the sky; a piercing wail of a woman, Geisha, sounded into the air as the hood fell back revealing the perfect female. Black blood jetted out of the stomach. It was a powered spray that burst out into the sky, staining the feathers above black. Her face was melting and her cries sounded louder until the human-like flesh had fallen and all that remained was a thick, metal skull that boiled in its oil.
My eyes would burst open from this dream and I would lay there, panting and slick with sweat and tears. I tasted salt. Pure, dense salt. It burned my tongue and eyes. Then, as I washed my hands in the bathroom sink, I would remember the events of the battle playing before me. With each pat of water against my lids, brightly coloured darkness would appear and the visions of death would surround me. These visions that haunted my mind and twisted my nights caused me to lie awake in terror.
The memory is the same as it is now. We were on the bridge of this... geth dreadnought. There was no specific location of control, but the head of the massive metal beast seemed to be the most logical place to look. There we found a hive network that powered the whole ship; all that was needed was a pilot and crew. In that space of blue and silver light, we descended upon the Normandy. I remember blue light flashing across the right side of Raven's face while white shone across the left. Occasionally, red would flash upon the right side: the flash of the ship taking damage. Then, in the heat of the battle, came the blast. The Normandy was rushing towards us at full speed and with a fire of its lasers, blasted at the head of the dreadnought. Flame and electricity zipped around the room, hitting unexpected people who were flying about from the explosion. In an effort to cool the blast, Raven rushed towards a panel, unaware that it was about to explode. The blast threw him back, setting his body alight and burning the side of his face. That was when Geisha screamed. That is when the memory ceases.
I have been told by many that Geisha took control in that moment. Some say she killed a man to get the crew to listen, others say she wept by Raven's side and begged. Either way, we drifted away from our pursuit of the damaged Council vessel. Raven was more important. Why I was in that room drifts from my memory as well. Sometimes I remember Raven asking me to be beside him, to observe his vengeance. Sometimes I reconcile that Geisha asked me, though that idea is highly unlikely. The most painful thought is that I invited myself, that I brought the sleepless nights and the days of anguish upon my own soul. Whatever the reasoning, it does not hold water in my memory. But Geisha's scream does. It always holds its own weight.
I went to Rhetoric after. The ship was adrift. Damage was being repaired. I sat in her office on her noir leather cot. I refused to lie down. I wanted to sit there and think for myself. No one else could interfere. "Do you know why you keep hearing her voice?" I could not say. It could be anything. "Guilt?" A possibility, though unlikely. I could not possible believe that I was the one who felt the guilt for Raven's demise, how could I have controlled such a thing? "Revenge?" Impossible. Geisha was Raven's, end of story. Rhetoric knew of my obsession with Geisha. It was not hard to tell and I surmised that she would find out eventually. So I told her. It didn't help me like I thought it would. "Fear?" Could it be that? Fear was an unexpected ally, one minute saving your ass and the next causing you to throw your gun down and run. Maybe it was the fear of death, of understanding, of being useless.
But these answers were always "maybe", never concrete or solidified with my knowledge. In the end I did not know who I was, what I wanted, where I was in the universe. I left Rhetoric, unsatisfied by her analysis, feeling drained and alone. I was numb, empty, with a thirst that was unquenchable. I was alone with myself who I did not know. I was a stranger to my own mind.
Thionan tried to help me as well. The turian was eating his amino-dextro enhanced food and really wasn't enjoying it all that much. "You see," he said around disgusted mouthfuls, "maybe it's just some post-traumatic stress or something. You know, that shit phrase your human military coined about people who can't handle warfare." I explained to Thionan that I highly doubted that the phrase was 'shit'. "Isn't it? It's justifying weak individuals. It's placing a warm blanket around their body, whispering that 'you'll be fine, we understand you.' It's a lie Shade, a fucking lie. The military doesn't care. The civilians don't care. Hell, the whores you sleep with don't care either! In the end it's a lie to keep you stable." He looked around and snorted while taking another bite out of his paste. "What we do... it... is unnatural. Our lives are complete contradictions. Trying to justify these contradictions with a phrase that inherently demerits warfare, all the while being used by those who lead these said wars, is completely bullshit. Tell me I am wrong!" I did not wish to enter this argument with Thionan. My eyes left the flickering mandibles and returned to my soup before me. I uttered something about him being right, I don't quite remember it now. Though I do remember what he said after. "Stop trying to be a fucking hero, Shade." He stood up after that and I was alone again in the designated 'mess hall'. Was I trying to be a hero? Did I want to justify what I had seen? The hundreds who died for a leader who was now lying in a bed somewhere on life support? Was he even alive? With the amount of information Syphon, Biasheta, and Geisha told us, we wouldn't be wrong for thinking such things. Maybe Thionan was right. Maybe we were lied to.
My soup became cold and I could not finish it. Leaving the table, I lauded over to the metal doors to exit the room. There was no difficulty in my departure and I walked calmly through the halls, hands deep in my pockets. The thoughts of my morality, my goals and hopes, flashed around my cranium, all colliding then dissipating at the sides. Even when I was around the people who I considered my companions, this feeling remained. This empty–this wholesomely empty feeling.
Prince's station was my next stop. I suppose I considered him to be a person who could take my mind off of myself. He would probably just rant about some new technology or something like that. Maybe all I needed was to get my brain busted, to let someone break my fevered mind. Apparently this was not the case here, for when I walked through Prince's doors I spied the quarian huddled over his bench, calculating percentages and figures on a small computer. I walked up behind him, asked what he was working on and nearly scared the poor quarian half to death. He jumped back a few paces and looked at me with a wide-eyed expression. "Keelah! Don't do that to me." I laughed a bit. You know, laugh is a strong word; it was more like a light brace of air exiting my mouth. Dead air... dead space.
I asked him what he was working on and if there was anything he needed. The quarian just chuckled. "I'm working on the geth again, seeing if I can learn from them at all. I used to be quite the researcher on them a while back." I nodded, I had heard his story before and I hoped I did not have to hear it again. "You know, my family were some of the most important people tasked with the creation of the geth AI." Too late. "Sadly, the geth rebelled. My family was disgraced and my name soiled." The quarian paused. There was the sound of him choking or clearing his throat, I was not sure, before he continued. "Raven's good with that, you know? He rips you off those sins. Your name is the most cursed lineage in your entire life, you can never change who your family is, what they have done. But Raven has given us a chance to be reborn, to cast aside all those sins and make us stronger within a community." Another pause. "Well, it would be like that if he wasn't lying in a bed." I noted this comment and asked the quarian on it. "How do I know? Well, I was asked to check his life support machine and see if he would be fine. As you can tell, Geisha's taken over the entire operation till Raven gets better. She's calling this our 'day of rest'." I noted how overly dramatic that sounded. "Yes, I suppose it is. What I don't understand is why we didn't finish off that damn Council ship. It would have been quick, wouldn't it have?" I did not know. "Now the tracer we put on that qurian female; Tali isn't giving us a signal so we can't possibly know where they are now. Shame, that was a good advantage we had there." It had been, but now it was wasted and there was no time to waste thinking about what could have been, only thinking about what is now.
I wished Prince well and he raised a hand to me. "Take care, Shade," he said before returning to his work. That quarian... the memories just keep coming back when I talk about them all in these intimate moments. Back then, I really didn't care about what was happening. The inward battle against myself raged on, tearing any semblance of concordance into shreds. All around me those people remained and seemed stable, so static in their roles. But I guess all good shadows are stripped away in the light.
After Prince, I wandered a bit, considering his thoughts towards Geisha and Raven. The masked man had been injured, that much I was certain of, but how badly? It must have been a grievous wound if Geisha was as sporadic and illogical as the quarian had claimed. Geisha... the name hurt and gave me wings all at the same time. The thought of seeing her crossed my mind, then left as quickly as it had come. I could not dare to approach her, what would I say? How could I say anything to ease her irrational state? But I found myself walking to the medical section of the great ship and I asked where Raven was. One of the asari medics directed me down the hall and I followed her instructions.
I walked for a long time before spying Finnegan on the wall, a cigarette in his hand and smoke bellowing from his lips. He saw me as well and saw the hurt in my eyes. Expecting some snide comment, I turned away from his gaze and quickened my pace. I wish I had not, for I barely heard his remark. "Take it easy, Shade. We have your back." I was shocked when it registered in my brain, but too foolhardy to turn around and ask Finnegan on it. I just left him there, smoking his cigarette, not even wondering why we were in the medical facility in the first place.
Raven's room was not far off in the great mechanical prison of the ship. Often I would be surprised when I went around the decks. Some halls would be filled with wires and would be almost impossible to move around without getting yourself hanged. In contrast, some halls were completely clean; silvery blue bulkheads over the walls hiding the miles of circuitry that made the ship run. These halls were of the latter quality, the more organic organization and aesthetic that synthetics lacked in their vessels.
Reaching the room was not difficult, but finding Geisha there was. She was sitting on a metal chair positioned to the right of the door. She sat there, hands clasped tightly and head bowed. My footsteps alerted her to my arrival, but she did not acknowledge it. She only watched the floor, her stare completely blank.
I did not know what I could say, what I could do. So I approached her calmly and did not speak; I waited for her to start the conversation. But she didn't. She just sat there, her stare cold and calculating. She looked less and less like an organic as time went by, I'm pretty sure she stopped breathing at one point. The art of conversation was one I could never truly grasp. When to make a joke, when to laugh, smile, nod or frown. It was too complete, too many variables and too much opinion. It was not black and white. But here, standing beside this synthetic female, I tried to ease her worries.
"He will be fine," I started, stronger than I imagined I would have been. "Raven's a fighter, he won't die on us." She didn't speak, just turned her head and stared at me. I was not even sure if she could cry, if she could sob and burst into tears. Synthetics were never supposed to feel anything, regardless of how life-like they were made to be. But watching those eyes, I was sure I was staring into a soul, not just bits of circuitry. "Geisha," I began again, lowering myself into a crouch, "I know you loved him—"
"You really don't understand, do you?" she interrupted brutally. My mouth was open, unsure as what to say.
So I spoke the truth. "No, I really don't." She turned her head away at that but I quickly started speaking to bring her attention back to me. "But that doesn't mean I can't sympathize with you. Losing a lover is difficult, even if it isn't permanent. Many people criticize others as giving into emotion, to being weak and illogical." That statement seemed to cause her to flinch. I guess I hit a nerve. "Then there are others who see it as logical; they believe that emotions should override logic in the times of a crisis."
"Which group do you fall into then?" She got me there, I really didn't know. So I told her that. "Raven and I... we have always had a complex relationship." She turned to me with those waterless eyes, analyzing whether or not to speak to me about these things. I nudged her on, telling her that I was here to listen. She liked that, I think. "Before the end of the Reaper War, I was manufactured on a new line of AIs. I was the newest design; a pleasure robot that satisfied the desires of men and woman of all species while not carrying diseases." She lifted her hand and moved it around in the light. "This hand that I have... is not really made of flesh. I have to eat like any other organic, specifically foods rich with a certain protein that I will not bore you with. As it goes through my system I utilize it to regenerate, causing my skin to become less blemished than prior. In essence, the more the protein, the more perfect I look. But then the war ended and with it came the unexplainable cloud of red light that eradicated all synthetic life. For some reason I... I was spared. I did not know about my sisters, if they (who were made of the same protein as I had been)were saved. All I knew was that I was alive and I hated it.
"In those years after the war I was poor. I would sleep with as many races as I could, for it was in my programming that I should. But these races would take advantage of me, use me and pay me meagerly for my services. Sometimes they would be rough with me, sometimes gentle. The things they did were horrid at times and I would scream out in pain. You see... these proteins are directly linked to my electrical circuits. If my synthetic flesh is damaged then I feel pain: real, horrid agony. I learned this when one customer, who was particularly rough, ripped off some of the skin on my arm. I screamed and cried out. He just looked at my robotic systems underneath and freaked out. He ran away horrified at the realization he was screwing a synthetic woman." Geisha now took to rubbing her arm; her left upper bicep. "That was when I realized I was starving myself of the protein. My skin started to peel and I had to cover up certain parts of my body so I did not detract customers. But their roughness caused more skin to peel and soon my interior openings, my synthetic sexual organs, were all but metal. Now no man would ever dare touch me like they once had. I was diseased, cast out, alone. My face started to peel and some nights I would go off the main streets into alleyways and scream in the rain. On Illium, there was no place in the light where you could not be seen and, as such, I had to enter the darkness to hide my pain.
"It was then that Raven came. I was on the side of the street, wrapped in a flea-ridden blanket when he saw me. He walked over and asked for my services. I was shocked. Usually most people would look at my dirty form and walk the other way. But Raven didn't. He asked for one simple night and that was it; no strings attached. So we went back to his place and I was left alone in his living room. I went into his bathroom and found a small shawl that I ripped apart and placed in my sexual organ to ease the discomfort the man might feel. In the mirror I saw my reflection: torn and worn, completely disgruntled in every way. My programming caused me to hate myself. Love came with beauty and beautywith love. That was all I ever knew. But exiting that washroom completely nude to find Raven laying down food was something I never expect. He greeted me casually, completely unfazed by my nakedness. He asked me to put something on while we had dinner. Sex would wait until later.
"I cannot remember what the food was, only that it was sweet and bitter to the tongue. I filled myself as best I could and started to feel my mechanical systems absorbing the proteins I ate. I did not eat because I was hungry. On the contrary, I do not feel the need for food. I cannot starve. Yet I craved the food to give something back to this man, this mysterious black haired man who gave me nothing but kindness.
"We made love after that and I remembered it being neither forceful nor gentle, but simply satisfying. I could not feel anything and I still do not, but was somewhat pleased with what Raven was feeling over top of me. Afterwards, he lay down behind me and wrapped his arms around, softly snoring into my ear. I could not sleep, did not wish to sleep. I could never sleep and still do not. I never understood the organic need to sleep. Anyway, I always remember the picture I saw on his night stand. It was a female; some black haired girl with short hair underneath a tree. When he woke, I asked him about it. He simply said, 'The sin of man runs deep in the sight of angels.' I didn't know what he meant by that... I still don't." Geisha stood up now and I followed suit. My legs were growing tired of squatting and it was refreshing to feel them stretch. When I looked to her face there were deep grooves that contorted it. I stepped in front of her and rest a hand on her shoulder. To my surprise, she took it.
"Raven was never a lover to me. You've probably heard all the rumours from the mess hall about how I whore to him and give him pleasure. Those sentiments are true. But Raven does not force it upon me. He never asks for me to make love to him, he never questions when I ask him to allow me to. When we first made love, he did not do it to feel pleasure, though that was certainly a part of it. No, he did it for me. My whole life has been sleeping around and making love to others. That's all I have ever known. The only way I can possibly show emotion or gratitude is through sex. Raven is... like my father in many ways. He protects me, looks out for me. I doubt he has ever seen me as his lover; more like his child. And, like any parent would do, allows me to love him in the only way I can." Her hand left mine, but my hand still remained on her shoulder, gently squeezing it comfortingly.
A soft croak came from her throat. "Even now," she said over dry sobs, "I do not know how to repay this kindness you gave me. All I remember is how much of an idiot you were. How much you loved me and now... now you're just standing here and listening. It makes no sense!" She flashed around causing my hand to whip aside. "Do you want to sleep with me? If so then say it. I will gladly give myself to you." I stayed silent. That was not what I wanted. "No? Then what do you want? What can you possibly desire of me: a whore? Fucking is all organics think of and why are you any different? Love is just sex, plain and simple. Why should it be anything more to me? That's always what it has been, giving myself over to some sleazy idiot. And now you just stand here wanting something completely different! Who in the hell do you think you—"
It was then that I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and embraced her. Her sobs turned into full out weeping, yet there was no water that came from her eyes. She cried and cried like a desert, wanting to feel yet feeling nothing but emptiness. I could relate, though I could never understand. We stood there for what seemed like days. In actuality it was only a few minutes. Though we departed and I entered Raven's chamber, leaving her alone, something had clicked there. Even after I found out that Raven would be fine in a few days, I could not shake-off the experience that I had with Geisha.
Nights would continue the way they had where I would have the dream again. The angel would be Gesiha, Raven, Thionan, and sometimes the black haired female who I saw on my first awakening with the Vipers, who I heard about from Geisha, and who I witnessed again on the side table beside Raven's life support system. But then after the dream, I would not wake up. Instead I would witness Geisha crying into my arms and I just holding her in that space.
That was the start of our relationship together. That was also the last day we all had of rest before the storm came and our fates would intertwine. It was the last day to look up and dream of better things.
Author's Note: Here ends the undefined act 2 of this story. Now my friends, here is where shit hits the fan.