Chapter XXIV – Two Minds Apart

KMFDM - Tohuvabohu

xxxx

By the time I came around, I was already sitting. Leaned back against a pile of trash and half sunk in that lousy Illium alleyway. Light on my face. Sun directly overhead.

I didn't know how long I'd been out, but I remembered my legs. I didn't even take the time to see if they hurt before I scrambled forward and went for the buckles on my lower right leg. Tried not to move as I peeled the shin armor away.

What was I expecting, really? A limb shattered and bloody and useless? Maybe that expectation, that fear, was what sent me into complete awareness.

Instead, there was a scar halfway down my shin that ran from side to side. Healed. Stitched together with wire strands. I stared for several seconds, dumbfounded and verging between alarm and relief as I stared at what had obviously taken time to recover. I reached for one of the wire stitches, a small tug releasing the tie and easing it from the flesh. Didn't even hurt. Tickled, maybe.

My heart-rate was starting to get back into normal parameters as I continued to ease out stitches. Got the last one on my right leg and I paused, looking up to the roof fifteen stories overhead, the roof where I'd gotten myself kicked. Seemed a world apart, not part of the Illium I was in as I sat amidst trash. I'd be back up there soon enough.

Clipping my armor back on and starting to check my left leg to find more of the same crude medical work, my mind began to turn.

The squad was out. Viola had handed them over after taking me out. I cringed to think I was probably the better off. All in all, I couldn't figure it out. I had very, very few allies in the galaxy and those I knew wouldn't patch me up and leave me there in the trash. How long had I been out, anyway?

Long enough for bone to heal and flesh to scar. I didn't like that. Something wasn't right. I was faster taking out the stitches on my left leg. Flexed my toes to make sure everything still worked. I was in luck.

With my armor back together, I rolled forward and squatted, sitting there on my toes. The legs were holding. Muscles strained. Still didn't feel right. I checked my utility belt for a packet of energy chews. Empty. The end of the grappling line brushed against my glove. The end of the cable was frayed. Individual strands were cut. The same stuff that had been used to stitch my legs up.

My own work.

It wasn't until I thought back and racked my memory that the period of unconsciousness began to crumple.

My legs flashed in my vision, a static frame that I knew lent itself to a dream, the armor removed and the skin exposed with bone and blood showing. My hands working on their own, patching up the injury.

Another flash. An armored hand pushing my face back, keeping me pinned on my back. Through the gap between fingers there were red cybernetic eyes and greased-back hair.

I tried to move again, to stand. Instead I lost my balance and stumbled forward. Fell to my hands and knees, heaving with an ill that I could not locate. I tried again rising to my feet, stumbling, but my legs held me even if my balance couldn't.

There were countless processes running unchecked – ones that I didn't remember ever seeing before. Ones that were scrapping for control of my physical systems. I didn't know them, but I recognized them on a whole.

"Azarith…" I hissed, trying to think through unavoidable pain. I couldn't access root commands, couldn't dull my senses through code. "You're not real! You're… you're…"

"Dead?" The Reaper replied, voice all around me, within me. Reverberating in the silent alley. "So were you. Yet here you lay, broken by your own judgment. Your own processes augmented themselves strongly, but you fall to your own weaknesses."

"Get… out of my head." I warned even as I clutched my temples. I knew I couldn't do any harm on the software front. I tripped over a pile of trash and nearly went down.

"Once more you will rise, stronger than even you realize. But I know. I made you, Jackson. I continue to make you; I lifted you past the odds that a human or machine alone would break against. I know what you're capable of."

"I know what I'm capable of."

"Then why was I the one to mend you after the fall? Why have I had to intervene each time you fall short in a fight?"

"You… no. you haven't been here the whole time."

"Think back to TIER. Think very closely."

"No…" I muttered, getting to my feet and stumbling forward blindly. Then the memory kicked in. TIER.

I fall from the glass chamber, my muscles too atrophied and uncoordinated to stop my fall to the black metal floor. A slopping mess of soft skin with long hair draped over my face. I look up to the hallway in front of me.

The empty hallway before me. I glance out to the star to the right, then I rise. Slowly, weakly, trembling as each muscle strains just to raise my emancipated frame. I start forward. Alone.

"No!" I screamed again, clutching and shaking my head in a maddened, panicked fit. "Trinder was real!"

"Trinder was no more real than any facet of the nightmares struck upon you by your very own imagination."

The whole time at TIER began to flood before me. Meeting Sam, Jakur, and Torr. Nobody by my side to introduce us. Just a wheeled navigation VI.

Standing in front of an inactive holoprojector, reporting on the Zavalon mission. Nobody to talk to.

Sitting in the TIER lounge with the tall ceiling and the great glass windows facing the nearby star. Nobody sitting next to me in a wheelchair.

Turning the photo of Rana over in my hands as the station fell under siege and I stood above a cratered section of flooring.

Emptiness spun around me. Nobody. Trinder was… another of Azarith's tricks.

"You did what needed to be done when Sovereign struck." Azarith commended, bringing me back to the dull alleyway strewn with trash. "And I did what needed to be done in bringing you back. The Contractor would not have fallen without you."

"Bullshit." I coughed and spat on the ground. "The 517th could have taken him on themselves."

"They would not have lived to see Hyetiana, much less defeat the Kavarshii there. Do not fool yourself otherwise. You can think back on your own will and remember each fight, every outcome. What seems chaos to you is what lead you to the Contractor."

"You lied to me…" I growled, suddenly going back. "I thought Trinder was real!"

"You needed something to cling to, something to give you power when you had none."

I couldn't argue. I wanted to, but I was still fighting off the headache alone. Perhaps that was what circuit meltdowns felt like.

Azarith continued despite my belligerence. "The Contractor has returned, and so have you. A sentinel is needed now more than ever. I will not let you fail, Jackson."

"The other me…" I began, "The other me with the cybernetic eyes."

"He is your subconscious fighting against an imposed reality, watching on as your body does one thing and your mind sees another. Stop resisting and he is gone."

"And you…" I coughed. Blood. We were headed for meltdown, and neither of us gave ground. "You should be gone."

"I've never been gone." Azarith replied, voice trembling my nerves. "I have been with you the entire time. We are now one and the same."

"Hyetiana…" I sputtered. "Why'd you make me ditch my squad?"

"That was a mistake regrettable for both of us." There was a tinge of regret in that metallic voice, an uncertainty that even the machine didn't know what to do with. "There were other ways."

"I won't do it. I won't fight for you so long as you're playing with my head." I protested as I stumbled forward over a loose brick. "You said – you said that was why you made a sentinel!"

"My reasons for a sentinel remain the same as ever. Until you realize how strong you are, I have no option but to interfere. The choice is yours."

"I'm gonna keep fighting." I snarled. "You better hope I'm going in the right direction."

"The galaxy needs a sentinel more than before." Azarith paused. "But for you, the 517th needs a leader once more. Both the commando unit and the Lancers must be brought back to power. No one else has the potential to win this war. Our duty and our desires do not always conflict. I know what remains important to you."

I nodded slowly, the reality sinking in as I accepted what I needed to do and the headache dulled. I gave in, broke the stalemate and let my systems return to normal. I took the Mk.25 faceplate from my hip, turned it over in my hands, looked over the synthetic backing and through the eyeports. Then I closed my eyes and lifted it towards my face.

"We are no longer two separate entities bound to hardware. We are the same now. This hardware, this nervous system, this network of nanocells, is us." Azarith continued as the faceplate seated against my face then locked into place. "My name is Forrest Jackson."

/

Additional platform protection detected. Integrating…

Activating magnetic dock…

Powering respiration systems…

Incorporating feedback routes…

Complete.

/

"My name," I started as I opened my eyes and looked down the alleyway through the metal faceplate, the first time seeing the world through the sensors of masked machine, "is Azarith."

xxxx

I climbed through one of the towers besides what would have been left of the 517th Lancers headquarters. Fifteen stories of utilities and dusty offices that had likely never seen a soul in the life of the building. Not since the War, at least. Abandoned. Forgotten. The people who had owned the place, who had worked there, had probably died in the war.

But that wasn't the Contractor war.

Retribution was the first thing that came to mind, and I clung to it as I moved through darkened confines, brushing my hand across a desk knocked to the side. Meters away there was a window that looked out to the street that the base faced. I knew I was getting close.

Next to the window was a door; a door that lead to the right and through the maintenance architecture that lead to the 517th Lancer dock. I paused, then began to push my weight into the broken slider. Little by little it gave and light blasted into the room.

Red light from an emergency light in the hallway ahead. I paused long enough to make sure the place was clear, then went back to reefing on the door until there was enough room for me to slither through and into the red-lit hallway that only went for a few meters before hitting a ladder up – I guessed to utilities in the dock roof. I raised my omni-tool before I began the climb, but it didn't work. Unresponsive, and I had no idea how Sela had programmed the damn thing. I climbed the ladder instead.

Five meters up, it dumped into a vent shaft leading over the dock. Enclosed. I set forward, shimmying along and trying to be all quiet-like. That went well for some time, until I found myself over a vent. Movement below.

Contractors. A whole lot of troopers, a defender and an Assassin. All helmeted except for the Assassin, an Asari that I didn't recognize. Pink facepaint, a cocky look on her face before she spoke.

"Just keep doing your job and find this lurric. He can't get too far."

"It's been nearly five weeks, Tyena. There hasn't been a trace of Jackson." Another voice. A man. One I recognized. Calvin Wallace. "I've come closer to tracking down Viola T'Vintha – the one who blew up three of your units before leaving the system."

"I don't care about that bitch. She can only run for so long. And unlike Mender, I don't care if she comes in alive." This Tyena Asari shrugged. "Find Jackson and get him sent our way. I'll make sure those bandit Lancers don't hassle you again."

"Of course. I'll do everything I can." Calvin sounded smug as well, not scared. "I provided you with the three specialists captive, didn't I?"

That fucker was in on our collapse, too. Azarith said nothing as I started looking for a way to strike.

"And failed to capture their leader, their ship and all of their intel." The Asari snorted, standing there with folded arms. "Some agent you had."

"That seems to be better than what your entire army could do." Calvin pointed out. "Isn't it, now?"

I moved so I could see better. The vent dropped right behind the info broker. Azarith murmured: "Allow me to take care of this."

The troops below didn't notice as the grate slid out of place and Azarith got ready to drop.

"Better not let it get to your head." Tyena added, "As agreed, twenty-mil credits for the dock and the entirety of your info searches."

"Thank you." Calvin nodded, extending his hand and taking the credit chit. "I'm sure you'll do everything you can to protect me."

Azarith cloaked and slipped from the duct, falling and landing silently behind the human in the white suit. He drew the Asari dagger as I drew closer, easing up behind Wallace. Just as the Contractor Asari was turning away he struck, darting forward and driving the blade right through Wallace, right through his heart, and while he gasped and looked at the blade protruding from his chest I snatched the credit chit.

"Should have known the Contractor wouldn't protect you." I growled, getting Tyena's attention as my cloak deactivated.

Her confident attitude shattered as she set eyes on the sentinel standing there with a bloody blade poised as Wallace slumped to the ground. Terror. Sheer, unequaled terror when she was confronted by the metal face of a Reaper machine. "Gun it down!"

The other me with the slicked back hair darted forward, right past me, dropping and sliding on his knees and evading the first round of rifle fire before flanking the Defender and slashing his throat through heavy armor. I clutched my own head, remembered there was no disconnect. Red binary sprung up as I turned away from the Defender. No more distance. I followed each movement, trying to let it flow as thought it wasn't Azarith in charge. In truth, he wasn't entirely in control.

I bashed one trooper back with my shoulder and then slashed him with my left tech blade as I holstered the dagger. A second fell as I swung back around and caught him across the neck.. A third backed away, raising his rifle as I lunged forward, smacking the Vindicator to the side as I launched my opposite blade into his chest. Another came at me from behind with nothing more than a combat knife. I ducked, spun, and drove my right blade through his jaw.

By the time the four troopers all slumped to the ground, I was alone once more. The Contractor frigate docked where the Ortona used to be was pulling back, making a hasty exit. Tyena must have been aboard, because she certainly wasn't coming after me.

So I stood there for several seconds, hands loose by my sides, surveying the damage "I" had done in a matter of seconds. I shook my head and ran my hand over the back of my head. "Five weeks… has it really been that long?"

"Your legs did not heal quickly nor of their own accord." Azarith noted. "We have been delayed."

I shook my head as I looked at what had become of our old base. Contractor colors, blood and fire impacts still noticeable about. It wasn't even home; I didn't bother to go in before turning back to one of the empty docking bays and noting the Contractor hoverbike there. "So Viola got screwed over and ran. Jarka and the Ortona are who-the-hell knows where, and the rest of my team is either dead or captured."

Tapping my omni-tool several times over, nothing happened. Still dead. So there I was, without any comms, half starved, only a single credit chit to my name, not a single ally for the time being, and nowhere to go. I hopped down and swung a leg over the grey and red hoverbike. "I guess it's time we get working."

xxxx

Night was falling as I pulled into the alley dock of an Illium nightclub. I didn't know where else to go, what else to do. I parked the hoverbike next to a dumpster on a small platform attached to the side of a building, a low building by Illium standards. A walkway lead over the entrance some five meters away, a Batarian in casual wear puffing on a cigarette looking at me with dull surprise. Granted, I was probably quite the sight in thrashed armor, a MK.25 mask and wild hair. Dirty despite my attempt to wash my face and hair under a broken water line along the way.

So I took the time, standing there next to my bike, to remove the metal faceplate and hang it on my hip, get my hair tied back in a low ponytail. Then I started across the walkway, the Batarian watching the whole time. He didn't say a word as I passed and activated the door.

In hindsight, I might have been wise to pick a slightly less shady hangout, even if I figured that it would get me closer to information I needed. The 'nightclub' was more of a bar, dimly lit and not to set any positive mood; there was a circular bar right in the middle. A few tenders, enough room for maybe twenty people right there but empty seats were scarce. The rest of the place was milling about, a whole crowd of people standing, drinking and trying to converse over some (even by my standards) awful electronic music played over blown-out speakers. I made my way forward, pushing quietly through the mess to reach the bar and snag an empty seat. There were all sorts there; people in casual wear, privateers in patchy armor, mercs from a few of the remaining factions. None of them looked very trustworthy. I sat down between a Human and a Turian then proceeded to wait for the Asari bartender to make her way over.

"What can I get you?" She asked, seeming rather uninterested as she leaned forward on the inner bar, her elbows close together to squeeze in a little extra cleavage.

"Just a glass of whiskey, please." I replied, managing to keep my eyes on her face the entire time. Letting my guard down had already fucked me over once; I was going to make damn sure it didn't happen again.

The bartender nodded, turned towards a bottle rack and brought down a bottle as she grabbed a cup. I didn't recognize the whiskey. I wasn't sure if it was going to be any good, but I watched in silence as she poured the glass half full, half paying attention and far from caring as she set the drink on the counter and slid it to me.

I managed to catch the glass without spilling or splashing any of it, then raised it to my lips, pausing to inhale the burning scent. It was the same stuff I had been drinking on the TIER station. By myself. I snorted and took a swill, trying not to cough as it went down and left a seeming path of fire. There was an aftertaste that first reminded me of vanilla. Surprisingly sweet, but not upon my tongue. I set the drink down, my right hand loose around the glass, and watched. The bartender was back on the other side of the bar, serving a Krogan who had just barged his way to a seat. A nearby human looked disgruntled by the sudden lack of space, and casting the armored tank a glare before up and leaving.

"Hey!" Someone growled to my right. I turned and was confronted by two humans, the one who must've spoke was a real rough looking dude with ratty-looking hair that might not have ever been washed and a massive scar where his left eye should have been. Snarling all the while, he waited until he was sure of my attention. "I don't like you."

"That's a shame." I turned back to the bar, wishing Azarith had some feedback about then. There was silence in my head.

Maybe he was looking for a scuffle, or maybe he had eyes on my guns. The punk didn't give up so easy. He tapped my shoulder and so I faced him; then he added, with a thumb pointed at his counterpart: "My friend here doesn't like you neither."

"Well," Shrugging, I looked over both again. I could have easily taken them out in a fight, but we were in a bar. I didn't want to start anything that I wasn't willing to finish. "Can't help you there."

That time, he yanked my shoulder around, getting right in my face. "I said, we don't like you."

"I heard you the first time, jackass." I snapped, suddenly rocking forward in my seat and headbutting him right on the bridge of the nose and sending him toppling back and clinging his even more broken face. His counterpart leapt at me and I barely ducked out of the way before he hit the bar and slumped to the floor with the wind knocked out of him. I had hopped to my feet, a good circle of people getting out of the way as the fight broke out. Ready for a continued fight, I stood in attack stance, my left shoulder forward and my left arm poised loosely while my right hand clasped the Asari dagger still sheathed.

The two thugs were getting back to their feet, bloody and winded, and both glaring at me. Guessed they didn't like me any more after that. The first, the one I headbutted back, drew a pistol. He didn't get a chance to use it – we were only a meter apart, close enough that I was able to grab his wrist with my left, snap it so he dropped the sidearm as I lunged forward and before he could even lift his other hand the dagger was through his throat and buried in his spinal cord. I drew the blade back, then spun around in a panic as I heard a crack next to me.

The other thug stood with a magnum pistol still raised, his head unnaturally far to one side with a pair of brown leather hands on each side. He slumped to the ground and the Asari behind him let her hands drop to her sides.

I stood ready, dagger still in my hands, crouched down and ready for another attack, for a good second as the commando looked at me with bemusement. She didn't look hostile anymore, not bothered to make any move for the pistol on her hip. She was a face I'd never seen before. White and red facepaint.

"Hey!" The bartender yelled, getting all of our attentions, "This isn't Omega! At least drag the bodies outside for goddess's sake!"

I looked back to the commando who still hadn't moved. Seeing as she wasn't about to attack, I softened, wiping the blood from and then holstering the dagger. "Thanks."

She nodded and nothing more. I started towards one of the late thugs and she the other, each of us hefting the stout humans part way over our shoulders and heading towards the door while people moved out of the way. Back out onto the small balcony.

The Batarian smoking there cast me an approving grin as I passed by again.

I reached the edge of the railing and heaved the human up and over. Off into the ill-lit maintenance street below. I didn't hear a thump, so it must have been a ways down. By the time I stopped staring over the edge and into darkness, the commando leaned against the railing two meters away as the second body vanished into the night. On Illium, nobody would ever care.

"So…" I started, unsure how to break the silence as I looked over at the Asari. "You're a commando, I take it?"

"Not necessarily, though I can see why you would believe that." She smiled, showing a white set of teeth with some blue jem imbedded in each canine. "I'm a huntress. Those two punks were my most recent targets."

"So I see." I nodded, leaning there on the railing sideways. "Difference being…?"

"I work alone rather than in a unit. And I don't report to Thessia about my location or activity." She replied, looking down off the balcony again. "I noticed your dagger. Not exactly common amongst humans, or really anyone these days."

"It was a gift. From someone who stabbed me in the back."

"Well, that's ironic." She chortled and glanced back to me. "Take care of that blade. It'll protect you when nobody else will. And if you're smart, you'll keep working alone. I've lived hundreds of years that way."

"If I was smart, maybe. But I've got obligations to fulfill."

"Your call." The huntress shrugged, pushed off of the railing and started to leisurely stroll towards the bar again. "I appreciate your help in drawing those two out and dispatching them."

"If you didn't just tell me you work alone, I'd offer to help for a while." I joked.

Well receiving, the huntress turned and stopped. "If we ever meet again, the assistance will likely be mutual."

"Just how am I gonna remember that?"

"The name is Trayla T'Deras."

xxxx

The rest of that night had been relatively uneventful. Trayla had vanished and I was able to finish my whiskey in near-peace, wondering after the fact if she had been any relation to Ryala. Near peace aside from a human offering her drugs and services, and three different merc group captains who tried to recruit me. Enclave, Eclipse (which I was surprised still existed), and Delta Designs. I guessed that last one was more looking for armed security – or someone to infiltrate rival companies.

I snorted as I thought back, wondering what I really expected to find in a sketchy Illium bar. My team wasn't going to be there, that was damn sure. All the questions I had asked the barkeep or other patrons had fallen without answers. Turned out the galaxy was a big place to try and find a few people.

I had only moved up in elevation over the hours since then, parking my bike on a flat rooftop and sitting on the edge with my feet dangling over a bright street below. Since repetitive efforts to get my omni-tool to boot properly had failed, and I was left without anything to write on, I held a piece of loose roofing tile in my left and the dull side of the dagger in my right. Crude, but with those I was able to jot down thoughts.

Rain against thin windows
Cascading, hammering, driven by the wind
Relentless against the obstruction
Against my defense
As I lay on the thin pad and stare at an insulated roof
That quiets the torrent
But the glass
The glass rattles in its frame
Trembling under the slanting downpour
While the rain runs ripples warped across the pane
Washing away
The summer dust left by weeks of burning dry
Rivulets darting down the surface left
Fresh, to start clean once more.

That took up most of the tile, and after reading my own words one more time I set the tile down and sheathed the dagger and looked out over the city, hoping to find something new, something different besides the glaring lights and the rivers of skycars each seeming to think they had someplace important to go. I bowed my head. It had been a long day.

A long day that had started with the realization that I had been leading a lie. How much of that had I unwittingly forced upon my squad? I didn't know. Azarith either didn't have a good answer, or didn't think it was valuable information.

Two; I was up to two squads that I had lead astray.

The huntress might have had a good point, but it wasn't safer for me to work alone. It was safer for the others. With a sigh I stood up, stretching my back as I stood centimeters from the edge, looking to the smoggy Illium sky and hoping for rain, but as I saw a few distant satellites I knew that wasn't going to happen and so I turned back towards the center of the roof and the massive billboard that was positioned meters above. Spotlights were pointed up, illuminating a sign for some health-conscious nutrition shake. My bike was just behind the billboard on the roof below, and I made it that far, lying down with my armor on a raised bit of building and my head on the hoverbike seat as I stared up at the stars just as I had on Earth.

xxxx