Chapter 34
The morning after Kevin and Arla's excursion into the weird of the mountain, the duo called all to the briefing room after breakfast so that the information on the could be shared in proper detail. Both Kevin and Arla fervently contributed to the breakdown of the investigation, making sure that every small detail was covered. The highlights of the debrief included the strange hallucinations, the immense open space within the mountain, the structure found buried there, and the creeper keepers. Though their squadmates were highly intrigued by the events Kevin and Arla described, none of the details alarmed the whole group the way the mention of the huskified keeper-like creatures did. It hit close to home, especially with Kar still in a coma. Once that faded away, they drew their attention to the queer concept of a large mass effect drive core buried deep in a mountain.
"Arla will upload her omni-tool readings to you guys so you can get a look for yourself," Kevin said as he gestured for Arla to do so. "I'm sill puzzled as to why there would even be a core there. Obviously there's nothing that can fly down there."
"Wow, that's massive," Ralik stated. "I've never even seen one that big before. It's a third bigger than a standard dreadnought core. But under a mountain?" He brought a hand to his chin in thought. "Surely there's another use for it."
"Arla thought as much," Kevin replied. "But what?"
"This is a topic that requires further research," Tosh stated. "I'm also interested in these hallucinations you two were describing. They're very abstract. You said you were both experiencing headaches during your time there?"
Kevin and Arla looked at each other, then to Tosh. "Yes," they said simultaneously.
He thought for a moment before snapping his fingers as an idea came to him. "Do you mind if I check something?"
They shrugged. "Go ahead," Kevin said.
Tosh walked around the table and waved his active omni-tool at them once. After a few seconds, some screens popped up over his tool and he tilted his head. "Ralik, can you confirm these readings for me?"
Interested, Ralik sidled up next to Tosh to look at his omni-tool data. "Interesting."
"What?" Kevin and Arla said in tandem.
"Your brain activity is all over the place. The hemispheres are out of sync, too. That would explain the hallucinations, but how did this happen? Did you interact with anything? Technology of some sort, maybe?"
Kevin shook his head. "No, the only thing we interacted with was when we shot all those husks up. They got close to me, but never actually came in direct contact."
"I bet it was the anomalous energy fields," Tosh suggested. "I haven't been able to decipher their makeup or purpose, but they are definitely centered around that mountain."
"Hold on, I recognize some of these patterns," Ralik said, concentrating hard on the readings. "Yes. I definitely recognize some of that neural noise. There's a pattern in there very similar to what we in the STG call "Stimulated Neural Coercion." Diodes are patched onto a subject's head at specific points and fed very precise electrical pulses to alter the brain waves. Essentially, it's used to make the subject very susceptible to suggestions, usually for information mining. It differs in some key areas, but there's no mistaking the overall shape of those patterns. How interesting that it was able to affect you to this degree without any direct contact." Kevin had lost track of whether or not Ralik had even taken a breath.
"Wait a minute. Something was actually messing with our brains?" Kevin asked, quite alarmed.
"That certainly seems to be the case," Ralik said with a sagely nod. "I suspect that if you had spent a few more hours that close to the epicenter, we could plant any idea and you'd believe it unquestionably."
Bela suddenly looked very interested while Arla appeared threatened. "What? Can we get rid of the effects?"
Ralik gave a half-hearted nod. "It should wear off after a day or two of rest out of its range of influence. I'd recommend at least two days before you continue your research of the place. I'd also recommend that anyone heading there spend no more than three hours to be sure that it hasn't reached full effect. I'm not sure what something like that would be doing in a mountain, but I doubt we'd want to find out."
"There's likely a way to shut it off," Tyr said. "Who would leave something like that running without a way to shut it off and conserve energy?"
"Kevin and I saw an exposed conduit in one of the tunnels. We were hoping we could bring a terminal over and patch in to see if there's any ancient active networks. If there is, I'm sure we can find a way to do it."
"A good idea," Tyr agreed, "but as Dolannus suggested, give it a couple days. Until then, you two are not to leave the camp, understood?"
Kevin and Arla drooped, but nodded. There wasn't any sense in arguing over it, it was just an unfortunate circumstance.
"Is there anything else?" Tyr asked of the two.
Kevin shook his head. "No, that's pretty much it. We've covered all the data."
"Then let's get back to work. You two are on monitoring duty in my stead, since you won't be heading anywhere for a while. Dismissed."
As everyone broke to return to their mission's stations Bela made a point to swing by Kevin and Arla. "It's too bad you didn't stay just a little longer. It might have been fun to give you two some interesting ideas. Especially if you'd have believed everything you were told!" She snickered as she passed by, spinning once before leaving the room.
"She's lost it," Kevin stated matter-of-factually.
"Agreed," Arla replied.
They headed on down to the med bay to get some initial readings on Kar's status so they could have somewhere to start in terms of monitoring his vitals. After syncing their omni-tools up to the monitoring stream, they sat down on the other empty bed. Kevin buried his helmet in his hands out of mild despair.
"Gah. How am I going to make it two days stuck in here?"
Arla slapped Kevin on the back a couple times. "The same way we passed the time during the trip here. More training sessions and dance parties."
"Does it ever bother you that the chief – a lower rank in the military – is always giving you orders?"
Arla tilted her head as she formulated her answer. "It did, until I realized that he had more experience in doing so. My promotion to second lieutenant was rather recent, so I haven't had much opportunity to play officer. I told Tyr to continue giving orders as if he were highest on the list for the duration of this mission so that I could better learn how to do it. He seemed impressed with the request and agreed to it. I still have rank authority if I ever need it, but for now, I'm letting him do the strategic work. Next mission, if there ever is one, I'm shouldering the responsibility."
"Huh. I'm not sure that would fly in the human military, but it's your operation, lieutenant. Your call."
"It certainly is. Now then, Kar doesn't look like he'll be going anywhere soon, so what are we training in first?"
Kevin took a moment to think. He wasn't really in the mood for combat or tech training, but he had to keep himself busy somehow. "What about marksmanship training?"
"What? You mean with a sniper rifle?"
"Yeah. I've taken a few shots with one before, but I don't have any formal training, and I could really use some. I figure the best training I could get right now is from the 'personal touch' of Ms. Tavval. Special one on one classroom, and all."
"Hmph. You've already gotten quite a bit of quarian-based training as it is, Folner."
"Pretty please?"
After a quick thought, she shrugged. "Eh, fine. It's not like we have anything better to do. Alright, come with me. I'll get someone to set something up for us in the field outside."
They left for the loading ramp and Arla called Tosh over to request a marksmanship exam using a training drone program he had to reset the targets. It wasn't much effort on his end so Tosh agreed and manufactured the drone that would handle the mock exam. He'd set this up in the past, so he only needed to modify some variables to get things rolling. Kevin grabbed Arla's sniper rifle and followed her around to stand in the shadow of the aft of the Kellius. This was the first time Kevin really got a good look at what she was packing for firepower. It turned out to be a heavily modified Rosenkov M-97 Viper rifle, with the modifications centered around additional stopping power with a shot limit before heat sink ejection reduced from six to three. Recoil was handled by a pricey aftermarket dampener, keeping the kickback comparable to a vanilla Viper. The scope had also been replaced by one with adjustable zoom and potential for thermal imaging – handy for obscured mid-range battles. It looked like she had been etching significant victories over the geth on the stock, including the elimination of the geth homeship.
"Nice mods. How long have you had this rifle?" Kevin asked.
"Long enough to prefer it over newer models. I have it tuned so precisely to my preferences that you'll never find another rifle like it in the galaxy."
"I'll try not to scuff it with my inexperience," he joked.
Arla chuckled and laid down in the leafy grass, gesturing for Kevin to do the same. "You'll start in prone position. Once you can hit targets with some level of accuracy, we'll try crouched."
Kevin complied and looked down the sight of his scope. In the distance, he spotted the drone constructing the last of three targets. They were three different sizes, each representing the silhouette of a target. The largest, on the left, was the shape of a krogan. The middle one had the shape of a typical geth trooper, and the third was a vague, but recognizable representation of a pyjack. At the distance it was, the entire pyjack was just barely larger than the dot at the center of the scope – hitting the head would definitely be a challenge.
"In our military, you become specialized in marksmanship if you can 'disable' all three targets. There's more than shooting things involved if you want to specialize in becoming a sniper, but that would also require lethal headshots to each target within a time limit."
"How the crap do you get a headshot on a pyjack from here?" Kevin asked, figuring the challenge impossible.
"Skill and patience," she replied.
"What are you?"
"Marksman. Missed the headshot to the pyjack on my exam – I took out the right shoulder."
"Ouch. Disappointed?"
"Hardly, it was my first exam. Most people take two to three attempts to get that far."
"Then I guess I'm lucky to have such a skilled instructor," Kevin quipped.
"Hush, and take a shot at the krogan already."
Kevin sighted in on the krogan. At first, he thought it was going to be simple. The size of his target made keeping the crosshair on it easy. The problem was that he wanted to go straight for the headshot, and that was proving more difficult than he anticipated. Too much sway kept him from gaining enough confidence to take a shot. When he finally did, the shot flew wide left of the shoulder.
"Crap."
She leaned in, pushing Kevin slightly. "You're leaning too much on the stock. Your breathing is probably causing too much sway."
"You're creeping me out with how well you just nailed my problem."
"Do you want me to back off and let you figure it out?"
"Now now, did I say that?"
The two spent the next hour or two firing off practice shots at the targets. Kevin, like with a lot of new subjects, grasped the concepts quickly and he was able to ding the pyjack target once or twice. Every once in a while, a few of the others would group around to watch Kevin and Arla practice while cracking jokes about Kevin's wavering aim, the fact that they were lazing about, or how they were pushed up against each other so Arla could get a feel for how her trainee was handling the gun. Eventually, as Kevin got more and more comfortable handling a sniper rifle, his accuracy increased and his hesitations decreased. Patience was one of the foremost lessons Arla strived to pass to her pupil, as well as breathing techniques and ways to focus in on a moving target.
When they moved onto the crouching phase, Kevin was already applying his newfound knowledge to help his aim. The sway was now a permanent issue, since he was now holding the gun against his body instead of relying on the stability of solid ground. The breathing techniques Arla had just taught him helped to resolve the issue, more or less. Just as he was sighting on the pyjack once more, he heard a beep from his omni-tool. It threw off his concentration and he spotted a distant pillar of dirt poof skyward from where his shot landed.
"What was that?" Arla cackled.
"Something on my omni-tool distracted me," he replied defensively.
"Oldest excuse in the book, Folner. You need to concentrate harder."
"Gimme a second. I'm going to see what that was." Just as he mentioned doing so, his omni-tool beeped again. This time, Arla noticed hers do it as well. "Huh. It's an alert. It says that Kar is showing signs of brain activity. I think he's waking up." Kevin handed the sniper rifle back to its owner.
"Looks it. Let's go check on him and see how he's feeling." The Viper was collapsed onto its holster on her back as they started back towards the ramp. The others were too busy in their research to notice them head inside.
In the med bay, they could see Kar wearily squirming on the bed. They walked in and each took a side of the bed to watch him from. "Kar? Kar'Welkas vas Kellius, can you hear me?" Kevin asked at the writhing body.
The movement ceased and they spotted Kar's head turn just enough to face Kevin. Two dimly glowing dots appeared, proving that Kar was conscious. "Uhn. . . Kevin?" the mechanized version of Kar's voice asked. The head then turned to get a glimpse of the other towering figure. "Arla? What happened? I remember sending the Kellius back to the geth structure. . ."
"You took one for the team," Arla stated.
"Like a boss," Kevin added while tinkering with his omni-tool. "You had been injected with nanomachines, which began to rewrite your DNA. We had to use an electrical overload on you to stop their progress in your system. We have to figure out if it worked."
"It worked," Kar said with a sigh of relief. "The voices are gone."
"Voices?" Arla asked with a glance to Kevin.
Kar tried to sit up. "Yes. . . there was- Augh." He paused and laid still for a moment. "Everything hurts."
"Your body is half machinery right now," Kevin explained. "Dead machinery. Some medi-gel should help with the pain." He used his omni-tool to tap into Kar's suit and very carefully set up medi-gel release points on each major portion of the quarian's body. He made sure to avoid an overdose. "Is that better?"
"Yeah." Kar tried sitting up again but was unable. Whether his muscles just weren't strong enough or the synthetic parts were getting in the way, they couldn't tell. "Blasted synthetics. . . I can hardly move. Can you guys help me get to the helmsman's seat?"
Arla crossed her arms and leaned back on one leg. "Kar, you just woke up from being comatose due to a massive system invasion coupled with a very acute and damaging remedy. You're body's hardly even quarian anymore. You came within inches of your life, and you want to get in the pilot's seat?"
"I can't stand being on the sidelines, ma'am. I need a job, and this one doesn't require me to. . . move much. I can run monitor duty on the geth if I need to. Besides, that's my seat."
Arla looked at Kevin, who shrugged. They both knew that Kar was going to try anyways, regardless of whether or not they helped him. "Alright, let us help you up. Just. . . Be careful and let us know if something feels like it's going to snap."
Kar nodded and struggled to reach for his comrades as they both scooped under his arms to lift him off of the bed. They pulled him upright and he groaned. When his helpers paused due to his apparent pain, he waved them on to continue anyways.
"So what was that about the voices?" Kevin inquired as they continued to support his increased weight.
"I'm still trying to figure out what happened – it's still a blur. I saw the captain step onto the ship, but she. . ." Kar's explanation faded into silence as they walked into the briefing room where the very captain he was talking about was wide open and disassembled on the briefing table. "Oh Keelah. What. . ." Arla also turned her head from the sight, but the shock had more or less worn off for her by now.
"Turns out it was a geth," Kevin informed.
"Th-there was a geth in captain Kortel's suit?" Kar asked, mortified.
"It gets worse," Arla added. "On that sphere, there was a massive room filled with geth-inhabited quarian suits, each separated into storage containers. All of whom were long deceased."
"We inferred that the geth were planning on infiltrating the Migrant Fleet posing as these quarians in order to do to the fleet what the captain here did to you."
"Tepka Keelah," Kar said, shaking his head. He didn't want to believe such a story, but the evidence was undeniable. "We have to warn the flotilla,"
"We can't," Arla said.
"I know," Kar responded. "As the pilot, I've been searching for a way back since we got here. There hasn't been any sign of a return relay yet. Did you guys find anything while I was down?"
Arla and Kevin looked to each other before Kevin spoke up. "We're not sure yet. We found. . . something buried deep under a nearby mountain, as well as enough one hundred percent pure eezo to put the entire combination of asari, turian, human, quarian, and salarian fleets to shame with more to spare. And then some."
"Something?" Kar wondered.
"Like he said, we're not entirely sure what it is we've found yet," Arla said. At this point, they had made it to the bridge. "We identified what looked to be an enormous mass effect drive core, but everything else is completely alien."
Kevin spun around to lower Kar into his prized seat. "We need to do more research on it, but we've been, ah, banned from going back there for a couple days."
"Why?" was Kar's simple question.
"Something about the anomalous energies that you picked up when we first arrived. It was messing with our minds, literally. We need a few days away for our brains to to properly reset from the experience. I think if we had stayed longer, it could have been. . . bad. I'd rather not find out what would have happened if we'd stayed any longer."
"Sounds like this planet isn't quite what we expected. . ." Kar said. His head turned off to the side, looking a bit upset.
"Not. At. All," Kevin said, aware of the implications.
"We should probably let the others know you're awake," Arla mentioned, changing the subject. "We've been worried sick. We really thought we were going to lose you."
Kevin slapped Kar's shoulder. It was way more solid than it should have been. "Yup, glad to see we didn't lose another of the team. You've got some fight in you, kid."
Kar tensed up from the slap. "Thanks. I guess it's good to know people were actually worried about me."
Kevin fired up his comms. "Kevin to unrestricted personnel."
"Tyr here. What is it?"
"There's a certain pilot who's awake and waiting to hear from you."
There was an audible sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I'll be up in a moment."
Kevin looked to Kar. "There you go. Company."
"Great," he replied, unsure if he should really be excited. "No doubt I'll have to play twenty questions with Tosh and Ralik soon enough, too."
Kevin nodded and laughed. "You can bank on that. Those two are incorrigible sometimes."
"Take it easy for a while, alright Kar? That's an order," Arla said as she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Yes ma'am," Kar replied, sounding relieved.
"In the meantime, we're going to go find something to do. Like pound each other into a pulpy mess," Kevin suggested.
"Try not to kill each other, please," Kar requested. "The chief would never let me live that down."
"No promises," Arla jested elbowing Kevin sharply in the ribs.
Kevin hooked his elbow around hers before she could retract it and pulled her close to attempt a headlock. "Seriously, she's vicious. I might die in there, so come check for my corpse if I don't show up in three hours."
His headlock attempt failed and Arla stepped back with a chuckle. "I am not!" With the play-fighting out of the way, they both decided to leave Kar so he could get a few moments of quiet before the others came up to make his day.
Over in the entertainment room, after their armor was traditionally shed, Kevin stepped up the room's controls on the podium. "So, what will we have today? Atmospheric?" He cycled through some songs from his list to find one that matched his callout. A song with no real rhythm began to play, audibly emulating the sense of abandonment and destruction. Wind was also emulated, adding to the feeling of emptiness.
"That's terrible fight music," Arla scoffed.
"How about something deep and pulsing? Heavy old-school trance, maybe?" A song matching his description started to play and the built-in lightshow controls kicked on. Instead of getting pumped to spar, Arla started dancing instead. Kevin shook his head. "No, too distracting. I can't fight someone who bounces like that."
Arla sighed. "We need to have another dance party. I haven't had to break out my coveted moves in a long time. You'd be surprised what a ship full of quarians would do to get the chance to see a group of top-tier dancers."
"I remember Nor saying something about dancers being held in high regard in your culture. I never figured quarians to be into that sort of thing, what with your suits having to be on and all."
"Don't be stupid, we don't pole dance like the asari do. Our cultural dances are more personal than that." She folded her arms. She clearly took pride in what she spoke of.
"You're being vague. Care to explain?"
"Of course. I'm not entirely sure about the origins of the dances or their cultural significance before our exile, but in the Migrant Fleet, dances come in a wide variety of tempos and complexities. They're our way of silently invoking certain emotions that we lost the ability to convey properly when we were forced to live our daily lives in environmental suits. Emphasis is placed on the ability to convey those emotions through performing the dance with accuracy and genuine feeling. The more complex the emotion, the more complex the dance and the harder it is to perfect. Most of them require practice and hours of effort to be done properly. Not everyone has the agility, attention to detail, and body language to do them, so those that can do it are the ones held in high regard."
Kevin blinked at the load of information dropped on him. "Huh, so it really is more than just 'we like dancers'. Do quarians ever regard other species' individuals higher because of their ability to dance?"
"Sometimes. It's a bit hard to put into words, really. I suppose it comes down to how well the emotion is being conveyed through their dance. I've seen some very good non-quarian dancers on my pilgrimage. Groups of them, too."
"Wait, so a group can be considered too? This all seems overly convoluted."
"That's because dancing in human culture is centered more around having fun than anything else, so it's not as intrinsic."
"I'm not sure I agree one hundred percent there, but I'll let it go." He paused to think. "Do you consider me to be a good dancer?"
Her head lolled to one side. "In clubs? Absolutely. In non-club dancing? I've never seen any examples, so I can't really judge you one way or the other."
Kevin paused, wondering if he wanted to go there. What's the worst that could happen? "Bah. Alright then, show me a dance and I'll see if I can perform it."
"Which one?" she asked, looking strangely intrigued.
Kevin leaned over the edge of the podium. "I don't know any of your dances, so you pick one. Something that's not exactly simple, but not master level, either. Keep it reasonable to my skills."
Arla ran some ideas through her head while tapping the light on her helmet's chin. "I have one that might fit your level of pride. It's one of the more complex ones, but not abundantly so. If your ability to move dynamically is anything like what I've seen during our training, you should be able to handle learning this."
"Why do I feel worried anyways?" Kevin asked with a shrug. He came back down from the podium while Arla passed on her way up.
"Just need an appropriate tempo. Do you have anything slower than. . ."
"Slower than every song in there? Probably. I don't know. I've lost track of what I've got, since there's so much in there."
"Ah-ha, I know of one. Give me a moment to find it."
"You've been listening to my music, haven't you?" Kevin asked, arms crossed.
"I may have downloaded a couple gigabytes of music. Or five."
"Hey, that music was all. . . 'acquired' fair and square."
"Your point?" she asked slyly. "Found it. This should do just fine. I'll play it first And show you how to do it to allow you time to get a feel for the many possible beats and rhythms we'll end up using." The song she played was one Kevin hadn't heard in a long time. It was part of a song pack that had been given to him by an entertainer that did big name venues. He didn't really know the guy, but he was happy to part with the copied versions for a relatively small sum of credits.
It was definitely slow in tempo, just like she wanted. The song used high end samples to emulate real instruments as was a common deal for musical artists who didn't have a group of players available to them. It was a classic nod back to the days of rock ballads, but it lacked lyrics altogether, letting melody and harmony do the work. In short, it was a classic slow dance song of human origins.
Kevin looked to the ceiling to watch the lights slowly oscillate and pulse. "Huh. I haven't heard this one in quite a while. You dug this up?"
"Yup. It's the perfect tempo for this particular dance. As soon as the intro ends, I'll start."
"Uh, how will that tell me what I need to do?"
"Just mirror my movements. The entire thing is performed this way, and both of our moves need to be in unison. That's one of the main points of this dance – unison in thought and motion. It shows connection between the two involved."
"So it really is the convoluted quarian equivalent of a slow dance."
"Can you handle this or not?" She had to go and appeal to his pride. Now he had to do it. Kevin motioned with his hand for her to continue. When the intro ended she began the dance, occasionally verbally pointing out some details or specifics that the couple would perform. When Kevin had used the word 'convoluted', he couldn't be more correct. The variance in the moves were plentiful, and though she made it look easy with her beautiful degree of fluidity, he had trouble keeping an eye on every move.
He had to shift his perception of the dance to that of a slow motion choreographed melee. As strange as the paradigm shift was, the abstracted dance was easier to follow this way. Foot placement was easier to commit to memory and the smooth, agile motions of her limbs and torso were automatically tracked in his head the same way it would be if he were in a battle. He certainly wouldn't be able to replicate it from watching one demonstration, but it would make performing it step-by-step easier to memorize.
When the song reached the end of its normal course – that is, when it began to start a separate portion of the song before it ended entirely – Arla stopped. She used her omni-tool to control the song from the floor, where she brought it back to the beginning and paused it to give Kevin instruction. The song played at background volume so that they had a rhythm reference, but they didn't follow beat for beat. She taught him a section, allowed him to absorb it by doing it himself, she'd correct his mistakes and he'd try again. It reminded him of ancient martial arts and their demonstrations of controlled motions during their training. They did this for hours until he'd managed to commit each detail of the three and a half minute dance to memory.
Kevin was glad that everyone was busy outside with who-knows-what. He certainly wouldn't be doing this is anyone other than Arla was in the room. It was. . . personal, and a bit too flamboyant for his public taste. For now, though, it was something to keep busy with, a learning experience, and a way to prove to Arla that he could handle their traditional dances, whatever they were like. Sure, he was justifying doing a convoluted slow dance for himself, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy the company. He just wasn't going to tell anyone what he was doing.
After he had demonstrated to Arla that he had memorized the moves for now, she started the song over with the intent for them to perform it the way it was meant to be done – as a couple. Kevin checked the door to make sure no one was spying on them and then got into position. The intro ended and they went to it. It was an interesting experience – the entire dance relied on them having some sort of contact at all times, usually hands. It had enough general repetition in it that he didn't have to bring every move out of memory, and the areas he couldn't quite remember could still be handled by following Arla's exact moves until he picked it back up in his mind. Despite this, it still required as much of his attention as he could give just to make sure he matched his partner's every move.
Even more interesting than this was that the very same complex emotions Arla had been describing since the beginning had started to manifest. A oneness in thought and motion gave the distinct feeling of a warm connection to his partner. This was different than the shallow version of 'warm' one normally felt with the kind of dancing he was used to. It was deeply personal – he couldn't, and wouldn't, deny that.
Curious. Since he had made the decision to remain in the suit, he felt mildly disconnected with the world around him. He still felt emotions when things around him demanded them, such as his innate fear of free-floating in empty space, but there was always an indescribable, intangible wall. There were only a few times where that wall had been bypassed since he put on the suit, all of them with Arla. Times such as his last stand on a geth homeship. How fascinating it was that the quarian culture post-exile had harnessed the raw emotional impact power attributed to events and built them into something as abstract as a dance.
When the practiced dance finally reached it's planned conclusion, they both slowed to a stop until they stood facing each other. Kevin was satisfied with how he did; he felt he kept up with Arla at every turn with each detail accounted for. Arla brought a hand up to the side of her helmet and looked away. "You. . . Ah, you did very well. For a human."
"So I did it? The whole thing?" He did his best to appear unaffected by his experience-driven revelation.
She turned to look at him again, clearly distracted, and cleared her throat. "What? Oh. That was only the first half, give or take." She, however, was not nearly as good at masking such things.
"First half? Wow." He sighed. It was tough handling that much. He was sure he could handle the entire thing eventually, but the had to acquiesce to the idea that dedicated time and effort were needed to pull it off.
Arla trailed off into thought again. This much distraction was definitely not like her. In the background, the bridge between the first and second halves of the song was coming to an end. Kevin didn't want the moment to fall to awkward silence, so he put on his 'wing it' helmet and came up with an idea.
"Alright, now it's my turn to teach you the slow dance used in my culture," he said.
Arla snapped to once again, like a deer in headlights. "Wait, what? I haven't had any time to learn the steps, or. . . Or understand the background information or-"
Kevin cut her panic speech off. "Hey. Trust me, it's the most absurdly simple dance in the galaxy." The second half of the song had already begun by this point, so Kevin stepped in close and wasted no time. The rhythm followed the same beat as the first half, but it was melodically and harmonically different. The bass line and underlying support chords remained the same, so it wasn't necessarily a jarring transition.
"You have two options," he instructed the nervous, yet willing quarian. "You can put your arms here, around my neck, or you can forgo wrapping arms around at all and lay your forearms on my chest, here." She thought for a moment and opted to wrap her arms around his neck. "Alright, my hands go here, on your waste." He had to pull her a little closer, as her natural inclination was to give extra space. Kevin knew that would void the purpose of the dance to begin with, not to mention make it uncomfortable, so he tugged her in.
"Okay, so what sort of steps can we do in this position?" she asked, wary.
"Alright, this is how it goes." He paused to pick up the beat of the song and took a miniscule step diagonally towards her left. "Step here. Just mirror my movements. Now, pivot towards me about thirty degrees."
"Like this?" she asked as she executed her instructions.
"Perfect. Now repeat."
She did so. Kevin continued this step a few more times whereupon she realized that the extent of the instructions had already been given. She began to look around, as if something was missing.
"That's it?" she asked. "That is the most absurdly simple dance in the galaxy, but I don't understand its purpose. . ."
Kevin removed his right hand from her waste and pointed at his eyes. "Up here, Tavval. This is where you focus. The point of this dance is to be as simple as possible. It frees the mind from concentrating on other things so that you can focus entirely on enjoying the company of your partner. Give it a try."
She did as instructed. At first, she concentrated hard on what she was experiencing as she looked for the truth in his words. It wasn't long, however, before Kevin could feel the tension fall off of her body. Her rigid steps smoothed out, her muscles relaxed and she let go of a long held breath. Lastly, he no longer had to pull her in to keep the proper posture – she had settled against him on her own. Now they were dancing as Kevin had intended.
The song only lasted about another minute and a half before the outro had taken over. Kevin was surprised to hear the light tink of their visors coming into contact with each other. They ignored the fading song and stared into each other's eyes. The last time she looked at him this way was when he was holding the barrier on the geth homeship, but that was because she could actually see his eyes. She couldn't see them right now, but she already knew where to look and she didn't hide it.
Something struck Kevin in the back of his mind. He had forgotten his feelings for Nor. They were completely blanketed by feelings for Arla. Smothered out by a fire that could only consume the spark that he and Nor had. It took very little effort to find that this had been the case for a while now, and he was denying his own feelings in attempts to "protect himself", or so he thought. And now, staring into her returning gaze, he found he couldn't deny it anymore. Maybe it was high time for him to accept it.
He loved her.
But was now the time to say it? He hated how hesitant these emotions made him. He despised how these emotions turned the logic he constantly relied on to dust. There was nothing logic could tell him right now. Time to get his 'wing it' helmet on again.
"So. . . you know how I can't turn down a challenge, right?" he asked, just loud enough to be heard above the background music.
"Yes. . ."
"I've been challenged by this guy, a real jack-off. Said I wouldn't be able to beat the challenge because of my past. I told him he was probably right, but I never back down from a challenge."
"Did you prove him wrong?" she asked, seemingly unaware of where he was heading.
He stared directly into her eyes again, glad she didn't ask what the challenge was. "I sure did."
"What did you win?"
"You."
Her head lolled to the side. She knew what he was talking about without him saying it. He really wished he could see her face right now. Moments like these required visual feedback, and that blasted helmet was keeping that from him. Now worries of being corny wormed their way into his head. He held it at bay. For now.
"There's one thing I'd never thought I'd have to say to a human," she replied, fairly devoid of emotion.
"What's that?" Kevin asked, preparing himself for a nasty blow.
She drew in a soft breath, weighing her next words carefully. "I think I love you, Kevin." She lowered her head, resting the top of her helmet against the chin of his. She chuckled to herself and shook her head. "I love you."
Those words had never been spoken to him in his lifetime. Nor never said them, they were simply implied. Spoken, they had more weight than most words could ever carry. And now he knew it was time for him to say them for once. "I love you too, Arla. I know I've never really showed it, but you mean the world to me."
They stood still in each other's arms for a while longer before the most unexpected noise interrupted their moment, for better or worse. Growling stomachs. It caused Kevin to look to his omni-tool for the current time. To his surprise, it was late. Dinner time late. Where had the day gone?
"I think we should nourish ourselves before we pass out on each other," Arla joked.
"I agree," Kevin said as he broke their embrace.
The two of them gathered their armor and 'got dressed.' Once done, they headed for the door. Flying high on emotions he thought lost to him, Kevin had a grin a mile wide. Now he was glad for the helmet – that's not how he would choose to walk out into the hall like. Outside the entertainment room, they spotted Riik and Tyr helping Kar into the mess hall. Once again, hooray for the automatic poker face.
"There you two are. I was debating checking the cargo bay to make sure the Skimmer was still docked," Tyr said with a laugh. "Come on, Ralik is preparing food for everyone."
"Oh God," Kevin said at that idea.
"Perfect timing," Arla noted.
"I trust you both have been keeping a close eye on geth movements like you were told? Monitoring in the chief's stead and all that?" He sounded like he already knew the irritating answer to that. As Kevin and Arla hesitated a moment to come up with such an answer, he shook his head. "A bit hard to monitor our perimeter when you're locked away doing who-knows-what in that blasted room. Or did you leave all that to serviceman Welkas here in his gloriously top physical condition?"
"Let it go, Votis," Tyr said as they hauled Kar into the mess hall with them. Riik grunted with disappointment.
In the mess, everyone else was already present. Ralik passed out the various foods he had made for his squadmates. Every plate had various piles of different colored mush, except for his.
"I apologize for the lack of presentation," the salarian apologized. "Wanted to be sure you could eat it."
Riik slapped Ralik's shoulder. "This is a lot better than staring at a tube or sealed packet."
"Mmhmm! Appreciate the work, Dolannus!" Bela said enthusiastically.
"I trust you remembered to separate mine?" Kevin wondered.
"Err," Ralik replied, a worried look of confusion on his face.
"Ralik," Kevin said in a rising tone.
"You should know by now I'm kidding, Kevin," he said as he placed a plate in front of him. "I just couldn't bear causing you to go into anaphylactic shock."
"That makes me feel so much better," Kevin sarcastically mused, smelling his food through olfactory filters.
The 'family dinner' setting, a favorite of all in attendance, was pleasant yet noisy. Some of the attendees must have detected a noticeable change in Kevin and Arla's demeanor to some extent, as they asked questions relating to their very good mood or quipped colored jokes about what went on in the entertainment room. Those were easily dodged with a well-placed red herring, usually in the form of a science or technology question that got Tosh and Ralik to go off on a tangent.
After everyone had finished up, a general consensus to retire for the night had been reached. Kevin went back to his cabin, but he wasn't in the mood to head straight to bed. Today's events wouldn't leave his mind. He paced about his room for a while, replaying it all, letting it sink in. He came to a dreadful realization.
His time left, whether limited by food or by his neural degradation, was going to be considerably shorter than Arla's. Curiously, she knew this and still chose to confess her feelings for him all the same. Part of the problem was that he really didn't know how long he had left. He hadn't taken the time to do the math regarding the rationed food to see how long it'd last for him and Ralik, but he doubted their food stores would last more than two months. This trip wasn't meant to be nearly that long.
Only two months to be with Arla. What a depressing wake-up call. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing.
Kevin needed to get this out of his head. He was never going to get sleep if this mode of thinking was plaguing his mind. He decided he'd take this opportunity to take a look at the locked files that Tosh managed to crack. If nothing, it'd be a decent distraction. He sat down at his terminal and brought up the directory where they sat. They still had their original hashed names, which meant he had to organize them by inferred date himself like the rest.
Just as he randomly lined up one of the middle-listed file to play, he noticed that he had a message waiting for him. The alert was hardly attention-demanding – it was stuffed in a corner and it didn't blink. It was no more than a small exclamation point beside an icon that looked vaguely like a paper envelope, a still used nod back to the old days of paper mail. The message was dated several weeks back, some time after they left the Migrant Fleet. Curious, he opened that before his Cerberus files to read the text-only message.
-INTERNAL MESSAGE RECEIVED-
Kevin. I noticed you're getting awfully buddy-buddy
with a lot of the squad, particularly those higher in rank.
I don't care much for it. I have little issue with you getting
personal with the captain – she can handle herself – but keep
your distance from the lieutenant. As long as your training
remains professional, I'll let it be.
You're a member of the squad now, so I'll exercise restraint.
However, I'll be watching your behavior closely, and if I
ever catch wind of you doing something stupid to our
team, especially the lieutenant, you'll have me to deal with.
I won't be challenging you with my fists, I'll be challenging
you with the barrel of my rifle.
- Riik'Votis of the Migrant Fleet Marines
-INTERNAL MESSAGE END-
Kevin sat back in his chair, a surprised grin spread across his face. "Holy crap! Riik sent me hate-mail?" He laughed quite heartily at the notion, particularly at the irony of the fact that he and 'the lieutenant' had just gotten into a romantic relationship. It was a good thing he hadn't seen this message when it arrived, he might have had to talk to Riik about it. That probably would have ended up causing conflict and unnecessary division amongst the team. He hoped Arla could keep their secret.
After sending the amusing message to the deleted pile, he focused his attention to the file he started to play. Like the others in his collection, the video was unsurprisingly corrupted the same way the others were. The audio played, and it continued to feature the same Irish-accented man as the rest of the logs. Poor guy must have drawn a lot of short straws.
"This is the first personal log of Dr. Liam McRoilie. Date is one year following 'day omega.' These will be my personal logs for me to store information so I can reference them on later dates. These will not be sent back to the project lead as reports. These will be cipher-locked to prevent unauthorized access, and as such, I can be a bit more flexible with my terminology for the sake of personal convenience."
Liam sighed. "About half of the original team has been reassigned to other cells to work on more pressing projects for T.I.M. Those remaining continue to monitor readings on the children as they progress through the Ascension Project. Our proprietary monitoring hardware transfer was a success – the installation of our version, as well as several newly-built and freshly calibrated ones, into the rooms our subjects are boarding in was relatively seamless. We will continue to monitor the feeds remotely for changes. More logs to follow. McRoilie out."
Kevin must have had impressive luck for him to nab the first entry at random. He titled the file with the corresponding number and gave it a short description. He might have been more surprised at Liam's mention of the Illusive Man as the project founder if he hadn't already had that revelation while talking with the man himself. This did confirm to him, though, that the team who began this continued their work after the subjects left the original facility. He also figured that if these files were at the comm relay where he stole them from, then it was likely the Illusive Man had these recordings too. He picked another file at random and played it.
"Personal log, Dr. Liam McRoilie. Date reference – Uh, unimportant. It has been a disheartening couple of weeks. We've been seeing a repeating occurrence across all of our subjects, all within the span of around a month. According to the reports, they're exhibiting the symptoms of what we've come to call a 'Neurological Cascade Incident', or NCI. Their nervous system appears to have a seemingly unprovoked reaction, and immense amounts of synapse information is sent to the brain from all over the body. This doesn't seem consistent with pain, pleasure, or other known forms of nerve-related data; this is something new. . . and dangerous.
"This is not to be confused with the various symptoms experienced by biotics sporting the old L2 biotic amplifiers. The problems they faced were more numerous, sometimes more destructive, but never quite as painful as this likely is. There must be some area we miscalculated on during our preliminary phases. As such, we've invited the asari scientist Maela T'Vess back to help us work on some solutions. We need to find the cause of the cascade, find out the potential damage, and end this problem before it nullifies the entire project.
"The project lead must be feeling the same level of worry over the integrity of the project as we are. He dispatched a pair of agents to act as one of the student's parents to have him pulled from the Ascencion Project. We are told that numerous factors are in play to help us explore the causes of these incidents, and one of those is, fundamentally, a change of scenery. The student in question has subsequently been removed from Grissom Academy to lead a more 'grass roots' type of life under the supervision of the agents. The goal is to determine whether the constant use of biotics due to the strenuous exercises in the academy's curriculum is a source of the cascade, among other things.
Liam's tone turned from business to somber. "I. . . I feel for the boy. He's going through a really rough patch in his life right now, and I wish I could reach out to him. I don't know if he'll ever find out that the two that brought him home weren't his parents, but if he does, I hope he's got something in his life to hold on to. McRoilie out."
Kevin's brow was thoroughly furrowed. Was his entire life lived just to play in the Cerberus appointed playpen? Where was his mother, the one that went through the pain of birthing him? Even if her whole reason for doing so was simply to donate him. . . He didn't want to think of that. It was not a level of screwed up he wanted to get into. He titled the file with a vague placement according to its relation to the other one he played and gave it the typical text description. As he hovered over the next file to play, he heard his door open. He turned in his chair to get a look, though he had an idea of who it was. There was only one person who'd enter his quarters without asking first. Aside from Ralik.
"I see you couldn't sleep either," Arla said as the door closed behind her.
Kevin shook his head. "Too many things going through my mind." He gestured towards the terminal. "I thought this might help me, but I think it's making things worse. Ugh." He rested his head on an open palm supported on the table by his elbow.
She walked over to him, swaying her hips the same way she always did. Kevin merely didn't make the attempt to hide his interest anymore. "What are you doing?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Learning about my past. Remember that story I told you about Nor? Remember how I stole data from a Cerberus data relay? I still have those files. Most of them I've listened to numerous times, but there was a collection of files that had a cipher lock on them. I asked Tosh to help me out with them a while back, so he employed the ship's computing power and some of his more advanced heuristics-based cracking algorithms to work on them."
"So that's what he was referring to back when he gave us the survey device." She hopped up and sat on the end of his desk.
"Yes. That's what I'm checking right now. I just learned that my parents were simply agents employed by Cerberus to act the part and keep tabs on me. Guess that explains a lot about them. Man, I was a stupid kid." Kevin returned his attention to the terminal, resting his head against a fist.
"It's not like it was your fault for not noticing," Arla consoled. "Cerberus doesn't exactly play fair."
"Let's see what wonderful revelations this next file brings about, shall we?" He randomly selected a third file to play and started it.
"Personal log, Dr. Liam McRoilie. Date reference – four months since the fourth subject's unexpected expiration." Liam sounded downright depressed. The kind of depressed that parents achieved when they learned their kids were all dead and there was nothing they could do about it. "We were able to bring the fifth individual, AKA Xavier Toreles, in to our lab for examination."
The moment Xavier's name was mentioned, Kevin went from passive listening to active, fully attentive listening. Xavier was his best friend for many years, but he hadn't heard from him in a while. He had intended, when the mission was complete, to find him and reconnect. Obviously that wasn't going to happen, but that was beside the point. Arla must have noticed, as she started watching him instead of staring off in random directions.
"He's following a terrifyingly similar path of neural degradation as the last four, and we had estimated his life expectancy to be no more than a few weeks once he arrived. We're lucky to have gotten him in at that stage – thanks to his willingness to help and Maela's amazing work, we're close to figuring out the source of this extremely rapid decay. It's been about two and a half weeks since his arrival, and we're waiting on some new crucial batches of information on the crisis. With any luck, we'll have a plausible remedy before we lose him too." Liam paused. "He and Kevin are the only two we have left."
Liam drew in a deep breath and released, letting it ride into his next statement. "The team is ragged and low on morale. We've so little left since the project began and our project lead is on the verge of pulling the plug. We're committing all our resources to saving them from this self-destruction, not just for humanity, but for their own futures. They're the closest thing any of us have to children, and we simply cannot sit by and watch them fall to neural decay. The new data should point to the specific-"
Liam was interrupted by a door opening as someone rushed inside and started whispering.
"Allison, I'm recording. Can't this wait?"
More indecipherable whispering followed.
"What? When? Get back to the lab, he's got to be stabilized now!"
"No Liam," Allison said, voice cracking from distress. "Xavier is. . . He's gone. We weren't able to stop the final NCI. I. . ." She drew in a deep breath. Kevin slammed a shaking fist down on the desk, startling Arla.
There was a long moment of silence in the recording. After several minutes, the soft sound of suppressed weeping could be heard. It was soul crushing. The recording ended without McRoilie's usual sound off.
This hit Kevin many times harder than the fact that his parents were just agents. "Son of a. . . Xavier. . ." Kevin whispered to himself. He brought both of his fists to his visor, lightly banging his head into them.
Arla grasped the edge of the table and clenched her hands. Kevin was good at hiding his emotions, and seeing him like this only meant that his will was cracking under the weight of the continuous bad news he had been steadily absorbing for weeks. More than that, it brought home the severity of his condition – if the last of his project other than him died two years ago, just how long did he have left? "Kevin? Are you alright?"
"I'm. . . I'm done with these for now," was all he said. He didn't even move or look up at her.
Arla stood off of the desk and stood by his side, laying a hand on his shoulder.
"Xavier was my best friend, once. We parted ways, but we kept in contact. This information is around two years old, Arla. How could I miss the fact that my best friend was dead for two years?"
"He passed away in the lab of a clandestine organization, Kevin. There's no way you could have known."
"I was hoping to reconnect with him when we got back. A moot point now, I know, but I was looking forward to seeing how one of the only other natural biotic humans was doing. You know, swap stories about our feats and impress each other with innovative ideas on how to use biotics. Now. . . I'm the only one left. As far as the galaxy is concerned, I died when we hit the Melkanis relay."
"Kevin. . ."
The deep feeling of loneliness and isolation he had been trying to stave off was setting in heavily. He was a solitary person by nature; it was what helped him get through rough patches during his early days as a mercenary. He had been holding onto that for so long, he had begun taking it for granted. Now that he was isolated from everything, it wasn't something he had a choice of maintaining. There was something about lack of choice that made it unnaturally profound.
"I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight," he stated most somberly. "Too much. . . Stuff on my mind."
Arla titled her head to the side. She felt for him, and it was painful to watch. She decided that it would be for the best to let him try to sleep, as a new day meant more distractions and less time to think about their situation. "I'm going to let you try to sleep. I don't think I'll help you by staying. I feel like I'm making things worse by staying here, so I'll see you in the morning, okay?" When he didn't respond, she gave his shoulder a brief reassuring rub and headed for the door.
When she got about two-thirds the way, Kevin called to her. "Don't."
She stopped and turned to look back at him. He hadn't moved from facing the terminal. "What?"
"If it's alright with you, I'd rather you didn't leave. I. . . I could really use your company right now."
At first, she was bashful about the idea. After all, he was effectively asking her to stay the night with him – bold. Once those shallow emotions had run their course, she was happy to. He was also effectively telling her that he needed her. This was a far cry from the man she'd first met after the Forverna crash, so haughty and sure of himself. This made their confessions to each other real in her mind.
"Of course I will."
He breathed an audible sigh of relief. In truth, he was very worried how she might react to asking such a bold question when they'd only just made their relationship official. Maybe tonight he won't feel so cold, regardless of his suit's temperature regulation.
"The others will get suspicious when I don't come back to my bunk," she said as she walked back to him.
"I don't care what they think right now. I just want you with me."
Kevin shut his terminal down and got up from the chair to face Arla. With his control over his state of mind on edge, seeing her willing to be with him was comforting. It calmed his soul. He looked over to his bed, feeling exhaustion in the back of his head. "I feel odd asking this, but would it bother you if we-"
Arla cut him off by taking his hands and leading him to the bed. She sat on the side while he took his armor pieces off and took his spot. When he was settled, she removed her armor as well. She then climbed over and laid next to him, letting the upper half of her body rest on his. This was all he wanted.
It was something new for him, to lay in bed with another. It wasn't about the sexual connotations typically bundled in with the concept, however. It was the simple satisfaction of having her presence juxtaposed to his as they both fell asleepA. He felt her settle against him and let out an exhausted sigh of contentment. He couldn't help but smile as he closed his eyes and let himself drift into a warm state of rest. Falling asleep alone was never going to be the same for him again.
"Kevin?"
"Yeah?"
"That guy who challenged you. That was your heart, wasn't it?"
"Err, yeah. I guess."
"Keelah that was cheesy."
Kevin laughed. "It won't happen again."
She sighed one final time as she closed her eyes. "Good."