Remnants

by General Rage

From Halo's ashes, a mismatched Alliance is born. UNSC soldiers now serve alongside both Batarian deserters and shifty Jackal Space Pirates. Now Shepard and Master Chief have to keep these strange bedfellows from killing one another before they can stop an emergent new threat to the galaxy. The Next Swashbuckling Chapter of the Wormhole Chronicles.

30. Maze of the Mind

Chapter 29: Maze of the Mind

The Brain is Wider than the Sky

-Emily Dickinson

"So let's assess what's going on here," Zek questioned aloud. "We're stuck in our memories or something?"

"Given what we keep seeing? Yes, most likely," Retz confessed.

The pair's journey through this strange land had been fraught with loads of nostalgia hitting them hard. They had kept finding themselves in old capers, schemes and cons they ran as kids on Eayn. Their younger days went by in a flash as they routinely ended up in casinos, bars, ichor shops, canneries and whatever other odd job they took in order to skim some quick cash in one way or another. Currently they were on a boat, which on the surface was just a fishing vessel. In reality, it was their old smuggling schooner. When someone needed something to cross the ocean to avoid the Covenant's watchful eye, they were there to pick up the contract.

And they also caught fish too, so they made money on both ends of the business. Not a lot, but in those days they weren't picky. You couldn't be when you were dirt poor.

"So... if memory serves I think this is that job for those medical drugs we got off that island," Zek considered.

"We had a lot of jobs involving moving meds around," Retz reminded him. "You'll have to be more specific."

"I don't know, maybe the one where we caught that big fish and ended up getting chased by a fucking Razorfin," Zek theorized. "I was drunk half the time, remember? They all... strung together."

"I did warn you about that," Retz reminded him. "You really shouldn't have sampled so much of the ichor rum on that one smuggling run."

"I know, we just lived through that again," Zek groaned. "Honestly, what is the point of any of this? I mean, it's nice tapping back into our roots, but this has been going on for ages and we haven't found anyone else in this mess! And worse, this boat keeps rocking and I'm think I'm close to being reminded why ichor and choppy waters don't mix."

Zek held back something in his throat in that moment and pushed it back down as best he could.

"That ichor you drank couldn't have been real, how can you get sick?" Retz asked.

"It felt real enough," Zek informed him. "Look, let's not debate how this fucked up shit works. I've been through enough of this Forerunner weirdness already. I just wanna know where we go from here."

Retz paced a bit, rubbing the underside of his beak as he thought.

"Well, if these are our memories," he surmised slowly. "Perhaps we are attempting to... locate one that is relevant. Something that's important to all this. Something the relic is attempting to show us."

"Show us?" Zek asked. "The hell you talking about?"

"We got out of the first memory when you decided to re-enact it," Retz reminded him. "Now we've been re-enacting a lot of these memories since, reaffirming our roots, just like you said. Maybe there's another step, something that can help us move to the next stage of this... puzzle, I guess."

Zek looked at his longtime friend with a bit doubt.

"You think this weird Forerunner shit is trying to teach us a lesson?" He asked. "You haven't been watching those human kiddie vid shows, have you?"

"I find them relaxing in my off hours," Retz claimed. "But that's beside the point and not nearly as saccharine. Taq explained it herself in those reports she kept sending out about her progress on getting through the structure. It's... difficult to recall because of that haze feeling, but my head is clear enough to remember that the Forerunners running that place were big on puzzles. What bigger puzzle is there than one's own mind?"

"Yeah, yeah, very existential and shit, so what's the solution here?" Zek pressed with an insistent tone. "If repeating ain't enough to get out, what's the real deal?"

"That's what we need to figure out," Retz stated. "Perhaps starting with exactly what smuggling run this one is can help."

Zek didn't have a clue of course of which run it was, but there was one way to pair down the possibilities. He went to the secret holding compartment and undid the latch. If these memories were accurate, then whatever was inside should reveal when in the past they were and what they needed to do. Inside were a few casks of ichor. No exactly quality because it was unrefined, probably from whatever Chorka they had found in the wide open ocean.

That probably wouldn't have told him much, they did this quite often during slower smuggling runs. They found a Chorka and tried to milk its blisters. It made for quick money now and then. However, Zek recognized something unique about one of the casks. Namely, that it was an old bucket he remembered shoving a lid on to seal up properly. There was something about the bucket that felt familiar to Zek. Something he remembered sticking out about it in his mind.

"I... I think we have to go in," he said slowly, thoughtfully. "Like... into port."

"Why?" Retz asked.

"I don't know I... I just got a feeling we need to do that," Zek said, not entirely sure of what that feeling was exactly. "Look, if we can't get there we'll just go in a circle, right? Then we try another thing."

"Ok," Retz shrugged. "Worth trying."

Retz started moving the boat back to port, at least in the direction he assumed port was given the tide. Sure enough, they eventually arrived at a small dock. It was then they spotted two older looking kig-yar on the docks. As if they were waiting for something. It was only when they got closer that Zek realized what it was.

"Oh fuck," he grimaced. "I know what day this is."

Retz looked at the dock and realized what this moment was as well.

"This doesn't seem like a day you'd hate," he reasoned, recognizing his friend's tone.

"Not then," Zek confessed. "Now? Not so sure."

When they docked the boat, the older kig-yar stepped up to them.

"Are you Zek?" One of the crochety old birds asked. "Son of Ciz Maq?"

"That is my mother," Zek replied, repeating what he remembered saying. "Why? She alright?"

"Fine, boy, very fine," the old bird claimed. "This is about you and your birthright."

Zek just sighed, he supposed he had to keep repeating history in order to move forward with this.

"Birthright?" He asked, already knowing the answer. "What birthright?"

"You do not know, fledgling?" The older bird asked. "Did your mother not speak of your father?"

"That he ditched us, so fuck him," Zek responded, not exactly repeating the same tone or words.

It didn't matter, the two old kig-yar knelt down and presented an energy cutlass to him.

"You have inherited a great gift, boy, a chance to seek your fortunes among the stars," he claimed.

"Fine, sure, I know where this is going," Zek sighed, finishing the conversation in monotone exhaustion. "What are you talking about?"

"Zek, your father was one of the most feared pirates of the trackless black sea," the old kig-yar claimed. "We are what little remains of his former crew. The Great Dread Feather is dead, but long may live his successor, his son, to plunder and pillage the void anew! You, Zek, you are the son of Dread Feather!"

Zek grimaced at the energy cutlass and growled inwardly.

"Fucking hell," he grumbled.

"I definetly remember you being more happy about this," Retz recalled. "This was when you saw our ticket out of here. The chance for a fresh start."

"Yeah, and now it's tainted by the fact I know how my father really died and what for," Zek snarled. "The fucker keeps upending my life even in death! First leaving my mom, then by giving me his fucking ship, then I made that deal to save our asses because of how I thought he died being an asshole, then Zhoc has to step in and tell me that no, he was an asshole for a completely different reason!"

"Ok, sure, his influence hasn't always been good, but he did give you the Fallen Serpent," Retz reminded him. "Credit where it's due."

"He keeps influencing everything I do despite the fact I've never met him and he's dead!" Zek screeched in a rage. "No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, he's always pushing me one way or the other and I'm sick of it! I'm sick of being known as the Son of Dread Feather! Sick of everything I do being compared to that jackass! Sick of him hovering over me!"

Zek looked up to the sky in anger, shaking his fist defiantly at it.

"You fucking hear that, dad!?" He shouted aloud. "I don't need you! I never needed you! So why can't you just stay fucking dead and leave me the fuck alone!"

"Zek-"

Retz's plea for his friend was no good, the Pirate was on a tirade.

"And as for you two geezers, your dead captain deserved what he got and I don't give a shit about his legacy!" He declared. "So you can both shut the f-"

It was then he noticed something behind the two older kig-yar. Besides the fact they had not reacted to any of this, there was also the peculiar appearance of something behind them. A ripple or break in the reality of the memory. As if the pages on an old book had been torn apart ever so slightly, just enough for Zek to see a whole other space that couldn't exist if this place was real. Because it didn't belong anywhere on an Eayn fishing dock. It looked to be the inside of dwelling, decidedly not of kig-yar architecture, just lying on the shore.

Zek pushed past the frozen geezers and marched up to the tear in the memory, Retz close behind him. Peering through it, they saw a young human male with dark skin. He looked confused, perplexed and a little bit sad. Peering into the tear itself, Zek realized they were in a human home of some kind. On even closer inspection, Zek spotted an adult human male with the young boy.

"I'm sorry this came up so suddenly, Jacob, but it can't be helped," the older of the humans said.

"How long are you going to be gone?" The young boy asked.

"A few months," the man said. "But once we're done, I'll be back for a good long time. The credits are just too good to pass up and we need it."

"You could just take a different job," Jacob said hesitantly. "One that's closer."

"None of those are going to pay as good as first officer on a ship, Jacob," the man said. "I'm sorry but my mind is made up on this. Don't worry, it's not like you're going to be alone here. I've made sure of that."

The boy didn't seem so sure.

"That's not the problem," he claimed. "I just... don't want you to leave."

"A man has to take responsibility, son," the father claimed. "There are people depending on me on the Gernsback and I can't just turn my back on them now. If I do that, I'm not just running out on them, I'm running out on my duty as your father to provide for you. I've taught you well enough to know I have to do this."

Zek groaned inwardly at the display. The sermon of fathers and sons and the entitlements of each was so trite. He turned back to Retz with a frustrated glare.

"What the hell is this and why is it in my memories?" Zek asked incredulously.

"I think it's Jacob Taylor, one of the Normandy's officers," Retz explained. "He helped us secure the Chorka when we were fleeing Halo. This is probably one of his memories and, from the looks of things, it has latched onto yours."

"Why? Cause it's about his own deadbeat daddy running out on him?" Zek grunted. "It sounds like at least the fucker bothered to say goodbye. What's he got to be sad about?"

Already angered by his own memories, Zek hopped through the tear and scrambled up to a teenage Jacob. He was still desperately trying to get his dad to stay.

"I just don't think you NEED to go, dad," Jacob insisted.

"I do, it's not up to me anymore," his father insisted. "I've made my commitments."

Zek, tired of Jacob's pleading for his daddy, looked at the despondant boy spitefully.

"What the hell is this?" He demanded to know. "You about to cry over daddy leaving?"

Jacob looked passively at him, barely recognizing his existence. He still looked in something of a haze and his voice sounded distant. It retained its sullen and depressed tone, but Jacob almost appeared to be looking through Zek as he spoke.

"I can't let him leave," he said sadly. "I need to stop him. I need to keep him here."

"Why? Who cares?" Zek asked. "This has already happened, it isn't real. You can't change the fact your daddy abandoned you. Mine did too, get over it! At least he bothered to say goodbye. At least you knew him for a good long while it seems."

But Jacob shook his head.

"If he leaves... he'll hurt people, other people," he tried to explain. "He'll turn... wrong. I need to stop that. I need him to stay here."

Zek perched a brow.

"Wrong? Wrong how?"

Retz, who had come in behind Zek, started tapping on his shoulder.

"Zek... look."

He pointed his friend back to Jacob's dad. The memory had gotten far weirder and more horrific, as piles of bodies lay strewn across the kitchen floor. Behind the father was a crashed ship, robot guards flanking him on both sides, servile human females at his feet and blood pouring from his hands.

"A man has to own up to his responsibilities Jacob," he claimed. "I have a duty to the Gernsback."

"What in the fuck?" Zek questioned aloud, retching at the sight. "Can we please go for one fucking mission where shit doesn't turn into an instant horror show?"

"He'll hurt people," Jacob said. "He'll turn into everything he taught me not to be. He'll become a monster. If I can keep him here, I'll stop him."

"That time is unfortunately past, Mr. Taylor," Retz informed him. "You can't stop your father from becoming... this."

"I have to," Jacob insisted, the haze in his eyes departing somewhat. "I... I have to make him stay. If I could've made him stay-"

"No! No you couldn't! Stop blaming yourself for this shit!" Zek demanded, gesturing to the fractured mental image of the future. "Whatever this is, however this happened, that's all on his head! Whatever fucked up choices he made! If he didn't want to stay for you, then he was probably a shit father anyway! Just like mine!"

"He taught me everything I value," Jacob claimed. "He fell so far. I... what if I'm like him? What if I can fall that easily? I have to fix it, then I'll know I won't become him. That what I value isn't owed to a broken foundation."

"You really think that you owe anything to that!" Zek asked pointing at the image of Jacob's dad, blood still pooling around the bodies around him as the robots kept the females from running. "My father didn't teach me shit because he wasn't around! Yet everyone thinks I owe him for who I am! My ship, my reputation, my crew, my whole fucking life! You think I like that? You think I like being in his shadow? But other people do that to me! Why the are you doing this to yourself, man? Why are you letting this fucker define you? Be your own man!"

"You can't ignore duty, son!"

That wasn't from Jacob or his father. The echoey voice was from another tear in Jacob's memory. When it had appeared behind the young human Zek couldn't say, he only knew it hadn't been there moments before. He headed towards it and saw the familiar image of Garrus Vakarian, a few years younger than he was now and arguing with an older Turian.

"Duty means following orders you know are wrong?" Garrus asked incredulously. "I can't get anything done at C-SEC, dad. They're holding me back with... red tape and all these rules-"

"The rules are there to keep us from going off the handle, from becoming no better than the criminals are," the turian who was clearly Garrus' father proclaimed. "We can't just break them when we feel we're inconvenienced by them."

"More like suffocated," Garrus snarled. "Every day people on the Citadel get away with one crime or another and all because I can't get the job done."

"So what? You just want to burn the rule book then?" His father asked. "Go around beating down anyone you don't like? You wanna be like a Spectre? Above the law? Is that what you want?"

"At least the Spectres get results!" Garrus snapped back. "If you just let me apply for candidacy-"

"No! No son of mine is going to ruin his career just so he can become a Legalized Council Vigilante," Mr. Vakarian shouted down. "You will get these ridiculous notions out of your head, Garrus! You will do what our family has always done, be proud to serve law and order. I have not raised you to be an anarchist!"

"I'm not an anarchist!" Garrus insisted. "Why don't you understand that I just don't want to see the bad guys get away anymore!"

Zek was shocked by the argument. Not because of its ferocity or even the content. It was his own feelings. As he watched Garrus and his father go at it, he felt something like... envy. He wanted something like this, he never had something like this, a chance to confront his father. Obviously not about the same issue, but about a host of things, about everything. Garrus had the chance to do what he never had, the chance to vent at the man who was controlling his life.

Whereas for Zek, the man who always seemed to control him was dead.

"Talk about disorderly conduct," Retz joked.

"Never realized Garrus had a bit of a wild streak," Zek observed. "He always seemed like a hardass to me."

"Well he was dealing with us, criminals," Retz reminded him. "Evidently he's not too fond of our kind in particular. But he is a former cop, so that's not a surprise."

"Still," Zek shrugged. "He's lucky to even have this."

At that moment, Garrus turned to Zek.

"Lucky? You think I'm lucky?" He asked incredulously. "You think I like arguing with my father?"

The turian's eyes were still hazy and glazed, just like Jacob. He was lost in the memory, but his tone remained as consistent as his anger even as it felt like he was looking through Zek more than at him. That didn't deter the kig-yar from responding of course.

"Hey, you know how many times I'd have loved to tell my old man where to stick himself?" Zek asked. "Trust me, this is a gift as far as I'm concerned. So yeah, you're lucky."

"I disagree with my dad on plenty, but I don't consider this lucky," Garrus countered. "I hate how far apart we are, even now. I hate how angry I was, how I felt I knew everything. I didn't. I was just lashing out in frustration and it just pushed me down some real dark roads."

"What are you talking about?" Zek asked incredulously. "You think your dad was right all along?"

"I'm angry I wasn't mature enough to properly prove him wrong," Garrus corrected. "About the Spectres, me, what I believed about justice. I was so angry over not being able to do enough, I started not caring about who I was meant to protect. I wrecked my relationship with my father over and over again because I couldn't actually talk to him on his level!"

"A petulant stuffy authoritarian dickhead?" Zek grumbled.

"An adult," Garrus stated, his voice becoming morose. "All I want to do is talk to him honestly. With what I learned, with what I've seen, show him I've grown. I want him to see I'm not just lashing out in anger. That I do care about justice, not just gratification or revenge. No matter what I try though, I can't break through to him, I can't break out of this cycle. I keep fighting him, over and over, I keep treating him like an enemy, not an equal. So I'm stuck playing out the same back and forth argument, getting nowhere, never able to get him to see. But I have to get him to see, I need him to understand!"

Zek looked at the turian, more confused than ever. Then he looked back to Jacob, who had returned to trying to convince his dad to stay. Almost as if he had forgotten that they had been talking moments ago. Zek looked at them both enraged, unable to understand, unable to voice his core complaint. He pulled at his quills in anger before finally letting out a scream.

"Stop it!" He shouted. "Stop making this fucker your damn focal point for everything! He's not worth it!"

Retz jumped back and frantically looked around. His eyes eventually settled on his friend for a brief moment.

"Zek-"

"They're obsessing over this for nothing," Zek screamed at Retz. "They're letting one person in their life control them constantly! They want his approval or they want him to be perfect, but he's not! He can never be perfect! You can never win his approval! Because it's not worth it! Who cares about getting to retain an ideal image? Or getting him to see you? Why can't these fuckers just let that shit go? Why are they letting all of this shit control them?"

Retz was now looking past Zek, just over his shoulder. The pirate followed his friend's line of sight and saw the tear back to his own memory. Along with the two old pirates holding the energy cutlass. His father's energy cutlass. In that second, Zek realized.

"Oh Shit," he said, his mind slowly clicking as the realization dawned. "I'm... I'm no better am I?"

"What do you mean?" Retz asked.

"All this time I keep acting like I don't want him to control me, but I'm letting him anyway," Zek reasoned. "I had this image in my head of him for so long... like Jacob did. But it was a negative one, wasn't it? An-an-and all this time, I've been trying to outdo him, to beat him in the argument somehow and I can't! I can't win the argument cause there is none. He's dead."

In that moment, Garrus and Jacob turned to Zek, the haze slightly leaving their eyes. Retz noticed it, but Zek was too deep into his train of thought. The pirate captain's eyes fell on the energy cutlass again.

"Ever since I found out who he really was, how he died," Zek slowly contemplated. "I've been trying to beat a freakin' ghost at a game he probably never even wanted to play. And even then, it wasn't the real Dread Feather, but this moronic selfish idiot who didn't know when to quit. Not the dumbass wannabe rebel dreamer he actually was. He's been the thing driving, but I let him... I let him Retz, because it was easy. It was easy to be pissed off at a dead man, he can't fight back."

He looked back at the Energy Cutlass again, still in the hands of the old pirates. Waiting for him to take it.

"This is the only memory I have of him and he's not even in it," Zek reasoned. "And I've been stuck in this ongoing argument with the jackass trying to convince him I'm right about something. An argument I can't win because... because he's gone. He's gone and I can't prove anything to him, no matter what I do."

It was then Zek felt a hand on his shoulder, but it wasn't Retz. It was Jacob, broken from his haze.

"Yeah, I know the feeling," he relented. "The man I knew as my father is gone too, he died when he left that house that day. When I found him again... it wasn't him. And I've been stuck arguing with myself if I was going to end up just like him since. I often ask if I know I can be better... but I know I can be. When I doubt, I forget, but I know I can be... and am."

Footsteps approached from the other side of the room, as Garrus pulled himself free of his own haze and walked over. He shook the illusion from his vision as he settled next to both Zek and Jacob.

"I guess, I'm stuck in the past a bit too," He said, garnering Zek's attention. "I keep thinking about how I failed myself, my father, how I haven't been able to get him to hear me. And... maybe it's because I can't get past the images in my head of him. Really though, I can't get past my own damn self. How I used to be, how I failed before. So I just replay the failures over and over and it becomes a roadblock. That's the real barrier. Not my dad, me."

Zek looked again to the energy cutlass and stepped up to it. In that moment, he knew what he had to do. He took the cutlass as he once did before and raised it up.

"This isn't for him," he insisted. "This isn't to be better than him, not really. This is for what it should've been all along. Something I want. Not to win a game against someone who only existed in my head. I am Dread Feather's son... but I won't let that control me anymore."

In that instant, the old kig-yar vanished, as did the other memory bubbles. They all returned to the node tunnel, the blinking lights shining in all new directions. The energy cutlass itself was gone again, vanishing with the memory.

"I think we have a breakthrough," Retz observed with a grin.

"Yeah, but we're still stuck in... whatever this place is," Jacob noted.

"We need to find Shepard and the others," Garrus insisted. "If he's trapped in some kind of memory like this, we gotta get him out. And if he's already out, well... he probably has a better handle on this than us by now."

"I can get behind that," Zek concurred. "But where do we go to find him? We barely know where we are to begin with?"

"We should stick together regardless," Retz insisted. "If we get trapped in a memory again, I have a feeling we'll need each other to get out. As for which way... um... I say... that path there."

He pointed to the passage encircled by red, blue and yellow lights.

"Why that way?" Jacob asked.

"I just like the way the color blends with this one honestly," Retz confessed.

The other three of the group shrugged at the admission.

"Can't argue with that logic, I guess," Garrus relented.

"Yeah, because its favoritism, not logic," Zek argued. "But I don't really have a better justification for any other corridor so... whatever. Lead on Retz."

The four headed down the corridor, hoping to find someone down it in due time.

---

Maisey had wondered in her off hours what the inside of a UNSC government building was like. She was never sure what to ultimately expect, but she always had the lingering suspicion it would look like a tomb. This didn't exactly match her thoughts. It wasn't an inviting working space, but it was less foreboding more sterile, unfeeling and sparse. The gloomy feeling she imagined existing though? That was near omnipresent. The shadows just felt oppressive, every turn and corner held a sense of hopelessness. Maybe that was just unique to ONI, which this clearly was. However, she now kinda understood Haverson's attitude. If she was forced to work here, she'd become detached and uncaring too.

The cubicles for the lower staff members were probably the worst. Cramped little closed off worlds, isolated from everyone and everything. Yet at the same time there was no sense of privacy, just cramped, claustrophobic walls crushing you. And she wasn't even in one, that was just the feeling walking past them. She didn't even have a clue as to where she was going, everything felt uniform and the same. She wasn't even entirely sure why she was down here. Near as she could tell, she was just following Haverson's routine, weird as that was.

She had come to accept she was in Haverson's place in the past, perhaps a memory as she clearly had no control over where she went and only limited control over what she said. It was like being on rails, whenever she tried to head a different way or resist the urge to move somewhere else, she just ended up going down the same path anyway. The halls and corridors reconfigured and she ended up walking the same path a before. Her thoughts were still her own and she could look wherever she wanted, but it was like being on autopilot. She was just living Haverson's life right now.

To what end? She had no idea. It was clear to her she would have to ride this out until it reached its completion. Whatever this was. Maisey had to believe there was some reason she was here, some purpose. Perhaps to gleam some terrible crime ONI had committed and Haverson was aware of. A scandal she could threaten to expose unless her colony was allowed its independence. While she garnered a certain respect for Haverson over the course of the battle, she had not forgotten his intentions. For a while now, he had the advantage over her, he knew of what she had done to escape Apekis IV. If she had something on ONI, maybe that would be enough for Haverson to consider leaving them be.

She hoped for that, but so far she had seen nothing in the sea of drab, depressing offices and cubicles she was walking by. She couldn't even see the faces of the people within the cubicles she was walking past. All she saw were agents, their heads low, hunched over their consoles. She heard murmurings of intelligence reports, but nothing substantial. Only a few specific words and sentences stood out.

"Its fallen? That fast?"

"Yeah, confirmed, a whole fleet just gone."

"No confirmed survivors."

"We'll have to scrub it, we've lost too many units in the sector. Recommending a new strategem."

She didn't know what they were talking about, but it didn't seem like it was all the same thing. It felt more discordant, widespread. She imagined it had something to do with the war itself. That the Covenant were beating them and it was clearly affecting everyone's mood.

Maisey tried to ignore the sense of empathy, believing it to be more from Haverson's recollection than her own. Manipulation or not though, she felt it all the same. The building itself wasn't depressing, it was simply atmosphere within that gave it a sense of dread. The people within were broken and beaten, unable to do anything besides report the bad news they had been given.

Maisey's journey came to a head at a department office. She barely could read the words on the door before they slid open, Department Officer Gantry, Information Dissemination Division. Within the office was a man, sitting at his desk, looking at a picture in his hands. He didn't notice Maisey at first, in fact, he looked lost in thought, his expression pained and twisted.

"Sir?" Maisey said without even thinking. She supposed she should keep up the charade. While she doubted this was real, she wasn't about to draw suspicion to herself in case there were dire consequences to not sticking to the script. "Is... this a bad time?"

Gantry looked up briefly.

"Oh, Haverson, sorry," he apologized. "I... I didn't hear you come in. Do you... have the updated briefing reports?"

Maisey surmised those were files she had held under her arm. She had picked them up when she got up from her desk where this whole strange trip had started. She wanted to open them, believing they were important ONI files, but she couldn't bring herself to. Now she was setting them down on the desk and flipping them open for Gantry. Inside were blurry photos of what looked to be destroyed UNSC fleets, satellite images of scorched worlds and pages upon pages of text. Gantry looked over them with grim resolve.

"So many dying," he said. "So many just gone. And there was nothing they could do."

"A... a lot of good soldiers wasted, yes," Maisey said, imagining that's what Haverson would've said.

"We got advanced warning of that attack and it didn't even help, we lost the colony anyway," Gantry declared. "All those people... just gone. And we were supposed to save them, all of them. I... I thought we had. I thought we made a difference for once."

Maisey then realized, he wasn't talking about the soldiers or Marines. He was talking about the colonists. He was probably saddened by the loss of life in general, but he counted the civilians and their deaths as the real failure. She hadn't expected that, not from an ONI agent.

"We were supposed to get them out, we were supposed to have time," Gantry continued. "But... it looks like we didn't know the full extent of the offensive."

He held up the picture frame again. Inside it was a photo of a woman and a young boy.

"I keep thinking I've... I've done them proud," Gantry continued sullenly. "Every time we get something I hope this is the one we can be proud of. I keep letting them down instead, we all have. What's the point of being an intelligence agency, if none of the intelligence we manage to get means anything in the end? When we still... when we still lose."

"I... I don't know," Maisey confessed and it was the truth. She had no idea how you'd feel useful in a situation like that. "I guess, I guess we have to keep trying for them. Keep... keep moving forward."

"It doesn't feel like moving forward, Lieutenant," Gantry claimed. "It feels just like how all this started, with Harvest. When... when they... when I lost them."

Gantry was looking to the picture frame and that was when she knew for sure. That woman and her child, they were his and they weren't here anymore. They were on Harvest, the Colony the Covenant first attacked. They were dead and had been for a long time from the looks of it.

It was easy before to look at ONI as a monolith of faceless goons. Haverson himself had somewhat dulled that perception, but here it had completely upended itself. This was a man who had experienced and felt pain. Who knew what it was like to lose someone... like he knew. She couldn't see this member of UNSC's command structure as unfeeling, inhuman. He wasn't like the Captain of the freighter.

"We need to report to the briefing directly," Gantry claimed. "This has been a hard week and we need to go over it all. Did everyone else get their reports?"

"Someone came by to pick them up from me," Maisey answered.

"Then there's no sense in delaying," Gantry said, putting the picture frame down. "Come on, you might as well come too. You drew up the reports."

Maisey followed Gantry out of the room, but for the first time since this experience had started, she wanted to go. She wanted to see what he had to show her. She needed to see it.

---

Farming had never been something they had covered in ONI training. So Haverson was rather surprised to see he was actually competent at gardening. He imagined it was because he was seeing things through the eyes of Maisey and her collective knowledge was guiding his hand. He just seemed to know what was ripe enough to pick, what vegetables needed more water or fertilizer. Asha helped out as well, hard to believe the seemingly always scowling, angry daughter of Maisey was at one time so small and far happier looking. Then again, maybe it wasn't that hard to believe. The event that likely turned her into that person hadn't happened yet.

Haverson suspected though that the attack was coming. Apekis IV was going to fall and he would bear witness to it directly. In normal circumstances, he'd probably try to warn Maisey's family about what was happening, but he suspected there was no point. For one he couldn't really do anything to stop himself and his speech was limited to whenever someone spoke to him. He had control over his speech to a degree, but his feet were compelled to follow some unseen directive. More importantly though, he doubted any of this was real.

Sure, a lot of it felt real, but in the back of his mind he knew that this wasn't actually happening. This was an after image. He felt too out of sorts to believe he had actually been transported into the body of Maisey a decade prior to their first meeting. No, this was some kind of memory replay, he was being forced to watch and act out the events as they had happened. To what end? He couldn't be sure, but he knew for certain that this wasn't another time travel situation, so overall attempting to change anything was futile.

Besides, this was his opportunity. At long last, after pushing and arguing with Maisey, he'd find out the full truth. What happened on the freighter? Who was really to blame? What was Maisey hiding? Once he knew the truth, the full truth, he could finally resolve this sordid affair. He'd have the people responsible for what happened and perhaps they could still salvage this colony's fate and keep it from being treated too harshly. Sure, a vision of a memory was probably dubious evidence to most, but once he was out of this, he could confirm the truth from Maisey directly. She wouldn't be able to hide what had happened once he could name names. She'd probably hate him for it, she said as much before. For whatever reason that made him a bit... sick.

Perhaps it was just looking at Asha as she helped him put the vegetables in his basket. He knew she had gone through so much, all of these people had. Was it really fair to punish them more? Perhaps, he could be lenient though. He could suggest that their assistance in securing the relic and fighting back these pirates alongside the Marines deserved a modicum of clemency. Perhaps only a few years, maybe even detained within the colony itself. There were ways justice could be satisfied without being cruel.

He shook off the thoughts best he could, that was likely Maisey's influence. Her memories mixing with his thoughts and distorting him. As much as he felt for these people and their hardships, he couldn't just ignore what they had done. This connection that he had with Asha was artificial, just like all this was.

But then, why couldn't he stop himself from laughing when the girl placed a bunch of strawberries in her mouth and pretended to have giant buck teeth with them. And it was genuine laugh, his laugh, not Maisey's. Could that really from her influence? He doubted it. No, something was stirring his thoughts up, he just wasn't sure what.

As he tried his best to think through the haze in his head, Asha appeared distracted. With brilliant smile, this one free of strawberries, the girl rushed off towards the front of the house.

"Daddy!"

Haverson whipped his head around to see a man with a thick brown beard and an impressive stature, walking up the garden path. Given Asha's proclamation, he knew instantly that this was Mattias, Maisey's husband. The man who, according to the Colony leader, was responsible for the takeover of the freighter. The man who led a number of the other colonists onto the ship where they slaughtered the Marines aboard it.

He didn't look like much of an insurgent, what with how he picked up the still young Asha and spun her around. However, few dissidents started out as outwardly violent rabble rousers. Maisey had repeatedly mentioned how the colonists felt they had a raw deal, even before the Covenant came. He doubted Mattias differed much in that opinion even at this current point in time. It would've made taking the Freighter easier in his mind.

"How's work? Catch any bad guys with Brant?" Asha asked happily.

"Nothing too exciting," Mattias replied with a cheerful grin. "Just a few domestic calls, one kid took the family tractor out for a joy ride."

"You chased down a tractor?" Asha asked eagerly.

"No, no, not really," Mattias clarified. "More like we had to get it off him when he ditched. Leg was a bit busted but he'll be okay. How's the garden?"

"Great!" Asha claimed. "Mommy and I are gonna make a strawberry pie later!"

"Oh, haven't had that for dessert in a while," Mattias chuckled as he put his daughter down. "Can you run along for a bit though? I need to talk to your mother for a minute. Grown up things."

"I'm pretty grown up," Asha reminded him. "You've been teaching me how to shoot and everything."

"Yes, yes, but this isn't... like that," Mattias assured her.

Haverson hoped it wasn't something that young eyes weren't allowed to see. He didn't particularly care about re-enacting intimacy with the illusion of another male. It would honestly be no different than acting out a plat really. He just didn't want to face Maisey again knowing he had done anything of the sort with the image of her dead husband. It would quite possibly be the final straw for her and she would likely kill him. Thankfully, as Asha did as she was told, Mattias had a more sullen expression replace his grin. So intimacy was off the table from the looks of it.

"I didn't want her to hear," he explained. "I had to... break up a fight or two. One of the households got a letter today, the Herrera's. Their... son died in combat."

"Oh... that's... that's sad to hear," Haverson replied.

Maisey never mentioned any of the colonists had members who served. Although perhaps it wasn't too surprising, Marines and Troopers came from all over. A few young adults would've likely heard about the Covenant attack and joined up to fight, thinking they were in for an adventure. However, that wasn't exactly the case. War was never an adventure, at least not the one you wanted.

"Ever since he got drafted, they've been dreading this," Mattias confessed. "The mother stormed up to a recruiter on the street in town. Decked him, nearly started a riot outside the UNSC local office. Too many others wanted to get involved, insults were getting hurled, luckily we broke it up before the rocks started flying."

"And Mrs. Herrera?" Haverson asked. "Did you... arrest her?"

"Well, course I had to," Mattias replied. "Now I know you're going to tell me that isn't fair, but I didn't have a choice. She threw the first punch. It was out of my hands. I couldn't make an exception. I slapped her with a minor battery charge, insisted it wasn't worth keeping her locked up to the judge, she'll be out of the station by tomorrow. She'll likely have to pay a fine."

"That's it?" Haverson asked.

"That's as best as I can do," Mattias insisted. "Maisey, I'm not blind, the tension is growing daily. The other colonists, they're getting angrier. More and more crops are getting requisitioned for the war, there's very little in terms of compensation. The increased Marine presence because of that dig site isn't helping. I'm just doing my best to maintain law and order here."

"That's... admirable," Haverson confessed, a bit taken aback to hear Maisey's husband sounding similar to himself in some respects. "I guess I'm just... surprised."

"That I bent the rules a little?" Mattias laughed. "Yeah me too, maybe I'm getting a little fed up as well. I'm trying to be a good mediator here, but it always seems like its the UNSC's way or no other way at all."

"Well... they are fighting a war," Haverson claimed, finally able to assert some of himself. "I guess we can't expect them to give much of an inch."

"True, true," Mattias agreed. "I just wish I had more clout is all. Everyone keeps coming to me to resolve disputes and more and more I feel like I'm just giving in to whatever the UNSC wants. It's frustrating. I get it, there's a war on and everything, but a lot of these people don't see that. They just see the UNSC stomping around and enforcing curfews and going after kids to join the Corps or whatever. Meat for the grinder you know? Food for the machine? Literally or figuratively so to speak."

"Some people have to feel comfortable they're around," Haverson claimed. "Otherwise we'd have a full revolt on our hands here."

"Likely they just don't want to rock the boat too much," Mattias admitted. "I mean, what if the Covenant do show up? Or we get more Insurgents again? Like it or not, the Marines are our best defense against them. Like you keep saying, we have to trust that they'll be there when the chips are down, right? What other choice do we have?"

That didn't sound too much like Maisey, but the tone was consistent. The Marines were a pain to the colonists, Mattias was certainly frustrated by them. However, he believed in the rule of law, clearly. He also believed that, while flawed, the UNSC was there to help. He knew because his mind kept saying that Mattias had convinced Maisey of that. She trusted his judgement.

He couldn't be sure how he understood Maisey's thoughts in this moment, but perhaps it was because he was Maisey in this moment. He felt her trust in Mattias, her resolve strengthened by his own. She was frustrated, but Mattias was a reassuring force, telling her it would be ok, that as hard as this was the Marines were still here for them.

Yes, his mind told him the truth. Before the Covenant came, Maisey did believe the Marines were still there to help them. She had spoken the truth about that at least. It didn't change anything though, Mattias was still going to kill every Marine aboard that freighter. Maisey would still steal UNSC property. Just because he had more in common with Maisey's husband than he thought didn't change the fact he was, by definition, an insurgent by rule of law. True, it was born out of desperation, perhaps. That didn't change the fact he sacrificed his principles. He chose violence to solve a problem. There had to have been another way.

Haverson never got the chance to think of any alternatives to voice. Instead he spotted Asha return, with a befuddled look on her face, staring up at the sky.

"Mom, dad, what's that?"

Haverson traced her finger and saw what had drawn her attention. High above the colony, the clouds were turning dark, distorted, sparking with light. It looked like lighting but it was colored differently.

"Is that a storm?" Mattias asked. "Weather report said nothing about that this morning."

It wasn't a storm. Haverson remembered the reports of colonies that had been attacked by the Covenant. He remembered what the survivors always mentioned. That first the skies went dark and from out of it appeared death. He had always heard about it, but he had never seen it from this angle. He had watched it on screens or the bridge of a ship, like back on Reach. Now though, for the first time, he was watching it unfold before his eyes. Not from the perspective of Naval Intelligence or the Military, but a woman who had never experienced this before and was wholly unprepared.

From out of the storm clouds, created no doubt by charging plasma weapons, appeared a Covenant Battlecruiser. Its monstrous form looming above them all, casting a grim shadow down on the small city and surrounding hamlet below. Its midsection lit up like a second sun, forcing him to cover his eyes slightly just before the blast of hot plasma fired out of the ship's belly and incinerated one of the colony's many apartment complexes. It and a number of other buildings around it, began to collapse. Mattias looked up in horror speechless as Asha clung to Haverson's leg. Then another ship appeared, then another and another. The Covenant were wasting no time, they were annihilating the human colony wholesale.

"Get inside!" Mattias shouted. "Gather what you can! We need to go! Now!"

Haverson instinctively picked up Asha and ran for the house. Where thoughts of discovering the truth of what happened on the day Apekis V fell once occupied the forefront of his mind, now he found them pushed aside. The only thing he now felt was an overriding urge to take Asha and get out of here, to run, to find some place she could be safe, where they could be safe. Fear griped him, but why? None of this was real. Yet the panic and horror pounding in his chest was. He wanted the truth, now he was living it, in all its terrible detail.

---

Linda didn't know what was weirder, walking into this alien amusement park with a bunch batarians who couldn't see her or walking through the same park where everyone was frozen in place. It was eerie to say the least, stranger still that she was currently walking around with a child version of Varvok who talked like his adult self but with a lisp of sorts. They had expected there would be weird days ahead as Spartans once their mission changed from defeating insurrectionists to aliens, but this was not one of those scenarios. At least not one she thought of.

Getting down from the Roller Coaster hadn't been too difficult, Linda was just happy they hadn't stopped on a loop de loop or something. However, once they got down there didn't seem to be a way out of the theme park. Linda tried heading back the way she came, but it seemed to only lead her and Varvok deeper into Heritage Fields itself. Varvok was more than a little distracted. He kept pointing out attractions and excitedly talking about them every couple of seconds.

"Oh that's Homeland Defender!" He said pointing at one of the buildings. "I got the biggest score on it back in the day. The trick is to hit the hidden human sniper in each of the major set pieces before-"

"Human sniper?" Linda interrupted.

"Oh, uh, right," Varvok said, his enthusiasm drained. "The ride is... all about humans invading the planet and you have to... kill them all."

The Spartan didn't take offense, she knew Varvok's history to a degree after all. She just didn't want him forgetting his present at the moment. Mainly out of fear the memory would start up again. She looked at the ride curiously and carried on. Varvok hurried to catch up.

"Look, I'm sorry, maybe being stuck as a kid again has made me a little... distracted," he suggested. "I shouldn't be getting enthusiastic over shooting humans, even if they are fake ones on a ride. I just find it hard not to reminisce here."

"It's a memory projection of some kind," Linda reminded him. "I don't blame you for getting nostalgic, but that doesn't help us get out of here right now. We can't get distracted here. It already feels like we've been wandering around in circles."

"Yeah, I really thought we'd be out by now," Varvok confessed. "How'd you leave your memory? You said you got caught in one."

"I didn't really do anything," Linda admitted. "I realized it couldn't be real and broke free. Then I thought about finding the others and somehow ended up tracking you down."

That didn't give them many clues to go on concerning how to get out of here. Only that, perhaps, the mind was the secret. Her thoughts and mental reasoning seemed to guide her through this maze of memories. It wasn't precise though, which lead her to Varvok instead someone she was closer to. Varvok had been with her when they jumped through the barrier over the colony thought. That had to have been part of why she tracked the batarian down.

"Maybe memory is the key to this," Linda reasoned. "Whatever has happened to the colony, it's drawing on our memories, the stuff in our heads. Maybe it wants us to think our way out, literally. Like think of someone or something else."

"Hmm, well... that's a bit hard to do," Varvok admitted, sounding rather wistful.

"Why?" Linda asked curiously.

Varvok's gaze turned back to where he remembered the coaster was, his shoulders slumped and knees looking weaker. Linda got around to his side and saw his eyes looking mournful and sullen. More so than she had ever seen on the batarian before.

"It's just... been so long since I last saw them is all," he confessed. "My brothers, I mean. They're still back there... frozen. And I... I keep wondering about going back."

"They're not real, Varvok," Linda tried to explain in as empathetic a tone as was possible for her. "I'm sorry, but they're just an echo."

"I know, I know," Varvok relented. "This is just a memory, but it's a happy one. Maybe that's why I didn't break free of it like you did yours. I joined the military to avenge them, to honor their name. And ever since Balak betrayed me and I joined Shepard, I can't stop thinking about them. I can't help wondering if they'd hate me for doing what I did. Of how I've turned my back on the Hegemony. How I'm... working with humans... protecting humans."

"You did what had to do to save your men," Linda reminded him, recalling what Chief had explained about Varvok's defection to them. "I doubt that your brothers would judge you too harshly for that. They wouldn't want you dying like that."

Varvok seemed to understand that reasoning, nodding his head lightly.

"No, I suppose they wouldn't," he conceded. "Still, I keep wishing they were around to tell me what to do. Guide me in some way. Honestly, I'm staying strong for my men, but I don't have a clue as to what we're going to do. Assuming we even get back home, what's the next step? What do we do then?"

"Considering what you did today, I think you already know," Linda claimed.

That got Varvok's attention, turning his head towards the Spartan.

"You put your life on the line in a risky mission to sabotage the enemy attack," she continued. "You led your men against hostile forces intent on killing or enslaving the colonists living here. You defended human lives, innocent lives. Way I say, you already have an idea of what you're going to do when you head home. You just need to come to terms with it."

"Not easy to do when you've been living for revenge I guess," Varvok said, not denying Linda's claim at all. "Part of it is wishing for their approval, but ultimately... I think I just wanted them to be around again. To be with my brothers, the best friends I ever had. More than anything, I just want them back. But I know that's not possible."

"If it helps, I've been in this situation before," Linda admitted.

Varvok's eyes perked up in surprise at the claim.

"You... you have?" He asked intrigued.

"Not nearly this vivid, but yeah," Linda confessed. "You dream weird things in cryo. Memories, old faces, they show up often. I've seen old friends I know are long gone over and over again. I feel them, they're right there... but I know they're not real and eventually, I'll wake up and they'll be dead again."

"How do you cope with that?" Varvok asked. "Knowing that the only place that they'll ever be alive again is in your mind?"

"I don't think any of us do," Linda admitted. "I think we just accept it, because that's all we're going to leave behind for others in the end too. Their memories of us. What they taught us and what we experienced from them. We can't forget them, we shouldn't, but we can't stay with them in an echo. They wouldn't want us to."

Varvok looked back to where the Coaster was, tears forming in his eyes a bit.

"It... was nice seeing them again at least," he said.

Slowly but surely, the amusement park melted away. The rides and shops and colorful streets faded into the darkness as the strange corridor of blinking nodes reasserted itself. They were out of Varvok's memories at long last. Linda gave an acknowledging nod of approval. She wouldn't have figured it would be that easy.

Varvok was still a child though, so maybe there was still more to do. Perhaps that was just his default mode right now. It didn't matter, they had to find the others. They'd deal with getting their present day appearances back later. Not that the issue remained forefront in their mind for long though, as they saw a series of rapidly blinking lights off around a corner.

"What is that?" Varvok asked.

Linda headed off to check, rounding the corner with her weapon drawn. She expected to find some kind of creature, maybe the source of all this if she was lucky. Instead she found a familiar face, Thane. He was clutching his head, stumbling about as various nodes flashed various colors and frequencies around him. He was mumbling in a low tone, she couldn't make out a word of it. When she tried to get close, to touch the drell's shoulder, she felt a great spike of pain in her head.

For several brief seconds, she saw a rush of images. A young blue skinned reptilian creature being held up high. An older yellow skinned reptilian standing in front of a crosshairs with a defiant look. A world of water and dancing purplish pink sea creatures that looked like jellyfish swimming around gracefully. An arid dead desert planet, the same yellow skinned reptile creature from before standing there. Then a coffin, rain, a funeral precision of some sort. This was followed just as suddenly by a furious montage of dead people, shot from afar or killed close up, skulls blown up or necks snapped, riddled with bullets or smashed into the pavement. A frightening display of emotions filled her head with images, she was barely able to process one before slipping into another.

Thankfully it all ended when she felt someone pull her arm back. It was Varvok, who had wrenched her free of the flood of images. However, she could still see them. Not in her mind's eye, but now flashing around Thane as he stumbled through the corridor, mumbling his frantic rambles.

"Are you alright?" Varvok asked out of concern.

"Yeah," Linda assured, rubbing her head through the helmet. "It will pass I think. One thing is for sure, he's not ok."

"What happened?" Varvok pressingly asked.

"I saw a whole host of Varvok's memories I think," she explained. "But it wasn't like ours, it was all at once. Like a rapid-fire montage out of chronological order."

Varvok contemplated the Spartan's words and looked at Thane again.

"I think I've heard of this," he said, reasoning as he snapped his fingers. "Drells have perfect memories, they can recall every moment they've ever lived down to the smallest insignificant detail. It can be triggered by anything as I understand it. Smells, songs, even a random word in a conversation."

"Hmm, that sounds pretty useful," Linda thought aloud. "I'd never forget where I left my Armor Piercing rounds or high caliber barrel again."

"Yeah, but Drell can also suffer from something called 'total recall' as a result," Varvok warned. "Where they can start existing in the past rather than the present. Usually in a really good memory."

"Kinda like what was happening to you?" Linda asked.

Varvok just nodded but it didn't stop his train of thought.

"Whatever is happening is affecting him worse than us," he continued. "His perfect memory has trapped him the past, split between various moments in his life. He's lost himself to it, both the good and the bad memories it seems."

"Well we can't just leave him like that," Linda insisted. "We gotta snap him out of it. Problem is, if we get too close we'll end up stuck like him or worse."

Varvok thought a bit, rubbing his chin as he did.

"Ok, I'm no expert on the drell or how their brains work, but maybe there's a way to break him out," he theorized. "You were able to shake me loose, maybe if we find someone close to him they can do the same."

"Like someone in his memories that he can latch onto," Linda surmised. "Somebody from the Normandy's crew maybe?"

"He would be closer to them than us," Varvok reasoned. "But how do we find someone else from the Normandy in this maze?"

In that moment of a technicolor path lit up between Thane's position and another path. It pulsated for a bit and then dissapted. A few seconds later it appeared again. It was peculiar enough to spark Linda's interest.

"Maybe Thane can help us," she reasoned. "Come on, before his mind turns to pudding from all those millions of memories he's reliving."

The pair followed the pulsating path, hoping on a hunch that it would lead them to someone who could help Thane out of his 'total recall' and back to the real world. Or as real as this place got at least.

Tali knocked on the glass a little, but there was no reaction from Grunt. She hadn't expected there to be any, but it was obvious enough the tank wasn't real, couldn't be real. It made no sense if it was real. She had come to believe a lot of what they were seeing was either elaborate mental illusions or they were real world objects dressed up to look like something else. Assuming they weren't all just existing in some shared mindscape and their real bodies weren't lying on the ground in the mud or something.

"He's really out of it," she admitted.

"In relative time, he's only been out of his tank for a few months," Shepard reminded her. "I don't think he has many early memories to pool from like we did."

"I just expected him to be trapped fighting in that arena again for the Urdnot Trials," Tali reasoned. "I didn't think he'd go this far back."

"Either way we need to get him out," Shepard insisted. "Can you help me open him up?"

---

Tali searched for the release valve, for all that was worth. She knew this thing couldn't be real, there was no way, however sophisticated that relic was, it could physically recreate Grunt's tank. She theorized that it was likely a mental image made manifest. It looked real, felt real, but it only existed in the mind. Or their minds to be more exact, since the relic had somehow connected them all to each other.

Luckily, real or imaginary, the relic had recreated the tank exceedingly accurate to its real life counterpart. Which meant there was a manual release valve just under the bottom of the lid. She had to prime it first, even if this thing wasn't real, she wasn't about to risk it damaging Grunt if it was opened improperly. Once Shepard pulled the trigger, the tank depressurized. Liquid flooded out of the chamber and onto the floor as the hatch lifted up. Grunt followed suit, tumbling onto the ground, spitting up great gulps of liquid everywhere.

The krogan eventually scrambled to his feet and was about to charge when he saw Shepard, still looking much younger than he was supposed to. That was when he paused and looked puzzled at the scene surrounding him. He spotted Tali and looked completely out of sorts.

"Wait, I don't remember it looking like this," he said, searching about confused. "Shepard... why are you a hatchling?"

"The correct term is kid," Shepard corrected him. "And right now I'm really glad you didn't repeat what happened last time I let you out."

"Yeah, I think you might have popped me early too," Grunt said, holding his head. "I was receiving implants from I think my fifth day of things... wait, why was I even back in there?"

"Long story short, more relic weirdness," Shepard summed up. "This time, everyone inside the village from the look of things."

"Oh that's just great," Grunt sighed. "More strange stuff I can't punch."

"Do you remember anything before you were in the tank again?" Tali asked.

Grunt tried to think, to his credit, but he was clearly straining to bring anything to the forefront of his mind.

"Ugh, nothing," he confessed. "Best I got is I was with some of the others and then... like this yellow flash."

"That's about as much as we can get," Shepard confirmed. "Whatever this is, it seems tied to our memories. So much so we can't even seem to recall our more recent ones very clearly."

"Likely caused by the relic interfacing with our minds," Tali suggested. "It's scrambled our long- and short-term memory functions, at least that's what I'm thinking its done. Would explain this hazy feeling we keep getting."

Even now Tali could feel it, fogging her memory, keeping her from recalling recent experiences clearly enough. It wasn't that she couldn't remember, she just couldn't pinpoint anything distinct. What was clearer now though was that the relic was responsible and that it had been activated in the fighting. Which suggested there was a resolution to this, as Shepard pointed out.

"It's becoming more and more obvious that we need to find the relic then," he reasoned. "It activated all this, it can deactivate it."

"A good idea, but we don't even know where we are, Shepard," Tali reminded him. "We could be laying on the floor somewhere or wandering aimlessly through the colony for all we know. Finding the relic might not be possible while we're in this state."

"It's still looks like our only way out of this," Shepard insisted. "Its how we've resolved these issues with the relics before."

"I agree, but I'm not sure how we locate the relic," Tali confessed. "I'm not an expert on this. This is more Halsey's field."

"What about Mordin?" Grunt asked.

The krogan's question came a little out of left field. Before they could ask why he had mentioned Mordin, they followed his gaze, staring off down a corridor. There, at the center of it, they saw Professor Solus, working at what looked to be a lab station. Although he wasn't wearing his regular lab gear, it looked more rugged, something suited for field work. In fact, the lab station looked older, maybe makeshift, surrounded by dust and arid lighting.

"Notes on latest cultures, modifications appear to be holding," he rattled off at high speed. "Very promising. Introduction of new sequences to proceed. New data on simulations forthcoming."

Shepard approached Mordin carefully, although he so far breaking his crew out of these illusions had been easy, he had succumbed to one of his own in the process of breaking Tali out. He didn't want to rush anything, which was why he had been careful with Grunt.

Besides, he wanted to hear more, as he had an idea what memory this was. Sure enough, Mordin kept talking as he looked at a datapad.

"Simulation... adequate," he said. "Adjusted fertility rate, twenty percent. Promising. Not.. complete. Mission parameters not met. Still above original genophage average. Birthrate too high. Must proceed to next phase."

This was during his time as head of the new Genophage project. The one Mordin was assigned to when it was discovered the krogan had adapted to the old Genophage that had essentially rendered the krogan race infertile. Mordin hadn't shared much about it beyond some broad details, correctly guessing a lot of the deeper science behind the project would go over Shepard's head. Now it seemed he knew a bit more about what the project entailed.

"Mordin," he spoke up softly.

The Salarian, but his eyes seemed glazed over.

"Shepard? Not supposed to be here. Age inaccurate as well," he noted.

"Where is here, exactly?" Shepard asked him.

"Mid-stage of project. Genophage adjustments before final implementation."

"It sounded like your new Genophage had sequences," Shepard noted.

"Yes," Mordin said regretfully. "Not... favorable outcome. Superiors in STG wanted return to original Genophage Fertility Rates. Argued... adjusted rates, originally. Simulations... unfavorable to project leads."

"They wanted things back to normal," Sherpard surmised. "That meant returning the krogan to close to their near sterile state. Not a normalized birth rate."

"Simulations suggested anything less disastrous. Lead to renewed conflict," Mordin explained. "Eventually... decided to trust findings."

"And now?" Shepard asked, reasoning something had changed given the tambor of the salarian's voice.

"Now... unsure," Mordin admitted. "Wondering... should have pushed harder. Ever since... Maleon... can't help but wonder."

Shepard understood, he had questioned more than a few of his decisions in his private moments. He tried not to think too deeply on it, for fear it would trigger another memory of his that would distract him. Mordin was the primary focus right now.

"I know you've always felt conflicted about your responsibility to the krogan," Shepard told the salarian. "But wondering what you should've done instead won't really help you figure out what to do now. You need to decide for yourself what to do about the genophage... now. Not back when you were younger."

"Yes," Mordin agreed. "Yes... cannot change past. Adjust with new data. Science marches on. So must I."

Mordin's eyes started to return to a normal color, he blinked rapidly as the haze vanished. Holding his head briefly, he soon came out of his stupor. He took a brief breath of air and settled himself.

"Shepard, thank you," he said sincerely. "Trapped in... thoughts. More than usual. Good that you came."

"No problem, Professor," Shepard said. "Seems like you just needed a little push anyway. Honestly, right now we could use your brain power."

Before Shepard could explain more though, Tali called over to them.

"Uh, Shepard," she called. "We have incoming I think."

She pointed down a hallway, towards what appeared to be pulsing blue lights. As they got closer, images became more clear. It was Legion, firing a weapon as the images of a city surrounded the machine. There was return fire, but no images of who was doing it. There were faint shadows of things running about, they looked like a mix of quarians and other Geth.

"What in the...?"

Legion spoke suddenly.

"Memory banks infiltrated, replaying files," the synthetic shouted. "Assistance required."

Shepard hadn't expected that from Legion. It seemed they were aware that what they were seeing wasn't real, but they couldn't stop themselves from acting it out. The Geth was shooting at shadows, knew they were, but couldn't prevent itself from doing so. Tali quickly rushed over to the synthetic, her omni-tool activated.

"Legion, hold still!" She shouted. "I can hardwire a manual reset to your memory core functions! It should stop the playback!"

"Advise caution," Legion warned. "Cannot prevent defensive parameters! Do not wish to harm Creator-Tali'Zorah!"

Tali got in close, rolling past a burst of fire from Legion's rifle. Shepard didn't know if the gun was real, but he reacted all the same. Legion couldn't control itself right now and that afforded restraint, but he wasn't about to just stand by and do nothing. He zipped over with his biotic charge. He was still in his younger body, but his biotics were as potent as ever. He grabbed Legion's gun and forced it upward.

"Apologies Shepard-Commander," Legion answered. "Memory playback overridden. Cannot reset."

"It's okay, Legion," Shepard assured him, straining against the synthetic's robotic limbs. "For once, I know exactly how you're feeling."

Tali eventually managed to get behind Legion and activated her reset runtime. She had plugged her omni-tool into a port on the synthetic's back. In a few seconds, Legion's stopped struggling and holstered its rifle. The machine's head flaps and eye port flickered, jittered, repositioned themselves and eventually returned to normalcy.

"Regular functionality restored," Legion said. "Memory replay override halted. We appreciate assistance,Creator-Tali'Zorah."

"Think nothing of it, Legion," Tali assured the Geth. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"What happened to them?" Grunt asked.

"Obvious enough," Tali reasoned. "The Relic can effect AI too. I guessed I should've realized it could. The Forerunners had a substantially greater understanding of artificial intelligence than anyone else. It stands to reason so did the Precursors."

"Hardware forced to re-enact memories of the Morning War," Legion explained. "Imagery of Memory Bank data projected around us. All attempts at self-reset failed."

"No harm done, Legion," Shepard assured the synthetic. "But that's two people now who have come to us. Tali, when I found you, it was as if my mind was compelled to track you down. I zeroed in on you."

"Our minds do seem connected now," Tali reasoned. "Maybe you... locked onto my brainwaves somehow?"

"Maybe, but do you think that this can work both ways?" Shepard asked. "Maybe the others can be drawn to us?"

"I guess," Tali surmised. "Uh, maybe there has to be a connection though. Something similar enough to lure them in. I started thinking about how similar the situation between the salarians and krogan are to my people and the geth in some ways."

"And when you were all talking about figuring this out, I thought about Mordin," Grunt confessed. "Figured if anyone could figure this out, he could."

"High regards. Most appreciated," Mordin said in a dutifully cheerful manner.

"Either way this helps us," Shepard insisted. "We can track the others down this way. Tali, think of Halsey. You have the best connection to her among us. You said it yourself, she'd know more about this than us."

Tali nodded and tried to think of Halsey, strangely enough it was easier than before. She thought of their recent work as well as their past. It was if some of the fog from before had lifted. A few minutes later, concentrating best she could, an image appeared down one of the halls.

It looked to be some kind of hotel room, a fancy high rise of some kind. Inside was Halsey, wearing something... very unlike her given that it was not a lab coat, but a nightdress. She also looked younger, less grey hair, and there was someone else with her.

"I don't suppose there's an officer's discount for room service?" She asked aloud.

"It would be easier if we could just go to a public restaurant, Catherine," the man said.

"And have ONI inevitably find us fraternizing?" Haley asked with a smirk. "No, I'm afraid privacy is the most expensive luxury of this relationship, Jacob."

"Wait, Jacob?" Shepard asked aloud.

He only knew of one other Jacob that could've been around when Halsey was that young. Keyes, Captain Jacob Keyes, Halsey had been in a relationship with Keyes long ago. Now it suddenly made sense why she had reached out to him to collect the Cortana fragment on Reach. They knew each other. The others soon caught on themselves when they more directly saw memory of Keyes' face.

"Well... that is going to spark some conversation," Shepard reasoned.

"Let's just get her out of it," Tali insisted. "Before this memory gets weird."

"Agreed, best avoid accusations of voyeurism," Mordin said.

"Hey, wait, I just got a thought," Grunt spoke up. "Have you guys seen any of Snarlbeak's men?"

Shepard tried to think, which he found strangely easier to do all of a sudden. No, he had not run into any of Snarlbeak's men. They hadn't stumbled upon any of them in fact. Which was weird, given how they had been swarming everything.

"No, we haven't," he admitted. "I get your meaning though, Grunt. That doesn't make any sense, why aren't we running into them? Is it simply because we're not as connected to them as each other?"

"Not sure," Tali shrugged. "But hopefully our luck holds on that front. The last thing we need is to stumble into one of those crazy pirates. Well, the ones that aren't on our side anyway."

It did make Shepard wonder though; their enemies had been caught in this little trap themselves. How were they handling this insane situation? He had a worse thought though, what if they got out of this prison of the mind before them? They'd be helpless against them, lost in memories while Snarlbeak did as he pleased. All the more reason to get out of here quick.

---

This shouldn't be happening. This was a nightmare. It had to be! There was no way any of this could be real. He couldn't be back in this cabin. He couldn't be this young. He couldn't be here. He had escaped it. He left it. She saved him from it. Worst of all, he couldn't be here, he couldn't be real.

"Zhoc! Where are you?! You miserable little shit!"

That vile voice haunted his thoughts daily, in the back of his mind he could always hear it. He could hear him screaming at him over the tiniest offense. He didn't put something away. He forgot to do something he was supposed to do. He had failed at something. Or, most of the time, his father just wanted something to batter. Just something to smack around so he'd feel better about how mediocre he was. He couldn't do it with his underlings, not without causing a mutiny at some point, but he could do it to his son. His little, runty little son who couldn't fight back. No, his son just had to take it.

"Get out here! NOW! Useless little runt! You come when I call! How many times do I have to tell you that?! You never listen!"

Zhoc kept running, scrambling to get away from the voice. He raced through the corridors of his old home, but could never find a door. There was no exit, no good hiding place. He was trapped. No matter where he went, no matter where he ran to, he could hear his father's footsteps stomping up behind him.

"This can't be real," he muttered to himself in fear. "He's dead, I saw him die. He can't be here, he just can't be."

With his options becoming ever more limited, Zhoc rushed to a door on the right side of the hall. Inside was his old room, sparse as it was given he never got many toys. His mind had seemingly reverted to childhood, because the first thing he thought to do was to hide under the bed. He hoped that would be enough, but as extra insurance he clasped his hands over his beak to keep quiet. If he made a sound, he was surely dead.

When the door was forced open moments later, Zhoc just lay on his stomach shaking in fear. He watched as the talons of his father walked around the room. Zhoc closed his eyes, wishing he'd go away, that he'd wake up, that whatever this was would end. It didn't, because in the next instant, he felt his ankles getting grabbed and his body being dragged across the floor. His back slammed into the wall and when he looked up, the looming crazed drunken form of his father stood over him.

He didn't look like a monster though, nor a demon, nor some shadowy creature from a nightmare. This was his father as he remembered him, down to the sunken eyes, portly build and gnarled upper beak. He didn't look exaggerated at all, this was no nightmare vision he had become accustomed to. Which made it all the more terrifying.

"Worthless little shit! Should've just crushed your egg myself!"

"No, no, please!" Zhoc sobbed aloud. "Make it stop! Make it stop!"

"You want it to stop? Fine!" His father screamed. "I'll stop! Right after I fix you for good this time!"

Zhoc closed his eyes as his father raised his fist. He knew what was likely to happen, he knew this was the end. At least he thought it was, as the next sound he heard wasn't a crack against his skull, but the smashing of a bottle. There was a flurry of action next when he opened his eyes. His father had turned, bleeding from the back of his head, just before being socked into the dresser. He rushed up to his feet and charged at his assailant, only to smash his head into the doorframe when they dodged out of the way. The assailant then began to manually slam the sliding door into his father's skull, before the drunken bastard got up and knocked them away. Not that it mattered, as they quickly rolled away from dad's attempt to stomp on their head. The assailant then delivered another haymaker to his father's face, dazing him. Then they grabbed for the energy dagger his father always kept close, wrenching it from the scabbard on his belt. The blade ignited briefly before it was shoved deep into his father's shoulder, then his stomach and finally it went for the throat.

Blood poured out his father's neck as he gasped for air, choking and suffocating as he fell to his knees. The energy dagger clattered to the ground as his father twitched on the floor. Zhoc knew he should've felt sick seeing that much blood, but strangely his body didn't react to it. As if it hadn't absorbed that trauma yet. The reason become slightly clear in the next moment, as the assailant stepped over the body of his father and towards him. Finally, he saw her face and his fear and terror melted away, replaced with utter disbelief. Her purple and yellow quills, her slender beak, her warm face, currently covered in the blood of their father, it was her, she was here.

"Hey, hey," she said reassuringly with a smile. "It's okay, Zhoc, it's okay. I'm here, I'm here."

Zhoc could hardly believe it, barely able to form words as he looked at her.

"Zv... Zvaz?" He asked.

"Yeah, it's me, Zhoc," she said tearfully, holding open her arms. "It's okay now. Everything... everything is okay."

For the first time in a long time, Zhoc broke down crying and hugged his sister. She held him close as she rocked him in her arms.

"It's gonna be okay, Zhoc," she insisted hopefully. "He can't hurt us anymore. No one can, I promise."

"I've missed you so much!" Zhoc wept, crying in her shoulder. "I can't believe you're here! That you're alive! After all this time!"

"I know it's been scary, I know. But we're going to be okay, Zhoc," she assured him sweetly. "From here on out, no more fear, no more pain. No matter what else happens, we have each other. That's all we've ever needed anyway."

It was all Zhoc had ever wanted. He had his sister back. He'd been given back the only truly good thing he had lost so long ago. Nothing else mattered now. Not relics or profit or revenge. All of that had been swept away in an instant. Against all odds, he had been granted a miracle. Zvaz was right, all they had ever needed was each other. Now they had each other again, he would never let her go again.

---

Following the music led Kowalski and the others to a more secluded area of the Ascendent Justice's crew deck. A locked door barred their way further, but that was of little consequence. Even though they all wondered if the door was even real, they still went to work on getting it open. They bypassed the lock, a skill they had quickly become familiar with while stuck on the stolen Covie carrier. Imagined or not, the door slid open and they discovered the origin of the music. It was indeed coming from Ramirez's personal player device, currently set up on a makeshift table, with some rations plated up for two. In one seat was Ramirez, in the other was a female army trooper, who Kowalski soon recognized as Corporal Ann Sanders.

"Oh great, I end up reliving my worst nightmares, he gets to go on a date forever," Agley spoke up rather gruffly. "The universe hates me guys, that's just obvious at this point."

"Hey for all you know he's gone through some shit to get to this point," Ellingham claimed defensively. "Besides, you don't know its a date."

"Really, Ellingham?" Pearson asked exasperated. "What does that even look like to you?"

"I don't know," Ellingham said flabbergasted and struggling. "We don't even know how this place works, not really. It could just be a fantasy or a dream he had he's remembering."

"If you were having a fantasy with a girl, would you dream of you two splitting rations or a five-course super expensive meal?" Pearson asked incredulously. "I doubt Ramirez is that unimaginative."

Ellingham gave the scene another look as Ramirez shared the food on his plate with Sanders. At that point he had to concede.

"Ok, fine, it's a date," he confessed. "Sue me, alright? I just... it's hard picturing Ramirez having a secret rendezvous in some storage space with an Army Chick. I mean, aren't there like rules against fraternization?"

"In the same service," Kowalski reminded him. "It's a bit murkier if you belong to different branches, like say Marines and Army. Either way, maybe that's the point, he didn't want to make a big deal out of it and get people talking."

"Well, why didn't he tell us?" Ellingham asked. "We wouldn't have ratted him out or anything."

"We can just ask him," Pearson suggested. "I mean, we have to get him out of here anyway."

Kowalski looked at the two again, thinking over that thought. He knew Pearson was right, but it seemed a shame to break up the scene. I mean, it wasn't much of a romantic dinner, but it was nice all the same. They were a little too far away at the moment to hear them, as they were speaking in hushed tones, but Ramirez looked fairly jovial with Sanders. She was currently chuckling at something he said. It felt a bit skeevy and voyeuristic to keep watching the like this, but it was just nice to see. A sweet little secret love nest, just for the two of them. The second any of them interrupted Ramirez that was over, both here and on the real Ascendant Justice. He supposed someone had to do it though, might as well be him. He walked over to the table, just as Ramirez was finishing up a story.

"Seriously, he just couldn't get his hand out of the jar," he laughed. "He went crazy, ended up smashing it open against the damn wall. Glass everywhere, cuts all over his hand."

"All that for a pickle?" Sanders chuckled.

"They were very good pickles according to my uncle," Ramirez snickered. "After that we made sure to have like tongs on hand so he wouldn't end up cutting his fingers open like that."

Kowalski tapped Ramirez on the shoulder as he finished. When he turned around, a dazed hazy look hung on his face for a few seconds before he shook it off. Sanders paused in the middle of a bite of her dinner. Before long, the glaze in Ramirez's eyes vanished, replaced with annoyance.

"Oh great, you had to find me like this huh?" He asked.

"Sorry man," Kowalski told him. "But you were stuck in a memory, we had to get you out. Breaking the script usually works and because we never knew about this-"

"I follow, I get it," Ramirez assured him, still sounding annoyed. "I'm just... not happy right now, is all."

"Why?" Ellingham asked. "Because we just blew open the location of your personal lover's lane?"

"Very funny, Ellingham," Ramirez grumbled. "Let's see how you like it when someone barges into your private memories. I'm sure you'll just laugh it right off, won't ya?"

"I think Ellingham is just taking this a little personal," Pearson explained.

"I mean, did you really just not trust us to keep your love life a secret?" Ellingham asked. "Like, did you think we'd squeal on you? Come on, man! We're a team."

Ramirez rolled his eyes at the accusation.

"I wasn't worried about you telling anyone," he informed them. "That wasn't the point, I knew I could trust you if I told you, I just didn't want to. That's all."

"Why?" Kowalski asked earnestly. "Why didn't you want to tell us?"

"You should know exactly why, Kowalski," Ramirez countered. "Privacy, my personal life is no one else's concern. On a ship like this, nothing is private, everyone knows everything. Ann and I just wanted one thing that was ours. Just some place away from everything else, to unwind and everything."

Kowalski could understand that to degree, but he wasn't sure what he meant when he singled him out specifically. However, he wasn't able to ask for clarification as Ramirez continued his train of thought.

"Besides, I didn't really think you'd care all that much even if I did tell you," he explained.

"What? Why?" Ellingham asked, sounding a bit insulted. "We're a squad, of course we'd care if you told us you had a girlfriend."

"Well you never really asked before," Ramirez corrected him. "In fact, none of you have ever asked me anything about my private life. Where I'm from, what I'm into, my family, why I joined up. You all talk among yourselves about that stuff, sure, but me? I'm the after thought in the squad during off hours."

Ellingham brushed the accusation off, even as the others looked at each other rather astounded by the claim. They tried to think of a mean to disprove it, but Kowalski couldn't remember when he had an honest talk, man to man, heart to heart with Ramirez. Ellingham tried to answer the claim though.

"That's ridiculous, we've talked plenty of times," Ellingham insisted.

"Yeah, but among you four I'm the fifth wheel," Ramirez claimed. "Be honest, what do you know about me? Come on, try to think."

Ellingham tried to think, as did Kowalski, Pearson and Agley. After about half a minute, they came up with nothing. Ramirez didn't look too shocked to say the least.

"You don't even know my first name, do you?" He asked them.

"Uh... Hugo?" Agley offered in a snap reply.

Ramirez shook his head.

"Oscar, my full name is Oscar Ramirez," he impressed upon them.

"Oh, well... now we know it," Agley answered in a chipper tone.

Ramirez just sighed and Kowalski instantly felt terrible.

"Ramirez... we're sorry, man," he confessed.

"Don't be sorry, I get it," Ramirez assured them. "I'm the Rookie, the new guy, I showed up late to the party, fresh faced and straight out of Boot. I didn't expect you to suddenly become my best friend. I just didn't think that our most concrete interaction was just going to be me taking so many orders. Ramirez, flank left. Ramirez, take out that turret. Ramirez, toss a grenade. Ramirez, take point. Ramirez, grab that rifle. Ramirez, suppressing fire. Ramirez, move up. Ramirez, get to cover..."

"Okay, okay, we get it," Pearson told him at last. "We made you the gopher, that was shitty of us."

"I don't care, guys, I really don't," Ramirez was quick to insist. "I'm the rookie, I had to prove myself to you all. And when the rest of the unit was basically annihilated, well, you turned to each other. I was the odd man out though. I was new, I didn't get to know everyone for as long as you all did. So... it made sense you left me out of things a lot."

"We... we didn't mean to," Agley tried to argue.

"Why didn't you say anything, dude?" Ellingham asked.

Ramirez just shrugged.

"I didn't want to rock the boat," he explained. "I just... kinda accepted being a little alienated I guess. I'm only saying anything now cause... well... you asked."

Now Kowalski really did feel like a heel and the others didn't look like they felt much better. Pearson, strangely enough, was the first one to step up to their neglected squadmate.

"Ramirez, we're sorry," he apologized. "We didn't mean to make you feel like the odd one out. I know you keep saying we don't have to apologize, but... dude, we do. Doesn't matter how new you are, you were there in the thick of it all. You lost the same things we did, the same people."

"Yeah, we're a squad, a team," Ellingham agreed. "If we make you into the outsider, that's on us. And ultimately it only hurts us."

"You're our friend, man," Agley insisted. "Sorry we didn't treat you like one."

Ramirez didn't say much, but he had a humble smile. When he turned to Kowalski, the Private felt the need to join the chorus, but also the courage to ask his previous question that had gotten lost in all of this.

"You're part of the unit no matter when you join," he told Ramirez. "Doesn't matter how much of an FNG you are. We're family at this point, and you're not the black sheep of it, dude. Although I gotta ask, what did you mean about me understanding that stuff about private lives better than the others?"

"Uh, duh," Ramirez replied. "Because you keep hanging out around Samara a bunch away from prying eyes."

The others snickered, very loudly to be precise. This again, he should've known.

"Why does everyone keep trying to bring this up?" He asked, vehemently annoyed. "Seriously? Why?"

"You asked," Ramirez reminded him.

He had asked, so perhaps this was on him for once. Not that it mattered, the answer had started something regardless and there was no stopping it. He would address this once and for all.

"Look, the reason I hang out with Samara so much is because she's been where I've been," he explained. "Where we've all been. She's been in more fights than any of us put together. She's lost folks, lost friends even. Talking to you guys helps, but she's someone from outside the squad that I can talk to about this. She's how I've been coping with the fact Reach was a shitshow, how everything that could go wrong did and has been since. She's the reason I'm not crazy right now because she gets it."

"How does she get it?" Ellingham asked. "Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying she can't, she was there with us, but it sounds like there's something specific you're alluding to there."

"Just her work as a Justicar," Kowalski explained. "All the lives she's saved, the innocents she's protected and even those she failed to save. She had a calling to protect people, like I did, but hers was more universal, not just her own species and she took it up during a time of peace. Not like us. She had everything, a good life, friends, family and she gave it all up to serve a code. And she's at peace with that... I guess, I wanted to find out how I could get there too."

The squad fell silent, letting Kowalski continue as his tone turned more sullen and insular.

"Samara gave up way more than me to serve," he thoughtfully explained. "I joined up cause there wasn't much for me back home. She knew the war she was signing up for was an endless one. Not hopeless, that's not how she views it, just endless. You can't destroy all injustice, I mean that's impossible. She does it anyway though. That's her strength, and I wanted to live up to that after Reach because she's already fighting something impossible and she hasn't lost her resolve even a little. I wanted that drive, I needed it after Reach. She has... greater purpose than me. Less selfish reasons really, she doesn't even think she's a hero, just a servant of justice. Me? I... I wanted to be a hero. Better than being nothing, right?"

Kowalski stopped himself before he got too deep into things. He didn't want to drag out a memory and get stuck in it or something. He shook off his lingering thoughts and reasserted himself once more.

"And the more time I spent with her, the more I realized Samara was hurting too," he explained. "That while she was helping me deal with the stress of fighting and everything, that she had her own pain. And I kept staying around I guess because I wanted to help with it."

"What was it?" Pearson asked, before clarifying his question. "The pain I mean, what was she dealing with?"

"She never... really said," Kowalski admitted. "She was... pursuing someone and it ended ugly. That's the gist of it, I think it hurts too much to talk about. It like... gnaws at her, like she feels guilt over it. I just... I wanted to help her like she did me. That's the reason I kept going back."

"I don't doubt it," Ellingham said earnestly. "That is... very much you. But... it's ok if there are other reasons, ya know?"

Before Kowalski could even really answer that with a rebuttal of some kind, the room started to quake a bit. They didn't feet any movement beneath their feet, but the room shook all the same as landscapes started to drift in and out of focus.

"Ah shit, now what?" Pearson asked with a growl.

Kowalski wasn't sure himself, but he wondered if this was because of him. The room seemed to be reacting to this conversation after all. In a place built from memories, sharing said memories no doubt had an effect on things. The emotions that went with those memories could only increase those effects. Although Kowalski wasn't entirely sure about that hypothesis, at least at first. Once he saw the faint image of Samara flickering in front of him though, his theory suddenly had more credence.

There she was again, holding a small asari in her arms, before things shifted again to a terrific battle. Biotic blasts were thrown, furniture went flying and then a shockwave of energy forced them all back. Kowalski landed on his backside as the image shifted back to Samara and the young asari girl again. She was trapped in a loop, just like he had been in boot camp. But the look on her face was not of confusion, but anguish. A haunted distant gaze that he had on his worst days and he had seen on Samara's more than once.

He needed to help her out of this. He had to help her out of this. He had already failed to do that before. He would not fail this time.

---

AN: As always, I fully expect a number of questions once enough people have processed this chapter(s). Rest assured, answers will be forthcoming, if not in this story than in my blog post that will be up once all of these chapters are. I hope you're enjoying this dump so far in any case and are at least a little intrigued about what is going on while also finding out more about our heroes... and maybe a little more of one of our villians it seems. I know at least one person wanted more of Sam and Kowalski, so... hey, you're getting it! Hope you're happy! Remember to review, check out the TV Tropes page and, of course, keep reading, cause there's more right around the corner.