Mass Effect 2: The Hero We Deserve
Chapter 2: Rude Awakenings
After what seemed like an eternity, I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry.
"There," a female voice said. "On the monitor. Something's wrong."
Slowly things swam into focus. It looked like I was staring at a ceiling.
"He's reacting to outside stimuli," a second voice, male this time, observed. "Showing an awareness of his surroundings."
Who was that out there? Where was I? I started to look around. It was hard to move. And to breathe. I had to work to pull the air into my lungs.
"Oh my god, Miranda. I think he's waking up."
Somehow, I managed to lift my head up. The first person I saw was a dark-haired woman. She was wearing a white jumpsuit, with black running along the shoulders and down the sleeves. Tilting my head to the side, I saw a bald man stare at me.
"Damn it, Wilson," the woman, Miranda, I guess, said. "He's not ready yet. Give him the sedative!"
Ready for what? I tried to ask that, but couldn't. It was getting really hard to breathe. And I could feel something thumping. I tried to lift my hand, like some goody-two-shoes kid back at school.
"Shepard—don't try to move," Miranda said, gently pushing my arm back down. "Just be still. Try to stay calm."
Easy for you to say, lady, I wanted to say. You're not the one with blurred vision. You're not hyperventilating. Or feeling something pound faster and faster in your chest...
Wow. Is this what it feels like to have a heart attack?
"Heart rate still climbing," Wilson reported. "Brain activity is off the charts."
An electronic alarm started beeping, roughly in sync with the pounding in my chest. It occurred to me that maybe I should start to be a little concerned.
"Stats pushing into the red zone. It's not working!" Wilson said tensely.
"Another dose," Miranda ordered. "Now!"
I felt the sedative this time. The pounding in my chest started to subside. And I suddenly felt a lot weaker. Or tired. Either way, I let my head drop back down. Miranda caught my head and gently lowered it to the bed. "Heart rate dropping," I heard Wilson say. "Stats falling back into normal range. That was too close. We almost lost him."
Miranda turned her head towards him, an angry look flaring over her face. "I told you your estimates were off. Run the numbers again."
Then she looked back at me. She was the last person I saw before everything went black again.
That was one heck of a sedative they gave me. Really knocked me out.
The first thing I noticed when I woke up again was this dim roaring in the background. Couldn't see where it was coming from, as it was really dark in here. Wherever here was.
"Wake up, Commander."
Wake up? Why did I have to wake—
The ground suddenly shifted, rocking the bed or table or whatever I was on.
Never mind.
"Shepard, do you hear me?" It was that voice again. Sounded like that woman I saw earlier. What was her name?
"Get out of that bed now—this facility is under attack."
So it was a bed. Could have fooled me, considering how hard it was. I opened my eyes, squinting at the light that suddenly streamed in. That would explain why it was so dark earlier. The next thing I noted was the sudden pain in my jaw. I lifted my hand to my face. Probing gingerly, I could feel how sore it was. I could also feel a bunch of scars running along the left side of my face.
"Shepard," the woman—Miranda! That's her name—said. "Your scars aren't healed, but I need you to get moving. This facility is under attack."
Glancing around, I couldn't see Miranda. Guess she was calling over the loudspeakers or something. I started to get up, only to pause as a bolt of pain flared across the right side of my body. Gritting my teeth, I clamped a hand to my ribs and slowly pulled myself to an upright position. Looking around, I could see I was in a sick bay of some sort. Maybe a surgical room, judging by all the automated arms hovering over my head. Along the far wall, I could see fires. And bolts of light, probably tracer rounds from weapons fire.
"There's a pistol and a suit of armour in the locker on the other side of the room," Miranda interrupted my thoughts. "Hurry!"
Looking around, I saw the locker she was talking about and stumbled over. Opening it, I pulled out a N7 hardsuit. Looked a bit different than mine, and not just because it was brand-spanking new. Shrugging, I popped it open and started to pull it on."
"You don't have time to wait around, Shepard," Miranda spoke again, a hint of exasperation in her voice. For the first time, I noticed she had some sort of accent. Aussie, I guessed.
"Miranda, right?" I called back. "I'm going as fast as I can, but it takes a while to put this thing on. And to start it up," I added, selecting the activation button as the HUD flickered to life. "That'll take—"
**system boot engaged**
**system boot complete**
**systems check initiated**
**power core initiated**
**life support on-line**
**environmental controls on-line**
**computer micro-frame on-line**
**sensor suite on-line**
**omni-tool interface on-line**
**weapons interface on-line**
**shield generator on-line**
**tactical cloak interface on-line**
**systems check complete**
"Oh. Never mind," I said. Always with a snappy remark, that's me.
I picked up the pistol lying at the bottom of the locker. M-3 Predator heavy pistol, my HUD told me. Never heard of that model, much to my surprise. (1) A pistol icon appeared on the bottom left corner of my HUD. "0 out of 0" it said. There was an error icon that flashed below it. Highlighting it, it told me that the weapon had no detectable thermal clip.
Thermal clip? What the heck was—I suddenly remembered that article I read before the Normandy was attacked. Something about adopting detachable heat sinks so we could sustain rapid weapons fire like the geth. Those things were already in circulation? That was fast. Another thing that didn't seem right.
"Uh... Miranda? This pistol doesn't have a thermal clip."
"It's a med bay," Miranda told me, as if that explained everything. Right. A med bay that has a hardsuit and a pistol.
"We'll get you a clip from—damn it!"
That didn't sound good.
"Keep your head down, Shepard! Shield yourself from the blast!"
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I ducked behind a couple canisters. I glimpsed some gas escaping from a cylinder next to the door before it exploded. Lifting my head once the shrapnel had passed, I saw that the door had been breached.
"Someone's hacking security trying to kill you," Miranda said. "Look for a thermal clip for your pistol."
Under attack. Scrounging for supplies. I was definitely back in familiar territory.
Just beyond the door were a couple small flat rectangles, with a glowing red panel flashing on their sides. Thermal clips, I guessed. I picked them up, slotted one in and put the rest in a handy-dandy pocket that was conveniently the right size. If I was reading the changes in my HUD correctly, I now had twelve shots before this thermal clip, and the remaining clips would give me another twenty-one shots.
Opening the next door in front of me, I saw a bunch of crates laid out like barricades, something that Miranda noted as well. "Looks like they set up a barricade to try holding the mechs off."
Mechs? These guys were using mechs? Was I on an Alliance colony or something? (2)
I saw another thermal clip flashing on the ground behind a crate in the centre of the room, and moved over to pick it up.
"Look out!"
Glancing up, I saw a bipedal humanoid mech coming down a ramp at the end of the room. I dove behind the crate just in time. I activated my HUD while it fired several more shots in futility, trying to figure out my options. I had a couple ammo mods that I could select—one to disrupt electromagnetic fields or synthetic systems and one to generate miniature mass effect fields around my weapon rounds. Given the circumstances, I picked the former.
"Hostiles detected using non-standard ammunition," the mech announced pleasantly over the blare of another three shots.
Nice to see its sensors were working. Now then, what else did I have? Some high-yield plasma round that I could launch from my omni-tool to burn things. Very nice. A tactical cloak—
Right. What the heck was that, anyway?
Shrugging, I selected it. I saw a shimmer around me, and then I just... faded away. I lifted my arm and stared at it. I could see the light bending around something shaped like an arm, but that was it.
I was invisible. Cool.
Taking a gamble, I stood up. The mech just stood there. I took a step towards it. Still nothing. I took another step, having half a mind to wave my hand or do a song-and-dance routine.
And then I glimpsed another shimmering and I flickered back into view.
"Hostiles detected."
Aw, crap.
Panicking, I cocked my arm back and gave it a solid uppercut. As it staggered back, I punched it again, then shot it in the head for good measure. Without warning, the mech exploded. Right in front of me. Drained a good chunk of my shields and knocked me back a step or two.
Note to self: don't shoot mechs in the head. At least, not when you're next to them.
"Keep moving," Miranda called out. "We need to get you to the shuttles."
I ran up the ramp, scooping up another thermal clip along the way. At the top of the ramp was a door that led to an observation room, based on the large "OBSERVATION" sign that ran along the wall.
"Shepard! Security mechs are closing in on your location. Take cover."
In the centre of the room was a group of waist-high cylinders surrounded by a transparent wall. I ducked behind it just before a mech strolled in, a dead ringer for the one I'd punched and shot in the last room. LOKI-class, according to my HUD. "Hostiles detected," it chirped. A quick scan indicated that there were no other mechs in the area, so I let it get a bit closer before firing a couple rounds into its head. For good measure, I jumped up and socked it in the jaw.
As it went down, I felt a round hit my shields. Looking up, I saw four more mechs enter the room. "Hostiles detected. Subdue and suppress," they said cheerfully.
Cursing, I ducked back behind my cover. I popped up every now and then to fire off a few shots. The lead mech was taking a lot of damage from me, so it was the first to explode when I plugged a round in its head. The explosion took out another mech. It also damaged the remaining two while stunning them momentarily. While they were standing there, I took advantage of the opportunity to finish them off.
"Nice work, Shepard," Miranda complimented me. "Coast is clear."
I took a moment to scrounge for clips. As I did so, it occurred to me that punching those mechs hadn't hurt at all. I mean, I was wearing a hardsuit, but I should've felt something. But I didn't. I pondered that oddity for a moment before shelving that thought for the time being. Leaving the observation room behind, I ran down a corridor. After a couple metres, it turned right. A bunch of windows ran along the length of that wall, giving me a nice view of an enormous mech stomp into view, mowing down some hapless person with a hail of machine gun fire.
"Don't waste time," Miranda interrupted my train of thought. "I can't keep the mechs distracted for long."
I ran down the corridor, through a door and entered the second level of some sort of cargo bay. "More reinforcements heading your way," Miranda said. "Grab the grenade launcher off the security officer's body."
Looking around, I saw the splattered remains of a man with a large weapon next to him. The grenade launcher, obviously. Picking it up, I looked around. On the ground floor below me, a door opened up, and a bunch of LOKI mechs walked in.
I looked down at my new grenade launcher. Not as elegant as a sniper rifle, but I guess it would have to do. Interface indicated that it used 'power cells' instead of thermal clips. Different sort of ammunition, I guess. Lifting it up, I launched a grenade. It flew through the air, plunked down at their feet, and blew them up.
Now that the coast was clear, I could head down to the ground. As if she'd read my mind, Miranda called out again: "Take the elevator down one floor."
Following her instructions, it didn't take me long to reach the ground. Where I soon realized that my grenade had also ruptured and ignited a gas main. It was spewing flames in a stream that passed in front of the door. Oops. Looking around, I saw that there was no other way out of here. Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and ran through. Luckily, I didn't get singed.
"You're doing... *hiss* —Shepard. Head to the... *hiss* —meet you..." Miranda's voice was breaking up under a sudden onslaught of static. "Shepard? —read me?" she tried to continue. "I've got... –closing in... –position."
"Miranda?" I called out. Nothing. Great.
Opening another door, I found myself in a lab. Two LOKI mechs were on the ground, crawling towards a nearby table. I didn't have time to see what they were up to, and I didn't want to use up my limited amount of ammo—boy, did I ever miss the days of infinite ammo—so I ran over and punched one of them in the head. It obligingly exploded, taking out the other mech.
Once my shields had recovered, I started to look around. On the left was a damaged laptop. After a bit of experimenting, I managed to pull up a log from Miranda.
"Progress is slow," she reported "but the subject shows signs of recovery. Major organs have regained function and there are signs of rudimentary neurological activity. In an effort to accelerate the process, we've moved from simple organic reconstruction of the subject to bio-synthetic fusion. Initial results show promise."
Major organs regaining function? Rudimentary neurological activity? Bio-synthetic fusion? Is she talking about me? Were things that... oh. Right. Got knocked into space. Took a dive into atmo. (3) OK, maybe I needed more than a night's observation.
Further rummaging uncovered a safe full of credits. Locking mechanism wasn't something I was familiar with. Had to bypass it by connecting similar-looking circuitry nodes. Still, I managed to get the hang of it. Barely.
Before I left, I came across another computer log, this one by the guy I saw when I briefly regained consciousness. Couldn't remember his name, but the contents made for interesting viewing:
"Log update: the cost of this project is astronomical—over four billion credits so far. But nobody seems to care that we've gone over budget. I don't know where the boss gets all his money... maybe it's better not to know. I just wish he'd kick a little more in my direction once in a while."
Like I said: interesting viewing. I didn't know whether this guy was just pissed or had a serious axe to grind. What concerned me was the cost of this project—which presumably saved my life—and the suggestion that the resources that funded it came from some questionable sources.
Well, I wouldn't be able to get any more answers here. I headed out and up some stairs I found. A door stood a few steps away from the stairs. There was a large window to the right which offered a nice vista of space. Looked like I was either on a space station or a starship.
"Shepard!"
To my left, there was a short path that ran along the length of the stairs. The wall had a bunch of windows about waist-high extending to the ceiling. On the other side of the glass, this guy had stepped out of a ton of smoke. He was waving to get my attention, then stopped and jerked around. "No! No! Help me!" he cried, just before another enormous mech loomed out of the smoke and blew him to bits with a rocket.
I braced myself, expecting the mech to attack. Instead, it just stood and looked at me, then stomped away. Maybe it figured it couldn't get to me directly. Heck, whatever that 'window' was made out of, it withstood a rocket at point-blank range.
Before I headed for the door, I saw another console. Tapping the controls, I saw that most of the files had been badly corrupted, but I managed to salvage another one from—Wilson! That's his name!
"Log update: I can't figure Miranda out. As project director, she should be ecstatic at all the progress we've made. But she's still the same old ice queen. Maybe she's worried Shepard might become the new favourite. Or maybe she's just a pure cold-hearted bitch."
OK, Wilson definitely had some major grievances. Could he have something to do with all these mechs going nuts? Or did Miranda try to pull the plug because she wasn't satisfied with the way things were going? For the moment, I was inclined towards the former, if only because Miranda did try to help guide me through this deathtrap earlier. Unless that's what they wanted me to think.
I was still mulling over that when I opened the door. My hand immediately raised my pistol, which I'd never gotten around to holstering, to firing position. My mind caught up a nanosecond later, seeing that there was definitely gunfire up ahead.
I'd entered the middle of a large room, with a catwalk running from wall to wall. At the end of the catwalk was another door. Of greater concern was the black guy in a hardsuit firing across a seemingly bottomless pit to another catwalk on the left end of the room. Where a trio of those LOKI mechs were firing back.
Seeing how he'd whittled one of them down to half-strength, I raised my pistol and took it out with a headshot. That got their attention. And the other guy's. "Shepard?" he gawked. "What the hell?" Then he shook his head and turned his attention back to the remaining mechs. With my help, we soon took them down.
Unfortunately, the door opened just as the last mech went down. As even more mechs poured in, I took advantage of the moment to run over to the guy before I could get shot. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "I thought you were still a work in progress."
"Are you with Miranda?" I asked in return.
He had the grace to look a little sheepish. "Yeah. Sorry, I forgot this is all new to you right now." He cautiously poked his head up. "I'm Jacob Taylor. I've been stationed here for—"
"Hostiles detected."
"Damnit!" he yelped, ducking back down. He popped back up almost immediately, just long enough to drop one of the mechs with a shot to the head, before huddling back down.
"Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda's got you running around. I'll fill you in, but we better get you to the shuttle first."
"Right. Just as soon as we get past all these mechs," I said drily. "What's with them, anyways?"
"Usually they fight for us, working as security," Jacob replied. "Somebody must've hacked 'em."
"Miranda said the same thing, shortly after she revived me," I confirmed.
Jacob shook his head. "That should be impossible, though. Unless you've got access. We've gotta get you outta here, Shepard."
Recognizing that this wasn't the best time for more questions, I decided to shelve my curiosity for now. "You know the area, Jacob. I'll follow you."
"First step—let's finish off these metal bastards. How you doing on thermal clips?"
"Got four on me," I replied.
Jacob frowned for a moment, before letting a tight grin show. "Same here. Not much, but I'm also a biotic. Just give the order when you want me to hit them with the good stuff."
I nodded. Motioning for him to stay down, I poked my head up long enough to get a sense of where the mechs were. "Three mechs evenly spread out," I reported. "Do something with the left one, then help me with the one in the middle. We'll save the right one for last. Weapons free in three... two... one... go!"
Jacob did something that lifted 'his' mech up in the air. It soared briefly, arms flailing, before it dropped over the edge and into the abyss below. By that point, I was almost done with the centre mech, so Jacob chose to start on the last one. Within a couple minutes, we were home free. Breathing a sigh of relief, Jacob stood up and holstered his pistol. "Ready to get the hell off this station?"
I held up a hand. "Before we go anywhere, I need some answers."
"Sure," Jacob nodded. "What do you want to know?"
"I've been hearing all sorts of things. How the progress of my recovery was slow. How a lot of effort and money was spent. And now you say I should've been a 'work in progress' instead of running around. What's going on?"
Jacob took a deep breath. Uh oh, I thought.
"You and your ship were attacked. The Normandy was destroyed. You were killed. Dead as dead can be when they brought you here."
Say what?
"Our scientists spent the last two years putting you back together. You've been comatose, or worse, that whole time." Jacob paused before adding "Welcome back to your life."
"That's..." I paused and shook my head. While that made sense, given how I dove into atmo without proper equipment, actually hearing what happened was something else. "I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around that," I confessed.
"Yeah, I can imagine," Jacob said sympathetically. "The Alliance officially declared you KIA. The whole galaxy thinks you're dead."
Great. I'm a zombie.
"How bad were my injuries?"
Jacob shook his head. "I'm no doctor, but it was bad. When I first saw you, you were nothing but meat and tubes. Anywhere else, they'd have put you in a coffin. But Project Lazarus was different. Cutting-edge technology."
Well, at least that explained why people were using mechs now, why these new-fangled thermal clips were suddenly all the rage, and why I'd never heard of an M-3 Predator heavy pistol. I suddenly recalled how easily I could go mano-a-mano with the mechs earlier. Did that mean... "What are you talking about, exactly?" I demanded. "Cloning? Cybernetics?"
Jacob shrugged. "I don't know the details. You'd have to ask the scientists." He seemed to know what I was getting at, adding "But I'm pretty sure you're not a clone. They wanted to bring you back exactly as you were. You're still you... you just might have a few extra bits and pieces now."
Well that made me feel all better. Now I was just a cyborg zombie. I remembered that neat little cloaking function I used earlier. Make that a cyborg ninja zombie. Or a cyborg zombie ninja. Or a...
Before I wasted too much time figuring out all the permutations, I moved on to another question: "Did anyone else make it off the Normandy?"
"About half the crew survived, including the non-Alliance guys."
"Do you know what any of them are doing now?"
"Sorry, I don't know," Jacob apologized. "It's been two years. They've moved on. Could be anywhere."
It was hard to imagine people declaring me dead and moving on. For me, it seemed like yesterday. It suddenly occurred to me that Jacob probably knew quite a bit about me, but I knew squat about him. Time to change that. "What's your job here?"
"Depends on who you ask," he answered. "Technically, I'm Miranda's top lieutenant. But I'm just a soldier. Served five years in the Alliance before this. Now I'm in charge of the station's security. Usually a lot more dull than this. Normally I don't fire my gun unless it's target practise."
Now we were getting somewhere. Jacob's frank answers and combat skills were consistent with an ex-Alliance marine. And now I knew we were on a station.
"Miranda woke me up and was talking to me over the radio. We lost contact just before I ran into you. What does she do around here?"
"Miranda Lawson is the station's ranking officer," Jacob told me. "She led the Lazarus team. It was her job to bring you back to life, no matter what. Should've guessed she'd try to save you. She's not about to give up now. You said you lost contact? Could you tell what was happening?"
"She was coming across clear as day, and then her voice started getting lost in static," I replied. "There was some gunfire and an explosion right before I lost her."
"She knows how to take care of herself," Jacob said before frowning in concern. "But I hope she's okay."
I couldn't really think of any more questions. At least, any questions whose answers I wasn't afraid of hearing. So I decided it was time to go. "What's the quickest way to those shuttles?"
"Depends on where the mechs are thickest," Jacob said. "It's probably best if we—"
"Check. Check," a voice interrupted us. "Anyone on this frequency? Anybody still alive out there? Hello?"
"Wilson," Jacob called out, raising a hand to his right ear. "This is Jacob. I'm here with Commander Shepard. Just took out a wave of mechs over in D Wing."
Wilson sounded surprised. "Shepard's alive? How the hell... never mind. You need to get him out of there. Get to the service tunnels and head for the network control room."
"Roger that, Wilson," Jacob replied. "Stay on this frequency."
"I remember Wilson from the first time I woke up," I said, casually probing for details.
"He's the chief medical officer. Answers directly to Miranda."
But he wasn't too happy about it, if his log recordings were any indication. Speaking of which, there was a datapad on the ground nearby. With another recording—seriously, have these guys ever heard of encrypting their logs? Not that I was complaining or anything. These logs were providing lots of interesting intel. Like this little gem from Wilson:
"Log update: The Lazarus Project is about to enter the final phase. It took nearly two years, but we did it. Commander Shepard is alive! This is the most amazing medical achievement in recorded history. Maybe now Miranda will finally show some appreciation for everything I've done."
After scooping up another thermal clip, Jacob and I left the room and all of its broken mechs.
We went down a corridor and entered some dimly lit server room. I felt this odd tingling sensation on the back of my neck, just before a couple mechs popped up and started firing at us. Kinda caught us by surprise. We took them out, but our shields took a pounding in the process.
"Wilson?" Jacob called out on the comm. "Find us another way out of here. Preferably one that doesn't lead straight into an enemy squad!"
"Just keep moving towards the control room," we heard. "Don't get pinned down. I'll see what I can do."
Shaking my head, I led Jacob out of the room and up some stairs. There was another door to the right, and a computer console just behind us to the left. I made my way over, gingerly stepping over the corpses that were scattered in front of it. The console had yet another recording, this one by Miranda:
"Physical reconstruction of subject is complete, but we still need to evaluate all mental and neurological functions. Our orders were clear: make Commander Shepard who he was before the explosion—the same mind, the same morals, the same personality. If we alter his personality in any way, if he's somehow not the man he used to be, the Lazarus Project will have failed. I refuse to let that happen."
Interesting. Three different people insisting that they brought me back without screwing my mind up in the process. At least, not anymore than it already was. If this was a trick, it was a very thorough one. If not, maybe these guys were lousy judges of character.
"Oh God! They found me! Help!"
That was Wilson, out of the blue. Jacob activated his comm. "Wilson? Where are you?"
"Server Room B!" Wilson cried out frantically. "Hurry! They're out of control!"
"Through that door," Jacob pointed out the door I passed up earlier. "Hurry!"
"Oh God! I'm hit! They shot me!" Wilson yelled, just before we burst through the door.
The server room was another dimly lit chamber filled with computers and cables and tech. Wilson was lying on the ground. "Bastards got me in the leg," he cursed.
"Nice to see you again," I greeted him. "You know, after the first time I regained consciousness."
"Yeah. That was me," Wilson panted. "How about we talk about this after we fix my leg?"
"Should be some medi-gel in the first aid station on the wall," Jacob said. "Hopefully there's enough to get him up and moving again."
I directed Jacob to stand guard while I swiped the medi-gel. Only needed one to fix him. Waste of medi-gel—the wound wasn't that serious. In fact, it looked fairly superficial. And self-inflicted. I kept that to myself, of course.
Wilson slowly got to his feet. "Thanks, Shepard. Never thought you'd save my life. Guess that makes us even now. I thought maybe I could shut down the security mechs. But whoever did this fried the whole system. The damage's completely irreversible."
"We didn't ask what you were doing," Jacob replied, a slight note of confusion—and possibly suspicion—in his voice. "Why do you even have security mech clearance? You were stationed in the bio wing."
"Weren't you listening?" Wilson's rebuttal seemed awfully aggressive. "I came here to try and fix this. Besides, I was shot! How do you explain that?"
I felt that odd tingling sensation at the back of my neck again. It seemed to coincide with my suspicions about this guy. Serious grudge against his boss. Surprised that I was alive. Incapacitated with a self-inflicted wound. And now trying a bit too hard to defend a rather flimsy excuse for getting caught somewhere he shouldn't be.
Again, I made sure my suspicions didn't show on my face. "You're all strangers to me," I said. "Let's get someplace safe. Then we'll sort out whose fault it is."
"Right, Shepard," Jacob agreed. "We need to find Miranda. We can't leave her behind."
"Forget about Miranda," Wilson said quickly. "She was over in D wing. The mechs were all over that sector. There's no way she survived."
"A bunch of mechs won't stop her," Jacob scoffed. "She's alive."
"Then where is she?" Wilson pounced. "Why haven't we heard from her? There are only two possible explanations: she's either dead... or she's a traitor."
"Then why did she wake me up and warn me about the attack?" I asked.
"Okay, maybe she's not a traitor," Wilson quickly said. "But that doesn't change the facts. We're here, she's not. We need to save ourselves."
The fact that he was more interested in saving his neck than responding to my question was very interesting.
Wilson pointed behind him at another door. "The shuttle bay is only a few..."
And that was when a quartet of mechs came in. They couldn't get at us, as they were blocked by a bunch of canisters that were in the way, but the three of us ducked for cover nonetheless. Jacob nudged me and pointed at the canisters. "If we can overload the locks on those canisters, the resulting short will ignite their contents," he hissed. "That'll take out the mechs and clear a path to the shuttles."
"If they're that volatile, why'd you store them in the server room?" I asked. "Never mind," I quickly added upon seeing his exasperation. "Gift horse, mouth, got it. I can't do anything about that, though."
"Wilson!" Jacob called out. "You're up!"
Wilson nodded and sent a signal from his omni-tool. The canisters blew up with a satisfying boom, taking all four mechs with them.
"That's it! Let's get out of here!" Wilson said, moving for the door. I started to move after him, and then noticed that Jacob hadn't taken a step. "Jacob?"
"We took 'em down, but this is getting tense. Shepard, if I tell you who we work for, will you trust me?"
"This isn't really the time, Jacob," Wilson warned.
"We won't make it if he's expecting a shot in the back," Jacob retorted.
True enough. I was already starting to get antsy. And that damn tingling still hadn't gone away yet.
Wilson crossed his arms. "If you want to piss off the boss, it's your ass, Jacob."
Jacob took a deep breath. "The Lazarus Project, the program that rebuilt you... it's funded and controlled by Cerberus."
Cerberus? Pro-human, kill-or-enslave-all-the-aliens, start-crazy-secret-projects-that-go-horribly-wrong, terrorist organization Cerberus? Aw, crap. For the first time I noted the elongated hexagon emblazoned on his chest plate, with two lines outlining the bottom four sides. I'd seen it scattered around the station and on various bodies as well. Was that the Cerberus logo? If so, that was rather odd—I was sure I'd seen that symbol before. (4)
I settled for raising an eyebrow. "I wiped out my share of Cerberus projects when I was a Spectre. Back then, they were trying to kill me. Why the change of heart?"
"Those answers are way above my pay grade," Jacob replied.
Of course they were.
"But basically—things change."
Of course they did.
"The Alliance declared you dead. They gave up. Cerberus spent a fortune to bring you back."
Naturally. With no strings attached, right?
Jacob must've sensed my scepticism. He took a step towards me, hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Look, I'd be suspicious, too. But right now, we have to work together. I thought you deserved to know what's what."
He was right on all counts. And I did appreciate his candour. Even if he was an obedient soldier-turned-Cerberus lapdog.
"Once we're off the station, I'll take you to the Illusive Man. He'll explain everything. I promise."
"Is he in charge of all this?" I asked.
"Yeah," Wilson said. "That's not his real name, of course. No one knows who he really is."
"It was a code name the Alliance used for him," Jacob explained. "It kinda stuck." (5)
Must have. Hard to imagine someone with that much money and influence saddling himself with a nom de guerre that sounded that dumb.
"I see," I finally said. "Well, I appreciate being informed... eventually. Unless you have any more information, maybe we should get moving."
We'd barely left the room when I stopped to grab a datapad that some dead Cerberus operative had dropped. For once, it was actually encrypted. The encryption algorithms were based on a totally different principle than what I was used to—yet another sign of how much things had changed. Still, I managed to figure it out—the decryption key was based on sets of computer code. Once you figured out the patterns and arrangements of those codes, it was easy to just scan for those specific configurations. Within a minute, I'd broken through and obtained a nice handful of creds. After that, we made our way to the cargo bay connected to the shuttle landing zone. Like any other cargo bay, it was full of crates in varying shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, this one also was infested with mechs.
We managed to get the drop on the first one, who were still crouched on the floor in shutdown mode. Before the other mechs could get a bead on us, I directed Jacob and Wilson to either side of the door. Meanwhile, I used my cloak to determine where the mechs were and how best to direct our weapons fire. Whenever the cloak ran out of juice, I just ducked for cover until it recharged.
It was during this fight that I noticed something. If I didn't do anything, the cloak would last just over five seconds. If I fired a weapon, the cloak would destabilize immediately. Curiously, the shots fired while I was cloaked seemed to do more damage. Seemed like the energy that made me invisible was somehow transferred to the weapon rounds as they passed through the cloaking field, something that resulted in its disruption. In other words, it was an advantage, but not one that I could rely on excessively.
I started to explore the cargo bay after we destroyed the mechs, Jacob and Wilson in tow. We had just reached the top level when mechs poured through from both sides, effectively flanking us on two sides. "Allied forces have engaged," one of them chirped. That was when Wilson started freaking out.
Ignoring his babbling about how it was "game over," I told Jacob to concentrate on the mechs coming out of the doors on our right while I tackled the ones on the left. That plan seemed to go well at first, as I was able to deal with half of 'my' mechs. Then I felt a bullet ricochet off my hardsuit. Something that I shouldn't have felt.
Glancing at my HUD, I realized that my shields had been drained. It didn't take long to figure out what happened. Jacob had had difficulty in pinning down the mechs on his side, allowing one of them to flank our position and get a line of sight on me. Cursing, I switched targets and fired off a couple shots, blowing off one of its arms. Undeterred, it switched its grip on its pistol to a one-handed grasp, calmly chiming "Backup systems engaged." Thankfully, those backup systems weren't enough to handle a headshot.
With that potentially lethal distraction eliminated, I waited until my shields recharged before taking out the last of the mechs. Then I resumed my scrounging. Picked up a thermal clip, hacked a safe or two for creds and found another laptop. Turning it on, I scrolled through the files, looking for something I hadn't seen before. After a while, I found Miranda's first entry:
"Test subject has been recovered, but the damage is far worse than we initially feared. In addition to the expected burns and internal injuries from the explosion, subject has suffered significant cellular breakdown due to long-term exposure to vacuum and sub-zero temperatures."
Well ain't that peachy.
"Despite the extent of the physical trauma, Wilson assures me that the subject is salvageable. The Lazarus Project will proceed as planned."
Oddly enough, I wasn't too alarmed by the demotion from "human being" to "test subject". Maybe I was still running on auto-pilot and adrenaline after being so rudely awakened. I tried to convince myself that was the reason, and not the fact that...
I shelved my fears before I could voice them to myself and trigger an immediate nervous breakdown. "Jacob, where do we go?"
Wilson answered before Jacob could open his mouth. "Shuttle Bay 2, over there," he pointed to the right door, where the other group of mechs came out. "Come on."
We trotted over to the door, with Wilson in the lead. "C'mon, through here," he urged, activating the door controls. "We're almost at the..."
The door hissed open, revealing a small shuttle bay, a shuttle, and a woman. I could tell she was in excellent shape, with long toned legs, curvy hips and a great pair of bre—er—assets. Kinda hard to miss, given the outfit she was poured into. Some kind of skin-tight jumpsuit consisting of white hexagons, which contrasted with the black sleeves, fingerless gloves and knee-high high-heeled boots. She sported a black and yellow Cerberus symbol, just above her left breast.
I noted all that, and still had time to see the brief look of surprise that swept over her face. Before it was replaced by a look of anger, anyways.
"Miranda!" Wilson gasped. "But, you were—"
Her pistol seemed to leap into her hands and fire. As Wilson dropped, I noted that the bullet entered just under his chin. The lack of spray showed that it must have continued in an upward vector before lodging itself in his brain. An incredible display of marksmanship, made all the more impressive by the speed at which it was fired.
"Dead?" Miranda finished, staring coldly at his body.
Jacob jogged up and gawked at Miranda. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.
Miranda looked up at him, glanced down at Wilson's body, then looked up again. "My job," she replied. "Wilson betrayed us all." Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a sense of betrayal and disappointment in her pale blue eyes. Something that belied the ruthlessness of her earlier action.
At this point, I noticed that I was pointing my pistol at her. Automatic reflex, I guess. I slowly lowered it until it was pointing at the ground. "I had a feeling Wilson was just looking for a chance to shoot me in the back," I admitted, recalling the suspicions that had been forming for a while now.
"Good instincts," Miranda complimented. "Some people are far too trusting to ever see that coming."
"But you should have taken him alive," I continued. "To see what he knew."
Miranda disagreed. "Too risky," she said, shaking her head. "I've put too much time and effort bringing you back to life to let you get killed now."
"You really think Wilson's capable of that?" Jacob asked.
Miranda glanced at Wilson's body again. She answered Jacob with two simple words: "Not anymore." Then she turned to me. "Come on. Let's grab this shuttle and get out of here. My boss wants to speak with you."
"You mean the Illusive Man?" I asked. "I know you work for Cerberus."
She tilted her head towards Jacob. "Ah, Jacob," she said. "I should've known your conscience would get the better of you." She didn't sound surprised, betrayed or disappointed. More like it was a contingency that she had anticipated from the beginning.
"Lying to the commander isn't the way to get him to join our cause," Jacob replied angrily. Guess her actions crossed the line for him. Shame he left the Alliance. He was just the kind of guy they were looking for.
Miranda turned back towards me. "Well, since we're getting everything out in the open, is there anything else you want to ask before we go, Commander?"
"Where were you during the attack?" I started. Call me paranoid, but it was awfully convenient how she showed up in the nick of time.
"Besides trying to save your life?"
"Yeah, besides that."
"Wilson figured out I was helping you, and he sent an army of mechs to take me out. I got here as soon as I could. Probably a little too soon, if you ask Wilson."
Next question: "Where are we going?"
"Another Cerberus facility. The Illusive Man is waiting for you there."
I raised an eyebrow. "And if I don't feel like tagging along?"
"This is the only shuttle off the station. You want to stay and rot with the mechs?"
I simply pointed down at the second shuttle, which I'd seen on the lower level of the cargo bay during our first firefight with the mechs.
"Take a closer look," she invited. I took her up on her offer, and soon saw that one of the thrusters was badly damaged. From the look of things, it wouldn't be able to lift off, much less take me anywhere. For the time being, it looked like I was stuck with these guys. Unless I wanted to kill them and fly off without them. As tempting as that sounded, I had no idea what was going on. Barrelling off without any intel would just get me spaced. (6) Again.
"What about the rest of the people on this station?" I objected. "Shouldn't we try to find them?"
"This is the evac area. If they're not here by now, they're not coming," Miranda replied.
"We can't leave without knowing for sure," I protested. Had to maintain my rep, especially after a two year hiatus. "We need to go back and look."
"Don't you get it?" Miranda asked. "The only one worth saving is you. Everyone else is expendable."
"She's right," Jacob sighed. "We all knew the risks when we signed up. Without you, there's no point to any of this."
"Why did you do all this, anyways?"
"Maybe you should ask the Illusive Man that," she replied. "All I know is that he poured virtually unlimited resources into Lazarus. Obviously he has some kind of plan for you."
Great. TIMmy has a plan for me. (7) Just what I wanted to hear.
"Fine," I decided, holstering my pistol. "Guess I've had enough of this station to last a lifetime."
"Or two, in your case," Miranda said dryly. "Come on." She led us towards the shuttle. As she walked, I noticed she also had a great ass.
Yes. I do notice these things. Sue me.
We boarded the shuttle without another word. While Jacob settled in one of the seats, Miranda activated the autopilot, programming a course to some destination that was simply marked "Minuteman Station." While she did that, I accessed the shuttle's sensors and scanned the station.
Miranda saw what I was doing. "Anything?"
"Nope," I replied, staring at the results on the screen. "No other life signs. Just electronic signatures."
For a moment, I thought she looked sad. When I looked again, I just saw a cool, expressionless mask. Maybe I was seeing things. "Let's buckle up," she said. "We'll be lifting off in a moment."
Miranda and I went back to the seating area and secured ourselves. She wound up sitting next to Jacob, while I took a seat opposite them. I could have taken any of the other seats—the shuttle looked like it could seat twelve people, as long as they weren't claustrophobic. But I didn't. What can I say? I'm a sociable kind of guy.
Miranda remained silent until we entered FTL. "Before you meet with the Illusive Man, we need to ask a few questions to evaluate your condition."
"Come on, Miranda," Jacob groaned. "More tests? Shepard took down those mechs without any trouble. That has to be good enough."
Not for Miranda. From what I had gathered, she wasn't the sort to settle for anything less than perfection. "It's been two years since the attack," she replied. "The Illusive Man needs to know that Shepard's personality and memories are intact. Ask the questions. Start with personal history."
"Okay." Jacob pulled up some data on his omni-tool. "Records show you were a spacer kid. Raised mostly on one ship or another," he began. "You enlisted and won a medal fighting batarians during the Skyllian Blitz. Do you remember that?"
Do I remember that? That was how I got this goddamn reputation for being a Hero who loved suicidal missions in the first place!
"A lot of lives depended on me holding that position," I replied, drawing on the vast repertoire of canned answers I'd developed over years of interviews. "I did what I had to."
Jacob shook his head in admiration. "However you want to put it, it was damn impressive. I had friends who were there."
"Let's try something more recent," Miranda said. "Virmire, where you destroyed Saren's cloning facility. You had to leave one of your squad behind to die in the blast."
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams," I nodded.
"It was your call," Jacob said. "Why did you leave her behind?"
I suddenly felt overwhelmed by a surge of memories as I recalled all the conversations we had and all the missions we completed. Especially that last fateful one. "I left a friend to die that day, and I didn't do it casually," I replied after a second. "But I had to save as many people as I could.
"Ash gave her life for the rest of the squad," I emphasized firmly. "Without her, I couldn't have stopped Saren. She died a hero."
A real hero, I silently added. (8)
"I understand, Commander," Jacob said apologetically. "And I wasn't judging or second-guessing your decision. Everybody at Cerberus knows that cloning facility had to be destroyed."
Miranda leaned forward. "Shepard, think back to the Citadel, after the Alliance saved the Destiny Ascension, and you killed Saren. What happened next?"
"Captain Anderson, Ambassador Udina and I met the Council on the Presidium, outside the Wards Access point. Humanity was offered a spot on the Council. I recommended Captain Anderson for the position."
"Yes, Captain Anderson is now Councillor Anderson," Miranda informed me. "Though from what I hear, he preferred life in the military." (9)
"Still, good to know that the human Council member isn't going to put politics ahead of defence," Jacob added.
"Your memory seems solid," Miranda said thoughtfully. "There are other tests we really should run—"
"Come on, Miranda," Jacob rolled his eyes. "Enough with the quizzes. The memories are there, and I can vouch for Shepard's combat skills personally."
Miranda seemed to respect Jacob's opinions. "I suppose you're right," she conceded. "We'll have to hope the Illusive Man accepts our impromptu field test as evidence enough."
At that point, we exited FTL. We sat there in silence, as the shuttle took us to a space station that was hovering above a planet and docked.
Come right in, said the spider to the fly.
I didn't exactly have time to catch my breath once we arrived. Miranda and Jacob both prodded me to go meet the Illusive Man while they stayed behind in the waiting area. Guess TIMmy wanted some one-on-one face time.
Following their directions, I headed out of the waiting area, down a flight of stairs and into a small room. A small, empty, dark room. Did I turn left when I should've turned right or something?
Perplexed, I walked in. As I looked around, I noticed a set of blue lights that formed a circle on the floor in the centre of the room. On a hunch, I stepped in.
With an electronic whirring, a columnar grid of orange lights swept up around me. It seemed to scan my body, and I had to resist the urge to protect the ol' family jewels. As soon as the grid reached the ceiling, the room around me dissolved away.
A large room flickered into view. The only occupant was a man, casually sitting in a chair with a cigarette in his hand. I couldn't really make out many details. The room was dark, lit only by an image of a dying sun displayed in the background and a bunch of computer panels that flickered nearby, so it was hard to see his features. The only thing I could see clearly was his eyes.
"Commander Shepard," he said, his eyes piercing the gloom like a pair of cold cerulean laser sights.
"Illusive Man," I replied.
(1): Shepard's surprise comes from his experience with acquiring different arms and equipment throughout his missions, which he often referred to as 'scrounging' or 'looting'. The fact that he couldn't identify this model was the first indication that something, from his perspective, was amiss.
(2): Use of these synthetic combat units, colloquially known as 'mechs,' were originally restricted for security detail and guard duty in locations where manpower or 'round the clock surveillance by organics was impractical. The staggering losses in the civilian and military sectors caused by Saren and Sovereign prompted more wide-scale adoption of these units. They enjoy particular favour by criminal and mercenary elements, which use them for extra, or expendable, manpower.
(3): An Alliance slang term for atmosphere.
(4): The symbol actually belongs to Cord-Hislop Aerospace. Officially, it is a well-respected starship manufacturer. Unofficially, it was identified as a front for Cerberus. It is worth noting that this latter fact was more widely known in the Terminus Systems than in the more "lawful" sectors of Citadel space.
(5): To elaborate, an e-mail was sent throughout the internet after the Battle of Shanxi that urged humanity to "take its rightful place" in the galaxy, demanded that it be more assertive of its power when dealing with these new alien species and emphasized the need for a guard or 'Cerberus' to protect humanity from the aliens. Failing to trace the source of this transmission, Alliance intelligence sought to belittle and dismiss the inflammatory human-centric diatribe by calling the sender an "illusive man." It is believed that the sender adopted that name as his new identity and founded a covert group, Cerberus, to carry out his agenda.
(6): An Alliance slang term for getting sucked into the vacuum of space and killed.
(7): A nickname based on the acronym for "The Illusive Man." Shepard used the term in private, much like he had a similarly derogative name for the original members of the Council.
(8): It's good that Shepard acknowledged Gunnery Chief Williams' sacrifice. The way he compares his own heroism to Chief Williams', however, brings to mind the phrase 'The more things change, the more they stay the same."
(9): I must admit that Ms. Lawson's sources were accurate.