Chapter 2: Mask
February 7, 2185 CE
Location – Classified
One of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy sat at a large, beautifully adorned desk, ears twitching slightly. He was afraid. He had not felt fear, true fear, in years, but this… What he had learned, the truth of what Commander Shepard had discovered, was terrifying. The Reapers, returning to harvest all life in the galaxy. There was only one thing to do: survive. Fortunately, that was what he did best.
"Status report," he spoke, his voice carefully garbled by voice scramblers.
One of innumerable comm channels gained priority at his touch. "No change. The asset activated our virus in the Cerberus station's systems, but internal encryption systems were more sophisticated than projected, which slowed our control of internal mech security forces. It should be enough, but we lost contact with the asset."
The Shadow Broker contemplated for a moment. "Very well. Alert me with any update."
Deep Space, Lazarus Research Station
Pain came back, roiling through her body, pounding in her skull.
Shepard groaned and opened her eyes, looking for a distraction, for anything to take her mind off the pain. She noticed a side door, something she would not have missed before... before whatever had happened to her. Something was wrong with her. She gritted her teeth and climbed hand over hand up the wall, hauling herself back to her feet.
She breathed heavily while leaning against the wall and stared down at her gloved hands. They felt wrong. With a twist she popped the pressure seal and removed her right gauntlet to see what was beneath. Her hands were not what she remembered, devoid of hard-earned scars. They were clean, with baby-pink flesh. Worse, her fingertips were… glowing. The soft top layer of skin had scraped away completely, leaving the remaining skin thin enough to see the faint electronic glow of cybernetics beneath. Her mind froze, grinding to a halt, and something within her died. The part of her mind comparing herself to the woman she had once been, gauging what had changed and what was still the same, fell silent.
Commander Shepard was dead. Whatever she was now, it bore no relation to what had come before.
She sought out the only source of escape available to her and sunk into the pain. It consumed her, blocking all thoughts, all fear, all horror. She sank and sank and sank until she was empty.
The door opened silently, revealing a private lab station. Neatly arranged pens and paper, printed EEG readings, and biofeedback response graphs stood in stark contrast to the chaos of the hallway. The chair was pushed in. She pressed on.
Mechs tried to stop her, but they stood no chance. She made no noise as she danced from cover to cover other than the metronome-steady hammer of her pistol. There was no cry of pain, no grimace when microscopic shards of melting plastic from a near miss splashed across her face. This was beyond the groove of a totally competent N7 marine, or even the deadly focus of the Council Spectre she had been. This was emptiness.
Somewhere deep inside, the part of her that wasn't drowned in the agony of searing weld-marks that were all that held her body together observed and strategized in complete detachment. It was a dream, a theoretical practice in tactics she watched someone else perform. The elation of success, the triumph of victory, were now merely the satisfaction that the plan had worked, that whoever's body she was ordering around hadn't botched it.
Her body slid the last meter into cover, biotically pulling a mech to its knees as white-hot armor-piercing rounds flashed around her, and she noted that with each use her biotic pull and push became a little stronger. It would be some time before she would achieve her former strength as she peeked her M-3 around cover to blow off a mech's head with a round exactly in the center of its telescopic lens.
She rounded the next corner and saw another human being. He was pinned down on a walkway ahead of her, trading fire with a handful of mechs on another walkway a good ten meters away. She calmly walked through the incoming fire as the mechs targeted her. The human, a burly-muscled, dark-skinned man wearing the same uniform as the bodies scattered about the station, turned, and gaped at her entrance. She dropped down into cover beside him just as her shields gave out. Just as she'd calculated, no wasted effort.
He tactfully passed over her apparent insanity. "Shepard? What are you doing here? I thought you were still a work in progress."
Shepard stared blankly back him as something happened inside her, a shift. Perhaps it was the presence of another human, or maybe it was having a man abruptly so close, but she couldn't show the emptiness that consumed her. She had lost herself, but that loss was personal, too bleeding and raw to share. She put on a mask, the old Commander mask she'd used to gain the respect of her squad mates in the Alliance marines, and later of the crew of the Normandy SR-1.
The mask's origins went all the way back to Earth, and buried memories rushed back unbidden.
April 11th, 2172
Earth / Germany / Berlin
She grew up on the streets of Europe, eventually learning that her street, with its nooks and crannies, its abandoned warehouse where the Angeles gang slept, and even two streets down where the Serpentis gang lurked, all belonged to a country called Germany. Not that Germany did much for her. Police hovercars avoided this part of the city.
She spoke a mix of languages, the English the whole world spoke, but also a passable Spanish by the standards of the Hispanic immigrants that made up the core of the gang. She was even starting to get the hang of German. Languages, speaking, came naturally to her. All of which was why she, a (mostly?) white girl of uncertain origins was allowed to run with the Angeles. It made her useful in bargaining with the off-world Red Sand dealers that were the gang's primary source of income. Then she sold the highly addictive hallucinogenic to the German natives, or far more frequently, to the other immigrants which inhabited the tenement buildings.
She lived on the razor's edge, the better profit margins she brought in all that could make up for the hit to the gang's reputation in relying on an outsider. Her eloquence was all that kept her alive—no other gang would take her in after associating with the Angeles, and she wouldn't survive a week in contested territory without a gang to back her. That life-or-death need to succeed, to beat out anyone and anything at the bargaining table, had hardened into a mask she put on, a cynical, totally self-assured braggart who was about to get her way again. It also brought the self-discipline to never, ever take it off.
Her only escape, the only letup in the need to be useful and respected every second of every day was at public school. The gang sometimes let her attend classes after she came painfully close to pleading and promised it would let her get at least one percent better margin on Red Sand deals. The economics she ate up once she realized that each company was a big gang, and the government the occasional fleet of police coming in to brutalize someone for expanding into territory they deemed off-limits. The marketplace was second nature after the give and take of the street.
She grasped history and demographics, how each big gang (called a country) in Europe had not recruited enough new members to take care of the old ones and collapsed. But her real joy came from listening to the teachers talk. Their initial fear of her and especially her associates faded as she felt safe enough to take off the mask for a moment at a time. Her enthusiasm, and a little silver-tongued persuasion, opened them right up. They spoke so elevated and linguistic, for no more reason than to share ideas. It was intoxicating.
And then it changed.
Late one night she walked to a meeting point with a dealer backed by two Angeles goons eying the streets when an explosion rocked the fear-induced quiet of the cold spring night. She squinted and looked away, blinded by the glaring light of a flaming heavy air car, the industrial hauling kind, that plummeted from the sky. All she could do was crouch in terror as the noise grew louder and louder, too bright to see too loud to think here it com—
The impact and resulting fireball blew her off her feet and into the heavy shutters over a merchant stall, clubbing her into oblivion.
She woke hours later to the sound of approaching sirens. The authorities must have mustered the resources to come to this side of town. Then she noticed bluish-white ooze covering her hands and legs, and more of it in blue dust floating in the air. She shrieked, which cut off as she hacked on the dust in her lungs, and leaped upright, frantically wiping it off herself. The liquid was thick and clung to her, a cold second skin she scraped off onto the concrete, tree bark, her clothes, anything. Then her mind caught up to the situation and she fled back towards the Angeles warehouse.
She didn't even get close.
The moment the lookouts caught sight of her, streaming droplets of eezo, they opened fire - the stigma of insane biotics was still too strong.
Instincts kicked in and she took off running, abandoning her meager pile of possessions and everything she had ever known.
That night was the longest of Shepard's life. She wandered, moving to stay warm in the cool temperatures of spring, shivering with every breeze in damp clothing. Her head felt wrong, with weird twinges and pressure in places she'd never felt before, followed by intense headaches. The chaos in her skull kept her attention off her feet, and she wandered further than ever before.
As dawn broke, she huddled on a street corner, shivering with dirty, greasy, chopped-short hair draped over her tattered shirt still smeared with eezo. She hugged her knees to her chest, trying to figure out what to do.
A building across the street caught her eye. Right there amidst the drab, run-down shopping center where only half the units were officially occupied stood the cleanest storefront she'd ever seen. It was white, a true, clean white, not the sordid off-white she was used to. Even the sidewalk in front of it was swept clean, and its sparkling windows were filled with holographic displays. She dragged herself to her feet and crossed the street to look inside.
Models of combat armor stood on stands while pistols and assault rifles lay in glass cases. Crisp flags hung up on walls, flickering in the light of instructional holos, all beneath a massive banner bearing the Systems Alliance logo. There were people inside smartly dressed in pressed fatigues. Shepard looked back down at her ragged state and grimaced.
In that moment she made a decision that would change the course of her life. She saw what she wanted, what she could be. She walked inside.
"Your turn, sarge." One of the women grunted in acknowledgement and looked over at her. She tried to hide it, but the clenched jaw gave away her disgust. Shepard focused—whatever they had, she wanted it, and she wouldn't give up until she got it. The mask was back on.
"What do you want, kid?"
Shepard drew herself up. "I want in. I want into whatever gang you belong to."
"Gang?" The woman sighed and rubbed her temples. "Listen, I know you think you're tough, but—"
The strongest headache yet hit Shepard, strong enough to bring her to her knees. She distantly noticed the display cases rattling in time with the pulses in her brain. The pain faded and Shepard looked up, scrambling to come up with a way to regain the ground she'd lost showing weakness. To her surprise, the woman was holding out a clipboard.
"Sign here."
…
The discipline of military life had fit her well, teaching the skills of a solid marine where she served with distinction. That was what her file said, anyway. Her mask gained polish in the military with its constant demand to respect (or sometimes fawn over) those in command. The self-confidence of the mask remained, but the cockiness developed into pure competence.
All of which, together, had led to her selection as executive officer of the SR-1 Normandy. That led to chasing after Saren and becoming a Spectre to do what needed to be done. And Saren led to Sovereign, the Reaper controlling him, and its crazy plot to eradicate all life. And then she'd gotten Ashley killed, and still hadn't figured out how to deal with it when Shepard herself had died.
And then, somehow, she ended up here, wherever or whatever "here" was. Which was why, while suffering some of the worst mental and physical pain she'd ever experienced, the last thing she wanted was anybody to know about it.
The mask was back on.
"Hello? Are you okay? Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda has you running around."
The huge man did look surprised. Perhaps it was the truth. She needed more information. "I just woke up. You probably know more than I do." Her voice was flat and raw, still struggling to find the politely curious tone she used to use amidst all the changes in her body.
"Yeah, sorry. I forget this is all new to you right now. I'll fill you in, but we better get you to the shuttles first."
The urge, the need to understand, kicked in. "I know this isn't the best time, but I'm sick of stumbling around when I don't know what's going on."
The man glanced back at her for a moment from his surveying of the opposite walkway and shrugged.
"Fair enough. I'll give you the quick version. You and your ship were attacked and destroyed. The Alliance got there in time to drive off the attacker and scoop up the escape pods and your body at the edge of the atmosphere, but you were dead as dead can be when they brought you here. Our scientists spent the last two years putting you back together. Welcome back to your life," he said with a wince of sympathy. The doors slid open accompanied by the clanking of a squad of light mechs which instantly zeroed in on their position.
"I'll tell you what—you help me finish off those mechs, and I'll play twenty questions with you all day. I'm a biotic. Just give the order when you want me to hit them with the good stuff."
The battle went quickly. Between the two biotics the mechs were constantly off balance when they weren't sailing helplessly through the air, easy targets. Once the mechs were down the humans, too, slid to the floor, backs to the cover of the railing.
Where to start? A morbid curiosity drove her first question.
"You said they spent two years rebuilding me? How bad were my injuries?"
She used the pronoun "my" out of habit. Shepard was dead.
"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."
"What do you mean? Cloning? Cybernetics?" As if that wasn't clear enough already. Still, start easy and get him talking, then work to the harder questions.
"I don't know the details. You'd have to ask the scientists, 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."
The information washed over her. Nothing penetrated to that inner part of herself. Nobody came back from death. Damn it, she'd gotten out! No more pressure, no more tearing herself apart for having to choose between saving Kaidan Alenko, a proven officer and (rare) stable second generation biotic and Ashley Williams, a common soldier, and leaving her to die. To have to choose! To leave someone for no better reason than that they were normal, not a freak with gravitational biotic powers like she was.
Shepard was no stranger to having soldiers die under her command, but she'd never chosen to leave one behind before. No, she couldn't face that again. Shepard was dead. She had to be. She'd take this physical pain over that anguish in a heartbeat.
"What's the quickest way off this station?"
"Depends on where the mechs are thickest. This way." He paused for a moment. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I'm Jacob, Jacob Taylor."
The mask slipped.
Jake standing over her, leering.
She crushed the thought.
"...Are you alright?"
"Yeah, just, waking up and everything..."
He let it drop.
They headed warily into the engineering tunnels hoping to encounter fewer mechs. The handful they did meet dropped quickly, but Shepard felt herself slowing down. The constant, ceaseless pain, compounded by the chaos of figuring out who she was and who she wasn't, and the effort of swallowing all that up inside her mask while fighting through two dozen mechs was too much for anyone, much less for someone who'd been dead twenty minutes ago.
By the time they reached another survivor, Wilson, she could hardly think straight. When they reached the shuttles, she wasn't far from delirious. Then there was a woman in a distinctive white catsuit named Miranda waiting for them, but it was hazy. Then Miranda shot Wilson, claiming he was a traitor. A little part of Shepard protested, the chunk of the upstanding paragon of humanity these people tried to steal from the old Shepard and shove into her, but they'd made it to the shuttle and nobody was relying on her anymore, and she was so tired, so tired, so...
The last thing she could remember was someone calling out to her as the floor rushed up to meet her.