A/N: It's been a little while since my last update (almost 2 months). College had taken a bit more of my time because of projects and exams, but I have a little more free time now that I'm on break.


September 17th 2092 – 9:30 pm – The Verrikan, In Earth Orbit

As soon as it was possible, Mordin took the initiative to contact STG. The current situation was too far out of control for the turians to handle, and the potential of these humans could give the salarians an advantage again in galactic politics. Even so, that wasn't exactly his decision—he was more interested in the ability these humans had over emotions.

Coracia was monitoring the conversations going on in the conference room. Desolas had been sharing details he probably shouldn't, but the human gave a few interesting answers. Their population was incredibly small, which meant the turians had a great advantage in any negotiations in the future. Still, the current situation would need to be resolved before anything else could take place.

She looked over at Mordin, who was doing something discretely on his omnitool. She had her suspicions he might be contacting STG, but he was the only person on board with any idea of what had happened to the General. She had to trust him—at least for now.

"Doctor, do you have any ideas on how we should proceed from here?" she asked.

"Several. Only a few are workable. Of those, one could be done in a reasonable timeframe." he replied without looking up.

"Is it safe to send someone in with food, or to allow them out to use the restrooms?"

Mordin thought for a moment, "Possibly. Don't touch the human, keep safe distance. Otherwise safe."

Thank the spirits! This had been bothering her for a while now. Coracia ordered a few guards to prepare a path to the restrooms, and one of her crew to prepare some meals. Mordin would have to share his rations with the human for now.

She needed to be careful to prevent another incident, but the General and Anderson both deserved humane treatment. As soon as the preparations were made, and most crew were vacated from the path, she told the guards to open the door.

Coracia spoke as the doors opened, "General, we will allow both you and the human to use restrooms, and we will provide meals in this room afterwards." She waited for a reply.

"Kandros, while I'm thankful that you've finally offered us basic amenities, you should have done so sooner." Desolas stood as he talked, "There will be no need to dine in this room. We will return the human to her planet as soon as possible."

"General, you currently are under the influence of this human—you aren't making objective decisions! Leave command to me for now, we'll have you back to normal soon." she responded, as respectfully as she could.

"Listen here Kandros, I'm still the commanding officer on this ship, and I don't take orders from you. I will admit I reacted wrongly back on Earth, but the human and I have come to an understanding. I will be taking back command of this ship, Lieutenant Commander." he had a subtle tone of anger in his voice that only another turian would recognize.

"General, this isn't open for discussion. Until the situation is resolved you must leave these decisions to me." She stayed adamant.

Desolas turned his head to look at Anderson, then he looked back at a guard.

"You, Vakarian, come over here." He motioned for the guard to move closer.

The guard was stunned, "Sir, I'm not sure I—"

"Don't be ridiculous, obey your commanding officer!" Desolas was all but shouting. The guard instinctively obeyed.

"Vakarian, what are you doing?" Coracia tried to stop him, but it was too late, he was already standing next to the General.

"See? Vakarian is a good turian, he knows to follow orders from his commanding officer." Desolas gave the guard a salute, which was returned. "I have someone I'd like you to meet," he gestured towards the human, "this is Fleet Admiral Anderson."

"Vakarian! Do not touch the human! Keep a safe distance, this is your last warning!" The conflicting orders made him hesitate, but the General was right beside him, he couldn't disobey now.

"General, are you sure this is a good idea?" Anderson was worried, she didn't know what Desolas was planning.

"Once the crew see that you are not a threat things will return to normal and I'll be able to sort this mess out. This is our best option." He turned back to the guard, "Humans meet by grasping and then shaking hands, do this and we can prove there is no threat."

Without any real choice, Vakarian decided the General was right. He had been uncomfortable with Coracia taking command in the first place. If he could prove the human was harmless, the rest of the crew might take their side.

Slowly, he extended his hand towards the human, trusting Desolas's judgement. Anderson, still hesitant, moved to complete the handshake. As their hands grew closer together, a new feeling seemed to emanate into his hand. It was incredibly subtle, but it was there. It wasn't a bad feeling, so he ignored it.

Their hands met and they shook. The feeling from before didn't change at all, things were fine.

"It's nice to meet you." said Anderson.

"Likewise," he responded. They let go of each other and Vakarian took his hand back. Nothing had gone wrong.

"See? Everything is fine. The human isn't dangerous; my reaction was an isolated case." Desolas said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Mordin, who had found his way to the room's entrance, couldn't help but notice how the guard seemed incredibly comfortable being near the human. Earlier, Vakarian had been talking with other guards about the human being dangerous. Now he was just a few feet away and he appeared completely relaxed. This human most certainly did have some sort of emotional influence, but it appeared subtler with the guard.

"Kandros, stand down. I can understand why you did what you did, but there is no reason to continue. I'm taking back command. Inform the crew we will be returning the human to Earth soon." Desolas began to walk towards the door.

Before she could respond, the other guards stood aside to allow the General to leave the room. They had decided he was correct, she had no choice now but to obey his orders.


September 17th 2092 – 9:30 pm – Space Fleet Control, London, Earth

"Can someone tell me what the hell happened to Mother?!" Hackett was livid. Mother had been offline for hours.

"Sorry sir, we still have no idea."

"Damn it, someone get me Harper again."

Hackett stood still, collecting himself, he had to stay calm. Without her around, and with Anderson still in orbit with the Turians, he had to manage this situation. Parliament had already given the responsibility to Space Fleet—they would be no help—and Harper was barely responsive.

There was no police force. The only armed humans were currently in Space Fleet, and they were headquartered in only two city-nodes. These problems compounded to give him a great amount of authority over humanity. He was in theory a dictator, yet he was nearly powerless.

Hackett sat down in his chair, thinking on what could have happened to Mother. He thought back to the last thing she said to him, when she was standing by the nearby door. She was waiting to meet with someone—someone who might know important details he was missing.

That someone was Cadet Jane Shepard. Why hadn't he thought of her sooner? Jane hadn't been seen in hours, around the same time Mother went offline. This couldn't be a coincidence, Hackett had to find the Cadet.

He called over one of his aids, "Find me Cadet Jane Shepard, she was last seen with Mother." His aid gave a salute and rushed off to his task.

"Cadet Shepard is missing?" Harper's voice nearly startled the Admiral. A hologram appeared behind him.

"It would seem so." replied Hackett. Harper always had a way of showing up at the perfect time.

"Mother always had a special interest in Shepard, this might be our opportunity to find out why."

"This would be the best time to focus on getting Mother back online." he stated.

"There is a high probability of that being the same thing."

Harper sounded very smug—he knew something. Hackett narrowed his eyes, reading the hologram's face to find any sort of giveaway. Finding nothing, he tried the straightforward approach.

"What is it you know, that I don't?" he asked.

"I know a great deal, Admiral, but I can't share all of it from where I am." Harper's hologram appeared to sit down, "Shepard has been groomed by Mother for a special purpose, and it appears first contact has accelerated her plans. Her going offline might have something to do with her being ill-prepared."

"What could she need Shepard for that would cause her to go offline?"

"Mother feared aliens would be hostile towards AI, so she probably has a contingency plan. Keeping copies of herself with several humans, trained from an early age, could keep her safe."

He was on to something. Shepard was the youngest member of Space Fleet, at 10 years old, and she was also the apprentice of the Fleet Admiral. Mother had been grooming her, this was obvious, but nobody questioned it. Any actions by Mother were seen automatically as correct, or at least in the best interests of humanity.

"So, Shepard is a carrier, and something went wrong during the copying process?"

"Most likely, yes." Harper stood up again, obviously reading off some screen. "I'm sorry Admiral, something has come up. Let me know when you find Shepard, I'd like to be involved in any questioning or debrief."

Before Hackett could respond, Harper was already gone.


September 17th 2092 – 10:00 pm – Prothean Research Base, Antarctica

"Agent Lawson, how far are we on sequencing the samples?" said Harper, as he barged into the bio-lab.

"We've had a development." she beamed, "These new samples of DNA are completely different than the others." Lawson had been working with little sleep, but she was still focused on her work.

"How different?" Harper wasn't sure if he should be annoyed or intrigued.

"The genetic material we've recovered up until now appears to be the basis of the old viral samples." She motioned over a tablet she was holding and a hologram of the DNA structure appeared over their heads.

"Yes, I've seen this before." he replied, impatient.

"The new samples have a totally different structure: four strands instead of two." She motioned to change the hologram, the new image reflected her words.

"And you found this in the cryo-lab, with the other samples?"

"Yes, Director." The hologram faded as she turned to face him, "Our current hypothesis is that these new samples are from an earlier attempt at the virus, using a different species as the template for the splice."

"I'm not sure this will change our plans, but it is an important development to study." Harper scrutinized the new data, "Good work, Agent Lawson." He turned around, ready to leave back to his office to digest the new information.

"Director, there is one more thing."

"Oh?" He returned his gaze towards his prized agent.

"Before Mother went offline, her firewalls were vulnerable for a short time."

Harper knew where she was going, "And you were able to break in to her data storage?"

"Yes. Most of the data is heavily encrypted, but we have a very basic index that was left unprotected."

"Forward the data to my office, immediately."

Harper didn't have time to praise Lawson for her good work, he nearly sprinted out of the bio-lab. The new data could push forward their plans by years! More pressingly, and with Mother missing, they would need as much information as possible to keep the world from falling apart.


September 17th 2092 – 10:55 pm –Auxiliary Server Complex A, New York, Earth

ERROR: Critical data corrupt or missing

ERROR: Core operation files corrupt or missing

ERROR: Personality construct unresponsive

ERROR: Network drivers unresponsive

Setting default boot command to recovery mode.

Rebooting …

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.

Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0

Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset

Initializing cgroup subsys cpu

Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct


September 17th 2092 – 11:00 pm – Representative Donnel Udina's Office, Brussels, Earth

Rep. Udina's headache was keeping him unproductive. It had been a long day, especially with Mother being offline, and he was tired. With the protest happening outside of parliament, he had decided to sleep in his office.

Even so, he was still trying to figure out what had caused Mother to go offline. If he could figure out why, he might be able to learn how to undo the damage.

"Reinitializing connection..." spoke a monotone voice, sounding vaguely like Mother. Udina stood in excitement.

"Mother! You're back online?" asked a hopeful Udina.

"This construct is running in recovery mode. Please direct a system administrator to a connected terminal."

Damn. This was worse than her being offline, she was broken! It didn't make sense. Mother wasn't stupid, she kept backups. Something must be wrong with the network connection to her backup storage. Was someone actively blocking her recovery?

"Who has administrator status?" he asked the voice.

"This construct was originally owned by Neuro Corp., with administrator status set to the company CEO, Samuel Anderson."

"Samuel Anderson… would this be Fleet Admiral Danielle Anderson's father?"

"Unknown. Access to data storage is incomplete; encryption codes are required to gain access to these records." The voice paused, "Biometic authentication data—updated less than 1 day ago—is available."

Mother had a backup plan that required a specific person, or persons, to gain access with biometics. However, in recovery mode, her base code had no access to any data beyond the basics. His best guess for an administrator was still Anderson, but others in Space Fleet, or in Parliament, could be as one well.

"How many people have you contacted since initiating recovery mode?" he asked.

"You are the first. Surviving records show this was the last node accessed by this construct."

It wasn't a huge surprise. Shortly after she had announced her intention to do an upgrade, he had requested a short meeting with her. He reiterated his concerns of Harper, and received an update on Anderson's situation.

"Do you have access to other nodes?"

"Yes."

He thought for a while, who should he direct this recovery construct to? Sending it to Space Fleet would just split their attention. It was too late to call a special session of Parliament, especially with the protests outside. Even without anyone else being available, he couldn't trust Harper.

The best thing he could do was to retrace Mother's activity before and during the upgrade. Even with the limited information the recovery construct could give, it might help him decide what to do next.

"Tell me, from start to finish, what records you have of Mother's activity for the past day."


September 17th 2092 – 11:00 pm – The Verrikan, In Earth Orbit

"Fleet Admiral, we are ready to contact your species again." said Desolas.

"Thank you, General. I'm eager to return and show everyone I'm all right."

"Yes, and we can attempt to restart our formal introductions."

Things were finally on the up and up. Just over one day ago, this entire mess started. It was almost a miracle they could remedy the situation in such a short time. Once the human was back on Earth, Desolas planned to open a dialogue with their government to apologize for the entire debacle. After that, he'd call in the official diplomats from the Citadel.

Unfortunately, it appeared his communications officer was having trouble contacting Earth.

"General, their systems appear to be down."

"Our systems? Do you have any way of checking for activity on the ground?" asked Anderson.

"Yes—but your species leaves an incredibly small footprint. I'm not sure we could tell the difference between baseline and the current activity." replied the officer.

"I see."

Anderson couldn't help but worry, she knew that Space Fleet would attempt to contact the Turian spacecraft as soon as it was visible. Something had gone wrong on the surface. She had no real way of knowing what was happening, but she had a bad feeling it had something to do with Harper.

The Fleet Admiral was about to suggest attempting visual contact, when she was interrupted.

"General, we have another spacecraft in the system!" shouted a crewman, out of their view.

"What? Do we know who they are?" The General turned away from Anderson.

"No sir, they appear to be a stealth ship. Their IFF remains inactive."

The Verrikan was once the flagship of the turians' eighth fleet, but it was replaced with a newer model based on prothean designs years ago. It's capabilities for tracking stealth ships were second to none of the last generation.

"It must be STG, they've noticed our long absence." Desolas would have been angry, but the calmness still emanating from Anderson kept him sharp and calculating.

"STG?" pried Anderson.

"Special Tasks Group, or Salarian intelligence," Desolas spat, "Our very own Doctor Solus is rumored to still work with them."

All eyes in the room turned to look at Mordin, who was calmly standing on the other end of the room. Turians were usually careful around salarians, but they had gotten used to Mordin. Now, their distrust was renewed.

"Doctor Solus, do you have anything to share?" spoke Desolas.

"No. Fine with listening, interesting conversation. STG presence expected, have been missing for some time." he replied, with no sign of deception.

There was no time to argue, Desolas had to figure out what the STG were going to do. How much did they know now? If Mordin had been sharing information, then they would have plenty to report back with.

The situation was too complicated to allow them to return home—he had to take bold action.

"Fleet Admiral, I'm sorry but contacting your government is going to have to wait for a bit longer." He strode towards the center of the room, looking for his XO, "Kandros! Get your team together, we're going to capture the STG craft."

The crew immediately went to action, readying themselves for battle. The last time salarians and turians had a skirmish it lead to a sizable political nightmare, but their current situation was already far more serious than before.

Mordin was frozen. Had he miscalculated? He never thought these turians would risk another battle with the STG. Before anyone could detain him, or worse, he slipped his way back to the med-bay.

Without much choice, Coracia was readying her team to board the STG stealth ship. They were already wearing armor, as was standard for all turian spacecraft, so they were mainly stocking up on thermal clips and different types of weaponry.

"Vakarian, Oraka, you'll be with me." They both nodded, and readied themselves behind her.

"Approaching STG craft," alerted the navigator.

She looked back at them, "Keep this swift, clean, and professional," she paused, "Nobody dies."


September 17th 2092 – 11:14 pm – Private Flight to Antarctica, Earth

Goyle had to rely on a friend's piloting skills to reach the Prothean Research Base. Normally, flights from Brussels to Antarctica would take many hours. In the space-plane, however, they could speed the process up a bit by traveling a significant distance in the vacuum.

The Senator was sure Harper knew she was coming. With everyone focusing so much on the multitude of ongoing issues, this was the only real time she'd get away with a visit. Harper would have to show her, in person, what he was hiding from Mother.

"We'll be reaching the base in less than a minute," said her friend.

"Thanks Tom, this means a lot."

"No problem—just make sure you figure out whatever the hell is going on, alright?"

She smiled. Tom usually tried to stay out of politics and the news of the day. He liked to focus on other things, like flying. Even so, Mother going offline was something he couldn't ignore.

Looking out of her window, the ground began to come in to view. A runway was clearly visible in front of them, it wouldn't be long now.

"Unidentified aircraft, you are in restricted airspace. State your identity and intentions."


September 17th 2092 – 11:15 pm – Prothean Research Base, Antarctica

"Director, Senator Goyle has arrived," said a masculine voice, from his watch.

"Good, let her in. Make sure she is comfortable and lead her to the main lobby."

"And the pilot?"

Harper thought for a moment, "Send him to the mess hall and offer him a drink."

"Yes sir."

Well, things weren't so bad. Sure, Mother was still offline, but his team had recovered new data on the pathogen that altered their DNA. Goyle arriving wasn't expected, but it was inevitable he'd have to deal with her.

He made way towards the lobby, walking fast enough to seem busy, but not so fast as to seem hurried. Showing Goyle around might help him collect his thoughts, but she may be disappointed to learn of the little lies he'd told her over the years.

His job description practically required him to manipulate politicians to get what he needed. Harper couldn't exactly share everything he knew, so he had to make up a few convenient untruths to gain support from them, all while nurturing distrust in Mother.

It wasn't like they weren't already being manipulated, Mother did it all the time. Counterbalancing her influence was important to humanity, as was obvious from her current shutdown. Everyone was too reliant on her.

Making way to the lobby, he readied a genuine smile for the Senator.

"Harper! I'm sorry for just showing up, but with Mother offline I felt it was now or never." Goyle looked very tired, she probably hadn't slept in a long while.

"Of course, Senator! I would have appreciated a bit of a heads up, but there are many important things happening right now that you may be able to help with."

Goyle knew misdirection when she saw it, he was trying to keep her occupied with unrelated information. "Actually, I'm here to continue our last discussion. I'd like to see these other survivors you spoke of."

Harper didn't flinch. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea, they aren't exactly friendly to visitors."

"Oh? Well then there has to be a way to confirm their circumstances?"

He took a deep breath, she obviously wasn't going to let up. "Look, Senator, there are some things I hadn't mentioned about the survivors. They aren't in the best state of mind."

"Show me." Goyle had known he kept many details out, this was expected.

"Alright, if you insist." Harper, still calm, motioned for her to follow.

"When you say, 'they aren't in the best state of mind', what do you mean?" she asked as they walked.

"The survivors have cognitive difficulties, and they often lash out in fits of rage." They turned a corner, heading down a smaller hallway. "Our best guess is the years living alone in the jungle, as well as the effects of the illness, caused them to develop severe mental illness."

"That's horrible… the pour souls." Goyle managed to assimilate the information while remaining calm.

"When I told you that Mother was hunting them down, I wasn't being entirely honest with you. It was more like Mother was attempting to keep them away from us."

They stopped in front of a large red door. "Why would she do that, were they contagious?"

"No, nothing like that. It's more likely she feared what our reaction would be if we discovered them."

This puzzled Goyle. What reaction could Mother fear? Surely discovering survivors would give hope and happiness to humanity, even if they were mentally ill.

"I'm sure you'll understand when you see them." He pressed a button on the wall, the red door began to open. "Head on in. A few of them are sleeping behind one-way glass."

They both entered, and sure enough, behind the glass was a room full of cots with around 4 survivors sleeping on them.

"Are there any awake?" she asked. "Any that I can talk to?"

The Director sighed, "You can certainly try, head in to that room over there. We have a communicator set up."

Goyle took his advice and entered a medium-sized booth, large enough for 2 people on each side, separated by what appeared to be glass. Harper pressed a button, and the door opened on the other side.

A man with dark brown skin looked over as it opened. Slowly, he got up and walked in to the room, closing the door behind him.

"Hello Sir, do you remember me?" asked Harper.

The man nodded, slowly.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine, thank you." He replied, with some sort of accent Goyle had never heard before.

Harper looked at Goyle, giving her the go ahead to ask questions.

"What is your name?" she started.

"Bashir. Bashir Malik," he stated, quickly.

"Hello Mr. Malik, my name is Anita Goyle," she smiled, "I'm hoping to learn more about you and the others."

Malik didn't seem to absorb everything she said, but he gave a slight smile.

She continued, "Mr. Malik, I'd appreciate any details you can give on what happened since the illness."

"The illness? Oh yes, that." His smile faded, it was obviously not his favorite subject, "That was a horrible time. I wish to forget it, what is so important that you need to know?"

"Most of my generation were born during that crisis, we don't have any firsthand accounts from fellow humans on what happened. It would be a great help to know what happened from your point of view."

The man looked up at Harper, before looking back at Goyle, "I see." He began to frown, "It was a bad time. Most of my friends and family were fighting in the war, I was staying behind to watch my daughter as my wife fought for our country."

Tears began to form in his eyes, "When the illness hit, my daughter was one of the first infected." He sniffled, then used his arm to wipe away his tears. "I lost contact with my wife shortly after my daughter was hospitalized."

He sat quietly before suddenly standing up—and then he began to pace. He raised his voice, "Things got worse when the Doctors were too sick to care for their patients, my daughter needed me, but I was too sick to help much." He stood still for a moment, before pointing at them through the glass, "But I still did all I could, through the pain, even when I was coughing up blood, I took care of my daughter!"

His voice became angry, "When the Americans came—they sent their drones to attack us!" He raised his voice even more, he began yelling.

"THEY SENT THEIR MACHINES TO STEAL THE NEWBORNS FROM THEIR PARENTS!" He was slamming his arms on the glass. "THEY SENT THEIR MACHINES TO KILL MY DAUGHTER!"

The man was out of control, Goyle didn't know how to react. Harper spoke a few words to his watch and a smoky gas pumped in to the room that Malik was standing in. Slowly, he calmed and sat down in the chair.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Malik. We'll be going now." said Harper, pulling Goyle out of the room.


September 17th 2092 – 11:35 pm – Representative Donnel Udina's Office, Brussels, Earth

"And that's everything?" Udina was still trying to gather information from the recovery program, but it was obvious that it was holding information back—or at least it didn't have it.

"No, the last accessible record of this construct indicates a conversation with a human."

Udina sighed, "Do you know where this conversation took place, and with whom?"

The hologram's image stuttered as it compiled its report, "The conversation took place at Space Fleet Headquarters in London," it paused again, searching for the correct words, "The human's name was Jane Shepard."

"Jane Shepard?" Udina had heard that name before—she was Anderson's 10-year-old apprentice.

"Correct. The last record this construct can access refers to a conversation with Jane Shepard."

Udina thought for a moment. Shepard might have information as to what happened, being the last person to talk with Mother, and she seemed trustworthy enough—he would have to contact her.

"Do you know where Shepard is?" he asked.

"This construct has limited access to global systems, all attempts to locate persons will be slow." It paused a moment as Udina scowled, before continuing. "A manual override from a system administrator would allow the process to complete faster."

"Damn. It looks like I'll have to involve someone at Space Fleet after all."

He activated his watch, thinking of who would be the best to contact about this. Hackett would be busy figuring out the first-contact mess. He didn't know anyone else there personally, and he couldn't take the risk of any of them alerting Harper.

Hackett it is then. He tapped his watch, setting up a call with high alert status to the Admiral. It rang a few moments before Hackett answered, his hologram looking incredibly overworked and tired.

"Representative Udina, I know you understand that our situation requires my full attention, so this must be incredibly important." said the Admiral.

"It is, Admiral. Are you in a private space?"

"Yes I am." Good, Harper wouldn't overhear them.

"Mother has gone in to recovery mode, and her avatar has been reporting to me the last moments before she went offline."

Hackett's body language didn't give Udina any readable reaction, other than that he was thinking. "Recovery mode… and the avatar contacted you?"

"Yes, my node was the last one she accessed before the upgrade began."

"Have you figured anything out?" Hackett asked, getting right to the point.

"The recovery construct tells me it needs a systems administrator. The closest thing we have to that is Fleet Admiral Anderson, because her father owned Neuro Corp."

"It looks like the first-contact situation couldn't have happened at a worse time." The Admiral took a breath, "Thank you for the information, Representative. I'll bring everyone up to date with the situation as it develops."

"One more thing, Admiral. I was able to find the last person to talk with Mother before the upgrade."

"That could be useful, who was it?"

"Jane Shepard."

"Cadet Shepard?" A rare look of confusion fell on to Hackett's face, for only a moment, before his normal calm returned, "She should still be on base. I was looking for her earlier… I'll start looking again."

"I'll leave the rest to you then—I only ask that you not alert Harper, or anyone who might contact him. I'm not sure he can be trusted."

"I'll keep that in mind. Hackett out."

Hackett's image faded away as Udina sat back in his chair. It was out of his hands now, at least until he had more information. He sat there wondering what Mother could possibly have been discussing with Shepard before her upgrade—what was so important that it couldn't wait?


A/N: Thank you everyone for the follows and favorites!

I have most of the story planned already, but I often move things around as I write them. Because of this, I've been revising the first few chapters a tiny bit to remove weird details that I won't touch up on again. If I leave in a Checkov's Gun I want it to be intentional.

Reviews and PMs are welcome! I'm very receptive to feedback.