…
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
(Albert Einstein)
…
Unknown, October 14th, unknown, 2180
…
That last name… that last name hung in my head as my brain connected the dots. While there was a severe lack of information regarding our current situation, I finally discovered where we went. We went to the future, or at least some approximation of it. The specifics I'd figure out later.
"Embry…" I said out loud, letting a smile creep onto my face. "It doesn't matter how anyone spins it, the world is a small place. You must be Markus' great-great granddaughter or something along those lines."
"You would be correct, doctor. I just so happened to be the perfect correspondent for this event." She confirmed with a smirk, looking at us and snapping her fingers. The metal cuffs that had our hands restrained deactivated, giving us freedom once again. "I imagine you two have a lot of questions."
"That is… a gross oversimplification." Dan remarked, running his hand through his hair.
That was indeed putting it very lightly.
"Yeah, I'll bite." I started, leaning forwards with my arms folded on the cold table. "Who are you people?"
"We are the Special Projects Division of the Alliance." She began, handing us a paper with a modified Alliance logo. "Officially, we exist only as an R&D division, though the Admirals are aware of our actual line of work. We do said work away from prying eyes and slowly introduce our innovations to the Alliance as they are needed."
"That's crazy... how did you f-find us?" Dan blurted out as she finished talking, nervously wringing his hands together. "Out of all the places to look on that massive station-"
"The smart chips on the back of your necks still work properly, you know." She explained with a deadpan, as I instinctively felt where my neck met the back of my head. "DARPA never stopped scanning for your frequencies, and they eventually carried over to the SPD. Due to the nature of your disappearances, they, and by extension we, decided not to take any chances in case you two somehow appeared again."
"Those must be… be some strong little chips." Dan remarked, cracking a weak smile as he rubbed the back of his neck as well.
"Was the squad of black ops commandos really necessary?" I asked in a aggravated tone, redirecting Lynda's attention to me again.
"You have to understand… you two are still listed as Level 5 assets." She said, pausing for effect. "It doesn't matter what time period it is, you two were and still are some of the smartest engineers to have ever worked in the field of physics. The moment we picked up your signal, we knew we needed to retrieve you before anything happened out there."
I scoffed loudly at that last part, getting her eyebrows to shoot up.
"That's all well and good, but being flashed, cuffed, and drugged seems a bit… what's the work I'm looking for, Dan?" I asked in a facetious tone, leaning back in my chair.
"Excessive." He answered in a deadpan, crossing his arms as well and mimicking my own pose.
Lynda shot us an unamused look as she instead tapped the manila folders on the table.
"Fine, forget it, it's in the past now." I finished, dropping the topic so I could eagerly move on to the other elephant in the room. "So, what happened to the SDD after we went through the portal? Did they ever perform any more experiments with it?"
"The Spatial Distortion Device…" She started slowly, handing me a report out of the second folder. "…blew up, putting it in layman terms. Specifically, the argon cooling system failed due to an attempted emergency shutdown, and the core went critical shortly after as a result."
Dan and I leaned back, both of us immediately distraught by the sudden news. That was three and a half years of our lives and four decades of accumulative work… down the fucking drain. Even more if you counted the time between then and the new "now".
"I'm sorry, I understand a lot of hard work, time, and money went into that device." She said with some sympathy in her voice. "I can... get you some water, maybe? Something to make you feel better?"
"Ugh… I don't feel so good." I groaned, clutching my head as a headache began to form. "Yeah, some water please."
"Same." Dan added, arms and head folded on the edge of the table.
"Sure thing." She agreed, walking over to a table in the corner and pouring us both glasses. We sat there in silence for a few more moments before Dan started the conversation back up.
"Well, I have a ques… question I've been meaning to ask." Dan chimed back in, as I could see the metaphoric lightbulb flash over his head. "Did they ever figure out w-what caused the power to come back on?"
"It's funny you should mention that." She remarked, taking an even older paper out that was similar to the one on the SDD, though this one was about something called "Resonite."
"Back in 1955, a meteorite crashed into the Mojave Desert, somewhere in southern Nevada. The U.S. military managed to collect all that remained of it, discovering it contained a fair quantity of a then-unknown element." She explained, handing us several photographs from the event to go with the paper.
The pictures detailed the efforts the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers went through to recover all the pieces of this meteor, even showing them using some odd-looking, shielded vehicles I had never seen before.
"To mask the impact and subsequent cleanup from the Soviets, the zone became part of the Nevada Test Range, used for nuclear weapons development for years afterwards. All classified material was transferred to the reactivated Groom Lake facility." She continued, holding us a "newer" photograph of the largest chunk. It had an oily look to it, with an almost bluish luminescence to it. "This element, obviously not natural to Earth, had strange properties and was often the subject of frequent experiments. Today, it is known more commonly as Element Zero."
"OK, but I s-still don't follow." Dan said, staring at the photograph. "What does this have to do with the power?"
"The day of the accident, a different team in the base was running an experiment on a sample of Eezo. They had phenomenal results in mass reduction and power generation, but one of them neglected to disconnect their powerlines to the rest of the base." She further explained as I began to put the pieces together. "At that point, anything connected to the base's main power grid experienced a sudden power surge, including your SDD at the time."
"So it wasn't our fault..." I trailed off, beginning to feel slightly better about the whole situation.
Dan and I looked at each other, knowing we had heard enough.
"OK… so what happens now?" I inquired, leaning towards her with my arms folded once again. "Your SPD is just a reincarnation of the people at Area 51, right? So what does that mean for us?"
"I'm going to extend an offer for you two to work in the Special Projects Division." Lynda said with a smile, handing us both data pads. They listed updated personal information, history, credentials… it was actually surprising how in-depth it was.
It included revised backgrounds that placed us in this century, but very little other than that had changed.
"We'll sort out your personal information, give you all the funding you need, and provide you with the most competent staff the Alliance has to offer." She continued, standing up and walking towards the door. "I'll give you two some time to make a decision."
With Lynda gone, Dan and I sat there in thought for what felt like hours, debating whether or not to accept her... no, the Alliance's generous offer. They were offering everything imaginable to two people like us, far more than we could have ever even imagined having back at Area 51. It was gobsmacking the sheer amount of resources they were offering us in this document.
Once we had both looked over it, all we did was give each other a singular nod.
"Alright, I think we're ready to hash this out." I said out loud as she walked back into the room moments later and took a seat. "OK, Lynda, we'll join the Special Tasks Group, but under two conditions."
"And what would they be?" She asked with an inquisitive tone, crossing her arms.
"First, we would like to have access to regular vacation days." I immediately began, looking her straight in the eyes. "Area 51 was fucking horrible when it came to vacation, and it cost me… something valuable before the accident."
"You don't have to worry about that, every month our project leads have the option to take a week of leave on Earth." She reassured with a smirk, shifting in her seat. "What's your second condition, doctor?"
"We'd like to have full access to all our work. Paper, electronic documents, anything we worked on." I stated, holding the documents she had given us to add emphasis. "If they still exist, of course."
"That's no problem whatsoever, though you will have to give us time to take it all out of deep storage." She agreed, looking at the two of us with a smile.
With our conditions met, we stood up and shook hands with her, feeling good about our decision, and even the future for the first time since we got here.
"Welcome to the Special Projects Division, gentlemen." She said as she handed us both a manila folder, the three of us nodding to one another. "I'm sure there are plenty of things we can learn from you two in the coming months."
"Where will our research be done?" Dan asked, clutching his updated information tightly against his chest with one hand. "Will we be mo...moving back to Earth?"
"Not quite. Follow me." She replied, leading us out the door and into a long hallway. To our sides were the same helmeted commandos that had abducted us back on the Citadel.
"Try not to be so rough next time, buddy." I said with a slight smirk, patting him on the armored soldier. He stayed silent and didn't move, telling me subconsciously that I should keep moving.
We followed her through the hallways, going past several labelled living quarters and what looked like an armory. It didn't take long for me to realize we were on a ship of some kind, obviously military. It was an exciting thought to finally be part of a spacefaring humanity, one that had spread out to other stars. I could only imagine the tech behind some of these wall panels or in the floor, just waiting to be picked apart and understood.
Personally though, I was most interested in the possible applications of this "Element Zero" stuff. It had some amazing properties from the little things I had seen. I already had an idea in my head of how to harness the static buildup that came from these "Eezo" drive cores, but I would need to do more digging into my old project ideas before anything would come of that.
We finally entered what could only have been the Bridge of the ship, lots of crew at their stations along with bright holographic displays covering the majority of surfaces. We walked to the very edge of the deck, where we looked out the window at the dark side of a planetoid, a star brightly framing it from behind.
"So, where are we?" I asked, staring at the edges of the planet.
"We are approaching Mercury. Your new workplace is a lovely orbital facility locked to the dark side of the planet called Aldrin Station." She explained with another smile as something small could barely be seen off in the distance. "This is where most work is done, though we have small facilities on and below the surface for testing weapons and such."
Just as she finished, we finally spotted said station in full. It looked vaguely like a big knife pointing downwards, but it had a lot of other sections and modules attached to the center body. It looked a little haphazard in design, but that was likely due to retrofits or upgrades of some kind done since its initial construction.
"Task Force Cerebellum is based here at Aldrin Station, and everything they; or should I say you two work on here is classified as top secret." Lynda explained as the ship turned towards port. "We are putting you two on leave for a week so you can get properly acclimatized. Once your leave is over, you will be given your own lab space and any other assistance you require."
"Sounds like a plan." I agreed with a big smile, crossing my hands behind my back.
"SSV Nautilus, your arrival is scheduled. Please transmit access codes and authorization phrase." Docking control radioed in, an operator appearing on one of the larger monitors.
"I could give you the codes, but then I'd have to kill you." Lynda replied with a deadpan, tapping a few commands into her omni-tool.
"Welcome back, Major." The operator greeted with a small smile and a salute. "Codes received. Docking Cradle 4 is ready for you and the new arrivals."
"Thank you. Have the Project Leads drop what they're doing and meet us in the atrium." Lynda ordered, crossing her arms as she glanced back at us. "There are some introductions to be made."
"Yes ma'am." The operator finished, his image disappearing from the main screen.
"This is a lot to take in." Dan exhaled as we got close to the station, giving us a true impression of just how big the place really was. Odd looking clamps of some sort extended out of the station towards the ship, likely some kind of docking clamp or stability arm of some kind.
"We'll figure it out, don't worry." I encouraged as a muffled thump could be heard vibrating through the ship. We must have been secured to the station.
We continued to follow Lynda, going back the way we came and walking into a chamber filled with lockers containing EVA suits and a larger pressure door. That must have been the airlock. It opened up, revealing a long tube that stretched all the way out, linking both sides. Lynda's omni-tool beeped as we walked across, causing us all to pause as she read it.
"Excellent!" She exclaimed, turning around to face us. "I've just gotten word that your papers all still intact. They should be here in a few days."
"That sounds g-great." Dan nodded, looking slightly more relieved. "Is there anyth...anything specific you want us to work on o-once we go back to work?"
"Not really, but if something specific pops up you two will be the first to know." Lynda started as we entered a decon chamber. A mist that evaporated on contact showered down on us as an ultraviolet light scanned the three of us from head to toe. "From reading what I've been able to access, you two aren't just specialized in quantum mechanics."
"Yeah, we've dabbled in a lot of things." I confirmed, crossing my arms as the decon process went on and on. "Our work on quantum mechanics was what initially got us noticed by your great-great grandfather."
"I know, I've heard nothing but good things about him." She replied, glancing over at me as the decon cycle concluded. The pressure door opened up, revealing an area filled with benches, a security desk further back, and more EVA suits in storage. It looked almost like a miniaturized airport terminal. Two guards were sitting back in light armor, drinking beverages before they spotted Lynda.
"Major Embry!" One of them quickly said, hopping into a salute after almost dropping their drink. "We didn't know you were coming today! I apologize for not being at my post."
"Calm down, Corporal. I'm not here to do an inspection." She eased down as they relaxed slightly. "Actually, since you're here, tell Security that I need two new Level 5 IDs, and I need them sent to my office ASAP."
"Yes ma'am." The same trooper agreed, looking back at his buddy as they ran off.
My thoughts on the environment immediately stopped in their tracks as a hologram appeared on a pedestal off to our right. The image was a blue "figure" of a U.S. Marine from the Iraq War with an M16A4 slung over his shoulder. On his head he wore an old PASGT helmet adorned with night vision goggles, both the helmet's cover and his uniform looking like they were DCU-pattern camouflage. What came next, I wasn't expecting at all.
"Hello gentlemen." The figure said, turning towards the three of us and standing at attention. "My name is Powell. I'm the station's A.I., and I can assist you two with anything you need help with."
"Powell. Good to see you again." Lynda greeted, nodding at the avatar as I saw Dan's eyes light up.
"Likewise, ma'am." He returned, giving her the classic military salute.
"An A.I.? Wow, fascinating." Dan remarked with awe, walking over and rubbing his chin in sudden interest. "Powell… what would you t-think if I told you everything that I say is a lie?"
"Heh, it'll take more than the Liar's Paradox to confuse me, Dr. Nemo." He replied with a smile, focusing solely on Dan. "After all, I know that I know nothing at all."
"Socratic Paradox. Nice." Dan named, smiling as he crossed his arms and stared down at Powell. "There are so ma...many questions I want to ask right now…"
"Gentlemen, we have a meet-and-greet to attend to." Lynda redirected, ushering us towards a large pair of doors on the other side of the room. She opened it, revealing a large, circular atrium. This room was a sight to behold. There were rocks, trees, and even running water here in this little biosphere. What really surprised me was the feeling of sunlight on my face as I looked up at the artificial sky hanging above us. It had clouds going by, actually causing the room to get slightly darker whenever one blocked the "Sun". It was impressive, to say the very least.
I almost hadn't noticed the five people gathered in the center of the room. The first one was a really old man who looked like he was at least in his eighties, holding a datapad and tapping on it furiously with his thin fingers. The second was a very tall man looking to be in his thirties with jet black hair, who stood at attention and talked to the woman next to him. The third was a young-looking woman with short, blond hair who looked rather pissed off as she spoke to the second man. Fourth was actually an Asari with bright blue skin who stared up at the artificial sky with a vacant look in her eyes. The last was a young man who had scruffy brown hair with an obvious bed head about in his twenties who stared intently at his omni-tool despite the sleepy look in his eyes.
They all turned to face us as we approached. We stopped just short of a few feet from the group, almost arm's length away.
"Project Leads, I have called you all here today to meet your two new members." Lynda started, stepping aside to better let them see us. "Meet doctors Sean Michaels and Dan Nemo. They will be taking control of the new lab next week."
"Uh...hello." I greeted with a weak smile, feeling a sudden heaviness in the air. I knew I was dealing with people who knew exactly what they were doing, and we barely even knew where we were, let alone what we were doing.
"Sean, Dan, this is Dr. Jack Windham, he's our resident expert on FTL travel and a skilled Prothean linguist." She began introducing as the two of us shook hands with the old man. He had cold hands and didn't squeeze at all, denoting to me that he must have been… fragile.
"Nice to meet you two." He said with a toothy smile, sounding quite friendly. "I hope one of you two are good at chess."
"Ooh, don't…don't tempt me." Dan replied with a small smile, nodding at the good doctor.
"Next we have Dr. Dimitri Vsevolod. He's our expert on military tech, specifically weapon systems and small arms." Lynda continued as we shook hands with the tall man with jet black hair. He had a strong grip, and it was readily obvious that he was barely applying a fraction of his strength to the handshake.
"Greetings." He replied calmly with what was either a Russian or Ukrainian accent, nodding at us. "I will be seeing you two much in the future, yes?"
"Sounds like a plan." I acknowledged as we turned to face the angry looking blond woman he was talking to. Her pale blue eyes looked like they could see right through me.
"This is Dr. Mara Ford, she's our expert in thermal projection." Lynda went on. Dr. Ford seemed very resistant to exchange handshakes, but she eventually agreed. She squeezed very quickly, letting go almost as quickly as she grasped my hand.
"I hope you two don't get in the way around here." She commented in a rather forced tone, looking at me and Dan with a distrustful look in her eyes.
"I'll certainly try not to step on anyone's toes, doctor." I shot back with a similar face, getting her to narrow her icy eyes on me.
Lynda rolled her eyes with a sigh, moving on the Asari.
"This is Dr. Sira Winters, she is our expert on Element Zero applications." She said, as we all shook hands calmly. She had a warm pulse to her grip and it felt slightly rough, most likely having to do with her physiology.
"Winters? That's American, right?" I asked as we shook hands.
"Correct. My mother was married to a human man, Johnathan Winters. I took his surname after I left my mother's house." She happily explained, smiling at how knowledgeable I was.
"It'll be nice working with you." I finished with a warm smile, looking over at the last scientist.
"This is Dr. Richard Karpyshyn. He heads our development on A.I." Lynda finished as Karpyshyn gave us quick handshakes. I couldn't even get a feel for his grip he did it so quickly. I could see that he had a bit of a lazy eye, and even I found it weird that he was still wearing corrective lenses in this world of medical innovation.
"So you're th...the one behind Powell?" Dan immediately asked, looking intently at Karpyshyn.
"Yes." He replied slowly, adjusting his hair so that it wouldn't hang in front of his glasses. "Powell is my magnum opus, and has gotten more intelligent by the day."
"I'm very int-interested in him." Dan finished, straightening back up. "Is it alright if I talk to you more ab-about it later?"
"Very well." He quickly replied, looking back to his omni-tool. "Good day."
With that... odd ending, everyone dispersed and went their own ways, leaving Dan and I by ourselves with Lynda once more.
"That went pretty well… barring Dr. Ford." I remarked, pulling off my ring and fiddling with it. "What's her problem?"
"Dr. Ford is… temperamental." She answered bluntly, crossing her arms and looking at the door she left the atrium through. "She didn't like the idea of two people becoming Project Leads on such short notice."
"Well, she's needs to drop the attitude if we all want to work together." I shot back, getting slightly angry as I thought back to a few minutes ago.
"Give it time, Sean." Lynda reassured, as we walked to the far left side of the room.
We exited the Atrium, walking down a long hallway and into a waiting elevator. She punched in Floor 27, which was labeled "Residential."
"The full tour of the station will have to wait, I have other matters to attend to." Lynda said as the elevator shot upwards. "Your rooms are marked, and most of your personal belongings have been brought there already."
"Wow, that was fast." I remarked with a smirk, looking back to Dan. "Good thing we said yes, huh?"
He nodded with a smile as she handed us both thumb-sized devices with small loops attached to them.
"These are your keys. Don't lose them, they are encoded to your rooms only and aren't easy to replace. Good night, gentlemen." She finished as the doors opened, revealing a long hallway with windows on the celling revealing the stars. Other scientists and technicians walked around, either heading in into their rooms or going towards another destinations.
With that, we stepped out and she closed the doors, leaving us there by ourselves for the first time we regained consciousness.
"Well this has certainly been a very interesting day." I commented with a little bit of humor. "I'll see you later, man."
"Yeah… I guess I'll go find my room." Dan finished, wandering down the opposite side from where my room was supposed to be.
With that, I walked down the hallway, finding the room listed with my whole name. I inserted the device into the slot next to the panel, opening the door with a light hiss.
Inside, I switched on the lights revealing a rather large and… almost luxurious room. It was about 8x20 yards just from eyeballing it. There was a small living room area with a full leather couch and entertainment system, a kitchen with all the utilities, a bedroom with a queen-size bed, and a full bathroom.
In essence, it was the ultimate bachelor pad.
The coffee table in the living room had a large box filled with my things inside of it. I sat down on the cozy couch to go through it to make sure everything was here.
"Nexus omni-tool… check. Sony Walkman Mp3 player… check. Wallet… check. Dan's knife… hehe, check." I named off, putting each item on the table as I went. "Watch… check. Useless keys… check. Credits… check."
I looked at everything, only now noticing how hungry I actually was. I stood up and walked over to the kitchen, looking at the text that someone had left on the refrigerator's display.
"Note: if you want something that isn't here, put through a request with requisitions and they'll get it for you in about two days." The note read, scrolling down the screen. I opened the fridge, actually impressed with the variety of things that were here. Luckily, they had the one thing I really wanted.
Pepsi.
I took the can off the shelf, leaving eleven more on the rack inside. I then occupied myself checking the cupboards, finding cereal, bread, tuna, and a few other things I didn't even recognize yet.
I elected to just make a PBJ sandwich, wanting nothing more than just to curb my hunger. I sat down on the couch, turning on the "television" to see what they had around here. Unfortunately, like so many years ago back on earth there was jack shit despite the volume of channels. I shut it off, turning back to my omni-tool.
I looked inside to see that all my old computer files from Area 51 had already been converted to new formats and transferred to my omni-tool. This even included my catalog of "illegally-obtained" Mp3 music files. I ended up turning on Hotel California by The Eagles, surprised that the relatively high quality had been maintained from the originals. I wirelessly connected to the speakers in the room, getting full surround sound much to my joy.
I sat there for the next six minutes, munching on my sandwich as the song ran its course. It was the first truly serine moment I had actually had in a long time, and I savored every moment of it.
"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…" I said along with the song, nodding my head along with the music with my eyes closed.
After it had ended, I looked at the clock and discovered that it was 10:11 PM, roughly the same zone as EST. I walked into the bedroom and took off my lab coat, throwing it on the floor as I undid my belt and pulled off my pants. As the fatigue of the last few hours hit me, I let myself fall onto the bed, and immediately fell asleep.
…
A/N: It took awhile for me to write this one, I had to revise several parts more than once to make sure everything flowed correctly, and I'm neck-deep in college papers. My spring semester is quickly coming to an end, so hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to focus more on writing.
The pace of the story will likely pick up from here now that the characters and setting are established. Like I've said before, If anyone has any suggestions for the story just tell me in a review or PM and I'll reply to it as quickly as I can.
I'd love to read any reviews, I'm always up for suggestions or constructive criticism. Stay tuned.