Chapter 2
The Surrogates
Kevin managed to shower, dress, arm himself, and move the collection of guns to a corner and cover them with a sheet before the entourage arrived with Maela T'Vess, which was around an hour after he woke from Targold's message. He didn't need to shave, though. That was a peculiar, if not convenient, side effect to wearing a skin-tight environmental suit for most hours of his life. It wasn't just his face, either. All of the hair on his body had subsequently vanished as well—all except for the thick mop of brown hair on the top of his head which had grown down to his jaw line. He had to assume that the reason that hair was spared was because of an airy, spongy material that lined the inside of the helmet around his skull to protect from concussive trauma of most kinds. This didn't do as much to impede hair growth as the sealed nature of the rest of the suit.
Lucky for me. Bald isn't my cup of tea.
When the door chime signaled his guests' ultimate arrival, Kevin pulled out his Phalanx and drew in some dark energy. He wanted to have it ready just in case the 'extras' were going to be a problem. Though he had a hunch on who they might be, but the fact that he wasn't sure was what bothered him. He positioned himself in front of the door, pistol poised to strike the moment the door opened if he didn't like what he saw.
He tapped the 'open' command on his omni-tool and watched carefully as the door split into two and separated into the ceiling and floor. Outside, Kevin saw the group described by Targold, each recoiling in some fashion at the sight of the barrel of a pistol greeting them straight in the face. At the head of the group was Maela who recovered the quickest. She used the back of her left hand to push the gun aside and stepped a little closer. Kevin let it go, as it was plain to see those behind her posed no threat. They were little more than human scientists, and the mere sight of a gun pointed in their direction would have been more than enough to send them running had they not needed to be here.
"Let me get a look at you," Maela said in the fashion of a doctor examining a patient.
She spent time visually inspecting his face, looking into his eyes, searching any visible portion of his body for defects or flaws. Once that was done, she began to feel his arms through his shirt to get a feel for his muscles, tendons, and bones where possible. Then she moved to his neck, his torso, his hips, and his legs. Kevin looked awkwardly at the others, wondering if he should say something, but only one thing came to mind.
"Hello…" he said anxiously.
The scientists, a group of four men and two women, chuckled. His tone must have been more apprehensive than he thought. Of course, the last thing he expected was to be groped all over by an attractive asari at first sight.
"Well, he seems to have formed well enough," Maela noted. "All his parts are in the right places, at least."
"All of them?" one scientist with a rather familiar Irish accent noted amongst a few snickers.
Maela turned her head to glare at them then pushed her way into Kevin's apartment. "Assholes."
"Please, come in," Kevin said with a sarcastic gesture after the rather forward asari already pushed passed him. Everyone then began to file inside quickly and quietly. Once the door was closed he turned to look at Maela, who was looking around his apartment curiously. "Maela, you didn't tell me you were bringing friends."
She paused her sweep of the room to offer him a confused stare. "What are you talking about? I didn't—" She must have caught sight of the quarian suit hanging on the wall just then, as her face contorted to one of irritation. "You son of a bitch! That was you?"
Kevin grinned wide and was followed by laughter as those in the lab coats put two and two together. "The one and only," he said in his practiced quarian accent. The lack of vocal modulation made it sound off in his ears. "How was my performance? I'm willing to guess it was convincing, at least."
Maela looked furious at first, but she quickly shrugged it off as if it hadn't actually bothered her in the first place. "Had me going, I'll admit that much. You were putting on a show, so I suppose I won't strangle you on the spot." She made gestures with her hands that suggested she'd like to do it anyway.
Kevin maintained his near-mocking grin as he turned to the others who were idly standing about in a semicircle between him and the door. "So, who do we have here?" Can it really be Liam and the others? he wondered.
One man, tall and lithe with black hair streaked here and there with gray, stepped forward. His face was… grandfatherly in a sense. Kevin couldn't quite place it, but there was something about this man that was familiar in the most distant of ways. When he spoke, he knew exactly why.
"Kevin Folner. When last I saw you, you were but a wee lad… I can still remember the way mucous bubbled out your nose." The smile the man wore just then could be compared those of the proud parents who'd attended the ceremony that welcomed graduating boot camp soldiers into the Alliance military proper.
The Irish accent was unmistakable. He'd heard it a hundred times in the past several months, but he only recently dared think he'd meet this man face to face. "Liam McRoilie…"
They approached each other and stopped with a mere foot between them. Kevin wasn't sure how to handle this. This man was the closest thing to a father he ever had. Should he shake his hand? Give him a hug? A friendly punch in the arm? What was the social protocol for meeting the man who essentially assisted in altering your entire genetic structure and brought you into the world via surrogate to study you and haven't seen since you were three?
The method of greeting they eventually chose was a hug, though the entire process had to be redone four different times due to starting the same way and failing to properly reciprocate the position of the arms. Even when the hug finally connected, it was stiff and wholly evident to all the others that it was as awkward as it seemed and Kevin heard an affectionate snicker amongst the others in the lab coats.
When they finally broke apart, Liam stepped back to introduce the others. "Kevin, I'd like you to meet the remaining team assigned to the cell called "Project Evolution" or "The Symbiosis Experiment" in some circles. They are all just as responsible as I am for, well, your life up to a point. You were… Well, the project was…" Liam struggled visibly with the words Kevin already knew.
Kevin tossed it out without so much as a second thought. "A science experiment, I know. For Cerberus, even. I've come to terms with it a while back, even if I can't remember all the details."
Each of them, Maela included, looked at each other in surprise.
Liam looked to Kevin with curious, squinty eyes. "How… How do you know? We figured you knew something of the project, but… Well, how much do you know?"
Kevin gave Liam a knowing smile. "A lot, but I'll explain that later. I know some names, but I'm only really familiar with you, Liam." He gestured lazily towards the others in the room. "All the others are just faces to me."
"Ah, well then. We best get on with introductions!" He first pointed to a woman about the same age as him. She was shorter than Liam, though not nearly the shortest, and her hair was straight auburn with streaks of gray starting to creep in here and there.
"This is Allison Tanatha. She would be my wife if we ever had the chance to get a formal ceremony, but you might as well think of her as such. We were collectively in charge of various departments regarding the project."
Allison stepped up to Kevin to hug him. Hers was far less awkward, and while he'd never known a mother's embrace, he had to figure this was the next best thing. It was warm, loving, and unconditional. She smiled the proudest smile as she stared at him—up at him due to her being a few hairs shorter.
Kevin tilted his head, unable to keep himself from smiling back. "What, do I have something on my face?"
Allison took the meekest of steps back and held his shoulders at arms' length. She drew in a long breath and let it out quickly as she continued to take in his face. "No… I just… I never thought I would get to see you grown so big." Joyful tears began to well in her eyes and she turned away to let Liam continue on.
The next man to step up to Kevin was Liam's height but seemed a bit older and more pale than the Irishman. His face was square and the frown lines around his mouth were so evident that Kevin could swear that this man spent his entire life wearing a frown, though he wasn't now. His hair was mostly gray with a sharp widow's peak. Liam didn't even get to make the introduction as the man did it himself.
"Gerald Hughes. I was the Senior Technician in the project. I kept all of the tech regarding your study from start to end in top shape and updated it to the best of my ability."
"A pleasure, Gerald. Maybe you can teach me a thing or two about tech sometime." Kevin offered a genuine, wide smile, though he felt this man would be better off with a handshake than a hug. His manner was colder, more distant, even if he wasn't doing it intentionally.
"That might prove amusing," Gerald quipped amongst a short, crooked-tooth grin.
"Oh yeah?" Kevin crossed his arms, grinning himself. "I'll have you know, I was personally mentored in the arts of tech by a quarian." Many of the others exchanged an entertained look, anxious to see where this ended.
Gerald crossed his arms now. "Hah, I'll have to see how well he taught you someday, then. I'm willing to guess he missed a few of the most important protocols."
"She, actually," Kevin mentioned off-hand as Gerald returned to the semi-circle. "I'll… explain that later too."
That got a few raised eyebrows, but they continued nonetheless. Another man stepped up to Kevin and preemptively held out a hand. This one was shorter than most and clearly more round as well. His head could only be described as a bowling ball, with close-set eyes, a flat, wide nose, and bald top polished to an impressive sheen. He had extra chins as well that numbered anywhere from one to four depending on how far forward he inclined his head.
"I'm Jeremy Benkovsky," he said, entirely lacking any sort of the old Russian accent. "I was one of your bedside caretakers. We all had a hand in taking care of you, your brothers, and your sisters, but I was the one who made sure they all did it properly and ensured your diet was up to snuff, as it were. I also oversaw environmental controls."
"I appreciate you making sure my fruits and vegetables were all in balance, Jeremy," Kevin replied amiably. "Man, they really had every hand on deck for this project didn't they?"
"It was the first project of its kind," Jeremy replied once the handshake was done with. "The Project Director wanted to ensure that every angle had been accounted for so that you'd all grow up strong and able." He had intended to say more, but an invisible hand had reached out to slap him and the others over what was said.
There was a lingering sadness brought on by that as Jeremy shuffled back to the rest. It was obvious to Kevin they all fully believed they had failed his brothers and sisters. Maybe that's why they've gone so far out of their way to find me, he thought.
Another woman, probably the youngest of all of them, stepped forward. She was of mild Asian descent, given away by her eyes and straight, jet-black hair that fell just passed her shoulders. Her speech also carried a flavored accent that implied her first language was Japanese. She had to be in her forties, but she must have made it a point to often spend time keeping her body in shape. It was deliciously slender, and her face had hardly been touched by age. Kevin had a hard time believing that she'd helped take care of him while he was in diapers.
"I'mSusume Matashima, Su for short. Ed and I were part of the data collection and assessment teams responsible for tracking your growth, development, and biotic progress as well as documenting any trends," she declared in a voice far more confident and powerful than her meek, yet attractive, appearance suggested.
Kevin drew in a breath. He had caught himself staring. "I find it hard to believe you watched me as a child. Seriously, I took you to be in your late twenties."
Her smile was the shyest thing he had ever seen and she reddened. He couldn't help but find her absolutely adorable, age be damned. "I thank you for the compliment. It's true, I was probably the youngest person in the entire project. I had joined as an intern looking for successful research openings, though I had little idea what I'd really gotten into. I had been told I couldn't leave the project, was hired on proper, and made part of the team, but I had decided to stay before that anyways. The project was too engrossing to pass up, and the potential benefit to humanity was undeniable."
"You really just liked staring at my diaperless ass," Kevin joked.
She gave him a wry smile. "At least until you decided to poop and spread the color of dark brown half-way across the playroom before we could get in there and clean it."
Kevin winced. "Ouch."
Susume returned to her place in the semi-circle giggling and the last man stepped forward. He was as plain-faced as a man could get, save for the scraggly attempt at a beard he was probably growing since puberty that sprouted off of his chin and nowhere else. He looked ancient compared to Susume, though he had to place his age somewhere between Liam and Gerald. He was as bald as Jeremy was, though his dome was not quite so polished, nor his head so round.
"And I am Edmund DePoint. Ed for short. As Susume said, I was also part of the team that monitored and collected data on the children." He didn't seem to be interested in saying much else, and didn't even wait for a quip from Kevin before backstepping to the rest.
Kevin took a moment to look at them all, committing their faces to memory and wishing he'd not had to wait twenty-six years to meet them proper. My family… "Cerberus sure picked a motley bunch, didn't they?" A round of laughter was shared, save from Gerald and Maela. "Motley indeed. I suppose I fit in perfectly with this misfit group. There's one more introduction though…"
He turned to Maela, the distractingly attractive asari even despite the drab scientist-themed garb hugging her curves. He could smell her now that his suit wasn't in the way. She had some sort of asari-originated fragrance that reminded him of lavender and strawberries from earth, of all things. Pleasant smells. Interestingly ironic, given her harsh nature.
"And this striking and enchanting woman is Maela," he said with a slow, introductory sweep of his right hand.
"Please," she spat. "Flattery never helps anyone and it just makes you sound like a minion." She turned to face him all the way and crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes, I'm Maela T'Vess. As far as that 'Project Crapname' is concerned, I was—"
Kevin jumped in. "—In charge of ensuring the human nervous system was altered in such a way that it could handle the bandwidth of nervous synapses required to use the larger element zero nodes embedded into the fetus efficiently and powerfully so that an implant and amp would not be required to make combat-level use of the generated mass effect distortion fields."
The scientists were taken aback. Maela just looked irritated and impatient. She raised a brow at him once he was done as a mocking question as to whether or not he was, indeed, finished. "… In basic terms, yes. Humans are surprisingly… flexible in the DNA, I'll give you that much."
Kevin grinned then turned to the others. "Well! Welcome to all of you. Please excuse the empty nature of my apartment; I don't really get visitors these days that survive more than three steps in." When the others gave Kevin a looked mixed of confusion and wariness, he continued. "Uhh, I'll explain that later too."
Liam moved into the center of the room and pulled the only free chair over for Allison to sit on, though she didn't seem to be interested at the moment. "Seems you have quite a deal to explain."
Maela's brows furrowed together. "Yes… And I didn't come here to hear a life story. I only came to—"
"—To see if you can help me with my neural degradation and potentially avoid my final NCI?"
Maela gave him the stare of death—she must not have been very accustomed to being interrupted. Most people generally weren't. The other scientists stared at him too, but with curious wonder. That little detail was hardly part of their past together, which was what Kevin had acknowledged to knowing prior.
"Ah, I'll explain—"
"We get it, boy, we get it!" Gerald shot back with less irritation than the words gave off.
Kevin continued. "Err, anyhow, I have some food in the kitchen over there if you guys want a bite to eat. I'm afraid it's poor eats, though. Omega doesn't do well with human cuisine."
"We figured as much," Gerald declared, "so we brought some 'eats' with us."
They all reached into their coats at the same time and produced some form of packaged food. These weren't snacks; they had to be properly cooked to be edible and the packages were specifically designed to keep each fresh without chemicals or deep freezing. They all contained food known specifically from Earth: chicken, vegetables of two sorts, a collection of rice and pasta, juices made from other types of fruits, and lastly, ice cream made from the dairy farms on the blue planet.
Kevin smiled. "My God, that sounds incredible. Feel free to use the kitchen however you see fit. I should have everything you need to get that going, though my dinner furniture is… lacking." He hadn't seen such incredibly human food since his days training on Earth for the Systems Alliance. It made his stomach growl on the spot.
Jeremy, Allison, and Edmund collected the food from the others and made their way into the kitchen to begin their craft. Liam pulled the two chairs out from under the kitchen table and brought them into the 'bedroom' so that people might have a place to sit. Maela opted for leaning against the wall, while Susume found a comfortable spot to sit on Kevin's bed. That left the three chairs for Liam, Gerald, and himself while the food was being cooked.
After they all had a seat, Liam was the first to start any conversation. "So my first question might seem a bit absurd, but given the fact that you aren't dead yet, I have to ask. Err, that is… assuming you know what happened to the others from your project…"
"I do," Kevin replied rigidly. "Their NCIs escalated to the point of being fatal, if I recall."
Liam nodded and continued. "Have you even experienced any of these incidents? What form do they take if they do?"
A darkness fell over Kevin's face as he looked down and off to the side. He nodded once, slow and significant. "Yes. They come as terrible, terrible headaches. I can't really manage to do anything except breathe and writhe when they hit me."
Susume, Liam, and Gerald all nodded at once. "Just like the others, Liam," Susume mentioned, her face turning somber as the grave.
"How far apart are the incidents?" Liam next asked.
"A couple weeks at this point," Kevin said, a hint of anxiousness in his tone. "I'm pretty much due to have one any day now." By then the delicious aroma of spices and cooking food was pervading the apartment. It was making his mouth water.
"Damn…" Gerald quietly exclaimed. All of their faces spoke of one major fear—fear of arriving too late.
"Dear God almighty…" Liam said under his breath, placing a hand over his exasperated face. "Allison! We won't be able to stay any longer than necessary to rest and eat. Kevin's as close as we feared."
Allison stepped away from prepping some vegetables and leaned on the frame of the doorless opening between rooms. "Oh no… Have we come too late?"
"He's still alive, so the answer to that is no," Liam replied, folding his hands in his lap. "But we can't stay too long or we might end up being so."
Allison nodded, fully understanding the seriousness of the situation, and then turned to get back to work. "The food will be ready in a few."
"I'll set something up to give us some place to eat," Kevin offered and he stood. He hated thinking about his imminent demise almost as much as he hated thinking about Arla's fiery one.
He spent the next several minutes trying to figure out a way to organize what little furniture he owned in such a way so that it would be useful for eating upon. The problem he had was that there just wasn't enough to work with, and he had to resign to the fact that three people could sit and eat while the rest had to stand and use the kitchen counter as their table.
Conversations continued in the other room, but between the sounds of cooking nearby and his own attempts to concentrate on anything but his brain's self-destruction prevented him from hearing much beyond indecipherable murmurs. The increasingly delicious smell of chicken baked in a swath of juices, herbs, and spices made for a welcome distraction.
"Food's ready!" Jeremy announced happily and everyone filed into the kitchen. The three chairs were moved back under the table and everyone began to search the metal cabinets for his plates and eating utensils.
"Right here," Kevin declared while opening a knee-high cabinet in the corner and the drawer above it.
Everything was distributed with few words and plates were filled. Susume, Allison, and Jeremy took the seats at the table and everyone else stood somewhere nearby against the kitchen counter beside the sink and next to the cooking range. The feast started out silent as all got their first full mouths of the meal, but soon enough the curiosities took over and the impending inquiries began.
"So, Folner," Maela started, "why don't you tell us how you pretty much know everything there is to know about the Symbiosis Experiment?"
"God, where do I begin on that?" Kevin asked himself amidst a smile between bites. "Well, several years ago I had taken on a job to take out a mark in a remote location of some system of the Pylos Nebula. Problem was, I had no ship to get there. Fate plays funny games, and I came across a quarian who had acquired a job from the same group to grab some stuff from the same space station my target was in. Her ship was being held, and I had just enough credits to free it, so we agreed to go on the mission together."
Kevin paused as he thought about his story. Nor… Where have you been? You haven't been haunting me like you said. The wounds had healed, but these were still bitter memories.
"It turned out that the mission was a trap, and a group of ships descended on us. Nor, the quarian, was a remarkable pilot, and she kept us mobile enough while I run the gun to take on the other ships until we'd eventually beaten them. We were damaged beyond repair, though, and had no thrust or FTL. We activated a distress signal and drifted. For days we drifted, weeks even. Our rations were literally on their last legs and the power core keeping life support and the beacon running was about to fail."
"Dying beside a stranger. Not the way I'd want to go," Maela noted off-hand.
Kevin cocked his head to the side. "Eh, we weren't strangers by the time a ship showed up to take us captive—"
"Ohhhhhhhhhhh," several blurted out, the insinuation obvious.
"Hey hey! Not like that!" Kevin shot back, reddening. "We just talked a lot. I learned about her, her family, and a heaping pile of quarian culture while she learned the same from me. She mentioned linking suits when my personal life support failed, but nothing more."
The others all looked at each other with grins in moderate disbelief then resumed eating. Liam then gestured for Kevin to continue.
"Anyways. The ship that took us as captives brought us to a space station somewhere in a nearby asteroid belt and threw us in a blank room with naught but a camera. Not knowing that I was biotic, they were caught off-guard when they came to check up on us and we escaped—but not before I procured a ton of data from their terminals. Seems it was some sort of rely for a very elusive individual's incoming data streams. Remember when I said fate plays funny games? Here's the kicker: the data I had pulled was a collection of logs and other data." Kevin looked to Liam.
Liam connected the dots. "My God. My logs? From the project?"
Kevin nodded and the others looked downright shocked. "The video was all corrupted from my hasty retrieval, but I kept it all on a storage device. It's hidden away in one of my many pockets on that suit on the wall right now."
Heads turned to look at said suit, though only a few could see it from where they were. The ones that could gazed at it a long while before finally returning to working at the last bits of their dinner.
"That's another thing we'd like to hear about," Allison remarked. "What in the hell are you doing prancing around Omega wearing a quarian envirosuit? How did you even get it? How did you even get it to fit?"
They all seemed to be chomping at the bit for stories now, and Susume jumped in before Kevin could even begin. "Does it have anything to do with that she-quarian you mentioned earlier?"
They all started asking questions at once now and Kevin had to put his hands up to get them to calm down. "Guys! Guys! You're asking about a very long, busy story here. Here's what I mean; In the months before I was stranded here, I'd stolen a high-tech civvie frigate from a wealthy name I'd killed, took it as my own, embarked on a quest for intel in deep space, saved the remainder of a crew of a crashed quarian ship, was almost vacuumed to death and saved by those same quarians by being stuffed in a quarian environmental suit, boarded the Migrant Fleet, was made a member of a forgotten elite squad of quarians resurrected for the first time in almost three hundred years, disabled a geth dreadnought, gazed beyond the edge of the galaxy, put a hole through a geth planetoid, explored an unknown planet with half a sky of stars, made discoveries that chilled me to the bone, loved a woman who'd not even touched air in years, woken a sleeping technological monstrosity, killed it, lost everything in the aftermath, and still managed to return here alive."
They were all staring at him in disbelief again in complete silence, this time without the amused grins.
"And you want to know why I'm on Omega? Well, truth has it that it all led up to me being here, so I'd have to recount the entire thing just to get you to understand why."
"I always did enjoy a good rousing story," Jeremy stated as he began to clear the table of empty plates and discarded utensils. The others nodded, anxious to hear the tale.
Kevin sighed, had his cup refilled of juice, and began to recall the memories barely a couple months old. He started with his contract to kill Linus Verner and his discussion with the asari information broker on Illium, and talked briefly about how he essentially hacked the Kellius to be his. He went on about coming across Ralik Dolannus and how he took him along to head back to the Citadel to go talk with his brother Tarsil Dolannus. He detailed out their conversation to a point, explaining how he got the mission to head out to the now-activated and unmapped Melkanis relay surrounded by a geth fleet in the An'Ramini Expanse and the credits that were to come his way should he make it there.
Everyone was silent and watching him intently as he recounted the grisly situation he walked into when he went planetside to assist the crashed quarian ship, the Forverna. He began to feel like something out of a vid, as though he were some elder recalling epic events for a newer generation. He explained how he took the seven surviving quarians aboard his ship and turned back for the known galaxy in order to ship them off to the Migrant Fleet, and how those plans were abruptly halted when the Illusive Man got involved.
"Hold on just a minute," Susume beckoned, crossing her arms. "He called you? I don't believe that. He didn't even call us directly. He doesn't call anyone directly."
"He called me, namely for two reasons," Kevin explained. "First was that I stole his ship. Apparently the Kellius was designed and manufactured by his people, though Linus fronted nearly the entire bill. He wanted it back. Second, he knew I was one of his project's subjects and he wanted to offer me the chance to go work in his service. Told me that in order to convince him and the men coming to get the ship that I had decided to do it, I had to kill the aliens aboard. I probably could have if I had chosen to and had the element of surprise on my side, but he asked me right in front of all of them."
"Did you manage it?" Allison asked.
Kevin shook his head. "No, I never got the opportunity, and I had decided that I didn't trust the Illusive Man's word anyways. He shut the ship down and locked all its systems remotely, leaving me scrambling to find a means to protect myself from the imminent vacuum without a hardsuit, since I had lost the helmet."
Maela laughed. "You lost your suit's helmet? Goddess, you're an idiot."
"More like 'forgot where it was'," Kevin replied, rolling his eyes. "I've always had some memory trouble. I'll have lapses where I forget details of several entire subjects all at once. I think I've reviewed the project logs in their entirety around six times since I've had the files, but I only recall doing it once. I leave myself notes to let me know that I did." He paused a minute to think. "I haven't had one recently, now that I think about it. That, or the stuff I forgot had no bearing on anything I have been thinking about."
"Hopefully we'll be able to fix that," Liam noted with a sidelong glance at Allison. "That may have been an unfortunate side effect to the high doses of amnesiacs we had to give all you kids when you left for the Ascension Project. The project lead didn't want you kids talking to the instructors there and spilling undue details…"
"I figured as much myself," Kevin said, giving his chin a lazy scratch.
The others returned to their transfixed state as Kevin began to tell his story once more. He went on to explain how Ralik knocked him out and the others somehow stuffed him inside an extra quarian envirosuit to save his life, with a few alterations to the suit itself. He stood and made his way into the other room so he could stand by his hanging suit. The others followed him in, taking chairs if they managed to be near one enough to grab it, and Liam, Allison, and Gerald sat in them. Once everyone settled in again, he continued by pointing at the part of the suit below the knees and explaining the work and necessity that went into it.
"No more Neural Stimulators, I take it," Maela joked.
"That and a few other things, I won't go into detail."
Susume leaned forward, her face showing wonder and unstoppable curiosity. "Was it weird being in that suit? I mean, the gloves haven't changed at all. That means you had to adapt to a three-finger style of living."
Kevin nodded again, reminiscent. "Oh definitely. That was the least of my concerns, though. For instance: I had to figure out, on my own, how quarians go to the bathroom in those suits. Now that was an adventure."
A round of chuckles filled the room and Allison shook her head, not wanting an explanation. Kevin picked up on it and moved on by describing the lifestyle changes he had to make to adjust to wearing the envirosuit. He soon moved onto the battle with the Cerberus Hunter-Seeker and the events that unfolded on the Migrant Fleet. That last bit had caught some of them by surprise, and their eyes stared at him with curiosity as he explained the Xelvas'taersh and the sigil hanging from the strap that he'd put on the wall next to his suit.
Next he verbally recalled all his interactions with his new shipmates, including the dance party, Arla's duel challenge, the mischief of Bela, and his agreement with Arla to trade combat training for tech lessons. There were jests about his involvement with Arla, as her name had come up more and more often as the story progressed, but he quickly found ways to dodge most questions regarding her and their time together.
By the time he had started to talk about the geth fleet and the monolithic geth homeship, even Maela was fully invested in the retelling. Kevin worked his memory as best as he could to give detail about that encounter, and had to push on when it came to talking about Siri's demise. These were still fresh wounds for him.
"Take care of Arla." She'd pleaded. How he'd failed at that. Memories of Siri and Arla came flooding back in that moment and caused him to unintentionally drift off into silence.
The stop in his voice warranted odd looks from the others. He must have gone silent for longer than he knew while lost in memories.
"Kevin? You aright?" Allison finally asked, increasingly wary.
Kevin blinked three times as he quickly snapped back to reality to process her question. "What? Yes, I'm-I'm fine. Sorry, I just got assaulted by memories I thought I'd buried."
He saw each of the scientists breathe a sigh of relief. It had only occurred to him then that such unexpected silences could spell his imminent death in their eyes. I best get my memories under control. I'm not some drell who's lost control of his eidetic memory.
A few breaths later, he resumed his epic tale. The unknown beyond the Melkanis relay came next, including the dark nebula and their discovery of the lone star system. He had a hell of a time trying to explain the unique sights, such as seeing the entire galaxy side-on, and the vast, incredible emptiness of the dark space they teetered on. He also made sure to mention the stark lack of a return relay. He wanted them to know how he'd thought he'd never make it home.
He spent a good deal of time describing the planet as well. From the mysterious way the scans always came back inconclusive to the fact that it was coated in dextro-amino plant life to the cluster of geth inhabiting one very specific valley. The Skimmer made its way into the conversation and some jokes were had about Tarsil's ability to procure just about anything. That conversation led into how he and Arla had spent hours and hours for days just exploring the planet and mapping it out. This brought more talk of Arla's potential relationship with Kevin, which he once again nimbly avoided by telling stories of some of the things they did while out and about. It was a suitable distraction, and it worked to get them to let go long enough to move on.
After that he talked about the geth in the nearby asteroid belts and how they planned to track their movement about the system. He went into painstaking detail about the terrors of jumping out of a ship into open space amidst an asteroid belt full of geth mining vessels. All agreed, it was probably the stupidest thing he'd ever willingly done. Next came the long tale of the geth planetoid they found and their shocking discoveries there. Half of the stuff seemed impossible to them, the rest was downright creepy. The part about the exosuits of long-dead quarians seemed to have them all white-knuckling their own hands, and he got wide eyes when he mentioned captain Siri'Kortel's bone-chilling revival.
When he started talking about Kar'Welkas and the state he'd been in when they found him and the things they discovered about him afterwards, Kevin got some anxious looks from the scientists.
"Oh God…" Allison gasped as she brought a hand to her mouth.
"You know what that is?" Kevin asked as a curious brow twitched upward.
Allison slowly nodded her head as if from sadness. "We had been sent other small side-projects to work on during the time you kids were growing and were beyond our direct observation. I remember, more recently, we had been sent a subject who had similar symptoms, and we were asked to figure out where the voices he spoke of were coming from. It seemed a silly request at the time, but we worked on it anyways. It took two days, but the poor man eventually mutated into a husk of some kind. You know, those things that the geth—"
Kevin raised a hand to cut her off. "I know. Boy do I know."
He used this particular point to talk about what they found in the captain and their revelation of what the geth seemed to be preparing for. Others voiced how it didn't seem likely due to the geth's natural processing limitations, and Kevin expressed similar anxiety over the fact that there was a lot they didn't know at the time.
After that came the trek down into the planet via an open cave. The mention of the pure element zero at the mantle of the planet took them all aback as much as the discoveries in the planetoid. He edged into how he and Arla had then been conscripted to look for clues about the strange energies emanating from the large mountain at the center of the range that separated them from the geth encampment. Again, the steady flow of incredible discoveries ensured his audience was captivated.
As he was talking about the return to the group afterwards, he had to make a huge detour around the activities he and Arla had gotten up to during the days confined to the campgrounds. He didn't have it in him to tell them about the relationship he and Arla joined in then, and the details were his personal, secret wounds that still bled.
Then came the single most important event of the entire voyage: the discovery of the reaper. He found it was twice as enjoyable to tell if he sprinkled all kinds of suspense around the story, and it paid off here. They were all just as blindsided as he was, but the story was halted when Maela asked a question they all found to be absurd.
"The hell's a reaper?"
The entire team around Kevin all gave Maela incredulous looks, but it was Allison who spoke first. "You've got to be kidding me. How do you not know what a reaper is?"
Maela's anger flared. "Well excuse me for not giving a shit about things no one has heard of! I've got way more important things to do with my time than search the extranet for pointless babble!"
Liam placed a hand on Allison's shoulder. "Remember the attack on the Citadel a few years back? The 'geth flagship', the one that more or less tore apart everything that confronted it, was no geth. That, Maela, was a reaper."
The asari cocked her head to the side, her receding rage still spicing her tone. "That giant thing? The council made statements saying—"
Liam lifted his hands to give more impact to his words. "The council lied, Maela. They just wanted to bury it and have it go away. It brought too many questions they had no answers for, and the easiest thing for them to do was misinform the public to make the questions blow away in the wind."
"You guys know about the reapers?" Kevin asked with a raised brow.
"All of Cerberus knows about the reapers, Kevin," Jeremy remarked. "We know that the reapers were behind the Collectors, too. The various project cells may not be allowed interoffice communication, but it's been quite obvious for some time now that the Illusive Man has been shifting his interests and the interests of the organization on the whole towards reapers and their technology."
"We think the short-lived documentation experiment we were asked to handle—the one with the man that turned into a husk—had something to do with that," Gerald added. "We just had nothing but hunches and whispers to go on."
"We were lucky," Liam continued. "Last we heard, many of the cells were being repurposed for some unknown project. One that people tended to disappear from. We got out of dodge before any of the 'processing' crews managed to reach our station."
"Hold on just a minute," Maela interrupted. "These reapers were behind the Collectors? How?"
"We don't know a great deal of details," Liam offered, "but we inferred that the Collectors were basically a race from some time in the past that were transformed to serve the reapers' will. Given their penchant for transforming everything into husks, it makes sense."
Maela's brow furrowed. "…Oh. That's… startling news."
"Why?" asked Gerald.
"Because some of my efforts in my field had been funded by the money I'd received from clandestine Collector transactions." She winced and her face grew dark as her thoughts led her attention away from the current conversation.
Kevin used her distraction to press on with the story, wondering how long he'd been in the telling of it so far. It didn't take him long to get to the part where the planet literally terraformed itself into a gargantuan mass relay at the will of the reaper. The others, not surprisingly, found such a detail hard to believe. He didn't wait long to move onto the assault on the reaper itself, and again he was interrupted frequently with cries of how mad he was to even consider such an objective.
He told of the daring entrance, the brief, if one-sided, conversation with the reaper itself, the long march inward fraught with keeper husks, and the incredible battle with the husk that had morphed to suit the reaper's needs of removing them. He told of the frantic escape and paused there. He dreaded recounting the end of it all, but he had promised them the whole thing.
He told the end of the Kellius and the entire team half on the verge of his voice cracking most of the way through. Everyone could see how hard it had hit him, and their moods were almost as somber as his by the end. He even had to stop a moment to compose himself before he finished off with his commandeering of the geth transport and using it to crash into the Blue Suns dock to gain a suitably obscured entry onto the station. Finally, his long tale had come to an end.
Kevin sighed and gestured for some water and Jeremy responded without hesitation. He'd been speaking for a long while and his throat was parched. "So yeah, I've been here ever since. I grabbed some filthy rags and blended in almost immediately. I tried to contact the Migrant Fleet, but they must have been in the middle of relocating so I never got the chance to communicate with them. I recently gave up on it. I talked with Tarsil, though. He grieved for Ralik in his own way then we were on to business. Right after that is when I tried to contact the Illusive Man about the project I came from and was told everything had been liquidated."
"Interesting…" Liam mused as he stroked his chin. "We'd been told our share of lies about you as well, though we quickly found out that such was not true."
Kevin sat upright so that he could cross his arms. "And that's when you decided to pack up and leave for Illium," he noted, grinning. "That's where Maela T'Vess was, and you needed her help." Jeremy came with his glass full of water just then, and he took a quick chug to quench his thirst.
"This kid creeps me out, Liam," Gerald warily admitted.
"Well, think of it this way, Gerald," Liam said, standing from his chair. "With this kind of information at his disposal, the lad could have killed us long ago if he wanted to. I get the feeling he does not."
Gerald nodded and the room fell silent for a while as conversations failed to present themselves. Susume yawned and the contagious nature of it had all but Maela and Kevin yawning as well. Susume then laid back down on the bed and closed her eyes.
Liam wiped a pair of tears that resulted from the yawn from his eyes. He looked around at the exhausted faces and gave something a moment of serious thought. "Perhaps it might be best if we pushed on after some sleep. We hadn't gotten any decent rest in the last few days, especially not while on Omega, and I can't call it wise to continue in this sorry state we're in."
Kevin preempted Liam's request. "Feel free to bunk here for the night, but best of luck trying to find something to sleep on other than the bed."
Liam smiled at Kevin's generosity. "Aye, thank you lad. We'll do just that and head out soon as we're all up."
"Where are we heading?" Kevin asked as he stood from the bed to let Susume rearrange herself properly across it.
"The Citadel," Maela answered, having decided not to move from her spot on the wall yet. "My labs on Illium are all spoken for and busy at the moment, but I have a few labs in the Presidium that we can put to use. They're a little dated, but more than sufficient for what I need."
"Leaving this magnificent place to live like a lab-rat on the Citadel's Presidium? I have mixed feelings about this," Kevin muttered, his face a mix of emotions.
The asari shrugged. "Be thankful. I almost didn't get involved at all, and I doubt these ones have the facilities to help you." She made a flicking gesture towards the other scientists with her hand as she said 'these ones'.
There was a quick round of approval in favor of staying the night before nearly everyone broke from their spots to figure some sort of method out for getting rest. Allison had taken the bed with Susume, while the men stripped off their lab coats and rolled them up for use as pillows. Some laid down on the cold metal floor and tried to get comfortable. Others used the chairs and table as their bed. It looked bothersome at best for sleeping on, but they looked quite at home. Kevin could only guess that must have been from all the unusual sleeping conditions they've had to endure on their flight from Cerberus. Maela and Kevin were the only ones who didn't bother to try and find a suitable resting position.
"I'll try to remember that when I'm being examined 'for science'," Kevin quipped as he watched the others settle in, sporting a grin once more. "What changed your mind?"
Maela laughed. "Certainly not anything McRoilie had to say."
Kevin had his doubts about that.
"It was a wonderful little visit from those assholes at Cerberus who probably followed your little clan of misfits to my office."
"No, they were there before us, even as we landed our ship," Liam declared defensively.
She rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "That just makes you all look worse. They found me before you did, and the only motivation they had was 'boss told me to'."
Kevin decided to step in before things got heated and he gestured for the asari to walk with him into the kitchen. "Maela, how about we take first watch and chat in the kitchen so they can sleep?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, wary of what he thought she was trying to stir up, but complied nonetheless. "Yeah yeah yeah."
Once Kevin saw that everyone had gotten as settled as much as they were like to be, he tapped on his omni-tool to dim the lights of that room. Not that it mattered much; the lights from the kitchen-half of the apartment, even dimmed, still illuminated the rest. Still, they didn't seem too bothered by it and a few drifted off within a few minutes.
"Sleep tight, guys," Kevin said in a whisper as he moved into the kitchen
Maela had contented to hop up and sit on his counter beside the sink, playing with some cooking utensils out of boredom. After Kevin had finished dimming the necessary lights and such, she beckoned him closer with an index finger the way a mother would to a child when he was in trouble. She continued to do this until Kevin was effectively a mere inch from her knees as they dangled off of the counter. At this point she reached up and firmly placed both hands on the side of his head to draw him in a little closer to her face.
"Hold still, damnit," she demanded as she stared into his eyes. She was more inspecting a specimen than she was searching his soul or looking for the sparkle in those hazel eyes of his.
"Okay, this just got weird," Kevin admitted, feeling a smidge uncomfortable. "What, uh… What are you looking for?"
"You said it was headaches, right?" she asked as she continued to search his eyes or nose or face for something.
He didn't really resist her holding him there, as he suspected that whatever she was doing was necessary. "What? Oh, you mean my neural episodes? Yeah, headaches."
"Hmph. That's putting it mildly, I'll wager. You're vision's not been affected?"
"It's hard to remember those kinds of details, but I'm pretty sure my vision blurs to the point of uselessness and tunnels as well."
"What about now, between events?"
"Not that I know of. I can still hit small targets without a problem. I've not needed any corrections."
"Sounds like you've had it easy, then," she said as she pushed his face away. "You've got some intense surface scarring on the whites of your eyes, and your irises are striped with damage as well. Not easy to spot, as one has to know what to look for. Curious that the insides haven't suffered any damage as of yet."
Kevin took a step back and he rolled his head on his neck. "Any idea what's wrong with me?"
Maela shrugged. "I have my suspicions as to the cause, but it would do little good to try and explain it to you." The last word was full of reproach. "You should get some sleep. A good night's rest may help stave off any effects for now."
Kevin squinted at the lights in the ceiling. "I don't know, it seemed my NCIs were more frequent when I actually got decent sleep."
Maela gave him a loathsome glare and pointed into the darkened room.
Kevin crossed his arms and gave her a sideways glance. "Where exactly am I supposed to sleep? All of the furniture is taken and I've got nothing to roll up as a pillow."
"Hell if I know," she said, shrugging again. "They all consider you their son, but I bet you Matashima over there wouldn't mind you getting nice and cozy in that bed with her."
"I heard that, bitch!" Susume called out, almost playfully. Apparently she hadn't fallen asleep yet.
Maela craned her head to look over towards the bed and then brought her gaze back to Kevin, smiling. "See? No objections."
"I think not," Kevin stated briskly amongst a sigh.
Maela rolled her eyes. "Fine. Stay up. But don't come to me looking for entertainment. I'm going to be busy sending messages to the Citadel to get them ready for our arrival."
Kevin didn't bother to reply, but turned away as she activated her omni-tool. He was about to go sit against the far wall when a question stopped him before he got very far.
"Do you miss her?" Maela asked with a voice so tender he almost mistook the source as Allison.
"Who?" Kevin asked back without turning to face the asari, already knowing the answer.
"That quarian you spent so much time with. Arla, I think her name was." The lack of beeps indicated she had stopped messing with the haptic interfaces of her omni-tool.
Kevin straightened up rigidly, drew in a sharp breath, and let it go immediately. "More than I could ever say." The beeps did not continue as he'd expected, not for a short while at least. When at last they did, and without any further word from her, he made his way to the far wall.
He leaned back against it and slid down, bringing his legs in to sit cross-legged when he hit the floor. He gazed about the room, eyes falling on each member of the scientist team in turn. They all think of me as their son, he thought. They might not have blood relation to me, but then again, no one in this galaxy does. He quickly found that his previous nap hadn't warded off the creeping tiredness he'd been dealing with all this time and he felt his eyelids growing heavy. When he laid his head back against the wall, his eyelids slid shut on their own and he could feel the warm darkness of sleep reaching up to clutch him.
This is the closest thing to a family I've ever had. My very own surrogate family.
