A/N Okay, first an apology to the people who kept waiting for this to update, I really hope that I didn't irritate you too much with the extreme length of time since the last update, it's probably been a year if not a little longer. If you are still interested then here is chapter 13. It's shorter than planned, as I ended up breaking in into 2 sections so I could finally post this chunk which has royally kicked my ass with block. I tried to get it right several times to the point of losing interest and then forgetting about it as I got swamped at work. Every so often I tried again but kept hitting block, and then finally about a week ago it started to clear up and I worked out a way to get back on track. I would completely understand anyone not bothering to even read this after so long, but thought I would post it anyway. If you enjoyed the first 12 chapters please let me know what you think of this as some\positive feedback would be very very welcome, I hated the last 4 or 5 attempts at this. I hope to have some more done for you good people much much quicker than this one! Thanks and sorry for the wait.
There's a long moment of silence as Furti and Havnoc give the room a quick professional once over from the doorway, checking no more live targets remain, before returning to the bloodied body I'm crouching beside.
"What are you doing?" Furti's tone is frigid. Good, she didn't just open up on me. I make sure to keep my body language as relaxed as I can, as I casually reach for my combat knife, to remove the Batarian's head.
"Aria's second request was Yeis' head, so I'm gonna cut it off," The Batarian's heartbeat has stopped so no new blood will flow but first, "after I break his spine to make it easier to remove."
Havnoc steps fully into the room, and the big Krogan is still pumped from the fight but not looking hostile towards me. Furti points at the gaping wound in Yeis' neck with her free hand.
"And that?"
"I was badly wounded, needed to heal."
I stand up and show them the multiple holes in my suit's plates. Havnoc steps forward and takes a better look, then shakes his head with a grunt.
"Huh, that's a shotgun blast at close range, light armor's not real good Nat."
"It was point blank Havnoc, and my shields were already fucked."
"Healed already. No scars. You heal faster than I do Nat. Didn't know Humans could regenerate."
"They can't." Furti states flatly. "Nor do Humans generally feed on other Humans."
"Huh, Krogan do from time to time." Havnoc comments, his tone suggests he isn't sure what the problem is.
"Humans don't Havnoc. In fact I believe they would find such a thing very disturbing."
"Don't see why Furti, she's a predator, same as Krogan are predators, and this explains your unusual scent Nat." Havnoc comments. I give him a grin, it seems Havnoc is not fazed at all by my feeding. Time to take control of the situation if I can.
"Furti, I'm not going to attack you or Havnoc, and if you are so interested I will tell you what you want to know, but not right now, in the middle of this op. Archangel's team is almost here, and we need to meet them."
Furti watches me for a long moment as I methodically snap the Batarian's neck then use my knife to cut his head off.
"We will discuss this after." Furti states, and I nod my acceptance.
"I need to retrieve any data I can, then clean up, can you both meet Archangel and help him free the slaves. I won't be long."
Havnoc grunts his acknowledgement, and stomps out of the room, Furti stops for a moment longer.
"What are you Stern?"
"Humans would call me a vampire Furti, I'll explain later."
"Vampire? I don't know what that means but it will do for now." The commando turns and follows Havnoc, following the route I took into the building. She will have plenty more bodies to wonder about. I tell Lexi to make sure the turrets that riddled me with holes are set on safe for my team mates and then quickly strip Yeis' omnitool off him. Lexi can hack that later.
"Lexi any additional data of importance in the terminals?"
"It's mostly shipping data, I have taken a copy of their files for later analysis."
"Okay, wipe everything in their terminals, especially any security footage, how far away is Archangel now?"
"Forward elements are engaging the remaining slavers outside the base, the main force is 30 seconds out."
Lexi keeps track of events outside while I use my omnitool to incinerate Yeis, then retrace my steps leaving burning corpses and greasy black smoke where I fed, watching on my HUD map as Archangel's main team of 15 deploys into teams of 3, quickly securing the slave pens, and killing the last slavers with no casualties, while large transports to evacuate the slaves fly in behind to land in the base.
10 minutes later I finish cleaning up my mess, apart from the small matter of being spattered in multi colored gore and having holes punched in my armor, and join Havnoc outside where the Krogan is relaxing. He is leaning against the wall watching the activity as Archangel's men and the transport crews quickly and efficiently organise themselves for the evacuation of the freed slaves. Already small groups of men, women and children, mostly Humans, with a smattering of other species are being led out, clad in disposable jumpsuits towards the transports.
"That was a great fight Nat, make sure to count me in on the next one."
"Glad to know I can count on you Havnoc."
"Huh, I already told you we're krant Nat."
"Not disturbed by my feeding then?"
"No why should I be? Most Humans are weak, squishy and no fun in a fight. Instead you're strong, bring me good battles, you're a predator like me, and you can hold your own. That's pretty much all I need to know."
I give the big Krogan a shoulder thump of thanks and then turn my attention to Furti and Archangel walking across the yard towards me, the Turian with his trademark sniper rifle resting easily against his shoulder. He's giving orders to his crew as they walk up, then turns his attention to me after shutting off his comm, looking me up and down. Even anonymous in his armor I get a good sense of his disbelief at the state of my suit and the fact I'm still standing.
"What the fuck happened to you Stern? You're full of holes." Archangel's deep voice points out sardonically
"Full marks for observation Archangel. A damn big explosion did for my pauldron," I point at the rubble that is all that remains of the slaver's barracks, "and then I had to deal with the fucking slavers over there, and in here."
"And how exactly aren't you dead? Medigel is wonderful stuff but fist sized holes punched in you generally means you're dead."
"Let's just say I heal fast alright?"
"Uh huh. That's all you're gonna say when your armor's totalled beyond repair, and you've blood everywhere?"
"It'll fix, and everyone's entitled to some secrets Archangel." I reply, watching Furti to see her reaction, but she just gives me a miniscule nod, I guess I'm alright for now. I know Archangel's ex detective instincts are screaming at him to investigate, and no doubt he has clocked my glance at Furti but that problem will just have to wait.
"I guess that'll have to do for now."
"Yeah well you should see the other guy." He laughs and changes the subject.
"Stern you're fucking crazy. No way it made sense for you 3 to engage an entire base, but you did it anyway. I have to admit though your team does good work."
"Thank you, without them it wouldn't have been possible. They're both very skilled, cleared out all the far end of the base including the power generators."
"That they are, but Furti tells me this section of the base was all you. What the hell did you do to this building?" Archangel asks as he looks over at the rubble that is all that remains of the slaver's former barracks.
"I used condensed C19 and flattened it from above, couldn't afford to let the slavers reinforce."
Archangel glances at me, then nods and turns away. He knows that simple statement hides a lot. Before the conversation continues, he raises his hand and takes a quick comm call before turning back to us.
"You're team are being very efficient, how long before you're ready to pull out?"
"It will be several hours yet Stern, as you can see the first slaves have been processed, but there are over 1300 to deal with. Once they're dressed and had a basic medical scan we'll evac to my contacts who'll get them off Omega. You've done a good thing here Stern, I appreciate you planning to allow for freeing these people, even if it is just a drop in the ocean, but this is at the limits of what my team can do, it's costing me a lot of cash and favours to do this op."
"Where there many Asari amongst the slaves?"
"Talking about your deal with Aria? Yeah we've freed 78 Asari so that will help defray some of the costs."
"Shame there wasn't a slaver ship you could commandeer to help keep the costs down."
"True, Stern, true but then you would've had to deal with them as well, and despite your team's evident skills I think that might have been too much."
"You could well be right at that, well at the moment I have complete control of all the bases systems, and you can have the codes, I suggest you salvage as much as you can for sale, to help with the costs, if you leave the Batarians nothing useful you send them that much more of a message."
"You better believe it. We're gonna strip out anything useful we can before we head out. You definitely delivered Aria's message."
"All in a day's work. While I think about it, make sure you check out their Armory, I had it locked down so they couldn't get kitted up once our attack started."
"Excellent Stern, with that, and the other salvage we might even pull a profit on this mission. Not exactly my reason for being here but it certainly helps pay the bills." The big Turian comments off hand.
"Okay well I'll transfer the access codes to you now, and I think my team and I will head off, you don't need us here now do you?"
"Honestly? No. With control of the turrets and full access we're plenty secure for now from the remnants of Yeis's men, and none of the other slaving clans will poke their faces in just yet, it will be a while before they risk Aria's wrath. You better be on your guard though, your rep just shot way up, and you made a hell of an impression but there's no way you can stop the Batarians from finding out who was responsible for this, they'll be gunning for you."
"I know, I know, but you gotta have some spice in life you know."
Archangel just shakes his head at me.
"You're crazy Stern. You have my comm, stay in touch, I gotta go and ride herd on my team."
"Will do and thanks for the help."
He turns away with a friendly wave and lopes towards his men, falling effortlessly back into directing his team, and I turn and face my 2 team mates.
"Come on you two. Let's get the hell out of here so I can deliver Aria her trophy and then answer your questions Furti. I'd deal with your questions first but now the fighting is done I doubt Aria will be willing to wait."
"You're right Stern. I want answers but it isn't wise to risk antagonizing Aria. Is it acceptable to meet at your apartment and discuss things there once you have seen Aria?" Furti ask calmly, and it's reassuring that the commando doesn't seem to be planning imminent violence. I think for a moment then nod my agreement.
"I'll comm Serah to expect you both, and we can divide our haul from the raid at the same time. Make sure you both have secure credsticks to transfer your share to. I'll see you both in a few hours."
The Asari and Krogan both nod, we all gather our equipment and then the 3 of us head for one of the vacant skimmers in the base garage. It takes Lexi moments to hack the skimmer's locks and override its security system. Havnoc heaves his bulk into the rear and Furti grabs the driver's couch, while I slip into the passenger couch beside her. Furti brings the skimmer's ME core online and up to power and then takes the controls, bringing the skimmer up to 20m altitude before spinning around and accelerating. Moments later we speed over the bodies of the slaver reinforcements, taken down with ease by the turret network and, head for the coreward passage back to the rest of Omega.
Furti brings the skimmer to rest at the landing pad near Afterlife, and after a quick good bye I hop out with my gear, and Aria's trophy, before the skimmer's clamshell door closes again. The skimmer powers up and lifts up heading into the traffic. I stretch and crack my back then head towards Afterlife's entrance. The bouncers on duty are an Elcor and Batarian. The Elcor see me first and alerts his companion. I decide to assume that Aria has given orders to let me past, because I'm not really in the mood to wait, and I carry on walking past the perpetual queue of partygoers waiting for entry, ignoring the comments as my gore spattered figure passes them in favour of watching the Batarian bouncer. All four of his eyes are wide open at the orange blood and the state of my suit, and he hurriedly speaks into his comm as I approach then swiftly moves aside after receiving a response. I guess Aria said let me in. I throw him a nod and then ignore him, although I know Lexi will still track him and the Elcor.
I walk along the passage, Aria's patrons shying away from me and steering well clear, then I pass into the club proper and Lexi immediately tones down the volume to calm the din. The club is moderately busy, beats hammering out as normal, so loud you can almost see the sound waves ripple the air in front of the speaker systems, the dancers busy at their stations, and the bars going full tilt. The sight and smell of me is enough to act as a physical wave and I easily move through the crowd to the steps to Aria's private deck, the guard at the bottom waves me past and then steps back into place. I know the routine now and step to the desk under the watchful eyes of Aria's bodyguards and their guns. I take my time disarming, letting the smaller Batarian with the hand scanner do his job, even though we both know the results will be messed up. He grimaces and tells Aria it's the same as last time and she waves me forward. I pop my visor up and step up to where Omega's Queen is relaxing.
"So Stern, you look like you've been having fun, I'd tell you to take a seat but it was just cleaned." Aria gives me her patented nasty smirk. "I take it you have something for me? You've certainly been making enough of a disturbance down on level 27."
"I believe you can consider your message to the slaving clans sent Aria, where would you like your trophy?" I gesture at the sack hanging at my waist. Aria's smirk turns into a full blown grin.
"You took me literally and brought me his head didn't you?"
"Of course. Would you like it on the table, or if you want I could mount it on the balcony there."
"Let me see first." Aria demands and I grab the sack, reach in and pull out Yeis' severed head, passing it to her. I hear a small groan in the background and grin as Aria inspects Yeis's mutilated face.
"The eyes?"
"Access codes. He was happy to tell me."
"I can imagine. You have my money of course?"
"I do." I pass Aria a cred stick which she scans with her omnitool. It has a straight 2 million creds on it.
"I take it you made out okay on the raid." Aria enquires as she notes the extra credits. The extra I'm giving her as interest is almost what she was due to pay me for the job but we both understand this is about respect being due not the credits as such.
"I did, my team will do well out of it and Archangel predicted he would make a profit from the salvage after the costs of shipping the slaves off Omega. He wasn't planning on leaving much behind for the clan to reclaim."
Aria nods her understanding, then smirks at the head she's holding before throwing it to Pashya who's standing to the side waiting for orders. The PA goes paler blue at suddenly finding herself holding a severed head but she doesn't drop it. Aria laugh at her evilly before telling her to have Yeis's head mounted downstairs above the central bar. Pashya hurries off to rid herself of the head, and Aria watches her go with her trademark smirk, before turning her attention back to me.
"So Stern, you have successfully passed the practical part of your job interview but I still have questions you need to answer."
"And if I decide I don't want the job anymore?"
I think I know where this is going and I'm not definitely not happy about it but I need to stay calm. I reckon Furti could bend me into a pretzel with her biotics so I don't even want to think about what Aria could do to me. Omega's Queen tells me I'm right with her response as she grins coldly at me.
"Stern, there's too much about you that makes no sense, and I can't afford a mystery like you wandering around my rock, so you will give me answers even if you don't want the job anymore, or you won't leave. Understood?"
Aria watches as I absorb her ultimatum and I almost get the feeling she can read my thoughts, as I try and gauge my chances. I don't need to look to understand her bodyguards are already aimed right at my head. I nod slowly, and she smirks again.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything." Aria states flatly. Dammit I knew she was gonna say that.
"How am I supposed to tell you everything?" Please don't, please don't.
"You misunderstand Stern, you won't be telling me anything. I will read it right out of your mind. Take off your helm. You're strong Stern but nowhere near strong enough to fight me."
Aw shit. I'm fucked. Okay how the hell do I try and control this clusterfuck.
"Oh I know Aria, and I understand the first rule, I'm just trying to work out how to make you believe what you see."
My answer as I take off my helm seems to surprise her, but not as much as the orange blood dried around my mouth. Her guards can't see my face so I take a moment of juvenile satisfaction in letting Aria see my fangs elongate and retract. Dumb I know, but there's at least a chance Omega's Queen is gonna pulp my skull like a grape with her mind once she's finished rooting around in my brain. Not wise to antagonise her but I'll be damned again before I let her see fear. The blink of shock that flashes across her normally immaculately aloof cold features is very satisfying.
"I'm happy to cooperate Aria, but trust when I say there is stuff in my mind you might regret seeing. How much control do you have of what you see?"
"I can brutally rape your mind on my own, or I can take you with me through your memories, and you can explain them at the same time, but that takes your cooperation." Aria replies briskly with a tiny trace of bemusement. I give her a more friendly grin sans fangs.
"Well I'm gonna cooperate and explain all I can Aria, so how about we forget brutal mind fuck and go with the second option. After all I'm no use to you as a gibbering vegetable."
There's a long moment as Aria looks at me, then she gives me that smirk again and a tiny nod, before standing up reaching forward to hold my face with her hands and gazing into my eyes with her own suddenly black as space.
"Embrace eternity."
My vision blanks out, my senses fade, and there's a moment of disorientation and then suddenly I'm somewhere else. What the fuck is this? Around me lies a truly bizarre landscape. I seem to be on a small hill rising above a collage of dark forests surrounding isolated buildings that I recognise from my life before my rebirth on Omega. I see my old office complex, my boarding house from the school I attended as a teenager, my favourite pub, as well as other buildings weirdly picked out of my past and dropped into this shadowed threatening place. Above it all a black sky, cloudless but without stars a huge swollen blood red moon, throwing a red glare over everything I can see, throwing deep black shadows from the trees and buildings. Shadows that seem to move although there is no wind here. It is silent, the air around seeming to absorb any noise. A muted curse to my left makes me spin around, to see Aria T'loak looking about as tense as I feel.
"Where the fuck am I?" I demand. The Asari ignores me for a moment as she looks around warily, her trademark white jacket looks almost stained red in the moonlight.
"This is your mind Stern, and Goddess knows it is fucked up." A flicker of that imperious smirk crosses her face for a moment then she spins around to stare into the thick forests that stretch away behind us, a heavy pistol materializing in her hand like quicksilver.
"What is it?"
"There's something watching us. Me actually."
"I don't see anything." I reply looking down at the shadowed trees.
"Neither do I Stern, but I feel it, circling us."
The centuries old, extremely powerful Asari sounds concerned as she gradually moves in a circle around me, pistol pointed at the trees at all times. Not encouraging. Still this is my mind, so I should be safe. Right? Although I haven't a clue why my mind looks like this.
"What now?"
"Now? You help me I get the information I want," T'Loak gestures warily around us with the pistol, "This is your mindscape Stern, a picture of your subconscious and memory, of how your mind is organised. Usually they are very basic as most people's is never fully developed Often there are buildings, gardens, places a person is familiar with, this…this is bizarre, it doesn't fit together. These weird buildings don't fit in this forest. Do you know where they are from?"
"Yes Aria I recognise some of them, the stone house over there is from my school."
"Your school? How can that be Stern? It's… primitive."
"True I guess, it was built around 1780 in Earth years so that would be almost 400 years ago."
"So that means you came from Earth itself then. How did you get on my station Stern? No one saw you arrive, I checked."
"That's a long story Aria, and I don't think you will believe me." I try to deflect the query. I shouldn't have.
"Don't fuck with me Stern." Aria's tone has gone ice cold again.
"I'm not." I protest. I just don't want to try and explain the impossible.
"Yeah well I'm beginning to think your idea of cooperating isn't worth the effort, I'll just take what I want instead."
Suddenly Aria's pointing the heavy pistol between my eyes. I'm gonna get shot inside my mind? That's fucked up. Before I can begin to respond, the feeling of being watched, stalked, returns only much much stronger, and infinitely more hostile and Aria spins fully around again, face pale her callous smirk and attitude replaced by worry and … fear? What the hell is going on?
There's a blur of movement, and I barely make out a pale figure that flits past the Asari delivering a punishing blow that knocks Omega's Queen flying off her feet, down the slope closer to the strange forest. Give the bitch credit she rolls to her feet in one seamless movement spinning again looking for her attacker, even firing a couple of shots into the shadows. There's nothing there though. The next second Aria moves again, charging towards me but not fast enough to avoid the pale shadow that blurs behind her and smacks the Asari face first into the ground with casual indifference and frightening speed. The figure pauses for a moment and that is all I need to know what it is, before it blurs away again. Aw shit, it's my inner vampire. Feral rage, fangs snarling, ravenous hunger and power all rolled into one, and it just smacked Aria down hard. Omega's Queen is gonna be pissed.
The Asari rolls to her feet and walks, so stalks towards me, and her anger is…crackling around her, but the gun isn't pointed between my eyes, and I can feel that vampiric presence watching, evaluating, judging, and waiting for her next action. Me? I stand frozen. You have to admit that T'Loak has a lot of presence.
"Stern…" T'Loak growls at me.
"I already told you I'm not fucking with you Aria." I protest, and it sounds pretty damn feeble at the moment.
The scowling Asari stops in front of me, and I feel that vampiric presence watching intently. Aria hesitates? No, call it a pause as she looks around again, turning full circle her head cocked slightly as she searches for the presence we can both feel looming. She's facing away from me and makes to lift the heavy pistol up, and the looming presence intensifies dramatically and the Asari rapidly lowers the pistol and holsters the weapon, before turning back round to face me. I think she's paler than before, but the weird lighting makes that very hard to tell, then a trace of that smirk is back.
"It looks like you're gonna have to tell me that long story Stern."
"But it doesn't make any sense there's no way you'll believe me!"
"Stern right now you'd be surprised what I would believe. I have questions that need answering or I'm gonna pull out of this meld and crush your head like a grape with my biotics. You understand me Stern?"
Aw crap. Yes I understand no trying to bullshit my way out of this. I just nod.
"First Question. Who's the guest in your head?"
"I think I can answer what it is Aria, but…." She cuts me off.
"Ok Stern we'll do that first, what is it?"
"It's a vampire."
"A vampire?" Aria tries the word out before ordering. "Explain."
"A vampire is a bunch of Human myths, at least I thought it was, it's….a nightmare made flesh. They exist by feasting on the life essence of other creatures by drinking their blood. Some stories say they can't be killed, others that they are already dead. Some humans romanticise them as being all dark gothic sex, passion and menace, other stories are just of killers that are faster and stronger than men, beyond belief even, of creatures that fly, become invisible while hunting their prey, that mentally control their victims. Honestly I have no idea what is true and what is false, there has been so much written about vampires Aria, contradictory stories that would fill libraries. I thought they represented all the dark that is in people, but really I have no idea."
"Ok, Humans have some weird ideas, but Asari have our own myths and monsters as well so I guess I can relate."
"You mean Ardat Yakshi?"
T'Loak had been starting to look around again but those words and I have her full focussed attention again.
"How do you know that name? Who told you this?" Aria is actually hissing her demand at me, fuck I pissed her off again.
"Um no one."
"STERN!" Ok that's the first time I actually heard capitals. I definitely fucked up again, and I hurry to try and calm her, after all if she blows we're in my head. I know the vampire is watching but I don't want to be caught in the middle.
"Peace Aria, it's part of the story you won't believe, but I'll get there I promise, I know a lot of stuff I shouldn't."
Omega's Queen actually shakes herself and then goes icy calm again, the smirk is long gone and I know I am gonna have to explain this all. I watch as the Asari visibly sorts through the questions she wants to ask, before settling on continuing our previous thread.
"How do you have a vampire in your head? Why do you have a vampire in your head?"
I pause for a moment while I try and work out to say before seeing T'Loak getting ready to go off it again and I blurt out.
"I died. Well technically I was about dead when a god like being…"
"What?!" Wow, Omega's Queen can be dumbstruck, the rest of this is gonna blow her mind.
"Look Aria you want this story or not?" Aria's jaw snaps shut and I continue. "I was at work ok, and a bunch of terrorists attacked the research complex and blew shit up. Basically there was a fucking huge explosion that warped space time or some shit like that, and this godlike being happened to be observing while it happened, saw me dying and decided to pull me out. It stopped time and spoke to me, gave me a choice, to die or have a chance to live again because I'm different."
"Different? Define different Stern."
That just makes me laugh bitterly.
"Apparently I'm a mutant, it said I had great latent power tied up in my essence. It wanted to move my essence about 170 years into the future to potentially improve the chances of this reality surviving a darkness that it was fighting across many realities. It told me it didn't know how the mutation would manifest, and that there was only a slim chance of survival, but I agreed and it sent me here. I woke up on Omega."
"And the vampire thing?"
"Yeah well I guess I had a thing about vampires and maybe the whole mutation essence thing found that funny as I woke up after slaughtering an Asari and a couple of humans and then realised where I was."
"You realised where you were?"
Aw shit why did I forget that T'Loak is too fucking smart? I try and head her off but the damage is done.
"Aria.."
"Shut up Stern. You woke up on Omega and realised where you were. You claim you were moved through time by some being and you knew where you were. You knew about Omega. How do you explain that Stern?"
How is it that an Asari face can manage to smirk while looking that intense and that intimidating at the same time? I'm actually gonna have to explain to the Queen of Omega that in my time she's a game character aren't I. I'm gonna die.
"How do I show you Aria? How do you do the meld thing because I'm not gonna try and just talk you through it. You'll liquefy my brain before we get started even."
She smiles nastily.
"I think you will do exactly what I want Stern and right now I want you to talk, or do you not remember the promise of my squishing your head with biotics?"
"Huh, I think that after you look at my memories, pulping my head will be the last thing on your mind, and the very least of your problems, but if you don't want to know, you go right ahead."
Is this a mental Mexican standoff? I'm not sure if my Vampire counts as the requisite 3rd party or not. There's a long pause while Aria considers, and I watch her weighing up the pleasure of satisfying her irritation against my implied knowledge that she needs. I'm certain that she needs to know, I need allies and Aria is powerful, right now I wish my memories of the Mass Effect series are a lot better than they are. I see Aria make her decision.
"You should be able to will us to your memories Stern, to an extent in your mind what you say goes, so take us there," She looks uncomfortable for about a millisecond, "It may help if you have contact with me as you will us to wherever your memories are stored."
Will us there? OK, here goes nothing. I carefully rest a hand on upper arm and then mentally demand to be where my memories are stored. There's no sensation but we're now in the huge old library that I remember from my school days, racks upon racks of polished oak shelves in this huge room, with whitewashed stone walls and stone mullioned windows. When I was in this room in life, sunshine used to beam through those windows highlighting dancing motes in the room that was always dusty. Here no light comes in from outside but instead the whole room is lit from within, although I can't see any electric lights anywhere. It still seems dusty though. Aria looks around in bemusement before quirking her tattooed eyebrow at me.
"Your memories are stored in books? Actual physical paper books?" T'Loak is incredulous.
"What can I say, when I was a kid I went to school before electronic information really got started on my world, hell before we had a proper version of the extranet even."
"What year was that?"
"Well I was born in 1975 so I used this library from around 1987 to 1993. Let's look around."
I step away from Aria and toward the nearest tall shelves, looking at the spines of books for a hint about their contents but there's nothing and I'd rather not just root around at random. Looking around I see I think about a filing system and my attention falls on a laptop lying on a nearby desk. Ironic, it seems my mind has conjured up a laptop I spent a lot of time playing games on back around 2013 and 14, not least Mass Effect 3. My subconscious has a sense of humour? Or it's just that fucked up. I power it on and pop dvd drive just to check, yeah ME3 is loaded. I slide it back in and then cancel the autorun screen before Aria notices. Jeez, Windows 7, after Lexi and an omnitool this is so primitive. I flick through into the filing system as Aria watches, and quickly find a directory called memories. I select 2014 and from the corner of my eye watch as a set of shelves is suddenly picked out by light from somewhere. Ahhah, lightbulb moment. I quickly find the day of my demise at the hands of whack jobs tampering with hi energy physics and leave the laptop and walk across to the large book that is highlighted on the shelves.
"What's that Stern?"
"The day I died Aria, the day I died. Come over here and experience this and after that I have a whole lot more to show you once you know for sure that I'm not fucking with you."
I open the book and with Aria T'Loak begin experiencing that day all over again. Pulp my head will she? This is gonna fuck her mind.