"According to the ancient Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - John F. Kennedy
Chapter 3
Small Beginnings
Two Months Later...
A normal family of four. Two parents side-by-side, standing behind their two children. The father stood on the right as the tallest form, his short, golden brown hair cut in a high fade and dropping down to his chin to present itself in a subtle beard. His pale blue eyes showed an aging weariness, but a powerful strength as his left arm gently wrapped around the waist of the much shorter brunette at his side ‒ the mother of the gathering. The woman's straight, darker brown hair flowed smoothly down to her chest while her soft, hazel eyes displayed a soul filled with love and care. Her own hand was placed on the shoulder of the young boy at her front, who's height ran just past his mother's hips. A big, flamboyant grin showing white teeth was spread across his face from ear-to-ear and the hair above his head was thick and slightly bushy, likely having been unattended to for a fair amount of time. The boy's eyes were closed, concealing the eyes inherited by his mother. The last figure in the group ‒ the oldest son ‒ stood in front of the father, standing taller than his mother but shorter than the middle-aged man behind him. His kind smile lacked the same childish enthusiasm of his younger sibling's, but his dark brown eyes, clearly different in color from the others', still showed happiness and contentment.
The small portrait in my hand put a sober smile on my face, bringing a mixed feeling of both delight and sorrow. The picture was meant to be one of warmth and joy, but it instead carried along a feeling of despair. It reminded me of the one thing that meant more to myself than anything else in the world. The one thing I would never see again for the rest of my life. My mother... my father... my little brother... my family. They were my world. And every time I looked at that picture, it reminded me how truly lost and alone I was in this world that I did not belong. Yet... through all of that misery and all of that dread, it also reminded me of who I was. Where I came from. What I should have strived to be, no matter the time and place of my existence. The knowledge my loved ones would have wanted me to do my best and make my mark, even through thick and thin, helped carry me on. So that is why, though lacking a spirited happiness, I still smiled at the sight of the photo.
With a long, deep breath, I closed my eyes momentarily before sliding the small picture back into my leather wallet. As I finally returned my gaze to my surroundings, I found myself looking up at the Relay Monument itself. The dark lilac, alien statue, made of its equally otherworldly metal, shined and glimmered under the artificial sun of the Presidium. The purple luminescence scattered throughout its surface gave an eerie feeling that it was more than a mere monument. That it was true instrument ‒ live and active. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact it was an actual Mass Relay and I was the only soul in the galaxy who knew. A dagger aimed at the heart of all galactic civilization and no one has a clue.
I lightly shook my head in agitation; the idea that not a single government figure ever had the thought to make any in-depth scientific study of the Citadel, along with the Keepers it was home to, disturbed me to no end. When used as a plot device for a video game? It was a bearable annoyance. When it became a fact of reality? That was when I would begin questioning the mental capacity of 'intelligent' life. What a bunch of fools.
Beep beep... beep beep...
The sound of my omnitool's basic ringtone suddenly grabbed my attention away from my wandering thoughts, alerting me to an incoming call. I raised my left arm up without hesitation and activated the holographic accessory ‒ it being the common orange instead of blue now that I had upgraded to a Cipher model III ‒ before reading the caller ID. With a sigh, I swiped up along the interface to answer. "Yeah, old man?"
"Don't 'yeah' me, kid," came the immediate response from Greg over the omnitool's speakers. "Have some respect when you answer a call."
My lips twitched into a half-smirk. "Yeah, yeah, I'll work on it. So what's up?" At that moment, my attention was unexpectedly drawn away by a child's laughter. I turned my head to the left in search of the source to see a small family of three standing about two dozen yards away and walking in my general direction. Two adults and one child; for most it wasn't a sight any different from your run-of-the-mill here on the Citadel. What made this specific trio so noteworthy for me, though, was the fact the mother and the daughter were both Asari. Over the course of the two months I had been living on the space station, I had seen many interspecies couples and families, especially ones between Humans, Asari, and Turians. However, this was honest-to-god the first time I had ever seen an Asari so young. And I dared to say the display was so damn adorable.
The child was showing off a wide, exuberant grin only the innocence of youth could create and appeared to be no older than five or six years old. I, of course, had no real idea what Asari standards for early child growth were, but since the adult man standing near her did not appear to be approaching his senior citizen years, I assumed the physical appearance of Asari changed similarly to Humans' up until their late teens to early twenties. That too, however, was under the assumption the man was indeed the child's father, and not a step-father of some sort. In any case, both the Human man, looking to be in his late twenties to early thirties with pale skin and blonde hair, and the Asari mother, her skin a vibrant cobalt blue with white swirl patterns along her cheeks and forehead, had their child gingerly lifted about half of a foot into the air as they playfully swung her between their arms. Both parents' voices were clouded by joyful laughter and the fair distance they stood away from me, but the daughter's words were as clear as day. "Higher! Swing me higher!" Not a power in the world could have yielded the warm smile that spread across my face. I didn't give a single damn if someone would have called me a softie.
"-ou listening to me?" Greg's agitated voice snapped me back to the ongoing call. "Hey, kid! Am I talking to a wall here?"
"Sorry," I replied immediately, my hand rising to rub my forehead in slight embarrassment. "I got distracted."
A low growl emanated from the speakers, sounding like something along the lines of 'damn kid'. "Pay attention, because I'm not repeating myself again!" He momentarily paused to let the point sink in before continuing. "I got a call."
Those simple words caused my entire body to freeze the instant they were spoken. For the next moment, as I wandered through my mind and mentally prepared for the coming news, I remained still and silent before finally mustering up the ability to speak. "I'm... guessing this wasn't just any call."
Greg snorted. "You're damn right it wasn't. Your offer managed to get some poor soul's attention and now they want to meet with you."
My eyes briefly closed once again ‒ my mind taking another few seconds to process the information ‒ as a long and drawn-out breath entered through my nose before audibly exiting through my mouth. "Alright... what can you tell me about the client?"
"Not much," he admitted with a hint of annoyance. "They didn't give me a name or a race, just a location."
I raised an eyebrow, even if the man could not see it. "Couldn't you tell what the person was by the language they spoke?"
"It's not like the damn omnitool tells me what language it's translating," Greg bitterly pointed out before releasing a sigh. "The best I can tell you is to look out for a Humanoid woman with a French accent. That's all I could get out of the person's voice."
My right hand came up to rub the back of my neck while my mouth accommodated a sigh of its own. "That isn't exactly helpful." Nor does this at all sound suspicious, I thought to myself sarcastically. Perhaps I was being paranoid, but I couldn't change the fact that the circumstances of this meeting were already setting off alarm bells in my head. For all intents and purposes, I did not feel entirely comfortable leaving to meet a stranger in some dark alley ‒ at least that was how my imagination put it happening. They could have been some sort of serial killer or something for all I knew. Sure, that was a long shot of being the case, but people never called me a skeptic for nothing. In my humble opinion, carefree attitudes in serious situations tended to get people in trouble.
"It may not be helpful, kid, but it's all I got." The pawn shop owner's voice seemed to considerably soften when he spoke again after a few seconds. "I know this sounds fishier than a man selling candy in a van, but that woman sounded as if she was about to piss her pants when I talked to her. If that's worth a damn to you."
I leaned back into the public bench I had been seated on for the past half of an hour and sucked my teeth at the information. It couldn't be helped; I was a complete sucker for the helpless and innocent. It was probably an aspect of my personality that could have been heavily exploited, but I wouldn't have changed that part of me for the world. "Barely known me for two months and you already know my weaknesses."
Greg chuckled mockingly at my claim. "Get your bleeding heart to Arm Five, freeloader."
"Don't be like that," I snorted with a smirk. "I thought we had a pretty good friendship going on here."
"Friendship my ass. You've been living in my home and eating my food like a leech."
"A leech," I asked in feigned shock. "I've been paying you fifty credits a day since the beginning! That's over three thousand in your pockets, ya know!"
"Ach, minor details." Greg attempted to sound sincerely angry, but I swore I could see the sly grin on his smug face. "I sent the location and time of the meeting to your omnitool, now get out of my hair."
"You don't have hair, remember?" The reference to the old man's balding head was the icing on the cake and I abruptly disconnected the call, leaving my mischievous laughter as the final thing to enter his ears.
—
Arm Five, Upper Wards
Residential District
The Serpent Nebula, a collection of different gases and cosmic dust on a colossal scale, was truly a sight to behold. It's various shades of blues and purples that surrounded the Citadel were best described as perfect eye candy, providing a similar feeling of awe and wonder one would acquire from viewing the Aurora Borealis back on Earth. As I continued staring up at the galactic phenomenon, seated on a lone chair at the public rooftop of an apartment complex, the feelings of intrigue and amazement grew ever bigger inside me.
All throughout my life, I had always found great beauty in the stars that loomed above in the night sky. They gave me a sense of greatness; an impression that no matter how big or small my life felt, there was always a larger world out there waiting to be discovered. Feelings such as these were likely the reasons why I had been easily drawn to the Science Fiction genre in media and, in turn, to the Mass Effect games. Meeting intelligent life outside Humanity's solar system, traveling to new and uncharted worlds, witnessing galactic wonders only ever explored on the Science Channel ‒ I could have gone on for hours. Space, in my eyes, was simply the most beautiful and awe-inspiring frontier to have ever been traversed. And while I indulged myself in the breathtaking view of one of its many spectacles, there was only a single song I felt needed to be played over my omnitool and Bluetooth earphones.
Fly me to the Moon,
Let me play, among the stars.
Let me see what Spring is like on,
a-Jupitar and Mars.
/
In other words...
Hold my hand.
In other words...
Baby kiss me.
/
Fill my heart with song,
And let me sing, forever more.
You are all I long for,
All I worship, and adore.
As Frank Sinatra's voice echoed in my head, I pulled out my wallet for the second time that day and looked at the family photo sitting within, my lips forming into a soft smile.
In other words,
Please be true.
/
In other words,
I love you.
For the next thirty or so seconds of the song, a crescendo of instruments ranging from trumpets, saxophones, and even a flute took over. It started out strong and vibrant until slowly cooling back down to lead the way for Sinatra to begin singing once more. I took the opportunity before his voice picked up again to return my picture and wallet to my pocket, then leaned my head back onto the chair and closed my eyes, allowing the swing music to take over and fill my senses.
Fill my heart with song,
Let me sing, forever more.
You are all I long for,
All I worship, and adore.
/
In other words...
Sinatra's voice and the music now raised together, powerful and lively again in preparation for the finale.
Please be true!
/
In other words!
In other words!
/
I... love...
/
You!
With the musical piece now over, I reopened my eyes to gaze upon the Serpent Nebula once again, content and incredibly satisfied I had managed earlier to find my favorite Frank Sinatra song on the extranet. It was hard, don't get me wrong. But in the end, it was totally worth spending an hour scrounging through search engines for a quality download. I took a long, deep breath, smelling the air of Arm Five that was not so fresh and clean as the Presidium's, then deactivated my omnitool and removed the small Bluetooth devices in my ears. Not a second later did I lift my other arm to look at the time presented by my wristwatch. Guess I should get ready.
With a serious change of attitude and demeanor, I stood up from my seat, picked up the backpack laying on the floor besides the chair, and began walking to the closest public restroom. A minute later, I was already inside an empty stall with the bag open, revealing its contents. Within was an urban gray softshell jacket with a hood, a tactical face shield donned in the same color, a thin layered tactical vest equipped with a shield generator, and the military-grade weapons I had purchased from Blackjack nearly two months before ‒ a M-7 Lancer assault rifle and a M-92 Mantis sniper rifle, both collapsed into their compact forms. I removed the set of clothing and started changing into them, but decided to leave the firearms inside, having assumed I would not need them for the meeting. After all, my Colt .45 was still inside the sidearm holster attached to my right hip, now hidden by the softshell jacket. I never left home without it in these strange and mysterious times.
Returning to the rooftop patio a couple minutes later, it being encased by an eight-foot-tall tank of glass due to the lack of artificial atmosphere at this elevation, I began making my way back to my original seat before taking notice of the lone figure standing only a few yards away from it. The first thing to immediately catch my attention was the unique design and appearance of a Quarian environmental suit. The second thing was the very... feminine figure that told me the person in question was a woman. Damn, the games really weren't exaggerating those hips. I quickly ridded my imagination of the lecherous thought ‒ it not being helped by the sad truth that this was the first time I had seen a female Quarian with my own eyes ‒ with a brief shake of my head. Considering the current time and the fact she was the only person within eyesight, the most reasonable conclusion was that she was the 'client' that had arranged for the meeting here.
The Quarian woman had her back facing towards me as I began slowly walking to her. She was leaning over the edge of the rooftop's protective railing ‒ glass couldn't have been the only thing stopping people from falling to their deaths ‒ and gazing upon the cityscape several dozen stories below, supporting her body with her crossed arms. The hood and exterior cloths covering her suit were decorated by an intricate pattern of intersecting, jet black circles with a crimson red background. I thought it was an interesting design, but the seriousness of the situation kept me focused on the matter at hand. Once I reached about five yards away, I ceased my movements and lightly dropped my backpack on the floor. "Nice view, ain't it?"
She had clearly not noticed my approach, because the sound of my voice instantly caused her to jump up a bit in surprise. When she turned around to confront me, however, the pair of silver orbs that glowed through the black-tinted visor appeared more to be angry rather than startled. "W-who are you," she abruptly asked through her helmet's electronic vocalizer. Her accent was, interestingly, like a French one. "What do you want?!"
Her reaction was honestly to be expected when one put my appearance into account. My jacket was zipped up and hid the tactical vest laying underneath, so in retrospect I should have looked like any other stranger. But with the addition of the hood covering my head and the face shield blocking half of my face from view? I probably looked like a very suspicious hoodlum. "Woah there, it's alright," I said gently as my hands raised in a surrendering gesture. "I'm not gonna mug you or anything like that."
I could almost feel her piercing stare as she spent the next moment silently criticizing me. "Then why hide your face behind a mask?"
Called it. "To be fair, I can't see your face either and you don't see me complaining." Not that she could see it, but a smirk stretched across my face.
My corny attempt at a little humor seemed to make her body ease up some, though she still maintained her distance and watched me with an untrusting glare. "I have a reason for this mask," she stated with a hint of bitterness. "You do not, so answer my question before I fry you with my omnitool."
Perhaps a normal person would have responded to such a threat with a nervous sweat, but in my case I happened to chuckle in amusement. "Hey, do you always threaten to electrocute people who offer help?"
At first she looked at me with confusion in her eyes, but after only a few seconds her posture calmed down entirely as the realization dawned on her. She hastily looked over the rest of the rooftop to be sure we were along before speaking in nearly a whisper. "You are the one I called?"
"Yep," I answered swiftly with the drop of my hands. No more than a moment later did I move over to the metal railing and gaze down at the metropolis myself, leaving only a mere yard and a half between the two of us. "Just one question though, before we get started." I waited for her to give a hesitant nod, then continued. "Why the secrecy, besides the obvious reasons? You could've at least given a name or race so it would've been easier to identify you."
To this the Quarian lowered her head slightly, seemingly in some bit of discomfort. "Maybe, but it does not look like you had trouble finding me."
"Well I don't see anyone else out here," I declared with a snort, then turned to fully face her. "If you had chosen anywhere else, I wouldn't have had known who to look for."
Now she dropped her head even lower in what appeared to be embarrassment or... shame? "This is true." There was another three-second pause before she looked back up into my own eyes and finally surrendered to my question. "I thought if you knew I was a Quarian..."
I interrupted and finished for her, my voice taking on a sympathetic tone. "That I wouldn't have helped you?" She proceeded to nod in confirmation, in which I then went on to release a sigh. Guess I should've seen that one coming. Forgot about all the racism towards Quarians on the Citadel. My inner thoughts forced a grimace to cross my face, though it too was likely hidden from view by my adorned mask. "Listen, I'm the last person you'll ever see being racist. Okay?"
She hesitated to answer, but her gaze never broke its lock with mine. It was not as if she personally knew me to put complete faith in my words, but hopefully the lack of any hostility from me so far was a first step in mending the trust issue. "Okay. I... appreciate it."
I lightly shook my head in dismissal. "No need to thank me for being a decent human- I mean... sentient being." Disregarding the questioning stare she gave me for the hiccup, my eyes returned to the view over the railing. "Anyways, we should probably get down to business before someone sees us and gets suspicious. So..." The tone of my voice changed from one of light playfulness to another of complete and cold seriousness. "What do you need?"
For this, the Quarian's answer was almost immediate. "A bodyguard."
"A bodyguard..." I looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. "Wouldn't a Krogan be a better fit?"
"Of course," she admitted sharply. "But I would not be here asking you if I had the money for one."
"Touché. So what should I expect to be protecting you from?"
"It is not anything dangerous, really." With a sigh of her own, she leaned back over the railing and peered over the space station's 'horizon'. "Just an angry used-ship salesman."
All that answer did was make me very curious. "Huh... how'd you get a ship salesman angry at you?"
She gave an annoyed groan, apparently not having wanted to face this kind of question. "It is not important."
"It is to me," I declared matter-of-factly.
"Why," she abruptly asked with more than a touch of anger. "If you get your money, what does it matter?!"
To say I was jolted by the sudden antagonism was an understatement. My eyes were wide in obvious shock and I took a small step away from the woman. "Hey now, no need to get all..." I never finished the sentence.
"Is this some kind of trick?" Her body began to mildly shake as her voice grew louder and her three-fingered hands closed into fists at her sides. "Is this a game to you? Why are you so nice?!"
That's when it clicked. That was when I understood where this seemingly out-of-nowhere rancor came from. This Quarian girl, likely not much older than myself if at all, must have experienced so much racism and abuse during her stay on the Citadel that she could not help but hold a complete distrust of anyone of a different species. She could no longer comprehend kindness from another sentient being, with the sole exception of her own people. As a person who despised racism and prejudice quite passionately, this realization shook me to the core. And it showed when I failed to utter a single word for several seconds. When I finally did manage to speak, it was slow and gentle. "How long have you been on your Pilgrimage?"
The woman was near-instantly knocked back by the question, a look of complete surprise in her eyes. She too seemed to reach a failure with words for several moments before eventually releasing a quiet and cracked voice. "You... you know about the Pilgrimage?"
"Yeah," I answered delicately. "I do."
She shook her head in disbelief. "I have never met a non-Quarian before who knew about it."
To be honest, I know a lot of shit I shouldn't know about, is what I wanted to say. But instead, my reply came out as, "You'll be surprised how much you can learn on the extranet if you're actually willing to look." It wasn't necessarily a lie if the two hundred-year-old music on my omnitool had any say in the matter, but in this instance, it was simply a much better explanation than the real one.
Given the circumstances, it was not hard for an awkward laconism to grow between us. I did not know exactly how long it lasted because I was too busy paying attention to her gradually changing body language, but it went on for much longer than I felt comfortable with. Eventually, as time passed, the Quarian woman ceased her nervous shaking and stressed breathing, calming down enough to look me in the eye with a somewhat controlled demeanor once again. "Nine months."
My brain almost didn't register her voice; I was too caught up in thinking about my own plan to ease the situation further to be prepared for her to talk first. "What?"
"I have been on my Pilgrimage for nine months."
"Oh." I slowly nodded my head in understanding, then took a deep, but quiet breath. "And how many months have you been on the Citadel?"
For a fraction of a second, her gaze faltered away from mine before she recomposed herself. "Eight."
For all I knew, that equaled to eight months of racial abuse and torture. Just imagining what she had to go through during that time to reach this level of mistrust and paranoia angered me to no end. I was sure my distaste of it was showing too, because the woman took a quick step backwards in what I could only guess was fearful concern. Seeing her body language change in a negative fashion, I pushed aside my feelings for the time being and straightened myself. "I'm sorry."
At this point I was assuming confusion was plastered all over her face. That or a very big blanket of disbelief. "What... what are you sorry for?" The next thing she said was a barely heard mumble. "You did nothing wrong."
Instead of explain, I simply expanded on my original statement. "On behalf of all Humanity, I'm sorry." Apologizing was, honestly, the best I could think of. I never had been very good at being an incredibly social person who knew the best thing to say in any given conversation. And if I was to be even more blunt, all I had been doing this entire time, as well as all the times in the past, was say the first things that came to my mind. I wasn't a paragon Shepard or anything like that; I couldn't maneuver through a conversation or debate like a well-versed politician or diplomat. My instincts and personality told me to follow my heart, so I merely obeyed. Hopefully that was not going to backfire.
Fortunately, it ended up working out a lot better than I thought it would. Unfortunately, I didn't initially realize it.
What would have caused such turmoil, a person might have asked? Well it would have been the very moment the Quarian woman began holding herself in her own arms and silently crying, of course. I obviously couldn't see the tears behind her visor, but hearing her start sniffling was more than enough for me to figure it out. Seeing this seriously made me think I messed up somewhere in the conversation. Big time.
"What is your name," she suddenly asked weakly, her voice now properly conveying her broken state.
I was slightly startled by the abruptness of the question, but then quickly found myself feeling like a complete idiot. Don't even know each other's name and we already had an emotional moment together! I nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all, but managed to go no further than a hidden smile behind my face shield. "Jason. The name's Jason. I would tell you my last name, but then that would defeat the purpose of my mask." I paused for a moment afterwards, chuckling a little at my corniness, and allowed her to register the information before speaking again. "How about you? What's your name?"
A wet sniff came from her vocalizer as she answered. "Sala'Morre nar -sniff- Rayya."
Rayya. Why did that sound familiar? I knew that name... but from where? In my mind, it felt like much more time had passed than the actual few seconds it took for it to finally come to me. The Rayya! Tali's birth ship! After remembering, it was hard to imagine how I had forgotten to begin with, even if it was momentarily. Realistically, however, it should have been expected.
The truth of the situation was that I had never been that big of a fan of Mass Effect. Sure, I had the entire trilogy and most DLC on my computer back home ‒ my real home ‒ and had done a few playthroughs, but those had taken place over the course of a month or two at a time. It was not like I had ever been so engrossed in the franchise to the point of fanboyism. I was just a simple gamer who enjoyed Mass Effect only slightly more than the dozens of other game series that sat in my possession. Also given the fact that my favorite games of the three were the second and third, not including the ending, it shouldn't have been at all surprising I would immediately remember Tali's "vas Neema" and "vas Normandy" surnames and forget the "nar Rayya" one that was only used in the first game. Frankly speaking, what should have been hard to imagine was how I had remembered at all. It had, in any case, been almost a year since I last played any of the games before I was transported to the universe they were home to.
I quickly shook away my wandering mind before the thoughtful silence became suspect, then lifted my hand in greeting. "Nice you meet you Miss More-e."
There was another wet sniff as she returned the gesture with a handshake, although I swore it sounded a bit like a snort. "It is Morre," she corrected, rolling her tongue to pronounce the "rr".
Like the Spanish double R? "Ah, gotcha. Mor-thh... Mor-th..." A frowned crossed my face and I sighed in defeat. "Sorry... I've never been good at that."
Sala responded with a small, but still warm-hearted laugh. And that I took as progress. "It is fine." She then turned her head to the left, once again meeting her gaze with the colossal nebula surrounding the Citadel and the single star the Widow system contained. From our current spot, the 'sun' was nearly completely visible from its distant position somewhere behind the ring of the Presidium, its illumination dimmed enough by the particles of the Serpent for viewing via the naked eye.
When I looked at her at that very moment, I saw something the wasn't there before. Within her eyes was now a certain strength they had lacked just a minute earlier. There was still a touch of hurt and sorrow; that wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. But now there was a bright stability settled inside. One that I was more than happy to see, making my previous frown reverse into a smile. "Well," I began as my eyes too drifted over the railing. "I don't think I'll be making money anytime soon."
She looked back at me with eyes holding a slightly surprised curiosity. "Why do you say that?"
I sheepishly scratched the back of my head through the hood of my jacket. "Because I decided to help ya out for free."
It took barely a second for the words to register in her head, causing the glowing orbs behind her visor to grow exponentially. "Wha... but..."
I interrupted her with a wave of my hand. "Don't worry about it ‒ I don't think I'd be able to take your money. Not without..." My mouth fumbled with the words for a moment before choosing the simpler option of dialogue. "Regretting it."
Sala stared at me in disbelief long enough for me to begin feeling a little more than awkward, but thankfully she spoke up before I did. "Thank you," was the simple two worded response.
I lightly shook my head in dismissal. "Like I said, don't worry about it." A snort came through my nose as I began chuckling in self-pity. "Probably going to regret it later, but I always do make things harder for myself so nothing new there."
After a few more moments of a speechless quiet between the two of us, another sigh escaped my mouth before I looked back to the Quarian and locked our gazes. "In any case, we've stayed here way too long. We can either get a move on now, or..." My hand pulled out a small card ‒ or more like a small piece of scrap paper ‒ from the right pocket of my pants and reached out toward the Quarian. "I can give you my omnitool number and you can call me when ya feel like you need me."
A brief hesitation passed before she took the number from my hand, quickly studied it, and then placed it inside a pocket located on the right hip of her enviro-suit. "Would it be alright if you come with me now?"
I nodded, then reached down to the floor to pick up my weapon-carrying backpack. "Lead the way."
From that point on, as we walked back inside to the hallways of the apartment complex, not many words were shared between us. She would walk ahead of me while I followed several yards behind. I attempted to not get caught up in the awkwardly quiet atmosphere that was growing between us and took the opportunity to think to myself.
It was strange, really. The whole situation I ended up putting myself in. In all honesty, I didn't have a single damn clue what to think. There I was, a twenty-one-year-old guy with no real experience in any form of combat or private security, now a bodyguard to a Quarian woman on the Citadel. Protecting her from what? No real idea, although I was most definitely going to find out later. As to why I was even there to begin with, the answer was quite simple. I had absolutely nothing better or more productive to do. The whole thing was supposed to be the precursor to my preparation for the future that Saren and the Reapers would bring. Including financially. But... that idea went right out the window once I chose to work for free.
Yes, about two months ago I sort of decided to become a mercenary, though I had planned to only work for good-intentioned people who genuinely needed help. Kind of like the A-Team. Only not as cool. Or well trained. Or as experienced. Either way, I wanted... no, needed to do something meaningful. It was the only way I was going to keep my head together in this world, let alone remain financially stable. After all, that money I got from my 'antiques' were not going to last forever. However, now that I had no solid avenue of income, things were becoming a bit complicated. I didn't regret my decision; there was no way in a million years my heart was going to allow me to take money from Sala. But I did look at reality and understand my choice was going to make things harder in the coming weeks.
After all this self-reflection, though, I ended up coming back to the same set of questions that always plagued my mind at the end of every day. What was the real reason behind my existence here? What was my purpose in this place? Why was I doing this? Why was I about to put my life on the line? What did I have that was worth fighting for?
What did I have that was worth living for?
As Sala and I rode down an elevator to the Lower Wards, I brought my free hand to my face and rubbed it, finding a little grime in the corners of my eyes. I was tired. I didn't show it and I didn't act it, but I was tired. It was not from a lack of sleep, even if that did claim a small part of responsibility. No, it was my own mind that was to blame. I was literally thinking myself to exhaustion, trying to find answers to what seemed like an endless sea of unanswerable questions. Countless puzzles missing critical pieces. Mind-boggling riddles that made no sense. I understood very well how this was all severely effecting, perhaps even deteriorating, my mental health. But I just couldn't. Stop. Thinking. I could not stop questioning.
I scratched my chin a couple times through the face shield before dropping my hand back down with a loud sigh, all the while pretending to not notice the concerned stare of the Quarian woman beside me. There was no ceasing my wandering mind and the questions it asked, but I could, if anything, distract it. For now, there was a job to do. A person needed my help, so like hell was I not about give my absolute best.
Pff, I have to start somewhere, don't I?
CHAPTER END
Author's Note: Hello everyone! My deepest and most sincere apologies for such a long and tedious wait for this chapter. I don't have much excuses other than life likes to kick me in the balls, so I'm going to spare you all a long explanation. All I'm going to ask is this: Please forgive me and enjoy the new chapter... and maybe put down a review if you can find it in your heart to do so.
With that said, I'll see you all next time! And hopefully without such a long wait!