Journal log of Samuel Shepard 2166, April 11th

We've been handed a young man, no more than the age of 17 or 18. His eyes are a mixture of brown and green, and his height is six foot one inches tall, or approximately 185 cm. His hair is black the length of his mid back. His body structure is fairly fit, but from his genetics he has had no modifications nor any vaccinations. Both of which are fairly common in this day and age.

I am currently watching over the subject, who is strapped down to the chair we put him in. The clothes that he was found in were completely saturated with high doses of radiation. The cause of which is assumed to be because he was found drifting near a mass relay. There was no signs of any wreckage around the man, and he appeared to be in a stasis field when we recovered him, which leads me to believe that he was left out there on purpose. I have no proof to back up this evidence though.

When he first arrived, I took it upon myself to do a full body scan of the subject, and discovered that he has biotic nodules throughout his body, like all biotics. But unlike most Biotics, he has three times as many active nodes as any other human subject to have survived an Element Zero exposure, even the subject of Project Zero at the Teltin facility on Pragia; The project that I was last assigned to. This is the first project in which I was on the lead team. The Illusive Man is very interested in creating new biotic implants, which I would be all to happy to experiment with. My only regret is that I'm not going to be able to release any of my designs to the public or Alliance as I wished.

The subject is waking up now, logging out

- Journal Entry ended-

Kyon got out of the elevator, and looked around, "I was told to come down here, now why is that?" he said outloud as he walked to the middle of the room.

Ashley walked up to Kyon and slapped him on the back, "Hey there. Say, do you know how to put armor on?"

Kyon looked at Ashley and tilted his head, "Why would I know how to do that? I'm just an idiot with a gun and some good moves."

"Thought so," Ashley sighed as she grabbed Kyon by the ear and dragged him over to the Requisitions Officer, "Hey, we need to get this fool some armor, Shepard said he was going to go on the Therum mission in the breifing."

"When did this happen!" Kyon shouted as he rubbed the side of his ear, "Don't you think I need to be informed on these matters?" He looked at the Quarter Master and watched as he went through different crates and got some armor that had white as its main color with black camouflage on it.

"This is the Bulwark Armor Variant, it has an internal temperature control unit that adapts to the surrounding environment around it," the Officer explained as he set the armor on the table and opened it up, "I imagine that you might want this since we are going to Therum and from what I've heard Noviera later in this mission. While the armor makes you stick out like a sore thumb on Therum, you'll be glad you don't have to feel the heat." He pressed a button on the side of the armor, and a helmet popped out of the neck, "This experimental armor is the first to include a helmet that can be taken on or off at the push of a button. It has a two inch thick ceramic plate around all static body parts, and a Kevlar-titanium mesh in the flexible areas. Any questions?"

"Does it have a built in bathroom?" Kyon asked as he looked at the armor and picked it up.

"Why would you even..." The man tried to ask before being dumbfounded, "You aren't going to be thinking about taking a shit in the middle of a firefight." He recovered after a few seconds.

"That's why you need one, I don't want to shit myself in the battle then come back to have to clean my armor out because it doesn't have a bathroom system," Right as Kyon finished Ashley slapped him in the back of the head, "Ow! What was that for!?" he shouted as he dropped the armor, landing on his foot, "Son of a bitch!" He hopped on one foot.

"That was for asking a stupid question," Ashley answered as she picked up the armor, then threw a credit chit onto the table, "We'll take it," she said with a smile before grabbing Kyon by the ear, again, and dragging him over to the work bench.

"Stop grabbing my ear!" Kyon shouted as Ashley let go of him, "You are going to rip it off!" Kyon rubbed his head as Ashley set the armor out on the table.

"Since you are going into a combat situation, you are going to have to learn how to put your armor on in under thirty seconds," Ashley said as she looked at Kyon's clothing, "I hope you remembered to wear underwear."

"Wait, what?" Kyon asked as he looked at Ashley with a confused look, "You don't mean-"

"Strip Soldier!" Ashley shouted as she crossed her arms, her eyes burning holes through Kyon's.

Kyon didn't want to feel Ashley's wrath since she was not only a soldier, but a woman as well, started to take his clothes off until he was inside of only his boxers, "If you wanted-" Ashley hit Kyon in the stomach, to which he nearly fell to the floor. It didn't knock the wind out of him, but it hurt like hell.

"Don't talk to me like that," Ashley said as she gestured to the armor, "Start getting it on."

Kyon took a deep breath and started to take the armor apart to see what went on first, he found what looked like a wet suit on the inside of the armor and started to put it on his body. He shivered slightly as the cold material touched his skin. The spandex-like suit stuck to his skin like a cat-suit. I didn't sign up to be in a bondage suit, he thought as he finished putting the suit on. He then grabbed the left boot and put it on. As he was putting it on, he could feel the suit attaching itself to the under-skin and knew what it was doing.

The armor would move with his body because the under-skin was a reactive material, it would literally respond to his nervous system and make the armor move with him, allowing him to move faster, and hit harder, he smiled as he started to pick up speed and put on the other boot, then the leg-pieces. The legs snapped onto the boots. Kyon continued to put his armor on, and when he finished yelled, "Time!"

"Ten minutes and thirty-two seconds," Ashley said as she looked at her Omni-tool, "we don't have time right now for you to practice, so we'll get straight into weapon's theory." Ashley took Kyon over to the weapon's bench and grabbed a pistol, "Do you know how to handle a fire-arm?"

Kyon was about to answer yes, when he remembered his cover-story, he took a deep breath and shook his head, "Theoretically, yes," he said not telling her that he had been to target practice with his father when he was younger.

"Alright, put your helmet on," Ashley said, gesturing to the button on the side of Kyon's neck.

Kyon pressed the button and felt the collapsible helmet form around his head, almost perfectly, "Alright, now what?"

Ashley gave Kyon the pistol, and as soon as it touched his gloved hand, it linked into his HUD. He could see a reticle moving where he aimed the gun. He smiled a little, and looked at Ashley, "Is there a virtual trainer?" Kyon asked.

"A what?"

"A program that allows you to fire the gun at targets without actually firing the ammo," Kyon said as he turned the safety off, "but judging from your reaction, I would think not." He took a deep breath, "So, what's next?"

"When you fire a gun, always use both hands to steady your shots, gives you more accuracy and helps with recoil," Ashley said as she raised Kyon's hands and put them into position, "and always have your feet spread apart, that way you don't trip over yourself when you are running."

Kyon already knew all of this, but he would listen to Ashley's lesson so that he didn't give anything about him away, "Alright," Kyon adjusted his stance to match what Ashley was telling him, then he took a deep breath, "How's this?"

"Good," Ashley said as she pushed Kyon's shoulder, and he didn't budge, "You have a good stance, you might just be a good soldier yet," she joked as she pat him on the back, "I'm sorry about the drill Sargent routine, but its the easiest way for me to get things done when I'm teaching someone about weapons."

Kyon sighed as he pressed the button on the side of the gun, and collapsed it, "I understand," he said as he put the gun at his belt, feeling the magnetic clip latch onto it, "I would just like it if you gave a little warning next time," Kyon took a deep breath as he started folding his clothes and put them on a nearby crate, "When are we going out?"

"In twenty minutes, the Quarian and Aries are also coming with us," Ashley said as she turned to her locker and started getting her armor out.

"The Quarian has a name," Kyon said in an agitated tone, pressing the button on his helmet to collapse it into the neck, "and her name is Tali." Kyon grabbed his DER and attached it to his forearm just behind his Omni-tool, he took a deep breath as he covered the straps with a thin metal and started to attach it to the armor.

"Why do you act like that?" Ashley asked as she started undressing in front of her locker, "You can't actually treat them like they are humans."

"And why can't I?" Kyon nearly yelled as he looked at her, then quickly turned away when he saw that she was undressing, "That's like a white person saying a black person is an animal compared to them or vise versa."

Ashley quickly put her armor on, then looked at Kyon, "And you believe that we are the same race? We don't even have the same type of DNA."

"So?" Kyon asked as he turned back to her, his eyes starting to glow a pale green as his emotions started to bubble up, "She is still a sentient being, still a person. I'm not going to disregard that just because she isn't human. Doing that makes us worse than scum, because not only is she a person, she is one of our comrades. What if she was one of those men you lost on Eden Prime?" Kyon started thinking about what he had just said, he couldn't remember Ashley telling him about losing any men on Eden Prime, the information really just came to him at that moment.

"What did you say?" Ashley asked as she took a step back, her face filled with hurt, "How did you...? Why?"

Kyon could see that he had emotionally kicked Ashley in the stomach and immediately looked at the floor, "I'm sorry," he said as he looked at the ground, "I shouldn't have said that."

"You're right," she said her voice turning cold, "you shouldn't have," Ashley turned away from Kyon and started grabbing her equipment, "I'll watch your back, but I'm not going to save your ass if you get in trouble," she said before walking to the other side of the cargo bay.

Kyon silently cursed as he went back to welding the DER onto his armor, "Why is it that I can't treat anyone decently in this time period," he asked as he heard footsteps approaching him, he didn't look at who they were, "Go away," he growled before they reached him.

"Oh," he heard Tali's filtered voice say as the footsteps stopped, "I'm sorry," she said, her voice obviously depressed by Kyon's reaction.

Kyon turned around, "I'm sorry," he told her as he reached out and grabbed her shoulder, "I just am having a bad day right now, and I have a feeling its going to get worse," he took a deep breath, "Is there anything you wanted to say to me?"

"I just wanted to wish you good luck out there, and that I'm glad I'm going on the my first mission with you," she said in a more cheerful tone, "I'm glad to know that you'll be watching my back, just like you have since we met each other."

Kyon chuckled as he nodded, "Sure thing, I'll keep you safe from the big bad Geth," he said with a joking smile and patted her on the shoulder, "just be sure that you watch my back as well, I'll be counting on you Tali."

"Sure thing."

And with that, Tali walked away from Kyon, leaving him to finish his work with the DER. Kyon couldn't help but think about Tali's presence on the ship, he was glad to have her here, but was he the only one. Ashley seemed a big hater of aliens in general, Wrex was more or less her for the fight and couldn't care less, Garrus was focused solely on finding Saren, Shepard didn't like either of them, and Kaiden followed Shepard's words like a lost pup. Maybe Aries, but that's because he knew she was necessary, there were so many things that were starting to confuse him. His space adventure was starting to look like it was going to blow up, and not from canon fire.

I would have just put the Therum chapters up, but the files that I kept them in are gone, and I can't find them so I'm going to have to rewrite them from scratch. That means its going to be quite a while before I upload those ones again, that's really going to bite my chum. Well, until next time.

Arias out