When Liara opened her eyes, she gasped. A vast wasteland surrounded her. She stood in the middle of what used to be a street, cracked and broken, charred in numerous places. Buildings were in ruins- some structures were decimated piles of rubble. Others still stood, hollow bombed out shells of their former selves. A cold wind rushed through the street, blowing sand and grit in Liara's face, causing her to squint just to see. The sky above rumbled, the clouds mixing and turning, threatening rain.
Goddess, where am I? Where is Shepard? I've never joined with someone's mind and not been with them on the inside…. Where is he?
Liara turned slowly, examining the ruin around her. It was familiar in many ways. Clearly, the memory was of Earth, but it was twisted; different from how she remembered her time in London. Liara began to recognize landmarks, and then noted their oddities. The Alliance Forward Operations Base was destroyed and deserted here; in reality, the Reaper forces had never managed to push that far and destroy so much.
Everything is just… altered. It's not how it should be.
…Shepard, where are you?
Liara turned as a stiff wind from behind pelted her with dust and debris. She used a hand to shield her eyes, peering into the strange dust storm. A single figure walked toward her.
"Shepard, is that you?" She called. The wind began to taper off, and the dust settled. Shepard stood before her, clad in his grimy shirt and greasy trousers that she'd first found him wearing on the docks of Omega.
"Shepard?" She asked cautiously.
He ignored the question, looking around, studying the destruction. "Where are we?"
Liara shook her head. "I'm not sure. I joined my consciousness with yours to try and sort out your memories, but this…" she gestured. "This isn't what I expected."
"If I'm here with you… where's the guy you're really looking for?"
Again, Liara shook her head. "I don't know, Shepard. Let's go have a look around." Liara crossed the roadway and mounted a set of stairs. "Everything is different," she explained, grunting as she climbed over a massive section of wall. "This was the site of the Alliance Forward Operations Base on Earth right before the last push to the Conduit, but…" she reached a hand back, helping Shepard clear the debris.
"But what?" Shepard asked.
"But it's all different. The damage was never this severe here. This area was mostly standing. This building here," she pointed, "was where we met with our team before the final assault. Come on… let's see if we can find anything inside."
Liara made her way up the pile of crumbled brick and mortar, heading into the building with Shepard in tow. She surveyed the room, looking for any sign of Shepard's memory that belonged. "This room is where you gave your last speech to your squad. There was a table, there," she pointed to an empty corner, "where you and Anderson worked up a plan."
Shepard walked slowly around the room. He looked this way and that, studying the walls, burn marks in the floor, running his hands over upturned chairs and broken pieces of stone. He stepped toward the window, looking outside. "The sky… it wasn't black and cloudy, like this… it was glowing grey-orange, reflecting the fires from the surface."
Liara's breath caught in her throat.
"The table… it was here," Shepard pointed and took quick steps from the window to the far wall. Liara turned to follow and gasped.
A weathered and beaten table had appeared, complete with a map of the city, and figurines representing Hammer teams.
How is this possible? He's remembering, and it's changing the memory as we see it happening… Goddess…
Liara turned back to the window. She was momentarily horrified as she remembered those subtle colors, like fire eating its way off the horizon and threatening to devour the sky.
"Yes, Shepard. Keep going."
He shook his head. "I… I don't remember anything else here." He looked around the room again before shaking his head. "Nothing else in here."
Liara nodded. "Let's keep searching. I'm sure we can find something else."
They walked back down the broken pathway to the street level before Shepard stopped, looking around again. "It's too quiet." Shepard scraped his boot over a loose rock, dragging it across the pavement. The scraping sound was amplified by the absence of any other noise. He turned to her. "There was chaos, confusion. Officers were trying to coordinate their units… and the Reapers." Shepard closed his eyes again and tilted his ear to the sky. "There was so much noise…"
That was the first time in eighteen months Liara heard the terrifying, bone-jarring cry of a Reaper. The chatter of gunfire ripped through the night, and Liara could make out indistinct voices in the distance. A Reaper shrieked again in the distance.
"Yes, Shepard. Keep going." Liara stepped closer, but stayed behind him, letting Shepard pick his own path. Liara blinked twice to clear her vision as the landscape changed again. Rubble shifted from one place to another; a building wall re-appeared. Alliance APCs appeared on the street, parked in a hasty line. Radio chatter nearby was faint but audible. The rumble of APCs moving on the next street over could be heard. A pair of Alliance shuttles flew by overhead, pursued by a Harvester.
Liara marveled at how quickly things around her were changing. The landscape became less of a blur; more defined and realistic. The sounds were becoming more prevalent, and Liara also noted smells beginning to return: burning rubble, death, decay, and the stench of fear that permeated the air.
She turned to Shepard, but he had begun to walk down the street. As they crested a hill, Liara stopped dead in her tracks, surveying the memoryscape before her.
A vast and wide open hill, leading down, littered with bodies. There were scorch marks in the road where blasts from the Reaper's lasers had obliterated flesh and stone alike. Shepard had stopped a few feet ahead of her to survey the landscape.
Liara noted that unlike the rest of the memories thus far, this one was perfect in every horrifying detail.
The Reaper's wail rolled across them as they looked out over the area. There was massive pile of corpses sat at the base of the hill, as if left in sacrifice to an angry deity. The Reaper's red eye washed over them, and settled on an overturned Alliance APC.
Goddess… is that…?
Liara swallowed hard, and looked around for Shepard. He had begun walking down the hill, headed toward the APC. "This… this is familiar…" Confusion flooded his face. "Something happened here." He turned to face her. "What happened here? Right here."
Liara looked around, groping for words. "We were in a mad dash, trying to reach the Conduit. It was the only way up to the Citadel." Liara stepped forward, running her hand over the bruised APC armor. "The Reaper fired on us. It flipped this APC end over end, and you," Liara let a small smile appear on her face, "somehow you… dodged it." The tears began to stream down her face. "The next blast sent another APC end over end, nearly on top of me. The explosion… I was covered in shrapnel, and badly hurt. You called in the Normandy to airlift me out, along with another member of our team. I begged you to let me go with you, but you wouldn't have it." She turned to him, looking into his eyes. "Do you remember what you said to me?"
Shepard looked past her, up at the Reaper. Liara watched as his expression turned to one of horror. She turned to see what had Shepard so frightened.
Liara had turned just in time to watch the Reaper fire on them, and the world shuddered around them. Entire pieces of the landscape vanished, replaced by cloudy haze. Liara worked desperately to free herself from Shepard's mind.
Something must be going on outside…
Liara's eyesight returned and she was met by a sense of vertigo as the safe house shuddered.
"Perimeter alarm!" Feron yelled from a console on the far end of the room. "Multiple contacts." He turned in his seat. "Someone's got boots on the ground out there. What do you want to do?"
Liara shook her head, trying to regain her balance as she stumbled over to the console, looking at the readings. Half a dozen perimeter sensors had been tripped, and the explosion above was evidence of some type of aerial ordinance.
"Initiate burn box protocols," Liara snapped, hammering keys on the controls. "Miranda, get Shepard up and both of you grab some weapons from that locker in the corner. We're leaving."
Feron leaned in close. "Burn box? Are you sure?"
"Do it."
Feron nodded and began working at his keypad. The screens around the room all went blank, and the room went quiet as the hum of machines died off.
"What's burn box?" Shepard asked, picking up a heavy pistol from the locker. Miranda grabbed a second heavy pistol, affixing it to her belt.
"It's a self-destruct sequence. It wipes all the systems down here, destroys the data, and then vaporizes the building."
Shepard's eyes widened. "Vaporizes?"
Liara nodded, grabbing a fresh Shuriken from the locker and slapping home a fresh thermal clip. "The floor panels you're walking on? Every one of them has explosives wired beneath them. There should be enough to bring down the entire plateau."
Miranda grinned. "Glad to know you're thorough."
Liara nodded. "Assume anything outside is hostile. We'll need to get to the ships-"
Another explosion rocked the safe house.
"Assuming they're still up there," Miranda muttered.
Liara made for the sleeping quarters. "Escape path is this way."
Liara had forgotten how long the winding tunnel away from the safe house was. The air was humid, and roots from the massive trees above reached out from where they'd broken through the muddy walls and floor to snag any piece of loose clothing or misplaced step. After what seemed like hours, Liara stopped at a simple wooden ladder.
"This should bring us out behind whoever is out there."
"Who could be attacking us?" Feron asked.
"I'd put my money on Nova Hammer," Miranda replied. Liara nodded her agreement.
The question is how did they find us?
Shaking her head, she gripped the first wrung and began to climb up, pushing the false door aside. Sunlight streamed through the trees and vines, the damp air creating a near-fog.
"Stick close and watch your fire," she cautioned. Shepard, Miranda, and Feron climbed out as well, and the group began a stealthy trek back toward the safe house. Miranda came up alongside Liara, speaking in hushed tones.
"How long until the bomb goes off?"
Liara passed her a glance. "Not long. We need to hurry."
There was a thudding noise and a hasty "oof!" as Feron hit the ground, tripping over a tree root. The gunfire followed almost immediately.
"Down!" Liara yelled, diving toward a tree on her right. Miranda crawled to her location, firing as she moved.
"I can't find Shepard!" She leaned around the far side of the tree, firing her pistol. "I count at least seven that way, and there's bound to be some on our flank!"
Liara leaned out, unleashing a singularity, snaring two Nova Hammer troops. She followed it with a quick warp, and the biotic field exploded deafeningly. She took a moment to search for Shepard, eyes sweeping desperately across the ground. Feron was lying on his stomach, hiding by a downed tree. He peered over the top of the log, firing quickly and then retreating.
Liara turned to Miranda. "Cover me, this side." No sooner than Miranda nodded, Liara took off, firing her Shuriken in the direction of the Nova Hammer troops. She slid in the soft dirt and leaves, coming to a stop near Feron. With a quick glance over the moss-covered tree, she sighted a nearby Nova Hammer soldier. A gesture and a thought launched a biotic pull, taking him off his feet. Miranda put two rounds through him.
"Where's Shepard?" Liara asked, popping out the thermal clip on her gun.
Feron shook his head in reply. "No idea." He looked at her strangely for a moment. "Liara, you're hit."
"What?" And then she felt the hot wash of blood across the back side of her hand. "It's a scratch, nothing major. I've got to find Shepard!"
The gunfire stopped as if someone had thrown a switch. Liara peered over the rotted out log, searching for more of the Nova Hammer troops. Instead, she was confronted by the cloudy eyes of Deacon Blaque.
He was bent down, hands on his hips, mere inches from Liara's face. The ear-to-ear grin framed by his loose mane and the dense fog of the jungle only lent to a more sinister appearance. Liara suppressed the urge to back away, and did her best to harden her face into a resolute mask.
Blaque noticed, and he laughed. It was a disturbing sound; the sound of a man who was not wholly in control of himself.
"Why Doctor T'soni, I do believe you're frightened of me." He straightened up, brushing his gloved hands down his cloud-gray armor. "Whatever could have prompted you to feel that way? I've been so polite to you."
"Why are you here?" Liara asked, looking around. Nova Hammer troops had surrounded them. There were at least a dozen.
"Still haven't put all the pieces together? How disappointing. And here I thought you had everything figured out already." Blaque shrugged, and then grinned. "You have something I want."
Liara turned her attention back to the terrifying man before her. It was hard to gauge exactly what he was thinking; without normal eyes, Liara found it difficult to read him. She swallowed hard. "What's that?"
"Well," Blaque shrugged, "not a something so much as a someone." He looked around the forest, stepping away from her. He approached a flowering shrub, inhaling the scent from the center of the white petals. "After all, did you think it would be hard for me to figure out what data you stole from my station? I mean," he chuckled, stepping back over to her and squatting down on his haunches, "imagine my surprise. Data about the great Shepard. But why? He's dead, right?" The wicked grin returned. "And that's when it hit me. You clearly knew something the rest of the galaxy did not. Either he was alive, or you were going to try and resurrect him again. Again! This man is turning into a cat, he has so many lives!" Blaque laughed at his own joke, finding it incredibly amusing.
Liara's pulse was racing. Her eyes darted left and right, looking for Shepard, but he was nowhere to be found. Blauqe's laughter stopped suddenly, commanding Liara's attention.
"So then," Blaque continued, "once I found you on Horizon… again, with the surprise! Shepard in the flesh! I could not believe my luck!" He stood, pacing a small circle. Blaque let out a sigh and shook his head with a smile, training his disturbing gaze on Liara again. "You had tracked him down for me!" He clapped with a near child-like glee.
That was the moment Liara decided that without a doubt, Deacon Blaque was truly mad. Liara looked to Miranda, who was clearly weighing their options. The look on Miranda's face confirmed her own thoughts: the situation was not good.
"What's wrong?" Blaque asked with a toothy grin. "No phosphorous grenades this time?" His smile was suddenly gone; it was as if a different person had appeared before her. Liara shuffled backward involuntarily. Blaque stepped closer, taking exaggerated, slow steps. Liara's heart was thudding against her ribs.
Blaque reached out with his hands. Liara had only a moment to panic before a biotic blast sent her flying across the clearing. There was no time to scream before she slammed violently into a tree, and darkness became her reality.
Author's note: Finally! I know, I know; sorry about the delay. This chapter took a lot out of me. It was something I wanted to get just right, and I was making changes right up until this morning before I published it.
Thanks to everyone for your patience, your reviews, your feedback, but thanks most of all for reading. I'm having a lot of fun painting my own sliver of the Mass Effect universe.
Until next time!
-Zero