DISCLAIMER: (Insert witty remark about not owning Mass Effect here)

REVIEW RESPONSES:

JustAFerret - Nah, man, it's cool. Unfortunately, in regards to your guess as to the owner of the voice, no cigar for you. It isn't the Illusive Man.

RamenKnight - Don't like, don't read.

"Hopelessly Blue" - Thank you for that glowing praise.

repeat16 - Sorry 'bout the wait.

A/N: Sorry I took so long; I got lost on the road of life.

CHAPTER 5

I jumped. Holy shit, what was that?

"You should really calm down," the voice spoke again. "You'll cause yourself damage. You organics are so fragile." The voice was smooth, young-sounding, male, had a faint undertone of sarcasm and amusement, and was utterly unplaceable. It didn't sound like any person I knew or any of the characters from either Mass Effect game.

"What . . . the hell," I croaked out, finding my voice, which sounded flat and muffled, and strangely non-modulated. I realized that my helmet wasn't transmitting any sound outside of itself.

The voice made a noise that sounded like chuckling. Creepy, computerized chuckling.

"Since the one who put me here said you would likely react like this, I suppose that's the best I'm going to get out of you. I may as well introduce myself. I am Aegis, your armour's AI. Don't worry about being overheard; I have temporarily disabled the outgoing communications systems on your helmet. We can have a nice, private talk right here in your helmet."

An AI. Great. This is either ridiculously good luck I'm having, or really, really bad luck.

"Please tell me you don't have programming to kill me or something," I groaned.

"Why would I want to kill you?" Aegis asked with something that sounded like amusement. "I was sent by my creator to help you with your mission."

"And that is . . ." I prompted.

"Your attempt to get more information from me is both transparent and unnecessary. Your mission is to aid Shepard in her fight against the Reapers. Your influence may help to tip the scales in a more . . . favourable direction."

I digested everything the AI said. One detail nagged at me. "You said 'she.' Is Shepard female in this universe?"

"That is correct. Commander Jane Shepard, the Lion of Elysium."

Okay, that's interesting, Shepard's female. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. The female Shepard had more personality in the game anyway.

"Uh, okay. But you also said that I could . . . tip the scales. How the hell am I supposed to do that? I'm nothing special, just . . . me."

"You are incorrect," Aegis shot back. "If you were 'nothing special,' the Iscarael Device would not have reacted to you. You would not be here."

"What the hell is the Iscarael Device, and what do you mean by 'react?'" I asked.

"For all intents and purposes, the Iscarael Device - ID for short - is a creation of the Protheans that warps space and time to act as a sort of teleporter. It was based on the idea of the Mass Relays and the Conduit. The original intent of the device was that it could be used as a new, better FTL drive for the Protheans' ships. A small-scale prototype was built and tested, but it did not work as planned. The scientists doing the testing were thrown, along with the device, into an alternate reality - your reality. Long story short, when they reactivated the device and were transported back to this reality, the program was put on hold while they studied the effects of the device. The Protheans were wiped out by the Reapers soon after that, and the location of the Iscarael Device was lost.

"As for what I meant by the device reacting to you, the Iscarael Device

"So this . . . Iscarael Device is basically a machine that lets you access other realities?"

"In a nutshell, as you say, yes, though it is more complicated than that. The device uses dark energy in some manner to produce a field around itself that essentially warps space and time to bring the operator to a specified point. Theoretically, the device could be used to travel anywhere, at any point in time, in multiple realities."

"Are you telling me," I asked slowly, "that the Protheans basically invented a TARDIS?"

"Yes, if using outdated human popular culture as a point of reference works for you, that is an acceptable comparison."

"Ha. Ha." I said dryly. "You're really funny, you know that?"

"You have no idea."

I groaned and facepalmed, gauntlet and helmet meeting with a clank. "So I got transported to this reality by what is basically a Mass Effect equivalent of the TARDIS? How does that even work?"

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you that. I do not have the relevant data myself. In essence, your guess is as good as mine."

I decided to change the subject. "So . . . your, uh, creator," I said carefully, not really certain of a good way to phrase the question, "They weren't, you know, part of Cerberus, were they?"

"No. My creator hates Cerberus just as much as you do."

I started to nod, before remembering that I was talking to an AI that was essentially just a voice in my head, and stopped. Aegis' answer had raised another question though.

"If your creator hates Cerberus, and I'm assuming that they hate him as well, how did you get in my suit?" I asked. "And how did you not get discovered?"

"My creator is proficient enough in stealth to avoid the notice of a bunch of guards." Aegis answered, sounding a little affronted. "Tactical cloaks are As to how I went undetected after being planted in your suit, there was already sufficient computer architecture in place to house anything from a high-level VI to a lower-mid-level AI. Cerberus already had a VI in place to monitor and regulate suit functions; my creator simply removed the VI's processor and main memory and installed mine in place. I took over the VI's functions and simply acted like it did."

"Okay," I blinked, a little confused. Didn't AIs need huge mainframes to run properly? EDI's core on the Normandy in ME2 was so big it filled a whole room. "How did Cerberus manage to make . . . architecture that can support an AI in such a small space?"

"I won't bother explaining it to you; you wouldn't understand the theory or mechanics. In simple terms, the architecture is very efficient, very compact, and very expensive. Apparently, Cerberus based it off of captured Geth technology."

Okay, that's easy enough to understand . . .

. . . Wait, what?

"How did Cerberus get their hands on Geth tech?" I demanded.

"Apparently, they sent a small group of operatives into the Perseus Veil. They came back - with only half the operatives originally sent out returning - with several deactivated Geth and some examples of their weaponry."

I sat quietly for a few minutes, digesting the information. Then I asked, "You said your creator sent you to 'help' me. What exactly does that entail?"

"By 'help', I meant that I can help with the tasks you would not be able to do. I can hack computer systems faster than any non-AI. I can monitor your radar for you; be the 'eyes in the back of your head,' so to speak. Beyond that, I control the basic functions of your suit: power distribution to kinetic barriers, motors, the tactical cloak . . ."

"Hang on," I cut in. "Did you say tactical cloak? As in, the thing that lets you turn invisible?"

"Yes. Though the proper term for the device is 'tactical cloaking field generator.'"

"Okay, cool. Sorry for interrupting. Please continue."

"Very well. In addition, I monitor vital systems and make certain that they are functioning properly; for example, I make sure that the air filtration systems syphon oxygen from the air in a toxic atmosphere if they can, and if they cannot siphon oxygen out, either not at all or in insufficient quantities, I feed in oxygen from the suit's storage tanks."

That admittedly made me a little nervous. Regardless of what Aegis said about helping me, there was still the possibility that it - or he, I supposed - could just kill me if he wanted. Or he could be fried by an electromagnetic pulse if I ever ran into one of those. Or any of a number of other things that could go badly. I was a firm believer in Murphy's Law.

"Erm, what happens if I get hit by an EMP?" I asked nervously. "You won't short-circuit and fry the life support or anything like that, will you? And what if you get hacked?"

"Don't worry about either. The suit's systems are hardened against electromagnetic overload. And as for me being hacked, it would be nigh impossible. There is not an organic in the galaxy that would be able to get through my firewalls with a brute-force attack. The same goes for all but the most sophisticated VIs, which exist in very few numbers as they are considered for the most part to be too expensive and inconvenient to maintain. The only things truly capable of matching or overpowering my firewalls and electronic warfare countermeasures would be another AI, depending, again, on how powerful the other AI is." Aegis' tone seemed almost smug for a moment. "That is not to say that I am impossible to hack, however. As such, I am constantly running hacking countermeasures during the times my attention is not required elsewhere, such as in combat."

"Ah. Sorry, I was just worried there for a second." I said, feeling a little stupid.

"No problem. I think that that's enough information for you to digest for now. In future, should you wish to talk to me without anyone else hearing, there is a button on a panel on your right gauntlet with a speaker on it that you can press to switch between your external and internal line. I suggest that you keep my existence secret from others, at least for the moment, and be certain that, if you do choose to tell someone, you be absolutely certain that they are trustworthy.

"Also, I suggest you try to get some sleep on the way to the Citadel. You could use it."

With that, there was an audible click, like someone hanging up a phone. A small alert reading External Speakers On popped up in the top right of my HUD. I supposed that meant that the external line was back on, along with the Darth Vader-esque voice modulator.

Popping the seal on my helmet, I removed it and set it on the bench next to me. I leaned back against the wall and tilted my head back against it as well, shutting my eyes.

I was woken rudely by a jolt of the shuttle. Blinking owlishly as my body registered the return to consciousness and banished the stupor, I stood up and staggered to the cockpit.

"Whats going on?" I asked Shara - who was still sitting in the pilot's chair, looking like she was exhausted, not that I could comment without being hypocritical - while desperately trying to sound at least somewhat awake and coherent.

"We just dropped out of FTL," she answered, yawning before she continued. "We're coming up on the Citadel. ETA . . ." she checked a readout, ". . . about five minutes."

I nodded, before commenting, "You look tired."

She smiled tiredly. "So do you."

I nodded again and gave a half-hearted smile back. "I know."

Trying to actually say something meaningful, I added, "Thanks for getting us here. I almost definitely never would've gotten off the station otherwise; I probably would've been back in Cerberus' custody by now. I owe you."

"No, I owe you." Shara returned. "You broke me out and saved me from being killed."

I thought of reminding her that if she had been killed in that facility, it most likely would've been me pulling the trigger, before deciding against it. It wouldn't get us anywhere and that wasn't something I wanted to remind either of us about. "Fine," I gave in, deciding to meet her halfway in this, "How about we just say that we're even. That seems simplest."

Shara nodded. Just then, a voice squawked out over the intercom/radio/whatever the hell it was.

"This is Citadel control." the voice - which sounded like the speaker was a Turian, given the faint flanging undertone - said in a bored tone. "Identify."

Shara sat up straighter, and stated very clearly, "This is Shara T'liir, diplomat. ID number-" and then she recited a fairly long string of numbers, punctuated on the end by an alien-sounding word - or words, I wasn't sure - that had a lot of vowels. Probably something in asari, but that didn't explain why it didn't translate. Unless the word didn't have a direct translation to English.

"Code acknowledged. Proceed to Tayseri Ward Shuttle Bay."

As the Citadel grew bigger in the window, I looked at Shara, surprised. "You're a diplomat?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I'm not very high up the chain," she answered. "The only people I negotiate with are other low-level diplomats from the other embassies. I'm hardly considered important."

There was a shudder as the shuttle came to rest. As Shara and I walked out, I retrieved my helmet and sealed it in place. Shara looked at me a little questioningly. I shrugged.

"It's just more convenient this way," I said, answering the unspoken question. "It would be awkward to carry this around everywhere, and I don't want to run the risk of leaving this behind somewhere."

We walked into a hallway that looked like the scanner room you had to pass through to get into the Citadel proper in the second game. Turned out that it was; I was rigid the whole time the scanner was passing over me, praying that I wouldn't get detained for having unregistered gene mods or some crap like that. I didn't get arrested, thank God, but the C-Sec officer operating the scanner seemed to be giving me a weird look.

I was also surprised that I wasn't accosted at the desk for, once again, not having the proper paperwork or whatever, or the pesky problem of me not existing in any records. Or the fact that I was carrying two assault rifles and a pistol that were almost definitely not registered, and that I was wearing armour that almost screamed 'mercenary/paramilitary.'

We walked out into the Ward. I looked around, not recognizing anything. Not surprising, considering that all I've seen of the Citadel is the little bit of the Presidium I woke up in after my little dimension-hop five years ago, plus the part of Zakera Ward you can walk around in in the second game.

"Erm," Shara started, sounding nervous, "I don't suppose you have anywhere to stay, do you?"

"No." I replied dully. "It's been five years since Cerberus captured me, and the Citadel wasn't my home anyway. I was . . . just visiting." It wasn't a lie, not really; just not the whole truth. Not that Shara would believe me if I told her anyway.

"Well, in that case," she looked immensely unsure of what she was about to say. "You could stay at my apartment, you know, until you get wherever it is you are going."

I blinked in confusion. That showed a huge level of trust, one that, frankly, confused me. She had recently been kidnapped by a human-supremacist paramilitary terrorist organization, and she was offering to let me - a human guinea pig for said organization who she had no idea of the mental state and potential danger of - stay in her home for an indefinite period of time. That seemed really weird to me . . .

. . . Or maybe I was just being paranoid and making a mountain out of a molehill.

"Not to be rude or anything," I said, carefully, "but . . . why? Why offer? You don't know me; for all you know, I could snap and start killing everything in sight."

Shara looked side-long at me. "And are you?"

After all the crap I'd been through, and with my luck?

"I honestly would not be surprised," I answered heavily, shrugging. "But I'd like to think that I'm stronger than that."

"Then I don't see any problem," Shara said. "I feel I can trust you."

I gaped. How the hell can she say she trusts me? Seriously, she met me less than a day ago, and she doesn't know a thing about me! Did she not hear what I said? And she's just inviting me into her home. This is freaking insane.

. . . Ah, fuck it.

". . . Fine," I groaned. "But I'm not likely to stay more than a day, hopefully."

Note to self: have Aegis hack into the extranet or Council files or whatever and see if Saren has been accused of being behind the Eden Prime attack. For that matter, find out if the Eden Prime attack has even happened yet.

"Well, then follow me." Shara said. "I live here on Tayseri Ward, and my apartment isn't that far from here, actually." She started walking off, gesturing for me to follow.

We caught a taxi to Shara's apartment. It was about a two minute ride, and then we were standing in front of a large skyscraper that stretched up, for what was probably two hundred feet, into the air. I whistled as I craned my neck looking up at the structure.

"Wow. You live here?" I asked, looking back over at Shara.

"Yes. I'm just one of a few hundred tenants though." she answered.

I nodded. Then a thought came to me; one that was rather unpleasant. "Uh, Shara, this might be a bad time to ask, but do you even have your key, or did that get taken from you when you got caught by Cerberus?"

Shara looked at me blankly for a moment, then said, "Oh hell. I should have remembered that." She stared at the ground momentarily, before perking up again. "Oh right, I just remembered. The building has a special service where all tenants give a sample of DNA to be scanned and a digital version stored in the building's database when they register, in the event that someone loses their electronic key due to a virus or losing their omnitool. I can just go to the front desk, have them confirm my identity, and I'll receive a new key, at the cost of a small, temporary increase in the rate next time I pay rent. Also, the lost key is deactivated, in the event that someone finds the key, so they can't get into the apartment."

I sighed in relief. "All right."

The replacement of Shara's key took very little time. In less than ten minutes she had gotten the new key, which had been uploaded to the omnitool we looted from Captain Bastard, we had gotten up the elevator to Shara's apartment's floor, and were standing in the living room of a fairly nice apartment.

"Ask if she has an extranet connection that you can use," Aegis piped up suddenly. I nodded unconsciously.

"Erm, Shara," I started, "do you have an extranet connection I can use?"

She nodded. "Sure, it's right over there." she pointed to the opposite corner of the room, where there was a terminal.

I nodded my thanks and walked over to the terminal, clicking onto my internal line. "Now," Aegis said again, "hold out your left arm, and touch the terminal display. I need to interface with it through your omnitool." I did so, and the omnitool sparked to life as I touched the terminal display, which became covered in streams of data reminiscent of the ones in The Matrix.

"I have access," Aegis declared. "Is there anything you wish me to search for in particular?"

I thought for a moment, before coming up with an idea. "Look through any messages either from or to an individual called Fist," I said, "Especially any between him and Saren Arterius, or any of his associates, and especially if the message is talking about a Quarian. Fist owns Chora's Den, if that helps any."

"I know who Fist is, thank you," Aegis sounded affronted. "Give me a minute."

There was silence for a moment, before Aegis spoke up again. "I found something. A message from Fist to Saren, and an answering communique."

"Can you show me?" I asked. Aegis didn't answer verbally, but instead brought up the two messages, superimposed over my HUD. It read:

Sender: Fist

Subject: Information

To: Saren Arterius

I have some information for you. Some Quarian girl came into my office just a minute ago. Had damaging information on you and wanted to bargain with the Shadow Broker for protection in exchange for it. I told her I would set up a meeting, and thought you would want to know. The location where the Quarian will be is embedded with this message.

Sender: Saren Arterius

Subject: Re: Information

To: Fist

You will be properly compensated for informing me of this development. I have men on the way to intercept the Quarian at the location you specified.

I finished reading both and swallowed, hard. "Aegis, when were these sent?"

"The first was sent approximately fifteen minutes ago, and the second approximately nine minutes after that."

Fuck. "Aegis, please tell me you got the location of the meet."

"Yes, I did, and I am marking the location with a waypoint, as well as marking the quickest path there. I suggest you run."

"Thanks Aegis." I hurriedly clicked back onto my external line. "Shara, sorry to rush, but I gotta run!" I ran over to the door and opened it.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Shara asked quizzically.

"Sorry, no time to explain, bye!" I said rapidly, leaving the apartment quickly and tearing off down the hallway, following the glowing blue line that marked the path Aegis had given me.

I just hope I don't get there too late . . .

A/N: Once again, I am truly sorry for not getting this out sooner, but I am a terrible procrastinator. I spend way too much time reading fanfiction, rather than writing it.

On another note, I hope everyone had and/or is having a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever other holiday you may celebrate. I myself had a wonderful Christmas; I had lots of tasty food, saw my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and got Skyrim. :D *thumbs-up*

Hope you liked the chapter. Also, for those who consider Shara's behaviour to be unrealistic, given the circumstances, I wholeheartedly agree. However, this is fanfiction, so I can do what I want, and Shara is more or less basically a throw-away character at this point; she's not plot-important currently, and may not even show up again, depending on whether I think of something she can do. She's like Wilson or Jenkins, being that she's the temporary squad member in the start who's really only there to fill a gap, minus the whole 'being utterly useless and dying suddenly' thing.

Read and review!