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Everybody, human and Turian alike were coughing and still clearing their eyes but when whoever or whatever was inside that opaque tube began that screaming, several of them drew weapons.
Durtha didn't have any weapons but he had a reckless sort of curiosity... he approached the tube, and the door began to bang, repeatedly against the rock that had it jammed. Bang, bang bang bang! Again and again, until the glass screen began to crack, and that screaming began again. They weren't just screams... they were so raw and full of emotion he wasn't compelled to do anything but kick the offending debris away in a cloud of dust, smearing mold across the ruined tiles that had once been pristine.
BANG.
The tube door swung open all the way at last and he got one glimpse of red and yellow and pale white before something fell practically into his lap.
The girl in the tube obviously didn't have her muscle functions back yet and had tripped on the lip of the container, falling straight. Durtha managed to grab her, but that clearly proved to the the worst idea.
She was human, and young, with ridiculously long copper colored hair and he had just enough time to glimpse an old fashioned yellow strapless sundress and strange colored eyes before the frozen woman leapt up, and began backing herself away.
Her legs didn't want to cooperate and her arms were just as stupidly frozen, and all Durtha could do was watch as the woman's eyes darted from the humans in the room, some with guns, some without, to the Turians and finally to him. Her chest began to rise and fall, she began to hyperventilate and when Durtha offered her a hand she shrieked.
"REALLY!" shouted the blonde woman who had attempted to accost him before. She had a hand on her hip, but it was clear she was excited. They get called in to excavate an old building from the twentieth century and they found a live specimen in a holding tank. It was like winning the nerd lottery.
Durtha shrank back at the screaming. It couldn't be something he said, it had to be what he looked like. Who knew what time she was from? This place had been buried for as long as he could remember, as long as his parents could remember, there was a good chance she had no knowledge of Batarians or Turians.
She scrabbled at the tiled floor with her feet and her hands despite the fact that she was getting nowhere, her eyes huge in her face, tears streaking her face, freaking out. Durtha decided to try again.
"Miss, calm-... calm down! It's alright! You're alright!" he had to yell to be heard.
He got up to his knees but it was clear every move he made made her shrink back more. She had the same look as a terrified animal on her face.
"Clear off, man, you're scaring the kid," growled a Turian from behind him. He was shoved out of the way and one of the diggers moved in front of her.
Naturally that didn't get a better reaction. She just screamed some more.
"HONESTLY...".
It was the blonde woman again, and before anyone, even Durtha could react, she had shoved past them all, grabbed the girl by the arm and plunged what looked like medigel into her upper arm. Judging by how fast the girl quieted, and eventually slumped over, he guessed it wasn't medigel.
Durtha folded his arms, and again looked around the place. They had uncovered the ceiling of this one room and peeled it away but there were doors in the place, undoubtedly leading to more of the ruined and now mostly underground building. It was then he noticed all the other things across from the tanks. Tables, some flipped, others intact, heaped with old clothing covered in dust. He spotted an old quilt, old instrument cases, old electronics, old photographs in frames. It was all covered in dust and in most cases, mold.
"Right, who are you?"
It took him a moment to notice they were speaking to him.
He cleared his throat and blinked all four eyes.
"Ahem... my name is Durtha McMullen. I'm here visiting family," he stated. "I saw the commotion and was curious".
"Well you're trespassing on a privately funded dig, mister. " said the blonde lady.
Durtha cleared his throat and looked again to the unconscious girl. Her limbs were limp. It struck him then how traumatic this must be for her. It would be for him, he knew that much.
Two of the Turians grabbed him by the arms and attempted to drag him over to what looked like a ladder, but he refused for a moment. He was barrel-chested and strong, with thin hips like a lot of Batarian, so he had no problem keeping himself planted.
"What's going to happen to the girl?" he asked, trying to keep his voice honest. It would be no use if they thought he was accusing them of pre-abuse.
The blonde woman seemed to think on it for a moment, and sighed. It involved a living human, she had no choice but to report it to the proper authorities... she cast a suspicious glance at Durtha again.
"I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that because I'm a scientist my only interest is money and how much she can fetch me. Well you're wrong. I can do my job without harming people. You never mind, and go home Batarian," she huffed. Durtha growled at that.
"My name is Durtha. Look, I was raised by humans, my family are all humans... I run a group for stranded or displaced people growing up out of their league and offworld, so to speak. If you can't think of anywhere else to send her, send her to me. The program's state-recognized," he added in what he hoped was an optimistic tone of voice. He handed her his card, with the name of the group and his contact info, and cast one more look at the poor girl. One eye was green; the other was blue. That was different.
Turning without a word, Durtha went.
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She felt woozy. Her fingers were numb. Her legs refused to obey what her brain was telling them to do. She couldn't speak. Her head swam with hazy images, pictures and people and places. A doublewide trailer on the side of a highway. Friends, laughing, drinking, crying, hugging. A birthday. A sleepover when she was thirteen. Faintly she became aware of cold damp floor beneath her. Her fingers still numb, she fought to sit herself up at the very least. Why was it so hard for her to get a grasp on the events leading up to this?
She heard voices. Some were speaking in English, some in a strange tongue she couldn't recognize. Sounded almost like Russian. She shook her head, her hair falling in her face, and fought to stand on shaky legs. Come on, come ON, she could do this.
Eventually she stood, slightly knockneed, holding her arms awkwardly because she still didn't feel quite so well. The end result was she looked like a thin simple girl in a thin simple dress in a simple shy stance. Let them think what they would, whoever they were, she thought. Speaking of... where was she?
She looked around a moment, then at the sky above her head, and tried to think. What was the last thing she remembered... she remembered it was night. She was with her brother and cousins. It was a birthday party, she thought. This place was empty. A game, no electricity, something about electricity... She shook her head and finally looked again to the people around her.
She was facing a blonde woman dressed in an odd sort of labcoat, at least four others dressed in t-shirts and jeans or shorts, and the others... the others didn't look human at all. They were tall and barrel-chested, with beady little eyes and sharp spines atop and alongside their faces. It was them she couldn't understand, she realized.
Until she could remember for sure what had happened before this caricature of a morning she wasn't trusting anyone.
"Please, don't be scared. My name is Malory Varden," said the older blonde lady.
Heather backed away another step and her knees damn near buckled and folded under her. She stumbled and caught herself with her hand on a nearby cabinet and one of the pointy-faced people said something to the woman named Malory. She nodded, raised an arm and Heather suddenly saw something orange and holographic appear there, emitting a gentle amber glow in the gloom of the room she was in. She then looked back up at Heather.
"What is your name, miss?" asked the woman.
For a moment, she grasped with even that. Her name? What was her name again? Something about...
"H-Heather... Heather McLellan, I think...," she replied. Her voice sounded hoarse to her, and more throaty than it normally was. She cleared her throat then and looked to the sky above her. Something was flying high above, probably an airplane.
"Wha... what are they?" she demanded suddenly. She motioned towards the spiky-faced people and one of them stepped forward. She gave an unceartain noise of panic and tried to back away again, with the end result being her foot finally slipped and down she went.
"OW!"
"Perhaps we should wait intil the doctor gets here? Keep catologuing the things over by that far wall for now, I'll keep an eye on her", said Malory gently. Heather followed her gaze and saw things piled high on the opposite wall. Things that looked... familiar. She blinked, her forehead creased, and recognized a guitar... the edge of a quilt her grandmother had made for her when she was a teenager... the dangling cord to her iPod.
She managed to find her feet again at the sight of familiar things and started making her way towards them, strange nightmarish men be damned.
"Wait! Don't, that's mine!" she cried worriedly as someone lifted her iPod up. Its green casing was scratched, the metal dulled but she recognized it. She snatched it back out of the man's hand and he looked startled. He was Black, with the oddest blue colored eyes and wore a tank top and shorts but the closer she looked the more she was confused.
The stuff before her was covered in dust. She lifted up what looked like a skirt, with petals on it, that had once been a light spring color and shook it out. Dust and worse billowed off in a cloud and the people nearest her coughed. The skirt began to fall apart in her hands. She gave a choked sort of cry and dropped it, looking again to all the stuff on the table.
She began fumbling through it, finding more familiar things. She stumbled across a broken picture frame and cut her finger. Sucking on it, she began wiping mold and dirt off of the broken glass, more carefully, and saw a photo of herself and her cousins, smiling, side by side. She began remembering. Their names popped into her mind as if it'd been only yesterday and as far as she knew, it had been.
"Jessie and Brandon...," she murmered.
"On second thought...," said the doctor from behind. The other people all backed away from her and let her rummage. She came across an old notebook and opened it with a crackle. The paper was brittle and felt wrong somehow. She gingerly turned a page and could barely make out a date for May 25, 2010. Why did the paper seem to... fragile, that had been just a few days ago? She rummaged through a few other papers, journal entries in handwriting she didn't recognize, papers that shouldn't feel so aged with the dates that were on them.
She turned and it began to dawn upon her. The memories of that night... she shook her head and tried to organize everything in her mind while those in attendance looked at her, watching her. She raised her eyes finally to the one called Malory.
"What's today's date," she managed to choke.
Malory was silent. Heather got impatient.
"The DATE, what is today's DATE?!" she barked.
Most there flinched. Malory cleared her throat.
"Ah... it's September eighteenth, 21... 2183,".
Heather fell on her ass again.