Jane Shepard
I couldn't explain the connection if I tried, but the feel was somehow the same. My foot touched down on concrete, and it was the same concrete as that of the science station on Akuze. I slowed my breathing even though I knew the futility of it. I could feel the incoherent fear of Jane burbling through my cool exterior, but I needed to keep my head. God, the handle of my pistol wasn't always this slippery, was it? No, that's the inside of my glove. I was sweating like a fool. I was so glad my helmet was down so no one could see the cold sheen on my face. I was gonna have to lift it soon for clear combat, but I'd thank the cover it gave me at that moment.
They told me Freedom's progress would be empty, just as if the people had vanished, but I didn't realize the degree to which that would bother me. Something was so wrong there that I wondered if I was being watched. I swore I could feel eyes all around me.
My foot steps onto the soft sand. This is no good. Whatever happened here happened a while ago. Where is everyone?
As I came around a corner and headed into one of the living stations, I noticed that everything was still set up neatly.
"Looks like everyone just got up and left right in the middle of dinner," I heard Jacob mumble behind me.
"Come on, we're on a deadline here. Look fast but don't miss anything,I heard Shepard say, as it was her hand that lifted my helmet.
What was that rumbling? Did something just collapse underground?
"Clarkson, take point. Toombs, bring up the rear," I command sharply.
"Aye, aye, sir."
I whirled around quickly, startled at a noise I'm still not sure I really heard.
"Hear that? Sounds like FENRIS mechs," said Jacob. Damn his insistence on speaking so much. My heart rate must've been going crazy, I could hear it in my ears. I wondered if it was loud enough that they could hear it, too? Was that really what Jacob heard?
"That doesn't sound good," I can hear Toombs mutter.
"Keep your wits about you, this isn't right," I tell everyone. I swear I just saw the ground move, but that doesn't happen. No use scaring my squad over shadows.
"Oh my God, what is that thing!" I hear blared over the mic.
Shephad aimed my pistil directly at the eye of the YMIR and squeezed off a few rounds. Oh God, would that I were focused enough to deal with the hunk of junk biotically, but my veins might've burst with this rapid heart rate plus the biotic stress.
"Jesus Christ! Clarkson!" I hear Jane scream from my lips. One of the rare moments she gets on the surface, and of course it's fueled by futile concern. That's how she always surfaces. I dash for cover, yelling at my men to do the same. Three more, Gonzales, Goddard, and Bashir, are taken down by some vile green liquid which eats through them like they're salt or something. A few drops ricochet off and get me in the arm. The rate that it dropped my shields and burnt through my armor was staggering, but the pain was astonishing. Biting down the urge to scream in pain, I reach around cover to shoot the abomination attacking my men. When I see it, when I actually lay eyes on the thresher maw, the terrible sight of the beast, it's Shepard that actually remembers to fire.
The last blow took out the YMIR.
Everyone else is dead. I need to kill this thing fast. I need to avenge them.
No, I need to get out.
No, I need to die with them. I need to avenge them.
Two voices, but both of them me. The stronger of us prevails, as she always does. Shepard's collected voice calls for extraction, and she means it now, mister.
The thresher maw was still there. There was nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run. If I could just last a little while longer, the shuttle would be here, get me the hell out, and bomb that sucker. If Shepard could just kill that monster, I could be safer.
I peak around the corner of the remnants of the wall I'm using for cover. I have one shot left to do this, and maybe if I'm lucky I could piss it off enough to get sloppy, at the very least. It would go underground for a while instead of being alert while it was above ground, eating the corpses of my squad.
One shot is really I all I get.
I ease the trigger in slowly.
"Prazza was and idiot, and he and his men paid for it. You're welcome to Vetor's omni-tool data, but please, just let me take him."
I snapped to attention at that. Where the hell was I? My gun was still ringing in my hand. No, scratch that, that was Shepard's gun, through and through. It was just fired, and judging by the bullet hole in the display, I shot something belonging to this sputtering Quarian.
"Tali?" I asked. No, wait, I remember. Shit. I talked to her earlier and everything. Vetor? Right, squeaky, worried little thing whose display I shot. I think I was just having an indistinct conversation with him about . . .
People getting stolen from their homes. Fire everywhere. Screams. Blood. Jesse's screams as she being violated in every way a sentient being can violate another.
No! I was talking to him about the collectors. There's no fires, there's no blood, there's hardly even a disturbance here. This is not Mindoir!
Both Cerberus operatives behind me spit words I paid no attention to, only at that moment coming down from whatever the hell I had been high on previously.
"Look, we're not going to get more out of him any way. Tali, take him to the flotilla. Get him better," I said.
"Thanks Shepard. I'm glad you're still the one giving the orders around here," Tali said with surprising warmth. She moved to help Vetor out of the room. I felt sickened to the bone. God, whatever set me off this time made me loose a lot of time. I needed to slump over and try to calm down and remember what just happened, not the events of Akuze. Again.
But Shepard wouldn't let me show weakness in front of Miranda and Jacob. If they're to be part of my new team, I need to be Shepard to lead them again. How things change and how they stay the same.
…
The report to the Illusive man was no better. It seems like no matter where I go, this dichotomy and this anxiety follows me. Maybe something went wrong with the Lazurus project. Or maybe I really am just crazy.
The Illusive man, right down the the cigarette and his raspy drawl, reminded me disturbingly of my drill instructor from basic. The one who pushed Jane into obscurity, and gave Shepard the means to flourish. He was also the instructor who pushed Cadet Collins to the frustration that he took out other the other Cadets, like Cadet Johnson, who I protected only to have him kill himself. Trying to keep the memories flooding me from overwhelming me and cracking my cool is no easy task. I'm glad Shepard was up to it, because I was exhausted, and I don't think I could've done it on my own.
In fact, it seemed like Shepard actually had an interest in the vile splinter group. That bitch never did have a conscience when I wasn't enforcing it.
Remember what they did to Toombs. And Kahoku, I told myself. I don't care if they also brought me back. They've done too many terrible things. I can't afford to cut them any slack.
Reuniting with Joker was bittersweet. I was glad to see the old goat again, sure, but once again I lost it on the inside, and the only thing holding me together was, you know it, Shepard. I'm relying on her more and more, like I said, I think I'm becoming her. No one can blame me for falling apart at being reminded of the Normandy's explosion, though. That was only yesterday to me, even if to everyone else it was two years ago. That it should still fill me the fear, and that it should still make me remember in such detail as to loose myself wasn't unheard of, surely?
As if there weren't already enough reminders of my past, a past I'd rather get past, the damn fuckers had rebuilt the Normandy. They made a crude copy with upgrades and gadgetry. They stocked it with a crew that I couldn't trust and didn't like. It's like they're determined to spit on me in every way possible. It was a cruel parody of my former life, and a grave insult.
But Joker seemed happy about it, so I bit my tongue and smiled when he asked if we could name it the Normandy.
…
I'd been instructed to go to Omega first and look for one doctor Mordin Solus. I didn't want to. I couldn't imagine stepping foot off the ship and having to interact with Batarians like they're anything but monsters. After what I witnessed on Mindoir, and all the weird things I've been experiencing lately, I wasn't sure I could manage it without shooting a few.
My last encounter with a Batarian had resulted in my slowly shooting him to death, even at the expense of human lives on asteroid X57. I relished it, I enjoyed it. It felt like the souls of everyone I knew as a child were cheering me on.
And then I was empty.
And I couldn't sleep. Even when I could, I just had terrible dreams that I don't want to remember for weeks afterward.
We were en route to Omega, and I couldn't fucking sleep then, either. Miranda said there may be a few minor side effects of the Lazarus Project that should wear off after a bit of rest, a commodity I hadn't had any time for when those flashbacks were happening. So maybe sleep would help. I had a little less than a day until we get to Omega proper.
But I couldn't sleep. I slept last night, and I was rewarded only with nightmares like I'd never known. I regretted sleeping that night, but I was thankful for the fact that my quarters were on their own deck, and that meant no one could hear Jane's blood curdling scream as I relived trauma. I guess I didn't experience any weird anxiety of flashbacks while I was awake, but still, it's too high a price to pay. I sorta felt more like Shepard than usual. Distant, cool, competent, if a little aimless. I guess I would describe it better as numb. And when I looked in the huge mirror at in the bathroom of the captain's cabin, all I saw was Shepard. Big, gaping, orange-glowing holes in my face. I couldn't even really recognize myself any more. It wasn't that I had changed appearance so much as I didn't know how to find Jane, buried as she was under all that Shepard I'd been having to use lately.
Jane was right. They should have let me die. Why did they let me die?
They're selfish, and they wanted to live. Wouldn't it be nice to feel like that?
Before I knew what was happening, I had punched the mirror in the cabin. Blood slowly trickled down the cracks in the glass. I had just anthropomorphizing an aspect of my personality to such a degree that I had tired to hurt it physically.
"Jesus, is this really what you've been reduced to? Idiotic mess? Pull yourself together," I said to myself.
There's no together. You're faking it, and one of these days, you're going to regret it.
"If I followed what you thought, I'd already have eaten my own gun and died time and time again. What would I regret? I'm alive!"
Living isn't everything. Remember Kaidan? He liked me. And I liked him. Why did you kill him?
I punched the mirror again, hating myself so fervently for both sides of this conversation. I didn't know which one I agreed with more, but I certainly agreed with Shepard's need to punch something to feel a little better.
I took a few deep breaths, then washed the glass out of my hands. Let them sting and burn a little, it would be better than the numbness I felt today. I tried to sleep again. Maybe I'll have this better sorted by the time I get to Omega.
End chapter two
Thanks to everyone who read the first chapter, and thanks especially to everyone who came back for more. And even more, thanks to my reviewer. I really appreciate it, because there's nothing that inspired one to write like knowing a reader is waiting with bated breath. Or something like that.
I know I promised more interaction, and I know technically I followed through on that, but there will be more in the next chapter. These first two chapters are really for mood building.