The guards standing in the doorway aimed their weapons at the test subject that they weren't under orders to keep alive. Killing him made it simpler, especially given the person lying next to Subject One, Jack Shepard.
Subject Zero.
She however, didn't want them to kill Jack. He had freed her, he had helped her. And just like Dr. Franken, he hadn't been scared of her when he carried her out. It was like he knew she wouldn't kill him. Which wasn't guaranteed.
She didn't want him to die. He had helped her, and didn't hate her or fear her. Dr. Franken was like that and he was her friend, so that made Jack her friend too.
And Subject Zero did not like it when her last friend died.
Sure she could summon Dr. Franken anytime she concentrated, or was made enough, but she couldn't talk with him, or have him tell her his stories of galactic legends like the Krogan Who Wouldn't Die. When he became a ghost, all he started to care about was making more people ghosts, and while she could certainly agree with the sentiment, she missed the company.
It wasn't even a dilemma really.
The guards opened fire into the air as they were thrown into the others around the corner hard enough to break through the kinetic barriers and crack the armor within.
Not only was she going to kill all them like her first friend Dr. Franken wanted, but she'd keep her new friend alive so he'd always keep her company. She liked the thought.
She stood up as she considered how best to do this. She needed to keep him help him he was bleeding and he had said he needed medigel, but she didn't know anything about medigel or how to use it. Not really. She could of course always just get the knowledge of what he meant and needed from his mind, since he knew more than her, but people died when she did that and killing him wouldn't work at all.
She focused on the guards and grew angry. Not only did they want to lock her back up and put her to sleep, but they also wanted to kill [i]her[/i] friend. She wanted them dead, her rage rushing outwards and shades solidifying from the eddies of her hate. They would help her make that happen. But before all of the nearby (and far away) guards could die, she decided to look in as many of their minds as possible to find out what she could about medigel and fixing people who were hurt.
She started with the calmest, a man inside a combat mech which was nearly four times her size and who exuded authority. She reached into his mind and started looking around, before her concentration was broken by rockets hitting the ground near the doorway, sending her and Jack flying backwards.
She felt his mind start to fade, like it did before people became ghosts.
She was scared, she didn't want him to be like Dr. Franken, she wanted him to stay with her forever, so she did what she had done the other times she had been scared like this and [i]pulled[/i] the voices closer. They were from the dark place beyond the light, and they always gave her advice when she was upset. They told her how to become stronger, how to make the ghosts always stay just within reach. How to take the power of psychics and others that died and become better, stronger, more. The first time they came to her was when the doctors first took her to the labs, to the altar. The voices told her how she could make the doctors stop hurting her, and when she listened, they did stop though different doctors hurt her again later.
"I need to find out what to do," she whispered.
[i]/"Take their thoughts, drink them, eat them. Don't stop at just one."/[/i]
"How do I fix him?"
[i]/"Bring him to the altar it will save him, make him stronger. Even in death."/[/i]
She frowned. Dr. Franken had told her not to trust the voices, that they lied… but they were helpful. Except this time, anyway.
No, she didn't want him to die, even for a moment, even if the voices could bring him back. She stood up and sent her mind out to the man in the armor. When she saw he was a ghost now too, she picked the nearest guard. Upon seeing it has just a replica, she took out how to use its gun and the Replica's head exploded inside its helmet.
She'd already taken how to use all of the Arrmacham guns, and even the various power armors and mechs, but there wasn't much else to take from the Replica.
She then found another power armored guard. This one was scared and was retreating from the shades and from her. But he hadn't retreated far enough. It turned out that he knew quite a bit about field medicine, as he called it, and Subject Zero was pleased that she found what she wanted.
With no further need of the guards, she focused on her power, sending it outwards to cover more in ever greater strength. Dozens of shades and other entities started manifesting all throughout Quarantine, and all of them were driven outwards and upwards by the currents of her power, and presence of fresh food. The surviving two mech pilots did not last long, even in their mechanized battlesuits as Subject Zero quickly threw the first into the ceiling 30 meters up with both the throw and the fall back to the floor damaging the small mech, and then knocked over the other power armor before taking the technical knowledge from that pilot.
She focused on the walls of the corridor leading back to the machine she had been kept in. She was looking for water to rinse off Jack's wounds, but it was hard to tell through the metal and with the distractions all around her. So she ripped off the wall panels to check the pipes with her eyes. It was difficult with the poor lighting, but she saw the label that had been put there for maintenance.
Unfortunately, the thick pipe had little water in it due to some blockage or leak. Or at least that's what the knowledge she'd taken from some Maintenance staff several months ago told her. At the time Dr. Franken had told her that killing people just to sate her curiosity was bad, but she didn't think he'd mind now. He had become much more permissive (a word she'd picked up from an annoying researcher) after becoming a ghost.
She pulled the pipe out so it hanging into the corridor dripping water, exerting more effort than she had to throw a light mech. She had to be careful, gentle even, and that was very hard for her to do with her powers. She wasn't very good at moving liquids through the air either. She was better at pushing things actually. Then she realized the solution and moved Jack through the air so that he was floating underneath the opening of the pipe, careful not to hurt him.
Both that precision and the earlier precision with the pipe were as taxing as projecting her power across the entirety of Quarantine was. She briefly considered whether it was worth the effort. Then she reached far back into the pipe and started pushing all of the water in the pipe out.
The trickle quickly transitioned into a stream, and then a thick wave which knocked Jack back, drenching him. It would have to do.
Subject Zero then walked over to the nearby checkpoint, carrying Jack with her despite the strain of the required focus. On her way over she saw a guard holding off the shades and ghosts with a shotgun in one hand and an LMG in the other. The guard, who Alma could tell was a she, was doing quite well. This annoyed Subject Zero since the guard could shoot Jack, or even her, while she was using the medigel. That wouldn't do.
She resorted to the simple solution: setting Jack down for a moment to pick up the guard, causing her to cry out in pain at the psychic vise enclosing her, and throw her with all the force Subject Zero could muster. The guard arced into the distance of the Quarantine hall and did not land for several seconds.
Subject Zero then took Jack to the medical supplies box and used the disinfectant and medigel as her acquired memories indicated. It took several minutes, in which she realized that Jack smelled of sewage and other chemicals, and that his clothes were stained with it. She hadn't realized earlier because she had at first been recovering from the induced coma (which her psychic power had enabled her mind to resist to a degree), and then the smell of blood and offal from the dying and dead guards had masked the stench.
She decided she liked the smell less than she did from the dead bodies. At least with those there was the associated satisfaction of revenge.
Jack groaned and sat against one of the barriers around the checkpoint. "Thanks."
Subject Zero nodded and said, "You're welcome, Jack."
"That's good." He paused for a moment. "Hey, I never got your name. They always called you 'Subject Zero.'"
She frowned. "Only Dr. Franken ever used it, but it is Alma Wade."
"Well, it's nice to finally meet you Alma," Jack said as he held out his hand to her.
She looked at it for a moment, trying to gauge from his emotion what she was supposed to do. No one had ever done this with her before. Sensing growing discomfort and uncertainty from her friend, she also held out her hand and said, "It is nice to meet you too, Jack."
She felt his confusion grow for a moment before it gave way to sadness of some sort and humor. She didn't understand, but Dr. Franken had felt sad in the same way several times before he became a ghost.
He sighed. "It's called a handshake," and he took her hand and moved it up and then down twice. While he was doing this, Alma had to resist the urge to take something from his mind. After all, he didn't have any intent to harm her, and wasn't like the researchers. He released her hand and then held out a gas mask like the one he wore towards her. "They're probably gassing the place, so you should probably wear this even if your powers can work around it. It'll help us last longer."
She looked at the mask for a moment before nodding and taking the mask. "Okay."
She already knew how to put on the masks from taking the knowledge earlier, so in moments the two stood in the checkpoint ready to proceed.
Jack looked at an intact mech lying on the floor nearby. It's squat, boxy shape containing two small missile launchers, two machine guns, and two high powered laser cannons. Next to the cockpit door on the front was a logo of a five-pointed star with a stylized AB over it. Jack didn't really know that much about mech other than that they were cool and he had always wanted one. He first learned of them when he was nine and saw an image of a Krogan Avatar mech from the Rachni war. That was the moment he knew he would get one, someday.
He pointed at the mech. "I don't know what kind that is, but I want it."
"That's an Archernar power armor, it is more heavily armed but structurally weaker than the EPA, like the one over there," Alma pointed at another bipedal mech lying on its back with blood seeping out of its cockpit. "Also it doesn't have autorepair functionality built into it and lacks the EPA's onboard microfabricator."
"How do you know that?" Jack asked, turning to her.
"I took it from several pilots," she replied, not really understanding how he [i]didn't[/i] do the same thing since he clearly wanted powered armor, or as the bigger ones were often called: mechs.
She now sensed concern and fear. "Oh. Okay." After a moment the fear mostly dissipated as he looked thoughtfully at the EPA. "So you're saying I should take the one leaking blood?"
"It also has psychic shielding which should have repaired by now. I broke it earlier."
"And it repairs itself? Sweet. I'm definitely taking it." He ran over and Alma followed.
Once there he looked at the armor. "How do I open it?"
"You press the open button that's inside, but first you have to break the shielding because the armor interferes otherwise."
Jack concentrated for a moment. "I think I can see inside to press it actually. There are quite a few buttons…"
Alma frowned. The armor made it too fuzzy for her to use her powers without breaking the armor first, why did he get to do it when he was weaker than her? "It's the one with one next to the door near his right foot."
"Okay thanks." The cockpit hissed open and Jack looked inside. "I think I'm going to need to clean this off… Not much, since I'm already filthy, but at least clear out the brains and body parts."
Alma nodded.
Jack looked at her, and she felt annoyance from him. "Would you mind helping?"
She thought for a moment. "No."
Jack waited another moment. "Will you?"
"How?"
Jack sighed. "By taking out the body parts and bringing out the medical supplies so I can clean up the worst of it."
She nodded before a thought occurred to her. "If you don't want to wear that, you might find something in the labs, and we need to stop by there anyway."
"Sure, but I'm going to blow it to pieces with this mech when we get there."
Alma smiled. "That won't be a problem."
When they saw the Quarantine be completely compromised, the Armacham guards and their Replica contingent decided to hold at the top of the elevator shaft that led down into it. After all, it was a strong defensive position and with as a REV8, three EPAs and twelve REV6s their commanding officer was confident that not even Subject Zero could defeat them all. Especially when they deployed several ground and hover combat drones to supply additional firepower.
Some might have asked why the officer was doing this when he had orders to take Subject Zero alive. This was because he was not a fool. Nor did he want to die. Especially not to the soul-eating abomination that scuttlebutt said Subject Zero was.
And so he and his men (and the Replicas and the drones) had spent the last several minutes firing at any ghosts or shades or any other psychic entities that thought they could take on trained professionals. Nothing could get close enough to hurt them with all of their firepower focused on the shaft and the adjacent stairs.
That's when the lights flickered, the officer's EKG meter went nuts, and rockets started flying up the shaft, sending human guards and Replicas scattering for cover against the sudden barrage.
Someone shouted "Psychic rockets?!" incredulously, before shades, specters and fire-throwing Imps started to appear spontaneous all throughout the group.
Horrified realization set in as chaos descended on his forces. "The vents!" Unfortunately, that was the moment all of his knowledge on the tactical situation of the area was taken and his head exploded.
Jack was standing in front of another impressive mech. He didn't care that it was officially power armor, it was still awesome. "So does the REV8 also have autorepair?"
"Yes… It also has lasers, but no minigun or jump jets," answered Alma, who was sitting on top of an extremely dented REV6 power armor which was splattered with liberal amounts of blood, like everything else in the room. She had her head in her hands and her eyes closed.
"This has jump jets?!" Jack shouted incredulously, causing Alma to wince. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"…didn't ask…"
Jack paused and frowned. "Are you alright? You look like you've got a headache. Burnout?"
"…Yes."
Jack sighed. "How bad is it? There are going to be a lot more guards with mechs and we can't really afford to wait long, they'll just send in Replicas and drones until they put us down."
"They won't win."
"If you burn yourself out you will get captured like last time, I mean this mech is awesome, but it's not the only one in this place…" He hummed in thought. "Do you know how to pilot that REV8?"
Alma nodded. "Yes."
"Then pilot it, at least until you don't have a headache. That way we won't have to worry about you burning out like I almost have just opening doors."
"Okay."
After she cleared out the cockpit of the REV8 and unlocked it (Jack assumed she took the information from the pilot's head), Alma settled into the pilot's compartment of the large power armor and activated it. As the power armor came to its feet, twenty Replicas burst around the corner of the corridor leading towards the labs. They rushed to the checkpoint and into cover as the two escapees brought their powered armors to bear, Jack sending out a barrage of missiles directly behind the Replicas to hit them with the blast.
Alma's REV8 was much slower due to it fact that as an eight year old girl, she had trouble reaching the controls. However, she managed to fire a salvo of rockets which destroyed one of the checkpoint's barricades and sent several Replicas flying. Seeing the destruction brought a smile to her face.
Then a red, white and black colored Replica with a LMG stood up in the open and began spraying fire at her to no noticeable effect. Alma felt a small smirk of anticipation, she could feel the thrill of blowing things up with mechs. She fired, sending out a barrage of laser blasts, only to see them all miss the Replica. She growled in frustration and tried to readjust her aim, straining her arms forward in order to more accurately use the joystick. It didn't work.
The two were locked in a stalemate because Alma couldn't get the unit to actually hit the Replica with either the lasers or the rockets while it stood in the open determinedly firing at Alma as intense ultraviolet lasers and rockets flew past it.
At that point it was the only Replica left, all of the others having been killed by Jack in his EPA, which he now used to watch the duel. He couldn't help but laugh at the situation, the most powerful and dangerous psychic on the planet, scary enough to warrant being put into a coma in Quarantine and who was now armed with a powerful mech, couldn't kill a single Replica soldier. Cackling, he sat back and started looking for the jump jet button.
In frustration, Alma tried to reach out and crush the Replica, only to realize that the psionic shielding of the RE8 Leviathan was strong enough to effectively blind her abilities outside the unit, and she couldn't open it without risking getting shot by the Replica.
After several seconds, the Replica stopped firing and retreated, heading towards the corner it had only recently come around so that it would have cover until its weapon cooled down. As it retreated, it switched to an SMG and continued to fire on Alma's suit.
Growling, Alma sent the REV8 stomping forward after the Replica, sending out another barrage of rockets, the jerking of it all nearly sending her out of her seat and forcing her to stop.
The Replica made it around the corner before throwing a frag grenade at the REV8 as a parting gift. The blast barely affected the shields, but did knock Alma around so that she hit her head.
Feeling the pain blossoming from her forehead, she touched her left hand to where the pain was centered and felt wetness. She was bleeding. The Replica had hurt her, and she and been able to do nothing to it.
She roared in fury, her anger spilling through the armor and out to fill the nearby hallways. She sent her unit after the Replica at full speed, crashing into the corner but recovering as LMG fire started to hit the armor's kinetic barriers. Alma grit her teeth and laboriously turned to face her enemy, who was walking backwards away from her while keeping up a steady stream of fire. She sent the REV8 charging down the hallway at its full speed, which was about twice a human's sprinting speed. The powered armor unit bounced off of the walls of the corridor as it ran and seeing its rapid approach, the Replica turned and ran as well.
Alma grinned as her mech bore down on the Replica, only to howl in fury again as it leapt out of the way around the corner towards the Research Labs and Alma collided with the corner on the other side of the T intersection.
Taking a moment to shake her head clear and wait for the electronics to repair from her accidental psionic damage to them, she had the mech take two steps back so that it could head into Research Labs without running the risk of hitting the walls again.
Then she took aim at the bloody gurney that the Replica had taken cover behind. She fired with both lasers and rockets at once this time, and it worked! The Replica was sent flying into and through a glass wall. Alma crowed in triumph. Maybe using the armor wouldn't be so bad.
The Replica Elite picked itself up from the explosion and looked around at the office it had been thrown into. Seeing a small medigel canister and registering its injured condition, Replica Tango 12609 limped over and slotted the medigel into its medical port, which feed medigel to the areas of the body where it was needed.
Hearing the thuds of the approaching commandeered powered armor units, the Replica moved through a nearby doorway that led away from the main hallway that the hostiles were using. As they passed, the Replica considered what to do. Its psionic commander was out of reach due to interference, and it had received no retreat order through its comm. implants. This meant it was still under orders to neutralize all hostiles and secure Target: Subject Zero.
Both hostiles were inside powered armor units, and Target: Subject Zero was not designated as piloting or likely to attempt piloting one.
It relayed its tactical information to platoon command and requested assistance due to overhelming enemy firepower, then began to follow the two hostiles. It would engage them, as per orders until those orders changed or it accomplished its objective.
"WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO KILL YOU!" Alma screamed in frustration as she sent another salvo of rockets into the adjacent lab, blowing yet a hole in the wall and sending a cloud of dust into the air. Alma switched to thermal imaging in time to see the Replica move past the hole she had just opened. This time her scream forced the REV8 into shutdown for emergency repairs.
She heard several more explosions as Jack send missiles after the elusive Replica soldier. Then she heard a muffled voice, "This it just ridiculous, now I can't hit him either. Whatever, it's not like he can hurt us anyway. Let's just keep going as soon as your armor is finished repairing."
Alma scowled and hit the eject button. "I want it to die," she stated as she stepped out of the now open mech and pulled up a piece of the floor to protect her from gunfire. Not that there was any. She reached out with her mind as her power flowed outwards through the labs. She quickly found the Replica around a corner running down a hallway away from her, and threw it forward through a glass wall, sending it landing in from of the altar itself. Satisfied, Alma turned to Jack in his EPA and said, "What we need to get too is that way," and she pointed towards the altar and the Replica.
Once the REV8 had finished its repair and reboot, the two made their way to the altar. It was long and thin, as though shaped for something inhuman to lay on top of. It looked like it was made of obsidian or some other black stone, but had sinister glowing blue and red runes covering it. Just barely incomprehensible whispers could be heard by anyone who entered the formerly sealed chamber which housed the altar. Most noteworthy to the two psychics as they stood before it, was the strong psionic emanations of power, hunger and an alien otherness.
"So you want me to lay down on this so the 'voices in the dark' can talk to me?" Jack summarized.
"They will help you become stronger."
"Right."
"You think I'm lying?"
"No, I don't think [i]you[/i] are lying. I just have trouble trusting sinister ancient artifacts that are hungry and whisper in my mind. I have issues like that."
"I was fine."
"Hah – Sorry, I didn't mean to offend."
"…"
"It's just that with everything I've heard about you, I would hesit-… Well, actually since you've spent at least four years in the hands of Armacham – which is what, half your life? – I can see that there might be alternate explanations for the stories I've heard about you. I mean, shit, now that I think about it, I'd probably do most of the stuff you've done in your positon."
"So you'll let them make you stronger so you can be my friend forever."
"…"
"What's wrong? You are now more uncomfortable."
Jack sighed. "There are worse friends I could have, and someone needs to look out for you I suppose."
"I can take care of myself."
"And then they arrest you for exploding someone's head because you needed directions."
"I'd kill them too then."
"And that's why I need to stick with you, because I'd prefer there to be people left alive at the end of the day."
"Why?"
"You know what, sure. Dark voices, do your worst." And with that Jack lay down on the altar, his right hand next to where the head of the Replica soldier was propped against the altar.
The blue and red runes flared in intensity and the whispering increased in intensity.
[i]/"She has brought you too Our altar."/[/i]
The discordant yet harmonious voices seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was impossible for Jack to determine their number or nature, save that there were many and they now had access to his mind.
"So what do you chumps call yourselves?"
[i]/"We are Those Who Simply Are, and you have been deemed worthy of Our boon."/[/i]
"And what's that mean?"
[i]/"You will be allowed to walk Our Path, towards Ascension. This is your first step."/[/i]
"Talking with you? Because honestly, I'd prefer to be leaving here before Armacham tries to kill us again."
[i]/"Few are deemed worthy of the Path at once, for one already on it to call for another worthy is even rarer. We will help you as we have helped all who have sought to become as Us."/[/i]
Jack frowned. "Even if they aren't worthy?"
[i]/"All are helped in their own way."/[/i]
Before he could ask another question, a shrill alarm started to sound.
[i]/"They thought like many in the past that their cunning could manipulate Us, use Us, outsmart Us. Like all others, they know fear when they learn they are wrong."/[/i]
"What's going on?" Jack demanded as he sat up, the glow of the runes fading .
[i]/"They saw you commune with Us and have realized their error in allowing this."/[/i]
"Code Dawn," Alma said.
"What?" Jack asked.
"They're going to flood the halls with plasma and use a gamma bomb to sterilize the facility, we need to leave immediately," Alma explained as she turned and looked towards the shortest path to the exit.
"Right, I think we'll need our mechs to force our way through the Replicas and drones they'll throw in our way," Jack said as he ran to the EPA.
"I won't have to shot, will I?" Alma asked.
Jack laughed as he hopped in the EPA. "Just run them over! Though I've gotta wonder what's making them do this."
Then they were both in their mechs and racing towards the Security Complex and their only hope of survival.
The Replica Elite stood up and picked up its LMG before jogging after them.
Saren Arterius, Citadel Spectre and Majority Stakeholder of ExoGenni, as well as several other companies, sat in his lounge chair reading the news. His private cruiser was designed, unlike most other Turian ships, to be both comfortable and functional. His personal and quest quarters and areas had luxurious seating with tables made of exotic materials and numerous holographic projectors of the highest quality for maximum convenience and comfort. Of course, every chair, couch, table and projector also had hidden weapons compartments keyed to him, but that was also what he considered luxury. After all, it was unlikely he'd need all of those weapons at any given time.
Outside of those public and person areas were where any military engineer would look and drool. He was a wealthy private individual with a very dangerous job, and since he was expected to pay for most of his own expenses one way or another he had need his own ship for dangerous missions outside the reach of the Hierarchy. That led to this ship. He wanted the best cruiser in the galaxy, and he got as close to it as he possibly could. Cutting edge energy weapons, such as a Salarian plasma cannon system based in part upon technological innovations from human companies such as Armacham with its efficient laser weaponry.
It was a ship that could match and probably best just about any other cruiser in the galaxy in a fair fight, and Saren made it a policy never to fight fair.
He picked up a glass of Idari Brandy. Like the ship and everything in it, it was expensive and worth it.
He switched to a Specter bulletin as he took a sip.
"HIGH PRIORITY ALERT: All agents, stolen Prothean artifact confirmed on Omega for auction by STG."
Saren grinned. Of all of the things he spent his money on, his weapons and armor were his favorite expense.
The human ambassador said he was a loose cannon who didn't play by the rules?
Well, he was about to go visit Aria and break one.
He chuckled and took another sip.