Mass Effect How the fate plays us

by Sandbox47

This is a full story of ME, ME2 and ME3 that starts at 2177 and ends with the death of the Reapers. It is NOT centered around Shepard but around Min, though the characters you know and love will be in it.

5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: What a really bad day

We were both very polite to each other as we woke up. Neither mentioned our discussion last night and I felt that it was probably best this way, though a small voice in the back of my mind was eager to see what would happen, urging me to take the step. I ignored it, no need to make things more complicated than they were.

And I actually looked forward to the coming unveiling of the prothean artifact. It took us five minutes to set up a line and a crane with which we could lower ourselves down.

'Wait, this is stupid.' I said, holding up a hand.

'What is?'

'We don't know if we can stand on it or not.'

'It was buried under thirty meters of earth. It will hold us and much, much more.' insisted Liara. 'Also, I have run a scan on the minerals of what we encountered. It's metal. And it's definitely endurable.'

'Do you know what it is?'

'It seems to be a rooftop. But I can't gather any more data on it than that.' she shrugged apologetically. 'We will have to clear away some earth and set up the "breaker" drill, to make a tunnel.'

Unlike the "cleaver" drill which circled it's two heads and came together to separate the ground with as little collateral damage as possible, the "breaker" was a five-headed drill that would go straight forward. It was simple to set up and took us only two trips up and down. We had to leave the hole while the initial drilling went on but very soon there was a fifty foot cavern dug horizontally to the east.

A few scans later we discovered that we were, in fact, drilling in the right direction. Only now it would get harder as it took more and more time to transport all the earth out of the tunnel. And we were running out of support rods that kept the tunnel from collapsing on us in case the ground shifted for some reason.

'I think.' said Liara, wiping sweat of her forehead, leaving a trace of mud on it. 'I think that we should start trying to find a way into the structure. All the scans indicate that it is a building. And all of them tell us that it is structurally stable. Either the pressure of the earth or the durability of the architecture has kept this place intact.'

'Agreed. Also, I don't like this cramped tunnel much.' I nodded.

Here came the tricky bit. We would have to make a hole in the roof with one of the lasers while keeping it magnetically attached to something in order for it not to fall and break something down bellow. This hole could not be too big, or the surrounding roof would collapse, but we would both have to fit through. We agreed not to take any equipment beyond torches down there because it would be too bulky as it is.

And so, two hours later, the laser was set up and the hole was made. I'd used the metal from the unused support rods to make an edge on the hole so that it wouldn't give way to any collapsing.

'Alright. Lunch?' I asked, grinning as Liara peered down into the hole, her face interested and enthusiastic.

'Oh?' she looked up, disappointment written all over her face. 'Now? Maybe we could-...'

'Go down and have a look. Ladies first.'

I offered her the cable we'd set up along with the laser. I steered her gently down to the ground, checking the length every few seconds.

'I've reached the ground!' she called.

I tugged at the cable. It was thin. It was light. Would it seriously hold me? It held Liara and she was bigger than me. I sighed. Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to do this. I should have offered her more money. Should have, could have, would have.

'I'm coming.' I said, lowering myself down.

I arrived in pitch blackness. The only light was from up ahead, and it seemed like nothing more than a spark. This was a tall building. We lit the torches.

'By the goddess.' whispered Liara in awe and fascination. 'I have never... This is amazing.'

It was some kind of palace-like room with several tall and pointy thingies, almost like broadcasting antennas. There was a balcony, which suggested that this place wasn't supposed to be buried, but just happened to be. There were tapestries and papers. Here was a prothean relic of a value that was undeniable and invaluable in historical terms.

'Wow.' I said with my usual infliction whenever something important was happening. 'This looks... dusty.'

'This is a house! This is an actual, prothean residence! Perfectly preserved! With, look, this is a book! Look, Min! And I this must be a communication device. A journal!' I looked about in amusement as she made a squeak. 'This is a prothean burial chamber.'

'In a house?' I frowned.

'Look.' she pointed towards another room, just across from where we were standing.

There were, what looked clearly like, graves.

'No way. They may have used similar tech, but those aren't graves.' I shook my head. That would be too unlikely.

I strode forward and opened one.

'Are you awake?'

I shook my head. It seemed wrong. I did it again just to figure out why it was wrong. I was on the ground and the motion was restricted by the floor.

'What happened?' I asked, completely nonplussed. I wasn't hurting, I wasn't dizzy or cold or anything. Nothing had changed aside from the fact that I was now on the floor.

'Min? Get up, it's time for school.'

Ah. That's the catch. Damn. I'd hoped to get off easy.

'No way. School's gone.' I muttered, getting up anyways.

I'd forgotten how soft my bed had been on Akuze. And how much I missed it all. I took a deep breath and the memory of the smell hurt me like a stake to the heart.

'Get up now, there's not much time.' said the same woman's voice. I frowned. It wasn't mother's voice.

Into the room came Meinela. 'You have overslept again.' she shook her head in mock sadness.

'What are you-... Where's mother?'

'She's at work. A Mako had broken down due to water damage, so...' Meinela shrugged.

'Hang on. You and mother live here?' I tried to understand what was going on.

'Don't be stupid.' she laughed. 'Whom else do you want?'

'With father?'

'With... Oh. We have spoken of it already. And we will tell him when we next see him. But now is the time for you to go to school.'

Something was very, very wrong here.

'Tell him what? Whom?' I'd lost track of what I was saying, too focused on her explanation.

'Stop this. I don't enjoy being a rift, Min. I wish that I wasn't. But I love your mother, can you understand that?' she sat down next to me and put her arm around me. 'And she loves your father no less than she did before. I can tell.' she touched her head lightly with her fingers.

'You. And mother.' I spelled this interesting idea out to myself. 'But not father. And what about me?'

She sighed in a way that I learned to recognize by the thousands of sighs I'd heard from mother. She was hurt. Damn it.

'I thought that we'd been getting along well.' she said quietly. 'But I will try harder, I will Min. I don't want to lose you either.'

I just shook my head, trying to understand what was going on. And where was Liara, by the way? And wasn't I supposed to be in a prothean ruin, by the way? I snorted. Right, a prothean ruin. What could I have been thinking of?

'No, I didn't mean that.' I tried to explain to Meinela. 'I think that we get along very well. And I like your poetry.' I offered to be more complimentary. 'And I understand... Is that the time? Oh, I have to run! See you, Mini.'

I started towards school. That dream had been so disturbing. So real. But it was stupid. Thresher maws and rachni attacking my colony? I, the only colonist alive? Pfft. I really needed to focus on school. It was important. Nothing bad had happened and nothing would. Akuze was a boring place.

I took me about five more minutes to spot the next oddity. No one was outside. All the buildings were in ruins. Now I was really scared. What was going on?

A shadow seemed to be following me, lurking somewhere, out of sight. I looked towards Meinela and she was waving farewell to me, standing in the doorway. Only, there was nothing around that doorway. No walls. No windows. No house. I started back towards her. I needed to know what was going on.

'Meinela. Something is wrong. I... I'm really scared.' I said hysterically, looking about the ruined colony.

'Of course.' she said in the same voice she had used before. But it was colder now. Less like hers and more like... Dead.

I knew that if I looked up at her I would regret it. This is why cats keep dying from curiosity, you know that, right? Stupid me. I looked up at her.

Though she was waving and smiling, her eyes weren't looking at me but at a spot just to the left of me. It looked as if she had seen something horrifying and frozen in a smile. I spun about but there was nothing. Just rubble. I looked back at her and started backing away. That dead look on her face and the compulsion to smile made me want to throw up.

I turned about to run, to get away, but I ran into something almost instantly and it knocked me down to the ground.

'Min!' it was my father. 'You ran away! I cannot believe...' he seemed to gather himself. 'I understand how you feel but that was rash! Outrageous, in fact! Do you have any idea how much you hurt us? Do you? Well now I will hurt you!'

He took off his belt and towered over me...

'Min, wake up!'

I screamed at the top of my lungs as long and loud as I could to relieve myself of the panic I felt and the pain from the beating.

I couldn't sustain the cry for long because I had to throw up.

'Min. Oh goddess, Min.' whispered Liara, patting me on the back.

I couldn't speak. I was completely silent but for the sobs.

'We shouldn't have rushed in like that, Min. I am so terribly sorry. I truly am.'

I put my hand to her mouth, almost mechanically. I couldn't bear listening. It didn't matter what I heard, I just wanted silence.

'I thought that I was back.' I said numbly. 'But it was all wrong.'

The back of my mind was buzzing. Stronger by the second. It was pushing me out into emptiness. Scared, I forced it back to where it had been. I didn't want to sleep. I couldn't survive another dream like that.

'I don't think... '

And embarrassingly enough I started to cry.

'I was back on Akuze.' I said between sobs. 'And the asari, the one I told you about, she was there. But she was with mother now. And then everything became ruins and she was a doll, or toy. I don't know. And then... ' I wondered how to explain. The last part was... 'I woke up.' I edited.

'We should get you out of here.' whispered Liara, and I felt her carry, or levitate, me towards the cables. I was falling in and out of consciousness, fighting to stay awake but constantly being sent back with flashes of memory or insight. Phantom pain spread across me like fire and then was drowned by the despair of all I had seen.

But an idea had started to form in my mind. Or rather, an insight. This was all probably from Akuze and the stress. So all I had to do was get a grip. All I had to do was to stand up and dance or something, and mean it. All I had to avoid was to let this memory take control over me and my actions.

I wouldn't lock it away. I would ignore it. It would embrace it and devour it. New strength formed in my blood, heart and mind. But I was still so tired. So weary. My bones were so heavy. But that is what I had to fight.

I opened my eyes and realized that we were already at the top, out of the tunnel and the hole.

'We're almost there.' Liara was whispering, seemingly to herself. She was now dragging me, no more strength for carrying, along the ground.

'Wait.' I said, hoarse from screaming.

She paused and looked at me, worried. I took a deep breath and stood up. After all, I was physically fine. It was all psychological. I had to overcome my own weakness by being stronger than it. It was like fighting fire with fire. Like trying to empty a lake by pouring water into it.

'I'm fine.' I said, trying out a smile. She didn't buy it. I tried another one and realized that it was just a kind of grimace. 'I'll live.' I corrected.

She led me down to the river to wash myself off. I'd gotten vomit on my clothes. But I wasn't really in a place where I cared about anything much. I was just trying not to collapse back into myself.

Finally, at last, we lay down on the make-shift bed.

'Are you... hungry?' she asked, still worried.

'No.' I shook my head, again trying to smile.

'Don't do that. You scare me.' she whispered back. 'What happened back there?'

'It was... It was a vivid dream.' I summarized. 'And not a very good one.'

'Your brain activity was off the charts. As far as my omni tool can say, you died at least five times. Your heart and brain shutting down and restarting in bursts.'

'That couldn't have been good.' I whispered.

My head felt cold from the water. My arms were trembling. The blanket wasn't doing much for warmth.

'You know what you said last night?' I asked.

'Yes?'

I decided that speaking didn't matter. This was mutual after all. I kissed her. The warmth of her lips heated mine. Her hands were warm, gently exploring my body. I felt her shiver under my cold touch. Compared to me, she felt as if she was feverish. She whispered something into my ear but I was too busy no hear. And then... this was the union. We were one in her, or maybe my, mind. Every sense heightened, every touch warmer than the previous one. In this one instant we belonged together like nothing else does. I thought that one of us might have bitten, gently, the other in the ear but I couldn't make out which one of us.

And in spite of this sense of one, I was still aware of how odd this felt. She was soft and, well, blue and had curves. I had no idea why I was bothered by this. Maybe because she resembled myself too much. Physically, I mean. She wasn't a crybaby like me. I had expected it to feel like something was missing, but nothing was. Everything was there and everything was right as it was supposed to.

It was years, or maybe just seconds, later that we released each other. I wasn't cold anymore. Everything seemed to be in a gentle, soothing fire.

'That was... amazing.' said Liara, smiling dreamily.

'It was.' I agreed. 'It was... it helped.'

I looked around and saw the dusk creeping upon us. So it had been a few hours. And we hadn't eaten since morning. We had sex with a beautiful background. I giggled.

'You know...' I said, tracing my finger down from her chest to her belly button. 'It wasn't what I'd thought it would be.'

She laughed.

'And what did you think that it would be?'

'Well... I'm not sure. But I expected it to be more... formal, you know? But it wasn't. This was very free and, um, enjoyable.'

'Aha, well I am glad that my lack of expertise hasn't ruined anything for you.' she joked, but I could hear that she had been worried up to this point about it. 'Do you... want to talk about earlier?'

I thought about it. The nightmare was further away now. I still didn't want to sleep, but now that I had an alternative... Well, it wasn't all as bad as it had seemed down in that dark room full of alien remnants that belonged to a species long since dead in very mysterious circumstances.

'I will be fine.' I assured her. 'Let's eat.' I added as my stomach made a noise of protest as she approached me closer.

She agreed, smiling. We still had a lot of canned food left, beans, some kind of purple carrots with lumps on the top, some kind of mush, a few soups and a few bags of snacks.
I decided to dress first. It was getting chillier as night approached.

'Come to think of it, do asari eat meat?' I asked offhandedly.

'We do. We are no different in that respect than any other species. Though many choose a vegetarian diet to preserve life and it's rights. The same goes for many turians.'

I decided that, we should have a proper dinner. Like one sees in vids where a boy meets a girl and then he seduces her and she becomes pregnant, runs away from home, becomes a mother and drowns her boyfriend for sleeping with her mother as well. These kinds of vids popped up every few months. And they were always a disappointment.

I heated the food with a concentrated ray of light from my omni tool, burning some of the grass in the process. Liara had found plates that we had gotten at Port Ethi and she brought out the one bottle of alcohol we had bought. I'd never tasted anything with alcohol in it. Not for any particular reason like morals, standards or principles but simply because there hadn't been any reason for it. I was curious to see what would happen.

Well actually, I had tasted medicine with alcohol in it, but that was very long ago and I couldn't remember why I had to take it in the first place.

For effect I set one of the laser lenses and connected it to my omni tool. It wasn't powerful enough to burn anything but it made for a nice candle.

Liara came back from the front of the shuttle and smiled widely as she saw my improvised romantic dinner. A thought struck me. Had I just lost my... Had I become an adult? I wasn't sure. Maybe different species didn't count. Or maybe same genders didn't count. Or rather, alternative genders, didn't count.

'It looks beautiful.' she said. 'And the food smells delicious. I think that we worked ourselves too hard today.'

'Oh?' I grinned. 'I never got the impression that you considered it as "work".'

'What? No. I meant that we exhausted ourselves physically. And so it follows logically that we are hungry.'

I shook my head in amusement.

'I was joking.'

'Joking? Ah. Yes, I see that.' she blushed.

Seeing an asari blush was a very curious thing. Her skin became purple in the oddest places. She looked a lot like the dusk at the moment. I told her so because it sounded romantic in my head.

'Yes. Ah... I am not particularly tactful, am I?' she said, blushing deeper.

'Neither am I, as it turns out.' I offered.

We ate in a contented silence, in spite of all the questions I had for her. I was now really interested in asari. Never in a million years would I have thought of myself as lesbian, but here and now, with an asari confessing of her attraction to me... But then there was the fact that, though she might look female, essentially, she wasn't. She was the best of both worlds, I guess. Or maybe a heavy compromise.

I hadn't realized that I was staring at her until she shifted uncomfortably.

'What?' she asked in a whisper.

'I was just thinking.' I shrugged.

'What about?'

'Well... You might not realize this, but you have shifted the way I see the galaxy for me. You know... as you are female... ish. And I am female-ish. I mean female. And then there is the union. What was that? It felt like-...' I had no words for it. To summarize though, I would say that it felt safe and really, really good.

'The union is how we reproduce, I think I told you this before. When minds connect, asari are able to take the genetic imprints of their partners in order to create the required second gender chromosome. But because our bodies make it themselves, following the genetic imprint of the partner as a construction manual, and not take it from our partner directly, the child will always be an asari.'

'So there are no sexually transmitted deceases amongst the asari?'

'There are a few. And if you exhaust yourself during a union then your biotic powers will suffer.'

'Can a human get these deceases?'

'No. They are all telepsychic, and one or two that affect the child through a corruption in the chromosome.'

I sighed, relieved.

'Good. Because I wouldn't know what to do if I ever got one. I don't think that medi-gel helps against them.'

I would have made an antibiotics pun, but in asari language antibiotics and biotics were two different words and so the pun wouldn't have made any sense. I wondered who called biotics for biotics in english.

'Is there any chance that I could get biotic powers through a union?' I asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

She thought about this.

'I don't actually know. Biotics comes from contact with element zero radiation. And I don't know what kind of contact our minds would share... but it is not impossible.'

'So when we are in a union... can you read my mind?'

'Yes and no. I can tell what goes on, roughly, inside your mind. Your most basic feelings and emotions. I think that you experience something much like it yourself. I can, however, read your mind to a certain degree in a more focused contact of minds.'

I thought about this.

'Would I be able to tell? If someone read my mind?'

'Yes. Both parties have to consent to sharing this information and open themselves to the connection. Of course, one could always try to overpower another mind to gain the information one needs, but that can only be accomplished by the most powerful biotics. I doubt that even my mother could.' she shivered at some memory. 'But you would be able to know what was being extracted.'

We ate and drank our way through the meal, chatting about our cultures. She asked me about Earth. The only part of Earth that I knew anything about was Japan. And that was before interstellar contact. I had read history of the Earth, of course, but I doubted that wars would be very interesting to Liara.

So I told her about the cherry blossoms and the thousand cranes and the balloon messages. She was very interested in the latter thing.

'Balloon messages? What is that?'

'Well, from what mother's told me, you write a note or letter, put it in a plastic bag, so that it wouldn't get wet, and tie it to a balloon. And then, when it eventually lands someone will read the message. It is a way of making new friends or just to share your thoughts with other people.'

'Have you done this?'

'No. Darya, my colony, was too small for that. Most knew everyone and it wasn't that far to go to the furthest settlements. And I wasn't really interested in that.'

I tried to think of more things that I could tell her about. The technology in Japan and the culture and customs. I knew about things that were more or less modern, like the holo-theaters and the manga.

The holo-theaters were plays where masked men or women dressed in traditional Japanes clothes like kimono and they would perform alongside their holographic counterparts which would, in time with the plot, transform and circle the characters much like ghosts or auras. It was usually tragedies, but I had a favourite which was a famous comedy and I ended up promising Liara to show it to her sometime.

Manga was a unique way of drawing things and characters. Many different comics had been made with varying amounts of skills but my favourites were the mysteries.

I didn't really know anything else about Japan. Things like the revolution and their contribution to first contact war wasn't that much interesting but I still gave it a go.

The Alliance consisted of all the leading nations on Earth like USA, Russia and France. Places like Africa weren't really that heavy players since they had only one port on the whole of Africa. Japan had been the lead designer of ships and VI tech for the Alliance fleet and the first ship ever to be launched on new Mass Effect technology was the Shizuka from the port on Singapore.

'You must be proud to originate form such a great nation.' smiled Liara, listening to me talking.

'I am. Though I'm not really japanese, am I? I've never even been there.'

'Maybe you should visit Earth soon, then. Maybe after we have explored this ruin. Though to call something so well-preserved ruin is going a bit too far.'

I thought about this. I had the money. Well, I thought I did. And who knows what we'll find on Akuze. Maybe what I find will lead me to Earth.

'Maybe.' I nodded. 'Have you ever been on Thessia?'

'Yes. Many times during my childhood. But, much like you, I don't know about Neiria as much as I would like. Neiria is the nation where mother was born. I know that one of the greatest schools of philosophy stands there and that some of the most brilliant inventors had come from Pakela, one of the largest cities. Things like theatre and music are said to be refined and exquisite in the Orbitorium. It is a great arena where respectable musicians and theatre groups perform for audiences that number millions. The architecture is purely asari and it is said to be a very secular society, though I have no way of confirming that'

'Do asari have sports?' I asked, trying to imagine an asari kung-fu apprentice.

'We do. Racing, martial arts, biotic arts, it is very much like what humans, turians and batarians have. Though, admittedly, batarians have only the crudest of all sports.'

'Crudest?'

'Well, in racing, they drive the heaviest shuttles in order to destroy as many opponents as possible before reaching the goal. And their martial arts are...'

'I get it.' I nodded, grimacing. 'Why are batarians, ah, crude?'

'I have a theory on that.' she said, raising a finger. 'On Tellus, Earth, your dominant customs and societies are diplomatic tinged with militaristic and economical sectors. It is, in all, much like the galaxy only on a smaller scale. But when the batarians discovered interstellar travel their dominant societies were competitive, militaristic types. And a lot of the time, after interstellar travel is made and a connection with the other species is established the development of societies halts on that planet and instead spreads out to the galaxy.'

'Interesting.' I said, thinking this through. She was probably right as well.

I yawned and stretched, tired and full of food and thought.

'Let's clean this up and get back together. I mean, get back to bed.' I grinned.

She took the hint. The rest of the night was spent in a considerably more pleasant company than any other night in my life thus far.

'Touch nothing.' I said as we were once again down in that ancient building, under ground.

'Agreed.' nodded Liara.

It was morning and, though we'd had no sleep, we were both feeling very rested and ready for adventure. Well, Liara was at any rate. I was terrified of returning to Akuze. To my nightmare. This time I decided to do the safe things. I'd go and dust beds and tables and poles. Or rather, I'd blow the dust away with my omni tool. I wasn't stupid enough to touch anything else again. Ever.

This time we decided to walk together, instead of splitting up.

'What do you think the purpose of that grave was?' asked Liara as we passed that room. I was careful to avoid looking inside it in case that would trigger the nightmare again.

'Well... My mind isn't prothean. Maybe it was some kind of... Mind psycho-analysis thing. I'm not sure.' I shrugged. The point of it didn't really concern me.

'Yes. That is what I thought as well.' she agreed.

We approached what seemed to be an altar, or maybe a control panel. It was grand and pointy at any rate. I was about to poke it with my finger, to find out what it felt like, when logic got the better of me.

Liara scanned it with her omni tool.

'This is... remarkably strange.' she said as if summarizing.

'What is?'

'The... the readings tell me that there is still some power left. There is a dormant generator withing this array.' she nodded towards the altar, still looking down at her omni tool. 'But it isn't leading anywhere. It's just there. Like a spare.'

'Maybe it is a spare.'

'Perhaps.'

We stood looking at it awkwardly for a brief moment.

'You want us to poke it, right?' I said in defeat eventually.

'I doubt that the same thing will happen again.' said Liara bracingly. 'What would be the point of having every piece of equipment doing the same thing over and over?'

This had occurred to me as well but I was still cautious as I pressed what I had assumed to be a button. It wasn't. It was just a logo.

'Hey look, ancient adds.' I said dryly and Liara laughed.

I pressed the triangles that looked a lot like just a decorative pattern. Of course they were the buttons. But nothing happened.

'Agh. You want me to twiddle with it.' I said in mock-annoyance.

'Please.'

'Fine.'

I scanned the thing with my omni tool and had the generator displayed within seconds.

'Huh. You're right, this is weird. This looks completely and utterly pointless.'

'Can you do anything with it?' she asked, nervous.

'Sure. But... look. Do we really want to resurrect whatever that is dead here?'

'Yes. We must know.' she said without a seconds hesitation. I guessed that, as she had less incentive than I to fear this stuff, to her it presented less cons and more pros.

I started to decipher the programing that the protheans had used on the generator software. It reminded me of that MENSA test I'd been given after the doctors had looked into my brain and agreed that I had a small monster living in it. I laughed.

'What?'

'Oh nothing. Just thinking human.' I shrugged.

But luckily the programing was simple and to the point. The commands for what the generator was supposed to do. The safety protocols. The power feed regulations. I had no idea which was which but the set-up for the basic programing was much the same as any in this galaxy. I guessed that there was really nothing to be done with a generator aside from taking power.

While I was working Liara was exploring the room. Unlike me she touched everything she saw and gasped in amazement for every tiny thing as she managed to figure out what they were supposed to be. Mainly they were journals and lists of things to be done. Checklists and the like. She examined the tables and managed to raise a panel with old circuits on it. It looked like the hologram generators that most surveillance used for observation. The design was off but I could see the circuiting resemblances. Fifty thousand years and we had progressed to a slightly more efficient design? That didn't seem real. Was this really a prothean base?

'Is this really a prothean base?' I had to ask.

'Yes. I recognize the architecture and the letters. They are the same as the ones I found on Etheilia.'

'Of course.' I said, turning back to my omni tool.

I still had no idea what any of the text on the display meant, and I decided, against my better judgement, to go on trial and error. The worst case scenario – we would die as this place collapsed on us. Best case scenario – I'd find some chocolate in here. That was unlikely and so I settled for hoping not to die.

'Ah, Liara?'

'Yes?'

'I would take cover if I were you.' I suggested casually.

'Why? What's wrong?'

'Well, I'll try to power up this fifty thousand years old generator through a software that I can't figure out after having barely poked it.'

She took cover.

'Maybe we should wait until-...'

I started up the generator. Or rather, I pressed several buttons, hoping to activate some command or other and praying that it wasn't self-destruct. A light flickered on in the altar. Oh good. All the tall radio antenna-like poles began to glow with a green light. Better. We had more light. Now how did you turn on the lamps?

I squealed as something began dragging at me. At first I thought that it was a mouse. Or a cat. Or that I'd become magnetic. You never know, right? It was neither. The green glow seemed to seep under my skin and I groaned. Something would happen again. Something bad.

The room lit up with a blinding light, all the machinery making electric noises. I worked my omni tool to shut it all down. Something like a countdown appeared and I cursed. Self-destruct. Why did they have an option for self-destruct but none for lamps?

What happened next would have made me scream with horror had I not been to preoccupied paying attention to it.

Images flashed through my head. None of the made sense. They were blurred, black and white, sepia, colour, sound, emotion, sensation, birth, death. Everything went through my mind. I squinted as if I expected to see it all better. I didn't. The torrent of images began to slow and I could see again. The light was now dull, or duller, and the noises had stopped.

Liara was running towards me, shock written across her face. I wanted to say that I was fine when suddenly the ground hit my legs and I fell. I hadn't noticed that I was levitating. The green glow had vanished and was replaced by, thankfully, lamps. It hadn't been self-destruct. It had been a power start-up.

'Oh Min!' she half-shouted. 'Are you alright? Are you hurt?'

'I'm fine.' I shrugged, getting back up on my feet. My head throbbed like hell, but that was the hangover from last night. My mind was spinning rapidly, trying to see how many times it could circle me until I caught it. I couldn't catch it so it decided to sit down and rest.

'What happened?' prompted Liara.

'I saw...' I tried to sift through the emotions and images. 'I think that it is an elephant.'

She stared at me as if I'd gone mad.

'Sorry?' she asked.

'Well, there's a lot of noise and there's a lot of sound and a lot of sensation in general. That's how I expect an elephant market to be.' I shrugged.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

'You're joking, aren't you?' she asked eventually.

'Yes. But I don't know what I saw. It was like... a lot of people in one room shouting advice, information and curses at me while I'm swimming. I'll need time to figure this out.' I shook my head.

Liara approached one of the antennas and touched it. Nothing happened.

'Could you start it up again?' she asked, hopeful.

'I doubt it. Or, maybe. I've no idea.' I thought about this. 'Actually, I think I could. Where's the plug?'

'Plug?'

'Yes. The electric plug. The cable that connects the generator with the rest.'

I searched everywhere and scanned the surroundings of the generator but as far as I could tell, it was still stand-alone. It wasn't connected to anything.

I took up something that looked like a torch with a very thin end and used it as a crowbar on the altar.

'No!' said Liara, gasping. 'What are you doing?'

'I'll shut it off and start it again. The antenna things were activated at start-up. I've saved that command and so I can do it again, but only if the generator is off to start with.'

She looked torn between curiosity and fear for this building. Eventually she nodded.

I was as careful as I could when dismantling the altar and, luckily, nothing important broke. I scratched the paint and some of the cover split into tiny shreds of... nothing, but aside from that it remained intact as I took off the front cover. There was no generator.

'Ah, damn. I knew that it was too easy.' I sighed.

'Where did it go?'

'It didn't go anywhere. It's a phantom signal. The actual generator is somewhere else. This is a... ' I searched for the word. '... transistor. We pick it up as a power-source because it makes the power-source. Look.' I pointed towards what looked like glass at the edges of the inside of the altar. 'It's solar-powered. This place had been built to withstand anything. Even being buried. Otherwise the mirrors wouldn't go so high up. It would be too impractical.'

Liara was ecstatic at this discovery and not at all upset when I told her that, though I would try to find the command to activate the antennas again, it would probably take years to decipher the software and that we were more than just lucky in managing to turn the thing on at all.

We spent the rest of the morning and up to late midday taking pictures and notes of everything in this first room. After roughtly four hours time we had over a thousand pictures of every tiny thing, more than twenty pages full of notes on what we had found and an analysis that was roughly thirty pages. And the headache was getting worse. Though, on a brighter note, the images were getting clearer.

From time to time Liara would ask me if anything had become easier to distinguish, but a few hours was really not enough and she realized it. She had offered to join minds, in order to help me sort it all out, but for some reason, she hadn't seen what I had. Repeatedly, she told me to focus on the images, but it was impossible because there was no one point at which I could grasp and focus. It was all in one. Like a smudge.

And as weariness took us, we decided to leave for the time being.

'This is more than anything I have ever dreamed of finding!' repeated Liara for a hundredth time, just to taste the words. 'These are databanks and records of protheans, actual protheans, still intact!'

I shook my head in amusement at her enthusiasm.

'You know, when you said that there was so little left from the protheans, I assumed that this would be some bunker with a helicopter drawing in there or something along those lines. Not the notes on a civilization.'

'It seems that you bring luck, Min.' she grinned and then returned to her notes and photos. 'Tomorrow we'll be recording-...'

'Well, well, well.' said a male voice from somewhere behind the shuttle. We were out of the hole by now. 'A real treasure, eh boys?'

My heart sank. Luck? No way. Pirates? ... Yes.

'Hi.' I said darkly. 'Look, you've come at a very bad time-...'

'But you see, for us, this is the perfect time.' said a fat man, stepping forward from behind the shuttle. 'Because... you're here already!'

'Ah, well that's kind of why this is a bad time.' I said, rolling my eyes.

'This is our excavation ground.' said Liara calmly. 'I ask you to leave before anyone gets hurt.'

I would have slapped my forehead if I hadn't been aware that the man was looking intently at us.

'Hurt? Hmm... You make a good argument.' said the man, shaking his finger wisely at us. 'But it seems to me that, as I have weapons and you don't, that is a one-sided concern. Don't you think?'

I would have dearly loved to cover Liara's mouth with my hand to keep her from saying what she was about to say because she hadn't noticed the multiple boot prints on the ground around our camp. There were at least... I counted seven more men. And one woman, or a man with very small feet.

'But I have the power to crush you with my mind.' she threatened.

And then we were surrounded. I sniffed casually, looking around in disinterest. My head was hurting too much for any real emotion, but I had a plan.

'Kill them.' said the man, ruining my brilliant plan.

'And lose all the valuable tech we found down there?' I said quickly.

'Don't kill them.' he said stoutly. 'What are you saying?'

'I will not hand such technology over to pirates.' said Liara angrily. I made a noise like a boiling teakettle.

'And you intend to stop them how, if you are dead?' I hissed in a low voice.

'I sense plotting.' growled the fat man in amusement.

'Good sense.' I agreed airily. 'We were planing how to help you take the tech with you.'

'Ah.' he sighed as if coming to a tricky conclusion. 'You are so full of shit that it reeks. Kill them.'

'I can crack that software.' I said faster than last time.

'Riiight. Don't kill them. And talk fast girl, I'm not good at being patient.' he growled, finally becoming serious.

'Well, to decipher the software would take about a year or so. But I could do something else. I could make a program to cross-reference all the commands that now exist on the software with the commands on our software and transfer the one we can control to the power systems, erasing the old software.'

He looked blankly at me. Then he turned around and looked at one of his men. The man seemed to give it some thought before he nodded.

'Fine.' growled the fat man.

'Liara, see that laser on the table?' I hissed as the fat man started commanding the others to "make a perimeter". 'Make it lay down facing us.'

She quickly tripped the laser we had used last night as a candle so that it pointed right towards me.

'Well?' growled the fat man. 'What will you need?'

I thought. What would I need? Thirty minutes.

'I need an hour. Then it's done.' that would give me two attempts.

'One hour?' he barked in surprise. 'I heard you telling your girlfriend that it was near impossible to do it within a day.'

'Panic increases brain activity. And I have a fairly well-oiled brain.' I offered.

He glared at me for a long while.

'One. Hour.'

I nodded. To my delight the stupid, fat idiot sat down behind out make-shift table and took forth a bag of crisps. My bag of crisps. I suppressed an angry shiver.

'I'll need your help, Liara.' I said in a normal, clear voice. She frowned at me. 'Go down and get all the mirrors you find down there.'

She frowned even deeper but obliged.

'Why do you need mirrors?' asked the man.

'Because I'll need to bring up the hardware from downstairs up here so that I can start the program. But it runs on solar power.'

'Yes, I heard.' he said, his attention returning to his crisps. This had been exactly the answer I had been hoping for.

'How long have you been here?' I asked as if it didn't really matter to me but was slightly annoying.

'About five hours ago.' he shrugged. 'Now work. Or bam!'

I raised my eyebrows.

The truth of the situation was that there was no program that could possibly cross-reference the alien software until it was actually deciphered. Which is why we needed to decipher it before doing anything else. And which is why, in case my plan failed miserably, which was likely, I would get shot. And Liara would have a fighting chance as I would make sure to keep her underground as much as possible.

It took Liara fifteen minutes to bring up all the mirrors. I looked at them critically. They were dusty and some were shattered. But they would do.

'And now get the dream thing.' I said very pointedly.

'Dream thing?' she frowned.

'Yes. My dream thing.'

'Oh.' realization of what I wanted to do hit her and she could barely keep from smiling. 'Alright.'

'But don't open them. We don't want them to be damaged by sunlight.' I said so that all of the pirates could hear.

'What exactly is this dream thing?' asked the fat man, who's name was Jonathan Aether.

'It's the hardware containing all what we need to make the cross-referencing. Then we'll arrange the mirrors to stand the right way, bring up one of the, ah, beacons and it will be a matter of minutes until we can make this base operate work on our software.'

I had no idea what I had said but as Jonathan looked back towards Erik, his tech-engineer, the man nodded again, almost desperately. He had no idea either.

It took Liara less than five minutes and she was back with the grave-like thing that had caused my nightmare. Two pirates had to help her set it on the opposite side of where the laser. Though, of course, no one knew that that's why it was place there.

Now came the part that was really tricky and most likely to kill me.

'Liara, try get the antenna out.' I said, waving her away again.

'What? They're too big to fit-...'

'Dismantle it, obviously.' I said in exasperation.

She tried to understand what I wanted with it but I made sure that my face was clear of all expressions but innocence.

'And carry it all up?' she asked, confused. 'It's too big-...'

'Roman, David! Go down and help her.' ordered Jonathan.

All three of them went downstairs. I hoped to god that Liara could handle two humans with her biotics.

There were still six of them left.

I started arranging the mirrors in a way that seemed random at first, leaving them slightly off every time I passed them. I couldn't allow them to point the right way just yet.

I place a few crane-engines next to some of the mirrors. Everyone were watching my progress now, but no one was onto me yet. I ran a simulation of all the angles. They seemed right. Now to get the troops in place.

'I'll need all your men to leave.' I said to Jonathan.

'Do you think I'm stupid?' he barked. Smart boy. 'Why?'

'The mirrors will need to focus on certain points and they might get in the way.' I said, gesturing around us.

'My men ain't going nowhere. Point the mirrors somewhere else.'

I made an exasperated huff.

'Look, I can't help that this is the only viable power-source!' I said angrily.

He thought for a moment.

'No. Figure out a better way.'

I pretended to think.

'Well, they can stay... I guess. But then they'll have to stay at specific places.' I frowned as if counting something.

'No way. You have to do better.' he spat. This ruined my plan.

'There is nothing better! Look, I'm handing over a prothean ruin to you in exchange for our lives! And you won't even pull your thumb out of your ass long enough to make your men stay? How do you keep order?'

Basic psychology, focus on a different problem and he won't notice the obvious.

'Well... ' he sighed. 'Fine. But we're keeping the weapons.' he said every word clearly.

'Go ahead. Much good they'll do you.' I grumbled.

I clutched my head as the pain grew worse.

'What now?' he almost yelled in anger.

'Just a headache, keep your hat on.' I said, wincing at the sound of his shouting. 'Liara, how goes it?'

'Two pieces done.' she said. Good girl.

'I suppose that we might as well start.' I shrugged. 'You two, get over there, or you'll get a tan that makes a vorcha look pretty.' I said to two men with assault rifles. 'You.' I said to the one woman, I'd been right, 'Stand somewhere there or we won't get enough power.' I gestured to the opposite side of the men, trying to pretend that she didn't need to stand precisely there or my plan would die with me. I ordered the last of the men into positions.

I had to force myself not to count down from three, seeing as this was a program that would take minutes and not seconds. But the occasion demanded it.

'Three.' I said, looking around. Jonathan glared around, suspicious. 'Two.' he seemed to be onto something. 'One.' he saw his reflection in the mirror and flattened his hair. 'Go.'

I pressed one button on my omni tool and all the mirrors turned to face the right way just as the shuttle suddenly fed the laser with all it's energy. The lock on the hatch to the grave-like thing broke off with a pang and the hatch fell down. The sun shone directly on it, displaying it's reflection in every mirror.

I was the only one not looking into them.

It was almost comical, as every person collapsed simultaneously. I could have done this with only the grave, but then not everyone would have been looking and I'd have no reason to put people in position.

'Liara, get up here and close the grave with your biotics.' I said, shattering all the mirrors, making sure not to look into them nor the grave itself.

I started binding the men up as fast as I could. I had no idea for how long they'd be out and didn't want to risk anything. I threw their weapons aside as soon as I was done with the binding. Liara had come up and shut the grave, placing it upside down so that it wouldn't re-open.

And then the men started coming to. Some of them awoke screaming in horror while others seemed to be disappointed to be back, clearly having had a nice dream.

'What the hell?' shouted Jonathan. 'What the hell was that!'

'A magic trick.' I said mysteriously.

And then a worrisome thought struck me. Where was their ship?

'Blast them all to hell!' he shouted into his com.

I squeezed my eyes shut. This day simply refused to be a good day.

With no time to think it through I took Liara by her arm and pulled her along, into the shuttle. It took me seconds to get it started and almost a minute until we were off the planet. We saw in the distance how a pirate frigate bombarded the place of our excavation. Clearly, they didn't know that their leader was still there. Nor that we had escaped. They were just following orders.