Chapter 2: Breakdown

A/N: Well, it appears the recent update to changed the chapter upload system so all the information on it was incorrect, I have since discovered how to update new chapters, YAY! So without further ado chapter 2 away!

"What. The. Fuck."

My curiosity from my conversation earlier is now gone and my psyche is now returning to panic rapidly. I am somehow in the Mass Effect universe because I am apparently pretty freakin special, I have some sort of 'Resonance' whatever the hell that means, I am now 18, and have had a fancy weapons tech education shoved into my brain er… sort of.

I have at this point exited the shuttle and am now just standing on the platform freaking the hell out. I am pulled out of this by someone asking me if I'm ok. I blink and look up. It's some colonist woman and she looks moderately concerned.

I quickly stammer out a response, I tell her I'm fine and quickly ask where I can pick up my bags to cover for my behavior. She relaxes a bit and directs me over toward what looks to be a baggage claim of some sort. I nod my thanks and move off towards it, while getting my luggage was not what I had intended it did give me an idea.

I can freak out later in private, for now let's get sorted and find out where I'm staying. As I step up to the machine I realize I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, actually I don't even know if I have any luggage. A VI suddenly springs to life behind the small conveyor, and kindly asks for my identification.

Oh, crap ID where is that? Uhm… think, think… AH! Omni tool Duh. I quickly pull it up, a flick of the wrist is all it takes, how it does that I have no idea but I'm not complaining. I sift through the menus finally finding one that says ID, and present it to the VI. It checks it briefly before the conveyor activates and a duffel bag and, Holy crap, my guitar case. Of all the things that could be there my guitar, I can barely even play! I quickly dismiss thoughts on my musical skills, grab my stuff and walk towards the exit, as the VI chirps a 'good day sir' at me. I sling the guitar bag over one shoulder and the duffel over the other, as I'm walking towards the exit I see a bored looking Ashley Williams.

Wow, she was never my favorite character but, fuck, she's there actual flesh and blood. She seems to notice me at this point, and quickly walks up to me. "Hey are you the weapons new weapons tech?"

"Yeah, names Jonathon Knight." I hold my hand out and she shakes it briefly.

"Gunnery Chief, Ashley Williams, I'm supposed to show you to your quarters and give you the info for your job at the armory."

She motions for me to follow as she pulls up her Omni tool, I fall into step with her, and she begins explaining a few of the different building we pass by still looking through her Omni tool. She finds what she was looking for and my Omni tool pings. I bring it up to see I've got a map of the colony with two points highlighted on it one saying, 'quarters' the other 'armory', as well as a data packet giving an overview of my job that I'll read later. We stop in front of a small building; it looks like a slightly larger more permanent shack. It's got an actual foundation, and looks pretty nice actually.

Ash breaks my reverie on my new quarters. "You'll be staying here, since you're not technically Alliance personnel you'll be here instead of the Barracks."

I swear I almost hear her mumble 'lucky bastard' under her breath, but decide to ignore it.

"Any questions?" she asks looking eager to be anywhere but here.

"Uh... no not right now thanks." She takes of as soon as I finish, I guess I can't blame her she probably has better things to do than shuffle me around.

As I walk through the door I look around bed, desk, locker, dresser, a small fridge, and a bathroom. Hmm Spartan but effective. The theme seems to be 'Alliance Navy blue'. I set my stuff down and sit down on the bed, I then continue with my freaking the hell out.

-20 minutes later-

"Ok, calm down, think one thing at a time, what is the next hurdle you have to face?" I ponder for a moment before deciding work in the morning is the next challenge to face. I bring up my Omni tool (which is some little wristband type thing) and begin examining the data packet Ash gave me. Looks pretty standard arrive at 7:00 leave at 5:00, 10 hour shift, of cleaning, fixing, modifying, and other general maintenance for the colony's weapons. Wait a minute. New next hurdle; learn to do job. I think carefully "How to strip and clean an Avenger assault rifle?" some vague in descript images of pulling parts off of a weapon, some tools, more parts, cleaning something… Fuck." I've been given this knowledge but it's only a vague overview, I going to have to review every part of what I'm going to need. I move to the desk and boot up the terminal, entering 'How to strip and clean an Avenger assault rifle' into the search bar I begin my studies.

Six hours later I glance at the clock, "Nine o' clock, jeeze I've been at this for a while." I look back at the bed realizing I haven't even looked through the duffel bag yet. I minimize the extranet window on the terminal and get up. Inside the duffle are several changes of clothes, including one Alliance uniform with all the Alliance patches removed. On the right side of the chest is the nametag 'PC Jonathon Knight'. PC, Private Contractor, that explains the missing insignia. I keep searching and find a credit chit with 2000 credits on it; I briefly wonder how much I'll get paid, before continuing my search. The last thing is a hard black case with GSWT armory emblazoned on it; I open it up and find a beautiful custom pistol. It's made of a smoky black metal that shines dully, and has ice blue flames spreading back from the barrel towards the grip. There's a small OSD inside as well, I quickly open the file with my Omni tool.

'Congratulations on your graduation from our school, as per every student who graduates from here they are given their own custom built pistol. Each student picks a base model, an M-5 Phalanx in your case, and customizes it, paid for in full by us of course, this is our last gift to you on your way into the world of weapons design.

Good luck,

GSWT Deans Office'

I pick up the pistol and turn it over in my hand, the weight feels good, the grip holds to my hand, and the sights are exactly what I would want. "Custom made indeed this barely looks like the Phalanx from the game." Pulling back the action reveals a fake thermal clip, I pull it out before slotting it back in. There are three live clips in the case and a magnetic belt holster. I carefully put the weapon away in the locker with the Alliance uniform, ok that's enough surprises for one day time for bed. I collapse to the bed, "What have I gotten myself into? And why me? What's so special about me? I'm not in the best shape not really weak but I have no stamina, I've fired a gun once in my life, not even a paintball match or something." I think some more staring up at the dark ceiling. "That monitor thing said I had tactical knowledge, strategy… so does anyone else who's ever played an RTS." Ugh, I rub my eyes with my hands, "Well whatever I'm here and as far as I can see there's no going back, that means I need to get onto Shepard's team, find my path right?" WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE THERE! I'm on Eden Prime when are the fucking Geth getting here? I quickly get up and check the date on the terminal, December 4th, 2182. "Well it's a bit before the Geth are supposed to show up but I don't know exactly when they're supposed to, I'll turn 17 erm 19 next month. So much for no more surprises today, Crud I guess I have to wait and hope for the best when they do attack… Fuck." I eventually drift off to sleep.

A sudden high pitched beeping startles me awake and I roll of the bed face first onto the floor.

"Ow"

I stand up grumbling and rub the sleep from my eyes.

"Oh yeah, I'm in Mass Effect, that settles that I'm not dreaming, maybe I'm in a coma? Do people in comas think about that?" I force these thoughts to the back of my mind, first objective: Breakfast.

The little fridge has some food and drinks in it, after a sandwich and something that I assume was milk, I take a shower and put on the Alliance fatigues, I can't help but look the pistol over again as I pull out the fake clip and slot in a real one. The satisfying click of the weapon loading causes me to shiver. "This thing was made for killing and I'm going to have to use it…" My dark musings continue for a few more moments before I slowly slot the pistol onto my hip. It's a short walk over to the armory, and when I get there a man in fatigues greets me.

He salutes crisply "you the new tech?"

"Yeah, Jonathon Knight, and you don't need to salute me I'm not Alliance." I show him my work orders from my Omni tool, he checks them over briefly before nodding.

"Alright, looks like your good, head on back Vic's the arms master here, just talk to him."

I nod and walk past through the door he indicated, into what appears to be a large workshop, several workbenches with various tools, and machinery, pieces of weapons, ammunition, and various other weapon related things. An aged but well-built man is assembling a weapon at one of the benches, he has a gruff greying beard and medium toned skin with greying black hair; he looks up when I enter before motioning me over.

"So you're my new help around here?" He's got a deep rocky voice kind of like Hackett's but not quite as epic.

"Yeah, Jonathon Knight." I say this as I shake his hand, he backs up a little and crosses his arms examining me.

"You've got a pretty impressive record, out of high school early, graduate from GSWT in four years, what do you think of that?" He humffs slightly at this giving me an appraising look.

I wither a little bit under that glare, but manage to get out a response. "Uh I don't know, I don't really feel like I've earned all that, honestly I'm a bit overwhelmed by all this." He lets off the gaze and nods slightly at that.

"Well alright then, names Victor Garron, let me show you the ropes, oh, and just call me Vic." He takes me around, showing me where various pieces of machinery are, and thank Christ I studied yesterday or I wouldn't have understood half of what he said. Apparently the primary tool used in weapons modification is an item called , 'the workbench' it's a small device that projects a holographic display over a physical workbench, it automatically scans any weapon placed under it, brings up stats, problems, and stows the design specs into a library. The library is separated into blueprints, for building standard weapons, and the various categories for the primary components of the weapon, barrels, mass accelerators, venting, sights, grips, stocks, bodies, etc… really it feels like a very in depth game customization window, it's easy to use and can send instructions to the various machines to tool parts and such, its connected directly to my Omni tool, which has a weapons scanner, and is contained within a small portable device that looks like a high tech knife handle, with a magnetic base to stick to the table.

A few things clicked as I started working, I guess the knowledge I got isn't total I'll still have to figure it all out but it comes allot faster than starting from scratch, and apparently Vic was the only one working here before I came, the influx of marines due to 'Training exercises' have warranted a second armorer. I head home in the evening a bit more relaxed, the work wasn't hard, tedious maybe but, that all flew out the window when he told me I would be getting paid about 750 credits a week, if I'm careful I should be able to pocket about 400 a week, not bad if I do say so myself.

I get back home and put away my pistol, study weapons for about two hours, eat and, then decide to check out this 'workbench program more carefully. I set it up on the desk and go to the library, weapons categories pop up listing one item in everything but pistols, one Alliance weapon of each type plus my Phalanx. Shockingly the Predator and my Phalanx have no compatible parts, my Phalanx is better in everything but rate of fire and clip size. My Phalanx has a venting upgrade that gives me another 3 shots per clip bringing it up to 9, but the Predator has 12, my Phalanx also has a few upgrades that increase its rate of fire a bit, but the Predator greatly outstrips my Phalanx there, but if I only need 1 shot for every 3 Predator rounds then I'll keep my Phalanx, plus it looks badass. I briefly check all the other weapons and it turns out some parts are compatible across weapon types, changing the weapons attributes. I pull up a base model for an Avenger assault rifle and go to work on it, elongated barrel, semi-auto fire rate, bigger mass accelerator, and an ACOG scope. The program runs some simulations and gives the weapon some estimated stats. I save the variant as an Avenger I recon. "Hmm that's pretty cool, that could be useful, modify weapons to meet various combat encounters."

I then crawl into bed. Staring up at the ceiling again as I begin to formulate a plan. "I need to train, hand to hand, assault rifles, pistols, snipers, shotguns, combat maneuvers, and fitness. This is gunna be hard but I've resolved to do this, might as well do it right, I'll ask someone where I can train tomorrow." I fall asleep feeling a bit better about my situation, I just hope the Geth don't come for a while at least. I've got this weird sense of feeling… like I'm going in the right direction though.

A/N: Well there you go Thanks for reading!