Chapter 2
Reality vs Expectation
I can't stand being awake this early for virtually any reason mostly because I'm a chronic insomniac, even back in my time. So walking to C-Sec I'm drinking a huge cup of what I guess passes as coffee in this universe. I mean really 10 sugars to take away the grinds taste is pretty bad. Walking into Garrus' office I'm surprised to find the Turian already at work or at least I'm assuming he is starting work and not still here from the night before.
"Good morning Milo, hope you're ready for a long day." He says without even looking up from his desk.
"Well I'm not a morning person but I think I'm ready for today, I already have some coffee." Lifting my cup to him.
"You know we have coffee for the people who want it here already, right?" He says looking up finally.
I shake my head at him saying "Well I didn't think I was technically working here yet so I didn't want to presume using your guy's coffee."
He looks at me quizzically saying "Did you even read the recruitment brochure? We consider anyone in training to be an officer until considered unfit for duty. We don't believe in the slow way of training then bringing out for field work we do everything hands on, once we see what you're good at we decide where you go and if it isn't field work then we take you for training at a school for forensics then if that doesn't suit you we consider you unfit for duty. We do it this way because we need way more field officers than we do technicians as people tend to just go to school for that, then apply for a position with us. So you are right now Deputy Milo Talon until further notice and can use the facilities, if any of the officers hassle you send them my way and it will stop."
As he says this to me I realize the game never captured how emotional Garrus actually was in the first game about his job despite his tendencies to hate paperwork and to cut through red tape. Looking at him in a new light I smile and say "I think you and I are gonna get along fine Garrus."
Staring me down with what could only be considered a glare meant to kill, at least I'm guessing that's what it is since I don't know Turian expressions well he says with the most serious voice "No. We will not if you insist on showing up without a coffee for me. Dextro-Amino version of course." He then broke into a grin from the look on my face I must have expected him to turn serious and tell me to shut up newbie before I calibrate your face to be less ugly. Or something like that. From the tone he used I was floored that he actually said a joke. A real life joke, not a great one mind you but they never portrayed Garrus with a sense of humour until the second game so I was caught a little off guard. I stare at him slack jawed.
"Umm ok I guess." Not really knowing what to say when someone says something like that in a dead serious I'm actually evil so watch out kinda voice.
I must have looked strange because he suddenly jumps up with his hands out saying "That was actually a joke I'm not actually serious or anything." He starts to look panicked when my face contorts but the he looks completely flabbergasted when I spill my coffee on myself and curse because I can't stop laughing even when I burn myself.
"Oh my god Garrus you should have seen your face." I say in a fit tears actually falling down my face. "I didn't expect you to make a joke that bad that seriously it was just too priceless, you completely sold me that you were serious."
At this point he realizes that I'm actually laughing at him and throws me what I can confirm with about 90% certainty is a scowl. He then proceeds to out "Careful who you laugh at or I might re-calibrate your face so you can actually get laid."
If I thought I was laughing before then this was hysterics, I dropped my entire coffee on myself when I doubled over laughing at him. He promptly started cursing under his breath that he always gets stuck with crazy humans. After I regain a little composure I ask him what's up for the day in between bursts of giggling like an idiot.
Huffing he says "Well I was going to take you to be fitted for armor then take you to the range to see what weapons you fit best and check out some hand-hand combat classes with you and teach you to generally be able to handle a fight. Just to be clear you won't be sent with me on any cases where we might get shot at too soon until we can see what your capable of first. But you're a biotic so I don't expect that you have needed much else to defend yourself with."
That last sentence sobered me off my laughing really quickly. "What did you say? Biotics? I'm not a biotic."
Looking utterly confused he grabs a data pad off his desk and reads it then looks at me and says "It says in your confidential file that you are an L3 biotic who was trained briefly in the military then quit."
Um ok now I'm totally freaked out! I looked at my personal file and it didn't mention anything about that. Wait if I was military trained it wouldn't be in my public profile would it? I think they would keep that top secret so they could have biotic spies and the like. I have got figure out if that was transferred to me or if it didn't stick when I came here or whatever happened.
"Um ya sorry I had a major concussion recently and I lost a bit of memory and that part keeps disappearing on me. I remember now that you reminded me. The doctor said my implant needed time for the swelling to go down before I could use my biotics again." Oh god I hope he believes this line of bull coming out of my mouth and that he doesn't know enough about biotics to know if what I was saying was feasible or not.
"Oh ok that makes sense I guess. Kinda explains the laughing too I guess."
No Garrus that's because I know about your fetish for calibrating instead of paying attention to people. Not that I let that thought out but at least he just thinks I'm retarded from an injury instead of lying about my history. Going have to figure out the biotic thing fast though.
"Well then let's get on with the day then before I look any stupider in front of you." Without saying a word he just motioned for me to follow. Going through a long series of offices we made our way down to the requisition's officer's office.
"Good morning officer Vakarian, this is the newest addition to the officer core yes?" The Turian behind the desk asks indicating myself.
"Good morning Koring. Yes this is officer Milo Talon. We need him fitted for some standard medium armor. Also some weaponry but we will hit the range first to get an indication of his preferences."
For the next hour the fitted a standard C-Sec armor set. All in standard blue and black. All the armor was ballistic plate ceramic with mesh underlay. According to the specs the plates actually deflect the impact and shatter after enough force then are replaced after a fire fight. The mesh underlay was made from something like a Kevlar mesh that absorbed impacts and could stop small arms fire but nothing of a heavier caliber. The plates just mag locked onto some underlay setup that was way beyond my comprehension, but it made it very convenient for removal and assembly. The mesh came off like a wet suit. All in all I was like a kid in a candy store with the armor. Then they gave me the helmet which as soon as I put it on I was ecstatic because something like hudin the games had come up. Shields, health monitors and an indicator showing my weapons were empty but considering I didn't have any yet that made sense. The shield indicator showed only one bar, which means I can probably add some upgrades, but I would have to look into that later. Along with the armor there is a head phone attached to my Omni-Tool for making reports to headquarters. It seemed to work just like a blue tooth but it's voice recognition worked perfectly unlike every single Bluetooth I had ever used.
"Take a walk around and see how it fits." Koring says to me with a wave of his hand. I start walking and marveling at how easy it was to move. "How does it feel?"
"This…is…awesome!" I do a little hop jump around much to both Turians amusement.
Garrus shakes his head trying to cover a laugh with a cough but failing miserably. Clipping my helmet to my belt I say "What's next?"
"Well what's your weapon's experience?" Koring ask opening a wall cabinet that help a weapon rack. "We require all officers keep a heavy pistol and any other weapons are your choice."
"Well I've fired pistols, shotguns and a few rifles but only in sport." Nodding Koring grabs a standard avenger rifle, predator pistol and a katana shotgun,
"Well let's try these out. Follow me." Walking out of his office we make our way through a few doors and we found ourselves to an indoor shooting range. There was a few other people there practicing as well. The targets were holograms that once shot relayed damage and accuracy readings to individual terminals at each shooting terminal. Walking up to an empty one Koring places each gun down on the shooters bench for me and has me sign a release form and tells me to come see him whenever I need anything for them.
Garrus then proceeds to pick up each weapon and give me a low down on each weapons operation, maintenance and anything I would need for maintaining them all by myself. Then a long speech about safety, he seems to be reciting it from memory and not really doing it by choice. "Ok" he hands me each weapon one by one and shows how they clip to my suit. "Now take each one and press the sync button on the left of each ones trigger and they should be registered to your suit now so they will indicate when they are going to overheat. Because you have sensors in your suit gauntlets they pick up to your suit and yours alone. Being C-Sec they will not be auto-locked to your suit and no one else's short of an order from a superior officer to lock them out or if a really good hacker gets a hold of them."
"So if I don't have my helmet on how do I tell if my weapon is going to overheat?" I ask while admiring how each weapon folds in and out to be stored.
"Well each one depending on any mods you add will have a set number of shots before they overheat if fired rapidly so you can count but that's not practical with automatics like the avenger, so the only other way is have your omni-tool set to combat mode and it will show an indicator for your weapon but that can be distracting. I just recommend if not wearing your helmet to just fire in bursts and give in a little bit of cool down time in between, plus that forces you to pick your shots more carefully."
Nodding I turn and say "That makes sense. What does this thing do?" indicating a switch that saw on each weapon.
"That is a built in target aid that if you have enemy's 'painted' or selected while you have your helmet on the weapon will auto-correct your aim as much as possible to them if you are aiming in that direction. Without your helmet your suit can be hard wired to a visor like mine that will do the same thing."
"Cooooool! Any other advice?" I say with a low whistle while drawing my predator and starting the target holograms.
"Ya don't embarrass yourself." He said with a grin.
Taking a basic stance with my legs spread shoulder width I aim down the sights at the first target.
"BLAM" The pistol doesn't kick too badly but it's been a while since I've been target shooting so I just graze it in the shoulder. "BLAM BLAM BLAM" I try firing a few consecutively and my aim gets worse.
"Slow down your shots and breathe out as you fire." Garrus says softly so as to not distract me.
I slowly aim and release my breath as I squeeze the trigger "BLAM" This time the shot hits the target in the chest but not quite a kill shot.
"Better, once you progress in the range we will move to the combat simulator where you will learn to shoot while under fire." As he talks he indicates a room with a large window, inside I can see various barricades and random walls with debris scattered within to simulate a real combat environment.
For the next few hours Garrus had me shoot targets then when he said I had thoroughly shown the hologram thugs who was boss he took me to the presidium to run a patrol. He explained that new recruits start in areas without much chance of violence then once they gained a grasp of procedure and got experience they were sent on patrols in increasingly more dangerous environments until judged fit to patrol alone or to take a case with supervision.
As we walked the length of the embassy district of the Presidium, Garrus turned and said "If I have any cases sent my way while you are training I will judge if you are fit to help me or I will pass you on to another officer for the duration of the case. I will more than likely bring you unless it's a severely dangerous case. Well that's our shift for the day." He stops and starts tapping on his Omni-Tool, suddenly mine starts beeping at me. "Here, start reading that it's a copy of Citadel laws. Every day while walking the beat I will probably ask you about some up till were I figure you should have read. See you in the morning." With a wave he heads towards the elevator that heads to C-Sec academy.
As I start walking to a weapons mod shop I had passed earlier, I check out some more things on my Omni-Tool, I find out how to access my bank account. Looking over it see that the box things I had seen all over were the equivalent of an ATM to give you chits. Also I notice that C-Sec give their officers pay every day and gave me a bonus for signing up. My account was now sitting at 50,000 credits. I promptly do a fist pump then decide that I want to go and find a gun shop and look at some stuff then get supper and head home.
"This one offers you greetings" as I walk into the nearest shop that sells some weapon mods a Hanar floats up to me "Does the honorable C-Sec officer need any help?"
"Um yes I'm here to look at some equipment for myself. Do you sell any eye visors for weapons?"
"Why yes good officer we do if you will come over to the catalogue you may browse all of our selection and make a choice." The Hanar indicated a terminal on the far wall.
"Thank you. I'm Milo Talon." Holding out my hand the Hanar puts a tentacle in it for a greeting.
"This one's face name is Burns Brightly. This one is honored to meet you Milo Talon. We are offering a 10% discount promotion today. Have a pleasant day."
I move over to the console and start tapping on things until I get the gist of how the catalogue works. It seemed very similar to many games I'd played. While looking in the visor section I found a few that I like but they are around 70,000 credits. I have to figure out what a credit to dollar equivalent would be. Instead of a visor I buy small pad that fits on the inside of my wrist plate that shows an indicator for my currently held weapons heat. The plus is its considered outdated so it only costs 2,000 credits. Happy with my purchases I take a cab back to my ward and start heading home when I decide to stop and pick up some food from that Asari shop again as I was quite pleased with the food the other night.
"Hi my name is Amaya…wait didn't I help you yesterday? I didn't know you were a C-Sec officer. If I had I would have given you a deal. We tend to give deals for law enforcement and military officers." The young Asari looks abashed at what she seems to think is a serious insult. Wait a minute I need to stop thinking things like she is young considering she could be centuries old already, just guessing by looks won't work anymore. With that thought running through my head I try to placate her.
"Don't worry about it. I just joined C-Sec today so don't sweat it."
"Sweat it?" she give me a seriously confused look "I'm not sweating. Why would say I am? Is that an insult?" She starts to look a little offended now.
"No no it's a human expression it just means don't worry. It's not meant as an insult." I say quickly throwing my hands up.
"Oh" she starts to turn an interesting shade of deep ocean blue now in what I'm assuming is an Asari's version of a blush. "I'm so sorry I didn't mean to get mad I should have just asked what you meant when you said it. I'm so sorry, let me make it up to you officer… you said your name was Milo Talon yesterday right?" I nod "We'll let me buy your supper for tonight."
"No that's quite alright it was just a misunderstanding. You don't need to do that." I say giving her a smile to try and calm her down. "I will however take an order of whatever your second favorite dish is for tonight and some more of that drink you gave me yesterday."
Not saying anything but still blushing she nods her head vigorously and just about bolts from her hostess station to get my order. Coming back she mutely hands me my bag while bowing to hide her blush and says "Pease come again and please forget what I said earlier!"
Trying to hide my amusement I take my bag and say "I will and seriously don't worry about it it's not a big deal." She seems to blush harder at my dismissal of what she perceived as an insult. About to leave I suddenly remember my problem about my biotics. "Miss Amaya if you feel that strongly about it you coud help me with a problem I'm having with my Biotics."
"Its Amaya Koraness. But just call me Amaya. What's the problem?"
"Well I recently suffered a head injury and all my training for my Biotics doesn't seem to be working anymore. So I was wondering if you could maybe give me some pointers sometime?"
She turns back to blushing or at least thats what I'm going to call it for now on and says "I would be happy to teach you how Asari Biotics work if you would like. How about tomorrow night after your off shift, I dont work tomorrow so let's meet up at the park their" indicating the park I woke up in the other day "at let's say 6:00 o'clock?"
"Sounds good to me Amaya. I'l see you tomorrow."
With that I start walking away and look back to see her looking my way and then jump and hide as she sees that I'm looking at her. Well now what was that all about? I decided that I would need to look up more on different species and their facial and body indicators, just to be sure I don't do something stupid and it probably wouldn't hurt for the job as well.
Getting back to my apartment I start reading up on Citadel laws and current technology, after I start to go cross eyed I begin to realise that most of the technical specs were way above my head. Well what did I expect that everything would be the same as the game and all nicely labeled to tell me what to do? With that I settled in for what was definitely going to be a long trip to learning to truly understand this new universe around me.