Chapter 5
Into the Unknown
Over the next three years me and Garrus put out a lot of effort to try and find Saleon even trying to get different information brokers. Having Amaya taken changed me to start acting like Garrus when it came to how we handle criminals. During the course of the three years we ended up getting rid of multiple smuggling rings. When we found a human trafficking ring we ended it violently. At nights I tended to work, train not much else. Garrus reverted to his gloomy dangerous self when it came to criminals.
One morning when I actually happened to be at home and not working. I was cooking in the kitchen while also watching the news on my TV. Watching the current news and drinking coffee I got a message on my Omni-Tool. Pulling it up I see this 'It's time.' All of a sudden I look up and hear "The colony of Eden Prime was attacked yesterday. Eyewitness accounts say the attacks were by Geth. The colony was saved by an N7 marine operative named Commander Shepard who you might recall was the saviour of Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz."
Suddenly I fall over nearly blacking out with excruciating pain as my head feels like an anvil just blindsided me. Screaming out in near delirium I find myself realising what happened to me. "Oh my god I remember!" Suddenly all my old memories are shoved into the memories that I've now realised had taken over my brain. I realise that I remember both sets of memories. What the hell is going on? I can remember everything like they are both my actual memories. But what the hell, I know about Mass Effect but I can't seem to bring up any details.
Pain still wracking my head I get a call from Garrus "Hey Milo. What the hell are you ok?"
"I tripped and cracked my head on my counter. I'll be fine. What's going on?"
Giving me a look of concern he says "Well as long as you're sure. I need your help, we have been given a job directly from the Executor, we need to investigate Saren Arterius. That human Commander has accused him of treason saying he sent the Geth to destroy Eden Prime and that he was leading them."
That part I remember, but feigning ignorance I say "What really? Ok what are we doing first?"
"We are going to the office and we will need to look through all his records that we can. We need to do it in the next ten hours so run down here now!"
Crap no wonder he never got anything on him that's no time to actually find something concrete. "Right I'm on my way now."
As I made my way to the office I started looking over my memories and figuring out what I actually could remember and what I couldn't. "Beep beep." I got a another message on my Omni-Tool. 'You will remember things that are important as you need it. My only advice is don't screw with things too much. PS: Don't bother replying to this I'm only going to reply when I ask you something."
"What the hell is that? Don't answer? To hell with whoever this is!"
Writing as I walk I tell this person 'Screw you what the hell are you talking about?'
Going into the office I have to forget the message as Garrus bombards me with files to go through while saying "Hopefully we can find something in all this. This crap is just what isn't classified." We proceeded to spend ten straight hours going bloody cross-eyed only finding some questionable investments in Binary Helix developing weapons on Noveria that aren't exactly legal.
"Well this will have to be enough. Let's go to the tower and present our evidence." I look up and get a massive grin on my face as I realize that I get to meet THE Commander Shepard. I'm also happy that I get to meet Kaiden and Ashley.
Getting to the Citadel tower we meet the Executor. He very promptly told us to not waste the council's time. Hearing the tower elevator I look left and my jaw actually dropped. Video games don't do anything in this universe justice. I realised this when I first saw aliens but seeing Shepard HOLY CRAP she was hot! She was the stock Shepard with red hair and green eyes, she was about 5' 5" and built very petit with a powerful looking body despite being small. Ashley was probably about 5' 7" and built a bit bigger, not macho but very powerfully built none the less. Kaiden was 5' 11" rough and very barrel chested and had huge arms. I suddenly realized that my boss had already walked off and that Garrus saw me staring and started nudging me to pull my jaw up.
He then turns to Shepard and says "Commander, Garrus Vakarian and Milo Talon here are the officers in charge of investigating Saren."
"It doesn't seem like he wanted to listen." She gestures after Pallin.
"Executor Pallin, our boss. He doesn't believe what we have brought to him is good enough. I know that Saren is hiding something!"
They proceeded to banter about why a Turian is trying to bring down Saren. I laugh saying "Garrus is definitely not racist except with his jokes, which are bloody terrible." Garrus glares at me trying to kill me with his eyes.
Ashley gives me a weird look saying "You too seem pretty friendly."
"We have been partners for years now. Of course beaky and me are friends." If he was trying to kill me before with his look now I'm pretty sure he was trying to get my brain to implode.
Shepard looks like she is trying to hide a grin and failing and Ashley looked like she thought we were nuts, while Kaiden looked like he was trying to stay stoic but still smirking and said "Shepard I think the council is ready for us."
"Good luck Shepard." I say as Garrus opens his mouth to do the same.
Instead he says "Hopefully they will listen to you." With that she walks away with a wave to us. "How does your jaw feel on the floor? Comfy?"
"Dunno beaky, how's your calibrating going?" Ok scratch that NOW he was trying to make my brain explode. Laughing, I just start walking out of the tower. Garrus in tow trying to blow up the back of my head. "So what's next buddy?"
"Grrrr, well we are going to the wards to walk beat for the time being since we don't have any open cases."
"Hmmm, ok then let's go."
Wondering down to the wards we end up breaking up something at Flux's when we get two separate calls, one of suspicious people near the clinic and one of another fight in Chora's Den.
"You take the one at the clinic, I'll go to Chora's Den." With that he starts off towards the clinic while I head the other direction. Getting there I notice Shepard at the bar as well and the call was actually about Wrex. Holy crap he his way too damn huge even for a Krogan. Wrex was easily eight feet tall and probably 400-500 pounds. The call was from the bartender to get rid of Wrex. Waving to Shepard who gave me a smile as she goes by I walk up to Wrex.
"Excuse me Wrex?" I come up to him.
"What do you want human?" He glares his response at me if that makes sense.
"I've been instructed to bring you to C-Sec academy for threats against Fist."
"How do you expect to do that? You look kinda soft." He smirks at me.
'Well I gotta say that I would love to go toe to toe with you. I mean that honestly. Also I would actually prefer to help you kill Fist but I have my orders." With that I pull out my shotgun before he realizes what's going on.
"Hahahaha human you have a set on you! Alright I'll come." He shakes with mirth all the while ignoring me as he walks away without waiting for me at all.
I put my gun away and follow him. "So, Wrex why you after Fist?" I think I know the answer but it seems kinda hazy.
"I'm not gonna give you a confession to arrest me human." He growls at me.
"Ha, no Wrex you don't need to worry about me. I really hate Fist I honestly would help you." I say with a lot of heat in my voice.
Looking at me sideways and looking like he is pondering he say's "What's with you? You don't seem care about me killing someone, aren't you a cop?"
"I HATE Fist. I hate criminals who get away with murder and just pay off crooked cops."
"Hmm, you seem ok human." He gives me a nod of approval as we go into C-Sec and I hand him over to the officer in charge of the shift.
"It's Talon, Milo Talon." I say before he turns to talk with the shift officer.
As they discuss the threats I see Shepard and company including Garrus show up.
Brushing past the shift officer he says "Do I know you human?" He then notices me standing there as well. "You with him?" he says gesturing to me.
"Uh well we are with his partner." She says uncertainly gesturing to Garrus.
"Then you have me to. I can't leave Garrus alone or else he gets into trouble." I say with a smile in Garrus's direction.
"I would recommend him Shepard he is a good fighter and a Biotic. Plus we work good together." He says with a smirk in my direction while adding "Plus he is good for fetching coffee."
"Right. Well then welcome aboard mister…"
"The name's Milo Talon." I say while extending my hand and shaking Shepard's.
They fill me in on the fact that there is a Quarian 'aka Tali' with evidence on Saren that he was responsible for Eden Prime. She was last seen working out a deal with Fist for protection from him and the Shadow Broker but he was going to double cross her to Saren. After they work out a deal with Wrex for Fist's head and he agrees to help as well.
Heading down to Chora's Den we go to walk in when I suddenly jump in front everyone and tell them to stop. "What's wrong?" Ashley says giving me a scowl for stopping her from opening the door.
"Listen?" everyone seems to cock their heads at the same time "When we were here earlier you could hear the music from the transit station. It's never off. Something is wrong."
Wrex nods and say's "Your observant human. I think your right. The music is never off, it's probably a trap. We would have walked right into it."
"Nice catch Talon. Ok people let's arm up at stack up on the door." Shepard says pulling her assault rifle from her back. Hmm I wonder if she's a soldier she seems to be built and arming herself like one.
"Here, have someone follow behind me. I'll throw up a barrier in front of us and get us a foot hold." I say pulling up my Biotics which I fully remember how to use now.
"You sure you can pull that big of a barrier kid?" Kaiden asks with a smile that looks kinda condescending.
Flaring blue with wisps of smoke coming off me I shield the whole door and smirk at Kaiden. "So who'd like to get a drink with me?" I ask innocently.
"Well I could never turn down a man asking to buy me a drink." Shepard says with a small laugh and coming up beside me. "Ok Wrex, Kaiden and Ashley go left as soon as we clear initial resistance. Garrus follow up with me and Milo, were going right after the others follow us in. "
Once everyone was in position we open the door to a hail of gun fire. All the guards look shocked at the barrier suddenly stopping their shots and we let loose with a barrage of fire. Garrus snipes someone standing on top of the platform were the dancers usually are above the bar. The man was looking at getting a shot off unnoticed when suddenly he was missing everything from the voice box up. Shepard takes out some morons trying to hide behind tables; their bodies are almost taken completely apart as she targets them with very accurate fire with her rifle. I can only fire my pistol as I'm concentrating on the shield with one hand in the air. I still take out the bartender who's been taking pot shots at me.
"Shepard I'm about to lose this shield." I say through clenched teeth.
"We have enough cleared. Hold for one more sec." I nod to this while she whips around and say's "Ok second group go hard left. NOW!" She motions at me and I drop the shield with a huge gasp of air as the strain is taken off me. Whipping out my shotgun I start blasting at a Krogan closing the distance with us. He laughs as I'm too far away to do any damage. So I do what he isn't expecting and I use a biotic charge on him slamming the butt of my shotgun into his head as the burst of speed slams him making him reel back. I pull my gun back and fire point blank into his head. After the charge and all the abuse he took before my shot tears through his shield and tear his head off and all of the back of hump.
While I'm doing this the others are picking off the ranged fighters protecting me while I deal with the close combat. After I take out one more hiding behind a table with another blast of my shotgun everything goes quiet. Looking around at the destruction I see all the guards are dead and we're unscathed. That is until Shepard hits me in the arm barking "That was reckless." As soon as she hits me I become aware of the fact that when I charged the Krogan someone got off a lucky shot through my shields, I now have an inch wide hole through my bicep.
"Fuck that hurts." I jump as she hits me.
"Shit I'm sorry! I didn't see that you were shot." She exclaims immediately scanning my wound and administering medi-gel stopping the bleeding and numbing my arm.
"I'll be fine. I just won't be able to hold my shotgun until my arm is fixed. I can still use my powers and my pistol so let's keep going." I say indicating the direction to Fist's office. With a nod we go through and encounter some dock workers who are being paid to stop us but they quickly change their mind when they see the destruction behind us.
Going in to the office proper, a pair of turrets pops up as Fist ducks behind his desk. Between two overloads one from Garrus one from Kaiden we make short work of them with our combined gunfire.
As Shepard walks up she pulls her pistol on him saying " Where's the Quarian?"
"Not here." He says cowering.
"Let me kill him then he's useless." Wrex says while pointing his shotgun on him.
"Wait I don't know where she is but I know where she will be." He stands up as he says this. "She is meeting an assassin here on the wards. She thinks she is meeting the broker personally."
"In person? Impossible! Even I was hired through a middle man." Wrex exclaims.
"You don't have long. She's in the alley behind Flux's. You'll need to hurry!"
BOOM Wrex blows most of his upper body away with his shotgun.
"What the hell are you doing?" Shepard yells pulling her gun on Wrex now.
"The broker paid me to kill him, I don't leave jobs half done." He says nonchalantly.
"Shepard people have died because of Fist and we don't have time. If we don't hurry that Quarian is dead." I say moving us along. Nodding she turns and we head back out. Coming back into the bar apparently some back-up for the guards showed up but there's a hand full of new ones and we make short work of them.
Garrus and I show the way as we run to the meeting spot. Coming onto the scene we see Tali throw a grenade and dive behind a crate. As Shepard, Wrex and Ashley unleash with weapons fire while Kaiden and I blast them with twin singularities. The fight is over shortly and a slightly scuffed looking Tali pokes her head out from behind the crates.
"Are you ok?" Shepard asks holding a hand out to help Tali up off the floor.
Wiping the dirt off her suit Tali says angrily "Fist, that bastard set me up!"
"Don't worry I took care of him!" Wrex says with an evil smile.
"Are you alright miss?" I ask trying to speed things along.
"It's Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and yes I'm fine. Who are you?" she asks gesturing to everyone.
Shepard turns and introduces everyone in turn leaving herself for last. "I'm Commander Shepard. What did you have that made those assassins come after you?"
"I have evidence against a Specter named Saren. It shows that he was responsible for the attack on Eden Prime. I was trading it to Fist for protection."
"Commander I don't think it's wise to stay here." I say indicating the alleyway "We should bring her to the human embassy, she should be safe there."
"If that's alright Miss Raya would you come with us?" Shepard asks.
"It's just Tali and yes that sounds good."
Leaving the alley we make our way carefully back to the Presidium to make sure we aren't attacked again.
Once we got to Udina's office he was as snide and arrogant as the game made him out to be. Oh and did I mention he was one ugly son of a bitch.
"You're not making my life easy Shepard. Firefights in the wards, an all-out assault on Chora's Den! Do you realize what I…" Finally turning around he sees the huge crowd now gathered in his office. "Who… who are all these 'people' Shepard?"
I hear a bit of contempt when he says people so I'm gonna guess he is a bit xenophobic. Huh you'd think they would screen for that when selecting the Ambassador for our entire race to the galaxy.
"Making your day Ambassador." Shepard says will thinly veiled contempt for the man.
What follows is all the same as the game and I seem to remember dialogue as it happens so whatever happened to my memories seems to allow some insight but not much. I just kinda tune out what's going on. I'm careful not to seem disinterest since I shouldn't know what's gonna be said already and I'm careful that I don't distract from the situation but I eventually find my way to my Omni-Tool. Hmm I have a new message, must have got it during one of our fire fights. 'Don't question what I say! You will remember what you need and all will be revealed in time! This is the only time I'll allow you to question me!'
Wow friendly little jerk isn't this guy! With that thought the meeting comes to an end. Shepard decides to send everyone but the original two crew members to the Normandy as it would seem weird with all of us coming to the council chambers. After giving us directions the others head off except Tali who seems hesitant; she keeps looking at me then out at the Presidium seeming unsure of what to do. Wondering what's going on I walk over and ask "Hey Tali aren't you going to go to the ship?"
"Umm, well you see the last time I was walking around the Presidium alone some Turian C-Sec Officer was racist against me and threatened to arrest me." Seeing as I was obviously with C-Sec she seems reluctant to say anything.
"Were you doing anything illegal?" I ask.
"Keelah, no I wasn't!" She says with a bit of venom.
Holding up my hands I say quickly "I didn't figure you were I just had to ask. Who was the officer? Though I do have an idea."
"Oh, sorry." She says while ringing her hands. "His name was Kuler I think."
"Ah that explains it." I reply shaking my head. "That asshole always was racist against Quarians and Volus. Well I'm not going there directly since I need to pick up my stuff from my apartment but you're welcome to tag along until I head to the ship."
"Oh well only if that's ok. I don't want to be a bother." She seems to become more agitated at the mention of my apartment. Ha she is so funny getting worked up over going to a guy's house.
"It's no prob. I don't mind at all. After you milady." I say with a bow and a long flourish of my arms. She giggles and follows me after we leave the embassy.
Only a few feet out of the entrance I hear behind me "Hey! Talon did you catch that suit-rat trying to get into the embassy?"
Turning around I see it's none other than Kuler himself strutting up like he was actually working. This guy since I had worked at C-Sec had only busted people of the species that he found annoying and was a complete coward. The only time he acted tough is when people seemed intimidated by the uniform.
"No Kuler I was actually giving Miss Tali here an escort." I say acting as serious as possible. "She had an important meeting with the ambassador. I was taking her back to her ship. Seems she was harassed earlier by some bigot. The ambassador wanted to make sure his representative from the Migrant Fleet Conclave wasn't bothered again and soured our relationship with them." The last part I give Tali a slight wink from the corner of my eye. She seems to pick up on what I'm doing and seems to decide to play along.
"Yes some Bosh'tet was being racist and stopped me from making my meeting." She says in an airy tone giving her hand a twirl to seems aloof of the situation.
Kuler seems to pale at all this and starts stammering "Well mmmiss I hope yyyyoou weren't held up tooo badly?" He says while looking at Tali pleadingly.
Tali seems like she is thinking it over then says "Nope. I think he was some moron from C-Sec who is too full of himself. Seemed he was compensating or something."
Trying to cover a grin and a laugh I cough into my hand barely able to contain myself. After a watching Kuler steam a bit at this I finally say "Yes, so Kuler head back to headquarters and let them know we have some moronic officer who is Turian that needs to be taught a lesson on bigotry. I'll check in Chellick later to make sure everything is dealt with." The last part was just a parting jab since he knew I would follow up he would say it to the office. Since everyone there knew that he was the only person like that in the whole department he would be a laughing stock since he knew it would be worse if I had to tell them for him.
Not giving him time to say anything else me and Tali turn on our heels and walk off. After we get behind a corner we both breakdown laughing ourselves silly. "Oh what I wouldn't give to see everyone laugh at him when he has to announce that to the office." I say in between wiping the tears from my eyes.
"Thank you so much Milo that was priceless. But why did you humiliate him like that for me and why did you make up that stuff about me being a representative from the fleet?" Suddenly realising what else said she stands up and cocks her hip looking at me through what I assume is narrowed eyes and asks"How do you know about the Conclave?"
"Hmm? Oh I like learning about other cultures than my own. It's a hobby." putting my hand to the side of my mouth as if to whisper I finish with "Just don't tell Garrus I said that or else I'll never hear the end of it. He thinks it goes against the standard of my species or something and would love to annoy me with it whenever I ask him question about Turians." Looking a little shocked at my answer Tali just nods.
We get to my apartment and I begin to pack while Tali just sits on my couch looking nervous as all hell, ringing her hands again. Just to see what she would do, I call from the pantry to her in an innocent voice "Hey Tali I don't suppose you could to grab my clothes from my dresser and toss them in a bag would ya?" I hear a squeak and what sounds like her slipping off my couch. When I peer out of my room at her she is looking very intently at my book shelf steadfastly ignoring me and pretending she didn't hear. Chuckling I grab the last of my stuff and we head to the ship much to Tali's relief.
Stepping onto the elevator at C-Sec I see Garrus laughing his ass off as he runs to catch up with us. "I just saw what you did to Kuler. It took Chellick five minutes to calm down enough to tell him that he was an idiot and that he was stuck at a desk from on. He then told him that you and I had quit and were leaving the Citadel which caused him to nearly go into shock as he got so mad. This of course caused everyone to laugh at him even more. I got to say it's nice seeing that arrogant ass get whats been coming to him for so long."
Tali starts laughing and I chuckle as the three of us go up the docking bay. Stepping off the elevator my breath is taken away as I see the Normandy for the first time. It's gorgeous, way better in real life than the game. Tali stares mute shock, even Garrus seems impressed. The sight is spoiled only by Udina standing there scowling.
"Well are you gonna stand here all day or get aboard?"
All three of us jump at the sound of Shepard talking to us. She appears to have come up on the elevator after us and we were so enthralled by the ship that we didn't hear her come up behind us.
"Um ya we were just about to do that." We mumble and start speed walking to the airlock. Looking over my shoulder I catch Shepard giving us a grin.
After decontamination we hear the door hiss as it open and I wonder what is in store for us as everything was unknown to me now. Well this ought to interesting at least. With that thought I walk onto the bridge and into the unknown.