Open Sesame
Many thanks to the Mass Effect Community on LiveJournal with regards to the Cipher. They gave me plenty of food for thought, and, thus, this chapter transformed from less than a paragraph into four pages.
Also: Grow, Love Polygon, grow!
"Oh." Her mouth was dry as dust. If only she could get some water.
Her stomach churned; her temples pounded, thunderous.
Thunder?
Her eyelids were heavy. She hung her head and closed them briefly blocking the unnatural blue before her. She smelled ozone, sulfur and mass accelerator vapor.
I don't feel rain.
She didn't know why there would be sulfur and mass accelerator vapor in the air. Memories drifted in and out, ghostly wisps, intangible. She was… floating?
"Where?" The word tumbled from her parched lips, lost in a slur.
Kinetic barrier inside the main structure. The barrier curtain thrummed in time with her pulse. Or maybe her pulse thrummed in time with the barrier's output.
Structure. What structure? The Akrotiri dig site. Therum! Memories soared to the surface of her mind's eye, clear and bright.
She scoffed. Humans. Here. What a vivid imagination… They never ventured here before. The humans always stay at camp.
"Dr. T'Soni."
They – they never… She was having difficulty holding her eyes open.
"Dr. T'Soni."
"My nose itches," she complained, blinking way the fog. It wasn't like anyone was around for her to complain to. "Dull stone," she reminded herself. The tickle started at her left nostril. If only she could reach it. But she couldn't because she'd hit something wrong and there were geth and they were going to get through and take her to Saren. Why did Saren want her? She didn't know anything about geth. She was just an archeologist.
"Dr. T'Soni."
"Stop calling my name," she groused, angered with the trick of her mind; angered that she could not have water and could not scratch her damn nose. It was hers to scratch, and she couldn't! "You aren't real. You are only bothering me." Tears prickled her eyes as anger gave way to despair. "I'm going to die here."
"Easy, doctor."
Her breath caught in her throat, her heart jolting in her chest. That… wasn't the same feminine voice as before. That was… It was a male voice. Why would she imagine a male voice? She turned her head as best should could. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of something.
Red armor, large, rept—
"Krogan!" Heart in her throat, filled with terror, she struggled against the field holding her. "No!"
How did they get in? How did they get past the curtains? She thought she was safe! Goddess, no! Nononono!
The krogan guffawed and stepped out of view. Terror surged through her, adrenaline renewing her energy. Her nervous system ignited, dark energy danced across her skin, but the field held her still.
"Someone help! Please!"
"Easy, doctor."
She looked down. There was a human – a male! "You're not geth."
The play of lines around the human's dark-colored eyes was intriguing as well as – Goddess, what thick brow hair. Eyebrows, she corrected herself. Humans call them eyebrows.
"No, ma'am," the human said, and his full lips caught Liara's attention—or rather the stubble surrounding them caught her attention. Hair is so… odd. "Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, System Alliance Marines."
Bwah?
Belatedly, Liara realized she had spoken. The staff lieutenant smiled. At least, she thought it was a smile. He bared his straight, white teeth. Whenever some species bared their teeth it was an act of aggression. She tried to remember what it meant with regards to humans.
"There's a krogan," she told him, frantically looking around for it. It was still out of view. Goddess, please let me out of here.
He nodded. Was… was that an affirmative? "Yes, ma'am."
"Here?"
His dark eyes shifted away, looking behind her. She shook, frightened. She didn't want the krogan to kill her. She didn't want the geth to take her away. "There's one here, Dr. T'Soni."
"It wants to take me to Saren!" She struggled against the field again. Her body was sore, her arms ached. She tried to generate a mass effect field big enough to stop it. This had to be a mercenary group or… or the humans were using the geth to their dirty ends. They were bullies, after all. They just came into the galaxy and started taking things. It would—
"No, ma'am." The staff lieutenant was calm, steady. "Just take it easy. We're here to get you out."
Liara swallowed, relinquishing the field. It hadn't done much, only made her skin shimmer.
She looked at the human with narrowed eyes. Just because she was young didn't mean she was born yesterday. Perhaps, perhaps should talk her way out of this. Right, Liara. Like you brilliantly talked yourself out of litigation with the hanar zealots.
"The krogan, Urdnot Wrex, is on our side," the human continued. "We're following leads on Saren. Investigating what he's up to. You know about the geth attack on one of our colonies?" News? He expected her to follow the news? She only had two weeks to prove this dig site had clues to the disappearance of the Protheans. Fffsh. News. He made a gesture with his head. "Commander?"
Another armored human stepped into view. This one was a little shorter than the staff lieutenant. Liara could only see the helmet, which was green and black with strange patterns. It was scored in places, and droplets of red wax splattered the face plate. The human looked up at her, and Liara's breath caught. She'd never seen a human with such eyes – copper but with flecks of green and gold. Like a var'dant gemstone.
"I'm Commander Shepard." It was the same voice as before—the one who called Liara's name. "Citadel Department of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."
Liara's jaw dropped. A Spectre? A human Spectre?
Oh, Goddess. "Now I know I'm going crazy."
Shepard's pale lips parted, and she bared her teeth, her round eyes tilting at the end. The commander's smile was more pleasant than the watching the staff lieutenant bare his teeth. Maybe it was the hair. Hair was so… alien.
"Tell me how to deactivate the field," she said. "When you're free, then maybe we can discuss how crazy you are."
Liara frowned at her. "You're rude for a hallucination."
"Yeah, well, you're trapped in some kind of Prothean field." Shepard pointed to the barrier curtain in front of them. "Geth are that way, and there's a cave-in." She pointed behind them. "I'm hoping that's the exit. We're on a timeline, Dr. T'Soni. I don't do well at button mashing."
"Yeah," another voice – female this time – supplied from behind them. "Things tend to explode."
Liara swallowed, closed her eyes to visualize the controls. The haptic interface of Prothean constructs was difficult to explain to someone who knew nothing about them. They were different from modern interfaces. She was certain that the human wouldn't understand the access code sequence. Not many did. Scholars had trouble some times. Modern tech had been simplified for everyday usage of more than a dozen difference species and languages. Then translators simplified and codified it into the galactic standard.
"Dr. T'Soni." Shepard's voice shook Liara out of her contemplation. "I need to know if it takes a standard s'loric or if there's anything else I need to do."
S'loric? Liara's eyes shot open, and she looked at Shepard in awe. She knew! She understood. Very few scholars understood. Liara had been trying to tell them for years.
But this human did.
Liara studied her. The commander's expression pulled taut the scar that ran perpendicular to her left eye and scored her pale-brown eyebrow. Liara found herself wanting to know the story of that scar. How had she gotten it? There were others on the lips and under the right eye. She wanted to know more about this human. Who was she?
"Standard," Liara said, and, as Shepard stepped out of her line of sight, Liara wanted to cry. She knew why Shepard understood, why there was an attraction. Because I'm imagining her. She isn't real. I'm trapped in here.
"Alenko, Garrus." Shepard's tone was different. Now Liara knew why her mind had called her Commander. It was like there were two humans sharing a body – one kind and gentle, the other abrasive and commanding. "Catch her when I turn off the field."
"Be careful, Commander. That looks ancient." Liara looked to her right in surprise. A turian? She peered at him, not recognizing the colonial markings across his nasal cavity and face plates. Turians had so many colonies. Why would she imagine one that she didn't know?
"Fifty thousand years," Shepard replied absently, and Liara tried to shift to see her imaginary savior.
"What was that word you used, Commander?" the staff lieutenant asked as he moved closer to Liara's left. "The translator didn't pick it up."
"It's a sequence of keystrokes," Shepard told him. "Basically: 'Open Sesame.'"
With that, the field melted away, and Liara plummeted with a scream into the staff lieutenant's arms.