eighteen

Rubbing her bruised wrist, Kat looked around the cavern, eyes flicking back and forth as she studied the ceiling and walls, the vague illumination of her tool and suit not enough to highlight the almighty pile of rock that would end it all. Would the barrier save her? Had the asteroid cracked? Oh, God. Had the creature outside started eating Rocky?

She pushed up to a sitting position and curled her lips toward the drinking tube. Sucked a bit of liquid into her mouth and swallowed. The water trickled down her insides, cool and wet. Her stomach stretched and growled.

"What's happening?" she ventured, her newly wetted throat capable of speech once more.

He had been curiously silent through the small quake, which sort of made sense. He probably had a hundred other things to do, being everywhere at once and all.

Was he really Anderson or Shepard? The idea he might be one or the other struck Kat with awe. They were men of legend, both. They and the entire crew of the Normandy. The Reaper War had raised countless heroes, most of them dead, and had changed the nature of the galaxy. People still fought, racial tension still snapped and flared, but there was a bigger bad out there and they all knew it. Sorta put shit in perspective.

Am attempting to contain the entity.

Attempting to. That didn't sound good. "Is it fighting you?" Did she really want the answer to that question?

In a manner of speaking.

"Hey, um, this might be a bad time, but did either of those names ring a bell?"

Another paused, then: Yes. Both of them.

"So, you're one of them?"

I was Shepard.

Wow.

Kat rubbed at her head, gloved fingers whispering through her dirty hair. She had got in the habit of keeping it short when she needed to wear an envirosuit day in, day out. No hair to tickle the back of her neck, no sweaty strands to cling to her cheeks, stuck somewhere that itched or just plain annoyed because she couldn't move it. She thought she had the features to pull off the short look, anyway. The boyish cut looked good on her. Made her striking. And there was something about cutting it at the end of a vacation. Watching another version of herself appear in the mirror. The work-self. The tall, badass merc engineer with eyes the colour of stone. She could be intimidating, which came in handy when her teammates got mouthy or grabby.

Shepard wouldn't care what she looked like, though. Hell, he probably didn't even have eyes. Or, a sense of visual acuity, or whatever. He was, well, she didn't know what he was. He was supposed to be dead.

I cannot believe I am sitting her talking to the greatest hero in the galaxy. John Shepard.

A faint smile crooked her lips as she thought over what she knew of the man, from the history books. He'd been a handsome bastard, that was an agreed upon fact. His methods were often called into question, but the fact he'd pretty much ended the war, done something up there in the Crucible that turned the Reapers into "sowers", sorta cleared the slate. The haters would always hate, but in general, the galaxy loved Shepard and honored his memory, still, two hundred and eleven years after his disappearance.

"They never found you," she said. "Your, ah, body. It was assumed you'd died when you did whatever it was you did that turned the Reapers away."

I did die. Then. When the Reapers turned away.

Eyes narrowing, Kat chewed over those words. When the Reapers turned away. There were as many theories as there were planets in the galaxy when it came to interpreting the event that ended the war, the Reapers withdrawing, being corralled by some mysterious force and then set to fix what they'd broken. Many thought it was Shepard, or his ghost. There were a dozen cults dedicated to different incarnations of Shepard after the war.

"Some people think you're a god," she said, her tone conversationally musing.

What do you think? came the unexpected response.

What did she think?

"Ah, well, I'm kinda blown away by the fact I'm even talking to you, for a start." She pressed her lips together and hummed. "No, I don't think you're a god." She didn't have it in her to be a religious nut, she liked all her vices too much. "But you're something extraordinary." Her lips curved. "Most of the histories agree on that point, by the way. You're…you're a hero, John Shepard." She shook her head. "Man, I hope this isn't some weird ass dream. Gonna be so pissed if I wake up and find…"

Her smile dropped away as if small fingers had tugged it from her face.

She would like to wake up and find Finch snoring next to her, as fantastic as it was to be talking with a ghost. With the greatest hero of all time, or the presence who claimed to have been…damn. As great as it was to talk to Shepard, and it had to be him, shit was too freaky otherwise, Kat had a secret person hidden deep inside who liked things to be as they should be. Maybe not so secret. She was an engineer, after all. Finch should be alive, she should be slurping up spicy noodles and tinkering with a pair of gloves, trying to jerry-rig some dumb circuits to imitate the sort of equipment she couldn't afford. Not chatting with the ghost of a hero while the octopus of doom slowly at the universe.

"What's happening outside?"

Trying to contain the entity.

"What are you?"

Another pause, then: I don't know.

"Can it punch through your, ah, skin?" Kat hadn't been able to, but she wasn't some sneaky black shit that had come out of nowhere. "Do you even know what it is?"

It came from the Bataille. Organic circuitry.

Cold fingers of dread danced down Kat's spine. Even as she tried to order her thoughts, she felt the tickle of suspicion. Two man team on a quiet project at the arse-end of the galaxy. Enough money to guarantee good techs, not quite enough to arouse suspicion. And they'd used mercs instead of an in-house team. She shook her head and then grabbed at the out cropping beside her, fingers sinking into the oddly cushioned substance of Shepard. Fuck, so weird. Kat blinked slowly until her head stopped spinning. The backlash of too many adrenaline surges, too many surprises, hunger and lack of proper sleep.

Two deep breaths and she was ready to think again. Organic circuitry. Did that mean the thing had a consciousness? Was it an AI or a VI?

"Is it stupid?"

No.

Fuck.

"Can you, shit, can you kill this thing?"

Yes. Trying to.

"I don't want to be eaten by the fucking octopus of doom, okay? It's already been a shitty day."

Despite the fear curling in her belly, Kat found a small smile. She was with the John Shepard. Of course he would kill it. That was what he did, right? Kick ass, take names and save the galaxy.