CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Truth Is Out There
With a reputation now beginning to emerge for the Normandy Crew, people began to turn to them for help with their…unusual problems.
A missing brother out in space? They would track him down.
A hostage situation involving more biotics? They could handle it and bring the good congressman back without a single casualty.
A desperate soldier wanting revenge on the scientists that made his platoon die? Don't worry, soldier…they'd make things right.
Therefore it wasn't any real surprise when Admiral Kohaku approached them, wanting to inquire about their services when they were at the Citadel again, dropping off Corporal Toombs, a man in desperate need of PTSD treatment. It had been a horrible story: Toombs was the only survivor of a thresher maw attack arranged by a shadowy organization called Cerberus and he'd wanted to get even with the scientists who'd carried the attack out. Now, though, an investigation of the organization would be underway.
"I promise you, sir. I'll make sure your story is heard." Emily Wong said, giving Toombs a gentle handshake, Kohaku watching with pride as the scientists were led away, Emily going with Toombs and the C-Sec psychological officers to take good care of him and ensure he got the treatment he needed.
"He'll be alright, now. The ghosts will go away at last." Shepherd reasoned before he saw the bearded admiral approaching him. Kohaku shook Shepherd's hand with a hearty handshake and a big smile almost as huge as his nose, his voice gruff but lovable as he grinned at them. "I'm sorry, you are?"
"Rear Admiral Kohaku. I've heard so much about your crew." He admitted, Shepherd smiling at this as he returned the handshake. "And from what I've seen, you're capable of doing great things."
"We do the best we can, sir." Shepherd insisted with a nod, looking back at the rest of the crew as they nodded in agreement, Grey standing by Liara as she held up a notepad full of drawings for him to examine, him nodding slightly in appreciation. "What can we help you with?"
"I was hoping to find somebody from the Alliance who could help me. And to see one of our own is in the Spectres is a breath of fresh air. We need people like yourself to deal with our…problems."
"Like…what?"
"I'm getting stonewalled by bureaucratic assholes."
"So business as usual?" Ashley chuckled slightly, Kohaku nodding in agreement.
"Quite. And I think you can help me. One of my recon teams was investigating strange activity out in the Traverse, out in the Artemis Tau cluster. I lost contact yesterday, and I can't get access to where they were. It's been closed off, a "restricted area"…"
"But a spectre like me can go anywhere he pleases." Shepherd reasoned with a smile, giving Kohaku a salute. "We'll do all we can to bring your boys home, you've my word on that."
"Thank you, commander. I appreciate this. I was running out of options." Admiral Kohaku admitted. "I'll stay here and wait for your return."
As the group left, they headed back for the elevator, intent on getting to the Normandy, unaware of form watching them from a catwalk high above. He rested his three-fingered hands upon the railing, smiling slightly at the Normandy crew as they made their way into the elevator. "Just what I was hoping for. They'll be on their way to the planet Edolus soon. Off to help those poor souls. Just can't resist, can you?"
He quickly began typing into his omni-tool, beeping and pinging rising up from a secure and encrypted communications channel. "Let our friends know they need to leave. And ready the transmission for the distress signal. We'll see how they handle what our loyal dog left behind and then we shall lure them to me."
…
…
…
…the planet of Edolus was not inhabitable in the slightest. With its wide deserts of silicate sand that cut and sliced their way into unfortunates who weren't properly armored, and the choking, harsh wind that would pound away at you almost as badly as the constant meteor showers from debris up in the planet's stratosphere, it was a hateful planet to land on.
The constant thumping sound of meteors crashing into the planet around them as they took the MAKO across the ugly brownish-green terrain of Edolus had the crew on edge as they fidgeted in their seats, Kaiden turning from piloting the thing to the others, seeing their expressions. "I don't like it either, but we're almost at the distress signal's location. Just a few more minutes and we should be fine."
"Everything about this planet is ugly and loud." Liara admitted as she cringed, the MAKO continuing its long trek towards the distress signal, Liara holding her head in her hands with a sigh. "Even through this vehicle I can-"
A loud crashing of thunder and heavy vibrations threatened to rip the MAKO apart, a meteor had landed only a few yards or so away from them, and they all clung to their seats save for Wrex, who laughed at this, shaking his head back and forth. "Ha ha ha ha! Now that'll wake you up!"
"You're not nervous anymore?" Garrus said with an intrigued look.
"No…truth be told, being this close to death kind of excites me." Wrex intoned. "We're on a planet where we could be killed at any time. Every minute we're alive is a spit in its face and in the face of death. I LIKE it." He said with a big, s—t eating grin.
"When you put it like that, I think I can agree." Garrus admitted as the MAKO finally came to a halt, Kaiden peering through the visor of the vehicle, eyes narrowing at the sight off in the distance. There was indeed a tubular distress beacon by a small crashed shuttle, still giving off the signal and, tragically, with bodies littering the ground. Kaiden sighed as he shook his head back and forth, turning to Shepherd.
"I'm afraid we'll only have bad news to give to Kohaku. The platoon seems to be dead." He remarked, everybody getting out of the MAKO, heading for the fallen soldiers as Grey shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself and shivering.
"Uggghhhhh. I gotta baaaaaaad feeling about this." He murmured softly as they walked towards the nearest soldier, looking him over, turning the body on its side to examine it as Grey rubbed his chin. "Looks like…acidic burns. Like somebody tossed a bunch of caustic-who could do that? No, not "who", "what"?" He inquired before the ground about them began to shake and Wrex's eyes went wide.
"Thresher Maw!" He roared out, pointing back at the vehicle as a horrific, towering worm with nightmarish, horrific tentacle mandibles lashing out at them rose high from the ground behind them. "Everyone back to the MAKO!"
"You get in the vehicle, we shall endeavor to distract it!" Liara proclaimed as she, Kaiden and Grey raced off with Shepherd, Ashley, Tali, Garrus and Wrex making for the vehicle. Liara and Kaiden's body glowed with biotic power, the disgusting alien worm that was the thresher maw hissing and snarling at them with its four piercing, slitted, bright blue eyes. It had a long, ugly blue tongue that was forked at the end like a snake, the same color as its eyes and two long appendages with thick spikes at the end, "arms" meant to pierce its prey and hold it steady. It then spat at them, hocking a disgusting ball of oozing, pulsating green glob of acid from its titular maw, all of them diving out of the way as the acid burned at where they'd been a moment ago.
It stank even through their helmets, Shepherd gagging in disgust. It was like somebody had left battery acid out to rot and mixed it in with three-day-old diapers. He reeled back, firing off his assault rifle at the thing as it peppered the things armored hide, the thresher maw roaring in his direction. Kaiden and Liara, still glowing bright blue, fired off a potent blast of biotic might, two psychic forces striking the maw and making it reel back, slinking into the ground to tunnel about.
"Run!" Shepherd cried, all of them barreling away, not wanting to be next to other people so the Thresher maw could pick them off more easily. The beast finally popped from the ground like a psychotic gopher near Shepherd, an appendage narrowly missing him as Grey had an idea, quickly typing into his omni-tool as Wrex got to work powering up the MAKO's cannon. "Whatever you're up to, do it quickly!" The commander cried at Grey.
Grey gave him a smile, pressing the omni-tool as music began to loudly play, bombastic and powerful, the worm stiffening suddenly, lowering itself as Grey approached and began to climb on top, making his way up the thing's back. All of them gaped at the sight, the triumphant score filling the air as Grey held his fists high, roaring to the heavens. "FATHER!" He cried out. "FATHER! THE SLEEPER HAS AWAKENED!"
"He IS the Muad'Dib…" Kaiden murmured, Grey now standing tall atop the thresher maw's head as he nodded at the MAKO, hopping off…the worm standing there for its master as the MAKO blasted the thing's head into a bloody, disgusting pulp, the beast flopping to the ground with a crash as Grey groaned, dusting worm goop off his armored body.
"Yecccchhhhh…" He moaned. "Disgusting…I gotta take a bath with Lysol just to get this stuff off."
"I didn't know you'd seen "Dune"…" Kaiden remarked as he approached Grey, who looked surprised that Kaiden knew of the famous film, the medic beaming broadly.
"Oh, I LOVE those old sci-fi films. Practically grew up on them. It was my dad that got me into Dune, though."
"Really? Mine too." Kaiden admitted with a smile, putting a hand out. "Have to say, that was pretty damn impressive." He told the medic as Grey shook his hand. "You continue to impress."
"I don't suppose you could impress us more by…well…" Liara sighed as she knelt by one of the bodies who hadn't been disturbed by their fight, turning him onto his back, the soldier's eyes sightlessly staring up at nothingness.
"You mean bring them back from the dead?" Grey said, his smile fading as he hung his head in shame and knelt by the dead soldier, putting a hand on the man's chest, biting into his lip. "I've…tried. Several times before, year after year. There was a point when it worked, oh-so-long ago, I…I saved a girl's life, but ever since then, it ain't worked right for me. Didn't work before when Saren's brother was-"
"Saren's brother?" Tali asked, Grey cringing.
"My, uh…my dad tried to save Desolas Arterius's life, but it didn't work. Somehow he was too far gone. Sometimes it feels like the universe doesn't want me or my family to succeed. I mean, don't you think I didn't try to bring Nihlus and Jenkins back?"
Shepherd looked slightly ashamed. He could see the hurt in Grey's eyes. So much power, the ability to do so much, yet the one thing he truly, really wanted which could do the greatest good of all? He couldn't do.
"All I can do is pray they're in a better place." The medic murmured.
"And avenge their deaths." Liara remarked quietly, going over to the distress signal, a dark glint in her eyes as the others gazed at her, Wrex, Ashley and Garrus getting out of the MAKO, looking confused.
"Avenge?" Shepherd inquired as he approached the distress beacon as well, Liara pulling off a small panel. "What do you mean?"
"The distress beacon's message lured them here but it's got something hidden on a secret frequency. Look." She said, pointing at the blue display screen above the panel she'd pulled off, wavy lines shimmering up and down. "There's an additional line here, an added frequency that shouldn't be there." Liara informed them all as she took out her omni-tool and waved it in front of the panel, capturing data from the beacon as her eyes narrowed even further. "Frequency of 90 kilohertz. Humans cannot hear above 20."
"But Thresher Maws can." Wrex growled out, slamming his fist into his palm. "These men were lured into a thresher maw trap like Corporal Toomb's men were for that "Cerberus" organization."
"How much you wanna bet they were behind this?!" Ashley growled, folding her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing. "These people are sick. They need to be put down like the dogs they are. Maybe next time we should reconsider the pacifist approach."
"I'm beginning to be tempted, I admit." Shepherd admitted as he looked down at the dead soldiers about them. "…we've got to get them home for a proper burial. Let's contact Joker, tell him to land the Normandy nearby and bring them to Kohaku. He would want to send them off."
"Captain! We got a problem!" Joker's voice announced over the communications system. "We're getting a distress call directly from the Hydra system. They specifically requested us."
"Us?" Shepherd inquired, feeling suspicion rise. "What's the call?"
"Patching it through."
Sacred Angel medical transport sending a distress call to Normandy Crew! Critcal system failure, losing power, crashing down on Metgos! Please assist! I'm a Quarian, I won't survive a critical suit breach!"
Tali gasped. "A fellow quarian in danger? Oh no. Ohhh no. Metgos is completely inhospitable, Shepherd. With the heat-trapping clouds that make up its atmosphere, the continuous volcanic venting on the planet and enormous mass, the place is a giant pressure cooker! He'll get broiled alive!"
"We'd better hurry, then. If it is a trap, we'll just stay in the MAKO so no thresher maws can try to catch us off guard the way this one did." Shepherd reasoned. "And I'll have Joker close by, having the Normandy provide additional support."
"Clever, commander." Liara complimented with a nod of her head. "It pays to be cautious."
"If it IS a thresher maw again, though…" Kaiden added, holding a hand up. "…Grey, could you, perhaps…let me ride atop it with you?"
"Buddy, all you had to do was ask." Grey said with a big, beaming smile.
A FEW HOURS LATER…
Metgos was a dark, murky planet, the skies clouded over as if God himself wished to smother the damn thing and kill it before it could reach the rest of the galaxy. The ground beneath the all-terrain assault vehicle that was the MAKO was gravely and as ugly as the jagged mountainsides all about them, the air hot and sickening. They drove towards the transponder signal, ugly, black clouds being sprayed up into the air as they made their way over hill and dale towards the signal.
Up and down, up and down, it did lead them up and down. They finally could see it in the distance, a crashed ship with a single transponder beacon set up at the edge of the crashed transport ship blinking softly with a faint reddish tinge. "Looks like the signal is coming from that wreckage." Tali remarked, driving the MAKO this time as she glanced about. "Something isn't right, though."
"This planet wouldn't support a thresher maw." Wrex murmured as he scratched his head. "They'd get burnt up in the ground below. They never go near the volcanic regions of my home planet, after all. What few there are."
"Tuchanka used to be a very pretty place, from what I have heard." Liara admitted as Wrex nodded at her.
"Got it in one. It was real relaxing at one point, so say all the tales of my ancestors. Then it all went to crap when we started fighting each other with the big guns." Wrex said as he waved a gauntleted hand in the air, making a "boooom" sound to indicate a nuclear weapon exploding, spreading his hands wide to imitate said explosion. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, it turned half the planet into rust."
"My planet, regrettably, was stolen from my ancestors. I yearn for the day I can take it back. If I could only find something worthwhile to take back to the Flotilla, then-" Tali began to mournfully remark before she gasped. "OH! I see a Quarian in the wreckage!" She cried out. "We might have made it in time!"
All of them halted the MAKO, racing out of it and making their way towards the wreckage of the crashed transport ship as Shepherd led the way, all of them getting closer and closer towards the transport…
But then the ground around them suddenly shifted, and little stubby machines popped up, a powerful bluish/green shield being erected around them, cutting them off from the MAKO. They were now all imprisoned them within 10 yards of the transport ship as the Quarian, who's back had been turned to them all, rose from the chair he was in, speaking with an odd, slightly damaged voice that didn't sound quite right.
"It has been a long time coming, but at last. I get the chance to meet you. Face…"
He turned around.
"To face."
The quarian was dressed in green and blue attire, in the typical appearance of his species, with deep blue gloves and boots and a belt to match. Several clasps held an insignia across the space on his chest where his heart was, and the insignia was clearly that of Earth, with more vibrant shades of green and blue than the quarian himself had. His helmet had piercing blue highlights with a silver and grey frontal rim, the cover to his "face" pitch black with one piercing white eye gazing out…and the other?
The other half of his face was a pure horror show, revealing scars that had burnt into his scalp, blackening veins, peeling away muscle around his mouth, turning his eye into nothing but a disgusting red vacancy that somehow gazed deep into your soul with even more intensity than the pure white of the other eye. A horrifically terrifying smile stretched across his face, the quarian putting a hand on his chest as he gave a bow. "It's a pleasure to meet the crew of the Normandy…and to meet you, Mr. Grey."
Grey stiffened as the Quarian rose up and stared into his eyes. "You're…you're that "Machinist" that the others mentioned, aren't you? Who else would be so interested in me?"
"You ARE keen! Themis Nar'Varra the Machinist at your service!" The quarian laughed, clapping his gloved hands together and then whistling sharply, all of them gasping as Geth began to emerge from the ground, popping up like zombies rising from the grave. Two towering robotic armatures, four regular troopers, and two rocket-wielding geth were now facing all of them down from all sides, the Quarian smiling broadly. "Your ability is, to put it bluntly, fascinating to me. I want to study you. Find out what makes you tick. Now you can come quietly, or, well…your friends are going to be made most "unhappy"." He intoned, clasping his hands together and giving a calm nod.
"So you can what, take it for yourself?" Grey growled as he glanced at the others, who all looked back at him. He just had to keep stalling. Tali was hiding behind Garrus…typing into her omni-tool whilst the Quarian focused on speaking to the medic. "Look, I don't know what you think you know, but believe me when I tell you: it wouldn't work. There's nothing inherent in my DNA or anything, it's like a part of my spirit, my soul. Or are you too scientific and detached to believe tha-"
"I don't want it for myself." The Machinist remarked, waving a hand in the air. "Haven't you wondered where your powers come from? I need to prove my theory that it is dark energy that grants you your powers and to do that, I must thoroughly examine you in my laboratory."
"It's not dark energy. If it was, I'd know." Grey groaned. "Dark energy doesn't let you manipulate reality itself the way I can! Don't lie to me!"
"The dark energy the rest of the galaxy knows is just a scratching of the surface. They've been children at the seashore, the ocean of truth not yet discovered." The Machinist chuckled softly. "But frankly, I'm surprised you have the nerve to call ME a liar when your very existence is stolen. You're a fraud."
"And YOU'RE DUST." Tali cried out, finishing typing into her omni-tool, the shield evaporating as the Geth were taken aback, Wrex and Garrus firing off their shotguns as the two rocket-wielding Geth dropped. Shepherd and Ashley dove for the rockets, Kaiden and Liara erecting a shield around the two as the armatures blasted away, trying to obliterate the two humans whilst Grey and Tali whipped out their pistols, firing at the geth troopers to force them back.
The Machinist "harrumphed", heading back inside the wreckage of the transport ship, picking up a small device and typing away into the keypad on it as a faint bluish light surrounded him, Grey gasping as the Machinist briefly turned back, unmistakably winking at him with his one good eye before vanishing. "A…teleporter?!" He gasped out.
"That's impossible! Teleportation technology doesn't exist!" Tali exclaimed as they dove behind a nearby rock, taking cover from geth trooper fire as Grey clutched his Paladin pistols tightly.
"Evidently his title isn't for nothing, he must be decades ahead of everyone else." Grey reasoned as he ducked to avoid a shot from a trooper, a rocket fired from Ashley taking down one of the Geth armatures, making it blow apart into pieces as Shepherd dove away from the other's pulsating plasma blast. Garrus had finished off the former-rocket-wielding Geth with Wrex by his side, and now Wrex headbutted one of the geth troopers clear through the air, making it go flying like a football as Garrus shoved a shotgun butt so far into another trooper, it broke the thing's head into little pieces. The armature tried to fire at the group again, but Liara and Kaiden held their hands up, the glowing might of biotic glory halting the plasma burst where it was.
Popping their heads out from behind cover, Grey and Tali fired on the two remaining troopers as Shepherd's rocket took out the last of the armatures, and they all breathed a sigh of relief as the geth crashed to the ground, finally destroyed. Grey grunted as he put his pistols away, dusting himself off. "Well, it wasn't a thresher maw, at least."
"Do you think he might be right?" Tali inquired, scratching her head as she looked at the medic, Shepherd walking over to him. "What if it IS a form of dark energy? And why did he call you a fraud?"
Grey bit his lip before looking down at the omni-tool around his hand…quickly taking it off, tossing it to the side as it coughed and spluttered before the lights upon it faded. "Now they can't hear."
"You KNEW the council was trying to spy on you?" Shepherd inquired.
"Yeah. Look, I'm…I'm not "Grey". My name's Nicholas. Nicholas Michael Grey. I pretended to be his son to get the Council to stop trying to kill me. They were afraid of my skill, afraid of what might happen. As Nicholas, I was too dangerous. As his young, impressionable son, they could mold me into making me do stuff for them."
"But to be him, you'd…you'd have to be years older than you-" Shepherd began to say before Grey held a hand up.
"Wrex…shoot me."
"What?" Wrex asked, tilting his head slightly to the side in confusion.
"Shoot me in the head. Right through my helmet." Grey insisted, Wrex giving him a "are you insane" look, shaking his head back and forth as the others glanced about at each other.
"I'm not gonna do that, kid. What kind of lunatic do you think I am?!" The krogan asked, Grey shrugging as he reached up for the side of his helmet, Shepherd realizing what he was about to do.
"No! You can't breathe in this environment, you'll-"
"Trust me. And don't. do. anything." Grey insisted, and with a POP, the helmet came off. His body took in a few breaths of the air, and then his form began to quiver, Grey coughing and spluttering, hacking and wheezing, eyes bulging out, blood spraying forth from his mouth to splatter on the ground as he let out a horrific rattle…
He fell to the ground with a THUD, everyone gasping or cringing in horror as Shepherd knelt by him, Liara's eyes wide in sheer terror as Shepherd held the young man's head in his lap, looking mournfully down at the medic. "No…why did…why did you do that?" He whispered, shaking his head back and forth, feeling the urge to cry rise in him. "Kid, why did-"
And then he saw it. The kid's eyes fluttered back open, and he coughed a bit, spluttering slightly before standing up and putting his helmet back on, panting in deep breaths before taking a deep, long sigh. The others gazed at this, mouth hanging open, Shepherd's hand flying to his mouth in shock as Grey spread his arms wide.
"I can't die." He admitted. "I don't get old and I don't die. And I can manipulate reality around me with song. I'm…magic." Grey remarked. "I'm from a whole other realm, Shepherd. A realm where everything you and the others did is…well, a story. An amazing story. I'm here to help you get through it, to help you save as many lives as you can and to make sure innocent people who might have otherwise died…well, DON'T." The medic admitted as he put his hands on his chest and smiled warmly. "I right what was made wrong. I fix things. It's what I do!"
Shepherd held his head in one hand, taking in deep, long breaths, struggling to comprehend all this as Liara walked over to Grey, looking him over as if in a new light. "You're truly from a different dimension, is that it? Living proof of string theory, this…this is fascinating! No wonder the Machinist wanted you, you could change everything we know about the universe!
"Ohh, no, no, no." Grey said, holding his hands up and shaking it back and forth. "Look, a lot of people might be willing to buy the idea that I'm essentially magical. They might be able to accept that I'm here to help. They might be eager to have me do what nobody else can. But enough people would freak out if they found out everything that's happening is just a story to somebody else in a different dimension. They might think it destroys their free will, that they're just the playthings of others, they wouldn't accept that the decisions they make matter more than they think."
"It doesn't?" Garrus asked with a wry smirk.
"Nah. Every dimension, every realm, is "real", we just don't realize it. We think we've created it when its more like…we discovered something that was always there." Grey reasoned. "There's a lot of ways your stories could end, but I wanna see it end as happily as it can…and that means Reaper-free. But…" He hesitated. "Me simply being here has an effect on the universe. It kinda influences people. It's meant to bring out the best in their potential, but I think it also inadvertently creates people like that Machinist. A parasite leeching off the good I bring out."
"He doesn't scare me." Shepherd reasoned, shaking his head back and forth as he stood up, slamming his fist into his palm. "And neither do the Reapers. You say you're only here to help, and from everything I saw with you at the Blitz and with what we've done so far, I believe it. I don't even care if we're real or not. The danger we face, that feels real enough to me. And we need to stop it. We need to stop the Reapers. You can give us a new edge we'd never have had before."
"I'm yours, commander." Grey said with a salute, giving him a big smile. "You say "jump", I'll say "how high"?"
"One thing, though…" Shepherd asked. "…why did the Machinist call you "fraud"?"
Grey looked down at the ground, his face pale as he held his hands over his face.
"…please don't tell Lucas about this conversation. Because…I…it's just…"
"What?"
"…in order for me to get here, I had to take the life of someone else. The "real" Nicholas Michael Grey died over a 140 years ago saving his cousin from falling off a cliff in Vermont. He died on Okemo that day Lucas McKay was frozen in the ice, I'm…I'm just stealing his life. I was gonna tell Lucas one day, but its been so long, and…" He trailed off. "…he looks at me like I'm Superman. I don't want to tell him I've stolen his real cousin's life just so I can keep a close eye on the only tether to my family I have in this world. He's all I got and I don't wanna drive him away."
"…we won't tell him." Shepherd reasoned, putting a hand on the medic's shoulder, giving him a look. "But you'll have to yourself, eventually. Honesty really is the best policy. No more secrets, alright?"
"Anything you want to know, I'll tell you." Grey…no, NICK, said, giving him a nod.
"I got a question." Ashley asked, rubbing the back of her neck. "You know about your "story", so I wanna know…in the future, uh…does Udina ever get shut up?"
Nick grinned. "Anderson punches him out. Down he goes, like Liston."
"There IS a God." Kaidan cheerily remarked.
…
…
…
… "She's going into labor."
Saren rested his head in his hands, taking in deep, nervous breaths as Themis approached him from behind, hands behind his back as they stood within Sovreign. The masked, scarred Quarian raised a nonexistent eyebrow up as he looked Saren over, an amused expression coming to his face.
"You truly do care for her. Aren't you afraid of the world you're leaving behind?"
"As long as I'm there with our child…as long as WE are there, then I do not truly fear for them. We will make this work. We will make it right. Tell me…" Saren turned around, arms folded across his chest. "You're positive?"
"One Shine knows another, as the saying goes. It IS an ability like my own. Same power source, but manifested differently."
"Then you know you too will one day be destroyed."
"Yes." Themis admitted as he shrugged. "But its what my family line would have wanted. They were big on the idea of self-sacrifice for the greater good. Especially my grandpa's brother. He'd be real proud of me. He'd understand that dark energy users are killing this universe."
He turned, staring out at a window nearby at the enormous expanse of space, placing a gloved hand against it as his tone became softer and solemn.
"He'd understand that we all have to die."