ALPHA CITADEL

THE VOID

SYSTEM INAPPLICABLE

OCTOBER 2188

HE AWOKE from a sleep that had been a blank state to an empty corridor in a place with no sound. Climbing to his feet Javik took stock and surmised correctly that he was now in the other Citadel of which the ancient recordings had spoken. Through a large window he saw his newly-acquired ship moored safely outside. He did not recall doing it himself and then realized that he could recall nothing after the ship had sounded an alert of an incoming attack. There was also something… a Prothean… female?

No. He must be delusional even if his surroundings were real enough. Too much strangeness. He checked himself for injuries and could find none. A keeper appeared from an access in the wall opposite him then stopped and regarded him for a moment before moving on. The air smelled strangely of the incense one smelled in an ancient temple when so much of it had been burned so often that everything within had been permeated with the scent. Burnt flowers. Burnt hemeli'tilii flowers from the dried seabeds of Homnlias, the colony world he had lived on when he'd been a youngling.

How very odd.

Javik looked out over his ship trying to see if it had sustained any damage but could see none. Beyond the ship he could see the ward stretch out – and out and out and out. The place was sparsely lit with no ships moving. He heard a buzz up the corridor from where he stood but the noise was not repeated. Behind him - in his own dead language - he could have sworn he'd heard the phrase "My heart has known you yet it despairs still," a line from an poem ancient even in his time. It too was not repeated and he heard no more. He shook his head wondering if he really were going mad then scuffed a foot on the floor. It felt real enough. A self-inflicted cuff to his face verified that reality.

"Hello?" he tried, expecting nothing. Louder. Then he bellowed it and waited.

Silence was his only reply. Muttering under his breath Javik assessed his location. Apparently near a docking bay, his ship an indeterminate number of levels down from his present location. He stepped to a door and found it closed. There was no panel and nothing that allowed access to manual overrides. The door itself seemed to have been fixed into its frame as if meant to be permanently closed. He proceeded down the corridor and a survey of the thirteen other doors in this direction showed them all in a similar state.

How then - he justly wondered - did he arrive on this level at all?

Javik reversed course and proceeded back the way he'd come, testing new doors as he went and finding like the previous, locked and fixed. As he went he noted the smell of burnt flowers growing stronger and frowned. At door number twenty-one and a half-hour of fruitless investigation, he stopped and realized he would need a different mode of exit. At the moment nothing presented itself and Javik again pondered why the Keepers would be sealing off a section this large. His keen senses detected nothing inimical to himself - no thinning air, no noxious gases.

Behind him, he once again thought he heard a female voice sing a line from the Krissal'wahimaitel – "Tale of the Five Lancers". It told of five famous warriors marching to their deaths because they'd been indoctrinated. Within each valiant warrior had been implanted a magnetic device that held a micro-singularity. The song then told of each boldly going inside Reaper superstructures to kill the infernal machines. It was only a small victory amidst massive futility, but it had been seen as inspiring. Strange that he'd think of that now. He was so far away from that so long ago. The female's voice was plaintive and sweet, yet strong and proud of those marching Lancers and he strained to hear another verse, her voice fading. As stoic as he was – or at least appeared to be – Javik longed for things yet, things that could never be, things he wished he had not outlived.

To his left a door sliced silently open and a Keeper clacked through and he cursed himself for becoming so distracted. It sliced shut and as quickly as he could he went to the door, pulled off the panel that controlled the mechanism, hoping to negate whatever it was the Keeper did to lock all the others down. Deftly he began to sever connections.

On the other side of the door, the Keeper ran a bypass on the door that was meant to seal it then integrated an anti-tampering protocol before sealing the panel and moving on. The section needed to be isolated and isolated it would be.

The Prothean working on the mechanism on his side of the door failed to notice the change.

The resulting feedback of the anti-tampering protocol sent a massive electrical pulse through the door and into Javik, flinging him as if he'd been punched by a giant electrical fist into the far wall to crumple in the corridor.

The faint echo of the song of the valiant ones floated up the corridor, seemed to linger over his crumpled form and then slowly faded out.

"So… what's she like?"

"To which 'she' are you referring?" Shepard had found some clothes in an old storage locker that were slightly too large for him with a design faintly reminiscent of an old style military uniform but he'd managed to cinch it tightly enough to make it comfortable. The gloves and the boots fit perfectly though and that made him wonder. When asked for an explanation as to the stores Mulholland simply explained that the station had been around a long time and had been rediscovered many times in the past. He'd shrugged and dressed himself.

"The woman foremost in your mind. I could see her when I was …explaining things." She smiled. "The heavily-inked one. Didn't think that was your style."

"Jack." Shepard smiled to himself. "Yeah, she rather handily defies any easy explanation."

"Don't get me wrong. She's certainly attractive enough. Had a few issues..."

Shepard's eyes flashed and his voice hardened.

"She earned those issues. It has nothing to do with her looks."

Her hands came up defensively.

"Not judging, Vicky. Not judging."

"Don't call me 'Vicky' - I hated it then and I hate it now." He growled. Mulholland laughed.

"That's why your Amy did it, dumbass."

"Dumbass I can tolerate." Shepard told her as she laughed harder. He asked her after her laughter had subsided, "Did you have a Shepard from wherever you came from? I mean the Amy not overlaid with the memories of the one I knew."

"I did," she said, sobering. "But I only ever saw him on the history vids. He was the Captain of the Reckless Adventurer. It was a prototype starship that was supposed to find out what lay beyond our space. Our scientists figured out where we actually were a long time ago. The ship used its experimental Fold System and disappeared. Never returned." She shrugged. "That was over three hundred years ago, though."

Shepard stopped. Three hundred years ago the island of Krakatoa exploded. The US government allowed corporations to legally discriminate based on 'race' and North America created time-zones. None of which he recalled witnessing personally.

"How is that possible?"

"Time flows differently in Transverse space. In one pocket it can move very slowly in comparison to the universe at large, in another more quickly. I don't even pretend to understand it."

"Remind me where we were going, exactly?" Shepard asked, absently noting one of the corridor lights had gone out.

"To find Jack – who was the subject of a question you avoided rather adroitly I might add."

Shepard rolled his eyes.

"Jack and I… I can't really explain it in a way that would make sense to anyone who doesn't know us well."

"In other words, no one." Mulholland smiled, although thanks to the aforementioned 'overlay' of the other Mulholland she knew him as well as anyone.

"Something like that. I can't explain it to myself really. Don't really need to – or want to. I know how I feel about her and how she makes me feel and that's enough. We don't rush one another. How she appears to the universe and what she allows me to see are two utterly different things. The hardass buttkicker I respect. The woman underneath I love." He smiled again. "And vice-versa."

Mulholland gave him a long look and then patted him on the shoulder.

"I'm glad you've found someone. The other Amy thought you didn't have it in you. Incapable of it, to be blunt."

"I was." He told her as bluntly. "I thought everything in me that made me a human being had died on Mindoir then got finished off on Torfan. When I died over Alchera I was happy to go. When I was revived, well, I resented the hell out of it. As odd as that sounds. Who wouldn't want a second chance at life?"

"And then?"

"Then… Jack. Her ink was a defence and a way of reinventing herself – or in her case inventing herself as something new, something not a Cerberus weapon. I started to see – because of her – that I didn't have to be that Victor Shepard, the Butcher. I had the chance to be a different Shepard." He scoffed at himself. "At first I fell into the old patterns, almost got swayed by the Illusive Man's bullshit. But every time Jack was there to remind me to see past the polish and blather." His smile was grim, this time. "The histories all portray her as this 'broken thing' I supposedly saved. Not a chance. She's the single strongest person I've ever met. All the hell she'd been through, rape and torture and betrayal after betrayal…" he shook his head as if he still didn't quite believe it and sounded almost awed. "Yet… hell, I don't know."

"She held on." Mulholland finished for him quietly. He looked at her for a long moment then smiled slightly with a thoughtful air.

"Yeah… whatever the hell it means - I think… I know… she saved me." He shook his head as yet awed by the idea. "All that shit she went through and she still took the chance with me as empty as I felt."

"Two broken people whose pieces fit together." Mulholland supplied. Shepard chuckled as he remembered something he'd told Jack long ago. Something about "lovely stained-glass boxes".

"I guess it's as good an analogy as any," he agreed as they turned into a new set of corridors. Mulholland turned to go through a door and had to pull back before running into it as it refused to open.

"This is new…"

Shepard ran his omnitool over the door.

"Sealed tight. Also welded shut from the looks of it." A quick jog up and down the corridor showed the rest of the doors in a likewise condition, including the one they'd initially passed through to enter this section.

"Well why not?" Shepard huffed at the door Mulholland had stayed at as he investigated. "The day was heading this way anyway, right?"

"Don't look at me!" Mulholland protested at the look he gave her. "I'm as mortal as you are. Can't magick them open, sorry."

"Lousy timing," he growled at her half-heartedly, wanting to punch something. All this inexplicableness was far past being a pain in his ass.

Mulholland waved him up the corridor.

"There might be open ones up ahead – unless they're closing the whole section off." She started walking briskly.

"Why would they do that?" he asked, matching her stride, not really expecting an answer. She shrugged again.

"Couldn't tell you. Could be any number of reasons."

They walked on and every door they encountered had been sealed solidly. Turning a corner showed only another long corridor. Up ahead they could see a figure laying limply across the floor. The smell of ozone and cooked circuitry lingered.

"Friend of yours?" Mulholland inquired. Shepard set off a trot and she followed.

"After the last how many hours," Shepard said with a huff of air, "I wouldn't be a bit surprised."

The Universe moved in mysterious ways. Shepard skidded to a halt. At his feet lay his first and only Prothean friend. No longer surprised by much here, Shepard knelt and ran his omnitool over the supine Javik. Mulholland knelt by Shepard and examined the Prothean for herself.

"Any injuries?"

Shepard glanced up at her as his omnitool cycled through the medical diagnostic. 'Neural interference brought on by interaction with robust energy discharge, residual implies electrical in nature, non-lethal. Recommend local administration of neural cleanser and stimulant.' the scan told him.

"Nothing life-threatening. He took a helluva jolt, though." He applied the cleanser and stimulant. "Javik's physiology is pretty robust according to Chakwas. My scan says he should come around soon enough."

Shepard stood back to his full height, deactivated the omnitool.

"Check that door. I'm assuming that's the one that fried my friend here."

Mulholland examined it, nodded as she did.

"Anti-tamper charge. I bet it kicked."

"Looks more like a mugging." he told her to her smile. He wasn't worried about Javik. "Let's try a few doors before he wakes up. Shouldn't be long with the stim."

Even as they turned to begin, at his feet the Prothean stirred with a groan and came awake with one hand going to his head. His eyes opened and focused unsteadily. All four at last focused on the man before him.

"So, Javik - what the hell are you doing here?" Shepard asked him with a crooked smile. Javik's eyes widened in surprise.

"C-commandah…? I do not know…"

Shepard held out a friendly hand which Javik took to be hauled to his feet. Javik focused, smiled slightly then shook the hand he still held heartily. This 'primitive' was one worthy of great respect.

"How did you arrive?" Javik asked him, to Shepard's chuckle.

"Unexpectedly." He indicated his companion. "This is Amy Mulholland, an old friend of mine. Amy, this is Javik."

"I know," Mulholland said, then frowned slightly.

"This section is being sealed, Commandah, if it hasn't been already." Javik said, gesturing to the door that had knocked him out.

"We noticed although we managed to avoid the AT device." Shepard said lightly.

Javik shook his head, still slightly woozy.

"The Keeper."

"Naturally. Any idea why they might be sealing this area?" Shepard activated his omnitool again to take a scan of the environment. Nothing harmful in the air, no indication of breaches or fires or toxins.

"No, Commandah. I arrived here as unexpectedly as yourself."

Shepard turned to Mulholland.

"Part of their plan?" He jerked his head at the ceiling. Again she shrugged.

"Nothing they told me."

"Javik," Shepard returned his attention to his Prothean friend, who braced himself against a wall, his brain still fuzzy. "What happened before you got here?"

"I found a ship of my people, Commandah. I then discovered records indicating there were more than one Citadel. I was returning to Earth when I was attacked. I awoke here."

"Attacked? By whom?"

"That I do not know, although I would recognize them should I see them again."

Shepard glanced back at Mulholland.

"This 'Pandemonia' of yours?"

"Not mine," she answered, " but possible."

"Pandemonia?" Javik enquired. Shepard shook his head.

"It's a long story. I'll give you the details when we get out of here. You said you had a ship?"

"I discovered it on Ilos. My people built well. It is the equivalent to one of your frigates."

"That's a break," Shepard told him with new enthusiasm. "Provided we can get to it."

Mulholland coughed into her hand, drew their attention.

"Are we forgetting that there are other doors likely being sealed as we chatter on?"

Shepard looked faintly chagrined as he nodded.

"Shit – of course." He turned to Javik. "You up to speed?"

"No. But it will not stop me. Lead the way." Javik pushed himself off the wall with only a slight stagger, joined them as they resumed their trot down the corridor.

"Javik? Have you seen Jack on your journeys? Or Grunt?"

A shaken head in the negative his response.

"Damn. Too much to ask, I guess."

"At the rate they're turning up," Mulholland quipped, "it's only a matter of time."