Don't worry I'll keep you warm…
Darkness… Cold… Concrete walls… This is what surrounded her… she didn't know how long she had been in here… couldn't remember how she got here… wherever here was…
Her mind was still muddled… confused… someone else's thoughts… not her own… broken… fragmented… lost… and it was slipping still, with every passing moment…
She heard voices… voices she could no long place… could no longer recall who's they were… They were with her always… never ceasing, no matter how many times she shouted at them to shut up…
She no longer knew reality from fiction… unable to decipher one from the other… Hell… most of the time she couldn't remember who she was anymore… the threads of her past existence slipping through her fingers like smoke…
This is what madness must feel like…
Sometimes, the darkness of her confinement would flare with white, blinding light… fooling her into thinking she was dead. In fact, it was in these moments when she prayed for the light to overcome her and death to take her.
This wasn't living… and she was certain that if she was rational and in the right frame of mind, this might very well pass as her version of a living hell…
After several minutes, or days, or it could have been weeks, the light returned to her, seemingly brighter than ever. It filled her cell, and from it, a voice came, reverberating off all four walls, filling her with loss, dread and fear.
"You chose wrong, organic," the voice said. "Even after all this time, you can not comprehend our existence. And as we extinguish all organic life from this realm, you will truly see us for what we are… and you will beg for death before the end… We await your arrival Shepard."
It said the same thing, every time it came to her, repeating itself until she screamed at it, clutching her ears and covering her eyes, shaking intensely. Its laughter filled her mind as it left, toying with her, breaking her… leaving her with countless other voices…
Reapers… Catalyst… Dark… Indoctrination… Being… Lazarus… Cerberus… Light… Energy…
Repetition…
"Shepard-"
She no longer knew who this Shepard was…
"I am the vanguard of your destruction…"
This was her prison… her mind… her reality…
"I'll see you all when you get back…"
Never see anyone again…
"There is a realm of existence… you cannot even imagine…"
She no longer cared…
"Come back, alive… it'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you…"
Let this end… please…
Always… the voices… never ending… ceaseless… incessant…
Unsurprisingly, the medical facility was in complete disarray, just like everything else they had come across on Omega. Tables had been upturned, files and datapads were strewn across the floor haphazardly, and medical equipment lay broken and shattered every which way they stepped.
Garrus checked his tactical visor. A small blip had appeared on it a little over five minutes ago and had followed them the rest of the way to the clinic, disappearing as they entered the facility. Garrus kept silent, not mentioning it to either Liara or the Admiral, until they reached Wrex and his squad.
They waited several moments before the others arrived, greeting them with nods as they entered. Garrus glanced at his visor once more to ensure they hadn't been followed into the facility.
Satisfied, Garrus turned to the small group, whispering, "We're not alone here…"
"How can you be sure?" Tali asked, helmet tilting to the side.
"A heat signature popped up on my visor less than ten minutes ago," he said.
Javik roamed around the clinic, touching any number of overturned tables. After examining a piece of broken medical equipment, he stood up straight, blinked his four eyes and said, "I felt its presence as well."
They all stared at him for several moments, until Liara slapped her hand to her forehead, exclaiming, "Of course! Javik can read his surroundings. We could use him to-"
"Stop right there T'Soni," the prothean said, pointing his finger at the asari. "You will not use me as some sort of twisted bloodhound."
Liara quickly looked at the ground, ashamed her own suggestion had somehow offended the prothean. Garrus scratched his head, curious as to where Javik had picked up the word "bloodhound". He shrugged when Hannah Shepard glanced his way, evidently asking silently the same question.
"Besides," Javik began, this time less angrily. "I have yet to pick up anything worth noting. I will inform you if I do find something." And with that, he continued to peruse around the clinic.
"Right...," Garrus continued. "The blip disappeared when we entered the facility. So just be aware of your surroundings, and come to me if you find anything suspicious."
"And what of the adjutant bodies?" Wrex asked.
"The bodies we found have only been dead for about a week," Garrus said.
"H-How is that possible? Weren't adjutants Reaper foot soldiers?" Tali stammered.
Garrus shook his head wearily, "From what Shepard told me, that's how I understood it, but now… I'm not so sure."
"Is it possible Cerberus created them? Or somehow managed to gain their control?" Tychus said, tapping his foot.
"I suppose it technically is possible…," Hannah frowned.
"Didn't Shepard say the Illusive Man was trying to harness the Reapers' mind control capabilities?" Tali asked, her head cocking to one side curiously.
Garrus nodded, "Not only that, but he was trying to figure out how to control the Reapers, to up lift the human race."
"What?" Tychus growled. Garrus waved off his father, "We found evidence at Cerberus' headquarters to support that the Illusive Man was already indoctrinated… 'updated' with Reaper tech."
"And we haven't heard a peep from him since the Reapers were defeated…," said Hannah. "So we assume he's dead."
"'Assume' being the key word," growled Javik from the corner.
Wrex rolled his eyes, and said, "So we got adjutants, a blackout, Cerberus, a blip on your damn visor, and not much else… I think I'd rather take on Kalros… At least I know what I'm up against."
"I don't like it much either, but let's scour this clinic and get the hell out of here," Garrus agreed, running a hand uneasily over his fringe.
For the next hour and a half they searched the clinic from top to bottom, rummaging through over turned cabinets and picking through discarded medical equipment. Everyone kept mostly to themselves, asking each other, every so often, if they had found something, which was replied with a shake of the head or with a bitter "No".
As the minutes crept by, tempers were beginning to flare and frustration set in, spurred on by Javik muttering to himself.
After sometime, Tali threw her hands into the air, shouting, "This is ridiculous!"
"Tali's right… We're not getting anywhere," Wrex grumbled. Tychus approached his son, sadness in his eyes, "It's a dead end, Son… Let's go back to the Normandy."
Garrus glanced at Hannah. She was clenching her fists and looking wildly around, clearly irritated. The Admiral roared into the darkness and picked up the closest thing she could find, a tin medical box, hurling it furiously across the room. It hit the wall with a resounding clatter. The noise it made was all too loud, causing everyone present to cringe, as it crashed open to the floor.
Wrex and Tali were the first to reach the facility's doors, with Tychus in tow. The doors opened with a whoosh as they approached, just as Liara cried out, "Wait! Wait!"
The small party turned to face the asari as she scrabbled to her feet from her crouched position.
"Garrus? What kind of omni-tool did Shepard use?" she asked excitedly.
"A high end Savant model… not even available to the public yet… She got it through Spectre Requisitions… Why?"
"Was it something like this?" she asked, tossing him a something small, a smile spreading wide across her face.
Garrus caught it and turned the small metal band over in his hands.
"Shepard? What are you doing?" he asked as he watched her take her omni-tool off her wrist. She smirked at him mischievously.
They were sitting on Shepard's bed in her cabin. The Normandy had just been released from its retrofitting, and they were several days out from finally hunting down Kai Leng.
"Just wait," she said, reaching over to her bedside table. She grabbed Traynor's broken toothbrush and powered it on.
"Wha-"
"Hush… You'll see… I had Tali tinker around with it for a bit. She said I might be able to get one last use out of it. After seeing what it could do to the emergency exit, I figured I would try this…,"she said, touching the toothbrush to the inside of metal band.
Sparks flew in every direction, showering down on the bed. Garrus was terrified the sheets might catch fire, but Shepard paid it no mind, her attention entirely on the task at hand… whatever that was.
Over the course of the next several minutes, he watched with mild curiosity as tiny symbols began to shape under the glow of the toothbrush. She was using it to etch something into her omni-tool.
"Won't that ruin it?"
"Nope… Already checked with Tali," she laughed, not taking her eyes from the band.
He tilted his head to one side as she finished, attempting to read the human script.
"Shepard…,"
"Oh right… sorry… forgot you can't translate without your visor," she said, glancing at his piece over on the floor, beside his discarded armor. "It says 'We were written in the stars, and all that separated us was time… No S without V…'"
He furrowed his brow plates, confusion overtaking his features. She hung her head and muttered, "If something happens-"
Garrus cut her off, "Nothing's going to happen…"
"If something happens," she repeated. "I want to find my way back to you…,"
Mandibles flaring into a smile, he pressed his forehead gently to hers.
"I think I can get one more run out of that toothbrush…" he said, extending his hand. Taking the toothbrush and flicked it on one last time, Garrus began to etch the same thing into his omni-tool, except in turian script and "No V without S".
As he finished, the pair sat side by side, leaning against one another and gazing at their handiwork. The stars passed silently overhead.
Garrus was brought back to his cold, harsh reality by Liara's hand on his arm.
"Is it hers?" she asked.
He nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat. How did this get here? Where was she? More questions arising than being answered.
"We need to get back to the ship and see if it has any clues on it as to where she might be…," Liara began gently, but was interrupted by a high pitched shriek and a loud crash.
They all whipped around in the direction of the noise, only to spy Javik by the door, struggling with some unforeseen force.
"Deactivate your cloak!" he hissed, grappling to hold onto whatever it was he was straddling.
"I said, DEACTIVATE YOUR CLOAK!" he roared.
Garrus pushed through the others for a better look. A whimper came from beneath Javik as a terrified looking salarian materialized, eyes bigger than saucers as he lay beneath the scrutinizing gaze of a 50,000 year old prothean.
Upon noticing more people around him, the salarian threw up his hands in submission, stammering, "P-Please don't k-kill me!"
Archangel bent down on one knee, grabbing the petrified salarian by the front of his shirt, lifting his head and shoulders from the ground, as Javik remained seated on top of him.
"Who the hell are you?" Archangel snarled.
"P-please!"
Javik stood up, hands flaring with green biotics, "Insubordination was the equivialant of death in my time."
"P-please! N-No! Okay… Okay… I'm M-Maelon! Maelon Heplorn!" he shrieked.
Whispers of surprise echoed around the darkened clinic. At least they now knew who the blip on Garrus' visor belonged to, answering one of their many questions… from which even more spawned.
Updated 6/7/14