December 13th
13:14 OST
Tech classes, as it turned out, took place in a part of the Blue Suns base I'd never seen before. Despite having spent anywhere between four to six hours a day for the last several days inside of it, most of the base was still unknown to me. At that moment Hyrn, myself, and a handful of others were standing in a small room one level below the portion of the building I was more familiar with. There was a large table in the center, its surface glossy and black. The walls were lined with monitors showing camera feeds, news reports, and scrolling text in what I was beginning to recognize as Batarian. A desk with a terminal sat in the far corner, and simple metal chairs lined the walls. The room was warm, almost uncomfortably so, and the lights were dim.
Sitting at the desk was a batarian, ostensibly our tech instructor, who as far as I could tell either didn't know we'd been waiting there for several minutes or simply didn't care. I had sunk into waiting mode and was simply observing the room, unbothered, and Hyrn had started fiddling with his omni-tool after the first minute. The others, a turian in Blue Suns armor, a fidgety human guy, and a batarian in plain clothes, lacked the same patience. The human and turian were engaging in suspiciously loud conversation while the batarian cast pointed glances the teacher, furtively trying to catch his attention.
It was only after a particularly exaggerated and high pitched gasp of false shock from the human at some asinine comment the turian made that the instructor finally got up and approached us. He was an older batarian; his light brown skin was dry and scaly, his eyes were deep-set, and he had more than a few wrinkles. He spared a brief glance at each of us and sighed before speaking with a hoarse-sounding voice. "I'm Korlun, your tech instructor. First off, tell me what experience you have with tech so far and what you'd like to learn from this class." No one responded after a few moments, and Korlun's face scrunched up along the wrinkle lines in apparent annoyance. "Sometime today?"
The other human decided to start. "Uh, I've got, well… no experience with tech. I'd like to know how to… ya know fix shit and make new shit."
Korlun nodded. "Engineering. Here," his omni-tool came on "read this over while I talk with the others, I'll check on you later." The human watched the file download onto his own omni-tool and then left to sit on one of the chairs.
The teacher then turned to the younger batarian, who shifted uncomfortably. "I've got some practice with programming and engineering. I'm hoping to… improve?"
"Is that a question or a statement?" Korlun asked, his tone sharp.
The other batarian jumped a little, then straightened like he was about to salute. "Uh, statement sir! I am hoping to improve."
The instructor just snorted slightly. "Better. Sit down."
He did so, and Korlun moved down the line to the turian who told him he had no experience and wanted to make his own combat programs. Without a word, the teacher sent him a file and gestured to a chair, which the turian took. He then looked at me.
"I know a bit about programming. I'd like to get better at it and" I hastily added, thinking of what the others had said, "learn about engineering." The moment I finished speaking, Korlun sent a data file to my 'tool and proceeded to focus on Hyrn while I grabbed a chair.
The file took a couple seconds to download, during which Hyrn gave his response and also sat down. The teacher then approached the batarian and began going over something with him. When the download was done I opened the file and looked it over. It was a simple text file, instantly translated to English, and had no title or any hallmark of being a published e-book but was quite lengthy. The table of contents showed nine chapters: "Basics", "Omni-gel", "Locks", "Armor", "Weapons", "Mechs", "Vehicles", "Starships" and "Tips". Thinking that the best place to start was the beginning, I scrolled down to "Basics" and began to read.
Engineering is often lumped in with programming under Tech by people in charge in the hopes of making things "succinct" and "professional-sounding". While the two are related, they're very different things. This manual will talk about engineering only.
Engineering is making, modifying, and maintaining mechanical equipment. Equipment can mean anything from a little rigged-up thing fabricated from your omni-tool to a mech to a starship. All are physical tools that need to be designed or maintained.
The goal of engineering is to make something work. When making a new device or modification, making the thing function is your first priority. Functioning prettily or efficiently comes second. That doesn't mean you can just put together shitty work. If the thing's going to fall apart any second, it's not functioning. Make sure it can work consistently.
Part of not putting together shitty work is creating blueprints beforehand, having a good, clean workspace, and working with the right materials.
The text went on to describe what a good workspace was and the importance of drafting out your work first before construction. I focused my attention entirely on the text and ignored all else in the room. I was halfway through the second chapter, a very interesting treatise on the nature and applications of omni-gel, when a sudden tapping on my shoulder startled me. I bit down my complaint over his invasion of my personal space, closed the text file and stood to face the instructor, who wasted no time. "Show me a program you wrote yourself."
After a moment's thought I sent him a copy of my Overload program. He opened it wordlessly and began reading over, occasionally muttering to himself, while I waited with no small amount of nervousness. Eventually, he looked at me over is 'tool. "You're self-taught." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you've managed to make a working program, but it could be so much more efficient…" He gestured to a particular line of the code. "Why didn't you use a recursive loop here?"
My face went blank. "…a what?"
He sighed. "Right. Here." He transferred another file to my omnitool. "Read that. You've got the basics down, but you're using brute force and making amateur mistakes. When you start working for real, it's going to get you and your team killed." Without another word, he walked over to the next person.
The words stung, but it was true. I needed to improve. At least now I had an idea of where to start. I opened the second text file and started reading.
December 13th
15:54 OST
Since joining the Blue Suns our team had been assigned guard duty four times. During each of the previous three times an argument had eventually sprung up between myself and Javern, usually involving batarians, humans, slavery and racism. These arguments had led to yelling, cussing and in general being pissed off at each other.
Our shift at the door today was almost over, and Javern hadn't said a word. In fact he had barely acknowledged my existence since the mission with Erikin. I had a suspicion this had something to do with me helping him during that whole fiasco, but if this was his way of showing gratitude then I probably wouldn't repeat the action.
…actually I probably would help him, were a situation like that to happen again, but it was still annoying.
And despite the fact that we hadn't said a single word to each other the entire time, when we went back into the base he seemed more angry than ever.
December 14th
14:21 OST
Studying the hole-riddled target set up for my third weapons class, I was pleased to note that all my shots were at least hitting the target this time. I'd finally picked up on how to properly hold the assault rifle, and now I was improving my accuracy in small increments.
Gaining some proficiency with the weapon was more satisfying than I thought it would be.
"Oh hey, that's not bad," said a female voice behind me.
I turned sharply about to face the speaker, an asari with sky blue skin and a few inches on my reasonable 5'5". Her eyes were a cloudy grey color, and the matching silver dots of paint on what would have been her eyebrows had she been human were the only facial decorations she had. She wasn't wearing the standard issue armor, meaning she was likely a velite like myself. Instead she had what seemed like a cheap armor set pained dark blue. She was smiling widely.
"Hi, I'm Ulare. I'm a rookie like you." She pointed to the target behind me. "You're doing pretty well! Besides, you know… not really hitting anything important, but hey! At least you're hitting it right?" She started to fiddle with the rifle she was holding, still smiling. "I mean, Dad was training me since I was twenty to handle guns and you probably haven't been using them that long. So if you keep working at it, you'll get really good!"
At a loss for words, I simply stared at her. She didn't seem to mind much.
"Here, how about I give you some pointers!" Without waiting for a response, the asari gently pulled me over to an unused target and took aim. "See, the gun wants to move, because of the recoil and stuff, so sometimes you just have to move with it. Start and the center and let it go up." She fired a stream of bullets, leaving a slightly upwardly curved line and a single dot above it. "But don't let it get away from you, because then you do things like lose your grip and drop it or having whack you in the head and you look like a complete dork then, trust me." She let loose another burst, making the exact same pattern.
The two curved lines met, making a U shape, and there were two dots above it.
She'd made a smiley face.
"Why," I started slowly, "did you make a smiley face?"
She looked over at me with confusion. "For the style points, of course."
…what.
"…style points?"
"Yeah. You know, doing stuff in a cool way so everyone knows how awesome you are." A grin split her face. "One time I was fighting a couple varren and I punted one of them across the room into another one and both of them fell down an elevator shaft! It was great!"
The girl was getting stranger by the second. "But… I mean…" I took a deep breath. "Accidental acts of badassery are nice and all, but actively trying to pull off stunts like that on a battlefield is just…" Stupid, childish, idiotic… "…dangerous."
That gave her pause. "Well yeah, but it's worth it. There no point in doing something if you don't look cool while doing it."
"And what if trying to look cool gets you killed?" I pointed out.
"It won't," she stated confidently. "I'm pretty good at this stuff. I'm not going to trip up like a loser."
"But you can't absolutely guarantee that!" My voice was unintentionally getting louder. "You're risking your life for some perceived coolness, it's stupid!" In the back of my mind I realized I was getting way too worked up about this, but it was just mind boggling that someone would throw their life away over looking good.
Ulare crossed her arms and frowned. "Well, you're just a grumpy mood killer aren't you?" She glanced at her omni-tool. "Whatever, I've got other things to do than listen to you yell at me. Bye." A few moments later, I was alone again. I found myself actually feeling a bit regretful. I did honestly believe what I said, but maybe I should have been more tactful about it.
I looked at the smiley-faced target again. Despite her strange sensibilities, she was a very good shot.
I went back to my target and tried to forget the asari.
December 14th
17:37 OST
As the time drew near to our usual time to leave, the team found itself seated in a corner of the rec room again. We were all absorbed in our own activities: Hyrn in his omni-tool, Vilnius in his guns, Javern in something playing on one of the screens, and Brek in staring at the floor. I was reading through something that I had hoped would exist in this universe, but doubted I'd find it. I was taking my time looking it over, not out of enjoyment but from careful scrutiny of every detail. It could potentially end up affecting me a great deal.
Beside me, Hyrn turned off his 'tool and glanced my way. "S-so… what are you l-looking at?"
"Hm?" I'd barely heard him over the noise, but soon answered. "Oh, it's just an old Earth comic series called Sandman."
He shifted a bit. "…w-what's it about?"
"Uhhmm, well…" I thought over how to explain it to him. "It's about these beings… they're like the embodiment of… concepts, sort of. Like, there's Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium." I couldn't help thinking about when I'd met Dream and Delirium in person. It was a very strange memory, one that I'd been trying to figure out for a while.
"So, t-they're like gods?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Not really. They don't have any control over people, they just… exist. And they're as flawed as anyone else. Like... the first couple of books are about how Dream used to be a dick and now he's trying to be a better person."
I suddenly realized that I'd never put any thought as to where in the Sandman timeline I was. For all I knew, this was before Dream's imprisonment and subsequent character growth. That might explain why he was so… short with me when we met. The books showed it happening, but since Destiny is an actual thing then maybe Dream's change of heart was predetermined to happen… it was all really weird.
Hyrn's voice broke through my musings. "W-what's happening right now, in the p-part you're reading?"
"Oh, it's this story about a cat who's kittens-"
"What's a c-cat?"
I blinked. "Uh. It's… a four-legged mammal that humans keep as pets sometimes. Cat babies are called kittens. Anyways. The cat's kittens were killed by her owners. She met Dream, who told her that if all the cats dreamed hard enough they would have revenge on humans. So she went around to all the other cats and told them to dream of being bigger and greater than all the humans on Earth." I flicked through the pages to the last panel, of a massive cat hunting down and eating people, and showed it to him. "As you can see, they managed it."
Hyrn looked at the image with some consternation. "There's m-more of the story after this?"
I nodded.
"A-are the cats are big there?"
"Nope."
"Then… i-it wasn't real? T-they didn't get to eat the h-humans?"
"Well…" I hesitated. "I don't know. Maybe. It might have been an alternate univer-"
A few things suddenly clicked into place.
Mass Effect had a pretty large number of fans, who all thought about it, dreamed about it. And maybe because it was so big, the dream made an entire reality. Under that theory, this was an actual alternate dimension and not an elaborate replica or some other fake. I'd been working with the assumption that this was all real because it felt real, but I had no idea how or why it could possibly be real and sometimes when I was alone in my dark room at night I questioned my sanity. But this seemed like a plausible theory as to how it all came to be.
The Endless, the characters of Sandman, were the personification of certain base concepts, but they also in a way embodied their opposites as well. Death was present for every birth, Destruction spent his days trying to create, Delirium was the most lucid of all on occasion, and things that were dreamed hard enough became reality. The Mass Effect universe had been created by Bioware, stretched to its limits by its fans, and was now given life by falling into the shadow of Dream.
"-wna? Shawna? A-are you o-okay?"
I shook myself. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you." I shot Hyrn a quick smile. "Here, how about I send you a copy of the first issue so you can read it yourself?" Hyrn agreed quietly, and he spent the rest of our time at the base reading.
As I walked back to the apartment complex later the same day, I wondered if this meant there were other dimensions like this one. Star Wars? A Song of Ice and Fire? Halo? The possibilities seemed endless, and yet as I thought about seeing those places all I wanted was to find my way back to the world I was born in.
The task. If I find out what the task is and complete it, I'll go home.
Buoyed by that thought, I entered the complex. Reyik was manning the front desk again. I gave him a friendly wave as I headed down the stairs, which he returned idly. I reached the bottom and turned left to walk to my room when I was stopped by someone standing in front of me. A rather large someone. A krogan, in fact, wearing green armor.
He didn't speak at first. He looked me over with a scrutinizing eye for several moments, during which time I realized he was the krogan Reyik had been talking to almost a week ago. Finally, he smiled and said, "Hello. I don't believe we've met. My name is Dolgan."
"Shawna," I said simply. Something about him was off-putting, though that might have been due to how close he was standing near me.
"I've seen you around, Shawna. Have you been staying here long?" He asked casually.
"Yeah," I replied, "I've been renting a room here for a few months." My eyes narrowed. "You got here a few weeks ago. Didn't you tell Taren you were only staying one week?"
He gave a low, rumbling chuckle. "I came to this district on business. I thought I wasn't going to stay here long, but things have become… interesting, so I'm staying for a little while longer."
I knew it was only polite to speak to one's neighbors and all, but I just wanted to get to my room. "Well, I hope whatever business you're here for goes well. If you'd please excuse me, my room is down that hall."
"Oh, my apologies." He stepped aside, and I walked past him. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Shawna."
I cast a quick, "You too," over my shoulder before moving quickly to my door.
Overly-friendly people always made me feel uncomfortable.
AN:
So… it's been a long busy year.
I found myself out of juice. The words just didn't flow, no matter what I tried. I've been thinking about this fic almost non-stop, you guys won't believe what I have planned for the future now, but I just couldn't get it out.
And then, all of a sudden, it just flowed.
I'll try to keep writing while things are still running. Here's hoping it keeps running.