He had Glint decompiled his armor for the time being; he wanted to savor this 'fresh' feeling for a bit before he put the worn stuff back on. When he came back into the med bay, the lights were back to full obnoxiousness, and an older woman was injecting the bearded man with a very heavy-duty hypodermic needle. Now that he could see everything, the other man seemed to be wearing a mostly discrete set of tech leg braces.
"Hey, it's the zombie!" beard guy mimed a toast, looking Crow up and down. "You still look like shit."
"Language!" Glint beeped.
"It's kidding, right?" beard guy rose an eyebrow, though the hat made it hard to see.
"'He'. And no, he's not." Crow shook his head.
"Huh. Never thought the coming overlords would have parental settings on." he shrugged. The woman made him still, and readied another injection. "But really, you look like shit."
"...Okay." Crow didn't how not to look like shit, so there wasn't much he could say in response to that.
"Play nice, Flight Lieutenant." the woman chided, she looked up at Crow as she set aside a syringe. "I'm Dr. Chakwas, Normandy's Chief Medical Officer. I'm going to need complex deep scans of you physiology, so I'll need you to stick around before you go sight seeing."
"I can give you whatever you need, doctor." Glint offered. "You don't need to scan Crow, I know every atom of him."
"Yeah, that isn't creepy at all." Lieutenant Beard scoffed.
"Joker." Chakwas warned.
"It's part of my job. Can't reconstruct someone from disintegration without knowing the blueprints." Glint told him. He was floating a little too far out for Crow's comfort, and he pulled his Ghost back to his side. "No scans necessary. Where do I upload what you need?"
"Terminal. Be sure to mark it, and EDI will have an eye one you while you're in the system." She pointed at a computer while she loaded up another hypodermic. That's a lot of needles for one guy! Did he get tetanus or something? Tetanus was a common problem on the shore. It was a terrible way to go.
He followed Glint to the computer, and tried to resist side-eyeing the other two people in the room while his Ghost shared his medical data.
"Hey, so normally Jacob comes in here all like 'hey there, new guy, I work out so I must know what I'm doing, go sleep in the airlock or something'." 'Joker' deepens his voice to mock whoever Jacob was, and Crow eyes him with confusion. "So can I steal you?"
"Huh?" he had no idea what that meant. Chakwas set down what was ostensibly the last needle, and Joker rolled his shoulder.
"Give you the grand tour before Jacob can talk up how glorious it is to live on a Cerberus ship?" Confusion level intensifying. Joker, obviously seeing this, rolled his eyes.
"Can I show you around?" he simplified. Crow blinked. He didn't know what any of that other stuff was about, or how to respond to humor(nobody on the shore was happy enough to be good at it), but he supposed he would have to learn his way around the ship sometime.
"Okay, I guess." he answered uncertainly. This was already out of his comfort zone, but he had the feeling he was going to have to get used to that. Joker slipped off the bed gingerly, accepted several pills and a cup of water from Chakwas before downing them, and cleared his throat.
"Here, you see," he began in a thick, almost reef-like accent, "Is the med bay, where we find Karin Chakwas in her natural habitat-"
"I'm done medicating you, Jeff, now shoo before I schedule you a colonoscopy!" said woman bluffed. Crow could only guess it was a bluff because 'colonoscopy' sounded like it had to be a made-up word. Either way, Joker hobble quickly in the direction of the exit, with a strange, limping gait, as though something were wrong with his hips. Crow could see why he needed braces.
"And through the door laying past her territory is the lair of the coming overlord." he continued. Crow hesitated, and followed. Glint, having finished his download, was close behind, and they both gave the doctor a hasty thanks on the way out. The bearded man gave a grand gestured towards the cafeteria. "And through here is the mess hall, where the rest of the herd feasts, at three scheduled half-hours a day. Do not miss a meal, or Chakwas will be on you with a scolding and sandwich."
"Why?" who punished and fed their victim at the same time? Joker turned to cast him an incredulous look.
"Seen yourself in the mirror lately? You look like a huff and a puff'll blow you away." Crow didn't know what that meant either, but he assumed he'd just been called skinny. Joker's pace was slow, and Crow tried to keep even with him. He was tempted to ask what was wrong with the man, but on the shore such questions were answered with a slap to the face or a kick in the teeth. He wasn't certain that was how things worked on this end, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Through there, be dragons. A big-boobed, scary dragon." was all Joker had to say about the door that mirrored the placement of the med bay, and he said it with a slight shudder.
"Figurative dragons, I hope." he was trying not to think about Ahamkara, and was wondering whether he should try to be humorous and point out reptiles didn't have boobs.
"Um, yeah. If we had a dragon it would've been the first thing I told you about." he rolled his eyes as if this was obvious. "Up there is the main battery. Garrus spends every second of his existence in there, so if you wanna talk gross Hive stuff, he'll be there. Moving on."
He grabbed Crow's sleeve to tug him in a new direction, and it caught the Hunter off-guard, causing him to jump backwards and nearly pull the other man off-balance.
"Frick, geeze, okay!" the flustered man regained his balance with help of the wall. "No touching the merchandise, I get it!"
"Sorry!" Crow manages to squeak. He has the desire to ask Glink for his cloak, at least, so he can hide his embarrassment.
"Yeah, yeah." Joker waves him off, much to his relief. "Anyway, up here."
They come into the hallway he and Thane had come into when they got off the elevator. Joker points to their left;
"Samara lives in Port Observation, the crew bunks down the way from her, women's bathroom across from that."
Then right;
"Kasumi hoards her stuff in observation, Thane's holed up in Life Support across from the wee boys room."
"Okay..." Crow tries to stick it all to memory. He would have to walk around by himself later, solidify a feel for the place. And he wouldn't mind bumping into Thane again, now that he was well-rested and feeling a little braver. His bearded guide hobbles over to the elevator, and swipes away at the interface so fast, Crow can't tell what's happening. He hadn't been paying much attention to what Thane had done, before, and if he was going to be staying on the Normandy, he should at least know how to work the elevator.
"Wait!" He halts Joker before he can step on the elevator. Crow shuffles his feet self-consciously. "Could you do that again? Um, slower, this time? I don't know how to work this thing."
"Sure, whatever." He backed out and reactivated the interface. There were five levels to the Normandy, and Joker showed him how to set a destination. On the way down to engineering, he detailed how to add a sequence of multiple stops if someone joined in with you while you were riding. The door opened to a hallway with a glass wall that gave a view of the hanger, and there were multiple doors at either end.
"This is engineering and auxilary cargo. Aka; krogan daycare down that way," the Lieutenant pointed to port, "and dangerous mercenary that way."
"What's a krogan, exactly?" Crow asked. And does everyone get their own space?
"Think big, angry lizard." The other man explained, spreading out his arms to indicate size. "His game's Grunt, and to matters worse, he's a teenager."
"Okay." It felt like he was saying that a lot, today.
"Anyway, just steer clear of them. We also have a murderous psycho squatting in maintaince, so..." he trailed off. Staying on the Normandy was starting to sound like a bad idea.
"This ship is starting to sound a little dangerous." Glint echoed his sentiments. Joker shrugged.
"We've got a mad scientist on the top deck, if you wanna round off the list. Gotta have the best for a suicide mission. But engineering isn't all bad; all my homies are down here." Crow tried to squash the uneasy that was rising in his chest as his guide led him to a door around the corner.
"Suicide mission?" He asked. Commander Shepard had mentioned her mission, but she hadn't specified it as a 'suicide mission'.
"The Collectors take the colonists, and go through the Omega-4 Relay. Any other ship that goes through Omega-4 never comes back so we have to find a loophole." Joker explained, gesturing with his hands.
"Relay?" This reality had a gift for being confusing.
"Hold that thought." He said as they walked into a room that seemed to hum and vibrate. A woman was operating a console directly ahead of them. "Hey Tali, explain the Relay system before I confuse the new guy!"
"You're the pilot." The woman, presumably Tali, responded without turning around. Her voice had a thick accent, and sounded slightly mechanized.
"Eh, I can't dumb things down to 'guy from another universe' level." The bearded man at his side shrugged. "I was just telling him about Omega-4."
The woman jabbed at her console once more with a three-fingered hand before turning to face them. She wore a helmet under her veil, and he could only get vague impression of her face, but her eyes glowed like an Awoken, so there was one thing he could see.
"Mass Relays are a network of devices located throughout the galaxy." She started, while Joker leaned back against the wall. Her voice gave off a faint impression of annoyance. "They sling matter from one Relay to the next, namely ships. A ship interfaces with a Relay, the pilot chooses which Relay or sequence of Relays they want to go through, and the rest is history. Joker, just give him tourist's codex."
"Reading is boring, who likes reading?" Joker shrugs before Crow can say anything.
"I do." He said.
"It's not that bad." Glint echoed.
Tali seems to glare at his Ghost, and Crow edged closer to him with a silent command to phase. Glint disappears.
"Doesn't Jacob normally do this?" she addressed Joker. "I thought you wanted nothing to do with 'Shepard's dangerous alien collection'."
"I lost a bet." the man shrugged. Crow felt slightly disappointed, but unsurprised. "That, and he's too skinny to hurt anyone."
"I wouldn't hurt anyone if I wasn't." Crow thought it would make a good point to say this. "I like to avoid causing pain in general."
"Good thing husks aren't alive, then." Tali commented. What are husks? "Now if you excuse me-"
"He in here?" Crow managed not to jump when the door behind them opened and a woman's voice loudly interrupted. He spun around.
"Oh my Light!" Crow immediately turned back around again, face hot, as Glint had a fit through their Link. "OH MY LIGHT WHERE ARE HER CLOTHES!"
This ship just gets weirder! Then his instincts flared up, right before-
Nothing. Rush of warmth and Light, and he was face down on the floor.
"-you bosh-tet, if that bullet hit something vital you could have killed us all!"
He rolled as fast as he could to his feet, and Glint had already put his armor back on; it wasn't as loose with the new clothes on under it. Everyone looked furious, and he leveled Hawkmoon at the shirtless lady. He kept it, and his focus, fixed on her head. She was smiling like an Ahamkara, gun still raised. Joker stood tense and still, like one of those weird birds with the gaping mouths that pretended to be tree branches when they thought they were in danger. Crow's blood was all over him, and the floor.
Tali was another story.
"Relax, Sugar Queen, I just wanted to see if it was true!" the gun went down, and Crow hesitantly lowered Hawkmoon. The Ahamkara grin stayed. "Good thing it was."
"You, miss, are truly despicable!" Crow had never heard Glint angry before, and he had to stop his jaw from dropping. The last few days had pulled both of them a little thin, but he never thought Glint would lose his temper! "You just murdered my Guardian because you wanted to see it! What's wrong with you?"
"I don't give a shit, lightbulb, that's what's wrong." Glint made an angry buzzing noise.
"Oh, go put a bra on, you horrible she-devil!" What in the world has gotten into you! He pulled his Ghost back and raised Hawkmoon again as Shirtless She-devil took a threatening step forward. He had half a mind to grab Joker while he was at it. They were saved when the door opened again, and a furious Commander Shepard stepped forward.
"What the hell is going on here?"
As you can see, Jack is going to be... problematic. As you can see, Joker has injected himself into this story; I'm several chapters ahead in writing this thing, and I can't seem to be able to get rid of him. Oh, well. Thought I'd post this early since I had to repost the fic so soon after setting it up. A glitch rendered reviews invisible.
Ebuc: Ahh, my friend, but do you remember Ghost's don't have lymbic systems? Physically? Reapers wear away at the brain physically with Infrasound as their 'in' for Indoctrination, with focus on the lymbic system. Trying to control a paracausal cinnamon roll made of code and sentient energy would be hard enough since he disobeys the laws of physics, but since there's no physical 'brain' to chip away at, indoctrinating a Ghost would be...problematic. Doesn't mean a Guardian would be safe, though. Also, thanks for the reminder about 'reset kills', someone should really compile a collection of all the complexities in Guardian 'biology'.
Guest: Here you go!
edboy4926:Glad to hear it. I see auto correct has continued it's habit of messing with Glint's name. I've seen dozens of instances of it in other places.
In other news, my gecko kept randomly clicking while I was writing this. It's a sound they make when they're straining over an obstacle, or maneuvering tightly. He was trying to climb glass, and it went as well as one might expect.
Fare Thee well!