As it turned out, Councilor Anderson wanted to meet Crow. Crow knew nothing about Councilor Anderson except what he read on the extranet, all of which was... confusing. On the Shore, politics amounted to 'whoever kills, maims, or blackmails the other guy first, wins'. In this reality politics are divided into several structures of moral and ideological niches.
Democrats, republicans, independents, libertarians, several differently-named environmental activist parties, isolationists, socialists, the list went on and on, and it all confused him and Glint to a significant degree. They were only used to worrying about survival and the next meal, not... racism or parking regulations. Those just weren't things you had to worry about on the Shore, because there were much bigger problems to worry about under every other pebble.
But the cacophony of parties all controlled different extranet news sites, meaning he was left wonder which ones were real, which ones were propaganda, and which ones were actually those satire news sites that Joker found so amusing. They all said different things about the man. Some were flattering. Others were... less so, and left him feeling bad for the man. Sometimes the words reminded him of things that Spider would say.
He supposed he could ask Shepard about Anderson, since she seemed to know him personally, but every time he tried to work up the courage, she was busy or fuming about Miranda. Or both.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Since coming to this reality, he hasn't been around and sort of major civilization. He used to watch the Last City from a distance. Sometimes, Glint would fly in under the cover of night and bring him little gifts in exchange for things they had found in wilds, like clusters of spinmetal. Sometimes, a pastry, sometimes a little trinket that his Ghost thought was shiny and special. There was this little glass snake, once, a delicate, tiny thing no bigger than his thumb. He'd had Glint keep those things hidden after Spider... 'acquired' their services. He hadn't even thought about them in a long time.
A rough dozen tiny pieces of civilization. A mere glimpse at what an entire city of people could produce on a near daily basis. He had only been to the City proper once, and it hadn't been for long; all the people, lights, sounds and smells had been... overwhelming. He'd never encountered a place like it, and even though he'd been wearing a festival mask, he'd felt like everyone was staring at him.
Like he would slip up at any given moment, and the entirety of humanity would see him.
They couldn't bring Anderson to the Normandy, so they were going to have to go to Anderson. Not only that, they were going to have to drop off David Archer with and Alliance medical team, and apparently Miranda was taking Gavin Archer somewhere separate in the other shuttle for some kind of super-secret Cerberus drop off. Personally, he thought the man should face punishment for his crimes. All those people are dead because of him, and who knows what damage he did to his brother.
All in all, the shuttle is crowded when they go down. Joker is flying this time, Dr. Chakwas and Mordin are there to help monitor David and pass on information about the man to the Alliance. The human lab rat is pale, emaciated, and on life support, making a smooth flight all the more important. There are still metal fastenings imbedded in his flesh, Dr. Chakwas had told him that there would need to be several surgeries in order to remove them all and they were best done in a fully equipped medical facility rather than a frigate's med bay designed for bloody traumas and keeping people alive.
They land, and Crow pulls the hood of his jacket up upon walking out and seeing the medical team rushing their way. He shuffles off to the side of the landing pad so he isn't in the way, and waits for Shepard to be done with her part of the proceedings, acutely aware of several people who keep glancing his way, probably wondering what he is.
At least this time it's all of me that doesn't belong, not just my face. In this reality, Uldren and his crimes didn't matter; the fact he was a weirdo from another reality did. He isn't sure which he prefers yet, but he hasn't had a violent reaction to his being Awoken yet, as apposed to the multitude of deaths he can attribute to someone seeing his face. So far, so good, at least.
"So, we're going to meet Shepard and Anderson at a pub down in Sakera Ward." Joker, despite how slowly he walks, is somehow very good at catching people off-guard, and Crow starts a bit when the pilot is suddenly at his side.
"We?" he asks, confused. Why was Joker coming with them?
"Shhh. Alliance hush-hush." is all the bearded man offers, shoving his hat up a bit with his thumb. "Just stick with me, I don't wanna have to run up and down the Ward looking for you if you get on the wrong bus or something."
"O-okay." he tries to swallow his nerves, and Glint appears, nudging his shoulder encouragingly. Jokers eyes go wide, and he jerks forward as if to grab the Ghost.
"Eep!" Glint disappears with a startled squeak, and Crow jumps back a pace, alarmed.
"Keep him out of sight!" Joker hisses, eyeing the med team nervously. "Sentient energy construct or not he looks like an AI, and if your codex hasn't been clear those are illegal on pain of death to said AI. I don't wanna get arrested, and you don't want him killed, so just tone down the Ghost cuddles so neither of those happen."
"We don't... cuddle." he feels his face heating up with embarrassment, and the feeling is echoed from Glint's end of their neural link.
"Dude, you pet him like bird and let him sleep with you like a housecat or something. That's pretty much the definition of 'cuddles'." the pilot says dryly. "Been meaning to ask, what is it between you two? It's like he's your mom or something."
"He is not!" Crow protests. "Ghosts aren't... parental. Or romantic. They're just kind of... with us. At best it's like... I don't know, siblings? But I've never had one of those before, so I wouldn't know."
"Not parental. Right." the pilot drawls as he turns to the end of the dock, making it obvious he didn't actually believe that.
"I am not a mom." his Ghost grumbles. I know, Glint. Joker leads him to the rental transportation parking, and he isn't sure how he feels about skycars. On one hand, there was a professional military pilot at the wheel. On the other... it looked flimsy. Like the ship that had failed him in the Reef, resulting in Spider 'rescuing' him. He has to lock down a sudden fear of suffocating endlessly in an uncaring vacuum as he gets into the passenger seat.
Takeoff is surprisingly smooth, but he winces when they leave the atmosphere threshold and the sound of the plastics in the skycar decompressing fill the cabin, and Joker notices.
"How you get around in your reality?" he asks. Crow tries to resist gripping the armrests.
"Jumpships. They're usually one-man, three at most, only capable of near-light speed." There have to be a hundred thousand ships or more weaving their way between the Wards of the Citadel, and Joker joins a stream of skycars seamlessly. "Can't fly anything bigger, because it attracts too much attention, and it's easier to hit. I liked one-mans, personally; they were easier to fly through the Reef."
"You fly? You're a pilot?" Joker keeps his eyes dead ahead, but Crow can practically hear him raising an eyebrow.
"'Flying' implies that I can land without crashing. Which, for the record, I rarely accomplish." he grips his seatbelt with both hands so he doesn't fidget with his Light, and they dive downwards away from the rest of traffic.
"Chill, man. I've never wrecked a skycar and never will." the bearded man reassures him, seeming to notice his nerves. "What's the Reef?"
"Section of Sol's asteroid belt." The skycar swerves for a split second that sends his heart racing.
"You fly through asteroids on what sounds like a regular basis?" Joker actually looks at him now. "Dude, that is the shit, what's it like?"
"I let Glint do the flying since the last time I crashed, it's terrifying every time." Crow had decided he didn't like skycars. Even ones piloted by professionals. Joker just sighs, leans back into his seat, and sends them down. Crow can practically feel the other man casting side glances at him, and he keeps fidgeting with his hat.
"You good man?" the pilot suddenly asks.
"I don't think I'm a fan of skycars. This thing feels cheap." he admits. Joker fidgets with his hat again.
"Like I said; never wrecked a skycar and never will." the Normandy's pilot seems to talk a little too fast, almost. "And sure, it's no Kodiak, but it can take a hit without killing the passengers. Glass is designed to flex instead of break, it's not even really glass at this point."
"Right." still, he can't relax until he hears the skycar's materials shift again as they re-enter the atmosphere. They set down on another landing pad, and Crow swallows when he sees how many people are wandering the area. "How many people are there on this station?"
"'Bout thirteen million on most weekdays?" the other man shrugs. "Not easy to get any hard numbers, things flux a lot with all the spaceport traffic. Never know when somebody's cruiser is in for retrofits or taking shore leave."
"Thirteen million?" he wasn't sure the Last City had even a million people in it, not after the heavy casualties of the Red War, and that place was huge. Thirteen million... "How do... how does... how is that sustained, it's a space station!"
"Each arm has a hydroponics section." the pilot tells him, watching the people walk past. "And the Keeper take care of most things mechanically-you've read about them, right?"
"Yeah." he found the concept of mindless drones, even docile ones, mildly disturbing after all his encounters with the cryptoliths. Even the 'docile' worshippers would turn hostile at the drop of a glimmer cube.
"And this place is connected to pretty much every colony and homeworld out there. Between hydroponics and trade, there's usually more food here than people know what to do with." he glanced down both ends of the street. "Looks like a lull in the crowd, lets go."
Crow fought the urge to turn invisible as they made their way along the Ward. There was no way he would be able to hold it until they arrived, and him appearing out of thin air when he finally lost control would definitly attract more attention than his awful attempt at looking casual. He quietly wished that Joker was able to walk faster; the whole street felt exposed, with eyes on every side, and his back was constantly open to attack.
On the Shore, that combination of this while in a populated section was begging for trouble. As he did with most things, he tried to remind himself that this wasn't the Shore, but old instincts were harder to shake off than he thought they would be.
"You'll get the hang of it." Glint told him. "Uncross your arms, and relax your shoulders a bit."
I'm trying. Now that he'd had a chance to relax on Aite, relaxing had, strangely, become harder. Even though he felt more at ease on the Normandy now that he'd proven himself again on the battlefield, he couldn't relax, and his dreams last night hadn't helped. More burning fields and falling leaves, and it felt more ominous than it looked.
"That's it." Joker pointed at a corner building labeled 'Mack's Authentic Earth Grill'. "I've been trying to get down here for weeks!"
"Why?" he could smell food, faintly, but there was nothing else remarkable about the place.
"They make actual burgers, with actual cow." the pilot explained, as if this were incredibly important. "The last few weeks have been hell, haven't had a chance to get my hands on one since I heard about 'em."
"Oh. What's a burger?" obviously it was some kind of food, but he had never heard of it. Joker looked at him like he'd grown a second head.
"Um, we're fixing that." was all he answered the question with, marching up to the front door as well as he could. Crow followed, unsure of what he'd meant. Entering the building was like getting smacked in the face with smells he'd only encountered during his brief stint in the city. He wasn't sure he could name many of them, but he things he recognizes something potato-y in the air, along with grease and toasting bread, and maybe some kind of meat somewhere.
The only other people in the pub were a human couple who were making their way out with paper bags, stopping to double-take at Crow for a moment before slipping past the new arrivals. He thought he heard them starting to whisper to themselves before the door shut behind them, but he was too busy taking in the aesthetics of the place to worry for once.
It was... homey. They had covered the metal walls up with lacquered wood planks, and the lights were made to burn a soft yellow instead of the harsh white he'd seen through the windows of other places. The booths and furniture were wood, or at least made to look it, were possible, and only warm colors were used where color was necessary. I kind of of like this. A pulse of agreement across the Light told him Glint thought similarly.
"Right just get to a booth, uhh," Joker spun around a bit, looking, before pointing at one in the farthest back corner. "There!"
Crow opted to slid in on the side that hid him from view the most, in case anyone else came in. "Now what?"
"Don't tell me you've never been out to eat before." Joker asks, picking up a data pad that was on the table.
"Okay, I won't." he replied smartly, feeling bold.
"Ha ha." the pilot says humorlessly, rolling his eyes before passing the data pad his way. "Look, just go down the list, see what appeals to you, if you pick it, it's what you've ordered. The guys in the back make our stuff, and we pay for it when we leave."
Crow almost told him he didn't have any credits, only to remember he did, and felt a thrill at the realization that he he could, so long as he was on this station, buy things for himself. "There's over a dozen burgers on here, which one is good?"
"All of them." Joker told him flatly, like it was an obvious fact of the universe. "But just go for a regular combo meal."
"Why?" and combined with what exactly?
"It has fries." at the Hunter's confused look, he added, "They're made of potatoes."
"Ah." Well, he wasn't going to object to that. He kind of liked potatoes.
They spent the wait for their food talking about jumpships. Or rather, Joker pelted him with questions and he tried to answer without sounding like he was out of his mind; he wasn't and engineer, thought he could do a passable patch job, and he couldn't be certain that Joker was able to understand even half of his reality's mechanical terminology. How he was able to seemingly enjoy the conversation anyway was beyond Crow.
They were just getting into NLS physics when Joker told him to 'hold that thought', and leaned out of the booth to wave someone over. Crow leaned out as well to look, and saw Commander Shepard with a man he recognized from footage an pictures as Councilor Anderson, though he was dressed almost as incognito as Crow was.
"Heya, sir; want a fine meal on Cerberus' dime?" Joker asked as a greeting. The older man didn't smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
"No, I'd rather get this over with." he declined as he slide in next to the pilot. Crow had to scoot further into the booth to give Shepard room. "I take it you're Crow?"
"Yes, Councilor." he nodded. He tries not to sound as nervous as he feels, but isn't sure if he's succeeding.
"Let's not use that title here, I'd hate for someone to overhear." the human grimaced. "There are a few things I need you to look at, and information I need about these creatures."
"Okay. Shepard had us make a data packet that should cover ever everything. Well, everything we could think of, neither of us are experts." Making sure the barkeep wasn't looking, he let Glint out, and his Ghost deposited the OSD with their Hive intel on the table. Anderson eyes the Ghost warily.
"He's not an AI." Shepard assures her old Captain. "He'd... what was it again? 'Sentient Energy Construct'?"
"Yup!" Glint chirps, before diving under the table when the waiter approached with the food.
"I hope you plan on splitting that, Joker." Shepard says, and he's only half certain she might be joking.
"I hope you realize that ain't gonna happen." the pilot replies haughtily.
"If it's any consolation, I probably can't eat all of this." Crow tells her as he examines the burger. It did smell good, but it was probably the biggest sandwhich he'd ever seen in person, and the fries look nothing like potatoes. Chakwas might have warned him off eating this much food in one sitting anyway, if she were here. He materializes a knife and cuts the burger in half. He hands one to Shepard and takes a bite out of the other.
It's... good. He could sort of see why Joker was obsessed with them.
"Thank you, Crow." Shepard says sincerely, before pointing her half of the sandwhich at Joker teasingly. "You could learn a thing or two about how to treat a lady from this one, you should take notes."
Anderson cleared his throat as Joker took a large bite of his meal while looking the Commander dead in the eye unrepentantly. "I hate to ruin any appetites, but we are here on business."
"Fine." Joker rolled his eyes, and to Crow's surprise, took his hat off. It takes... way more willpower than it should not to laugh at his hat hair. "I hope Alliance Intelligence values how much of pain it was to get this stuff and keep it."
"I'll try to emphasis how difficult the endevour was." the Councilor assures him as he picks and inside seem of his hat open and pulls out a thin SD chip. "Anything else?"
"Aside from what I told you about Archer, no. We'll try to get more." Crow glanced between the three of them, confused.
"I thought Miranda was taking Archer somewhere?" he asked.
"She is." Shepard told him. "But he won't get far afterwards. I can't emphasize enough that you keep quite about this, Crow."
"I understand." He didn't, not really, but the response is automatic. He'd been told to forget a lot of things on the Shore, and he'd gotten good at it for Glint's safety and his own.
"As for the Hive matter at hand," Anderson started as Joker put his had back on, "there have been no reports of hostile activity, but the chitinous growths that we found have continued to spread. Not as fast as they were in Shepard's report, but it's happening."
"Hive terrain conversion usually happened because of the presence of a Seeder." Crow starts, swallowing a fry, and now convinced that potatoes might be his favorite food. "But artifacts can cause it as well, like cryptoliths, or even rituals. In this case, it was a ritual, and a cryptolith working together. I saw no signs of a Seeder, and Glint didn't detect any."
"Could it be another cryptolith?" Shepard inquired worriedly.
"I don't know... if there's more than one cryptolith in an area, the others are normally close by, and if there had been another one, it would have been near the power supply." I really should have thought of checking for more before we left. Sure, he'd been exhausted at the time, but with so much at steak, he really should have thought of everything. "If it's not there... I don't know, I could go back and look? It would be less of a risk for me, if one of your men stumbles on it, it will ensnare them."
"We're still mapping how far it's spread, there's no plans yet for an more thorough investigation." the Councilor told him. "But if we stumble on it, we'll give the Normandy a call. Which leads into my next question; what are you, and what are your intentions?"
'What are you?' was an easy question. He just repeated what he'd told countless others, the(abbreviated) explanation about the Traveler, Guardians, Ghosts, the Light. How he got here. But he stumbled on 'intentions'.
"I think I'm fighting the Collectors?" was the best he could come up with.
"And after?" one eyebrow raised.
"He's been drilling with the rest of the ground team." Shepard told him. "He's gotten good, and he helped with a successful operation the other day."
"That's not really an answer. The Alliance is understandably worried about... something like him running around. Especially if he's with you, most of them still paint you as true Cerberus." He folded his hands on the table and Crow tries to hold his gaze. "I don't need to know if you're a good fighter, I need something that proves you're not a threat to the Alliance."
"Ha!" Joker snorts. "This guy? With the way Chakwas has him running around, he's more likely to join the Alliance."
"I don't know about that." Crow interjected. "I don't think I'm cut out for military."
If anything, he feels like like he wouldn't last a day in the Alliance.
"In any case, I still need to know what your intentions are." Anderson pressed.
"Please." the pilot scoffed. "Does that look like the face of a threat to society to you?"
It takes all he has not to wince. I'm really glad nobody here knows about Uldren.
"I have no idea what I'm doing half the time, and I'm just confused for most of the other half." he tells the Councilor. "I guess, If Eden Prime is still having chitin problems I could try to help, or maybe I'll fight the Reapers when they come, but other than that, I have no intentions. Let alone ones that involve hurting people."
The other man opens his mouth again, but his breath catches audibly when his omnitool blinks, and he releases a sigh when he reads whatever the message is. "I need to go. I'd have preferred to continue this, but I can't turn my back for five minutes without another fire starting."
"We could bring more information on our reality, next time." he offers anxiously, desperate to nail home that he wasn't a threat. "If there is a next time?"
"That would be appreciated." the older man grimaced. "Enjoy your meal. Shepard."
"Well, that went... better than expected." Shepard sighed. "I think it'll get it through to the Alliance that you're not a threat, Crow."
"I know." a list of Uldren's crimes floats in the back of his mind, and he hopes above hope that he hadn't inherited the Traitor Prince's nature. He wonders if there will ever come a day where he has to tell someone about Uldren. He wonders if the Alliance will see him as a threat once the truth gets out. He wonders what they do to threats.
He... wonders if it was a good idea to have eaten while discussing Hive growths and the potential scrutiny of the Alliance.
At least they take the bus back to the docking zone instead of skycar; now that the thoughts were spinning through his head, his stomach was twisting itself in anxious knots, and he doesn't want to ruin his taste for burgers by throwing this one up.
So, I thought I had updated the Wednesday before last, but it turns out, it was the one before that one. So this is late. Oops. I was eternally dissatisfied with this chapter and the next, but eventually came to the point where I had to end this one fast and dirty just to stop myself from messing with it more. I kept being tempted to write the whole conversation where Crow explains the Light and Glint and etc. for what feels like the hundredth time. I'm literally just having him and Glint put together a Codex so that I don't have to write as many explanations, so they don't feel like filler moments.
Ebuc: I actually have no idea how a glimmer drill works. If there's glimmer in the ground somehow, it probably wouldn't work in the ME reality since glimmer doesn't exist. If it convers literally any kind of dirt and turns it into glimmer, maybe it would be useful.
Knightwolf1875: I'm not doing oc's for this or taking oc's, sorry. I prefer to work with existing canon characters, and I even feel distaste for my own oc's these days.
Servermeta: Slow burn would be a must for any Crow ship, of course, especially with Shepard since she kinda has her own baggage as well.
Doccer:...?
Xandrom: Thank you! Honestly, I'm starting to like the sound of Tali/Crow myself.
CC15: Everything so far has been everyone trying to settle in and figure things out, so there has been some tip-toeing around the paracausal weirdo with clear issues and the ability to explode things at will.
Jebest4781: I spit-took when I saw my review count, you know. Glade you like things so far, though!
JGThorncross: I'm happy you're enjoying the series! Yeah, it probably would be fairly cinnamony.
Guest: Glint's been around for centuries, even without the World's Grave he probably has enough life experience to give a fairly thorough 100k work threat assessment report on the Hive. There will definitely be a return to Eden Prime and a more thorough assessment of Destiny's reality and the things that have leaked out of it.
Brace yourselves; next chapter isn't a 'time skip' per say, but it is a fast forward. Crow's first two weeks on the Normandy have been mostly settling in, interspaced with Joker hijacking the story and only one mission for our Hunter. It's time to put the petal to the metal and get to the nitty gritty good stuff, and if I were to keep spacing events only a few days apart at a time, then I would spend the next ten chapters with pure filler as the gang do nothing but run constant drills with little in between.
Fare The Well!