You know, when I found myself in the Mass Effect universe, I had hoped, really hoped, that there was some sort of reason. That whoever had put me here would explain what I had to do. I had played it by ear, doing my best to get into the squad and going along with Shepard, and since I at least knew what happened in the games, I had a fair idea of what to expect.

Even though the games have nothing on reality,

On the other hand, suddenly having an out-of-body experience to talk with a glowing apparition mid-conversation with Shepard wasn't really in the cards I thought I was carrying. And she had just told me I couldn't tell Shepard a damn thing.

"What?" I said. Awesome comeback, huh?

"The commander. You can't tell her what you know, or why you know."

"The hell? Why? And who-"

"It never works. More than one thousand others have tried, but every time they told her, their missions ended in failure. Not just failure; the commander cannot handle the truth about the games."

"Bullcrap," I retorted. "She's Shepard! She- what's so funny?'

The glowing lady was chuckling softly at my response, and merely shook her head when I asked my question.

"Nothing. Or rather, all of you. You all sound so surprised when you find out Shepard is only human."

I was about to insist with another "what?", only more heavily adorned with expletives, but somehow it felt silly to ask that again. There was a much more obvious question.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Who we are... What we are, in a way that you can understand. We are AI."

"That doesn't explain anything!" I snapped.

"It is not important, Roy. We have brought you here for one purpose. You must find a way to prevent the reapers from achieving their final victory."

"I... Wait a minute. What about the crucible? Doesn't it magically..." I trailed off when I saw her shake her head. Goddammit all, did she mean the crucible can't stop the reapers? But the ending, I saw the damn reapers getting blown to pieces!

"You must find a way, Roy."

"Why the hell me? I mean, if it's just 'having played Mass Effect' or something like that, then why not get someone who knew what he was doing? The game's popular as fleas, there's people in the military who'd probably do a hell of a lot better than me. What's so special about me?"

I have to be honest, at that point I was hoping for some clue that I had some kind of super powers or some hidden talent they were about to activate to give me some ultimate something. Too many comic books, I know. But I really wasn't expecting her answer.

"Nothing at all." She waited, but when I tried to speak, and failed miserably, she continued. "We have called more than twenty thousand of your kind. From all walks of life. We have tried giving them no information, giving them all the information, none of them ever managed to find a way to stop the reapers. We have tried so many times..."

"So I'm... like, you're grasping at straws," I said. And I felt like I was going to throw up.

She didn't immediately answer, which was an answer by itself. Then my vision started going all wavy again, and colour drained from the world.

"I have to send you back, we cannot keep this link for long. We will speak again," she said.

And then I was back on Eden Prime, feeling like my stomach had twisted into a pretzel, and everything was spinning.

"Roy?" Shepard said. I looked vaguely in her direction, only vaguely because it was getting very hard to focus. I tried to lean back, but my improvised seat had no backrest, so instead I ended up falling on my back.

"Roy!"

I don't know what else happened, because at some indistinct point after that, I passed out.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was that I didn't have a clue where I was. It was a dimly-lit room, I was resting on a narrow and very high bed, and there was some sort of arch of light above my head. I tried to sit up, but my shoulder gave me a painful poke when I moved my arm.

I looked down, and saw that: a) I was barechested, and b) the wound on my shoulder was covered with some bandages. It didn't really hurt that much. I also noticed that I had rashes all over, mostly dry and apparently treated.

"Ah, mister Morgan. You're awake."

That voice, it was familiar as hell. I looked to the side, and saw an older woman standing up from her seat at a desk in the far corner. Right, I should have known who she was, but I couldn't quite remember.

"I'm Dr. Karin Chakwas, and you're aboard the SSV Normandy. How are you feeling?"

"Uh... Dunno... A bit confused," I replied. Which was true.

"Due to the painkillers. You should be feeling better soon." She pulled a sort of robotic arm out of the contraption atop the bed, and started running a scan over my shoulder. "You had quite a hole, I had to use several rounds of bone weaving to repair all the fractures. How does it feel?"

She raised my arm carefully, looking at my face as she explored the range of movement. It hurt, but wasn't too bad.

"It's not very comfy," I said, unable to hold back a grimace, "but it's not terrible. Thank you."

"Good. I'll still recommend a sling for the next few hours, while the medi-gel finishes its work. No exercise or any harsh movements."

"Sure thing."

She went off to dig through one of the cabinets embedded in the wall, and I took the chance to look around. I was in the freaking Normandy! Sure, it was just the medbay, which wasn't particularly exciting, but holy balls I was in space! Wait, assuming I was in space that is, maybe the Normandy was still on Eden Prime, and they were going to kick me out as soon as I was up.

Then I remembered her. The AI. And her warning that the Reapers weren't going to be stopped by the crucible.

That didn't make any freaking sense. The crucible was the MacGuffin of the third game. It did break the reapers if you fired it, or did some kind of voodoo space magic- Well, that part actually didn't make any sense. It had to be a brainfart of some sort, the real crucible couldn't do that.

Real crucible? You're losing it Roy.

My musings were interrupted by two near-simultaneous events. First, Chakwas coming to tie me up with the sling, and second, the door of the medbay opening. In came Commander Shepard and who could only be Captain Anderson.

Damn, the man looked buff! I mean, sure, he was an N7, and he didn't exactly look like a chump in the games, but damn. If I recalled correctly, he was pushing fifty or something, and he looked better than I did.

And that totally wasn't meant in a bromance way.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's your thing.

I'll stop talking now.

"Roy," Shepard said, stopping a pace behind Anderson and giving me a nod.

"Commander," I said, and winced when she shot me a look. "I mean Shepard."

"This is Captain David Anderson. Captain, the stray cat," she said with a smirk.

"Mister Morgan," Anderson said, offering me his hand.

"Just Roy. Pleasure," I replied, shaking it.

"How are you feeling?"

"Still some pain, but pretty good, thanks."

"Good. Welcome to the Normandy. My XO tells me you were a witness to the whole-" he stopped talking rather suddenly and leaned a little to the side, looking behind me. "Maybe we should take this to my office."

I followed his gaze, and saw he had been looking at Nihlus. He was resting on one of the cots, eyes closed and some bandages over his chest.

"Is he okay?" I said in a low voice.

"Physically he's fine," Chakwas explained. "The bullet wounds were easy enough to fix, but he hasn't regained consciousness. And his brain activity is unusual."

"Anything you know, Roy?" Shepard said. I turned at her in surprise, and she just shrugged. "You were nodding."

Crap. I can't tell her... Well, I can say something at least.

"No, nothing. I was thinking maybe the beacon but..." I made a show of thinking and shaking my head, and hopefully not digging the hole any deeper. "No, that wouldn't work."

"If there's something you know that can help my patient, I suggest you share it with me," Chakwas said. I swear I heard an 'or else' in her voice. You know how people always write her as being somewhat scary when it came to medbay, even though she's nothing but kind and supportive during every game? Well, they got that right, I felt a chill run up my spine so fast I expected an arc of electricity to shoot out of my ears.

"I don't know, know, okay? I was just thinking, if he was near the beacon..." I looked around, but nobody seemed to follow. "These prothean beacons work, like, putting things into your brain. Like the salarians with their mind-melding thingy."

"That's the Asari," Chakwas corrected.

Great, why the hell did I go there? I really had no reason to pretend to be ignorant of that, but there I was, I had thrown it in like I didn't know anything about aliens, while talking about the freaking protheans. And yet Shepard didn't seem inclined to take the shovel off my hands before I dug myself even deeper.

Have I mentioned I am a terrible liar?

"That's the blue ones, right?" I said. All the while thinking shut up you freaking idiot!

"Yes."

"Right. So, it's a bit like that I think. Only it was made for protheans, right? So if he's not prothean, then, dunno, maybe it fried something up here," I finished, tapping the side of my head.

"I'll look into this. If it really is similar to an Asari meld, we will have something in the medical database. Thank you Roy."

Meanwhile, Shepard and Anderson had exchanged another look, and now were looking at me. Great.

"Shall we?" Shepard said, gesturing for the door.

"Sure."

I threw the sheet covering me aside and swung my legs over the edge, and immediately both Shepard and Anderson stopped moving. Then I noticed how cold it was. How cold it was everywhere.

With a quick look down I realized I was, indeed, butt-naked. I hastily threw the sheet back over my netherparts, all while feeling like my face was going to catch fire.

"Eh, six out of ten," Shepard said. She gave me a smirk and led the small party out, Anderson behind her shaking his head.

I just flashed Shepard and Anderson. Fuck my life.

"Could I get some clothes?" I said in a low voice.

To her credit, Chakwas only made a small knowing smile, and didn't try any of the myriad of easy jokes to give me the burn she could have given me. This had to be a common occurrence, because she had a neat pile of fresh clothes and uniforms in one of the cabinets. She gave me some flimsy-looking generic underwear, a rankless SR1 uniform, and a pair of shoes. And once I was finally dressed, with my arm firmly held in the sling, she also gave me a sealed plastic tube.

"For the rashes. I would advise against wearing armor without a proper undermesh in the future."

"Yeah," I replied, taking the tube and putting it in my pocket. "Thanks doc."

I walked off the medbay and, in a single step, I was inside the Normandy proper. It really hadn't hit me while I was in there, even though I kept thinking I was finally in space, but just then... The mess hall, with the SR1 emblazoned on the wall, a few crew members finishing their meals; it was the freaking Normandy.

It was a little different than the in-game SR1. There were actually several tables for the mess, and a full stocked kitchen too. A whole wall was covered with lockers, which led me to believe the ship had more crew than one saw in the games too. Also, the corridor at the back, where the sleeping pods were, was rather packed with them.

Come to think of it, I thought the mess hall was actually smaller than in the games as well.

Luckily, not many people took notice of me. A few curious looks and that was it. I saw Ashley taking a tray of food, but other than a look of annoyance she didn't regard me in the least. I was starting to think they had either gotten her wrong in the games, or somehow I actually looked like an alien and she just hated me because of that.

"Roy," Alenko called. He was in his usual spot, behind the console by the captain's room. "The captain and the commander want to see you."

He pointed at the room behind him, but it wasn't like I needed the directions. I headed to the door, stood in front of it like an idiot and then knocked.

"Just come in," Anderson said. I looked at the door, poked the green symbol a bit, and finally found where I was supposed to hit it for the door to open.

I decided not to look behind me to see who had seen me made a spectacle of myself.

The room was just like I remembered from the game, only... smaller. The desk was very near the door, and the bed not far behind. There was another door, which looked like it was a small bathroom. Anderson was sitting at his desk, and Shepard was sitting on the edge of the small bed.

"Have a seat, Roy," Anderson said, gesturing to the chair across him.

"Thank you sir," I replied. Damn but the man commanded respect. Even when he was looking all casual sitting back on his chair. The way they had placed me, I was looking at him, and Shepard was not exactly behind me, but I had to turn my head to see her.

It was uncomfortable.

"We're currently en route to the Citadel, we'll arrive in about twelve hours." He waited for a reaction, so I nodded at him. "The whole mission has been a disaster, but apparently you saw the whole thing."

"Uh... I guess? What thing?"

"Tell us what happened, in your own words."

I looked at him, at Shepard, and took a deep breath. It smelled like a setup of some kind.

"Okay... Where do I start. It was a beautiful day, then all of the sudden, there's freaking geth everywhere."

"No warnings? No alarms?" Shepard said.

I turned to look over my shoulder. Was that going to be a thing? Stabbing me with questions from the back? "Not that I heard. The first thing I heard were the shouts and the explosions."

"Go on," Anderson prompted.

"There..." I remembered the explosion right as I came out of the prefab building. Not just the fuzzy part where I was thrown on my face, ears ringing, and not knowing where the fuck I was. No. It was the part where people were shouting, some of them scared, others because they had been half-blown away. And the ones who didn't scream, because they had been completely to pieces. And the smell. There was something about the smells that made it all so terribly real.

"Roy?"

This time Shepard's question wasn't like a stab to keep me off balance. There was real concern there. The way Anderson was looking at me, he was concerned too, which made me wonder what face I was making.

"It wasn't pretty," I finally said, half-mumbling. "The geth were brutal, they were killing every person they came across. I ran like a headless chicken, until I found the... Well, where I found the armor and the gun. By the time I did, I had lost sight of any geth. Or any people really. Then when I was trying to put it on I saw the turian."

"Nihlus," Anderson said.

"Yeah. He was in and out so quick I didn't even knew what had happened. So I grabbed the gun and went after him."

"Why?" Shepard said.

"Like I said," I said. "Everyone running away, geth attacking, and someone taking down geth like there's no tomorrow? Seemed like the best choice."

Anderson chuckled and shook his head.

"Told you," Shepard told him.

"Yes, yes," the captain replied. I had that tingle on the back of my neck that told me I had missed something that involved me. "So, you caught up to him?"

"Not really. He was fast as hell. The only reason I did was because he stopped to talk to another turian at the spaceport tram station."

Outwardly, Anderson didn't even move, but the look in his eyes became a lot more intense. It clicked then that he had probably heard it from Shepard already. He nodded for me to go on.

"So I see them talking, I'm thinking great, reinforcements, then this other turian gets behind Nihlus, pulls a gun out, and was about to shoot him in the back of the head."

"And you stopped him?"

"Pure dumb luck. I pulled my gun, started shooting, and apparently hit him. Didn't seem to do anything much, but it did give Nihlus a chance."

"Did you get a good look at this turian?"

"Yeah. Saren. Big, grey, mechanical arm, looked like he was half machine already. Bigass pointy fringe and all."

Anderson and Shepard looked at each other. They did so for a while, so much so that I kept looking at them, Shepard over my shoulder, Anderson in front of me.

"So how did you know Nihlus anyway?" Shepard said.

"Huh?"

The way she was glaring at me, she knew that I knew Nihlus. Before I even ran into them. As I said, I am a terrible liar, and making up shit as I went didn't quite work. And, apparently, making half truths didn't work this time either.

Plan B? Plan B.

"He's a Spectre," I said, trying to put the best sigh of resignation I could. "And so is Saren. To be honest, I couldn't believe it when I saw it." That much was true, just wasn't saying what it was I couldn't believe exactly.

"And you knew that how?"

"Are you kidding? Special agents that can do whatever they want, who doesn't know them?"

Did I sound like a fanboy? I hoped that I sounded like a fanboy, because that was plan B. Stupid as it might be. And all because that AI wasn't letting me tell Shepard the truth.

Actually, will she know? I could just-

My train of thought was interrupted when my vision started to lose its colour, and go wavy in front of me. I blinked a couple of times, and it went away.

A warning. Seriously, what the hell?

There was a very awkward pause, which I took as a good sign. Yeah, so I came across as an idiot fanboy. It was the only thing I could think of. Thanks a lot, secret mysterious glowing AI.

I made a mental note to flip her the bird next time she decided to invade my mental privacy.

"You see Roy, we have a little problem," Anderson said. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his arms, and put his hands under his chin. "Shepard said you did okay as part of the squad."

That surprised me. I looked back over my shoulder, and I saw her smirk. "Bit rough, but you did okay. You are in desperate need of training, though."

"Okay."

"So, since we thought you may be useful, I asked Arcturus to run a background check."

Anderson paused dramatically, which kind of worried me a bit. I wasn't sure what exactly they could have found out. I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't even exist in this universe. Or if it was the future, I would have disappeared a bit under two hundred years ago. Okay, that would be awkward.

"And they found nothing."

I blinked a couple of times. "And that's bad?"

"Nothing at all. As far as the Systems Alliance is concerned, you don't exist. Not even close DNA matches, distant relatives, nothing." He gave me a very significant look, which made my ass suddenly find the chair rather uncomfortable. "Now, there may be a few reasons for that, but I'd like to hear it from you. Where are you from?"

"Earth," I replied.

"Where on Earth?" Shepard said. The tit-for-tat between the two of them was really throwing me off-balance here. "I can't quite place the accent."

"Uh, well..." Crap. Two hundred years, are the maps still the same? "Europe, down the Mediterranean."

"Uh-huh," she replied, looking unconvinced.

"And how come you aren't a registered citizen?" Anderson again. See what I mean? Bad cop, good cop. Or bad cop, worse cop.

"Ah, well," I stammered. "Strange community, you know. Kinda luddites, it was like living in the late twentieth or early twenty-first century or something."

"I see," Anderson replied. He looked at the desk, picked an item from it, and tossed it at me as he kept talking. "And how did you end up on Eden Prime?"

I caught the thing with my good arm, and noticed it was a weird rectangular electronic gizmo, with two looped straps, one on each end. I looked at it while trying to figure out what it was, then got distracted when Anderson asked me about Eden Prime.

"I have no idea. I just got out of... Well, left home. Didn't even think about where I was going."

"Really," Shepard deadpanned. I still couldn't decide whether she was supposed to be the good or the bad cop. She kept doing both.

The thing Anderson had tossed at me almost dropped when I kept fidgeting with it, but I managed to catch it between my legs. The two of them were looking at me, but I had no idea what to say. I was fairly sure I could only dig the hole deeper, so I refused to grab the shovel again and go at it.

Finally, it was Shepard who spoke, and again she was back to the good cop bit. "Look, Roy. I wasn't kidding when I said you did okay back on Eden Prime. You offered to help, and I wouldn't turn you down, at least for now. But you have to look at it from my perspective. You seem to know about the protheans, which is useful, but the most basic things seem to puzzle you." She pointed a the gizmo in my hand. "That's your omni-tool. That is, the omni-tool you took from the garrison. You didn't have one of your own, and it doesn't look like you even know how to use it."

I stopped fidgeting with the omni-tool, and I knew I was staring at Shepard, not merely looking. Trying to figure out when the hammer was going to fall. Was she going to tell me they didn't trust me? That they were going to kick me out? Maybe they had decided that I was a spy, and were just going to interrogate me. As in punch in the face and ask a question kind of interrogation.

Yeah, not good. Meanwhile, Shepard was still talking and I hadn't been paying attention.

"So throw us a bone here. All that adds up to I don't know what. I was thinking maybe you were an escaped slave, but then half the things you do are completely off."

I sighed. Yeah, it wasn't going to work. With Ghosty McGhost not letting me say anything about what I know, and how much I suck at lying? We were going to be here all day. Maybe I could just flat out tell her I can't tell you, or some ghost AI that brought me here will fry my brain.

Curiously, I was expecting to get the warning again, vision waving and world going black and white and all that, but it didn't happen. Maybe she wasn't really reading my mind. Regardless, there was no point to continuing this conversation.

"Look, if you can't trust me I understand." I leaned forward to stand up, but was immediately stopped when I saw Anderson lunging at me. I sat down again in a flash and snapped my head to look at him, but as it turned out he wasn't doing anything of the sort. All he had done was sit up and raise his hand in a gesture for me to stop.

Whoopsy. Yeah, I may suck at lying, but making up stuff, specially in my extremely paranoid head? Bloody aces. I totally saw him ready to punch me in the face in my mind.

Anderson noticed my reaction. May have been the wide eyed shocked look I gave him.

"Roy," he said, speaking in a very calm voice. "It's not like that." He exchanged a look with Shepard, and turned to me again, putting on a small smile. "We'll be coming to the Citadel in about twelve hours. You're still a key witness to this investigation, so if you could stick around until we present the evidence to the council, we'd appreciate it."

"Sure," I said. Or half-mumbled.

"After that, we can decide what happens next." He gestured towards the door. "We need to finish the report to the council, and add your testimony. Thank you for your time."

"Ah, right," I said, now standing up. I have them a nod each and walked off. And even as I stepped out of the office and the door closed behind me, I had no idea what the hell had happened. Was it good or bad?

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun!

Man, Ash was a badass. I love that movie.

The mess had cleared out during our little chat, and the only one left was Ash. Not Army of Darkness Ash, but Mass Effect Ash. She was nursing a steaming cup of something, and didn't even look at me as I passed. She didn't look like she was looking at anything in particular, she looked like she was a million miles away. Still on Eden Prime, maybe. I had to admit, I was pretty hungry, but there was no food I could see. All the cabinets were locked, and the only fridge I could see had a red light on it too.

"Only authorized personnel," I heard Ashley said. I turned to her, but she wasn't even looking at me.

I sighed, and grabbed an empty drink bottle. I was thirsty too, probably the cold sweat during the little interrogation helped that. So, water it was. Found the tap, filled the bottle, sat down at one of the tables – and not the one Ash was at – and set to figure out how to use the damn omni-tool.

Author's notes: I always wondered about how easily Shepard seemed to let what amounted to civilians - well armed civilians, but civilians nonetheless - join her crew. I assume the Mass Effect universe is like the wild west, with everyone armed and the law deputizing citizens anytime a bad shootout is going to go down. So yeah, getting in the crew seems doable if you look useful.

That is, if you manage to make a good impression. All in all, not the greatest first impression for Roy, I have to say.

Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and everything else! XRaider, she's not that glowy, but glowy enough :D And Archer83, it's not going to be that easy! ;) Mizuki, Lfan, Sappiros, thanks too =)

So, en route to the Citadel. Where the magic happens!