After I left Anderson's office, the two of them stayed back to discuss my interrogation. I figured as much at the time, but only found about the contents of their conversation much, much later, in a conversation with a bunch of the crew about how we had joined the Normandy.

Shepard didn't move from her spot, still sitting at the edge of the bed, kicking her feet lightly and leaning back, while propping herself up with her arms, while Anderson kept to his chair.

"What do you think, sir?" Shepard said.

"I'm not sure I buy it," Anderson said.

"I know, but you've seen him. He's a terrible liar, and all I have to do is switch between friendly and serious, and I can throw him off-balance anytime. Whatever it is he's not saying, I don't think he's a spy or an agent. Unless he's a really good actor."

"No, you're right. You saw how jumpy he was," Anderson said, nodding.

"Runaway?"

"Possibly. Just have to figure out who it is he's running from. Don't want to invite more trouble in than he's worth."

Their conversation was interrupted when Shepard's omni-tool chimed, and once she saw the message, a smile started to creep over her face. Not missing it, Anderson chuckled and stood up.

"Go ahead and use my terminal, Shepard. I need some coffee."

"Captain, I can-"

Anderson waved her off and left his quarters, leaving Shepard alone inside. She shook her head, went to the terminal, and opened the FTL comms link. After a few moments, a burst of static preceded the face of a man in his sixties, close cropped salt and pepper hair, square and strong jaw, piercing blue eyes, and markings of a Lieutenant Commander on his uniform. The name badge was visible too, Edward Shepard.

And he was smiling.

"Hello baby girl," he said, his eyes almost disappearing in the wrinkles produced by his wide smile.

"Hi dad. Is this a bad time?"

"Nah, we're just in the middle of some training manoeuvres; classified stuff, you know the drill."

"Shouldn't the chief engineer be on duty then?" Shepard said, her own smile mirroring her father's.

"I just pulled a double shift, Smithies can run the ship for now. Your mom, on the other hand, would probably agree with you," he said, finishing with a wink.

Shepard chuckled and shook her head. "She probably would at that."

"So," Edward said, not changing his light tone in the slightest. "How did the mission go?"

At that, Shepard's smile did vanish. She looked at the screen, and as it often happened, she wished she could actually be there. But that was life in the navy, you got sent around and had to put up with it. The only reason her parents got to serve in the same ship was that her father had pretty much given up on advancement through the chain of command, and that he worked so damn hard at being the best engineer the Systems Alliance had to offer that he could pretty much pick and choose which ship he wanted to serve in, and nobody would have a reason to cry "nepotism!".

"Not great."

"Yeah, I gathered. Want to talk about it? As much as you can, classified stuff and all that, am I right?"

"Yes," Shepard chuckled at that, but it was a short lived reprieve. "It was chaos. Eden Prime, not sure if anything's filtered through yet..."

"We heard. Attacked by unknown forces."

"Not unknown, it was the Geth."

Edward looked at Shepard for several seconds without saying a word. His eyebrows were almost comically arched up, although he managed not to let his mouth hang open in surprise.

"The Geth? What the hell were they doing on Eden Prime?"

"That's the classified part," Shepard replied. "But it was the Geth all right. We got a crate full of robot parts to show for it."

"Damn. And it was just the Normandy?"

"Just us," Shepard said. "We lost so many people. Civilians, the local garrison. We... We lost Jenkins too." She looked at Edward, and her father just nodded at her, trying to give her a reassuring look. "Ambushed by some geth drones. There must have been something wrong with his suit, they ripped through his shields like they weren't even there."

"I'm sorry baby girl," he said, shaking his head.

"He was from Eden Prime, so he was so eager. I should have reined him in. Paid more attention. If I had..."

"Elizabeth, don't do that," he chided her gently.

"It was my mission," Shepard retorted.

"Yes. Against an unknown enemy, while outgunned, and ambushed. Liz, there isn't even a fine line between learning from what went wrong and taking all the blame, and you not only cross it, but stomp all over it. You have to stop doing that." Shepard nodded wordlessly, so Edward kept talking. "What is it Anderson always says?"

"Marines die, and that's what we're here for. But that doesn't mean we will forget them," she quoted automatically, not even stopping to think.

"That's right. And who did you save?"

"Some colonists, the gunny from the 212, I even got to pull Nihlus out of some serious trouble."

"I told you Spectres were trouble."

"Why, thanks dad!"

Edward blinked a couple of times in surprise, until his brain kicked into gear and got what Shepard had meant. He let out a low whistle, and smiled. "That's my girl. So that's why the turian was following you everywhere, huh?"

"Yup!"

"Well, that outta give you extra Spectre points. Got himself over his head?"

"Not exactly," Shepard replied, chuckling at her father's quip. "It's a little complicated, he was caught off-guard. A kid from the colony actually saved him first."

"A kid?"

"Yeah. Well, not so much a kid, he's got to be, what, twenty or something. I haven't actually asked him, come to think of it."

"Hmmmm, anything interesting about him?"

"Lots, actually," Shepard replied distractedly. She then realized what her father had said, looked at the screen, and saw the smug smile on his face. "Da-ad! That's not what I mean!" Her protest only brought out an amused laugh from Edward.

For crying out loud, I'm a twenty-nine year old woman, why does he make me feel like a teenager every time we talk!

As if reading her mind, Edward stopped laughing to answer her. "Baby girl, you'll be a hundred, and we'll still be able to embarrass you whenever we want. It's our god-given right as your parents," he said, and gave her a wink.

I was somewhat confused when Shepard came out of the Captain's quarters about half an hour after Anderson himself. She looked relaxed, and had an easy smile on her face. Whatever she did in there-

Bad brain! Bad!

Yeah, totally not what I meant. Regardless, she looked rather... well, not happy, but close enough. She nodded at me, and made her way to the kitchen. I must have looked like a hungry homeless man, because she looked at me again and turned her smile into a smirk. That smirk signalled danger, but I hadn't learned it yet.

"Hungry?"

"A little," I said, which was a heck of an understatement.

She disappeared under the counter, rummaging through one of the cabinets, and after a few seconds, popped up again with a foil pack in her hand. She gestured with the pack at me, then tossed it across with excellent accuracy. I caught it mid-air with my good arm, and turned it in my hand. It was completely nondescript, other than a red mark on the corner. A-101. Whatever was wrapped inside was square, and hard.

"What's this?"

"Emergency rations. You can have as many as you want."

"Cool, thanks."

As I said, I totally missed the meaning behind the mischievous grin on her face, as well as the looks Ashley and Anderson were giving me. I tore the foil open, looked inside, and saw there were four dry bars of... I couldn't quite tell what. I pulled one out, and without even giving it a sniff, I dug in.

Bloody hell.

Not only it was hard as fucking concrete, it tasted like stale weet-bix mixed with some sort of dried up fruit – or, rather, fossilized fruit – and kept together with plastic.

So, needless to say, I grimaced, chewed through, finished the first bar in four bites, and went for the second. What can I say, I've been a student. At least it wasn't freaking pot noodles. By the time I was working on the third, Shepard joined me, carrying a plate of steaming hot pasta.

"You like them?" she said, not bothering to disguise her amusement.

I heard Ashley sniggering, and a quick glance showed her looking at me and trying not to laugh, and Anderson doing an excellent job at being distracted with his datapad. The twitch on her eye did give him away.

"I've had worse," I said, popping in the last piece and going for the last bar. The response probably wasn't what they were expecting, because it cut down the joking chatter. Yeah, I have had worse. I went back to fiddling with the omni-tool, which took Shepard's attention again.

"Whatcha doin'?" she said over a mouthful, and swallowed. "Sending a message home?"

That'd be a trick, I thought. I hadn't thought about it, but I was, at best, nearly two hundred years from them. At worst, a whole damn universe away. And now that it hit me... I found that it didn't really bother me that much. I had been glad to show them my back when I buggered off as soon as I could, and all it meant now was that they really didn't have a chance to fuck with me again.

Shepard either didn't notice that I got lost in thought with her question, or decided that it was something she wanted to keep digging through.

"Where's your family anyway?" she said, still keeping it light and casual.

"Probably dead," I said. Unless they managed to live to two hundred, that is. Wouldn't surprise me, mala hierba nunca muere, as we say in Spanish.

Her eyebrows shot up when I said that, which made me realize what exactly those words must have come across like. I shrugged to try and take the sting out of that. Not that I could tell her why, which made it only worse. Now we were looking at each other, and I was furiously trying to come up with something to say. At the end, I decided to keep it simple.

"Don't worry about it Shepard, I'm fine."

I popped the last bite of bar, and went back to my omni-tool. Shepard went back to her meal too, and out of the corner of my eye I saw she was observing me.

"So what are you doing?" she finally said. I think she was trying really hard to strike conversation, which was unfortunate as I really didn't have a clue what to talk about with her. Since the obvious was out, thanks to the freaking glowing AI, I needed some time to think my plan on how to break things for Shepard in a hidden, backhanded way.

Raising my arm carefully in my sling, I showed her the screen. "Chapter 1, how to use your omni-tool," I said. "It's amazing how much this thing can do."

"It's just the basic bluewire," Shepard said. "You should see what one can do with an upgrade."

"What's the upgrade do?"

"There's loads of them. Faster processing, a better micro-fabricator, more power... There's usually a tradeoff, so it's not like you can upgrade everything. You wouldn't have a power source big enough to begin with." She raised her hand, showing me her own omni-tool. "With this one I can make a tech mine in two seconds, yours would probably take half a minute. And as for power, you won't be able to make a basic overload."

"Oh."

"Eh, don't worry too much. Specialized programs aren't for everyone, it won't help you if you don't really know how to use them."

"Yeah, you should stick to solitaire."

That was Ash. Shepard and I turned to look at her, and the chief merely stood up and walked off, not even looking at me. I watched her go, still puzzling over why she was being so abrasive with me. Sure, I hadn't been brilliant out there, but heck, I took a bullet that was destined for her head. Of course, I shouldn't have taken the bullet in the first place and just shot the geth, but hey, give me a break here.

The most disturbing revelation was that solitaire was still a thing in the 22nd century. Yikes.

"She lost her whole unit down there," Shepard said. As if it was an explanation, it's not like it was my bloody fault, is it?

I just shook my head and went back to my omni-tool. Distractedly, I scratched my neck under the uniform, where the rash was starting to really become annoying.

"I recommend you don't wear armor without undermesh next time," Shepard said, not bothering to hide her chuckle.

"Yeah," I deadpanned.

"Seriously. Didn't the fact that all the edges were digging in your skin clue you in?"

"Obviously not," I retorted without looking up, then immediately caught myself. Yeah, I probably looked like an idiot, body armor seemed as common as fleas in the Mass Effect universe. If I were anywhere near normal, I should have seen a few.

I heard Shepard chuckle again, and a moment later, my omni-tool pinged.

"You gotten to the messaging instructions yet?" she said.

With a click on the exclamation mark on the top left corner, I opened the messages, and saw one from Shepard. It had a document attached.

"What's this?" I said, flicking through pages. "Armor, weapons, maintenance and storage..."

"Standard alliance toolset maintenance," Shepard said. When I looked at her, she shrugged. "Eh, it's not a state secret or anything, you could find it on the extranet once we get to port."

"Wpw. That's going to help, thanks." I flicked through the pages, it was full of helpful diagrams and basics. "So no int- er, extranet access while on transit?"

"Not during FTL, no. Standard FTL beam for point-to-point comms only."

Like I know the difference.

"I see. Ta."

"You're welcome. If you want to try it on, your gear is stored in a locker downstairs. Me? I'm going to catch some shut-eye. Your pod is that one." Shepard pointed at the nearest pod on the right side. She saw the blank look I gave it, and chuckled again. "It's in the manual too. They're easy to operate."

"OK, thanks. I think I'll go try the armor on properly first."

She waved me as she made her way to her pod, stopping only to put the dish and cutlery in the dishwasher, and I took off towards the elevator, after disposing of the foil wrapper of my rations. To my displeased surprise, the thing was ridiculously slow, so it took a while until I got down there. The cargo bay of the Normandy was similar to what I expected based on the games, only it seemed to be larger, and there were a couple of doors at the sides, on either side of the corridors that led to engineering. Apparently there were extra compartments. As it turned out, the place wasn't empty. Ashley was at her post, putting some weapons away.

The lockers were next to her workbench, opposite side of the mako. I resisted the temptation of checking the unwieldy beast close-up, and found my locker instead. It had my name stencilled in a corner, and it was next to the locker of one Richard L. Jenkins.

I stared at the name for a while. Dammit, it would have been nice to save him too. Not that I really had much of a chance, it was a freaking miracle I managed to distract Saren long enough for Nihlus to get his scaly ass out of trouble.

With a mental sigh, I turned to my locker, and managed to open it on my first try. Yay me. Biometrics, apparently. The pistol was clipped to a metallic stripe on the back, and so was the geth pulse rifle; the armor was neatly folded and piled up on one side, and there was what I surmised had to be an underlay folded next to it. I picked the mesh and unfolded it, looking at the thing. It was completely black, the inside lined with soft material, and the outside was rough to the touch, with thicker fibres interleaved in a zig-zag pattern.

"Come to play dress-up?" Ash said. She glanced at me once, shook her head, and went back to putting together the assault rifle on the bench.

"Chief, what's your problem with me?" I said, after thinking for a couple of seconds whether this was going to be worth the trouble, or if I was better off just letting it slide and ignoring her. Apparently, I was feeling particularly masochistic that day.

"My problem," she said slowly, sliding in the outer casing of the rifle and snapping it in place. She then turned to me, and stood barely a step away, pointing at my chest. "My problem is you, playing soldier out there and pretending... What the hell do you think this is, some kind of game?" I managed not to say anything at that, mostly because she looked like she was only just gathering steam. She pointed at the suit of armor in my locker. "A lot of good men and women died wearing that uniform while you treat it like a damn joke!"

For a few seconds I just looked at her, not sure what to say. I had no clue where she got the idea I thought this was all a joke (except, perhaps, a cosmic one of extremely poor taste), and I thought I had done pretty well getting Nihlus out of trouble (not that she'd know, of course, unless she had a copy of Mass Effect to see him getting shot in the head). When I moved to speak, she just raised her hand to silence me.

"You asked what my problem was, now you know," she said, and without another word, she stowed the rifle away and headed off to the lift.

Great. So she's pissed about the geth killing her unit, which was understandable, and had decided to take it out on me, with sucked, because she thought I wasn't taking it seriously.

Well, fuck it. I waited until she was in the lift, while examining the suit, and once the lift closed, I decided to put it all on. I took the undersuit, stripped down to my undies, and got myself in it, stirring uncomfortably where it irritated the rashes. I hoped it'd be more comfortable than this once I got them sorted out. After that, I opened my omni-tool and followed the instructions piece by piece. It took me nearly ten minutes (regulation standards said to train until it could be put on and taken off in less than sixty seconds), but when I snapped the last piece in and put the helmet on, the HUD greeted me with an all-green signal.

So I could do it after all.

I went through the drill five or six times, not really making a dent on the time (the rear clasps were a bitch to get to, specially with a dud arm), until I got bored and put the suit back in the locker. I wasn't going to have to put it on in a hurry any time soon. Maybe I'd have it repainted once I got to the Citadel, just to shut Ashley up.

Which reminded me I was flat broke. Maybe I could trade the geth rifle in, then get a shotgun and a painjob for the armor.

Or a new suit of armor. Actually, I had no idea how much I'd get for a geth rifle, or how much a hardsuit went for in real life.

Real life, heh.

Regardless, in-game, a grade I piece of equipment cost something like two hundred credits, and a grade X item somewhere in the vicinity of a thousand times that, which seemed rather ridiculous. Specially if Shepard and co. were wearing and using grade I crap, while being special ops and all the jazz. I'd have to ask Shepard, what's one more thing to look like an idiot about anyway?

With that, I locked the locker, and went back to the crew deck. Despite having been out since the mission ended until a couple of hours before, I was feeling rather drained. The arm was feeling much better, but I decided not to move it out of the sling. Getting into the pod was a little bit of an adventure, and I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to sleep, given that it didn't really go completely horizontal, but instead I fell asleep within minutes.

They were after me. I could hear the shouts, and the shooting. There were corpses everywhere, and every time I ran into someone, said someone would be blown to hell as I ran past them. I didn't have a coherent thought in my head, all I could think was run!

An explosion rocked everything, and I fell into a hole, which soon started filling up with the dead bodies of all the people I had left behind. I couldn't breathe.

I opened my eyes with a gasp, and banged my head against the glass in front of me. I was trapped. I clawed desperately at the window, then around me, trying to find a way out.

"Roy!"

With a hiss, the pod opened, and I would have bolted out of there, if it hadn't been for Shepard putting her arm on my chest. You know how, in the movies, they often show people bolting awake and shouting when they're having a nightmare (sweating optional)? Well, it wasn't quite like that. I've had nightmares before, but freaking hell that was something else. It took me an eternity to get my bearings again.

"You were having a nightmare," Shepard said.

"Oh shit," I muttered, and let myself fall back into the pod. Shepard poked her head over the edge of the pod, a smile tugging at her lips. "Did I wake- Wait, what time is it?"

"Oh five twenty," she said, after a quick look at her omni-tool. "And I was already awake."

"You're up early."

"Eh, I don't sleep much," she said with a shrug, and with a tap on the pod, she left me alone.

The mere idea of trying to go back to sleep seemed ridiculous, I was really awake now. So, with a sigh, I pulled myself off the pod, and made towards the kitchen. Shepard was sitting with her back towards the pods, nursing a steaming cup of coffee.

I sat down in front of her, rubbing my face.

"Not a morning cat?" Shepard said.

"Not like this, no..."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Huh?" I looked at her in surprise, and she just shrugged at me.

"Eh, I figured it's probably something to do with Eden Prime. Your first time in combat?"

"First time seeing people being blown to bits," I replied, my eyes drifting down to her cup of coffee.

"Yeah."

"How do you do it Shepard?" I said, looking at her in the eyes. She returned my gaze, a very palpable intensity behind the look.

"If you want me to say that it gets easier, it doesn't. I still see the faces of the men, women, and children that I failed to help. But I'll tell you what my parents told me after Akuze."

Shit, Akuze? That sucks balls.

"It's not about who you lose, it's about who you help. Sometimes you lose people even after you tried your best, and that's all you can do. Sometimes you didn't do your best, and the only thing left is to do better next time. As I understand, if it weren't for you, Nihlus would be dead now."

"But all those people..."

"Not much you could have done without a gun and some kinetic barriers," Shepard replied, shrugging. "It's hard to swallow, but sometimes the odds are truly insurmountable."

I nodded. Intellectually, I could see her point, but it didn't make me feel much better. A little, maybe.

"I guess so. Thanks Shepard."

She stood, and gave me a slap on the shoulder before making for the kitchen. "You sure you don't want some coffee?"

"Nah, I'm good. I better go get a shower."

"Roy," she said, catching my attention. "The sonic cleaner next to the shower will clean your clothes while you're in. Instructions are on your manual," she added, her eyes amused and with a mischievous grin.

"Cool, thanks."

After cleaning up, and failing to find a way to shave the stubble (can you believe there isn't a holoshave app for the omni-tool? I figured an omni-blade would be a little excessive though), I was feeling a lot better. I got out of the shower, only to find that Anderson was already up.

"Oh Roy, good morning. You're just in time."

"Morning, Captain," I said. "In time for what?"

"Nihlus just woke up, come with us."

"Huh?" I said. Which I came to realize it was starting to sound like my signature catchphrase.

"You're our resident prothean beacon expert," he said, not without a hint of irony.

With a mental shrug, I followed them in, and found Chakwas running scans on the turian.

"So," Anderson said, trying to inject some good natured humor in his voice. "How is our resident Spectre?"

Nihlus said something I couldn't understand. Anderson and Shepard both nodded, which confused me to no end, until I realized he was obviously speaking turian.

That's gonna be a problem.

"Physically you're fine," Chakwas said. "And Roy's assessment was correct. A neural inhibitor regime sped up your recovery. The symptoms were very similar to an overload from asari melding."

Again, Nihlus said something, looked at me, and when I didn't answer, everyone turned to look at me. Yay, I love being the center of attention. Not.

"Err... Timmy fell into a well?" I offered.

Nobody laughed. Oh, come on! It was funny!

"You have no implants, do you?" Shepard said.

"Uh... no."

"Really?" Nihlus said, now speaking English. The rumble of his voice really did give him a strange accent. "That is unusual."

"Yeah, that's me. So, the beacon hit you?" I offered, furiously trying to change the subject.

"More like it grabbed me. Got to the port too late to stop Saren. I was just done mopping up some geth when the beacon pulled me in."

"What happened?" Anderson said, taking control of the conversation.

"It... put something in my head. A vision."

"I detected unusual readings from your brainwaves while you were out," Chakwas said. "I couldn't be sure, since turians usually don't dream when they sleep."

"Spirit dreams. But I wasn't dreaming. It was more like a nightmare," Nihlus deadpanned.

"Yeah, plenty of those around, apparently," I muttered. Turians must have very sharp hearing, because she looked at me like he had heard me perfectly, but given that I wasn't joking, he didn't seem offended by my remark.

"I saw synthetics, killing organics. There was this feeling of dread, danger. Telling me to run away. That destruction was inevitable."

"Roy?" Shepard said.

I shrugged. "We still don't know how the protheans went extinct. Maybe they got their own geth revolution."

"So why haven't we found any of those synthetics?" Nihlus said.

"Beats me. Maybe we haven't found the prothean homeworld. Like the geth not leaving... uh... the quarian planet?"

"Rannoch," Anderson said. He then turned to Nihlus. "We have a bigger problem. The mission was a failure, the beacon was destroyed... and Saren."

"Yeah. Saren," Nihlus said. His subvocals growled angrily, with his mandibles clicking loudly on his lower jaw.

"We'll have to bring this to the Council."

"I know. Did you get a good look at him, Commander?"

"Not really," Shepard said. "All I saw was a grey turian running away when we started shooting. Roy here did."

"No offense, but I'm not sure they'll consider the word of a lone civilian, it'll be Saren's word against mine."

"It'll have to do," Anderson said.

"Wait," I said, interrupting the conversation. "Saren shot you, you saw him do it, and the Council will pretend that nothing happened? Seriously?"

"Saren's their top Spectre," Nihlus said. "At best they may investigate, but I know him. Unless we have some evidence, him caught red handed, he won't leave any trail. Was there no footage from security cameras at the spaceport? Nothing?"

"No," Shepard said. "Pretty much all electronics were fried when the geth attacked. All we have is the transmission the chief made from the surface."

"Yes, that," Nihlus muttered. "Oh Spirits," he then said out loud. "Shepard, do you have it with you?"

"Err... Give me a sec," she replied, bringing her omni-tool up. "Why? Did you remember something?"

"The ship," Nihlus said, shaking his head. "It can't be."

Finally, Shepard found the clip she was looking for on her omni-tool and, with a swipe, she sent it to Nihlus' own. He brought it up, and watched as Ash shouted at the camera. It was absolute chaos. I hadn't seen the clip, and, unlike in-game, it looked horrific. I recognized where they were, an open area not far from where I found the armor and gun. Then all looked away in shock, and the camera turned to show Sovereign arriving.

Shit, that was terrifying. More so because I did see Sovereign from the surface, and the video really brought the memories back.

"That's the ship. Spirits help me, the ships from my vision."

"What?" Shepard and Anderson both said.

"My vision. Synthetics and organics. I... I saw a ship like that. Saren's working with whatever destroyed the protheans."

I must have looked rather silly, because I was pretty sure my eyebrows were higher than I had ever felt them. Right there, Nihlus had jumped several chapters ahead; the whole "Saren is trying to resurrect the reapers" thing was supposed to come later. Well, good, maybe we could get the Council to listen and grab Saren before a whole mess of people had to die.

"Why would he do that?" Shepard said.

"I don't know Shepard," Nihlus replied, his voice low. Even though I wasn't quite there when it came to reading alien facial expressions, I could tell he was shocked. It was easy to forget that Saren had been his mentor in the Spectres.

Chakwas gave us a look, and very quickly we all got the hint. Shepard and I made ourselves scarce, while Anderson stayed behind, standing next to Nihlus and saying something to him in a low voice. I made something about the council and setting up a meeting, but that was it.

"So, what do you think?" Shepard said, as we made our way to the stairs at the back of the ship.

"Me?" She nodded. "Err... It's a little far-fetched. Except that I saw the bloody giant ship myself." And I know it's all freaking true, but nevermind that. "What about you?"

"Yeah, it may be a hard sell with the Council. Eh, we'll see. No point dwelling on it before we get to the Citadel."

Author's notes: Hey, while on the subject of effing with canon when I'm supposed not to, why the hell not? If I recall correctly, the first time you're shown the random images of the beacon in-game you do see the ship, as a wireframe silhouette. So, Nihlus is smarter than Shepard when it comes to connecting the dots. Now you know.

And yay for Roy managing to avoid unwanted attention without making people suspicious!

Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and everything else!

Mizuki00, yep, "trainwreck" is pretty much what I'm going for here (I'm really good at those IRL!). As far as the omni-tool, the way I see it, think of it as a long and very flat electronic gizmo with a strap on each of the long ends, wrap them around the forearm, and everything's holographic (interface and all).

Archer83, yep, not the best first impression Roy could have made! :D

Until next time, when we'll see what else Roy manages to screw up in his adventures!