"Jack is psychotic; she takes pleasure in killing others. She was experimented on by Cerberus, turned into the perfect biotic killer. And going to Pragia, back to the Teltin Facility, was supposed to bring her closure. She was trapped in her past, tortured and alone. Like so many others there."
The shuttle ride was quiet; Kacey didn't know what to say. Her conversations with Jack were tense ones, and the last thing she wanted to do was pry on a sensitive situation. Jack was thumping her foot against the floor of the shuttle; each tap getting more and more on Kacey's nerves. She started to question Jack's reasoning for coming here. She couldn't understand why she would want to come back here; why waste the effort to blow the place up? Was closure really on her mind, or was it something else? Kacey could only guess.
She already knew Cerberus couldn't be trusted; she wasn't stupid. And she knew what she saw from their outposts two years ago. They experimented on Throian creepers, rachni and even killed an Alliance admiral; she was well aware of what they are. But she also knew that the Collectors needed to be stopped. So if she had to cooperate with them to get rid of the Collectors, then so be it. She could look after herself.
"I forgot how much I hate this place." Jack said in a bitter tone, "See the landing pad? Has to be on the roof, or the vegetation would overgrow it in a few hours."
"Shepard, I am picking up thermal signatures everywhere except at your landing zone." EDI chimed.
"Something's got to be distorting the sensors." Kacey replied, "This was a secret Cerberus facility."
"Yeah, they build their equipment to last." Jack mused, "Assholes. It was a mistake coming back here, Shepard."
"Get a hold of yourself." Kacey responded, "It'll be okay."
"I'm fine." Jack snapped sharply, "Okay. Let's get on the ground."
The shuttle landed; as it did the thundering tippy-tap of the rain outside started to hammer down on top of the shuttle. Kacey observed Jack carefully as the biotic sighed before leaving the shuttle and entering the storm outside.
Kacey put her hand up to shield her eyes from the rain; it was heavy and showed no signs of stopping, the dark clouds making the night sky even darker. Some of the vegetation had reached the roof, with vines weaving their way around every crevice of the facility's roof.
"Let's just get in there and plant the bomb in my cell." Jack said as she made her way to the catwalk, "I want to watch this place burn."
Kacey followed Jack along the catwalk and inside the dilapidated building. The smell of vegetation, mould and rust began to burn her lungs. There were containers on the far side of the room, with small slits in the middle. Crates were stacked at the side, near the clouded windows. The doors, the walls, they looked almost identical to Lazarus station.
"I never saw this room." Jack mused aloud as she looked around the room, "I think they brought new kids in these containers. They were messed up and starving, but alive. Usually."
"How many kids did they put in these?" Kacey questioned.
Jack sighed, "No idea. I assume a few."
Kacey left it there; the last thing she wanted was to dig up unwanted memories for Jack. This was hard enough without her bringing up more uncomfortable memories.
The silence was interrupted by the sound of a voice recording. Kacey looked around and found the device down the ramp in the following room. A man appeared on the holographic interface, his brow furrowed.
"The Illusive Man requested operations logs again. He's getting suspicious. When we get results, he won't care what we did. But if he knew…He won't know."
"Sounds like the facility went rogue." Kacey mused as Jack scoffed in response.
"He didn't say what they were hiding from the Illusive Man." Jack scoffed as she entered the next room, "I remember escaping to this room. Fighting here. I saw sunlight through the cracks in the ceiling. Tch, only a half dead guard between me and freedom. He was begging for his life."
Kacey shook her head as she moved through the dilapidated room, walking past the stacks of rusted containers and thick greenery. Aside from their footsteps, the only sound in the building was the small pitter patter of raindrops hitting the cracked tiles below or against the thin panes of glass against the ceiling.
"The place gave me the creeps. It's one of those places you have to see for yourself to really understand. Much like the dead Reaper we'll get to soon."
The low growling of varren put Kacey on high alert as she opened fire on the varren that came charging towards her. Once the varren were down, Kacey turned around the corner and found several barricades set up like a ring, and with what looked to be dried blood stained across the floor.
"Is this an arena? The fuck?" Kacey mused.
"That's what I thought too." Jack sighed, "They used to stage fights here. Pit me against other kids. I loved it. Only time I was ever out of my cell."
"Why though?"
"Hell if I know. Maybe that's how they got their kicks." Jack mused, "I never understood anything that happened here."
"They did this often?"
"I was in a cell my whole life. Sometimes they took me out and made me fight." Jack clarified, "Filled me with drugs. Other stuff. Time gets funny in a cell."
"So kids died in these fights?" Kacey mused.
"I was a kid, filled with drugs. I got shocked when I hesitated." Jack replied, "Narcotics flooded my veins when I attacked."
"So you were punished for refusing to attack."
"I still get warm feelings during a fight.
"Yeah, okay this is fucked up." Kacey mused. She started to walk away from the busted arena before almost walking directly into a terminal. As Kacey bumped into it, the terminal sprang to life.
"Security Officer Zemkl, Teltin facility. The subjects are out of their cells! They're tearing the place up! Subject Zero is going to get loose. I need permission to terminate—I repeat, permission to terminate! All subjects besides Zero are expendable. Keep Jack alive!"
"No, that's not right." Jack said, "I broke out when my guards disappeared—I started that riot."
"Things might have happened that you didn't see." Kacey replied.
"The other kids attacked me. The guards attacked me. The automated systems attacked me." Jack snapped defensively, "That doesn't leave lots of room for interpretation."
"Calm down." Kacey said calmly as she headed towards the door, "I'm not judging you or claiming that something else happened."
"I bet." Jack scoffed as they headed down the stairs, "I bet you—The fuck?"
"What?" Kacey asked.
"Look." Jack pointed at the pile of dead varren on the ground, "This place is supposed to be deserted. Who the fuck shot that varren? It's a fresh kill."
"We better keep our guard up." Kacey replied.
…
"I guess we found out who shot that varren!" Kacey shouted as she fired a concussive shot at the vorcha around the corner.
"Fucking bastards!" Jack snapped as she sent shockwaves across the room.
The Blood Pack was not what Kacey expected to encounter in this place. The violent mercenaries didn't seem to be looting the place as she expected them to; more like they were guarding the place. It didn't sit right. In truth, Kacey was unsettled by the many possibilities that ran through her head.
But the room itself was just as unsettling; gurneys, tables, freezers. It was a damn morgue. As far as Kacey was concerned, it was another reason why Cerberus was labelled a terrorist organisation.
"Why'd they need a morgue?" Jack questioned as she blew the head off the last merc, "This was a small facility."
"My guess, a lot of children died here." Kacey sighed, "All for their damned experiments."
"Bullshit. I had the worst of it, and I made it out alive." Jack snapped.
Kacey remained silent; she didn't know how to respond. Jack was getting defensive, and it was starting to manifest in a more aggressive way. She could understand why; Cerberus tortured Jack as a child. Turned her into a living weapon. They continued to move down the hall, with Jack gazing absent-mindedly across the room.
"So strange to be back here." She mused, "I feel like…I'm pissed off. I'm a dangerous bitch. But then…I'm a little girl again. Shit, it's complicated. Let's just go plant that bomb."
They ran into more mercs by the dormitories, though calling them that was the understatement of the century. The rooms were extremely small and cramped, with a bunk bed sink and toilet in the cell. The beds were toppled over in the rooms, sheets and duvets torn to shreds of confetti littered the dirty floor. Kacey couldn't imagine children living here, being trapped in those rooms or fighting in that arena. Kacey didn't want to think about it; she instead focused on shooting all of the mercs in front of her.
In the next room, Kacey could see a massive mirror adorned on the opposite wall. It was an odd thing to find in a place like this. She would've thought the Cerberus operatives were vain if not for the words that left Jack's mouth.
"This…it's a two-way mirror?" Jack said, "My cell is on the other side—I could see all the other kids out here. I screamed at them for hours, and they always ignored me."
The mirror was dirty; muck over a decade or so old stained the reflective glass. Much like the rest of the place it had clearly seen better days. Kacey pried open the door into the next room, and found a truly unnerving sight.
"Ah, the torture chamber. Was wondering when we were going to come across this." Kacey mused.
"I didn't take you as the type to enjoy dark humour." Jack scoffed.
"Perhaps you don't know me as well as you think." Kacey mused.
"Hmph." Jack mused, "I must have come through here when I broke out, but I don't remember it. This is a bad place."
A single chair with arm and leg restraints was not a reassuring sign. Cabinets of unknown materials and chemicals lined the room alongside machinery that Kacey didn't want to know the function of. She looked around and found a terminal on the far side of the lab; Kacey turned the device on, to which a hologram of a man appeared.
"Entry 1054, Teltin facility. The latest iteration of PergNim went poorly. Subjects One, Four and Six died. No biotic change among the survivors. We lowered core temperatures of surviving subjects, but no biotically beneficial reactions occurred. As a side effect, all subjects died. So we'll not try that on Zero. I hope our supply of biotic potential subjects holds up. We are going through them fast."
"This is bullshit!" Jack snapped, "They weren't experimenting on other children for my safety!"
"You can't help what they did to others." Kacey replied.
"You don't get it, Shepard." Jack continued, "I survived this place because I was tougher than the rest. That's who I am."
"Then find strength in it." Kacey countered, "You move on, harder and tougher."
"I—"
"It's all fallen to pieces. The subjects are rampaging, and Zero is loose. We're shutting Teltin down. What a disaster! We'll infiltrate and piggyback onto the Alliance's Ascension program. Hopefully that will—who are…? Zero, wait!"
"Shepard, they started up somewhere else!" Jack said in a panicked tone.
"Calm down. Ascension is an Alliance program." Kacey said reassuringly, "It's a school for biotic kids, they don't torture kids there."
"So are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Kaidan mused.
"BAaT? Yeah." Kacey replied, "Suffice to say, Ascension is way better."
"Absolutely."
"A lot of this…isn't the way I remember it." Jack said in a confused tone.
"You were a kid and a lot was going on." Kacey replied.
Jack scoffed, "I was dumb. I keep my eyes open now, and I always shoot first. We're getting close to my cell. The place I came from. Let's keep going."
Kacey nodded, observing Jack as she walked away. The ruby haired commander wasn't so convinced by Jack's deflections. It was so obvious that this place still haunted her, and it was bothering her much more than she was letting on. She kept bringing herself down as she spoke about what happened. Almost as though she blamed herself.
Kacey didn't have time for her lingering thoughts, however, as the leader of the mercs was found at the far side of what looked to be a kitchen. The krogan didn't acknowledge them at first, but rather began to speak to someone over the comms.
"Hey, Aresh, it's Kureck. Yeah, the intruders are here." Kureck said, "You want them dead, we have to talk creds. You promised us lots of salvage, but this place is a waste. Fine—we'll put 'em down. Then I'm coming in there, and we're going to talk salvage."
"I assume we're doing this the hard way?" Kacey mused, "Okay."
Kacey fired an inferno concussive shot at Kureck before both Jack and herself scattered into cover. The krogan was knocked backwards into the furniture behind as Jack sent shockwaves throughout the area.
"Kill them! On my order, I want them dead!" Kureck bellowed.
It was less a fight and more like a bloodbath; Jack tore through the handful of mercs, taking pleasure in tearing them apart. Kacey kept her focus on Kureck as he bellowed out orders that fell on deaf ears. She didn't let the krogan get too close as she moved around the kitchen keeping the krogan at a distance, firing a mix of concussive shots and inferno shots to burn through his armour.
Once the krogan was dead, Kacey could see Jack put a few more bullets into the krogan's turning her attention back to Kacey.
"Only room left is my old cell." She said in a bitter voice, "Whoever Aresh is, he's in there. I want to plant the bomb there anyway. Might as well do it on his corpse."
There was only one room at the end of the hall, and as the pair entered, Kacey could see the untidy bed, the desk with drawings etched onto the side and a single closet. But no sign of Aresh.
"Come out." Kacey called flatly, "We know you're here."
From around the corner of the desk, a thirty something year old man appeared, looking dishevelled. Black bags under his eyes and a blank demeanour that unnerved Kacey.
"Jack wasn't the only victim in that place. She was the only one she knew about."
"Who the fuck are you?" Jack snapped.
"My name is Aresh, and you are breaking into my home." Aresh replied flatly, "I know you, Subject Zero. So many years have passed, and I thought I was the only survivor."
Jack pulled her pistol out on Aresh, keeping it aimed at his forehead, "My name is Jack. How the hell do you know me?"
"We all knew your face, Jack." Aresh replied, "They inflicted horrors on us so their experiments wouldn't kill you. You were the question, and I'm still looking for the answer."
"Looks like you're not the only one pulled back here, Jack." Kacey mused.
"I tried to forget this." Aresh explained, "But a place like this…it doesn't forget you. It follows you. I hired these mercs and came back almost a solar year ago. We're rebuilding it, piece by piece. I'm going to find out what they knew—how to unlock true biotic potential in humans. I'm restarting the Teltin facility. It will be beautiful."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Kacey said, shocked that he was defending Cerberus.
"I wanted a hole in the ground—he's trying to justify what happened by using it!" Jack shouted furiously.
"You'd do the same thing to new kids? Are you out of your mind?" Kacey asked, "Wasn't this forced on you?"
"Some were bought from poor families on Earth or kidnapped from colonies." Aresh explained, "Most ended up here the way I did; batarian pirates. They did such horrible things to us. They must have good reasons."
"There's no reason good enough!" Jack snapped back, "Are you nuts? You lived it!"
"This place was a prison. How did you get out?" Kacey questioned.
"We all attacked at once as they were taking us to the lab. They would have put us down, but then Jack got loose." Aresh mused, "When I came to, it was over—the guards, scientists and the kids were all dead. And you were gone."
"I stopped it, all of it!" Jack shouted, "Maybe the others did have it bad, but what you're doing is just messed."
"Everything we went through must have been worth something!" Aresh snapped back.
"We can still blow this place up, but that still leaves him." Kacey said, "What do we do with another you?"
"Smartass." Jack said as she walked towards Aresh, "That's easy."
"Just leave me here." Aresh replied, "This is where I belong."
"Fuck that!"
Jack used her biotics to bring Aresh to his knees, the barrel of the gun pressed up against his skull.
"You can't let your past control you. You have to move on. Let the past go."
"Jack, he's trapped in his past." Kacey said, "You need to move on from yours."
"He wants to restart this place!" Jack shouted back, "He needs to die!"
"No he doesn't." Kacey replied calmly, "Look, he's crazy and he's never going to restart this facility. You have to let it go! Your past doesn't have to control you."
"Fuck!" Jack said as she pulled her gun away from Aresh's head, "Get out of here. Go!"
Aresh scrambled off the floor and bolted it down the hall. Jack sighed as she looked at Kacey, "He's not worth chasing. None of it is."
"You did the right thing, Jack." Kacey replied.
"Maybe." Jack mused, "This room was my whole childhood. Nothing's changed…but it's all different."
"Take your time."
Jack wandered towards the bed, mold formed on the duvet covers, a thick layer of dust coated it. The biotic sighed as she looked at the wethered sheets.
"Sometimes I dream that I'm back in this bed being tortured." Jack reminisced, "I used to tie the sheets around my wrists and try to rip them off. I want to stop coming back here. And this table, I used it for everything. It was like my best friend. I'd crawl under it to cry. I was pathetic."
She walked towards the two-way mirror, her hands sliding down the glass as she continued, "I thought that room out there was the rest of the world. I'd pound and yell. Never did any good. And that scarring on the wall in the hall? That's where I killed my first man. One of the guards tried to stop me. Instead I stopped him."
"You okay?" Kacey asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Jack replied, "Okay. no more wallowing. Let's blow this place to hell."
…
The explosion was still ringing in Kacey's ears as she finished up her meal in the mess hall. As far as she was concerned, they had done the galaxy a favour by wiping that place off the map. As she dropped her dishes into the sink, Joker's voice spoke through the comms.
"Commander, Jack and Miranda are in the middle of a…disagreement. Can you head it off before they tear out a bulkhead? Pretty please?"
Kacey sighed, "Well, since you said please… I'll deal with it."
"Take pictures." Joker snickered as Kacey marched towards Miranda's office.
When the door had opened, Jack had thrown a chair at Miranda who simply side-stepped to avoid it. Kacey couldn't believe she was having to deal with this. She thought they both would've gotten over it by now.
"Touch me and I will smear the walls with you, bitch!" Jack shouted.
"Enough!" Kacey shouted with an authoritative tone, "Stand down, both of you!"
"The cheerleader won't admit what Cerberus did to me was wrong!" Jack shouted.
"It wasn't Cerberus. Not really." Miranda replied plainly, "But clearly you were a mistake."
"Screw you!" Jack snapped, "You've got no idea what they put me through! Maybe it's time I showed you!"
"Hey, our mission is too important to let personal feelings get in the way." Kacey interjected.
"Fuck your feelings. I just want her dead." Jack replied.
"You both know what we're up against." Kacey continued, "Save your anger for the Collectors."
"I can put aside my differences…until the mission's over." Miranda said slyly.
"Sure. I'll do my part." Jack spat, "I'd hate to see her die before I get a chance to fillet her myself."
"You two going to be okay?" Kacey said sternly.
Jack stormed off without a reply, while Miranda simply breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's good that you came by when you did." Miranda said, "As long as she does her job, we'll be fine. Thanks, Shepard."
Kacey left Miranda's office, heading towards the sub-level where Jack spent her time. She had to make sure that everything was okay before going on another mission. She didn't want to leave the Normandy if Jack was kicking up a fuss.
"I needed to wipe that place off the map." Jack said as Kacey approached the bottom of the steps, "You took me there to do it, and I owe you. You don't know what it's like, Shepard. To have garbage like that following you. It marks you in ways you…you don't expect."
"I do know." Kacey replied, "I've made a lot of hard choices, Jack. Like what to let go."
"Hard to walk away from it. You'd think it would get easier now that the place is a crater, but what else do I know?"
"I never thought I'd see you show mercy, but you let Aresh live." Kacey replied.
"He was trapped in the past, reliving it every day." Jack mused, "You showed how that could be me. I'm not getting stuck like that. I'm better than him, and I'm sure as hell not carrying that crater around with me."
"Do you think that you've changed?"
"I know that place is gone. But I still kind of want to kill every person I see." Jack replied, "No offence."
"You sure about this?"
"Don't get all therapist on me, Shepard." Jack replied, "You're not the couch type. I hate that stuff anyway. Bullshit prison psych. You did me a favour and that's enough. More than I expected. I'll keep it together."