24 – Tonal Inversion

If the Polestar Lounge started spinning again, he couldn't tell anymore because all his senses were busy being overworked in other ways.

This club had a vibe, a fusion between sleek and mechanical. It was like someone let a fashion designer take apart the Large Hadron Collider and put it back together. Jutting electrical cables fed into smooth countertops. Pulsating lights, all of them a deep blue, encircled a rounded bar with several also overworked staff members. A light coating of mist was obscuring a dance floor. Alcoves within alcoves branched out from it, seating groups of men and women in Alliance jumpsuits. Some were presumably playing some fancy future game with holographic figures enacting battles over their table – while others were respectful of ancient classics with physical playing cards. The techno music was playing from speakers in every corner, and the bass was rattling Gorman's eardrums, but he had enough perception left in him to follow a herd to the centerpiece bar. He marched to the counter and waited his turn, examining the impressive hoard before him. Bourbon, check. Lager, check. Ryncol? God knows. A heavily tattooed woman swerved around and he got her attention with a slight wave. Assuming this bartender wasn't another fancy 'VI', he could hopefully get a straight answer.

"Commander Gorman, I presume. First time?" she asked before Gorman's open mouth could utter a word.

"…Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Biometric scan at the door," she stated. Gorman looked closer and noticed two things; a nametag with 'Aurora' written on it, and something off with her left eye. There were miniscule shapes blocking it – a screen of some kind was on her iris. "Lounge's Alliance-only. Also, first timers' first drink is on the house. Sucks for us, great for you. What'll it be?"

Even this close to his destination, temptation and distraction reared their ugly heads again. He quickly assessed his needs. He was about to meet an asari, another sort of alien. Every time he'd had 'First Contact' so far he'd either befriended or shot them – not before always feeling paralyzed with fear. Maybe a stiff drink would help, he somehow reasoned.

"Something quick and painless, please."

The bartender gave a hint of a smirk, reaching under the bar with one hand and to the rack behind her with the other. She produced a thin capsule not dissimilar to the mugs he drank apple juice from back on the Shackleton. Unlike the apple juice, however, the liquid she found and poured into it was a bright blue. It swirled as it rose to the glass' brim. Gorman couldn't tell if it was supposed to be that color, or just the result of the neon haze all around them. He apprehensively reached for the glass – and the bartender was watching.

He downed it and immediately regretted it. His throat was ablaze, he had to hold one hand there and the other on the counter for stability's sake. Its taste was like brass, and the aftertaste like copper. He wondered if he was now going to set off Geiger counters.

"…Woah," he finally croaked. Over the thundering bassline he heard the bartender laugh.

"Welcome to the Lounge, Commander! Get you another one?"

"I'll…I'll pass, thanks," Gorman caught his breath and tried his hardest to remember the task at hand. "I'm looking for an asari. I was told it was somewhere around here."

The bartender's smirk fell. She was obviously holding back a sigh, causing Gorman to start losing hope. Could he handle another bearer of bad news?

"VIP section's that way, Commander," she pointed to one of the alcoves. In fairness, there was no easy indication that it was that particular alcove, only a neon kepi hovering over it like the hat Captain Chen wore. "Assuming you have the password." There was a certain disgust in her voice, but Gorman was too happy at having good news to notice.

"About damn time!" he exclaimed, which was a rude thing to say out of context.

He peeled off from the bar, straightening his turtleneck and starting the last march forward. He maneuvered one push at a time through the throng at the dance floor, surprisingly recognizing the music being blasted – a butchered techno version of 'In the Navy'. He hopped up a step and was greeted with the entrance to the VIP section. Parallel to the alcove wall was a doorway with a slit. He gave it a knock.

"Password?" the slit slid back, and a voice came from within.

"Hack it out," Gorman was able to recall.

The door momentarily flashed green before parting. The gruff-looking gatekeeper sized Gorman up and down but let him pass. Once the door closed again, the techno beat died down enough for the Commander to hear himself think – and to hear noise from beyond the curtain in front of him. In one motion he brushed the curtain aside.

Now before him was an atrium with low tables and sunken chairs. A long hallway with branching rooms was opposite him, numbered like the suites of a hotel. A new bar was to one side. It had less to choose from on its racks and displays, but each bottle looked shinier, its contents more potent. A shot from something here might just kill him.

The elite clientele of the VIP section were not at the dance floor, instead huddled in lowered, seated groups. For every officer at a table there were three to four times as many drinks resting on it. The VIPs themselves, unlike the last place, actually looked like officers – older, rougher, scarred. The Commander knew when he was outranked, but didn't know where an asari could be. He was quickly running out of locations to search – but he thought better than to barge into a 'hotel' room unannounced. He was about to pull up a free chair when his eyes were drawn to the dance floor. He could barely make out anything but silhouettes amidst blinding strobe lights, but there was something odd about those dancing on it…

"Well, look who it is!" bellowed somebody from knee-level.

Gorman looked down to see a table full of old grizzled men beckoning him to take an open seat. He didn't recognize any of them, but they apparently recognized him. This was a good thing if the smiles on most of their faces were to be believed. Gorman bent down and took his time awkwardly clambering into the chair.

"Have we met?" he asked the group, rubbing his eyes now that the strobes were out of view.

"Commander Gorman, right? Saw your interview." Quick laughs rang out. Gorman swept his eyes along the Alliance gallery. One had a moustache, one had piercing blue eyes, one had only one ear, and the other had a stoneface to make an elcor jealous. Between all of them, however, there was a certain…distant feeling. A feeling he knew too well.

"I'm no Novak," Gorman managed his own laugh.

"Damn straight, Commander!" the blue-eyed one was the one taking charge, pointing across the table at Gorman and almost knocking over several drinks. He had a clear, authoritative voice and a jacket draped over his chair. Three gold bars were embroidered at its shoulders and cuffs. "When he eventually showed up two hours later, his 'speech' was total and utter crap. We're supposed to believe he shot down a batarian ship during a geth attack? The rest was just pansy talk. Flaunting his new Sergeant's badge, and sucking up to the Council." The audience nodded solemnly. "Not like your speech, Gorman! These days it feels like we're bending over backwards to avoid saying what you did – humanity is special, worth fighting for."

"Fan of a certain Professor Saari?" Gorman took an educated guess.

"That grifter? Hah! Don't take me for a fool, Commander." The table smiled at Gorman's sudden naivety. "If Saari had the answers to humanity's problems, he wouldn't need to be selling paperbacks in a glorified sundial like Polaris Station." He slammed a palm on the table for emphasis, rattling the drinks, before it returned to a pointing finger. "I can tell you're better than that, too. Got that look in your eye. You've been out there. You know what we're up against."

"Look, it's great to meet you all…" Gorman raised his hands. His one drink was already starting to take hold, but he had the wherewithal to know when his time was being wasted again.

"Rear Admiral Mikhailovich, but please, call me Boris," the blue-eyed man instead took this as a sign to begin formal introductions. His colleagues started to follow suit.

"Captain Decker."

"Commander O'Shaughnessy."

The stonefaced man remained silent.

Gorman's eyes widened. Mikhailovich? The same Mikhailovich who gave the intel for the Mavigon encounter? He had recalled much from that one recording, but that name was deemed unimportant – until now. Of course it was Mikhailovich! The things he could ask…but a debrief was going to have to wait. He was tantalizingly close to what he came all this way for.

"…but I need to find an asari," he resumed. "I was told this was the place to look."

The table exchanged glances. Mikhailovich's grin retreated slowly but not fully.

"Get in line, Gorman," he forced a chuckle and flicked out his omni-tool. "Taylor's expecting me in Room Two in…two."

Taylor? Unusual name for an alien, but he'd take anything he can pronounce. A bittersweet revelation, anyway, Gorman should have known he'd get this close just to have needed an appointment. However…he had reached a limit. He was willing to wait no longer.

"It's urgent. They have something I need."

"That's…one way to put it," Mikhailovich's laughter turned genuine for a moment. He stared at the Commander's grave expression for another one. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Matter of life and death," Gorman declared. This was by no means a guarantee, but in his head it was a certainty. Any progress towards deciphering the meaning of the prothean vision was completely stalled otherwise.

"That bad, huh? I…eh…sure, okay," Mikhailovich scratched his chin. "You owe me, Gorman. Just don't keep me waiting long."

"Appreciate it," the Commander let out a sigh of immense relief. He was about to start bringing up how the Rear Admiral once authorized the indiscriminate bombing of an uncharted world.

As quickly as he could he mounted the walkway above the seating areas, stretching his legs and quickstepping forward in the hallway's direction. There were five rooms leading down to its end, each marked with a red light. He stood in front of room two, conveniently just out of view of Mikhailovich's table. Two minutes to the second after the Admiral checked his omni-watch, the light next to the door flickered green.

Nothing happened. Cautiously Gorman gave it a knock. And another one. It was then that he realized that one of the red lights around was not for a door but a camera. He groaned, thinking 'not again', before taking a deep breath to focus his mind. He shook the jitters from his hands and relieved the tension in his shoulders. His throat was still feeling whatever that bartender gave him. Without warning the green door shuttered open, and without hesitation he sauntered inside.

He had to raise a shielding hand at first, there was a bright glare from a tinted windowpane that took up a back wall. With that done he took in the rest of the room, which wasn't so much spacious as it was cozy. Carpet floors, paneled walls in warm colors, moody lighting, short potted plants and sleek countertops with various statuettes. The door behind him closed fully, allowing him to appreciate a lower, melodic beat coming from somewhere within. To his left was a painting of a blueish orb – Gorman recognized it as home. On the opposite side was a twin artwork, a similar globe of a similar size, but this one was smothered in a thick beige.

The furniture was overall classy compared to the rest of the lounge, but out of place were two large white ovals. Gorman flicked his gaze to the one closest to him, three quarters of an upright egg on a raised stilt with plush cushions sitting in its center. It was a seat. Directly facing it was an oval twice as big and on its side, likely a couch version. It was facing the same direction as its counterpart – so giving Gorman no glimpse of any occupant.

His immediate question was answered when someone started speaking.

"You're not Boris."

The voice was both calm and calming – no hostility, but curiosity. Gorman couldn't rule out whether he'd been fooled again – unlike other species he'd met, there was nothing notable to suggest that its speaker was alien at all. He'd spent too much time chasing it down for it not to be an asari, but whoever was here, they were an octave higher than the voice on Sally's recording.

The lounge's rotation came into play, and the room gradually turned to reveal more of the mighty star it orbited. The window's tint bathed the room and everything in it in a cerulean blue.

"No, he…couldn't make it. My name is Commander Gorman."

"Gore-man?" 'she' remarked. "Fitting, for your line of work. Take a seat. Please."

The Commander obliged, but not before seeing something move at the edge of the oval couch. Fingertips, covered in blue light, were waving around with every word she spoke. They looked unnervingly…human. Had he really been duped?

"Are you an asari?" he finally asked. This was it. Moment of truth.

"You wouldn't be here otherwise," came the reply, complete with open palm from beyond the eggshell.

He took that as a yes, and he felt relief washing over him.

"Fantastic," Gorman exhaled. He leaned forward in his seat. Down to business. "Are you the asari that was on Feros? I was hoping you could help me."

Confusingly, what he heard from beyond the oval was a giggle.

"If it helps you, I'll be anything you want, Commander."

To Gorman's jubilant and slightly inebriated mind, that was also as good as a yes. He clasped his hands in long-awaited success, but as quickly as one problem was solved, a new problem appeared: Where should he begin? Simply asking her to hand over whatever intel she gave Shepard would be nice and direct, but he was in no hurry. He believed she ought to know the story from the top – and in turn realize the importance of what she'll provide him.

"Not long ago, I came into contact with a prothean beacon. Its message was complicated and it came fast, but as I understand it there's some sort of imminent doom-" he started recounting, but he was suddenly cut off.

"You're hurting, aren't you?" she said, plain and clear.

"…I'm sorry?" Gorman blurted. His voice cracked slightly.

"Don't be, Commander. Whatever happened, it's over now. It wasn't your fault."

"…A-Anyway, I ended up trying to find another prothean -"

"I've met many men like you before. There's no shame in letting it out, Commander. I can help you."

There was something almost hypnotic about her tone of voice, but Gorman was determined to stay on track. It was time for the direct approach.

"I agree, you can help me. I need your…"

The larger egg started to rotate. Gorman's speech slowed to slurring.

"…ancient…"

It was more like a bed than a couch. There was a woman lying on her side across it, bald head resting in one hand. What little she was wearing was white, and form-fitting on her ample skin. Blue skin.

"…prothean…"

She slid off the oval, standing up straight despite having plenty of curves. No window-tint-based trickery could resolve what Gorman was seeing. She was blue. Bright blue, a feat matched by her dazzling eyes. There were indigo markings on her dimpled face and odd-looking scalp, including where her eyebrows should be.

"…knowledge," Gorman managed to finish his thought. He was slumping back into his seat, stunned. Every part of him was confused. The line between alien and human woman was now reduced to a blur. He hadn't been duped; this was too surreal to be a ruse. "You're…you're blue."

"I know," she smiled. "I also don't turn around for everyone." Her voice slowed to a lull, and she placed one foot in front of the other – one step closer to the Commander. "I want to help you, Gorman, but I need you to help me first. Start at the beginning."

"The beginning?" Gorman repeated. As unorthodox as the situation was, he regained his focus, concentrating on getting his point across. "Like I was saying, on Feros you gave some ancient -"

"Earlier," she ordered, cutting Gorman off again. The Commander tried to compose himself and instill some caution. Kalu once described asari as slow to trust. He reasoned that he'd get the answers he needed if he let her take the lead.

"Earlier? Why we went to Feros in the first place?"

"Earlier." She took another step forward. All the while, her eyes were locked onto Gorman's like magnets. He felt obligated to do the same to her, somewhere between intrigued and unsettled.

"The prothean beacon on Eden Prime?" he guessed.

She approached closer, close enough to reach out and put a blue hand on his oval's surface. She shook her head and Gorman – now able to take a better look – almost gasped. For starters, she was hearing every word he was saying without any ears. The defining features of her head, however, were several wide tendrils that made up her scalp. They curved back, down and up with a flick – almost giving them the appearance of scaled hair, like smoothened braids.

"Earlier. The very beginning," she pressed on.

There was nowhere left to go for Gorman but back.

"Alright, you might not believe me…" he began, gauging her reaction. She was unfazed, peering at him with a thoughtful yet somewhat coy expression. "…but a long, long time ago, the year 2013, I led a mission that went bad. People died."

Gorman didn't think she would go any closer, and yet she continued to surprise him. Her knees were at his sides.

"You miss them," she diagnosed.

"Of course I do," Gorman acknowledged. He missed a lot more than just the team. "But because of their sacrifice, I made it to a prothean -"

"It's all over now, Gorman."

"…What exactly do you mean by that?" Gorman retorted. He maintained stoicism in the face of personal space violations, but he was getting tired of being interrupted.

The asari wrapped her arms around the Commander's head. Her hands felt warm yet strangely scaly, enough to make him shiver.

"The past is over," she continued. "A long, long time ago, like you said. I am here to help you now."

"So you keep saying," Gorman sighed, not without frustration. "Well I'm ready. What do you have in mind?"

"Believe it or not, I am asking you the same thing," the asari giggled again. "I want you to relax, Gorman. Ease your troubled soul. Let go of the past."

"I can't just…" Gorman started, but he couldn't finish his sentence. In fact, he was feeling compelled to comply.

"I want you to instead focus on the present. Focus on what you want. Focus on your desires, here and now."

The star out the window rotated out of view. Between the darkness and the asari's tone he was pushing himself to stay awake. He tried to speak yet couldn't find the words. He knew she was still getting closer…but this time without moving an inch.

"Embrace eternity," she whispered, and her eyes went black.

Everything in front of him faded out of view.

Gorman's body had been through the wringer – every week on the job back home involved some way for him to get shot or stabbed, and since arriving in the future there came new and creative ways to have a bad day at the office – but despite it all, his mind was always intact…and his. Only the prothean beacon itself came close to breaking this hold when it seared its scenes into him, but that was quick, not to mention involuntary.

The strangest sensation was therefore happening to him. He was at the steel gates of the vault that was his mind...

...and had the feeling that someone else was asking to enter.

This was, as far as he was concerned, a gross violation of both his psychological privacy and several schools of philosophy. However, he felt it'd be rude to lock her out at this point. The gates creaked open.

Suddenly he knew that there was a new presence, as naturally as knowing one's name. An essence of personality. It felt confused and frightened, but also guarded. Deep, deep within it, he could tell there was something bright – a flicker of a candle, nearly extinguished and desperately preserved. That's where it was keeping its love. One name with five letters stood out among the rest. He felt a great curiosity, but this feeling was unnatural. It was not his own.

He came to the realization that he was looking at himself, or rather, into himself. He saw his feelings from her distance. Someone was telling him to relax again. Her wishes were coming through his thoughts. She wanted him to show her something important.

He focused his mind. There were other gates, and before him was the means to open them. Repressed memories, stories from childhood, the lyrics of every pop song from the 90s, his first kisses and his last goodbyes, all available from the same controls. If he had known he'd be entertaining guests, he might have tried to organize this place better. He gathered his resolve and found what he was looking for. The beacon's visions were practically begging to be released…but then came hesitation. Her curiosity overcame it.

The gates opened, and out came a sea of red.

Splashes of blood. Screams of damned generations. Collective nightmares come to fruition. Sharp pain, dull pain, callous extermination. Every bit as vivid as when he first saw it – and just as relentless. Strained tethers, bones in piles, civilization doomed to inferno. No reason for the slaughter, but a death rattle declaring the culprit: cold, hard metal and electric jolts. Circuits replicating to infinity. Worst of all, the dreadful, unshakeable instinct that it was approaching – and fast.

Frustratingly there was nothing new Gorman could glean from it, even with all the knowledge he'd done well to accumulate since his hibernation came to a sudden halt. A great fear rose inside him. The visitor in his mind was feeling the same way. Panic set in. The controls were unleashed. Every gate opened at once.

The pain stopped, but the show went on. Long-dormant memories flooded back to the Commander. There were too many to count. Thirty-one years of life, followed by a hundred and seventy of nothingness in the blink of an eye. He was overwhelmed – and knew it had to stop.

And so it did.

Just as quickly as the world disappeared, it popped back into existence. He was sitting in an oval chair in a cozy room. There was a star coming into view out the window and a blue alien with an incredibly bewildered expression sitting on his lap.

She leapt away from him like a spring uncoiled, stumbling backwards and catching herself on the larger oval. Gorman's chair suffered a similar fate and toppled over on its rear, sending the Commander's legs into the air. The egg rolled over on its shell, allowing him to clamber out and onto the carpet. As he picked himself up, thinking thoughts that were his and his alone again, he looked forward. The asari was holding onto the couch with a fierce grip. There was a trillion-mile stare in her eyes.

"Goddess…" she finally spoke.

Gorman felt he owed her an apology. The hard truth was hitting him – he'd just subjected a total stranger to the vision. She wasn't the asari that he was looking for whatsoever. There was no easy way to apologize, however. 'I thought you were someone else' wouldn't be a smart thing to say.

"I'm really, really sorry," he shook the last residual images from his head. "This is a disaster. You shouldn't have seen any of that."

"I have witnessed the coming of the end-times," she bluntly stated. Her manner had changed completely, a tonal inversion from alluring to alarming. "Our fate is assured. Life in this galaxy will be brought to nothing. It was all for nothing. Millennia made irrelevant, our annihilators irreverent."

"What in the…" Gorman muttered to himself. He tried to approach her, and was taken aback when her head faced his again. She was now staring right at him, and her bewilderment had turned to pure, unadulterated fear.

"The sixth seal is broken," she spat. Her breath was quickening. "They will open the seventh. I have half an hour before the trumpets play. It will never be enough. It will never be enough." Her blueness got a shade lighter.

Gorman snapped into action. The rapid-fire trip down memory lane allowed him to remember his training for situations like this, although procedure never accounted for anyone that wasn't human. He rushed to her side, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Everything's going to be fine, ma'am. You've just gone into shock, that's all," Gorman gently pushed her down onto her back and raised her legs up, but she jolted upright with unbreakable eye contact.

"Kevin!" she exclaimed. "You know the truth. Fire, smoke and sulfur. You've always known it. Why didn't you do anything? Why aren't you doing anything?"

"I'll tell you, but you need to breathe first," he reassured her. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted something hanging by the back wall. He went over and grabbed a puffy white jacket, throwing it over her like he was trying to put out a fire. "Easy now, Taylor. Deep breaths."

"I have seen the face of death."

Silence hung for a solid minute. Her unusual color was returning, her hyperventilation dying down.

"I've seen it too," Gorman agreed, "And I've been trying to figure it out ever since."

"The beacon on Eden Prime. The recording on Feros."

"…Yes, exactly," he shouldn't have been surprised that when the barrage of memories hit them, it included recent ones too. The fact that she could recall any was impressive given how quickly they flashed by. "Again, though, I'm sorry you had to go through all of -"

Suddenly she bounced up from the couch, properly putting on the jacket and giving the Commander a much more determined look than he was expecting.

"We have our work cut out for us, then. Meet me at Dhruva's Diner in fifty Earth standard minutes. I have a plan."

"You don't need to – you shouldn't…" Gorman stammered. "You've got to take it easy -"

"I'll try to find your crew, too," she nodded. With a flick of the wrist, the orange glow of an omni-tool appeared on her forearm. Within a couple seconds, Gorman's own wrist received a subtle flare. "One thousand credits. Should help if you get into any trouble."

Gorman was happy to be interrupted if it was for good news, but now he was lost for words. How much was that skycar again?

She slammed a fist on a hitherto unnoticed button by the front wall. The door out parted open, letting in club music.

"Get going, Commander. The fate of the galaxy depends on it."