Smoke burning excruciatingly through his eyes and throat like the blazing fire from which it was born, the familiar metallic taste of the fluid that circulates through every vein in the human body attacking his nostrils like a toxic mist hammering down his sense of smell, and finally the agonizing screens of millions of vaporized souls piercing his ears forced him to break from the prison of ashes and dirt what was concealing his beaten and unclean form. Like a cocoon of agony made for a newborn monster finally taking its first steps in the world. He was expecting more of the futuristic machinery of this new galaxy he was thrown into when he cleaned the ashes off his eyes, but certainly not the over familiar sight of the completely destroyed ruins of the Auburn District.
The beast itself was just as he remembered, a barreled wasteland with nothing but fire and death to behold and yet… seeing it again brought some strange measure of comfort to his hammering heart. As he lifted himself from the cocoon of ashes and blood, he took a moment to breathe and feel the familiar smell of gunpowder and burning flesh just to make sure his brain wasn't pulling pranks on him again. The smell was the same, the twisted elaborated ruined architecture was the same, even that agonizing gut feeling that something was watching him from some dark corner was the same…
He was back.
The why and how were put to a halt in the back of his head as he started wandering, aimless and clueless in search of a high ground. Climbing debris after debris in search of something that he himself wasn't even sure it would be there once he reached his destination. Regardless, he kept climbing until finally getting to the top of a small peak made up of collapsed buildings and vehicles. A top tier view to the titanic crater from where all the pain of a broken goddess was unleashed upon her enemies after years of suffering alone in the dark. And right there sitting by the edge of a bus with a rifle in hands and a blue mask by his side was the contributor to his entire existence, seemingly oblivious to his arrival or anything else going on really. Except that he knows better… the man probably noticed him from the moment he started climbing.
So was no surprise when the first prototype of the project responsible for all this mayhem addressed him without even turning around amd using the link between them to relly his words. "Ground Zero. The birthplace to a lot of the dangerous things lurking in the city, the place that made me question if this lifestyle is not as black and white as I always believed… and eight kilometers from where we met for the first time if I'm not mistaken."
"I never kept track." It was a blunt lie, one that felt weird to just throw freely while staring at the back of his head. But he wasn't just going to admit that he was obsessed over their little encounter for a while after the fact.
At hearing that the point man allowed the tiniest shadow of a barely visible smirk to present itself on his face. "If we weren't synchronized as we are, I would still know you are lying. It's okay to overthink about it, to get angry about it. You actually scared me on that day by the way."
He almost chucked at that, almost. His genetic relative never once showed a single hint of bearing any emotions behind their shared mask of coldness face that could do one hellish the job of scaring the absolutely living shit out of most ATC grunts on any occasion. So imagining the F.E.A.R alpha squad's unstoppable killer admitting being scared was almost comical… Until he realized what such a confession truly meant. "You sound strangely emotionally aware considering… it just doesn't seem to be like you at all."
A shrug of his shoulders was all he gave for a long moment before finally adding through their link. "Guess I changed. Not too surprising considering my clone's little gray moral journey of self discovery and revenge."
"Fuck you."
They stared at the colossal mushroom cloud in silence for a few minutes, just taking in the primal beauty of such destruction before the F.E.A.R point man finally turned to look at him. Their facial features were the same at a fundamental level, the same jawline, the same noose, and black hair. The difference being the beard decorating the point man's features and the effects of age on them respectively, with the ex delta force operative being a clearly younger version of his F.E.A.R agent counterpart. Like two sides of the same broken mirror just facing each other until the more torn down piece finally spoke.
"Sit down, will you. I could use the company, who knows how long this will last."
Joe accepted with some caution, joining him by the edge. "So I take it at least one of us actually knows what all of this is then."
"This is a psychic plain, a dimension we are able to experience through our consciences as a result of our telesthetic signature. Gifts of the family one could say. I always thought you were paranormally aware enough to figure this kind of puzzle by yourself."
"I learned a few months ago not to trust everything I took for granted as rules of the universe and stuff. But I guess some rules still apply, like you not being able to spit a single sentence."
"I am and always have been perfectly capable of speaking, I just chose not to."
"Oh yeah, the silent killer act. Very original."
"I do what I can."
"Serious, why the fuck did you brought me here?" Joe stared at his involuntary genetic doner with tired questioning eyes. "If you suddenly decided this was the time for a little heart to heart, you are kinda late. My little identity crisis arc is already over, gone, and buried."
"Alongside the several employees from a certain multinational conglomerate huh. They do say a little slaughter from time to time clears the mind."
"You are like the last person on this fucked up world that can judge me. The amounts of clandestine operations you have under your belt could paint an entire wall."
"I'm not judging you, just pressing your buttons a little. Seeing you annoyed or really emotionally invested is always… refreshing. It's like seeing a world where I wasn't too disconnected." The Point Man finally stared back at his younger self, his own discerning eyes staring back. "And I didn't bring you here. If I could perform this kind of psychic feat, I wouldn't have been considered a failure. I am afraid we are both here in response to a much higher power."
"Such as?"
A glowing white door frame appearing directly behind them answered the question, its cleaned and purified light being an immense contrast to the destructive and volatile energy in the air of this psychic Fairport. The younger psychic fighter gave the point man a questioning glance, but all he was given in return was that same emotionless face that gave away nothing. "Better not keep her waiting, I don't need another tantrum."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You will see." He went back to his feet, grabbing his mask before giving what seemed to be his best attempt at a soft gaze toward his more humane twin. "Jin told me something a few weeks ago, while I was trying to… adapt. What we are and who we used to be will always follow us around, always be a part of our history. But it doesn't have to be what actually defines us as individuals."
"Again, you are kind of very late to give me your mantra of wisdom or whatever pep stuff you were hoping to pass on. We all had our roles to fulfill in our little fucked up family and there is like no need for you to pass the torch or… whatever." Joe went back to his feet as well, crossing his arms and staring back at the old spec ops veteran. "I never expected you to do it in the first place. We are bound by an accident, nothing to be held accountable for, nothing to apologize or try to make up for."
"I know." The point man turned back toward the horizon, taking one long breath before adding. "I just get the feeling you will need a word of advice for what awaits you on the road ahead. We are killers, so peace will always scare us more than any Abomination or Nightmare ever could."
"Maybe. So maybe we should brace ourselves for the ass fuck of the century when it is finally time for us to lay down our weapons." Joe stared at the door and then at embodiment of the soldier a greedy scientist was expecting him to be, as if committing him to the memory before finally saying. "See you around big bro."
An itch of a movement from the first prototype was all that could be used to say he acknowledged this before he finally started walking away. The forgotten son watched him go for a moment before finally with one last deep breath making his way through the door of light. A funny feeling washed over his body to the point where it started to tingling until eventually the light started to fade away, slowly giving place to a night sky, tall buildings in the distance and the green grass of one small park in the suburbs of a very cozy city. It seemed quiet, it seemed peaceful and brought him a strange wave of longing. It had only been a few hours since he made that random and completely out of the blue traverse across worlds, so he definitely wasn't expecting getting his chest permeated with nostalgia just by taking in the sight…
Just like he wasn't expecting getting hugged completely out of nowhere by a small figure too short to do anything but to envelope their tiny arms around his waist in such a tight manner that he feared for his own life, at least until his gaze fell on the ebony hair falling like cascades around the small, pale and familiar face of the little life he had fought so hard to protect, staring at him with gray eyes inherited from a broken soldier and a smile brighter than the sun itself decorating her heart shaped face.
His heart skipped a beat, his lips started trembling and his voice was barely above a whisper. "... Anne?"
"Surprise!"
There were several actions that he used to perform without paying too much mind to it. Checking for his gun, scanning a room, sitting with his back to a wall, all was performed automatically before even his consciente mind realized he was doing it. Apparently the same pattern applied to the ones who had a special place in the few soft spots of his violent heart, because before he even realized, he was hugging her back and spanning her with childlike joy, her giggles drowning his longing and replacing it with the same inner peace he used to feel when she used to pull him into the Happy Place.
Her little hand touched his face, warm and kind, an abysmally huge contrast to the circumstance of her birth or all the predictions from a certain organization regarding what she would supposedly become. "You changed."
"Well, you certainly didn't." Psychically speaking she still looked the same, bearing that same astonishing resemblance to their mother, wearing the same bright white dress completely clean of any blood and with pure life shining in her gray eyes. Considering the last glimpse he caught of her though, her physical body should be a pink little baby. "Give it a few years though, I'm very sure you will either grow as tired as me or as gorgeous as Stokes."
This caused her to roll her eyes before studying his face more closely, scanning him with shining white eyes for roughly two minutes before an oddly proud smile morphed into her face. "And in one piece as well, yay! I was worried, pulling consciousness of living beings into a projection is easy peasy but you are… so distant, so far away. I was afraid of hurting you or screwing something up."
"Language." Joe reprimanded more out of instinct than anything else, for he was studying her as well for his own reasons. An irrational part of his mind was oddly afraid that she would just poof out of existence in his arms and he would find himself waking up from another drunken dream. But as the minutes went on… the fear eventually faded. "You are really here, aren't you. How?"
"Like I said, pulling consciousness into projections is easy. What made yours so hard was the distance but the rest follows the same rules." She poked his nose with a tiny little finger as her other hand started pinching his cheek gently. "Now put me down will you, it was fun before but I'm more grown up now. It is weird."
"Oh yeah, definitely." His own face morphed into a playful smirk. "Because going from a telepathic fetus to a four months old pink telepathic baby is such a huge time gap."
"Down, now." The hand she was using to poke his nose came to grab the other side of his face and the psychic soldier found his face being morphed into something resembling a sponge as his sister pinched both of his cheeks. "And it has been a year, dummy. Not four months."
"What?" His eyes narrowed at her words as he lowered her back to the ground. "It has been four months. I'm pretty sure I didn't forget how to count, Anne."
The third child just shrugged her little shoulders before starting to walk to the swing nearby, glancing behind herself and smiling happily as he started to follow. "You might have for all I know. Math was never a strong point of yours and that was something the military did not manage to change."
"Using the stuff I shared with you about high school as a jab is a nasty low blow."
"Just trying a little joke, big brother. I wouldn't never badmouth you!" She declared in an exaggeratedly innocent voice with a forced puppy-like expression before smirking like a fox and climbing the swim. He took a step further in order to push her on it out of impulse, but a strangely strong wind current produced out of nowhere beat him to it. "And you will come to learn that time is much more… fickle than most people will ever realize, especially when it comes to two different worlds. I caught myself thinking if that's how mother managed to endure the dark for so long, if she learned how to make the stains of time to just… stop touching her."
"You will have an easier time if you don't think about the Vault." Joe's gaze hardened and his hand enrolled into a fist. The resurfacing anger was quickly boiled down by the question that has been haunting his mind for a while and it got itself stuck in his throat for a while before he finally mustered the courage to utter it. "Speaking of mother…. has she-"
"Has she contacted me in order to influence me to enact the complete destruction of the known reality like all the predictions made by those supposed highly competent analysts in the payroll of F.E.A.R said she would?" The wind pushing her on the swing suddenly came to a halt and she looked at the night sky with a contemplative expression before sticking her tongue out and winking at him as she started to psychically push herself again. "Answer is no. Surprised you need to ask, really. I was pretty sure that both of you have finally worked things out."
"More for your sake than anything else really." Joe shrugged nonchalantly. His relationship with the Mother of the Apocalypse was a subject that not even himself was completely able to understand. Better than his older siblings, still a long shot for one carrying even the most subtle note of normalcy. "It's not like one can exactly figure what mother is thinking, literally or not. So you haven't seen her, not even once?"
"I have not." Her small face took a subtle pained expression and he could recognize instantly the sorrow in her eyes. Joe's body moved on his own but he felt an invisible force gently halting all his movements. She glanced at him warmly. "No need, really. But thanks. And I think I actually felt her… once, a few hours after I was born. It was just a tiny feeling of something raw and so… negatively unstoppable reaching to something else and… pulling. Getting adjusted to the physical world was overwhelming at first so I couldn't scan for what it was. I'm not even sure if it was her, but since then… nothing. It is like she just vanished."
"Knowing mother, it probably won't be for long." Joe stated. The memory of her childlike figure always lurking in the shadows, watching his every move as he moved from hotel to hotel while trying to drink the pain born from the truth away. She never left, even when out of sight he could still sense her presence and hear her voice. And the little girl in front of him has her last born, her final chance to show one of her children something other than dark emotions."She always finds a way to cling to us all, whether we want it or not."
"Maybe." The third child shrugged, glancing at her brother with a mixture of joy and a strange note of pity in her eyes. "Ah, to be just removed from your own place in the world like that… even if it was never a good place to begin with. It must have been difficult and you must have all kinds of questions and there is too much I wanted to say and… a lot more that I wanted to share with you. But our time together is coming to an end."
Joe frowned in confusion, his questioning gaze prompted the third child to gesture to his figure and it was only upon staring at himself that he realized that he was fading away, slowly resembling something akin to a spectral projection. "What is happening?"
The wind pushing her forward halted and her small face to face with him as she started to float with a sad smile. "You are running out of time. Finding you took me a whole year and bringing you here a few extra weeks. But even with my power growing I am not that powerful yet, the process is not complete and it has some limitations as it is now."
Joe's hands clenched into fists and he casted a look of sorrow at his sister before letting the frustration out of his system in the form of a tired sigh. "I don't know the specifics of what happened that day but I need you to know that I never meant to leave you and I'm sorry… I'm sorry I wasn't there as I said I would. I hope you can forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive you silly goose. I am the one who should be asking for forgiveness, because I will not be able to help you now." Her small hands came to rest on both sides of his face, pinching his cheek fondly one last time before her grey gaze found his blue one. "You spent a lot of your time worrying about me, but now I ask you to focus on yourself for a change because chaotic times are approaching in the horizon. There are two shadows coming your way and while you may ignore one, the other will stretch its tentacles to engulf all the corners of this spiritually primitive new world of yours. When the time comes… try to listen to the blood."
His eyes narrowed in confusion and he was about to ask her to elaborate before realizing he couldn't speak. A quick glance at himself showed him, he was basically a semi transparent at this and his whole vision was starting to grow darker and darker at an unprecedented rate. Wet lips made contact with his skin as she planted a kiss on his forehead, giving him what seemed to be the last warm smile he would ever receive of her due to the dimensional frontiers setting them apart.
"I love you."
Her last words echoed in his head like a sweet melody aiming to soothe away the pain of the separation that once again planted a barrier between the two of just as abruptly as it did the first time. His world was completely engulfed by the familiar darkness and this time he could feel himself falling through the abyss, at first like a feather being smoothly carried by the wind and then like a solid rock descending aggressively into what would be a violent crash. A weird feeling of something strong hitting him right in the middle face followed suit, right before a strange wave of coldness pierced his entire body as his eyes snapped open to stare at the metallic architecture of a dimly lit in red light bar and the perpetual sneer of a asari matriarch short on patience for fools holding a now empty glass of water, having a staring contest with him for what felt like a eternity for finally turning around with a scowl.
"We are closing." She stated coldly, placing the empty glass on his table before starting to walk back to the counter. "And I will be charging you for the water as well."
"As charming as always I see." Joe muttered with mid annoyance, wiping away the wetness of his face with the sleeve of the worn down jacket housing his frame. "Was throwing water in my face really necessary?"
"No." She glanced at him over her shoulder with a dubious look. "But again, neither was you falling into some weird self induced coma which was definitely not caused by alcohol. I counted how many glasses you had."
"Is this your way of saying you are worried about me?" He picked the empty glass at his table, rising off his seat, walking to the counter and placing it there. There was still some remains of the liquor that had become a small regular vice of his on the days he could catch a break of the routine composed of a job most people would most likely never give two cents about and the vigorous workout meant to keep himself sharp. "Or are you still mad about the other night?"
"Nah. You paid for the mess, we are square as far as property damage goes." She nodded before adding in a tired and harsh voice that sometimes would make him picture a grumpy smoking uncle… much to her exasperation "And I couldn't care less about you, but I won't have I-Sec crashing down here because the word got out that you were fucking oding in my bar."
"Wasn't oding in your bar, Aethyta." Joe chuckled at the notion, he hadn't touched drugs since a peculiar incident that now seemed like two lifetimes ago. "I'm just tired, that's all. The seats are comfortable enough and when the liquor hits it is pretty easy to crash into a nap that ends up turning into a full night rest."
"Well, you have a bed. So my recommendation is that you move your hairy human ass to it and crash there. I am not running a hotel." Aethyta stated, starting to clean the glass he had brought to the counter without taking her gaze off his. "Your bill came down to 32 credits."
Joe's face morphed into a genuine smile as his Omni-Tool shined to life. She was one of the few asari who could not only look into his eyes for a prolonged amount of time, but the only one who would issue what felt like her own personal challenge shining intensely in hers. Unknown to the matriarch, amidst the scared maidens and freaks like the Queen of Omega, her challenge brought a sense of normalcy to the psychic soldier who, in an act of ignorance, picked a planet with a high population of aliens with a minor psychic awareness to settle in. "30 credits it is."
"So off you go." She waved him off, drying and then storing the now cleaned glass in the proper compartment before coming to the door in order to close it as her odd patron exited through it. "Stop crashing down at my bar, Winters!"
Joe gave her a thumbs up without looking back, a smirk playing on his face as he started to walk forward. The Eternity was one of two first golden gens that he managed to stumble upon in his first days on this planet, being a safe space where he could afford to be alone with his thoughts as the refreshing warmth of alcohol came burning down his throat. The other being the willingness of some small-time companies to employ practically anybody without a very meticulous background check to perform the most physically demanding and sanitary degrading work on most the time abusive conditions, a result of the crooked nature of the place he would wager. No one gives a damn about who you are as long as you are not trying to swallow more than you can chew, climbing higher than what is safe, or prying into doors that must remain shut. The perfect place for a clueless soul with the limited funds of a looted Omni-Tool to build something akin to a new life among the stars.
And to allow himself to occasionally simply stare at the magnificence that was the view of Nos Astra, the perfect embodiment of everything that this world had to offer. Gorgeous view, technological wonders flying all over the place in the form of the traffic that was reduced to just a hundreds of skycars over the swarm numbering the thousands in your typical day, and the seemingly infinite masses of blue people now mostly absent due to the late hour of the dawn. He was still new to how the civilizations roaming the galaxy organized, with extensive searches on Extranet allowing him to grasp the basics of how things were run both in the civilized region of space and in the chaotic shitstorm known as the Terminus Systems where he had the rotten luck to end up at. Amidst the horrors of slavery rings, warlords pillaging through the stars, and criminal outfits profiting from under the table deals, Illium served as something akin to a safe space as long as you managed to keep your nose clean.
A garden world rich in narcotics, fraud and a fresh start for creeptic bastards like you. Joe smiled at the memory, the red-faced avian face of a alien promising a fresh start as a way of repayment for his last act of violence always managed to crack a chuckle out of him and as he found himself getting comfortable inside a skycar that took off to the traffic, it was no different. He stared at the titanic metropolis, shining in all it's magnificent glory through the window. Looking at it from such angles could bring back feelings too close to home for his comfort and sometimes he would just sit completely motionless in anticipation for the mushroom cloud and subsequent explosion that never would come… just like he was doing now, as the futuristic vehicle landed at the some small backwater residential neighborhood centered around a river-front with a fair amount of now-closed shops, stalls and towers in the distance reaching out in the sky.
The River-District, close enough to normalcy and quality almost as much as the Core District of Nos Astra, while still lacking in some areas to be affordable enough for the majority with a stable income. Being free of the ugliness and hellish living conditions of the more-work-oriented Industrial District, this part of the city were more than a bargain for most just looking for nice security. And as gorgeous as the view was, it was not where the dimensional traveler carrying a nuke worth of troubles in his shoulder would go back in order to let his body rest. No, his little den of anonymity rested right in the border between River and Industrial, incognito in the middle of something between a parts store and a mechanic shop. Quiet, irrelevant, completely out of sight and might, and always requiring a pleasant walk to reach it, allowing him to just… exist without getting disturbed by his own dark thoughts until he finally found himself once again face to face with his door in order to call it a day.
The door slided up almost in a welcoming manner, allowing him to walk inside the small studio apartment partially illuminated by the external light of Nos Astra peeking through a poorly blinded window In a tiny living room. Minimalistic, badly decorated and poorly maintained, the place he has been calling home for the last 4 months. Separating himself from the worned down jacket that he simply placed over the nearest table before walking to the kitchen, Joe tried to wash away the last remaining fragments of the fog of sleepiness from his face. His improbable mental encounter with his siblings left a sour taste of longing on his stomach and a dark reminder that peace never lasts for the accursed.
In the first month, he slept with an eye open and a gun in his hand, waiting for the incoming strike of a replica assassin that would never come. In the second month, he reprimanded himself in a very irrational manner that culminated with him yelling at his own reflection for unconsciously allowing himself to have a few nights of good sleep during his time off work. In the third month… the acceptance that his old way of life was completely gone and buried started to sink in, kicking his instinctively paranoia to the ground and causing Aethyta to gather a generous sum of credits at the expense of the psychic soldier who finally allowed himself to lose up amidst nights of celebration. In the fourth month something resembling a feeling of normalcy and the perspective of living a boring life were starting to become more and more like a possibility instead of a distant dream…
Until the baby face of his sister came to visit his dreams bringing both joy and a dark warning still clinging on his mind. As he dried the wetness from his face, a dark chuckle escaped his threat as her words kept repeating inside his head as his mind struggled to find some answer. Joe didn't even notice he had walked to his chair facing the window until he was already leaning on it, staring into the ceiling and trying to make sense of what he had experienced. At least until the terminal in the opposite corner of the room lighted up to life. He lazily moved his left forearm up, causing the Omni-Tool to synchronize with the terminal and broadcast the icon of "a new message received " in bright orange. Joe almost turned it down in order to ignore it, but one small detail picked his interest: the sender was listed as unknown. Intrigued, he clicked on it and came face to face with what looked like a handful of indecipherable nonsense at first sight.
Messages:
Username: Red
Date: 2181/05/10
Content: The Shrike Abyssal cluster/Kyzil system/Naskral fucking space. Look for the MSV Stonecracker. Help. YOU OWE ME!
Joe's eyes narrowed at the content of the message and his first instinct was to voice his thoughts in clear holographic letters, but a more in depth re-reading of the message gave him pause. He recognized coordinates when he saw one, even when the world around him seemed kin to use star systems over street addresses as a reference. What caught him off guard was what followed right after, "you owe me" in capital letters with an exclamation mark alongside an ambiguous address written in a vague… almost rushed manner. All of this at the bottom of a username that looked completely foreign to him. Red could mean an infinity of things for those who spent most of their life either hidden in darkness or knee deep in bodies. But for some strange reason that the psychic traveler couldn't express through words, it wasn't the pieces of brain leaking a hole in the skull of his old academically inclined dead friend painting a wall that came to mind, not even reddish abomination called the sky above all the heads be it humans or otherwise in the now distant Fairport, but something more recent…
Something from four months ago. Something that he came across when his trip of alcohol-fueled-leisure time amidst the neon lights and bouncing blue butts was interrupted by the colors of his past painted over the avian face of the only genuine friendly face in that space dump. Approaching with camaraderie born out of respect for the unlikely feat that he managed to pull despite the odds and a offer that would square the debt she had with him for indirectly for saving her men. A favor to be called in, a favor that he used without missing a beat to get what it would take much time and sweat to get on his own: a actual record saying that he belonged in this strange world. Hands were shaken, drinks were shared and banter was exchanged as if they were old friends before he finally gave the shuttle pilot under the orders from the queen of the rock a destiny to go to. Hours later they landed and he was on his I'm Illium armed with just the weapons and armor in his possession and a new identity remaded using the already existed one inside his looted Omni-Tool…
All thanks to his red painted face friend.
Joe closed the sync with the terminal, pinching the bridge of his nose before letting out something between a exasperated snort and a amused chuckle as realization started to settle in. He stared at his hand, closing in a fist before opening it again, repeating the movement a few times before all but practically jumping from his seat as he started to pace around the room. He questioned the absurdity of the request behind the timing of the request, that of course assuming that his hunch was indeed correct and not just another intrusive thought of the most paranoid corners of his ruined mind. While his mind was racing, his steps ceased and his eyes landed on the content at the top of his table, shining against the darkness of the room like a beacon calling him forward. As he grabbed it in his hand, he could tell, even with the low lighting in the room, that despite meticulous months of caring and preserving the lighter bearing the insignia of the regiment had seen better days. Old, outdated, out of place, just like him.
A fragment of his past…
Like a shadow.
Joe flipped it a few times, staring at the small flame for a long moment until his eyes found the other memento bounding him to the best, the dried blood of his last victims resting comfortably almost in a cameo manner on the plate of a hard suit just sprawling around in the open closet. He heard once from Passalaqua that if you go out of your way and take time to actually listen to what it has to say, blood may end up talking to you. He never had the chance to question if the same ever applied to dried alien blood over a set of sci-fi armor, but right now it seems to make no difference whatsoever. For it was talking loudly.
And he was listening.
It is a widespread common knowledge that every time you are at the head of a shuttle, a ship or even a sky car you might as well be flying towards what could be a terrible accident awaiting your arrival in the sky. Be it in the form of a tragic accident imploding amidst the organized chaos that is modern traffic, a band of pirates hijacking your vessel in order to seize your valuables with greedy bloody hands or just a space anomaly turning a space trip into cosmic ashes. For Uton Senik though, the very thing that would turn his hours behind the holographic controls of a shuttle found appropriate to shake the foundations of his life in land itself when the poor salarian found himself being held at gunpoint but what could only be described as his own death staring at him through a blood painted helmet of a titan armor set equally bathed in all manners of now dried bodily fluids.
Uton was expecting to be killed, executed and then disposed of as some kind of temporary inconvenience, for even if he couldn't see the concealed face of the hijacker, he could see his eyes. Cold, harsh blue eyes looking right through the salarian as if they were two scalpels dissecting his body to the very core. The eyes of his own imminent demise… that much to the salarian surprise didn't come to pass. Instead he found himself piloting the shuttle towards an unknown destination provided by the hijacker himself, sitting quietly at the back of the shuttle with a pistol aimed at the salarian's head all the time. The gun, the armored figure holding said gun and the very nature of this completely abysmal situation was enough to make him sweat liters and pray to every deity known across the Milky Way for a chance to keep his head intact at the end of this ordeal.
A chuckle sounded behind him and his heart started to hammer in his chest all while he refused to even allow himself to glance. Trembling hands remained on the holographic console and eyes widened in fear could look at anything but the dark space ahead as the voice spoke. "Breathe. If you keep blocking your lungs like that you will end up choking yourself out. That wouldn't be good for either of us."
"For one of us more than the other." The salarian retorted, yet dared not to look. "Since I am going to end up with my brain decorating this interface anyway."
"I already told you, I ain't gonna kill you." The hijacker stated, seemingly leaning in his seat to a more comfortable position. "I don't know how to pilot this damn piece of junk."
"And… when you no longer need this piece of junk…" It was the first since this coerced voyage started that Uton allowed himself to glance at the hijacker, fearful eyes cowering at the sight of the gun still being aimed at him. "What then?"
"You walk." The words were issued in such a casual matter of fact manner that the salarian could not contain his snort from leaking out to the ears of the hijacker, who suddenly stopped staring at the shuttle's ceiling to give the salarian his full attention. "You don't believe me."
"No, I fucking don't." Uton whispered, not daring to try and push the buttons of the human pointing a gun to the back of his head. The salarian inhaled profoundly before allowing himself to voice his opinion in a carefully worded manner. "You appear out of nowhere, covered in dried blood from head to toe, holding me at gunpoint, forcing me to pilot this shuttle towards the unknown. it is hard to… take anything you say at face value when evaluating the situation based on the present facts alone."
The hijacker made what sounded like a nonchalantly grunt of agreement before letting an agonizing silence settle in. Uton couldn't see it, for he dared not glance at the source of his distress a second time. But he could sense the hijacker's unsettling eyes practically piercing the back of his head for an unnerving amount of time before finally wording his own thoughts. "Dead men, even when still walking on and about, serve no purpose, lad. Besides, if I kill you I'll have to get rid of your body and… I don't want to. It is always messy work and I'm not sure how your anatomy works. Hard to make sure important stuff goes missing when I don't even know what they will be looking for."
How reassuring. Uton thought to himself, suppressing a snort with all the willpower he could muster. Having the disposition of a psychopath as his only insurance of survival didn't exactly fill the salarian with overwhelming optimism about his odds of walking away from this unharmed and well, but trying to gain an insight into the human's agenda would only add to his fears and worries. For the sake of avoiding a panic attack caused by anxiety he decided to keep his mouth shut and pray to anyone willing to listen for anything that could save him from what was starting to look to be his end as the coordinates displayed on the interface got progressively more closer with each minutes passed in the agonizing silence. Strangely enough, the pounding in his heart, that feeling of dread making all the muscles on his body to get stiff intensified by a thousand as soon as the shuttle arrived in the Kyzil system and the shape of a massive space vessel floating in the orbit of the Vorcha world came into view. It was not a rational feeling and yet Uton couldn't do anything to placate it, especially when the armored figure of the hijacker came to stand right beside him.
"So this is it." The hijacker murmured, seemingly more to himself than to the salarian eyeing him warily. "A dreadnought."
Uton allowed against his wishes a chuckle to come out, something that he instantly came to regret as soon as the hijacker focused his murderous blue eyes on him again. Cursing himself mentally and letting out a fake cough that he hoped would serve as a disguise, the salarian mustered enough courage to speak. "It is… a carrier, actually. But not in the conventional sense or in the way that you think." Taking the human's silent stare as permission to elaborate, he gulped before proceeding. "It is not uncommon for some legal entities or even military parties with a more civil inclination towards their endeavors to repurpose what can be used as a means of advancing their agendas in fields where a significant amount of investment would be required in order to move forward, which prompts said parties to make the proper adjustments in order to deploy vessels such as the one in front of us to perform tasks that were originally not meant for its old specifications. In this case, reusing a carrier for what I imagine to be as a base for in-world mining operations judging by the properties of Naskral."
An attempt at glancing revealed that the hijacker just stared in an unnerving silence as if Uton had grown a second head. The salarian avoided the human's eyes, sweating more than he ever sweated in all this coerced voyage. He was going to die, he was sure of this now. His inability to keep his own mouth shut was going to be his undoing and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The thought of running or even attempting to pull up some resistance with low odds of success were racing through his head before a growl of annoyance and what sounded like… physical pain caused him to jump.
The hijacker finally shaked his head and said. "Take us in."
The salarian side eyed the hijacker hesitantly before taking a deep breath and voicing his concern. "I can't just board an unidentified vessel without authorization. It might be a repurposed carrier, but I would not bet on having no security measures for keeping any would-be-trespassers away."
"We ain't trespassing, we were invited." Although most of his facial features were concealed by the helmet, the salarian noticed that the hijacker was frowning intensely. Tracing his gaze soon revealed why: the ship orbiting this piece of space was in complete darkness, an odd state for a mobile mining base that was supposed to be bustling with activity. "And I would bet my family jewels that we are too late for comfort… as always."
"... what do you mea-"
"Ship's name is MSV Stonecracker." He waved the salarian off, his eyes never leaving the floating form of the ship. "We're here over a distress call, Imma leave what kind to the unstoppable power of your imagination. Just make it believable… or don't. Looking from here I don't think it will matter."
The salarian frowned at the last remark, but decided to not poke further for the sake of avoiding getting a hole in his skull. Instead his hands danced over the interface as the shuttle got into hailing rage, opening the comms to make the proper contact with the large vessel. An idea to maybe attempt to relay some sort of message informing of his situation born out of desperation than any logical reasoning came to his mind, but a subtle glance at the hijacker quickly choked any plans down. This deep into the Terminus Systems the salarian doubted anyone would care if he was a willing pilot or a victim of kidnapping, so with a resigned sigh he started to broadcast. "MSV Stonecracker, this is… the emergency maintenance team responding to your distress call. Requesting permission to board."
Two minutes passed with nothing but a creepitc silence over the comms as a manner of answer. Uton frowned with suspicion, communication blackout in such large, corporative vessels was unheard of due to the high amount of traffic and operational activities both internal and external. He glanced at the hijacker with a sense of uneasiness, but the human himself only continued to stare in the direction of the Stonecracker with that seemed to be amused boredom in his strange gaze. Odd, Uton thought before shaking his head and trying once again. "Stonecracker, do you copy? Come in. Requesting permission to board."
Two more minutes passed with nothing but silence, Uton's facial features took a grim look as he glanced fearfully at the hijacker who strangely enough had yet to spare the salarian another glance as his eyes refused to let go of the repurposed carrier, something that only contributed to the salarian's uneasiness and light paranoia. A heavy assault of static and incoherent sounds decided to barge in at that moment, causing Uton to practically jump in his seat due to startlement. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of what could only be described as a choir of indecipherable noises and heavy static. The hijacker chuckled, causing the salarian to look at him with side eyes. "Well, there is your answer."
Uton tilted his head in confusion, probably the first time he found himself feeling anything other than fear towards the man. "That… hardly qualifies as an answer. But if I had to make an educated guess, I would dare say that their communication array must have been compromised somehow."
Another chuckle escaped the hijacker, but this time he allowed his eyes to wander off the floating form of the Stonecracker and focus exclusively on Uton's face, much to the salarian dismal who started to curse himself mentally and then sweat profoundly as the human leaned in uncomfortably close to his face. "Communications got busted, that's your so-called educated guess? Funny. You only think that because you ain't listening, not really."
"There…" the salarian felt himself gulp. "There is nothing… to listen to… at all. It is just noise."
The hijacker retreated, returning to apparently gaze at the Stonecracker with returned amused boredom and now a strange note of twisted mischief that caused Uton to feel a shiver running down his spine as the human spoke. "Listen again, with attention this time. Don't try to envision it, don't think about it, don't even question what you are trying to listen to. Just let your ears do their job and send the sounds to your brain."
What a weird person… Uton thought, scrutinizing the hijacker for a second before shaking his head and due to his current lack of control regarding his situation, compelled to the former's strange request. The salarian sat there, just listening to some random pattern of noises and static blasting through the comms for what it definitely felt like eternity until suddenly, against his expectations, he actually started to make something out of all the noise. Something akin to grunts instead of just static at first, slowly but surely forming into a person's voice muffled by all the static and then finally what seemed to be sentences trying to break through the busted communication.
"Hlppp" "Hpppee" "Hllllpppp"
"Heeppp" "Hllepp" "hhhhhh"
Uton glanced at the hijacker, having the strange impression that he was smirking under the helmet but paid no mind to it. "Sounds like they are trying to… relay something."
The gaze hijacker casted upon him as he turned to face him was one that made Uton clench his fists and prepare himself to run as fast as he could due to how sinister the out of place glint of excitement in the hijacker's eyes were. "You are not completely wrong on this one."
"What does-"
"HEEEEEEELP!"
The deafening scream practically echoed in the shuttle, causing the interface to flick with unknown interference and his ears to drown in pure excruciating pain that seemed to mirror the one behind the wail tearing the systems of the space vehicle apart against all grounded logic. The hands that were massaging the corner of his head in some attempt to alleviate the pain threatening to pierce his skull moved over the interface with something akin to desperation behind his fast paced movements as the comms were shut down and the bone chilling, the horrific cry of agony being broadcasted finally ceased. Silence settled in after this, with nothing but the accelerated breathing bordering hyperventilation coming from the salarian breaking it. "What in the goddess's name have I just heard…"
"A loud and clear permission to board that thing."
"You… want to board the ship… after what we just heard?" Uton casted a perplexed stare at the hijacker.
The human just shrugged in turn before waving the pistol he had in hand uncomfortably close to Uton's face. "Take. Us. In. Now. I was already on my way to bet all my beans on not having a lot of time left, that bby just made it crystal clear that I actually have none. So board it before I hurt you."
The salarian gritted his teeth, trembling hands working on the interface and a hammering heart filling his ears with the sound of his unstable beatings. As the shuttle approached the larger vessel in preparation for boarding it, Uton's eyes didn't glance at anything else. The sight alone of the ship devoid of activity picked his curiosity, but after the horrendous sounds still haunting his memory, the sight now had strangely enough turned into a metallic floating source of pure irrational fear threatening to make him throw up all over the interface. Only the presence of the hijacker and his threat looming in the air prevented Uton from doing so and as the main hanger opened to grant the shuttle entrance in a peculiarly unsettling manner that resembled a shark swallowing a fish, the salarian found himself muttering one final silent prayer for whoever cared enough to listen. As the process of automated docking reached completion and the ship hull closed itself to the dark space once again, the duo found themselves staring at a dimly lit deck bordering total darkness with no life forms present to vet their access to the vessel.
"Comfy place." The hijacker mandered, holstering his pistol before grabbing the rifle in his back, causing the salarian to squeak in fear and then confusion as the human simply turned around to walk to the shuttle's exit. "No reception party, no "hand over the docking license" or any bureaucratic bullshit to sidetrack you. Pretty straightforward business."
"Where are you even going?!" The salarian practically exclaimed, prompting the human to stop in his tracks to glance at Uton with a lazy look in eyes that despite lacking any real hostile glint still managed to make him feel uncomfortable for some reason. "Uuuh…"
"We are here nice and in one sound. So now I'm going to leave. Very simple math really." The hijacker shrugged
The salarian pursed his lips, pondering on whether or not to voice his thoughts before the anxiety caused by uncertainty and by being in a place that was creeping him out for reasons he simply could not understand made him to ask. "So… I am free to go?"
"You were always free to go." The hijacker fully turned to face him this time, his gaze still lazy but unsettling, bored but still threatening. "Like I said before, I just needed a lift and now that this ride came to an end you can walk. Probably for the best, your odds staying here are low as fuck."
Uton was about to open his mouth to question the meaning behind his words when a shadow flew over the shuttle, casting it into darkness for one short second before disappearing. Looking through the shuttle window revealed nothing no matter how hard he searched and as the salarian turned back to face the hijacker, he noticed by the amused glint in the human's eyes that he was smiling under the helmet. "You should leave while you still can."
That was all they managed to say to each other when the hijacker finally exited the shuttle and Uton found himself alone, unharmed and finally free. Free to no longer dwell in the agonizing uncertainty on whether he would survive this ordeal or end up with a gunshot piercing the back of his head. Free to no longer linger around a place that was sending all kinds of alarms throughout his body for reasons he simply could not and wished not to understand. Without missing a beat his Omni-Tool shined to life and his hands danced over the interface with invigorated speed, starting the engine of the shuttle and initializing the un-docking process in order to release the travel vehicle into the sweet free coldness of open space that would allow him to return to Illium. The shuttle practically dashed toward the stars, leaving behind a amused looking psychic who simply nodded to himself before moving while whistling the melody of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to pass the time.