Chapter Text
He’s aged centuries in the months they’ve been trapped here.
They’ve been on the run since the day Durandal was lost, never a chance to breathe. Any moment they stop to rest, the Pfhor are on their tail in a matter of days or less. The torn and decayed world of Lh’owon holds no shortage of dangers itself, be it monsters in the dark or anomalies that swallow them whole. His eyes are on their back, on the walls, in the corners hidden by the lack of light. All the while, always moving. The others look to him for leadership, for a way through this hell. Even still, after the disaster that took place the previous day.
He’d gotten sloppy. Slow, unaware. He should’ve known something was wrong, but it took an outsider to see what he never would have, at least not until it was too late.
They’d been infiltrated. A culling was needed.
What he had originally imagined would take several hours at best and days at worst ends up only taking half an hour to accomplish, courtesy of the security officer they’d rescued. How the impostors had managed to sneak into their ranks, Blake doesn’t know. Likely during the chaos of combat, whenever they’d be discovered by the Pfhor search parties and scramble for retreat that follows. He wants to tell himself that he couldn’t have been expected to notice the strange faces in his ranks, that one man can only do so much, but those words are just there to mitigate the guilt already seeped into his bones. The very knowledge that over a dozen of his fellow people had been snatched away under his eyes and replaced by these fake copies wearing their faces, it unsettles and pains him to no end. Only hours earlier he had been speaking and looking at them like they were still human, smiled at them, and they smiled back.
It happened during a conversation. He doesn’t even remember what was being discussed. He was trying to make the mood lighter, trying being the key word. Him, and two others. Officer no-name walked up to him, perhaps to ask him a question, but whatever was to be said never comes, as the man standing next to him was mid-sentence when his face exploded. The security officer only offered a few words of explanation as to why he’d blown off the face of one of his men, right in front of him no less, before he got to work. Once the shock had worn off and he was able to move again, he quickly came to understand why he did what he did.
The blood that sprayed onto his cheek was a sickly yellow. The brain matter in that skull was yellow.
His men are still recovering from the massacre. Watching their supposed brothers in arms get slaughtered in the span of minutes, even if they were copies, shook them to their cores. It frightened Blake seeing just how casually the cyborg was about it all. He can’t see the man’s face, but Blake will bet his life that he didn’t blink once during the massacre.
Yes, the cyborg. He’s still coming to terms that the man he had seen maybe twice before the Pfhor attack was not just a machine in flesh, but a battleroid at that. They were only talked of in history lessons and rumors, conspiracy theories really, that the UESC had never really disarmed their reserves after the wars, that it was a cover up to hide what they still had hidden. He never gave those rumors much thought; they were the ramblings of bitter MIDA supporters and freaks that thought their neighbors were killers in disguise. Even if they hadn’t been dismantled ages ago, it had been so long that he felt assured they’d long fallen into disrepair. The idea that the UESC would hide such weapons of mass destruction in plain sight just seemed ridiculous to him.
Those thoughts don’t feel so foolish now.
Their latest addition being a battleroid is something he was privy to on behalf of their absent AI overlord. Durandal must have entrusted him with that knowledge for a reason, so he tells himself. That bundle of binary digits never just did things on a whim. Telling him this while he was on death’s door had to have meant something. It was for that reason he made the cyborg’s rescue a top priority. Having a battleroid as an ally was too great of an opportunity to squander. It’s little wonder as to what might have happened if they hadn’t.
Even if seeing it was ugly, he knew deep down that he was right to break him out. They’d likely all be dead by now.
That doesn’t mean it feels right, though. Especially when they had to gather the dead remains of their comrade’s copies, strip them of what supplies they had on them.
The irony of a cyborg enacting mass murder on other cyborgs is not lost on him.
Neither is it lost on the battleroid in question, but Blake doesn’t know that.
That’s for another time.
Six thousand and twenty seven feet under the planetary crust of the S’pht homeworld, the remaining humans stranded on Lh’owon convene to plan their next move. The AI that brought them here believed the answers it sought is somewhere buried beneath this planet, and the humans are bound to oblige its late wishes. Not like they have much choice in the matter. It’s either that or be the playthings of the Pfhor.
Their current base is deep within the network of tunnels carved into the planet’s crust by the S’pht’s progenitors ages ago. What struck Blake as eerie is the complete lack of any dust on the floor and walls, and how flush the corners were. It was as if no tools, no hands were used to build these caves, but the will of God brought them into reality and they simply became. Or the will of gods. He doesn’t know what those robed things pray to.
Writing such observations to mind feels a bit redundant, but it falls on him to make note of these things. Maybe he’s being paranoid, but he doesn’t want to make another slip up again. Not when there’s lives on the line.
Unlike the other humans on Lh’owon, he was not born on board the Marathon. He is one of two humans currently stranded on the S’pht home-world that both hail from the same rock, a red planet far, far away from where they are now. All the other men and women from Mars remain on Tau Ceti.
Of course, now that he’s running on fumes, bathed in his own sweat and alien dirt, he now very much regrets ever stepping foot on that colony ship. Oh sure, what could Mars offer for him that Tau Ceti couldn’t? Destitute and dead, Mars was but a shell of what it once was, even more so than the shell of a moon that was the Marathon. Greater things in the stars, a new chance, adventure, discovery. Yeah right. If he could he’d go back and throttle his younger self for ever even entertaining such a thing. If only. No point in dwelling on the past.
Despite his difference in origin to his comrades, at a glance he looks much the same as the others. A large, glass implant is in the place of his eye, a mop of brown hair that’s beginning to recede on his scalp, and a green jumpsuit attached to his form. However, all the tank-born humans around him share the same face, the same hair, the same eye and same voice. They are all copy-pasted brothers that were once numbered in the thousands. Now, less than a hundred of them remain.
Once upon a time, he didn’t think much of the born-on-boards, nothing beyond seeing them as a necessity to maintain their vessel. He was actually born, not spliced and bred in tanks from tubes. So what if they lived and died in the century long journey?
He no longer feels that way, but the fact that he ever did brings him great shame.
It is not lost on him that the culling of their numbers is directly due to the actions of their former master. He can only wonder what fate befell Tau Ceti and the other souls on the Marathon due to Durandal’s actions, and negligence. He wonders if he’ll even live long enough to find out.
He wonders what the AI saw in him. Durandal pegged him as having some seniority over the other BoBs early on, so he was often privy to the computer’s thoughts and plans, back when the AI was still alive. It was difficult to listen to his banter when he knew in the AI’s eyes he was nothing but a means to an end. Back on the Marathon he knew he had some level of control over a set of subordinates, but he never thought he’d ever be in a position where people’s lives are in his hands. At least when Durandal was in control he could have some sense of comfort knowing that he was resigned to another’s whims and wants. Now everything is up to him. One last cruel joke from the departed intelligence.
They had marched for hours at Blake’s orders, and only came to a halt when he felt they’d made enough distance from the Phfor on their tails. The S’pht architecture hurts his brain, and he can’t make any sense of what purpose most of these rooms may have served. They stopped in what appears to be a nexus of some sorts; the ceiling is several meters above the ground, far away from their reach, and smeared on the rocks is a painting of something he doesn’t recognize. A bright light bleeds through and grants them sight. It feels like sunlight, but that can’t be right. Not this far down.
They arrived through one of six paths, forks in the road. He’d ordered his men to set up barricades at each entrance in case of an attack. Right now, he had one man posted at each entrance. Those remaining are gathered in the center.
Bleary, bloodshot eyes watch him, waiting. They’re seated on rocks and supply crates, placed on the raised rings circling the room, between which shallow pools of water lay. He has no idea where the murky stuff even comes from. He wonders what the other Martian thinks. Durandal’s favorite cleaner offers nothing in terms of expression. Even standing within arms reach of Blake, he can’t get a read of the man at all. If the the cyborg’s helmet wasn’t permanently fixed to his head, and a gas-mask draped over his face, Blake is certain that he would feel his breath on his neck. As of now, he simply stands watch with his arms crossed.
He gives a wary glance at the security officer beside him, hoping for some sort of support, but gets nothing. No time like the present—best to get this over with.
He clears his throat and tries to ignore that his voice bounces off the room’s walls. He can hear his own voice. “Wise up, everyone. I don’t want to repeat myself.”
Stepping forward, he fiddles with the projector’s knobs until it hums on. He sat the machine on an overturned crate, and it sputters and groans as it comes to life, quickly lets out a series of heavy clicks, then whines as it breathes light into the air. A holographic recreation of the tunnel system hovers above the crate. On the Marathon and on Tau Ceti they had emitters that were more advanced than most civilian models, or advanced at the time they were produced anyway. Of course with the passage of time it’s more than guaranteed that the technology back in the Solar System has left any tech on the Marathon in the dust. This thing though? It was already obsolete before he was even born. It’s a cheap, portable model that Durandal had accidentally teleported onto the Boomer, alongside himself and the BoBs that were abducted for this odyssey. The light-show is offensively low resolution and the hologram resembles less a map of their surrounding areas and more a crude drawing of lines in three different shades of orange. Still, it beats having to use sticks and stones.
Once he’s sure that the projector isn’t about to die on him, he begins.
“This green dot here?” He points to the image. “That’s us. This red dot up here, that’s the Pfhor. Where we are right now, we have three paths that go deeper into the tunnels: here, here, and here.” He points at each twisting line, each in a different colour. “Durandal said that the dormant S’pht AI is down here somewhere, and we can’t afford to chance just one route. So we split up.
“Three teams of ten. We got enough suits and fusion pistols for thirty people. Everyone else will stay behind, and fortify this position. Our sonar scanner tells us these tunnels go on for kilometers, so don’t expect a short trip.” As he predicted, they groan. “It’s shit, but it’s all we got right now. I know both options aren’t exactly great, so I’ll let you all choose who goes where. Any questions?” One BoB, one with his jumpsuit half off leaving his undershirt exposed, raises a hand. “Yes?”
The man’s hand drops to his side and he speaks loud enough so his voice can be heard. “What exactly are we looking for? Lot of these alien computers are either dead or don’t make a lick of sense.”
“Yeah, I don’t speak their language!”
A chorus of “me neither,” and “same here!” rolls through the rows, and Blake rubs his eyes. “That’s fine. You don’t gotta read or anything. Manpower is the most important thing here. Lot of these tunnels might be flooded, and those monsters might be roaming around. I don’t want any of us to be caught unawares or go alone. That’s why we’re going in groups.”
“Why are we even doing what that bastard wanted anyway? He’s dead!” He can’t place where that came from.
His patience is wearing thin. “It’s either this or try and break bread with the bugs. Which one do you guys prefer?” A few murmurs of complaint then silence. “Look, I know this is shit. None of you guys signed up for this. No one here did. I just want to go home. Same as you, same as all of us. This is our best chance.”
A BoB reinforced in vacuum armor has a question. “The hell is an alien AI gonna do for us?”
“Give us a fighting chance.” He’d gone over ways to explain this several times in his head and yet all of the lines he’d practiced up and disappear. So he wings it. “The S’pht have a caste, or a clan. A warrior clan. They were…lost a long time ago, but this AI, if we wake it, may have the power to summon them to Lh’owon. If we get them to ally with us against the Pfhor—“
“This plan sounds like shit!”
Another. “Yeah, how do you know this ‘clan’ even exists? Why do you trust anything that asshole said?”
“Because he never said anything he didn’t believe. If he said they’re real, I’m willing to chance it.” He licks his sore gums. Gah. He’d forgotten about his bruised tongue. He makes a note to avoid giving speeches for a while. Another BoB raises his hand. “Yes?”
“Say we do find this AI, and say our luck finally kicks back in and it’s still functional. What then? How will we get it to help us?”
A good question, one he actually asked himself only a few hours earlier when he went over the plan with the one other person who knew of the AI, before they cleaned out all the simulacrums, and as soon as the question is asked once again, he hears the same answer he did then.
“Leave that to me.”
That voice doesn’t come from the crowd but from his right. Shifting his eyes to his side, he’d been focused on the others to notice that the security officer had uncurled his crossed arms and stepped forward. He’s partly grateful that someone other than him is deciding to speak.
It doesn’t seem to do much, as they’re speaking to him again, anyway. “We gotta go with him? Screw that! You saw what he did to the others!”
The security officer’s tone stays the same since the day they found him. “You’re going to, or I’ll make what I did to your copies look tame.”
That feeling of gratitude shrivels up and dies. The silence that immediately follows chills Blake to the bone. Gone is the rousing energy in his men, a dark shadow taking its place. He needs to step in before things get worse. “Everyone, take five.”
It takes a moment for them to form up the will to move again and separate, all into their own little groups. He makes a mental note to speak with each little clique before they move out, whatever that entails. Right now he needs to have a chat with their latest addition to their ranks.
He waits until he feels the others have made enough distance before he whirls on the now silent battleroid.
“You’re not making my life easy here.”
Faceless glass looks down at him. “You’d be dead if I wasn’t here.”
“Fine. Thanks. I’m glad. I saved you, you saved us. That makes us even. That doesn’t mean you have to make things worse.” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder and hisses. “These guys are on edge, I’m on edge. I’m at the end of my rope here. You threatening to kill my men isn’t gonna make them, or me, feel any better.”
“It wasn’t a threat.”
“See, that. That’s what I mean. Listen, you, me, everyone here, we’ve all had our share of hell, all thanks to Durandal and the Pfhor. Rather than feeling like you’re cut from a different cloth, recognizing that we’re in this boat together will keep it from rocking. You would be stuck in a cell and cut up by the Pfhor if I didn’t come to rescue you.”
“I’m aware.”
Rescuing him had been Blake’s idea. None of the others protested it, though he sensed many of them wanted to speak their unease. They all have the same face, after all. Anxiety looks the same for every name. More than once he was asked if it’s worth risking lives to save one man. He didn’t have it in him to tell everyone that the man was more than just that, that having a battleroid in their ranks would be such a major advantage; turning down such an opportunity was not a regret he was willing to have.
When they finally did manage to free him from the Pfhor’s grasp, Blake was taken off guard by the security officer’s lack of shock, or fear. The cruelty of the Pfhor is something all the men fear. Death is preferable to being cut into pieces and put back together like a toy. In spite of this, the man they freed was calm and in one piece. Only a few words were said before he’d relayed everything that was necessary to ensue for them to survive. It was the very same plan Blake had already made in his head. Rather than feeling assured they were on the same page, he was caught off guard that the man was so composed when everyone else that had been captured then rescued came back a shell of their former selves.
Him, though—by the time they made it to his cell, he didn’t say more than two words.
“Then act like it. We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.” He inhales after venting out his frustration. “Sooner you show that, the better. Otherwise getting home is only going to be harder.”
The bruise on his tongue festers after all that was said, but he doesn’t notice it right now, what with all the emotions that have been simmering let loose from his lips. He doesn’t waver under the battleroid’s gaze. He’s sure anyone could be able to see that he’s barely keeping it together, but if he crumbles now it will only make the others lose more hope. He has to stay focused, for their sake.
He watches himself stare back at the former security officer in the reflection of his helmet’s visor, and begins to form words in his sore mouth when a voice comes from behind the mask. “You want to go home. I want Thoth.” The faceless helmet leans in, and Blake instinctively steps back. “Make use of that while you can.”
What the hell is wrong with this guy? In his memory of the two times he’d encountered the former head of security, the man had been nothing but mundane in his manners. Polite and to the point. Maybe the time spent being Durandal’s errand boy just does that to a person, or maybe being in Pfhor captivity did more to his psyche than he’s letting on. He doesn’t even want to factor in the man’s true nature and if that has any play in his behavior. He wants to say more, ask why he’s being so callous about their situation, but more time spent on arguing is time wasted, time they can’t afford to lose. He steels himself and forces his legs not to budge. His voice only shakes slightly when he speaks again. “This AI. Tell me, how will you get it to help exactly?”
“It doesn’t have ambitions. It doesn’t have wants. It simply does as it’s designed: keep the balance. It uses the S’pht’kr to maintain that. Help me activate it, and not only will they give you a chance to fight back, but to win. That’s what you want, right?”
“If it means us getting off this rock, then I’ll take it.”
“Good.”
Some time later, they gather again. Sombre faces look around him in a circle. Now, he stands alone.
“Any more questions?” A beat, then two. “Alright. Three teams of ten! Everyone, find a group!”
He watches them separate into groups, noticing how they make a wide berth for the battleroid in their ranks. If the officer notices, he doesn’t show it. His hands glide from stack of bullets to the metal magazine in his hand at a rhythmic pace.
There’s one more question on his mind. It’s been festering for weeks, months. If he doesn’t get it out it’ll rot him from the inside. The man’s head doesn’t rise as he approaches, nor does he look at him when he says his say. “Did he tell you anything? Before you did him in.”
He doesn’t pause in loading the magazine. “He was long gone by the time I killed him,” he answers. “Just a bunch of nonsense.”
Blake sighs. “I hope he was right about this AI, Thoth or whatever it’s called. If it’s still alive.”
“It will be.”
“After so long? What makes you so sure?”
His thumb pauses over the magazine in his hand, round waiting to be slotted in. For the first time, his voice wavers, and Blake almost misses the three words that whisper out from the glass.
“It always is.”
“We’re here.”
Here where? Stop, get oxygen first, then think. Drowning in nothing, his hand clutches at his chest and balls the blood-soaked shirt stuck to his chest. Something to hold on to. His eyes are crusted shut and takes multiple blinks to see again. He swerves his head around as he licks the taste of old blood off his tongue. Neon lights to his right, on the other side of the glass. Rapidly, images of forever ago—or minutes ago—flash by his eyes. Asari. Car. Being in the air? Warehouse. Dead bodies and bullets. Kenn.
Where is he? This isn’t where they last stopped. He can’t remember anything between getting in the car and now. When did he fall asleep?
He looks to his left and the exhaustion in him withers and dies in an instant. He has to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from grabbing her. That woman is there, untying the belt looped over her chest. “I was worried you died on me.” She smirks. “I was hoping you wouldn’t saddle me with taking care of your friend.” Worry blossoms in his chest, and he takes a look at the backseat. Kenn is still there.
Idiot. That’s all he is. How could he have let his guard down? He must be more tired than he thinks. He can’t remember when he fell asleep. He must have lost more blood than he thought. There’s spots in his vision that won’t go away, no matter how much he rubs his eyes. Stop. Doesn’t matter. Worry about your ticket out of here. In the state that he was in back at the warehouse, being so focused on killing anything that moved, he had failed to realize that Kenn is teetering on the edge of life and death. Seeing the quarian now, it’s impossible to not see that his condition is very, very bad.
The engine goes silent. The asari pushes the door on her side open and says offhand, “It’s not far. Come on.”
Before she’s completely out of reach, he grabs her wrist, and she freezes. When her head turns and he sees her eyes, her face is wearing an expression he hasn’t yet seen. What it means, he doesn’t know, nor does he really care. He grabs the bag by his feet and shoves it into her arms. “Hold this.” He doesn’t wait for a response, and opens his door.
In the corner of his eye he sees her step out and strut off towards an alley. He waits until she’s far enough before stepping out. He doesn’t want to keep his eyes off of her even if she’s several meters away. Paranoia has only helped him in the long run. He takes one last look at the asari’s back, making sure she’s far enough for comfort.
He throws the back door open and stills.
The prone, crippled form of Robert Blake lies dead or nearly dead under the gap between a wall and floor, face colored in that shade dead humans share, with the one eye bare looking up into his brain, and Roland looks at the man for a moment, then looks away, where he needs
Needs.
Where?
He’s falling?
His hand saves him from cracking his head on the roof of the car. It doesn’t keep the pounding in his chest from slowing down.
He looks again. There’s Kenn, and no one else.
Even now, here where there is nothing but what shouldn’t be, he can still remember Robert Blake.
The reason that name stays in his mind and not the dozen of hundreds of born-on-board men that he’d fought with and against, is because only Blake wore a different face than the rest. Maybe they had names too, or numbers for names, he doesn’t know. There might have been one dream or several where he did get their names, or just more than one dream, but those names are as lost as those forgotten dreams. Blake, he was always there. Dead or alive, ally or foe, he was always there.
He sees Robert Blake. He sees Robert Blake. He sees Robert Blake.
He thinks of him now. This image in his eyes now, of a living thing on death’s doorstep at his mercy, is something he’d seen before, he thinks. Blake lies in a puddle of his own blood and shit, missing his legs, trying to speak with lungs that can’t breathe—Blake is by his side, a fusion pistol in hand and conviction roaring out of his lungs—Robert Blake doesn’t look like Robert Blake anymore because he’d turned his face inside out with his fist—Robert Blake—
Robert Blake—no. Kenn is sprawled on the back seat with his hand on his chest. The quarian’s chest rises and falls, and after drifting in and out of life, he manages to stay in this coil long enough for a moment. Kenn speaks.
“…where…?”
The alien lives, of course, yet he still feels relief at hearing that snot-soaked voice. His arms, legs, everything feels heavy. He needs to move. With a deep breath, he loops his arms under Kenn’s back and legs, the legs that still throw him off because they’re not supposed to bent like that, and carefully pulls him up to his chest. He follows after the woman, making sure not to jostle the body in his hands.
“Don’t talk,” he says lowly. Either his words fall on unconscious ears or the quarian hears him right, because he doesn’t say any more, and Roland sees those luminous eyes go dark. He grimaces; that pulse going through Kenn’s suit and into his fingers, it feels faint. He quickens his pace and laps the woman, who chuckles as he passes. The sound almost makes him tighten his grip, but he uses the bit of restraint he wields to not crush the life in his hands.
He follows the large neon sign placed above the end of a path, spelling out “CLINIC” and pointing a glowing arrow around the corner. He swerves around it and only takes a few steps before he comes to a halt.
A familiar sight—a bunch of things pointing guns at him. Only this time the things weren’t aliens. They weren’t alive at all. Machines with arms and legs but no eyes keep their weapons trained on him, while the only one among them made of flesh stands up from his chair.
“Hold it.” The odd one out in a line of robot guards, a human man. A permanent scowl is etched into the skin on his face. That or he’s just old. He reaches for something on his hip, causing Roland to tense. He’s not afraid of getting shot, it would only be a rather small new wound for him relative to the maybe thousands of holes he already has, but more so he’d rather Kenn not get killed when they’ve made it this far. The human guard has a glare pinned right on him, one that only slightly wilts upon seeing the state he’s in. “Jesus, you alright?”
No, he’s not alright. What kind of stupid question is that? He’s been mentally pushing the fire burning in his hide away into the back of his mind. Now that the adrenaline has dissipated, that fire is spreading to his spine. “I need a doctor.”
The stupid guard nods. “Alright, but if you’re able to walk, they’ll probably want you to wait.“
“Not me,” he bites, and looks down at the limp body in his hands. “Him.”
It’s as if the guard doesn’t notice Kenn’s existence until Roland brings him up. He looks down at the limp quarian in his grasp with a grimace. “Alright. You can go in.”
The door hisses open and his almost-dead sinuses taste the familiar rank of death and antiseptics. He steps inside.
The lobby here is nearly empty, if only for a few faces making it not so. One of those bird-looking aliens is sitting in one of the many chairs against the wall, though this one looks different from ones he’s seen. Its head is narrower, and the strange spikes that would normally stick out from the back of its skull is absent. It hacks into its hands. Sick, then.
Besides it, there’s one of those frog-things. Big eyes, shiny skin, wet. It taps away at some computer behind the counter it sits behind, not making any sign that it noticed him.
He makes a beeline for the front desk. Still, it doesn’t look up. He wets his tongue and coughs. “Help him.”
Its frantic fingers stop, that typing noise gone. It looks up at him, and for a hair of a second its face looks bored as the death he’s nearly embracing, but that’s gone just as fast when it processes the state he’s in. “My word…are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” This alien is as smart as the frog it resembles. “Him. Help him.”
The water on this rock must have some poison in it, since it also takes this piece of slime to look at the body in his hands. The body that feels lighter every passing second. “S-Sir, I need you to calm down. I can put him down on the list, but our resident doctor is currently busy helping another patient.”
He’ll go and kill whatever thing their doctor is working on if it helps. Little worm. His eyes twitch. “Help him now.”
He’s ready to say more, but the nerves in his neck, the ones that still work anyway, inflame and shoot awake as a hand slides up his back. He hears that woman’s voice snark into his ear. “What’s the hold up, hm?”
The worm’s eyes blink. Two sets of eyelids. “Are you together?”
“I’d hope so,” she hums. “Otherwise one of us has had the wrong idea for the past two years.” Her head rests on his arm and he does everything in his power to not recoil. “Maelus, right? My friend here’s in a really bad shape. Can you get him a room?”
“Like I told your partner here, you will be seen when our physician is available.” It sniffs. “We’re short on staff, so there’s only one licensed individual, and they’re currently seeing another patient.”
“Oh come on…” The woman does a strange thing with her face and curls her lips down while cocking her hip to the side. “He doesn’t have much time left. You know how fragile these quarians can be. A few minutes and he’ll be dead. I’m sure whoever your doc is seeing can spare a few minutes, right?” She leans forward and props her elbows on the counter. “Please?”
This frog snaps its bug-eyes between him and the asari. He’s not sure what’s going through that brain, if its looking for something in his or her eyes, but it stops after twice scanning them, then gives a shaky nod. “I’ll see what I can do.”
His eyes stay locked on its hide as it stands up and walks off down hall, leading somewhere, he doesn’t know.
“No thank you?”
She’s close. Too close. He glances at her. Her vest, she’d done something to the front above her chest, and it’s showing more skin than before. She must have done that when he rushed in. Why?
A human, two he’s seen in this place now, walks in. His face is wet in sweat, and he’s dressed in scrubs. He gives the room a scan until he sees him. His face, already red with stress, turns into a grimace. “Ah geez, I was hoping he was exaggerating. Quarian, eh?Guess we’ll finally put that chamber to use. Maelus! Hurry with the stretcher!” That frog alien wheels it in. It and the doctor walk up to him. “Just let him go and I’ll take him from here.”
Let go?
Living things, dead things, anything really, they all move too slow for him. The only objects that make way in a pace he doesn’t mind are bugs, the tiny little ones that buzz in the air and near his ears. Everything else drags. That’s no exception here. Minutes in his mind, maybe more. The vestiges of something still alive have taken a hold of his own arms and grip the beating heart in his hands. Something hot scratches at his skin, to not listen to what this face is saying to him, with its flapping lips and gums. Fear is what he feels. Fear of what? He looks down at the broken face held against his chest, and the only thing he thinks right then is how small Kenn is compared to him. Is he afraid of Kenn? Is he afraid to be here? Is he afraid of the infuriating blue skinned thing that won’t leave him alone?
No, none of those things.
He’s afraid to let Kenn go.
Why? It’s because he owes a debt. That’s why. That has to be it.
It makes him wonder. Maybe if this alien hadn’t dug him out of the trash, he would have still found a way out and to the upper levels of this rock. Maybe he still would have found himself real food. There’s an endless number of possibilities to consider.
As it stands though, he’s stuck here. He has nowhere else to go. That’s all those thoughts will be, just thoughts.
No more doors left to open.
When Blake saves him, in the days that he isn’t on the other end of his gun, it’s because he needs his help. When Durandal saves him, it’s because the tangible world is beyond the AI’s reach and only Roland’s hands will suffice. When Durandal saves him again, it’s because he needs his help. Needed his help. Always for their own selfish reasons. Who’s to say Kenn didn’t have that idea of his in mind when he pulled him out of the trash? Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. He still fed him, still clothed him, still pestered him with dumb, naive questions. After he did that one favor, he’d never asked for one again. Everyone has a choice, and Kenn chose to treat him with kindness.
When was the last time he’d been granted that?
Roland has wrenched spears out of his ribs, he’s drowned more times than he can count, he’s waited the amount of hours it took to die from starvation when he’d been buried under a mountain of rubble, and yet, the act of prying his fingers off the quarian’s back and legs is more painful than any of those memories. As gently as he can, he sets Kenn down on the stretcher. His fingers brush on the rubber of his suit.
He watches the prone alien be wheeled away. He watches still when they turn a corner and are out of sight. He watches until a voice snaps him out of his stupor.
“You’re welcome.”
He flinches, and glares at the blue-skin. The woman is pouting at him. She’s given him that look many times now. It’s getting on his nerves. He shoves past her and makes course for the row of chairs against the wall. He can’t keep his face from wincing as he sits. His legs feel like there’s rocks in them.
Any longer on his feet and he might have collapsed. He lets his head rest on the wall and shivers.
She follows shortly and falls into the chair next to him.
“You’re bleeding onto the floor, by the way.”
Roland frowns and looks down at his boots. She’s not lying. There’s red lines dribbling down his legs. It’s probably going to leave stains. Wonder why the holes haven’t clotted yet. A stray bullet must have torn an artery. Or two. That would explain why he’s been feeling so lightheaded. It’s not a feeling he’s used to, or enjoys.
When was the last time he’d seen black spots in the world of his eyes? That feeling of running on fumes, veins trying to push dried up blood to fuel the brain, a heart filled with dust. It almost feels good. Maybe it doesn’t, and he just doesn’t know what else to call this swimming in his head. He leans his head back again and swallows. Time. Just some time.
That woman is still talking. “You should get yourself checked.”
“You should get that mouth checked,” he mutters.
She laughs at that. A nasal, grating noise. “I liiikee you.”
“I like you.”
Where has he heard that before?
“I like you, you know? All these other rats die from shock if you so much as cut a finger off, and yet you can’t seem to die no matter what I do with you. My own little doll, my pincushion.”
He'd be a fool not to ask. “Why?”
Her eyes, so like a human’s that it makes him want to tear them out, stare back at him, as if trying to say something obvious he can’t see. That urge whines when she begins to talk, with her too-normal tongue and not alien lips. “I’m fairly young by asari standards, but I’ve still seen quite a lot in my years, and your lot? They’re pretty new, so the rest of us regulars are still getting to know your kind. From what I’ve seen, humans, they’re pretty soft. Most of them just fall over like dolls if you push them too hard. Pretty naive too, especially the younger ones. Show them a bit of skin, sweet talking and a promise of more, and you’ll have them eating out of your hand. So, nothing very impressive, really.
“That’s what I thought until today, anyway.” She leans back, and somehow manages to make the little plastic chair look more akin to a throne than something cheap. “Tonight, I watched a human walk into the lair of the most feared woman in Omega, kill an elcor barehanded, and kill several dozen armed killers while wearing nothing but the clothes on his back. You’re not even a biotic, either. I’ve seen humans keel over from a kick to the stomach. You’re bleeding onto the floor and you’re still standing.” She smirks. “Well, sitting, but you know what I mean.”
She could have spared him the little speech, and just say what she finishes with. “You’re different. I like different.” Her gaze finally strays from his eyes and looks on to the hall where Kenn had disappeared. “He must mean a lot to you, for you to go through all that.”
“Mind your business and I’ll m—“ He chokes on something in his throat, and coughs up the clot of mucus into his wrist. It’s red. Almost black.
“I didn’t catch that.” She tilts her head to the side, a curious smile on her lips. “You really are something, aren’t you?”
It takes him a second to clear out the rest of the shit in his throat. Once he does, he takes a second to breathe, then looks at the alien in its eyes. “Tell me your name.”
“Oh, so we’re trading names now?” She laughs. It’s an awful, grating noise. His ears should bleed. “Call me Morinth,” she smiles. “You?”
Morinth. He’s gonna make sure that name stays burnt into his brain, for as long as necessary.
With the bit of energy he still has, he snatches the duffel bag from the floor and tucks it into his stomach.
He ignores her question and goes back to closing his eyes.
“You’re lucky you got here when you did. Any later and I’m not sure if he’d survive. I’ve reduced the swelling in his brain and brought his hemoglobin count back up to normal. He lost a lot of blood, but fortunately our previous head doctor made sure to have it on supply, and in his type.” He inhales. “Still, it’ll be a few days before he’ll be able to back on his feet. Few days rest.” The doctor exhales and his shoulders fall. There’s more stress than blood in that man’s skin.
“Where is he?”
“Getting him in a new suit. His old one’s beyond saving. This one’ll work fine, but it’s a spare, so I’d get a proper one when possible.” Tired as those eyes are, they still try to look bright as he smiles. “I’ll have him wheeled out in a bit. Give me a few minutes.”
A few minutes. He’ll hold him to that. At least that bitch is gone. He turns without giving another word and goes back to his seat.
There’s another person in the seat beside him. A human man. Wrinkled in the face, wearing a jacket and gloved hands on his knees.
He’d arrived before the doctor had come out to give Roland the news, and after that woman had left. She didn’t go without leaving some parting words, however. Just one last thing to irritate him.
“Be seeing you! Don’t forget our date!”
He’s going to kill her next time she shows her face.
His thoughts of justified murder are interrupted by a new voice. “What you in for?”
He turns his head to the man by his side. Whereas that woman’s questions were laced with desire, the voice by his side is plain. Ragged.
When did he get here again?
Roland answers, “Hurt friend.”
Another nod, and a huff. “Not the only one who is, looks like.” His eyes glance down at Roland’s torso. “You look in bad shape.”
Looks can be deceiving. So sayeth a certain egotistical AI. Roland looks away. “I’m fine.”
He can hear the geezer shrug. “If you say so.”
He’s not sure why, maybe it’s because he’s finally encountered another person that doesn’t lie to him with their voice, eyes, and face, but a retort falls out of his lips before he can even think further. “You don’t look sick.”
“Hah. Looks can be deceiving.” He frowns, and turns his gaze back at his company. The man’s eyes are wet with dew, and they blink at him before looking down at the floor. The sigh he lets out is ragged. “My wife. She has a bad cough.”
Echoes of a sickness in passing chime in his mind. He remembers. “Plague?”
The man shakes his head. “Hoping that’s not the case. She got that vaccine a while back.” A frown. “What do you do? You a mercenary?”
He kills things. “I do nothing.”
The old man shakes his head with a chuckle. “So, that’s where all that blood came from? Doing a whole lot of nothing?” He doesn’t know what to say. He has no answer. “Hey, I won’t pry. If you don’t wanna talk about it, don’t.”
So long has silence been a constant in his thoughts, in the air he’d breathe, but in this instant he finds that comforting warmth not there. Gone. Instead that lack of noise makes his hair stand on edge, the skin that isn’t dead from nerve damage prickling to move, to do something, to keep that quiet broken.
So he does.
“I used to be security.”
The man’s brow jots up. “Corporate?”
“Military.”
“Ah, shoulda guessed. Plenty Alliance stragglers living in the slums.” Roland says nothing to that. “What branch?”
“UESC.”
A frown. “Never heard of it.”
“No one has.” That name again: Alliance. “Were you Alliance?”
“Oh yeah. I got discharged ages ago.”
Someone with knowledge of humanity. He wants more. “Are you from Earth?”
“Born and raised. Miss it everyday.”
That sounds nothing like the Earth he knows. The one that his family left behind and spoke of in venom. Nobody on Mars who had seen the birthplace of their species ever had kind things to say about the world they left behind.
But this isn’t Mars. Or Tau Ceti. Or Lh’owon. This isn’t even anywhere near those places, that time. That door. This is somewhere else.
Wait. His family? He tries to hold on to that thought, but it slips away, and he forgets what he was thinking.
“…id like you, should get out of here. No place for someone young like you.”
Young? He doesn’t feel young. How old is he now?
“Why haven’t you?” He bites.
He sighs. “Ask myself that everyday. Might have left long ago, but Sirena’s got family here, and she’d sooner leave me than her folks.”
A door opening, a door closing. Footsteps from down the hall. It’s not that doctor, or Kenn. It’s that turian that was here before him. Those alien eyes find him, and it starts walking.
He doesn’t move. He’s not afraid of this thing, even with all the holes peppered around his flesh. He watches it approach, and he notices that its not looking at him, but the person beside him. The man’s shoulders seem to grow when it gets closer. “What’d he say?”
It’s voice has that thing the others had, a sort of thrum, like two voices at once, but this one’s different. Lighter. It coughs. “Two pills a day, every ten days.”
“Not plague, I take it?”
“No, some virus that’s going around.”
Tension that he hadn’t seen bleeds out of the man’s lungs, and his shoulders relax. “Thank God.”
“No, thank my mother for getting you to finally do something, you stubborn coot.” The thing shakes its head.
As the man stands up, the alien laces its clawed hand under his shoulder and helps him to his feet. See, he was confused why these two were talking to each other at all, but once the two touch skin, the obvious observation finally clicks.
It’s not blood in his throat this time, it’s bile. This thing is his wife.
“Hope your friend is alright.” A hand moves into his face. “Isaiah.”
Blood he didn’t think was still in him rushes to his head and he glares at the naked fingers, then at the man’s eyes. Mad. Everything here has gone mad.
He’s gotta get out of here and find Durandal as soon as possible. Find that station as soon as possible, either before it’s too late, or before he kills every thing on this disgusting rock, in this demented timeline.
That wry smirk, or smile, one the man—Isaiah—had been wearing drops, and in its place is slack muscle, blank eyes. “Alright. Didn’t think you were one of those.”
One of those? One of those? What is going on behind that freak’s eyes? Looking at him like he’s the odd one for getting bothered at best at the thought of being that close with a fucking animal. And that monster is looking at him with disdain. He can just tell.
They say some more words, or grunts or whatever, he doesn’t bother with letting them into his ears. He keeps his eyes on them as they walk out, that bird keeping its glare on him as it leaves. Its lucky he’s tired and hurt. He’d have torn its spine out of its back if it didn’t hurt to move.
He’s alone in the lobby now. His hand brushes against something soft, and he looks down. Lost in thought, it had drifted toward the bag between his legs. He’d almost forgotten about his armor. He still feels naked.
A thought comes, and he spreads the seams. Just to make sure.
That familiar olive, rusted green is inside. It’s strange to see it in a bag, torn apart into pieces like this, and not walking like the creature it is. His helmet is somewhere at the bottom. The lights in here are dim, but he’s sure that even if he had a lamp he wouldn’t be able to read any of the writing on the chest, the gauntlets. There used to be words, numbers, letters maybe, but they’ve long been scratched away by the elements. All that’s left is the dead colour beaten into the metal and plastic, and cuts on the surface made by his own itching fingers.
What did it look like in its birth? Did it match the blues of Earth’s ancient oceans or was it a bright green, like the trees used to be on his homestead? He tries to think, to dig up any semblance of a memory that might still remain, but he sees nothing. Nothing at all.
A few minutes, they’ve come and gone, and he hears wheels rolling toward the lobby. He looks up. That doctor is back, pushing a chair with wheels into the room.
The quarian’s suit is gone. They stuffed him into a white, sterile bag with sleeves. The canvas stitching sitting between his legs looks more durable than the paper-thin thing covering Kenn up.
Kenn inhales. Roland sees the outline of ribs push against the suit.
“I stuffed him full of antibiotics, steroids and immuno-boosters,” the doctor says. “He had a ton of fractures and his leg was broken, but with the cast I’d say he should be back on his feet in a few days.” That sounds sooner than he expected. “Fragile they might be, but they can heal fast as hell. Just make sure he stays hydrated and eats enough.”
“Can he walk?”
“Huh? No, absolutely not.”
“Great, thanks.”
The wheelchair looks flimsy. The shop isn’t too far, but it’s far enough that this thing would definitely annoy him.
“Can he move?” Before the doctor can answer, he clarifies. “Can he be moved?”
It is Kenn’s fifth birthday. There had been a small party, with his friends and family there to wish him good things. Fun as it was, right now all he wants is a nice bed, and a hot bath. He feels tired. Dad is here, though. He’s giving him a ride on his back.
Kenn frowns. He’s not five. It’s not even his birthday. His dad’s dead. Also, why does everything hurt?
His eyelids beg to stay shut, but he decides to take the blinding light head on, and cracks his eyes open, slowly.
He’s moving, floating almost. The world is passing him by, even though he’s not on his legs. In fact, his legs seem to be in the grasp of hands, gentle ones at that.
With some effort, he turns his stiff neck around to see if it really is his dad.
Hair. Dirty, matted hair, stained in all sorts of dark colors are right in his face, pushing against the glass of his visor. The hair turns itself, and sunken eyes look back at him.
“You’re awake.”
Just like that, he remembers. Everything.
Kenn lets his head rest on Roland’s back, exhaustion settling in. Normally he’d feel some level of embarrassment over being carried home like a drunk, and on the back of another man at that, but he feels so tired right now that he can’t bring himself to care.
For a person that had just slaughtered what he can only guess was the last remaining forces of the Blue Suns on Omega, only a few hours earlier, Roland carries him gentler than expected. Kenn didn’t think the man even had it in him to be gentle in any shape or form.
His dad used to carry him like this. A long time ago.
He can feel the shudder of lungs through Roland’s back as he speaks again. “How do you feel?”
He didn’t even think it was possible to feel this awful, he had been pretty sure he’d hit rock bottom when he got stuck here. Nope. Not even close. His tongue has been replaced by a fake made of lead. “Like a thresher maw kicked me in the chest,” he says with much effort.
“Hm.” That’s all he gets from his savior. Barely above a grunt. Yeah, that’s the sound of someone who has no idea what a thresher maw is.
Faint screams and breaking air echo in his memories. He remembers, and he doesn’t. “You killed them all,” he says without thinking.
He wants to thank him. It feels strange to be indebted to someone like this. To owe someone something worth more than just money. To owe someone your life.
It’s a feeling he cannot even begin to describe. It makes him feels dizzy.
“They were gonna kill me,” he says out loud.
The street looks familiar now. They’re close to his shop.
Roland sighs, as if he was stating the obvious. “Yep.”
Time jumps with each blink. They’re in his alleyway. Is that a dead vorcha? Another blink, and he’s being moved. He’d groan from the pain, if he wasn’t so damn exhausted.
Ages past, and he finally looks up at the two dots in the dark. “You saved my life.”
The eyes blink. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
Maybe it’s a little dumb to ask that. He’s alive, that’s all that matters. He starts to feel that maybe he shouldn’t have asked, but Roland gives him an answer. “Would you rather I didn’t?”
“What’s it like to kill someone?”
The answer from the eyes in the dark is immediate. “Easy.”
He had sworn to himself that Harrot would be the first and the last.
There had been so many bodies. Ancestors forgive him.
“Was it always?”
Silence. Then:
“It’s easy to kill someone. Doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.”
Normally he’d be less blunt, but considering he’d almost died, his tact is naturally absent. So he speaks his thoughts.
“That makes no sense.”
He can only hear the slow rise and fall of his partner’s chest, and the shudder with each exhale. Roland wets his tongue and lets out a sigh. “No. It really doesn’t.”