Matthew Lang's Blog, page 7

Possibilities (Mass Effect Collision Chapter 7)

The days and nights passed in a blur of concerts, sleeping and carefully looking after his health to ensure he was able to perform the next one and the one after that and before he knew it, Elias was backstage waiting for the curtain to go up on his final show. He’d done so many now that stage fright didn’t really kick in until he was in the wings. Of course, now that he was in the wings he could feel the rush of his blood and the slight shaking in his hands. Any moment now his stomach would start to jitter and then he’d step out on stage and it would settle into a warm glow in the pit of his belly when he sang the first note. Probably.

Some of the techs were watching a broadcast of Talkback, an extranet round table show where five hosts discussed and debated the news of the moment. Or three years past in this case.

“But what right did he have to force this…this Synthesis upon us?” a female human was saying. Elias thought her name was Karen. “What right did he have to choose this? Not just for one city, one planet, but for the entire universe?”

“If anyone had the right to make that call, Sheppard did,” an Asari replied. “He was the first to warn us of the reapers. He was the one the galaxy turned to to fight them.”

“He was supposed to destroy them, not infuse us with part of their…their…essence!”

“We put our trust in the Commander to get us all through the war alive,” the Asari said calmly. “He did that.”

“What alternative do you propose?” a Salarian said, his voice rapid fire and pointed. “Sheppard on spot, only one to make it to the catalyst on Citadel alive. Should he have sent out extranet survey via non-existent comm bouys and waited for a months to collate results? Years? Not an option. Sheppard made best call with available data, and of all in universe, had the most data. Right or wrong a luxury only available after the fact.”

Elias tuned out and went downstairs to the lift that would rise through the theatre floor in a grand reveal for his opening number. He’d long ago concluded that life continued because someone or someones made a lot of hard calls. Doubting those decisions was a luxury of those alive to reap the benefits, and those who did were typically those afraid of change. People didn’t like having change thrust upon them. Some might even choose death over it. Well, some wouldn’t. But they were very quick to forget that those had been the choices available.

He was halfway through his set when an electric lightshow went awry. Or at least, he thought an electric lightshow went awry. In the centre of the theatre, a purplish electric cloud was crackling, looking for all the world like a miniature lighting storm. He could hear the techs chattering in the background, but the show must go on, as the earth saying went and so the show did go on. At least, up until a the centre of the storm fell into itself and there was a sensation of darkness and distance, and something was approaching, and the people who had been sitting in their seats were falling into the black, disappearing and falling into the darkness that the things were falling out of. Finally, six squat figures snapped into place in the theatre as the electric storm faded and the fabric of space snapped back into a taut, impervious sheet. They were volus, or had been volus. Actually they were husks. Volus husks. He hadn’t seen any volus husks during the war. These appeared to have the scuttling legs of rachni underneath and from the centre of their chests came a flexible piece of tubing, which in turn led to something that looked much like a bomb detonator, which was clutched in one of the volus’ hands.

Husks weren’t exactly uncommon in society, although they tended to form the underclass of society and had higher rates of mental illness and suicide than any other species—if indeed grouping husks together as a ‘species’ was the right thing to do. These ones moved with a singular purpose and aggression Elias hadn’t seen that since the war. Then one of them turned, hand upraised as an omni blade grew around his forearm and stabbed through one of the seats to hit its occupant. The band paused, the flow of music squeaking to a halt with a brassy squelch from an electro-trumpet. From the catwalk a shot rang out, and one of the husks turned, red eyes searching for the shooter. Elias paused, still outlined by the spotlights on stage. A part of himself that he’d buried five years ago quietly rose from whatever bed it had been sleeping in, and he found himself angry. It was a cold anger though, one that endured in its icy rage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please leave the auditorium immediately. This is not part of the show. I repeat, this is not part of the show,” Elias said, his intonations clipped and inflectionless. With a flick of his wrist, he and Pi sent a stun drone zipping through the air and over to the husks. He didn’t have much hope that it would last long, but he hoped it would buy the audience some time.

“Mr Elias, we need to get you out of here.”

There was a turian on stage now. C-Sec judging by the uniform. Exactly how he rated C-Sec rather than private protection remained a mystery to Elias, but he suspected Jamak had something to do with it. Saving Creds no doubt although given that the more Elias made the more Jamak made, Elias didn’t really feel the need to complain about it. Besides, the more money he had, the easier it was to find ways to help Rannoch build anew.

“Yeah, sure,” Elias said, and left the stage at a run, heading for his dressing room.

Creator Elias, the drone has been destroyed, Pi murmured into his comm.

Elias cursed inwardly. He had hoped it would last more than a few seconds, but there was no time to think.

“Stay here, sir, your bodyguards are on their way to escort you out,” the Turian said, before heading up the stairs to the theatre catwalks. Nodding, Elias ducked into his room and opened one of the boxes inside that looked identical to the many that were overflowing with gifts from wellwishers and fans. Identical in almost every way except this one contained cushioning foam and his weaponry. Grabbing his SMG and Sniper Rifle, he dashed back out the door, heading for the area where the wings met the stage curtains. Sliding across the floor he poked the barrel and scope of his gun through the gap and looked out into the theatre.

The crowd’s stampede had cleared everyone from the ground level of the theatre, aside from some C-sec officers, and what appeared to be a mechanised suit of Krogan battle armour, that was being driven around by a hanar, its pink, gelatinous body floating in a thick, transparent viewing pod where the Krogan’s helmet would have been. There were perhaps a dozen civilians dead, some stabbed, but mostly collapsed without any noticable wounds. There was also a haze of orange tinted gas that discoloured the air, and of the three remaining volus, two were caught up in a biotic singularity, and as he watched, the third was felled from a shot from above.

Shooting. Right. Turning back to the helpless husks floating in the air, Elias sighted down the scope and fired. It was an off the cuff shot, taken without proper aim, but he was in a hurry. He still found his mark, and the lights in the husk’s eyes dimmed and its struggles ceased.

“No one attacks my concerts and gets away with it,” Elias said with some satisfaction. “Not even reapers.”

A burst of shots from the hannar-controlled mech’s assault rifle took out the last husk, and the as everyone turned towards the stage. Elias realised he was still hooked up to the audio system. Shouldering his rifle, he stepped out into the spotlights again, and hopped down from the stage, just in time to see the hannar turn to a nearby C-sec officer and hand over an assault rifle. “This one thanks you for…” suddenly the aggressive, snarly tones were replaced with the calmer, more modulated hanar voices Elias was used to, and he realised the hanar must have been using a secondary voice modulator. “…the use of your weapon.”

“Um… you’re welcome.”

On the prompt side of the stage the officer who had escorted Elias to his dressing room entered through the emergency exits, a female krogan in cuffs before him and a human tailing along behind. “I’ve apprehended the Krogan, Lieutenant Accius, she had a sniper rifle.”

“Good, take it for testing,” the Lieutenant said.

Not being the centre of attention took Elias completely by surprise, and for a moment he was both angry and relieved. Then he looked out at the bodies in the audience and sighed. Hopping down from the stage he started checking the bodies. Some had bullet wounds from the guns the husks had been wielding. Some had knife wounds. Some had no visible damage at all. Running a diagnostic on his omni-tool, he found traces of a neurotoxin, the likes of which he had never seen before.

“This one questions why you are taking those individuals into custody,” the hanar was saying, it’s mech lumbering over to where the Lieutenant was standing. “They were a great help during the battle.”

“This does not concern you, citizen,” the turian snapped. “And and how did you get that mech past security?”

The hanar paused. “This one has its case in case of emergency. This one felt the attack by hostile reaper forces constituted as an emergency.”

The turians eyes narrowed. “I’ll let it slide given your efforts today.”

“This one appreciate the compliment, but its issue still stands. The Krogan was of much assistance in the battle.”

“So was he,” A wounded C-sec officer said, limping over. He took out three of those creatures before they could do more damage.”

“Noted,” the Turian said. “Go see a medic, Officer.”

“Yes Ma’am. Say, weren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”

“Is this some sort of joke?” she snapped. “You know I’m widowed.”

The C-sec officer seemed taken aback. “Already? What happened?”

“Happened? I’ve been widowed for years.”

“Officer Altus, did you…hit your head during the battle?” the other Turian said carefully. “Perhaps you need to see a doctor.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“Did you need us to contact Octavius for you?”

“What?”

“Your husband, ma’am.”

“I’ll be fine. Please escort the suspect back to the precinct. I need to…sit down.”

“Certainly…”

“It’s nice to see leadership being kept up,” the Krogan muttered in what she probably thought was a quiet voice. However, before Officer Altus could continue, a human behind her piped up.

“So you’re the one in charge around here.”

Officer Altus sighed. “Why am I not surprised to see you?” Apparently the two had a history.

“So you’re just arresting people without cause now? Is that how you run things?”

The turian sighed. “I believe she may be able to help us with our inquiries into an unrelated incident earlier today.”

“Oh yes, your inquiries, I’ve seen those,” the man said hotly, a strange, yellow-orange light flickering in his right eye. “Having your snipers shoot a surrendering man? Is that how C-Sec runs its ‘inquiries’.”

“I said stand down, citizen,” Officer Altus snapped. “Unless you want us to take you in to find out what you had to do with all of this.”

The man went for a gun, but it was the Lieutenant’s gun that he grabbed and she was too quick, grabbing his wrist and yanking hard. Her pull turned into a throw and in the blink of an eye the human was on the ground, face down, his hands cuffed behind him. “You’re under arrest for assaulting an Officer.”

Creator Elias, these husks do not appear to be synthesised, Pi said, his voice sounded soft and muted inside Elias’ helmet.

“I thought the blast from the crucible hit the entire galaxy,” Elias said.

Yes, I am computing probability diagnostics, but these husks do not have the base level of organic material found in all reaper creatures after the Crucible was detonated, Pi said. They also appear to be responding to the pre-synthesis old machine signals.

“Did everyone take their crazy pills this morning?” Elias asked, standing up his voice booming through the speaker system once more. “Am I the only one the least bit concerned about the dead husks on the floor here?”

The hanar turned. “This one would like to point out that the husk bodies are riddled with bullets. It would be safe to presume this one noticed. Also this one questions your need for higher vocal volume.”

Rolling his eyes, Elias disconnected his comm from the theatre sound system, even as the Krogan said. “It is odd that they show up again three years later,” she said. “They shouldn’t be here at all.”

“What to you mean?” the hanar asked.

Creator Elias, those four individuals do not seem to hold the same synthetic DNA as the rest of the people here. I have not seen their like in years.

Turning to the officer that was unobtrusively shadowing him, Elias pointed at the husks. “Officer, these husks aren’t normal. They haven’t been synthesised.”

Elias pulled up a scan on his omni-tool, showing the structure of the husks, even as the hanar turned, opened the clear blast shield of his mech and peeked out, two of its tentacles curling over the lip of the neck area. “This one thought all the husks were destroyed.”

“That’s what I thought,” the Krogan said. “It’s odd.”

“This one agrees.”

Creator Elias, I am picking up some strange readings from the hanar’s mech. No known match to current databases. Analysing.

“That one isn’t synthesised either,” Elias said stalling for time.

“That’s impossible,” The C-sec officer said. “Everyone in the galaxy was synthesised.”

“He’s not. Look at his skin.”

“I guess…maybe…people might have…I don’t know. I don’t know how this all works.”

Walking up to the mech, Elias asked. “What’s should I call you, Hanar?”

The alien didn’t respond, and Elias reached up and knocked on its suit.

“Hmm?”

“What should I call you, I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘the hanar’?”

“This one’s face name is Anar. You’re Elias correct.”

“That would be me.”

“This one didn’t vote for you.”

“No one’s perfect,” Elias said absently. “You’ve got some rather interesting readings coming from your mech suit right now.”

“How many mech suits do you normally see.”

“Anar, I’m a quarian. I see anything and everything mechanical. It’s a racial obsession.”

“What strange readings do you mean, exactly?”

Creator Elias, analysis shows the hanar has old machine technology inside its suit.

Stepping back, Elias drew his Sniper rifle and aimed it directly at the hanar’s head. “You’re carrying reaper tech.”

“What?”

“Nothing personal, but non-synthesised reaper husks and non-synthesised hanar with reaper tech… you do the math.”

“Do not take this personally either then,” Anar said and the blast shield closed with a click. “This one believes it might know what you are referring to. This one saw something strange earlier and will check.”

A number of fast food containers, confectionery wrappers, a bobble headed orange and black cat that Elias recognised as being from a Garfield comic from earth and a few back issues of fornax fountained up into the clear bubble canopy. Apparently the hanar’s mech was something of a mess.

Then it peeked up through the blast shield. “This one would like to point out that its suit has never done that before,” then the arms of the mech folded across its chest.

“Would that one like to dispose of the reaper tech before I punch a hole through its mech?” Elias asked pointedly.

Almost reflexively, the mech pulled out its assault rifle and aimed it as Elias. “This item is of personal value and will not be removed from this one’s possession.”

From the ground, Elias could hear the human civilian mumbling something about ‘bigger threats’, but it was drowned out by the sounds of thermal clips being replaced and guns being aimed at the hanar’s mech.

“This one means no harm,” the hanar continued, “but it will not be threatened.”

“Half a dozen people are dead, killed by hostile husks and the only link we have to them is you. You mean no harm…but?”

“This one has its questions as well, but will defend itself if threatened.”

Chask and Markanis burst into the room and rushed to Elias’ side. “Mr Elias,” Chask said. “Are you all right?”

“Currently,” Elias said, nodding towards the hanar mech.

“We should get you out of here, sir.”

“We need to get a look at that reaper tech first,” Elias said.

Chask grinned and clapped his hands together. “Not a problem, sir, did you need that pretty suit intact too?” Markanis simply pointed his assault rifle at the mech.

The mech’s rifle slowly lowered. “This one would like to offer a sign of good faith,” Anar said. “It will allow the inspection of the device on two conditions. Firstly, this one will retrieve the object from its suit and it will be returned to this one-the item is of sentimental value”. Secondly, the object will go with the C-sec officer, and not with the Quarian singer.” Turning to Officer Altus, the hanar managed to stay impressively calm facing a pistol pointing directly towards its head. “Are these terms at least somewhat agreeable?”

“I can work with those,” Officer Altus said.

“Suits me,” Elias said.

“Very well then.” The hanar stowed its assault rifle on its back and disappeared from view briefly before returning. “Does anyone have tongs? If this item is indeed reaper technology, this one would prefer not to touch it.”

“Sure, hang on,” Elias said, and a moment later a pair of tongs dropped off his omni-tool and into his his right hand.

By mutual agreement, Officer Altus took the tongs from Elias and handed them through the blast shield of the hanar’s mech suit, and a few minutes later the hanar reappeared, carefully lifting down a glowing, greenish-purple object that looked for all the world like a datadisc. Except for the glow. Datadiscs didn’t normally glow. As she took it out of the hanar’s tentacles and walked a short distance away there was a…ripple. It was as if the space inside the theatre was twisting, and the purplish electric light show that Elias had seen during the show crackled through the air.

“This one suggests the disc should not be brought near that area of the theatre,” Anar said.

“I second that,” Elias said. “Officer, may I run a diagnostic on that device please?”

Backing away from the central seating area, Officer Altus looked thoughtful as the crackling energy faded and the distortion in the air stilled. Turning towards Elias she stared at him for several seconds longer than was comfortable before she shrugged. “All right. But no touching.”

“Last thing on my mind,” Elias agreed, and sent the drone out so that Pi could complete some remote scans.

“Analysing,” Pi said.

In the suddenly still air, the sound of Pi’s scanner was incongruously loud. Everyone in the room, from Elias, the armed concertgoers to the C-sec officers were standing still, rooted to the spot with their eyes glued on the red drone. Inside his helmet a barrage of information started sprawling across his HUD, and Pi’s low murmur filled his ears. The scan clicked off, and the drone flew back to Elias, who staggered back to lean against the chair behind him.

“Are you all right?” Officer Altus asked.

“I don’t think so, no,” Elias said. “Tell me officer, are you familiar with the idea of parallel universes? The idea that significant events have…you make a choice in this universe and another you makes a different choice and suddenly there are two universes running along different lines of causality?”

“Only in that old historic earth documentary: Terminator,” Anar said.

The C-sec officer shot a glance that was both irritated and tired at the hanar. “I thought that was science fiction.”

“It’s an unproven theory at least,” Elias agreed. “That… as far as I can tell it’s reaper tech and it’s a…reality collider. It needs another piece to work, but if the readings I’m getting are right, it’s supposed to allow passage from one part of the…multiverse to another.”

“That chit was just a pet project of this one’s best friend,” Anar said. “This one has never known him to dabble in reaper tech.”

“How well do you know your friend?” Officer Altus asked drily.

“Well enough to know he would never go that far down that path.”

“That thing is old,” Elias said, pointing at the data cube. “It pre-dates this cycle at the very least, so unless your friend has found…what’s the term… a spring of youth?”

“Fountain,” the human civilian said, pushing himself into a sitting position on the floor. “Fountain of youth.”

The hanar climbed out of its suit and drifted closer. “Well, in honesty, this one only assumed he made it. It seemed like the most logical explanation. This does not bode well.”

“I still don’t understand what you’re saying, exactly,” the turian said.

“I think, Officer Altus, that you’ll find there’s another Officer Altus from this, synthesised, universe who just got married.”

This time it was the Turian who sat down in her chair. “I don’t understand.”

“Wait,” wounded C-sec officer said. “What you’re saying is that this Officer Altus isn’t the real Officer Altus?”

“No,” Elias said. “I’m saying that this Officer Altus is the Officer Altus from a universe where synthesis didn’t happen.”

“This is making my head hurt,” the officer said, and Elias noted that he had the name ‘Shields’ engraved into the collar of his armour.

“Also, the hanar, that human and the krogan are all from other universes.”

“So…they could be responsible for the husks then?” Officer Shields asked. “They could be from a universe where the reapers won? Maybe they’re indoctrinated!”

“I can assure you we defeated the reapers in our universe,” Officer Altus said.

“How could you have? You’re not synthesised.”

“No, Shepard took control of the reapers instead.”

“Controlling them? One person controlling all the reapers? Why didn’t he just destroy them in that case.”

“Hold on, in this one’s universe Shepard did destroy all the reapers, along with all synthetic life.”

“What the squishy one said,” the Krogan said, her voice soft, but strong enough to cut through the babble of voices.

“I’d hate to be in your universe then,” the male civilian muttered.

“Look,” Officer Altus said. “If I was indoctrinated I’d have been helping the husks. And you can easily dig out the psych evaluations from the war that we had to check for indoctrination. I know Commander Bailey used them on everyone after the Cerberus coup attempt.”

“We’d all have been helping the husks if we’d been indoctrinated,” the human pointed out.

Officer Shields paused in thought. “You’re right. My apologies Officer Altus.”

“We’re getting sidetracked,” Elias said. “The point is that device allows the reapers—war winning not friendly reapers—to jump from one universe to another. Once they finish a harvest they can…check on other realities to ensure that they have wiped out organic and synthetic life throughout all of the multiverse, not just the one that they happen to be in.”

“You got all that from a few minutes of scanning?” Officer Altus asked.

Elias shrugged. “Most of it’s extrapolation based on the data contained on that device. And a little speculation based on those volus husks.”

“You’re saying the reapers jump from a conquered universe to a not conquered universe and kill us all across different probabilities?” the human asked.

“That’s what the evidence suggests, yes,” Elias said.

“Have you ever seen a tear in the universe before?” the man asked. It was an earnest question, where someone else might have been skeptical.

“No,” Elias said. “Only in vids where someone passes through a black hole or wormhole and gets spat out somewhere else without being crushed into nothingness. That said,” he added, gesturing to where the purplish lightnight had flared not long ago. “I think we all witnessed it today.”

Off to the side, the hannar lowered its body into one of the plush theatre seats. “In retrospect, perhaps this one should have voted for you,” he said.

“Hey, I might be an airheaded wanker in your universe,” Elias said. “Hey, maybe you can meet yourselves while in this one.”

“What if we do not find our synthesised selves likable?” Anar asked.

“Or alive?” the human added.

“Maybe you can reopen the portal and go home?” Elias suggested. “We should be able to open—or for that matter, close—the portals if we can find the other half of the key. It should look something like this.”

He brought up a holographic rendering of a synthetic construct that looked something like a cross between a toothy maw and a giant metallic claw. There was the hint of a reptilian face, or possibly just at eye, but the lower half of it was a tangled mess of metal and tubes. “The reality collider needs something to weaken the walls between universes, and I think this is the thing that does it. The reapers have to find a weak spot first—like the centre of the theatre—but once they do…”

Everyone strained to look at the holographic image hovering above Elias’ wrist.

“Hang on the second where’d you get that?” the human civilian said. “Do you know what that is?”

“Um, again no-that’s just an image extrapolated from the data on the data cube itself. It appears to be reaper technology.”

“This thing…I’ve been seeing it for about five years now. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been calling it Mimic. Apparently no one else other than me can see it though.”

“Can you see it now?” Elias asked.

The drone, which had stayed close to Elias, hovering silently turned towards the human. Or at least, Elias saw it. Possibly no one else saw it turn its microarray of sensors towards the man. Definitely no one else heard the quiet Scanning, that came into his helmet.

That would make sense, creator Elias. It would appear only synthetics can see the…this mimic. And that man has cybernetic enhancement in the ocular region. Left side.

“And you?”

I should be able to detect it, yes.

“Funny how you weren’t synthesised with everyone else, you know, Pi. Why do you think that is.”

I’m sorry Creator Elias, but there is still no data available.

“Can’t you speculate?”

Speculation requires data upon which to build a theory.

“I’m not saying anything else until I get a bit of freedom around here,” the human was saying, jingling his cuffs meaningfully. The officers looked at Officer Altus.

“If we get that mimic thing, can you close the breach?” Elias asked Pi quietly.

I should be able to, yes. Pi replied. However, I suspect the other universes will have other breaches in them that require closing as well. I can run a diagnostic to determine their locations once you obtain the mimic.

“Well,” Elias said. “Step one: find this mimic thing. Step two: see if I can use it to close that breach. Step three: sell the movie rights for a lot of money and live off the interest for years to come.”

“This one agrees,” Anar said. “This one has rent due in a week’s time and would like to be there to sort it out. This one would also suggest we move to a more secure location.”

“Good idea,” Elias said. “We should get that disc away from this place until we can locate mimic.”

“We can go to the precinct,” Officer Altus volunteered. “I appear to still have a desk there and we should get statements from the concertgoers.”

Anar walked over to his mech and…hugged it, his tentacles seeking out nooks and crannies in its construction and suddenly it was folding in on itself and folding down until it looked just like an oversized suitcase. Elias wondered where the fast food wrappers ended up being stored. “This one feels a suitcase would be less conspicuous and cause less panic,” he said when the others stared at him.

Elias sighed and started removing his performance outfit, tucking the various bits and pieces into pockets in his suit. “Oh well, I guess I’m back in the military now,” he said. “And here I was wondering what I was going to do after the concert tour ended.

Just then a side door opened and Jamak hurried in, his navy blue suit a little creased and breathing deliberately in the fashion of one trying not to show recent exertion. “Elias! Good to see you’re unhurt! You are unhurt, right?”

Elias nodded. “Yes, Jamak, I’m fine.”

“This wasn’t how we planned your final concert would go. I’ve got reporters out from asking for a statement and our pre-prepared ones won’t cut it under the circumstances.”

“Well, I think we’re back at war now, Jamak,” Elias said, staring down at the dead husks.

“War? We can’t be at war! We don’t have time in your schedule for war. What about your biopic?”

“That’ll have to wait,” Elias said. “Tell you what, I’m about to go save the galaxy. Why don’t you turn that into a reality vid special? I’m going to need funding and it’ll be much more interesting than a biopic of my past.”

The Batarian paused. “I like it!” he said, beaming. “I can see it now: Elias! Music Sensation Turned War Hero! I’ll—we’ll make millions!”

“Absolutely,” Elias said. “But we’ll need sponsorship to make it happen. Possibly a ship. Think you can work your magic on that?”

An almost predatory grin spread out over Jamak’s face. “Elias, baby, have I ever let you down?”

Elias laughed, “No, you haven’t.”

Turning smartly, Jamak headed out towards the front of the building, chest puffed up with importance. On the way, he paused to look down at one of the volus husks. “Thank you very much for this opportunity,” he said sincerely before carrying on.

“So…he’s a character,” Officer Altus said.

“You have no idea,” Elias said, his tone carefully blank. “He’s been amazing for far though. Shall we go?”

New Digs (Mass Effect Collision, Chapter 6)

Neo-Citadel 2191 CE

On the citadel, Elias found himself escorted to his newly rented apartment by Chask and Markanis, the two bodyguards who’d been with him since winning the tv show. Chask was a Krogan who did most of the talking, and Markanis spoke so little that Elias had wondered at first if the Turian was mute.

“Go on in Mr Elias,” Chask said when the elevator opened. “Our crew has already checked the place over and it’s impressive, I’ll give you that.”

Stepping into the apartment, Elias walked past the a glass divider that separated the corridor from an indoor garden and stepped down into a lounge complete with leather sofas, a grand piano, and a wrap around fireplace. And above the fireplace was a large picture and a simple brass plaque: ‘Clive Shepard and the crew of the Normandy SSRII, 2186 CE’.

“Are you seeing this, Pi?” Elias asked softly.

The blue light in his helmet flickered on slowly. “I’m sorry, Creator Elias, I was hibernating. Have I seen what.”

“That image.”

“That appears to be a photograph of Commander Sheppard and his team,” Pi said.

“This is his apartment, isn’t it?”

There was a slight pause. “Yes, records indicate that this apartment briefly belonged to Commander Sheppard in 2186 after being gifted to him by Admiral David Anderson of the Alliance.”

“This is the home of a war hero, Pi. I’m just an entertainer. Keelah, what am I doing here? And what am I meant to do with all this space?”

“You could always ask your agent for more modest quarters.”

“I can see that going down very well,” Elias said as he set out to explore. There was the large kitchen with its centre island, study nook, bar, reading room and two downstairs bedrooms, balcony gallery, master bedroom, hot tub and upstairs lounge.

A buzz at the apartment’s security screen brought him back to downstairs and to the front door. Bringing the intercom video up, he called Chask rather than use the outdoor broadcast. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“There’s a group of Elia’solor nar Ashru’s fans here, sir,” Chask said carefully. “They’re asking to see him.”

He should have gone out. He really should have gone out, and signed some autographs and made nice, but there were so many of them. About twenty had crammed themselves into the small space at the front of the apartment doors and there were more beyond. He could see banners with “We love you Elias!” and two saying “Elias, please marry me,” which was slightly frightening given that one was being held by a quarian girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and a human male who Elias guessed was somewhere around sixteen or seventeen years of age. “Pi?” he asked.

“Mr Elias is currently in a recording session and cannot be disturbed right now,” Pi’s smooth, melodic tones said calmly, his voice clearly audible through the apartment intercom. “I’m sure he’ll be down later though.”

“Very good, Sir,” Chask said. The Krogan was used to the game by now. Elias wouldn’t be coming down. He hadn’t been able to walk alone in public since the semi-final round of the show last year. At least, not officially. Elias had been very careful to include a good number of male quarians in his staff, more than would otherwise be called for, sometimes even creating superficial roles in order to hire more people. It was accepted for purposes of celebrity ego—or for a quarian looking to help his people stay employed—and Javak had been most accommodating, but the real reason he hired them was as decoys. All of them were given nondescript suits to wear, slightly better in features than was standard for most pilgrims, but outwardly looking like a standard off the rack suit.

“I don’t want any of you mobbed by tweens mistaking you for me,” Elias told every single one of them. I’m not sure what would happen if they stampeded.”

At first, reporters had pounced upon any quarian leaving the tour ship or any hotel he was known to be staying in, but soon it became clear that Elia’solor nar Ashru was only ever seen with his performance gear on. So they watched for that and clamoured for attention at scheduled press conferences and outings.

Elia’solor nar Ashru was fast becoming known as a very private person and rarely seen out in public without his minders. Psychologists were wondering how he managed with the isolation, and speculated that the high number of quarians on his staff were there as much for social interaction as anything else. And they were right, up to a point. Elias had found that all he needed for a private outing was to take of his performance jacket, change the colours and patterns of the hard panels of his suit, affecting an accent and if he was feeling particularly paranoid, use a voice modulator. Then he was a completely different and quite unremarkable quarian. Sometimes he was on the staff of Elia’solor nar Ashru. Sometimes he was just a passing pilgrim, seeing the sights and occasionally going to other gigs when Elias himself wasn’t required on stage. He was sure Javak knew what he was up to. He was sure his security detail knew where he went. But for now, they let him have his freedom. It was more than what celebrities of most other species ever got.

Retiring to the study he turned on the television for noise—anything was better than the silence—and sat down to go through his fan mail. Or rather, Pi went through his fan mail, sending ‘fill in the blank’ responses to most of them, and adding their senders and scans of their letters to the database they were keeping of Elias’ fans. That way if he actually ended up speaking to any of them, Elias would be able to ‘remember’ anything they sent to him via a quick search in his suit’s database. It had already proved to be a career booster, and there were a few fans that Elias genuinely remembered, but most of the time, it was the combined efforts of himself and Pi, filtering most letters automatically, and marking others for Elias’ personal attention.

“Up next: profiles in courage with Liam Nathaniel Musee as he interviews Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams.”

Elias looked up at the screen. “He was the host on Citadel’s Got Talent last year,” he said. “Looks like he got a new job.”

“It would appear so,” Pi said politely. It was what Elias had come to know as his disinterested response. Once the information had been filed away, Pi didn’t find things like acquaintances job changes to be relevant to his existence. The interview with Ashley Williams was mostly a ‘how did it feel about being the one not to die on Virmire,” the infamous battle with at Saren’s cloning facility where Commander Sheppard destroyed Saren’s genophage cure and fought alongside the Salarian Captain Kirrahe. It wasn’t particularly enlightening, and Elias tuned out after a little while. He was nearing the end of the current batch of fan mail when there was a ping from the computer in the corner.

“You have a vid call,” Pi announced quietly.

“Who is it?” Elias asked.

“It’s Corbin.”

“Is it? How did he… never mind, I’m getting it!” Elias all but ran to the computer and tapped the ‘accept call’ icon that appeared on screen.

Corbin looked just like Elias remembered, his hair short at the sides and longer and unruly on top, one lock consistently curling down over his forehead. He wore a familiar white shirt and he looked a bit surprised when the call dropped in. Elias’ stomach tightened. It had been over a year since they talked. They hadn’t so much as messaged each other since Elias had left New Orleans-Laffayette to film what turned out to be the webisodes where the judges culled the top five hundred to the top hundred, when official program filming began.

“Hey Doc,” Elias said. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, it is,” Corbin said, “I ah…heard you were coming back to the Citadel so I thought I’d, you know, say ‘welcome home’.”

“Thank you,” Elias said. “I don’t know if this is home though. Do you know where I am right now?”

“On the Citadel?” Corbin asked with a grin.

“Well, yes, but I’m in Commander Sheppard’s apartment.”

Corbin blinked “What? Really? The Commander Sheppard?”

“Yes, I mean, look!” Elias said, and synced up his his omni-tool camera to the video link and stepped out into the main lounge, aiming the camera up at the framed photo.

“Oh wow,” Corbin breathed. “That’s really him.”

“I know,” Elias said. “I mean, how do I rate this? All I did was sing a few songs!”

“More than a few,” Corbin said, the old playfulness returning to his voice.

“Still,” Elias said. “It’s a bit odd.”

“I’d give my eye teeth to be there, you know,” Corbin said.

Elias turned and headed back into the study, turning off the video link on his omni-tool once he got back to the screen. “Well, if you make it to the the Citadel and if I’m still in this place, you’re more than welcome to drop by.”

“Oh? Well, I might just take you up on that,” Corbin said. “Seriously though, how’ve you been?”

“Crazy,” Elias said. “I’ve been all over council space and welcomed everywhere with, well… roaring crowds.” Leaning in, Elias whispered into the microphone. “There’s a horde of screaming tweens outside the apartment. It’s surreal.”

“Any new songs?”

“Always,” Elias said happily. “I’ll have to go record some soon, I guess. How about you, Doc, what have you been up to?”

“Nothing as glam as you,” Corbin said. “I joined the Alliance as a war doc though. I’m going through N7 training now as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, not doing anything special he says. Just Alliance Special Forces training. That must be intense. Are you allowed to talk about it, or is it ‘classified’?”

“Well it’s tough,” Corbin said. “But I’m loving it. Halfway through at the moment.”

“Can I ask where you are?”

“Yeah, but that is classified,” Corbin said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

It was a reflexive action that Elias was familiar with. The human only really did that when something was bothering him. “What’s wrong, Doc?” he asked.

“Nothing, I just…I still find it hard to believe that one of my patients is living the high life.”

Elias shrugged. “It’s weird. I’m just enjoying it while I can before the fickle spotlight of celebrity moves on to someone else. And anyway, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here right now, so…thanks again.”

Corbin grinned. “So you’re not forgetting the little people, huh?”

A blue light blinked in Elias’ helmet. “He’s not that little,” Pi commented.

“Shut up,” Elias muttered.

“I’m sorry?” Corbin asked.

“Nothing, just thinking,” Elias said. “You were never little people, Doc. I mean you’re a good foot taller than me for starters.”

Corbin’s smile was genuine and warm. “Good to know. Well, I should let you go. I mean, I know you have a concert to prepare for.”

Elias looked towards the door of the apartment. “Yeah, I do,” he said. “You know I was serious though. If you’re in the area, drop by. I’m sure I can get you a ticket into my own concert. You know…if you want to come.”

“I would, but I’m not going to make it to the Citadel before your run’s over. Not unless you really extend it by a few months. But I’ll be back home once training is over and I’ll be at Clinic for a bit before they ship me out again Sso if you have some time to kill after you’re done being Mr. Famous, you can find me there.”

“Okay,” Elias said. “I think I can afford a holiday. I’ll see if I can drop by.”

“Great! Um, well. It’s been really good to talk to you again. Bye for now.”

“Bye Corbin,” Elias said. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Corbin smiled again before the call disconnected. For a moment, Elias sat at the desk, staring at the blank screen. Then he got up, tested the showers for their acoustic properties, and turned the water on full. Showers with water were one of the things Elias occasionally indulged in when he was sure he wasn’t being watched. They involved taking off his suit for one, but well. It was worth it. As the hot water cascaded over his body and he warmed his voice with a series of vocal exercises he felt the tension in his muscles drain from his body. Definitely worth it.

New Digs (Elias Chapter 6, Mass Effect)

Neo-Citadel 2191 CE

On the citadel, Elias found himself escorted to his newly rented apartment by Chask and Markanis, the two bodyguards who’d been with him since winning the tv show. Chask was a Krogan who did most of the talking, and Markanis spoke so little that Elias had wondered at first if the Turian was mute.

“Go on in Mr Elias,” Chask said when the elevator opened. “Our crew has already checked the place over and it’s impressive, I’ll give you that.”

Stepping into the apartment, Elias walked past the a glass divider that separated the corridor from an indoor garden and stepped down into a lounge complete with leather sofas, a grand piano, and a wrap around fireplace. And above the fireplace was a large picture and a simple brass plaque: ‘Clive Shepard and the crew of the Normandy SSRII, 2186 CE’.

“Are you seeing this, Pi?” Elias asked softly.

The blue light in his helmet flickered on slowly. “I’m sorry, Creator Elias, I was hibernating. Have I seen what.”

“That image.”

“That appears to be a photograph of Commander Sheppard and his team,” Pi said.

“This is his apartment, isn’t it?”

There was a slight pause. “Yes, records indicate that this apartment briefly belonged to Commander Sheppard in 2186 after being gifted to him by Admiral David Anderson of the Alliance.”

“This is the home of a war hero, Pi. I’m just an entertainer. Keelah, what am I doing here? And what am I meant to do with all this space?”

“You could always ask your agent for more modest quarters.”

“I can see that going down very well,” Elias said as he set out to explore. There was the large kitchen with its centre island, study nook, bar, reading room and two downstairs bedrooms, balcony gallery, master bedroom, hot tub and upstairs lounge.

A buzz at the apartment’s security screen brought him back to downstairs and to the front door. Bringing the intercom video up, he called Chask rather than use the outdoor broadcast. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“There’s a group of Elia’solor nar Ashru’s fans here, sir,” Chask said carefully. “They’re asking to see him.”

He should have gone out. He really should have gone out, and signed some autographs and made nice, but there were so many of them. About twenty had crammed themselves into the small space at the front of the apartment doors and there were more beyond. He could see banners with “We love you Elias!” and two saying “Elias, please marry me,” which was slightly frightening given that one was being held by a quarian girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and a human male who Elias guessed was somewhere around sixteen or seventeen years of age. “Pi?” he asked.

“Mr Elias is currently in a recording session and cannot be disturbed right now,” Pi’s smooth, melodic tones said calmly, his voice clearly audible through the apartment intercom. “I’m sure he’ll be down later though.”

“Very good, Sir,” Chask said. The Krogan was used to the game by now. Elias wouldn’t be coming down. He hadn’t been able to walk alone in public since the semi-final round of the show last year. At least, not officially. Elias had been very careful to include a good number of male quarians in his staff, more than would otherwise be called for, sometimes even creating superficial roles in order to hire more people. It was accepted for purposes of celebrity ego—or for a quarian looking to help his people stay employed—and Javak had been most accommodating, but the real reason he hired them was as decoys. All of them were given nondescript suits to wear, slightly better in features than was standard for most pilgrims, but outwardly looking like a standard off the rack suit.

“I don’t want any of you mobbed by tweens mistaking you for me,” Elias told every single one of them. I’m not sure what would happen if they stampeded.”

At first, reporters had pounced upon any quarian leaving the tour ship or any hotel he was known to be staying in, but soon it became clear that Elia’solor nar Ashru was only ever seen with his performance gear on. So they watched for that and clamoured for attention at scheduled press conferences and outings.

Elias nar Ashru was fast becoming known as a very private person and rarely seen out in public without his minders. Psychologists were wondering how he managed with the isolation, and speculated that the high number of quarians on his staff were there as much for social interaction as anything else. And they were right, up to a point. Elias had found that all he needed for a private outing was to take of his performance jacket and change the colours and patterns of the hard panels of his suit and by affecting an accent and using a voice modulator, he was a completely different and quite unremarkable quarian. Sometimes he was on the staff of Elia’solor nar Rannoch. Sometimes he was just a passing pilgrim, seeing the sights and occasionally going to other gigs when Elias himself wasn’t required on stage. He was sure Javak knew what he was up to. He was sure his security detail knew where he went. But for now, they let him have his freedom. It was more than what celebrities of most other species ever got.

Retiring to the study he turned on the television for noise—anything was better than the silence—and sat down to go through his fan mail. Or rather, Pi went through his fan mail, sending ‘fill in the blank’ responses to most of them, and adding their senders and scans of their letters to the database they were keeping of Elias’ fans. That way if he actually ended up speaking to any of them, Elias would be able to ‘remember’ anything they sent to him via a quick search in his suit’s database. It had already proved to be a career booster, and there were a few fans that Elias genuinely remembered, but most of the time, it was the combined efforts of himself and Pi, filtering most letters automatically, and marking others for Elias’ personal attention.

“Up next: profiles in courage with Liam Nathaniel Musee as he interviews Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams.”

Elias looked up at the screen. “He was the host on Citadel’s Got Talent last year,” he said. “Looks like he got a new job.”

“It would appear so,” Pi said politely. It was what Elias had come to know as his disinterested response. Once the information had been filed away, Pi didn’t find things like acquaintances job changes to be relevant to his existence. The interview with Ashley Williams was mostly a ‘how did it feel about being the one not to die on Virmire,” the infamous battle with at Saren’s cloning facility where Commander Sheppard destroyed Saren’s genophage cure and fought alongside the Salarian Captain Kirrahe. It wasn’t particularly enlightening, and Elias tuned out after a little while. He was nearing the end of the current batch of fan mail when there was a ping from the computer in the corner.

“You have a vid call,” Pi announced quietly.

“Who is it?” Elias asked.

“It’s Corbin.”

“Is it? How did he… never mind, I’m getting it!” Elias all but ran to the computer and tapped the ‘accept call’ icon that appeared on screen.

Corbin looked just like Elias remembered, his hair short at the sides and longer and unruly on top, one lock consistently curling down over his forehead. He wore a familiar white shirt and he looked a bit surprised when the call dropped in. Elias’ stomach tightened. It had been over a year since they talked. They hadn’t so much as messaged each other since Elias had left New Orleans-Laffayette to film what turned out to be the webisodes where the judges culled the top five hundred to the top hundred, when official program filming began.

“Hey Doc,” Elias said. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, it is,” Corbin said, “I ah…heard you were coming back to the Citadel so I thought I’d, you know, say ‘welcome home’.”

“Thank you,” Elias said. “I don’t know if this is home though. Do you know where I am right now?”

“On the Citadel?” Corbin asked with a grin.

“Well, yes, but I’m in Commander Sheppard’s apartment.”

Corbin blinked “What? Really? The Commander Sheppard?”

“Yes, I mean, look!” Elias said, and synced up his his omni-tool camera to the video link and stepped out into the main lounge, aiming the camera up at the framed photo.

“Oh wow,” Corbin breathed. “That’s really him.”

“I know,” Elias said. “I mean, how do I rate this? All I did was sing a few songs!”

“More than a few,” Corbin said, the old playfulness returning to his voice.

“Still,” Elias said. “It’s a bit odd.”

“I’d give my eye teeth to be there, you know,” Corbin said.

Elias turned and headed back into the study, turning off the video link on his omni-tool once he got back to the screen. “Well, if you make it to the the Citadel and if I’m still in this place, you’re more than welcome to drop by.”

“Oh? Well, I might just take you up on that,” Corbin said. “Seriously though, how’ve you been?”

“Crazy,” Elias said. “I’ve been all over council space and welcomed everywhere with, well… roaring crowds.” Leaning in, Elias whispered into the microphone. “There’s a horde of screaming tweens outside the apartment. It’s surreal.”

“Any new songs?”

“Always,” Elias said happily. “I’ll have to go record some soon, I guess. How about you, Doc, what have you been up to?”

“Nothing as glam as you,” Corbin said. “I joined the Alliance as a war doc though. I’m going through N7 training now as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, not doing anything special he says. Just Alliance Special Forces training. That must be intense. Are you allowed to talk about it, or is it ‘classified’?”

“Well it’s tough,” Corbin said. “But I’m loving it. Halfway through at the moment.”

“Can I ask where you are?”

“Yeah, but that is classified,” Corbin said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

It was a reflexive action that Tebryn was familiar with. The human only really did that when something was bothering him. “What’s wrong, Doc?” he asked.

“Nothing, I just…I still find it hard to believe that one of my patients is living the high life.”

Elias shrugged. “It’s weird. I’m just enjoying it while I can before the fickle spotlight of celebrity moves on to someone else. And anyway, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here right now, so…thanks again.”

Corbin grinned. “So you’re not forgetting the little people, huh?”

A blue light blinked in Elias’ helmet. “He’s not that little,” Pi commented.

“Shut up,” Elias muttered.

“I’m sorry?” Corbin asked.

“Nothing, just thinking,” Elias said. “You were never little people, Doc. I mean you’re a good foot taller than me for starters.”

Corbin’s smile was genuine and warm. “Good to know. Well, I should let you go. I mean, I know you have a concert to prepare for.”

Elias looked towards the door of the apartment. “Yeah, I do,” he said. “You know I was serious though. If you’re in the area, drop by. I’m sure I can get you a ticket into my own concert. You know…if you want to come.”

“I would, but I’m not going to make it to the Citadel before your run’s over. Not unless you really extend it by a few months. But I’ll be back home once training is over and I’ll be at Clinic for a bit before they ship me out again Sso if you have some time to kill after you’re done being Mr. Famous, you can find me there.”

“Okay,” Elias said. “I think I can afford a holiday. I’ll see if I can drop by.”

“Great! Um, well. It’s been really good to talk to you again. Bye for now.”

“Bye Corbin,” Elias said. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Corbin smiled again before the call disconnected. For a moment, Elias sat at the desk, staring at the blank screen. Then he got up, tested the showers for their acoustic properties, and turned the water on full. Showers with water were one of the things Elias occasionally indulged in when he was sure he wasn’t being watched. They involved taking off his suit for one, but well. It was worth it. As the hot water cascaded over his body and he warmed his voice with a series of vocal exercises he felt the tension in his muscles drain from his body. Definitely worth it.

Quarian’s Got Talent (Mass Effect Collision, Chapter 5)

Temple of Athame by briansum

Thessia 2191 CE

Elias put the small holographic image of himself and Corbin back onto the table. He was older now. Not much chronologically, but the simple life in New Orleans-Lafayette seemed more distant than a mere eighteen months. He sighed as he stared into the mirror He was amazed that he didn’t need his mask on the ship now, but then, it had been his home for nearly a year now. Also, Pi was always strengthening his immune system, mimicking whatever bacteria, pathogens or viruses that were in the local environment. He’d asked Pi if it was theoretically possible for him to get to the point where he could eat human, asari and salarian food without getting sick, and Pi had agreed it was possible, but it still wouldn’t give him any nutritional benefit.

“You know, you could have told me you were doing this earlier,” Elias had said.

“You did not ask, Creator Elias.”

His last weeks on earth might have been more interesting had he known.

Returning from the clinic, he and Corbin had ended up in a strange holding pattern. Looking back, Elias knew that neither of them had known how to take the next step, or even what the next step was given the Elias’ impeding date with stardom. At least, that’s what Corbin kept calling it. Their routine had changed little until the second email, marked ‘Confidential’ had come into Elias’ mailbox, and Corbin had returned to their little flat to find Elias scrolling through apartment rental listings on the Citadel.

“I don’t think you really have to look at those, Elias,” he said. “Don’t they put you up in a hotel or something if you get in?”

“Maybe. I don’t know,” Elias said. “Maybe I should double check the email again.”

Corbin paused, his messenger bag halfway off his shoulders. “You got in?”

“Elias nodded.”

“Well, that’s great? Ain’t it?”

“Yeah. It is.”

Dropping the bag by the extendable dining table, Corbin came over and wrapped his arms around Elias’s shoulders. “You know, I thought you’d be smilin’ more about getting onto a show that’ll FTL your career.”

“But that’s just it,” Elias said. “If I do this and get somewhere…this is my career. I don’t go back to Rannoch, or if I do I go back and leave again, like Tali’zorah did when she served on the Normandy, but I won’t be saving the universe. I’ll just be…”

He felt Corbin kiss the side of his helmet. “Is that why you’re doing this? For your people?”

“For. Because of,” Elias said. “I don’t know. No matter what I do I need to go back to them one day. And I think I have a lot already from what I’ve been able to gather here.”

Corbin pulled away slightly and looked at him critically. “So you’re doing this so that you don’t have to go home?”

“Do you know what I noticed the other day?”

“What?”

“I called this place home. Not Rannoch, not the Flotilla or the Ashru. Here.”

“So?”

“Corbin, I never did that. This place was always ‘the flat’ or ‘Corbin’s flat’ or—”

“You’ve never called me ‘Corbin’ either.”

Raising his fingers to his face mask, he gripped the curved surface, and heard a click as it separated from his suit.

“Elias! You can’t! You’ll get sick!” Corbin said, his larger hand gripping Elias’ wrist.

“I’ve got a week to get over it before filmed selection starts,” Elias said. “Besides, it’s too late now.”

Slowly, their hands and dropped and Corbin’s lips were on his. His face mask tumbled into his lap and suddenly they were gripping each other fiercely, and only stopped when Corbin jerked back back with a soft cry of pain.

“Corbin?”

“Caught my chin on the edge of your helmet,” Corbin said with a grin. “I’ll survive.” Then his eyes roved over Elias’ face. “I knew you’d be cute. Where are your ears?”

Elias grinned. “Quarians don’t have external ears, just vestigial remnants.”

“Oh, right. I never knew that.”

“You know, you’re the only person alive in the universe who knows what my face actually looks like, right?”

Corbin kissed him again, and sometime later, got a crash course in how a quarian envirosuit fitted together.

The next morning, Elias woke up in an unfamiliar room, and he felt more naked than he’d ever been before. Then he realised he was. He went to bring up a medical diagnostic and then realised he couldn’t, and instead had to settle for placing his hand on his forehead. He didn’t seem feverish, and he didn’t appear to have a blocked nose either, as he’d expected. On the bed next to him, Corbin’s snores were more light snuffles, and for a moment he watched the human’s chest rise and fall. Smiling, Elias slipped out of bed and found the pieces of his suit, slipping them on as he found them, and only hesitating once he got to his helmet and neck-piece. Eventually he left them off, but connected the facially moulded comm piece that could work wirelessly with his omni-tool if needed. The feature was one that Elias typically only used when changing suits or conducting repairs, but he smiled as he looked around the room. Corbin’s room. Even in here, the man was neat, with clothes either in his wardrobe, or hanging on or over a freestanding rail rack. He recognised the jeans Corbin had been wearing off an on for the past week and a shirt he had only worn for an outing to a new pizza place the two nights ago. Other than that there was a datapad, and a few shelves, and unlike the ones in the living room in here Corbin kept mementos from travels on earth. There was a large conch shell, a few glitterglobes and a miniature Eiffel Tower and Big Ben as well as a faux sandstone Sphinx, a plush kangaroo and a soft toy of something round with no mouth and two tiny ears sticking up out top. On the wall opposite the window was a large print of the New Orleans-Lafayette rubble as it had been two years ago, and over it, the new skyline rose, graffiti style in pops of colour, with a husk and human holding hands and staring out over the rejuvenated city. Padding quietly from the room, he went into the kitchen to start the percolator for Corbin’s morning coffee—the man really wasn’t sentient without it—and his own Tzaga infusion, which filled the room with a distinctive fragrance that Corbin had compared to cinnamon and nutmeg.

Eighteen months later, Corbin was still the only person who knew what he looked like underneath his helmet. There had been requests of course, and some rather large offers, but Elias had built his facelessness into part of his mystique. Indeed the art for his debut album had been an artistic rendition of a pair of glowing eyes and just the hint of the concealing envirosuit, subtly backlit so the black and red caught just enough light to show a silhouette, but not enough to give any detail. He’d called it Soul Windows, and it had gone to triple platinum within weeks.

On the vid screen, Thessian television was reporting on the queues leaving his final concert and getting soundbites from attendees, and cutting back to footage from his days on the reality TV show. There were the usual conspiracy theories about the program being rigged, and sometimes Elias wondered that himself. The chance that an unknown quarian could come out of nowhere and unseat popular favourite Rayne was a…humans would have said a Cinderella story. Which worked for film and…fables? Was that the term? Fables, yes. Things like that happened in scripted stories, not in real life. But here was real life, following some sort of script. He wondered how they could have done it, but given that Citadel’s Got Talent still relied on phone voting, despite extranet polls and text message votes being an option, all the producers would have had to do was change the number of phone lines each number connected to in order to artificially influence the polls. At least, that’s how he’d have done it. With all the contestants being surrounded by minders, security and cameras at almost every turn, finding out anything would have been impossible during filming, had anyone the energy or inclination to do so. In any case, it would have breached a number of clauses in the confidentiality agreement all contestants had had to sign. He’d crossed paths with Rayne once or twice in the past year, and she seemed to be doing well, but aside from some chatter and promotion of each other on social media, they hadn’t really talked.

“…new vocals and acoustic backing from his album have been placed over Elias’ original audition video of earth classic Can’t Take that Away From Me to remove the room echo and give the song some context, but this move has annoyed some fans who hold his original video as the ‘purest’ form on expression. The star himself couldn’t be reached for comment but his agent released the following statement:

The screen switched to a pre-recorded image of Elias’ agent at the press release earlier today. “Just as Elias’ first audition was a poignant and pure-hearted interpretation of the old earth favourite, this new release is just that, a new artistic interpretation for his fans. They’re both out there for download and they both have their merits. Elias hopes you’ll enjoy both of them in their own right.”

The face of the entertainment reporter came back on screen. “When asked who Elias was singing the song for, all Javak Avorsk said was that the singer’s love life was a private matter for him and him alone.”

“And is there any truth to the rumours that he met someone on Thessia?” the studio anchor asked.

“Sorry to disappoint Navia, but so far everyone who’s entered Elias’ vessel appears to have had a legitimate work related reason to be there, and aside from some public outings, including the Temple of Athame and the Odessa Zoo, he hasn’t been seen in the streets of our capital, alone or in company.”

“Thanks Tara. And I hear Elias has made it into Arya Blue’s most eligible singles listings this year?”

“That’s right Navia, Elias has entered the listings at number fifteen and this is the first time a quarian has made it into the listings since they launched over a century ago.”

“And there you have it, Elia’solor nar Ashru leaves Thessia tonight and heads back to Neo-Citadel, where he’ll be performing the final concerts of his galaxy wide tour-”

Elias muted the sound and walked over to the loosely covered tank where Bevan Waterwalker was currently peeking above the surface of the water. He’d found Bevan in a pet store on earth his last trip to earth, and brought the mimic octopus back on board, a reminder of the time Corbin had taken him scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico. Although he’d played several stadiums in New-Orleans Lafayette, he hadn’t heard from Corbin since he’d left earth in ’88.

They were standing just before customs at the passenger spaceport terminal. One set of doors through which Elias would step that Corbin wouldn’t be able to follow him through. “So…don’t make any decisions based on me, all right?” Corbin said, his hands jammed into his pockets.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t want you to be held back from anything just because you’ve been staying with me on the other side of the galaxy.”

Elias paused. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Corbin said. “I’m just saying that if you find an opportunity that keeps you away from me, you should take it and if you find someone else, I understand.”

“What about you, Doc?” Elias asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Corbin said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I just want to be realistic about long distance relationships and well…you’re going to be meeting all these celebrities and important people.”

“And you’re not important?”

“I can’t boost your career the way they’ll be able to,” Corbin said.

“Hey!” Elias used his fingers to lift Corbin’s chin up so that the other man was forced to look at him. “If I ever get to point where I sleep with someone to get ahead in the music industry, remind me that it’s time to retire.”

Corbin smiled weakly. “Deal. But seriously, don’t let me hold you back. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself if I do.”

“Oh, now you’re just twisting my arm,” Elias said, forcing a light tone.

Corbin nodded. “I know. Now go. Your space ship is waiting.”

With one final, lingering hug, Elias turned and left earth, leaving Corbin standing alone at the spaceport gate, and a small, omni-tool manufactured sculpture of himself sitting on the shelf in the spare room where Corbin was sure to find it. Eventually. The extractor fan in his helmet didn’t turn on until his ship was breaking atmo.

He had both of his hands inside the salt water tank and was playing Bevan’s favourite game of ‘wrap all my tentacles around Elias’ forearms’ when there was a buzz at the door.

“Who is it?” Elias called, pulling his right hand free from Bevan’s clinging suckers. He’d recently found out that octopuses tasted things with their suckers and wondered what his suit tasted like to Bevan. He had noticed that Bevan did, on occasion, try to remove his gauntlets from the rest of his suit and after the first incident had added a a software lock that had to be released as well—it would work as long as his suit had power, and so far Bevan hadn’t been able to try again. Although he had contemplated dipping his bare hands into the tank, he wasn’t sure if doing so would poison his pet.

“Who else to you think?” a gravelly voice said through the intercom.

“Javek! Come in,” Elias said, and his agent swaggered into the room in a crisp navy suit and four lens batarian sunglasses. “What’s been—”

He stopped as a number of the ship’s crew came in with flowers, boxes of dextro-chocolates and one Krogan almost hidden under a giant teddybear that was bigger than he was.

“Put them in the gift room, boys and girls,” Javek said, waving a hand lazily. “Looks like we cleaned up on Thessia, m’boy,” the baratian said expansively, dropping himself into one of Elias’ plush white armchairs.

“I’m surprised there aren’t fruit baskets again,” Elias said.

“Oh there were about fifty or so,” Javek said as the carriers filed silently out of the suite. “As per your standing ord—request I’ve distributed them to the ship’s cooks and any surplus was delivered to local homeless shelters. And we only brought up twenty boxes of the finest chocolates for you.”

“And those lacy…um…”

“Bras,” Javak said helpfully. “There were quite a few of those. You’ll be able to open up your own lingerie shop soon, you know.”

Elias had been stashing most of the undergarments in a crate in the corner of the room, fully intent on leaving them all behind when he got off the ship. Or just giving them to Javak. The very notion of clothes other than his envirosuit still seemed strange to him, for all that he wore an range of external show jackets for public appearances. It wasn’t as though quarians even had undergarments.

“Last stop the Citadel,” Javak said. Like most people, Javak called Neo-Citadel by its original namesake, especially given that much of the initial infrastructure had been used in its reconstruction, salvaged by the reapers that had been on earth during the final day of the war. “Back where it all began. How are you feeling about that?”

“I don’t know,” Elias said honestly. “I’ve been so busy with this tour that I haven’t really thought about it to be honest. I’m looking forward to being anonymous for a while, to be honest.”

“You’re never going to be anonymous again, Elias,” Javak said seriously. “You might as well get used to that fact.”

“Thanks,” Elias said, only a little acidily.

“No charge,” Javak said with a grin. “While you’re rejuvenating your creative side you might want to think about who you want playing you in your biopic though,” Javak said, handing over a datapad.

“What, there’s a biopic?” Elias asked, pulling his left hand out of the tank and taking the datapad.

“Of course! You’re big news, Elias baby. Everyone wants to know about you and it’s a great way to get more cred…ibility and raise your profile across the galaxy. You need to hunt while the Drak-ka are running after all.”

“My life really wasn’t very interesting before all of this happened, you know,” Elias said.

Javak laughed. “Elias baby, haven’t you ever heard of the term ‘artistic license?”

Elias frowned. “I don’t know if I like the idea of people fact checking and finding out I’ve agreed to put my name to something that I know is false, Javak.”

Javak stood up and put his arm around Elias’ shoulders. “Come now Elias, don’t you trust me?”

“Well…yes…”

“And have I ever steered you wrong before?”

“Well, no, you haven—”

“So trust me now! Between you and me we’re going to make tons of…people love you long after the next wannabe stars get on stage for the next season of Citadel’s Got Talent, and you know they’re already filming the top one hundred.”

Elias grimaced behind his mask. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Sure, sure, take your time,” Javak said. “I’ll leave you to it while I go finalise things for your Citadel homecoming.”

“Okay,” Elias said. Homecoming. Staring up at the wall, Elias looked at the holo-window, currently showing a map of the galaxy, twinkling as it rotated gently. His eyes sought out first Rannoch and then Earth. Tossing the datapad onto the desk in the room, he went back to playing with Bevan. He wasn’t ready to deal with the hard questions. Not yet, anyway.

Go To Chapter 6

Watch the original RPG Session on YouTube

Quarian’s Got Talent (Elias Chapter 5, Mass Effect)

Temple of Athame by briansum

Thessia 2191 CE

Elias put the small holographic image of himself and Corbin back onto the table. He was older now. Not much chronologically, but the simple life in New Orleans-Lafayette seemed more distant than a mere eighteen months. He sighed as he stared into the mirror He was amazed that he didn’t need his mask on the ship now, but then, it had been his home for nearly a year now. Also, Pi was always strengthening his immune system, mimicking whatever bacteria, pathogens or viruses that were in the local environment. He’d asked Pi if it was theoretically possible for him to get to the point where he could eat human, asari and salarian food without getting sick, and Pi had agreed it was possible, but it still wouldn’t give him any nutritional benefit.

“You know, you could have told me you were doing this earlier,” Elias had said.

“You did not ask, Creator Elias.”

His last weeks on earth might have been more interesting had he known earlier.

Returning from the clinic, he and Corbin had ended up in a strange holding pattern. Looking back, Elias knew that neither of them had known how to take the next step, or even what the next step was given the Elias’ impeding date with stardom. At least, that’s what Corbin kept calling it. Their routine had changed little until the second email, marked ‘confidential’ had come into Elias’ mailbox, and Corbin had returned to their little flat to find Elias scrolling through apartment rental listings on the Citadel.

“I don’t think you really have to look at those, Elias,” he said. “Don’t they put you up in a hotel or something if you get in?”

“Maybe. I don’t know,” Elias said. “Maybe I should double check the email again.”

Corbin paused, his messenger bag halfway off his shoulders. “You got in?”

“Elias nodded.”

“Well, that’s great? Ain’t it?”

“Yeah. It is.”

Dropping the bag by the extendable dining table, Corbin came over and wrapped his arms around Elias’s shoulders. “You know, I thought you’d be smilin’ more about getting into a show that’ll FTL your career.”

“But that’s just it,” Elias said. “If I do this and get somewhere…this is my career. I don’t go back to Rannoch, or if I do I go back and leave again, like Tali’zorah did when she served on the Normandy, but I won’t be saving the universe. I’ll just be…”

He felt Corbin kiss the side of his helmet. “Is that why you’re doing this? For your people?”

“For. Because of,” Elias said. “I don’t know. No matter what I do I need to go back to them one day. And I think I have a lot already from what I’ve been able to gather here.”

Corbin pulled away slightly and looked at him critically. “So you’re doing this so that you don’t have to go home?”

“Do you know what I noticed the other day?”

“What?”

“I called this place home. Not Rannoch, not the Flotilla or the Ashru. Here.”

“So?”

“Corbin, I never did that. This place was always ‘the flat’ or ‘Corbin’s flat’ or—”

“You’ve never called me ‘Corbin’ either.”

Raising his fingers to his face mask, he gripped the curved surface, and heard a click as it separated from his suit.

“Elias! You can’t! You’ll get sick!” Corbin said, his larger hand gripping Elias’ wrist.

“I’ve got a week to get over it before filmed selection starts,” Elias said. “Besides, it’s too late now.”

Slowly, their hands and dropped and Corbin’s lips were on his. His face mask tumbled into his lap and suddenly they were gripping each other fiercely, and only stopped when Corbin jerked back back with a soft cry of pain.

“Corbin?”

“Caught my chin on the edge of your helmet,” Corbin said with a grin. “I’ll survive.” Then his eyes roved over Elias’ face. “I knew you’d be cute. Where are your ears?”

Elias grinned. “Quarians don’t have external ears, just vestigial remnants.”

“Oh, right. I never knew that.”

“You know, you’re the only person alive in the universe who knows what my face actually looks like, right?”

Corbin kissed him again, and sometime later, got a crash course in how a Quarian envirosuit fitted together.

The next morning, Elias woke up in an unfamiliar room, and he felt more naked than he’d ever been before. Then he realised he was. He went to bring up a medical diagnostic and then realised he couldn’t, and instead had to settle for placing his hand on his forehead. He didn’t seem feverish, and he didn’t appear to have a blocked nose either, as he’d expected. On the bed next to him, Corbin’s snores were more light snuffles, and for a moment he watched the human’s chest rise and fall. Smiling, Elias slipped out of bed and found the pieces of his suit, slipping them on as he found them, and only hesitating once he got to his helmet and neck-piece. Eventually he left them off, but connected the facially moulded comm piece that could work wirelessly with his omni-tool if needed. The feature was one that Elias typically only used when changing suits or conducting repairs, but he smiled as he looked around the room. Corbin’s room. Even in here, the man was neat, with clothes either in his wardrobe, or hanging on or over a freestanding rail rack. He recognised the jeans Corbin had been wearing off an on for the past week and a shirt he had only worn for an outing to a new pizza place the two nights ago. Other than that there was a datapad, and a few shelves, and unlike the ones in the living room in here Corbin kept mementos from travels on earth. There was a large conch shell, a few glitterglobes and a miniature Eiffel Tower and Big Ben as well as a faux sandstone Sphinx, a plush kangaroo and a soft toy of something round with no mouth and two tiny ears sticking up out top. On the wall opposite the window was a large print of the New Orleans-Lafayette rubble as it had been two years ago, and over it, the new skyline rose, graffiti style in pops of colour, with a husk and human holding hands and staring out over the rejuvenated city. Padding quietly from the room, he went into the kitchen to start the percolator for Corbin’s morning coffee—the man really wasn’t sentient without it—and his own Tzaga infusion, which filled the room with a distinctive fragrance that Corbin had compared to cinnamon and nutmeg.

Eighteen months later, Corbin was still the only person who knew what he looked like underneath his helmet. There had been requests of course, and some rather large offers, but Elias had built his facelessness into part of his mystique. Indeed the art for his debut album had been an artistic rendition of a pair of glowing eyes and just the hint of the concealing envirosuit, subtly backlit so the black and red caught just enough light to show a silhouette, but not enough to give any detail. He’d called it Soul Windows, and it had gone to triple platinum within weeks.

On the vid screen, Thessian television was reporting on the queues leaving his final concert and getting soundbites from attendees, and cutting back to footage from his days on the reality TV show. There were the usual conspiracy theories about the program being rigged, and sometimes Elias wondered that himself. The chance that an unknown Quarian could come out of nowhere and unseat popular favourite Rayne was a…humans would have said a Cinderella story. Which worked for film and…fables? Was that the term? Fables, yes. Things like that happened in scripted stories, not in real life. But here was real life, following some sort of script. He wondered how they could have done it, but given that Citadel’s Got Talent still relied on phone voting, despite extranet polls and text message votes being an option, all the producers would have had to do was change the number of phone lines each number connected to in order to artificially influence the polls. At least, that’s how he’d have done it. With all the contestants being surrounded by minders, security and cameras at almost every turn, finding out anything would have been impossible during filming, had anyone the energy or inclination to do so. In any case, it would have breached a number of clauses in the confidentiality agreement all contestants had had to sign. He’d crossed paths with Rayne once or twice in the past year, and she seemed to be doing well, but aside from some chatter and promotion of each other on social media, they hadn’t really talked.

“…new vocals and acoustic backing from his album have been placed over Elias’ original audition video of earth classic Can’t Take that Away From Me to remove the room echo and give the song some context, but this move has annoyed some fans who hold his original video as the ‘purest’ form on expression. The star himself couldn’t be reached for comment but his agent released the following statement:

The screen switched to a pre-recorded image of Elias’ agent at the press release earlier today. “Just as Elias’ first audition was a poignant and pure-hearted interpretation of the old earth favourite, this new release is just that, a new artistic interpretation for his fans. They’re both out there for download and they both have their merits. Elias hopes you’ll enjoy both of them in their own right.”

The face of the entertainment reporter came back on screen. “When asked who Elias was singing the song for, all Javak Avorsk said was that the singer’s love life was a private matter for him and him alone.”

“And is there any truth to the rumours that he met someone on Thessia?” the studio anchor asked.

“Sorry to disappoint Navia, but so far everyone who’s entered Elias’ vessel appears to have had a legitimate work related reason to be there, and aside from some public outings, including the Temple of Athame and the Odessa Zoo, he hasn’t been seen in the streets of our capital, alone or in company.”

“Thanks Tara. And I hear Elias has made it into Arya Blue’s most eligible singles listings this year?”

“That’s right Navia, Elias has entered the listings at number fifteen and this is the first time a quarian has made it into the listings since they launched over a century ago.”

“And there you have it, Elia’solor nar Ashru leaves Thessia tonight and heads back to Neo-Citadel, where he’ll be performing the final concerts of his galaxy wide tour-”

Elias muted the sound and walked over to the loosely covered tank where Bevan Waterwalker was currently peeking above the surface of the water. He’d found Bevan in a pet store on earth his last trip to earth, and brought the mimic octopus back on board, a reminder of the time Corbin had taken him scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico. Although he’d played several stadiums in New-Orleans Lafayette, he hadn’t heard from Corbin since he’d left earth in 88.

They were standing just before customs at the passenger spaceport terminal. One set of doors through which Elias would step that Corbin wouldn’t be able to follow him through. “So…don’t make any decisions based on me, all right?” Corbin said, his hands jammed into his pockets.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t want you to be held back from anything just because you’ve been staying with me on the other side of the galaxy.”

Elias paused. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Corbin said. “I’m just saying that if you find an opportunity that keeps you away from me, you should take it and if you find someone else, I understand.”

“What about you, Doc?” Elias asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Corbin said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I just want to be realistic about long distance relationships and well…you’re going to be meeting all these celebrities and important people.”

“And you’re not important?”

“I can’t boost your career the way they’ll be able to,” Corbin said.

“Hey!” Elias used his fingers to lift Corbin’s chin up so that the other man was forced to look at him. “If I ever get to point where I sleep with someone to get ahead in the music industry, remind me that it’s time to retire.”

Corbin smiled weakly. “Deal. But seriously, don’t let me hold you back. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself if I do.”

“Oh, now you’re just twisting my arm,” Elias said, forcing a light tone.

Corbin nodded. “I know. Now go. Your space ship is waiting.”

With one final, lingering hug, Elias turned and left earth, leaving Corbin standing alone at the spaceport gate, and a small, omni-tool manufactured sculpture of himself sitting on the shelf in the spare room where Corbin was sure to find it. Eventually. The extractor fan in his helmet didn’t turn on until his ship was breaking atmo.

He had both of his hands inside the salt water tank and was playing Bevan’s favourite game of ‘wrap all my tentacles around Elias’ forearms’ when there was a buzz at the door.

“Who is it?” Elias called, pulling his right hand free from Bevan’s clinging suckers. He’d recently found out that octopuses tasted things with their suckers and wondered what his suit tasted like to Bevan. He had noticed that Bevan did, on occasion, try to remove his gauntlets from the rest of his suit and after the first incident had added a a software lock that had to be released as well—it would work as long as his suit had power, and so far Bevan hadn’t been able to try again. Although he had contemplated dipping his bare hands into the tank, he wasn’t sure if doing so would poison his pet.

“Who else to you think?” a gravelly voice said through the intercom.

“Javek! Come in,” Elias said, and his agent swaggered into the room in a crisp navy suit and four lens batarian sunglasses. “What’s been—”

He stopped as a number of the ship’s crew came in with flowers, boxes of dextro-chocolates and one Krogan almost hidden under a giant teddybear that was bigger than he was.

“Put them in the gift room, boys and girls,” Javek said, waving a hand lazily. “Looks like we cleaned up on Thessia, m’boy,” the baratian said expansively, dropping himself into one of Elias’ plush white armchairs.

“I’m surprised there aren’t fruit baskets again,” Elias said.

“Oh there were about fifty or so,” Javek said as the carriers filed silently out of the suite. “As per your standing ord—request I’ve distributed them to the ship’s cooks and any surplus was delivered to local homeless shelters. And we only brought up twenty boxes of the finest chocolates for you.”

“And those lacy…um…”

“Bras,” Javak said helpfully. “There were quite a few of those. You’ll be able to open up your own lingerie shop soon, you know.”

Elias had been stashing most of the undergarments in a crate in the corner of the room, fully intent on leaving them all behind when he got off the ship. Or just giving them to Javak. The very notion of clothes other than his envirosuit still seemed strange to him, for all that he wore an range of external show jackets for public appearances. It wasn’t as though Quarians even had undergarments.

“Last stop the Citadel,” Javak said. Like most people, Javak called Neo-Citadel by its original namesake, especially given that much of the initial infrastructure had been used in its reconstruction, salvaged by the reapers that had been on earth during the final day of the war. “Back where it all began. How are you feeling about that?”

“I don’t know,” Elias said honestly. “I’ve been so busy with this tour that I haven’t really thought about it to be honest. I’m looking forward to being anonymous for a while, to be honest.”

“You’re never going to be anonymous again, Elias,” Javak said seriously. “You might as well get used to that fact.”

“Thanks,” Elias said, only a little acidily.

“No charge,” Javak said with a grin. “While you’re rejuvenating your creative side you might want to think about who you want playing you in your biopic though,” Javak said, handing over a datapad.

“What, there’s a biopic?” Elias asked, pulling his left hand out of the tank and taking the datapad.

“Of course! You’re big news, Elias baby. Everyone wants to know about you and it’s a great way to get more cred…ibility and raise your profile across the galaxy. You need to hunt while the Drak-ka are running after all.”

“My life really wasn’t very interesting before all of this happened, you know,” Elias said.

Javak laughed. “Elias baby, haven’t you ever heard of the term ‘artistic license?”

Elias frowned. “I don’t know if I like the idea of people fact checking and finding out I’ve agreed to put my name to something that I know is false, Javak.”

Javak stood up and put his arm around Elias’ shoulders. “Come now Elias, don’t you trust me?”

“Well…yes…”

“And have I ever steered you wrong before?”

“Well, no, you haven—”

“So trust me now! Between you and me we’re going to make tons of…people love you long after the next wannabe stars get on stage for the next season of Citadel’s Got Talent, and you know they’re already filming the top one hundred.”

Elias grimaced behind his mask. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Sure, sure, take your time,” Javak said. “I’ll leave you to it while I go finalise things for your Citadel homecoming.”

“Okay,” Elias said. Homecoming. Staring up at the wall, Elias looked at the holo-window, currently showing a map of the galaxy, twinkling as it rotated gently. His eyes sought out first Rannoch and then Earth. Tossing the datapad onto the desk in the room, he went back to playing with Bevan. He wasn’t ready to deal with the hard questions. Not yet, anyway.

Go To Chapter 6

Watch the original RPG Session on YouTube

Change (Mass Effect Collision Chapter 4)

When Elias reached the door, he found it ajar, and a flicking yellow glow spilling out into the corridor. Pausing, he stopped, and listened, but only heard the TV playing a movie in the background. It sounded like a… Corbin had called them ‘chick flicks’ if the giggles and soundtrack was anything to go by. And Corbin hated chick flicks.

Activating his omni-tool’s camera, Elias slipped the semi translucent device under the door, and then around the side, and then stared at the images on the heads up display in his helmet. Then he pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

“Get out,” he said as he entered, moving around to the left past the kitchenette as a flickering white drone moved silently around to the right. “How did you even get in?”

On the couch, Paula sat, a glass of wine in one hand and Corbin’s head lying in her lap. His eyes were closed and his breath shallow, and a there was a smear of crusted brownish something around his mouth.

“I brought him something to eat, darl. Given that you left him all alone.”

“His lips are turning blue,” Elias said. “I think you need to leave. Now.”

Paula put down her wine on the floor. “I don’t think so dear. I think the police are going to wonder how it was that poor Doc Corbin was done in by his housemate’s food so soon after being treated for it. Tsk, tsk. You really should have waited for him to recover before striking again dear.”

“Great, call them,” Elias said. “I’ll do it myself while you explain the red baking dish that neither Corbin nor myself own that’s sitting on the kitchen counter, or what you’re doing here, or the fact that your DNA is all over the wineglass you just put on the table.”

Paula stood, dumping Corbin on the couch, and turning to face Elias. Her eyes were wild, pupils dialated and her hair was coming free from the bun she typically wore it in. “It’s called bleach, darl,” she said.

“And the part where I’ve been recording everything you’ve been saying?” Elias asked. “You really don’t know much about quarians do you?”

Darting her hand into her handbag she pulled out a pistol, which she pointed at him with shaking fingers. “I know enough to know that all I need to do is puncture your suit in enough places and it doesn’t really matter, thief.”

“Okay, so I’m just going to assume you’re officially crazy and-”

A bolt of electricity sent Paula tumbling to the floor. “-you really should look behind you.” Elias muttered as he kicked the gun away and dragged her into the corner, tying her hands swiftly with rope. “Pi if she wakes up, jolt her again.”

“With pleasure, Creator Elias.”

Pleasure. It was an odd word for the geth, but right now Elias had more pressing concerns. It was 1AM, he’d left at 9PM, so there was only a small window of time. Dashing into the bathroom, he found Corbin’s oversized first aid kit, and started rummaging through it for an emetic. He knew enough to know what sort of drug he was after, but he also knew his lack of knowledge of human medicine would be his downfall. In his helmet his comm unit was already dialling.

“911 please state your emergency.”

“My housemate’s been poisoned and he’s unconscious, I need a systemic emetic and my knowledge of human medicine sucks,” he said, scrabbling with his left hand for a datapad to run an extranet search. His own suit’s systems were stretched rather thinly with Pi controlling the drone across the room.

“Do you know what poisoned him, sir?”

“No, but I’m betting it was dextro-protein in the casserole that bitch gave him. He’s known to have an…allergic reaction to it.”

“Are you Turian sir?”

“Quarian. Look, get the cops and an ambulance please? I don’t know if I can get him to the clinic in time.”

“Where are you sir?”

“Apartment three hundred and twelve, forty seven Eunice Street, Old Town. Third floor.”

“I’ve got the police and an ambulance on their way sir. What’s your name?”

“Elias, my name’s Elias, my housemate’s Corbin and the crazy lady in the corner is Paula. Keelah, he’s got apomorphine. I don’t know why he as it, but tell the paramedics I’m giving it to him. His lips have gone blue.”

Elias half lay, half sat in an old sidechair, as the steady beep of Corbin’s heart monitor reassured him that his friend was, for the moment, alive. On the far wall a muted vidscreen was playing some late night horror flick, and a strange, tubelike monster appeared to be growing out of an old woman’s head. It looked a bit a like a penis actually.

“Visiting hours are over, you know,” Shelley said as she stepped into the dim light of the room. “It’s four AM. You should be in bed.”

Elias shrugged and tried to hide a yawn. “So turf me out,” he suggested. “The apartment’s a crime scene anyway and those cops took forever to take a statement.”

“Sweetpea, you’ve got an iron clad alibi. The whole bar saw you and I know exactly what time you left.”

“Why’d she do it?” Elias asked. “It didn’t make any sense.”

“Love makes people do strange things, child,” Shelley said, walking over and handing him a bottle of water.

“That’s love?”

“Sure,” Shelley said, leaning against the wall. “Twisted into strange crazy obsession over the most handsome, unattached and unavailable man in the clinic, but still love of sorts.”

“That’s crazy.”

“You sing about it every night you’re up on stage, child. You should know.”

Elias opened the bottle and took a drink. “Well, yes, I sing about it, but I don’t actually… I mean I haven’t… that’s what everyone sings about? That?”

“No, of course not. But it’s the same, ain’t it? Corbin taking you in, you not wanting to leave his side now. Paula getting crazy jealous of your friendship—all just notes in the same tune. We just like to pretend love’s some magic cure for all ills, but there’s light and dark in everything.”

Elias shook his head. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Shelley nodded and suddenly he was being hugged fiercely. “It’ll all work out fine, child. You’ll see. I’ll get a cot for you. It’s just me tonight and Harley’s on security. I don’t think either us will care if you make dodo here tonight.”

“Thanks.”

Even with a bed of sorts, Elias found it difficult to get to sleep and found himself staring up at the ceiling, the rough white tiles flickering with the light of the television. “Do you have emotions, Pi?”

“Not as you know them, Creator Elias.”

“Must be nice.”

“Analysis suggests you don’t really mean that, Creator Elias.”

“I’m just having a good wallow in self pity,” Elias said. “It’s highly counter-productive, but it seems to be a necessary custom amongst all organic races I’ve ever met.”

“Corbin’s vitals are strong, Creator Elias. You might find your time more constructive if you focused on what to do next, rather than what you might have done differently in the past.”

On the screen, a human juggled chainsaws to thunderous applause and then the vid cut to an asari singing something he couldn’t hear on account of the set being on mute.

“That’s really good advice, Pi, thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

The sun was peeking through the clinic window, adding its light to the electronic glow of the vidscreen, which was now playing a cartoon about N7 Operatives facing off against a rogue reaper, one hidden out in darkspace that the change hadn’t touched.

“I think they’re running out of villains,” Corbin’s hoarse voice came from the bed. “I mean, you can’t hate aliens anymore and half our DNA is synthetic composite now anyway. “The Reapers are like us too…in a big, skyscraper, flying lobster kind of way. What’s left to fear?”

“Ourselves?” Elias said, rolling off the cot, his spine cracking in a few places.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Corbin said, blinking slowly.

“You should see your face,” Elias said.

“That’s not really fair when I can’t see yours,” Corbin said. “Is there any water?”

Elias grinned behind his mask and reached over for the rolling table that seemed to be a staple of all hospital rooms. “You know there’s going to be water here and where it’s going to be,” he said, pouring out a cup and picking up a straw from the packet that had been thoughtfully left there.

Corbin went to sit up, and then collapsed flat onto his back. “I don’t think I can get up,” he said, and fumbled for the remote that would move the bed into a sitting position. “I feel weak as the proverbial kitten,” he said, as Elias brought the water over to him, and their hands touched when Corbin reached up to take hold of the cup. “Thanks,” Corbin said softly.

“Welcome,” Elias said, “Doc, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“If I hadn’t been around, Paula would never have thought to poison you with dextro-protein.”

“Then she might have picked something more lethal like botulinum toxin,” Corbin said, taking a long drink. “Oh that’s better.”

“Well, I did make you throw up the better part of a rather large serving of lasagna,” Elias said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat Italian food again,” Corbin groaned. “Hey come now, that was funny,” he added when Elias didn’t respond.

“Sorry,” Elias said, letting Corbin take the cup and sitting back into the chair.

“Elias…”

“You know everything thinks we’re together?” Elias said.

Corbin looked down towards the end of the bed where his feet made small hills under the white sheets. “Yeah. I noticed. Is um…that a bad thing?”

“It nearly got you killed.”

“But it didn’t.”

“And next time?”

“What next time? I hardly think people are going to queue up to attack because they think I’m off the market. Wait, are we actually fighting about this?”

“No! Yes! I don’t know!”

Corbin sighed and scooted across the bed slightly. “Sit down,” he said. “You’re making my head hurt jumping around like that.”

Elias stared hard at the clear patch on the bed. Then he stared at the trundle he’d been sleeping in, just next to the hospital visiting chair. Then he turned back and stared at Corbin. The man’s glasses were on the side table next to the water jug and his hair was bed mussed and pointing off in all directions. His eyes were…uncertain, and Elias thought he could see a slight tremble in his hands that he hadn’t noticed a few minutes ago.

“Keelah…” Elias breathed. “You do like me.”

Corbin sighed. “All right, yes. Fine. I do. And I get it. Sorry, I knew I—”

“You don’t even know what I really look like.”

Corbin stopped and looked up at him, a familiar glint coming into his eyes. “You have blue skin,” he said. “And I know your hair is dark, and you’re slender underneath the bulk of that suit.”

And my face?”

“You have eyes, a fairly straight nose and a mouth,” Corbin said. “You’re talented, resourceful and have a killer voice. Come on, I’ve seen Fleet and Flotilla, I know you don’t have fangs or anything under there.”

Elias laughed, and then he sighed, sitting down next to Corbin on the bed. “I have to leave eventually you know.”

“But eventually’s later,” Corbin pointed out. “For all I know we could find out that we’re great flatmates, but anything more and we start bickerin’ about finding restaurants we can both eat at. Or your snoring.”

“I do not snore!” Elias protested. “Although I can hear you through the walls if you’ve been drinking.”

Corbin laughed and reached out to give Elias a sideways hug, just like he’d done in the past. “Wait really?” he asked suddenly.

“Sort of, yes,” Elias said. “But I just use the noise dampening setting on my helmet and it works fine. How do you think I made it through your porn sessions?”

“I wore headphones!”

Elias grinned and relaxed into Cobrin’s embrace. “Gotcha.”

Corbin rolled his eyes. “Want me to share links?”

“Dunno. I have no idea if you have good taste in porn.”

“Well I… this is a really strange thing to be talking about, you know.”

“I can change the topic to something even more awkward if you like,” Elias said.

Corbin looked at him askance. “Oh?”

“I uh, sent in an audition video for Citadel’s Got Talent last night.”

“Don’t you have to be living on the Citadel for that?”

“Or be residing on a current council world and be willing to relocate at your own expense, clause eighty five subsection six,” Elias said. “And the quarian living on Earth gets in by the back door.”

Corbin’s face froze.

“What?” Elias asked.

“Nothing,” Corbin said, swallowing hard. “Um. How… how long until you leave?”

“I have to get in first, Doc.”

“You’ll get in,” Corbin said. “So…how long?”

“Four to six weeks. Depends on how long they take to pick their top one hundred. I mean, how do you pick a top one hundred out of several million entrants?”

Corbin pulled Elias closer. “They give you the winner’s trophy. Wait, is there a trophy?”

“No, just a performance contract.”

“Oh right, just a performance contract, he says.”

Elias sighed and closed his eyes. “Which may never happen,” he said. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Like what?”

“What happens now?”

Go To Chapter 5

Change (Elias Chapter 4, Mass Effect)

When Elias reached the door, he found it ajar, and a flicking yellow glow spilling out into the corridor. Pausing, he stopped, and listened, but only heard the TV playing a movie in the background. It sounded like a… Corbin had called them ‘chick flicks’ if the giggles and soundtrack was anything to go by. And Corbin hated chick flicks.

Activating his omni-tool’s camera, Elias slipped the semi translucent device under the door, and then around the side, and then stared at the images on the heads up display in his helmet. Then he pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

“Get out,” he said as he entered, moving around to the left past the kitchenette as a flickering white drone moved silently around to the right. “How did you even get in?”

On the couch, Paula sat, a glass of wine in one hand and Corbin’s head lying in her lap. His eyes were closed and his breath shallow, and a there was a smear of crusted brownish something around his mouth.

“I brought him something to eat, darl. Given that you left him all alone.”

“His lips are turning blue,” Elias said. “I think you need to leave. Now.”

Paula put down her wine on the floor. “I don’t think so dear. I think the police are going to wonder how it was that poor Doc Corbin was done in by his housemate’s food so soon after being treated for it. Tsk, tsk. You really should have waited for him to recover before striking again dear.”

“Great, call them,” Elias said. “I’ll do it myself while you explain the red baking dish that neither Corbin nor myself own that’s sitting on the kitchen counter, or what you’re doing here, or the fact that your DNA is all over the wineglass you just put on the table.”

Paula stood, dumping Corbin on the couch, and turning to face Elias. Her eyes were wild, pupils dialated and her hair was coming free from the bun she typically wore it in. “It’s called bleach, darl,” she said.

“And the part where I’ve been recording everything you’ve been saying?” Elias asked. “You really don’t know much about quarians do you?”

Darting her hand into her handbag she pulled out a pistol, which she pointed at him with shaking fingers. “I know enough to know that all I need to do is puncture your suit in enough places and it doesn’t really matter, thief.”

“Okay, so I’m just going to assume you’re officially crazy and-”

A bolt of electricity sent Paula tumbling to the floor. “-you really should look behind you.” Elias muttered as he kicked the gun away and dragged her into the corner, tying her hands swiftly with rope. “Pi if she wakes up, jolt her again.”

“With pleasure, Creator Elias.”

Pleasure. It was an odd word for the geth, but right now Elias had more pressing concerns. It was 1AM, he’d left at 9PM, so there was only a small window of time. Dashing into the bathroom, he found Corbin’s oversized first aid kit, and started rummaging through it for an emetic. He knew enough to know what sort of drug he was after, but he also knew his lack of knowledge of human medicine would be his downfall. In his helmet his comm unit was already dialling.

“911 please state your emergency.”

“My housemate’s been poisoned and he’s unconscious, I need a systemic emetic and my knowledge of human medicine sucks,” he said, scrabbling with his left hand for a datapad to run an extranet search. His own suit’s systems were stretched rather thinly with Pi controlling the drone across the room.

“Do you know what poisoned him, sir?”

“No, but I’m betting it was dextro-protein in the casserole that bitch gave him. He’s known to have an…allergic reaction to it.”

“Are you Turian sir?”

“Quarian. Look, get the cops and an ambulance please? I don’t know if I can get him to the clinic in time.”

“Where are you sir?”

“Apartment three hundred and twelve, forty seven Eunice Street, Old Town. Third floor.”

“I’ve got the police and an ambulance on their way sir. What’s your name?”

“Elias, my name’s Elias, my housemate’s Corbin and the crazy lady in the corner is Paula. Keelah, he’s got apomorphine. I don’t know why he as it, but tell the paramedics I’m giving it to him. His lips have gone blue.”

Elias half lay, half sat in an old sidechair, as the steady beep of Corbin’s heart monitor reassured him that his friend was, for the moment, alive. On the far wall a muted vidscreen was playing some late night horror flick, and a strange, tubelike monster appeared to be growing out of an old woman’s head. It looked a bit a like a penis actually.

“Visiting hours are over, you know,” Shelley said as she stepped into the dim light of the room. “It’s four AM. You should be in bed.”

Elias shrugged and tried to hide a yawn. “So turf me out,” he suggested. “The apartment’s a crime scene anyway and those cops took forever to take a statement.”

“Sweetpea, you’ve got an iron clad alibi. The whole bar saw you and I know exactly what time you left.”

“Why’d she do it?” Elias asked. “It didn’t make any sense.”

“Love makes people do strange things, child,” Shelley said, walking over and handing him a bottle of water.

“That’s love?”

“Sure,” Shelley said, leaning against the wall. “Twisted into strange crazy obsession over the most handsome, unattached and unavailable man in the clinic, but still love of sorts.”

“That’s crazy.”

“You sing about it every night you’re up on stage, child. You should know.”

Elias opened the bottle and took a drink. “Well, yes, I sing about it, but I don’t actually… I mean I haven’t… that’s what everyone sings about? That?”

“No, of course not. But it’s the same, ain’t it? Corbin taking you in, you not wanting to leave his side now. Paula getting crazy jealous of your friendship—all just notes in the same tune. We just like to pretend love’s some magic cure for all ills, but there’s light and dark in everything.”

Elias shook his head. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Shelley nodded and suddenly he was being hugged fiercely. “It’ll all work out fine, child. You’ll see. I’ll get a cot for you. It’s just me tonight and Harley’s on security. I don’t think either us will care if you make dodo here tonight.”

“Thanks.”

Even with a bed of sorts, Elias found it difficult to get to sleep and found himself staring up at the ceiling, the rough white tiles flickering with the light of the television. “Do you have emotions, Pi?”

“Not as you know them, Creator Elias.”

“Must be nice.”

“Analysis suggests you don’t really mean that, Creator Elias.”

“I’m just having a good wallow in self pity,” Elias said. “It’s highly counter-productive, but it seems to be a necessary custom amongst all organic races I’ve ever met.”

“Corbin’s vitals are strong, Creator Elias. You might find your time more constructive if you focused on what to do next, rather than what you might have done differently in the past.”

On the screen, a human juggled chainsaws to thunderous applause and then the vid cut to an asari singing something he couldn’t hear on account of the set being on mute.

“That’s really good advice, Pi, thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

The sun was peeking through the clinic window, adding its light to the electronic glow of the vidscreen, which was now playing a cartoon about N7 Operatives facing off against a rogue reaper, one hidden out in darkspace that the change hadn’t touched.

“I think they’re running out of villains,” Corbin’s hoarse voice came from the bed. “I mean, you can’t hate aliens anymore and half our DNA is synthetic composite now anyway. “The Reapers are like us too…in a big, skyscraper, flying lobster kind of way. What’s left to fear?”

“Ourselves?” Elias said, rolling off the cot, his spine cracking in a few places.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Corbin said, blinking slowly.

“You should see your face,” Elias said.

“That’s not really fair when I can’t see yours,” Corbin said. “Is there any water?”

Elias grinned behind his mask and reached over for the rolling table that seemed to be a staple of all hospital rooms. “You know there’s going to be water here and where it’s going to be,” he said, pouring out a cup and picking up a straw from the packet that had been thoughtfully left there.

Corbin went to sit up, and then collapsed flat onto his back. “I don’t think I can get up,” he said, and fumbled for the remote that would move the bed into a sitting position. “I feel weak as the proverbial kitten,” he said, as Elias brought the water over to him, and their hands touched when Corbin reached up to take hold of the cup. “Thanks,” Corbin said softly.

“Welcome,” Elias said, “Doc, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“If I hadn’t been around, Paula would never have thought to poison you with dextro-protein.”

“Then she might have picked something more lethal like botulinum toxin,” Corbin said, taking a long drink. “Oh that’s better.”

“Well, I did make you throw up the better part of a rather large serving of lasagna,” Elias said.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat Italian food again,” Corbin groaned. “Hey come now, that was funny,” he added when Elias didn’t respond.

“Sorry,” Elias said, letting Corbin take the cup and sitting back into the chair.

“Elias…”

“You know everything thinks we’re together?” Elias said.

Corbin looked down towards the end of the bed where his feet made small hills under the white sheets. “Yeah. I noticed. Is um…that a bad thing?”

“It nearly got you killed.”

“But it didn’t.”

“And next time?”

“What next time? I hardly think people are going to queue up to attack because they think I’m off the market. Wait, are we actually fighting about this?”

“No! Yes! I don’t know!”

Corbin sighed and scooted across the bed slightly. “Sit down,” he said. “You’re making my head hurt jumping around like that.”

Elias stared hard at the clear patch on the bed. Then he stared at the trundle he’d been sleeping in, just next to the hospital visiting chair. Then he turned back and stared at Corbin. The man’s glasses were on the side table next to the water jug and his hair was bed mussed and pointing off in all directions. His eyes were…uncertain, and Elias thought he could see a slight tremble in his hands that he hadn’t noticed a few minutes ago.

“Keelah…” Elias breathed. “You do like me.”

Corbin sighed. “All right, yes. Fine. I do. And I get it. Sorry, I knew I—”

“You don’t even know what I really look like.”

Corbin stopped and looked up at him, a familiar glint coming into his eyes. “You have blue skin,” he said. “And I know your hair is dark, and you’re slender underneath the bulk of that suit.”

And my face?”

“You have eyes, a fairly straight nose and a mouth,” Corbin said. “You’re talented, resourceful and have a killer voice. Come on, I’ve seen Fleet and Flotilla, I know you don’t have fangs or anything under there.”

Elias laughed, and then he sighed, sitting down next to Corbin on the bed. “I have to leave eventually you know.”

“But eventually’s later,” Corbin pointed out. “For all I know we could find out that we’re great flatmates, but anything more and we start bickerin’ about finding restaurants we can both eat at. Or your snoring.”

“I do not snore!” Elias protested. “Although I can hear you through the walls if you’ve been drinking.”

Corbin laughed and reached out to give Elias a sideways hug, just like he’d done in the past. “Wait really?” he asked suddenly.

“Sort of, yes,” Elias said. “But I just use the noise dampening setting on my helmet and it works fine. How do you think I made it through your porn sessions?”

“I wore headphones!”

Elias grinned and relaxed into Cobrin’s embrace. “Gotcha.”

Corbin rolled his eyes. “Want me to share links?”

“Dunno. I have no idea if you have good taste in porn.”

“Well I… this is a really strange thing to be talking about, you know.”

“I can change the topic to something even more awkward if you like,” Elias said.

Corbin looked at him askance. “Oh?”

“I uh, sent in an audition video for Citadel’s Got Talent last night.”

“Don’t you have to be living on the Citadel for that?”

“Or be residing on a current council world and be willing to relocate at your own expense, clause eighty five subsection six,” Elias said. “And the quarian living on Earth gets in by the back door.”

Corbin’s face froze.

“What?” Elias asked.

“Nothing,” Corbin said, swallowing hard. “Um. How… how long until you leave?”

“I have to get in first, Doc.”

“You’ll get in,” Corbin said. “So…how long?”

“Four to six weeks. Depends on how long they take to pick their top one hundred. I mean, how do you pick a top one hundred out of several million entrants?”

Corbin pulled Elias closer. “They give you the winner’s trophy. Wait, is there a trophy?”

“No, just a performance contract.”

“Oh right, just a performance contract, he says.”

Elias sighed and closed his eyes. “Which may never happen,” he said. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Like what?”

“What happens now?”

Go To Chapter 5

Alien Friends (Mass Effect Collision Chapter 3)

Original Art by Ben Andrews

Friend.

It wasn’t that the word was unheard of, but Elias had never previously applied it to an alien. He’d grown up on the flotilla, of course, and his first understanding of alien races had come from systems that would give the fleet a ‘gift’ to go away, governments and companies that would call them everything from scavengers and gypsies to space trash and then hire Quarian contractors on the side. Apparently they were able to pay his people less for the same job of a local, regardless of what species that was, and the tales he’d overheard those workers tell upon their return had the same simple refrain. “Get in, do your job, keep your head down and get out with your creds. No one likes us out there.”

And until this week on earth he’d been prepared to accept that. But he was at a tiny table in the corner with Corbin, who did have a wet patch on his t-shirt where he’d leant up against the bar, and a few people had come by to congratulate him on his singing and asked if he’d be singing again, to which he’d said ‘Maybe, if I find anything that I know’ and no-one had shot him so much as a dirty look. At least, not that he’d seen. One of the bouncers had even recognised him and come to ask how he was feeling.

“Honestly didn’t think you’d pull through when I found you out back, but Doc’s a wonder, ain’t he?” to which Elias could only agree.

All in all, it was a strange night where Elias felt the city wrap it’s warm arms around him and let him into it’s heart as a young woman singing I Was Lost Without You by the human pop sensation Samantha Hallick. Given the way the tables had been set up with a view of the stage, he found himself sitting almost shoulder to shoulder with Corbin as they chatted into the evening.

“The hours! You’d think they’d warn you ‘bout the hours,” Corbin said as he took a gulp of his beer. “I always knew it would be hard work, but the amount of things you need to know? In my first year at college at the very first lecture I went to, the prof told us ‘Fifty percent of what we teach you during your time here will be incorrect. The problem is, we don’t know which fifty percent.”

“At least you went for it though,” Elias said. “I was always told I should focus on something a bit more practical. It’s odd really, we love art as much or possibly more than any other species, but we don’t have very many artists of our own.”

“Maybe that’ll change now you got your planet back,” Corbin suggested. “Is your family as musical as you are?”

“Um, no, they’re not,” Elias said, taking a sip of his latest drink. “You know this is really good, what is it?”

“Pelegrin. It’s a Turian Whiskey. I’m told it’s good, but I had to take Jimmy’s rec on that one. And I’m not sure where he got that from either. Glad it’s not some sort of rotgut.”

Elias laughed, “No, it’s probably the best drink I’ve had since getting to earth actually. Um. Where was I?”

“Your family,” Corbin said helpfully.

“Oh, right, well, I’m an only child. My mother’s an agronomist and father…died trying to retake the homeworld a few years back.”

“I’m sorry… if I’d known I wouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay, Doc,” Elias said. “I’m dealing, it’s just…it was a stupid war to begin with. The geth didn’t want to fight us anyway and if we’d just tried asking nicely, they’d probably have welcomed us back onto the homeworld. Can you figure? My people have spent nearly three centuries roaming space because we were too stupid or too proud to open up peace talks with the beings we created.”

Corbin shrugged and raised a finger. “One word: Cerberus.”

Elias laughed. “Three decades,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, because the Reapers attacked,” Corbin said. “Your people don’t have a monopoly on stupid you know.”

“Thanks,” Elias said. “I just wish we didn’t run our galactic reputation into the ground while we were figuring it out.”

A warm hand gripped his shoulder. “Hey, look around. Every time you perform, you change us aliens’ perceptions of what quarians are or what they can do.”

Elias stared at Corbin’s face for several moments. “You know I never thought about it that way. Thanks.”

Corbin smiled and seemed to relax. “What’re friends for?”

What indeed.

“Statistical analysis suggests his touch lingered twenty four point zero six seconds longer than is customary amongst human males who are just friends.”

“Shut up!” Elias squeaked.

“Sorry, did you say something?” Corbin asked.

“Um, no,” Elias said, faking a cough. “Just swallowed wrong.”

“Hey, don’t injure yourself now, I’m off duty,” Corbin said with a grin. “Plus I’m not sure how safe my resuscitation techniques would be on you given that they normally require the patient to not be wearn’ an envirosuit.”

“Your galvanic skin response suggests you would not be adverse to the human’s advances.”

This time Elias remembered to keep the conversation inside his suit. “Can we not go there? He’s just being friendly to his new flatmate. Besides, humans are visual creatures aren’t they? Even if he was interested, he hasn’t got any idea what I look like.”

“He’s already seen inside your suit.”

“What? When?”

“When he was treating you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I looked incredibly sexy while I was bleeding out.”

“I’m sure he could tell you’re in excellent physical health, Creator Elias.”

“We are not having this discussion right now.”

“Certainly, would you like me to schedule it for a later date?”

There was a silence after that question that Elias was certain was Pi laughing at him.

“No, thank you,” he said with as much dignity as possible, and went back to watching the next singer.

It was strange to have a routine, but in a few short months, Elias and Corbin had settled into one. Corbin worked his irregular shifts at the clinic, and Elias found himself working his way through the small jazz bars and lounges to the larger, posh ones in on the Lafayette side of the city, although the two men had a standing night out at Jupiter’s on Sundays. It was a night off for both of them, unless Corbin had to cover an emergency, and in a way, Elias felt he owed the bar a little something. With that performance behind him, he booked a gig there the following week, and was soon able to give up his gig at Le Alligator. He and Corbin became used to colour coding things in their tiny shared kitchen but even then, one Saturday Corbin mistakenly made a batch of bolognaise using dextro-Quorn, turning out something that neither of them could stomach biologically and sent Corbin to his own clinic with some of the worst stomach cramps he’d ever experienced.

“What did you do Doc C?” one of the nurses—Paula according to her name tag—had asked when Elias had helped Corbin in, all but holding the larger man up.

“He ate some of my food,” Elias said.

Paula tsked and Corbin was soon lying on a bed hooked up to a number of monitoring machines and given some medication that looked thick and a little lumpy and smelled sharply of chemical flavourings.

“It’s a binding agent,” one of the more senior doctors advised Elias. “It’ll coat the dextro-proteins and prevent his body from trying to process them and he’ll pass them out normally.”

Corbin groaned. “Diarrhoea?”

“Better than the alternative, Corbin.”

Corbin managed a weak grin. “Yeah, I know. Thanks Doctor Renard.”

“And you label your food now!” Paula said, from where she was using an old fashioned cuff to take Corbin’s blood pressure.

“He did, I just didn’t look properly,” Corbin said with a groan. “I was hungry and it was late and—”

Paula tsked again. “And that’s why you need a woman in your life Doc C. Someone to take care of you. Lord knows that place is barely big enough for you let alone the pair of you.”

“Yeah, me and my crippling student debt,” Corbin said. “I think I’m doomed to be single forever, Paula.”

“Oh, I don’t know doc,” Paula said as she lingered in the doorway of the room. “I’m sure there’s women out there who see your better qualities, if you know what I mean.”

Corbin had blushed furiously and moved his chart—that he’d insisted on seeing for himself—in front of his crotch.

“What was that all about?” Elias asked later when they were back home, Corbin lying on the couch and Elias sitting crossed legged on the floor with his databook, going over the latest music scans he’d downloaded that day.

“What was what all about?” Corbin asked from the couch, his face mostly covered by a damp cloth that was currently resting over his eyes and forehead. It was odd not seeing his face framed by his glasses, but then, Elias wondered how odd it would be for his friend if he suddenly started going around without this facemask.

“You and Paula?”

“She flirts with all the doctors,” Corbin said. “I guess it’s just my turn.”

“You…don’t sound particularly excited about it.”

“I’m lying on the couch, with my insides being shredded by dextro-amino acids,” Corbin said. “I’m really not thinking ‘bout women right now.”

“She seemed to think you were impressive,” Elias pressed.

“Well, you know, I’m charming, intelligent, have buns of steel…”

Elias paused. “Wouldn’t buns of steel be inedible even to humans? How is that a desirable quality in a partner?”

“Um, it’s an idiom,” Corbin said, and out of the corner of his eye, Elias could see his friend’s face flushing again. “It means… um… it doesn’t actually refer to food…um…”

“Yes?”

“Ah…”

Elias burst out laughing and Corbin scowled. “Oh that’s nice, pick on the sick guy. I should have known your translator software would know what that meant.”

“Actually, it was your Men’s Health magazines,” Elias said.

Corbin laughed and then groaned. “Bathroom?” he said, lurching off the coach

Elias scrambled to his feet and steadied his flatmate as Corbin raced for the commode. “Sometimes I wish I had a suit like yours,” he said as he pushed through the door.

“I could probably make you a half-suit,” Elias said as he left, shutting the door behind him. “You’d just have to get used to not wearing pants and having lower body sectioned off and gripped by suction seals.” Then he paused. “Actually that sounds really weird out loud, forget I said anything.”

The next day, Elias ended up at the bar on his own, and although he had a great time with Jacque and the bar regulars, it still felt a bit off kilter and he kept half turning towards Corbin, only to find the other man wasn’t there.

“What you doing out here by your lonesome, sugar?” Turning the other way, he saw Shelley and Kym, a nurse and junior doctor at the Clinic Corbin worked at. He knew Shelley fairly well, as she had been the only other person who had been allowed into the clean room where he’d convalesced other than Corbin. She was short, round and had the most infectious laugh Elias had ever heard. Kym was a slender woman of Korean descent, with delicate features, a sharp wit and, according to Corbin, some of the steadiest surgeon’s hands you could hope to have operate on you. She was a new addition to the clinic staff having come in from the west coast a few months back.

“Well, Corbin’s sick, and mostly sleeping. And… we’re always here on Sundays.”

“You mean, you’re always here on Sundays,” Kym said, sipping her daiquiri. “And he comes to watch you.”

“Well, it’s his local and he’s the one who dragged me in here six months ago, so he…wait, what do you mean, watch me? I don’t always sing.”

“That’s not what she means, sweet pea,” Shelley also seemed constitutionally incapable of calling anyone by their actual name. If she liked you. If she didn’t like you, then you got your real name. Unless she really didn’t like you, then you got a nickname that wasn’t sweet in any way, shape or form.

“Well, what does she…” Elias stopped and turned to Kym. “What did you mean?”

“Elias, Corbin’s totally into you.”

Elias shot a glance over towards the piano, but Jacques was currently in the middle of the nightly rendition of Anywhere But Here, a song from the most recent summer blockbuster that was being played non-stop on the the airwaves, and predictably popping up into all the talent show auditions globally. Just the other day, Elias had heard an audition ad on the extranet radio and it had been a medley of at least six different teenage girls singing it, each one running into the next. He doubted if more than one of them had made the first round selection. “Why does everyone keep saying that?” he asked, turning back to the table.

“Because the moment you’re around his eyes follow you around the room, sweetness,” Shelley said.

“What she said,” Kym agreed.

“But, aren’t humans visual? I mean, he doesn’t even know what I really look like under here.”

“Honey, have you seen your ass in that suit of yours? You could bounce rocks it.”

Kym’s lips pursed. “Did anyone else just go to a strange visual place?”

“I can’t believe I’m actually having this conversation,” Elias said.

“Well, if you aren’t interested, you could just tell him,” Kym said.

“But it’s not that…” Elias stopped. “If he liked me, he’d say something.”

“Honey chile, he’s saying it loud and clear. You just ain’t listening. Weren’t it you who told me you Quarians are masters of body language on account of not seeing facial cues from each other? Something ‘bout your whole body being your facial expressions.”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Treat Corbin’s body like a Quarian face that’s been frozen by botox and you’ll work it all out.”

Kym finished her drink and pushed her glass away. “Okay, I’m back at the strange visual place again. Hey, Elias, dance?”

“Huh?” Elias said, his brain also having conjured up some strange mental images.

“Dance. If you’re not singing tonight you can at least dance with the single girl.”

Elias glanced at Shelley, who waved him off. “I’m good here, sweetpea. You young’uns can go boogie. I’m just glad to be sitting down after a long day on my feet.”

Walking home through the well lit main streets was…different, and it struck Elias how safe he felt. He probably wasn’t, but he felt it. Home. Somehow, a tiny, cramped—well, by human standards—apartment in a rebuilt city on earth amongst humans had become home. Staring up into the sky he wondered which direction Rannoch was.

“It is on the other side of the earth, Creator Elias,” Pi said. “You would need to look down at your feet.”

Elias looked down at the cracked concrete of the sidewalk. “How do you always know when I’m feeling down?”

“I monitor your stress hormones, Creator Elias. I am alerted if they rise above your resting baseline.”

Elias laughed and continued down the street, the reddish leaves of fall crunching beneath his feet. “You know that you’re the only person in the universe who has ever given me a coherent answer to a rhetorical question?”

“No, Creator Elias I did not know that. Wait,” Pi said. “That was a rhetorical question, was it not?”

“Yes, Pi, that was a rhetorical question.”

“So what is bothering you, Creator Elias?”

“Should I go back to Rannoch?”

“You feel you have found something of value to planet?”

“Have you seen the ecomarket that sprung up in the shell of the rec centre?” Elias asked. “There’s so much that could be adapted to sustainable living planetside. I mean, solar paint?

“I’ve seen your notes on the chemical breakdown.”

“And then there’s the natural ventilation system ideas and that aerogel stuff? I know I can use that. I can’t believe it’s still a novelty item here and we could manufacture that stuff by the ton.”

“So why not go?”

“What if the reapers already gave all that knowledge to the Admirals?”

“What if they have not and these are true innovations?”

Elias kicked some gravel into the gutter. “I’m a bad quarian, aren’t I?”

“Is that important?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Your people have a home now, Creator Elias. They have resources and space to settle and are no longer under constant threat of ship failure, food stores running out, or well…us.”

“I know, but they still gave me everything I’ve got.”

“Then you either return to Rannoch with what you have, or you make yourself more use to your people off world than on world.”

Elias blinked. “I guess so,” he said, as he started up the stairs to the flat.

Go To Chapter 4

Alien Friends (Elias Chapter 3, Mass Effect)

Original Art by Ben Andrews

Friend.

It wasn’t that the word was unheard of, but Elias had never previously applied it to an alien. He’d grown up on the flotilla, of course, and his first understanding of alien races had come from systems that would give the fleet a ‘gift’ to go away, governments and companies that would call them everything from scavengers and gypsies to space trash and then hire Quarian contractors on the side. Apparently they were able to pay his people less for the same job of a local, regardless of what species that was, and the tales he’d overheard those workers tell upon their return had the same simple refrain. “Get in, do your job, keep your head down and get out with your creds. No one likes us out there.”

And until this week on earth he’d been prepared to accept that. But he was at a tiny table in the corner with Corbin, who did have a wet patch on his t-shirt where he’d leant up against the bar, and a few people had come by to congratulate him on his singing and asked if he’d be singing again, to which he’d said ‘Maybe, if I find anything that I know’ and no-one had shot him so much as a dirty look. At least, not that he’d seen. One of the bouncers had even recognised him and come to ask how he was feeling.

“Honestly didn’t think you’d pull through when I found you out back, but Doc’s a wonder, ain’t he?” to which Elias could only agree.

All in all, it was a strange night where Elias felt the city wrap it’s warm arms around him and let him into it’s heart as a young woman singing I Was Lost Without You by the human pop sensation Samantha Hallick. Given the way the tables had been set up with a view of the stage, he found himself sitting almost shoulder to shoulder with Corbin as they chatted into the evening.

“The hours! You’d think they’d warn you ‘bout the hours,” Corbin said as he took a gulp of his beer. “I always knew it would be hard work, but the amount of things you need to know? In my first year at college at the very first lecture I went to, the prof told us ‘Fifty percent of what we teach you during your time here will be incorrect. The problem is, we don’t know which fifty percent.”

“At least you went for it though,” Elias said. “I was always told I should focus on something a bit more practical. It’s odd really, we love art as much or possibly more than any other species, but we don’t have very many artists of our own.”

“Maybe that’ll change now you got your planet back,” Corbin suggested. “Is your family as musical as you are?”

“Um, no, they’re not,” Elias said, taking a sip of his latest drink. “You know this is really good, what is it?”

“Pelegrin. It’s a Turian Whiskey. I’m told it’s good, but I had to take Jimmy’s rec on that one. And I’m not sure where he got that from either. Glad it’s not some sort of rotgut.”

Elias laughed, “No, it’s probably the best drink I’ve had since getting to earth actually. Um. Where was I?”

“Your family,” Corbin said helpfully.

“Oh, right, well, I’m an only child. My mother’s an agronomist and father…died trying to retake the homeworld a few years back.”

“I’m sorry… if I’d known I wouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay, Doc,” Elias said. “I’m dealing, it’s just…it was a stupid war to begin with. The geth didn’t want to fight us anyway and if we’d just tried asking nicely, they’d probably have welcomed us back onto the homeworld. Can you figure? My people have spent nearly three centuries roaming space because we were too stupid or too proud to open up peace talks with the beings we created.”

Corbin shrugged and raised a finger. “One word: Cerberus.”

Elias laughed. “Three decades,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, because the Reapers attacked,” Corbin said. “Your people don’t have a monopoly on stupid you know.”

“Thanks,” Elias said. “I just wish we didn’t run our galactic reputation into the ground while we were figuring it out.”

A warm hand gripped his shoulder. “Hey, look around. Every time you perform, you change us aliens’ perceptions of what quarians are or what they can do.”

Elias stared at Corbin’s face for several moments. “You know I never thought about it that way. Thanks.”

Corbin smiled and seemed to relax. “What’re friends for?”

What indeed.

“Statistical analysis suggests his touch lingered twenty four point zero six seconds longer than is customary amongst human males who are just friends.”

“Shut up!” Elias squeaked.

“Sorry, did you say something?” Corbin asked.

“Um, no,” Elias said, faking a cough. “Just swallowed wrong.”

“Hey, don’t injure yourself now, I’m off duty,” Corbin said with a grin. “Plus I’m not sure how safe my resuscitation techniques would be on you given that they normally require the patient to not be wearn’ an envirosuit.”

“Your galvanic skin response suggests you would not be adverse to the human’s advances.”

This time Elias remembered to keep the conversation inside his suit. “Can we not go there? He’s just being friendly to his new flatmate. Besides, humans are visual creatures aren’t they? Even if he was interested, he hasn’t got any idea what I look like.”

“He’s already seen inside your suit.”

“What? When?”

“When he was treating you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I looked incredibly sexy while I was bleeding out.”

“I’m sure he could tell you’re in excellent physical health, Creator Elias.”

“We are not having this discussion right now.”

“Certainly, would you like me to schedule it for a later date?”

There was a silence after that question that Elias was certain was Pi laughing at him.

“No, thank you,” he said with as much dignity as possible, and went back to watching the next singer.

It was strange to have a routine, but in a few short months, Elias and Corbin had settled into one. Corbin worked his irregular shifts at the clinic, and Elias found himself working his way through the small jazz bars and lounges to the larger, posh ones in on the Lafayette side of the city, although the two men had a standing night out at Jupiter’s on Sundays. It was a night off for both of them, unless Corbin had to cover an emergency, and in a way, Elias felt he owed the bar a little something. With that performance behind him, he booked a gig there the following week, and was soon able to give up his gig at Le Alligator. He and Corbin became used to colour coding things in their tiny shared kitchen but even then, one Saturday Corbin mistakenly made a batch of bolognaise using dextro-Quorn, turning out something that neither of them could stomach biologically and sent Corbin to his own clinic with some of the worst stomach cramps he’d ever experienced.

“What did you do Doc C?” one of the nurses—Paula according to her name tag—had asked when Elias had helped Corbin in, all but holding the larger man up.

“He ate some of my food,” Elias said.

Paula tsked and Corbin was soon lying on a bed hooked up to a number of monitoring machines and given some medication that looked thick and a little lumpy and smelled sharply of chemical flavourings.

“It’s a binding agent,” one of the more senior doctors advised Elias. “It’ll coat the dextro-proteins and prevent his body from trying to process them and he’ll pass them out normally.”

Corbin groaned. “Diarrhoea?”

“Better than the alternative, Corbin.”

Corbin managed a weak grin. “Yeah, I know. Thanks Doctor Renard.”

“And you label your food now!” Paula said, from where she was using an old fashioned cuff to take Corbin’s blood pressure.

“He did, I just didn’t look properly,” Corbin said with a groan. “I was hungry and it was late and—”

Paula tsked again. “And that’s why you need a woman in your life Doc C. Someone to take care of you. Lord knows that place is barely big enough for you let alone the pair of you.”

“Yeah, me and my crippling student debt,” Corbin said. “I think I’m doomed to be single forever, Paula.”

“Oh, I don’t know doc,” Paula said as she lingered in the doorway of the room. “I’m sure there’s women out there who see your better qualities, if you know what I mean.”

Corbin had blushed furiously and moved his chart—that he’d insisted on seeing for himself—in front of his crotch.

“What was that all about?” Elias asked later when they were back home, Corbin lying on the couch and Elias sitting crossed legged on the floor with his databook, going over the latest music scans he’d downloaded that day.

“What was what all about?” Corbin asked from the couch, his face mostly covered by a damp cloth that was currently resting over his eyes and forehead. It was odd not seeing his face framed by his glasses, but then, Elias wondered how odd it would be for his friend if he suddenly started going around without this facemask.

“You and Paula?”

“She flirts with all the doctors,” Corbin said. “I guess it’s just my turn.”

“You…don’t sound particularly excited about it.”

“I’m lying on the couch, with my insides being shredded by dextro-amino acids,” Corbin said. “I’m really not thinking ‘bout women right now.”

“She seemed to think you were impressive,” Elias pressed.

“Well, you know, I’m charming, intelligent, have buns of steel…”

Elias paused. “Wouldn’t buns of steel be inedible even to humans? How is that a desirable quality in a partner?”

“Um, it’s an idiom,” Corbin said, and out of the corner of his eye, Elias could see his friend’s face flushing again. “It means… um… it doesn’t actually refer to food…um…”

“Yes?”

“Ah…”

Elias burst out laughing and Corbin scowled. “Oh that’s nice, pick on the sick guy. I should have known your translator software would know what that meant.”

“Actually, it was your Men’s Health magazines,” Elias said.

Corbin laughed and then groaned. “Bathroom?” he said, lurching off the coach

Elias scrambled to his feet and steadied his flatmate as Corbin raced for the commode. “Sometimes I wish I had a suit like yours,” he said as he pushed through the door.

“I could probably make you a half-suit,” Elias said as he left, shutting the door behind him. “You’d just have to get used to not wearing pants and having lower body sectioned off and gripped by suction seals.” Then he paused. “Actually that sounds really weird out loud, forget I said anything.”

The next day, Elias ended up at the bar on his own, and although he had a great time with Jacque and the bar regulars, it still felt a bit off kilter and he kept half turning towards Corbin, only to find the other man wasn’t there.

“What you doing out here by your lonesome, sugar?” Turning the other way, he saw Shelley and Kym, a nurse and junior doctor at the Clinic Corbin worked at. He knew Shelley fairly well, as she had been the only other person who had been allowed into the clean room where he’d convalesced other than Corbin. She was short, round and had the most infectious laugh Elias had ever heard. Kym was a slender woman of Korean descent, with delicate features, a sharp wit and, according to Corbin, some of the steadiest surgeon’s hands you could hope to have operate on you. She was a new addition to the clinic staff having come in from the west coast a few months back.

“Well, Corbin’s sick, and mostly sleeping. And… we’re always here on Sundays.”

“You mean, you’re always here on Sundays,” Kym said, sipping her daiquiri. “And he comes to watch you.”

“Well, it’s his local and he’s the one who dragged me in here six months ago, so he…wait, what do you mean, watch me? I don’t always sing.”

“That’s not what she means, sweet pea,” Shelley also seemed constitutionally incapable of calling anyone by their actual name. If she liked you. If she didn’t like you, then you got your real name. Unless she really didn’t like you, then you got a nickname that wasn’t sweet in any way, shape or form.

“Well, what does she…” Elias stopped and turned to Kym. “What did you mean?”

“Elias, Corbin’s totally into you.”

Elias shot a glance over towards the piano, but Jacques was currently in the middle of the nightly rendition of Anywhere But Here, a song from the most recent summer blockbuster that was being played non-stop on the the airwaves, and predictably popping up into all the talent show auditions globally. Just the other day, Elias had heard an audition ad on the extranet radio and it had been a medley of at least six different teenage girls singing it, each one running into the next. He doubted if more than one of them had made the first round selection. “Why does everyone keep saying that?” he asked, turning back to the table.

“Because the moment you’re around his eyes follow you around the room, sweetness,” Shelley said.

“What she said,” Kym agreed.

“But, aren’t humans visual? I mean, he doesn’t even know what I really look like under here.”

“Honey, have you seen your ass in that suit of yours? You could bounce rocks it.”

Kym’s lips pursed. “Did anyone else just go to a strange visual place?”

“I can’t believe I’m actually having this conversation,” Elias said.

“Well, if you aren’t interested, you could just tell him,” Kym said.

“But it’s not that…” Elias stopped. “If he liked me, he’d say something.”

“Honey chile, he’s saying it loud and clear. You just ain’t listening. Weren’t it you who told me you Quarians are masters of body language on account of not seeing facial cues from each other? Something ‘bout your whole body being your facial expressions.”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Treat Corbin’s body like a Quarian face that’s been frozen by botox and you’ll work it all out.”

Kym finished her drink and pushed her glass away. “Okay, I’m back at the strange visual place again. Hey, Elias, dance?”

“Huh?” Elias said, his brain also having conjured up some strange mental images.

“Dance. If you’re not singing tonight you can at least dance with the single girl.”

Elias glanced at Shelley, who waved him off. “I’m good here, sweetpea. You young’uns can go boogie. I’m just glad to be sitting down after a long day on my feet.”

Walking home through the well lit main streets was…different, and it struck Elias how safe he felt. He probably wasn’t, but he felt it. Home. Somehow, a tiny, cramped—well, by human standards—apartment in a rebuilt city on earth amongst humans had become home. Staring up into the sky he wondered which direction Rannoch was.

“It is on the other side of the earth, Creator Elias,” Pi said. “You would need to look down at your feet.”

Elias looked down at the cracked concrete of the sidewalk. “How do you always know when I’m feeling down?”

“I monitor your stress hormones, Creator Elias. I am alerted if they rise above your resting baseline.”

Elias laughed and continued down the street, the reddish leaves of fall crunching beneath his feet. “You know that you’re the only person in the universe who has ever given me a coherent answer to a rhetorical question?”

“No, Creator Elias I did not know that. Wait,” Pi said. “That was a rhetorical question, was it not?”

“Yes, Pi, that was a rhetorical question.”

“So what is bothering you, Creator Elias?”

“Should I go back to Rannoch?”

“You feel you have found something of value to planet?”

“Have you seen the ecomarket that sprung up in the shell of the rec centre?” Elias asked. “There’s so much that could be adapted to sustainable living planetside. I mean, solar paint?

“I’ve seen your notes on the chemical breakdown.”

“And then there’s the natural ventilation system ideas and that aerogel stuff? I know I can use that. I can’t believe it’s still a novelty item here and we could manufacture that stuff by the ton.”

“So why not go?”

“What if the reapers already gave all that knowledge to the Admirals?”

“What if they have not and these are true innovations?”

Elias kicked some gravel into the gutter. “I’m a bad quarian, aren’t I?”

“Is that important?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Your people have a home now, Creator Elias. They have resources and space to settle and are no longer under constant threat of ship failure, food stores running out, or well…us.”

“I know, but they still gave me everything I’ve got.”

“Then you either return to Rannoch with what you have, or you make yourself more use to your people off world than on world.”

Elias blinked. “I guess so,” he said, as he started up the stairs to the flat.

Go To Chapter 4

Jupiter’s (Mass Effect Collision Chapter 2)

Art by Cat Meff (Used under Creative Commons)

On Saturday morning, Elias found himself standing before a faded red door in a clean but spartan hallway.

“Well, this is the place,” Corbin said. “It ain’t much, but I figure it’s better than a boardin’ house.”

“It’s on a main road with street-lighting,” Elias said. “That’s a step up in my books.”

Out of his hazmat suit, Corbin was tall, and had a muscular upper body and a barrel chest. He wore low slung jeans and a short sleeve shirt over an old white T-shirt, and indeed, his entire look was a bit 20th century throwback, except for his shoes, which were top of the line extra padded MC42s from Micah Black. Clearly, the man dressed for comfort. Right now, he swiped his omni-tool across the lock and the door swung open, revealing a simple interior that was both cluttered and spacious. By human standards, it would be considered cramped, with a tiny living cum dining room with a kitchenette off to one side. Three doors led off the lounge behind the couch and although the floor was clean and the benchtops immaculate—or possibly unused—there was a light jumper thrown over the couch, a pile of books and a few datapads next to the couch and the shelves near the entertainment unit were filled with trinkets from around the universe.

“Where’d you get all of that?” Elias asked.

“The extranet mostly,” Corbin said, his face flushing. “I got that from an asari doctor who was stationed in London for a spell,” he said, pointing to a small greenish crystal that glimmered in the sunlight coming through the window. One day I’m hopin’ to see the universe, but the idea of hopping on a ship and leaving this all behind…”

“You can always come back,” Elias said. “That’s the point isn’t it? You leave and go off so that one day you can go back. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month. Maybe it won’t be in your lifetime even, but one day.”

Corbin looked up at him, the small cardboard box that held Elias’ possessions in his hands. “Sorry. I forgot that you didn’t have a home planet until a few years ago.”

Elias shrugged. “That’s all right. I had the fleet, cramped and overcrowded as it was. Even the rooming house was spacious in comparison.”

“Really? Wow,” Corbin shook his head. “I saw that place and I don’t think I could live there. Admittedly my spare room ain’t that much bigger, but that’s probably why no-one’s wanted to rent it off me so far.”

“What, no one?”

“No one I’d be comfortable rentin’ to, I guess,” Corbin said, leading the way across the room to the door on the far right. “Well, this is it.”

The room was probably a bit over two square metres in dimension, and had a single bed, a desk and a built in closet and not much else bar an old ceiling fan. Used to worlds of ducted airflow, he stared up at it quizzically.

“I think it looks pretty,” Corbin said placing the cardboard box on the desk. “Plus the ducts in this place can rattle something awful. This really all you got?” he asked, patting the box.

Elias nodded. “When you’re not used to a lot of space you don’t keep many things. It took me a while to get my head around credits, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t use currency,” Elias said. “On the fleet all food and resources are communal to ensure we all survive. When I have something I don’t need I take it to a plaza and leave it so that someone else can have it and vice versa. If we don’t all pull our weight our people…it’s odd to think we’ll have an economy one day.”

“Sounds to me like you all look out for one another,” Corbin said. “Wish more folk around here did that.”

When Elias took the small A4 poster from his first gig out and hung it from the wall, Corbin snapped his fingers. “Hey, I’ve read about you. La Ville gave you five stars and said you were one to watch out for.

Elias paused. “You got that from my poster?”

“The print of your face…um…mask,” Corbin said. “I didn’t get your name that time.”

Stepping back from the wall, Elias pulled out his databook and a small potted iris from the box and put them onto the desk, and carefully hung the string of red Mardi-Gras beads around the corner post of the metal bedhead.

“Well that’s me unpacked,” he said.

“Good,” Corbin said with a grin. “Now we’re gettin’ you a gig.”

The thing Elias quickly came to realise about Corbin was that the man was enthusiasm personified and within the hour he was standing by a battered black piano with a microphone in his hand. Apparently it was open mic night at one of Corbin’s favourite hangouts: Jupiter’s. It had an old world feel mixed with some industrial flavour. The floors were old wooden boards, the walls a mix of dark metal panels and a deep green paint that had probably been the height of fashion in years gone by. There were brass railings that were still polished regularly, and the crowd appeared to be regulars who knew each other, and although he got a few glances, he could see enough alien faces in the crowd to be comfortable as he walked in next to the doctor. Over on a sidetable near the piano was a number of piles of sheet music and Corbin steered him over and left him with an admonition to pick a good song while he got some drinks.

It took a while to find something that he knew, but when he brought the creased, yellowing paper up to the pianist, the wizened man smiled at him, blue eyes twinkling with a youthfulness that Elias sometimes didn’t see in people his own age.

“I don’t think anyone’s sung that number in ten years,” he said. “And up you pop. I hope you’ve got a good voice on you lad. This song deserves a good outing.”

Behind his mask, Elias smiled. “I hope I have a good voice as well. Otherwise I’ll be letting a friend down.” Over by the bar, Corbin had pushed his way to the front and was leaning over the bar to chat to the barman—and Elias was certain the front of his t-shirt would have a wet mark where the front of the bar had pressed into his abdomen.

“You’re with the Doc?” The pianist asked, adjusting his spectacles. “Well, I always did wonder.”

“I’m sorry?”

In his helmet the blue light that Pi used flickered. “If my analysis of human syntax is accurate, I believe the old musician believes you and your new flatmate are romantically involved.”

Elias was glad the tint of his helmet hid his blush.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” the pianist said. “I’m just rambling. The name’s Jacques and I’m the ivory tinkler in this here bar. Been doing it when it was a Japanese restaurant called Hong’s.”

Grateful for the subject change, Elias’ mind came to a shuddering halt. “Isn’t Hong’s a…Chinese name?” he ventured.

Jacques grinned, the lines on his face creasing into a wreath of happiness and his white teeth contrasting with his dark skin. “That it is. Was still the best tempura in town for near on a decade. Need a key change?”

“Huh?”

“Key change?” Jacques asked, pointing at the music which he’d spread out over the piano’s music desk. “Or are you good with D major?”

“I’ll cope.”

Oh Danny boy, the pipes the pipes are calling,

From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.

It took a moment to adjust to the microphone and the speakers, which although old by galactic standards, still produced a clear, clean sound. The initial nerves and concerns that Elias had about his heath and his voice and the strangeness of his location was swept away as Jaque’s fingers flew across the piano keys and there was something undeniably right about being in this old style bar with its brass and wood and non-electronic pianoforte.

The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling,

‘Tis you, ‘tis you, must go and I must bide

As he closed his eyes and let the music carry him along, Elias dimly heard the room still around him. Conversations petered out, the clinking of glasses stopped as they were placed on tables and when he opened his eyes he found himself at the pointy end of the room’s collective stares. It was somehow different to Le Alligator, where he primarily provided background music, sitting on a stool next to the pianist, an Asari maiden who typically wore dresses of red to match the decor in the bar, which appeared to be styled along the lines of a French Bordello, which was a word Elias had had to look up, and then blushed when he’d found out what it meant. It certainly explained the pictures of women in various stages of undress that adorned the wall, even if there wasn’t any hanky panky on the premises. There, people went to drink and chat and the music was background noise, much the way that the constant creak of bulkheads and the pumping rattle of old air ducts had been on the Ashru. At Jupiter’s people seemed to take their music seriously, even if most of the singers typically performed current pop songs or whatever big musical was currently playing on Broadway. Maybe he should go to New York at some point.

But come ye back, when summer’s in the meadow,

Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,

On the other hand, the older songs spoke to him in a way that newer human music just didn’t. Maybe it was the autotune or the carefully manufactured life of the pop star, churning out predictable hit after predictable hit and being seen at all the right places with a trail of media hyped relationships behind them. Sometimes he wondered if those were even real. He remembered a documentary about the celebrity machine where the human heartthrob Lance Bakkar had enlisted the help of Asari Diva and heiress Aisha Parralli to see if they could manufacture relationship rumours. All they did was go out for dinner and get in and out of the same car and they’d received two weeks of press coverage. Such was the price of celebrity.

For I’ll be here, in sunshine or in shadow,

Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so.

Was it? Was it possible to be a celebrity with integrity? Was it really only the music that mattered, or was there a cost that you paid to the machine that enabled you to make and sell enough to get to where you needed to be in order to make the music that you wanted. And if you paid too much would you ever be able to go back to the simple nights when it was just you and the piano in a dingy bar with nothing between you and the audience.

But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,

If I am dead, as dead I well may be,

If he hadn’t been singing, Elias would have laughed at himself. No Quarian had ever become a big recording artist. Best he could hope for was doing small gigs that would allow him to keep travelling the universe and doing what he loved. And maybe afford to stay somewhere where he wouldn’t get jumped in alleyways for no apparent reason. It was nice to dream, but then, the dream was scary. Idly, he wondered what he’d do if he ever came face to face with the choices of fame, but pushed it out of his head. He had a song to perform. Really perform, and not just stand and sing on autopilot.

You’ll come and find the place where I am lying,

And kneel and say an Ave there for me.

Opening his eyes, Elias glanced around the room, and felt a warm glow as he saw a clusters of rapt faces watching him, most people sitting quietly at tables. Some had music in front of them, one or two were still flipping through stacks of music, much as he had earlier, but they were the exception. Over by the bar, Corbin was standing with a drink in each hand, one in a red glass which typically signified a dextro-friendly drink. He was staring up at Elias with a strange look on his face and his mouth was hanging open. When the last note faded and the music stopped the silence at the end of the song was almost painful and he clipped the microphone back into its stand to hide the shaking in his hands and stepped back, blinking as the room erupted into applause.

“Elias with Danny Boy ladies and gentlemen,” the host said, a voluptuous black woman with short dreadlocks and a silver nose piercing. “Give it up folks!”

Elias raised a hand, and then ducked his head in an awkward half bow and then walked as fast as he dared off the stage.

“Hey, Elias, lad,” Jacques said.

“Yes?”

“You did the song proud.”

“Thanks.”

“If you like the old stuff, you should check out the library. That’s about the only place you can find music like that these days. You bring it in, and I’ll play it for you.”

That was how it started, but as Corbin descended upon him with a grin that was nearly as broad as the man’s shoulders, Elias knew the future was going to have to wait. It seemed he’d made a friend.

Go To Chapter 3