entranceway | eighth galaxy [video]

Entry tags:

eighth galaxy [video]

[The camera opens on Shepard standing against a display wall, with a bunch of chatter going on behind her. There's some text displayed, but it's too big to be seen through the limited scope of the video. She smiles, and mock salutes with two fingers.]

Gotta say, out of all the things Wonderland could've drawn from for me, this is probably the best end of the deal. So hey everybody, welcome to the Citadel. Yes, you're in space. No, you don't need a suit unless you wanna go outside, and I wouldn't recommend it.

[She swaps the video feed for a few moments to outside her surroundings, showing a crowded view of the Silversun Strip, and then back to her face.]

The Citadel's the hub of galactic government in my universe. Lots to do, lots to see. You've probably all got omni-tools, but they're pretty basic to learn. In general, try to stay away from any places that look seedy, and if it's illegal where you come from, it's probably illegal here. Otherwise, go wild. If you need directions, the holographic terminals are VI information guides. Ask 'em whatever. Or, y'know, you've got the extranet in the palm of your hands, so you can just search it yourself.

[She looks like she's gonna stop, and then grins a little bit wider.]

Oh, and one more thing...

[She steps away from the wall to show she's standing in front of a display sign. A very particular display sign.]

I re-maxed my high score at the Armax combat arena. I'll buy anyone who can beat me without cheating a free meal. Good luck.

[She winks, and cuts the feed.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She snickers, but syncs it to her omni-tool.]

Hope it's not dextro, for your sake. Be there in 10.

[She cuts the feed, grabs a skycar, and sure enough, rolls up next to him as the passenger side door opens.]

What'd you get to eat, anyway? I've been missing the hell out of some Hanar grub lately.

Fuck is dextro?

[Like dextrose? Like the food additive? Ah well, whatever. He's just gonna chow down on what appears to be a small, fried mammal or possibly a lizard on a stick.]

[It's tasty enough that he buys another and waves it at Shepard when she rolls up. He's immediately sad that she's not blaring rap music. They probably don't have rap music in this shit future. Fuck.]

Shep Shep Shep-a-lep. [He climbs in.] I don't know, but it was p-probably alive at some point, which makes it meat, which m-makes it fine in my book.

Rickety Rick. And dextro like proteins. Some aliens are dextro protein based so like, you could eat their food, but you're probably gonna throw up a lot.

[She grins at him, slides the car door closed with a button once he's inside, and starts to make for the Archives.]

So what've you picked up about the station so far?

Ugh fuck, that makes sense. No, I-I think this is just meat.

[He turns the roasted lizard over. Ah, well, guess we'll find out soon enough.]

It's cool. A-And f-fucking pristine and tyrannical and I f-fucking hate bureaucrats and I w-want to blow up that stupid ass tower.

If it makes you feel any better, I crashed my tank into that middle part over there and rammed my ship into the tower at one point. It's all in the fine print of the cover-up we're getting details on.

[Which, like, worked for her, she guesses. Everyone doesn't think she's a crazy person more than they think she's already a crazy person. She drops the car down into another lane, making a beeline for the office entrance. Less people to pay attention.]

This station's seen a lot. Part of the reason I'm so pissed they tried to smooth it over. It's disrespectful at best, genocidal at worst.

Fuck yes. Nice. W-Wreck authority. Destroy the government.

[Knock down ALL THEIR BUILDINGS.]

Th-They're bureaucrats, respect isn't in the, the job description. A-All fuckos like this care about is m-money and power and control and influence and order.

[SHE WOULD but regular people also live here and she has a lot of compassion, okay.]

You don't have to tell me the fuck twice. If they did less prattling and more of the shit I do we'd be out a lot of trouble.

[Yadda yadda some people are better suited to whatever whatever. She knows her own spiel. Regardless, she pulls the car up to the Archives quickly, setting it to park.]

Alright, so. What've I told you about the Reapers already?

[Compassion is for squares!]

Ugggghhhhhh. Galactic governments are all the same.

[Garbage.]

They're like, s-space bugs who are the size of like s-several city blocks and they can mindfuck the shit out of people and they're all about the t-total destruction of sentient lifeforms or whatever?

[NO IT'S NOT, RICK. Regardless, she nods a bit at his explanation.]

That's the base of it. One of them attacked this station what would be about a year or two ago, at this point in time. The Council tried to cover it up, but I know all the data's in here, and if Wonderland replicated everything well enough, my Spectre codes should get us through the door and past the fake shit.

[Thankfully she knows what they're looking for, or at least what the lies look like. She motions for Rick to follow as the door slides open in front of her into a rather clerical office-looking space, which Shepard does her best 'don't fuck with me' look straight through, shoulders back, feet heavy, as people move around her effortlessly as she makes it to the back door, pulling out her omni-tool as it scans for access.]

Though here. Stay with me. Don't do anything to draw attention.

Nice. S-So we should be able to at least get some fucking snippets. I can work with snippets.

[He rolls his eyes, as if offended by the notion that he would EVER draw attention to himself, and follows. He looks around the office and at some of the people around, trying to act like he's bored out of his mind, which isn't too hard because he actually is.]

[Rick you blew yourself completely up like two days after she met you, don't fuckin' play. Regardless, the door pings as it opens and she pushes him through a bit, past the receptionist and scanners into an absolutely massive vault.]

C'mon. We just have to find an out of the way terminal, and don't aggro any security bots, alright? Let me know if you see something off in a corner.

[That was special circumstances, god!]

Jesus fuck. You'd think they'd manage to j-just compress some of this stuff. Place is goddamn huge. Think I see an open one over there.

[He points.]

[YOU STILL DID IT YOU OBTUSE FUCK.]

Some of it's artifacts, but most of it's terminals under different subjects, kept under literal lock and key and separate databases to prevent hacking. The more secure stuff is all closed-system so you have to come in and physically change it.

[Which certainly slowed her clone down when she had to break in to change her fingerprints. Regardless, she makes sure they're not being tailed, and leads him over to the terminal, syncing her omni-tool with the database and beginning the search.]

You gonna record this somehow or just try and remember it? I don't wanna have it up very long or someone might come asking questions.

[EAT MY SHORTS.]

Artifacts, alright, th-that makes more sense. Fucking museums.

[He taps the phone-converted-into-omnitool thing.]

I'll download it and take it back. M-Maybe make a hard copy CliffsNotes version.

[YOU EAT YOUR SHORTS. Regardless, she continues to poke through until she makes a small 'ah' noise, and the terminal springs to life, projecting a picture of the Citadel station and, in front of it, a truly massive bug-like creature. As it appears, an audio overlay file begins to play. Shepard lets it go with rapt attention.]

So this is what they told everyone. That it was just a ship.

[If Rick remembers the name of her ship, he might see the quirk of a smile at it's commendation of "the commander and crew of the SSV Normandy". Regardless, as it hits it's last line, she waves her omni-tool over it, and the terminal sputters, the audio distorts, and changes to "SPECTRE ACCESS CODE DETECTED; UNLOCKING DEEP FILES" and pulls onto the real audio records. (It'll play the sections Reapers, Sovereign, and Indoctrination, which Shepard will stand, arms behind her back at attention, and simply let wash over her. As soon as it finishes, the terminal switches back to the first recording, and simply shows a simulation of the station again.]

So that's our start. What do you think?

Edited (i fucked the html) 2017-06-04 04:32 (UTC)

[He sits and leans back as he studies the files and listens to the audio.]

Sure, yeah, d-definitely a ship. Fucking idiots.

[He listens to the real records then, taking mental notes. Most of this is stuff Shepard has already told him, but some of it is new. Enough to be worth noticing.]

Not bad, but what about b-b-biological data? Thing that big must have left a giant fuckoff corpse. There's really no like, bits of it left?

The problem with keeping it is that any part of a Reaper, even derelict or separated from the host ship, can indoctrinate someone. Keeping it's incredibly dangerous. But... if our next stop exists yet, they should have a piece kept under a containment field. As long as the lab's there, I can make up some Spectre bullshit to get us in. I just know timeline-wise that I didn't end up there for another two years. There's a possibility the piece isn't there yet... though there might be one other place to look.

[She remembers there was an artifact found in Udina's office, too, but getting in there with a random scientist would be a lot harder, seeing as she's never liked Udina and she's pretty sure Udina has never liked her.]

You got what you need here? I don't wanna give security more time to figure out what I'm accessing unless they decide to get uppity.

Some overcomplicated bullshit i-is what that is. Fucking clever, not, not leaving a safe corpse, i-it's like those beetles that explode when they die. Motherf-fuckers.

[He taps his omnitool and the hologram fades.]

Yeah, I got what I needed. Let's s-see this piece of wormfuck, i-if it exists.

We've got those too, by the way. Rachni explode into acid if you don't take 'em from a distance.

[The universe is a horrifying place my dude. But she closes down the terminal, makes sure it's wiped, and takes a quick glance around before motioning him to follow her back out the way they came to the car, kicking it into gear quickly when they're there. She has no idea if her stuff's being monitored for working with Cerberus or not, but at least she'll only need to avoid flags on her fake accounts for a few days.]

Just promise me you're not going to look at this thing and start calling it your overlord or anything. The only cure for indoctrination is a bullet to the head.

Hahaha holy fuck.

[He follows her, deftly avoiding mocking any of the staff, and rolls his eyes at the suggestion that he might be down for mindfuck.]

Please, i-if it came to that I'd fucking do it myself. I've inoculated myself against s-s-seven different kinds of mind control and I'm fucking positive I can come up with a vaccine for this piece of shit spacebug too.

Hey, I believe you, but the warning should be out there. It's not that I don't trust you, I've just never seen anybody develop an individual cure for this thing. I've seen people resist it, take longer to turn, or break it for minutes at a time. There are ways to put barriers around it on pieces, too, but... once the corrosion is done, it's done.

[She flies down the middle of the presidium, thinking about what she's seen. Matriarch Benezia begging to be killed for what she's done. Saren, raising the gun to his own head as he forces his arm under his chin. Udina, screaming in front of the skycar, his plan foiled. People degraded, taken away from themselves. She's been through more Reaper presence than most, herself-- who knows how close she is on some invisible meter to where she might stop fighting.]

It's just rough to see. I wouldn't want to have to take you out for a situation I got you in.

W-Well you have full fucking permission to blow my brains out if I get all mind-fucked.

[Seriously, he'd rather be dead for a few days than beholden to some dumbass spacebugs.]

If y-you've been around them so much how come you're not affected? There must be some, some kind of im-MUURRRRHHH-unity.

Same.

[That's all that probably needs to be said on the matter. She'd rather be dead than beholden to the Reapers. The damage she could do, from her position... it's too much to think about. So she won't, and addresses his next question instead.]

Honestly, I haven't the slightest. I'm going with a mix of pure dumb luck, my body being 60% cybernetics, and the fact that every time I think about a Reaper I'm consumed entirely by spite.

Spite's a powerful fu-fucking thing. Y-You can go real far on nothing but spite.

[Like waging an entire war, or planning the downfall of an entire government.]

Trust me, I fuckin' know it.

[She pulls the skycar down suddenly, and around to a grassy landing pad outside of a long string of glass doors, climbing out as soon as it's landed.]

Looks like the lab's here. Let's see if anyone's inside.

[She steps towards the door and it opens automatically as her omni-tool makes a small 'ping', proving her access codes were still active. She scans the lab space proper at first, and then takes a sharp left through a small hallway into a much bigger, lofted room... and to exactly what she's looking for, sitting in the containment field like always.]

Bingo. That's what we were here to find. Bona-fide Reaper bit, in a containment field. If someone shows up, I'll do the talking.

eighth galaxy [video]

[video - private --> action!]

[video - private --> action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]

[action!]