“You told her WHAT?!” Troy yelled in my ear.

Let me back up a bit. After my conversation with Shepard, Kaidan, and Liara, I promptly went back down to the barracks and woke Troy, alerting him to the fact that we were arriving at the Citadel. A million questions had followed, the foremost being what had happened to Kaidan and precisely what I had revealed to Shepard in our little meeting, but I managed to keep the tide at bay by telling him that Kaidan was all right and we would catch up once we had a few minutes to ourselves.

We’d then headed to depressurization, passing Joker as we did—damn but I still wanted to talk to that guy!—and met Shepard and the others. Oddly enough depressurization didn’t seem to make much of a difference, as I later learned that the Citadel’s gravity was only slightly lighter than earth’s. I thought it a bit odd, considering that a lot of species surely came from more high- or low-pressure worlds. I mean, the volus had to wear exo-suits just so their flesh wouldn’t split apart, and the elcor could probably jump a good fifty feet because of the extremely high gravity on their planet. Although I suppose that, considering the majority of spacefaring species were bipedal, it made some bit of sense that gravity would be similar on our different worlds, barring a few oddballs.

After depressurization, the door slid open and we stepped foot on the Citadel. At first I was sure we’d just entered another room on Normandy, which essentially we did; it was just the docking tube linking us to the Citadel. Then I was suddenly met with the sight of at least two dozen people—and now when I say people, I don’t just mean humans. Turians, salarians, asari, even a hanar in the corner and possibly a drell sitting on a chair in the reception area. Such a huge place, and they were all just hanging out waiting to get a shuttle to their homeworlds. News of the invasion had spread quickly apparently. Naturally the first thing everyone wanted to do was go home and be with their families before the war hit the homefront.

That wasn’t the only view that had my mind racing. Just to our left after exiting the Normandy, a length of glass spanned about forty feet allowing a view of the entire Ward arm. It was beyond surreal. Not only were we in space—there was a massive surface littered with skyscrapers and lights of every color imaginable. I’ve been to a couple big cities, and this was easily the biggest yet. Reminded me a bit of Chicago, minus all the water. Just empty space beyond the density of huge towers.

And to think, this was only one Ward. There were four more, plus the Presidium. Granted, not as many people lived on the Presidium, but still. The Citadel wasn’t just a trading post; it was a country, complete with its own culture, multiracial political climate, financial institutions . . . Just one look out the window and I knew I didn’t belong here. I’m a small-town Missouri kid, for God’s sake. Too much time on the Citadel and I’d be chewed up and spit out like tobacco.

Troy had had the same expression on his face as well. Just the sight of shuttles flying from building to building, the neon lights that could be seen even at this distance, and the massive crowds of people was beyond reason. You could truly get lost in a sea of faces in this place.

“It’s something to see, isn’t it?” Shepard had asked. We were in a hurry and I knew it, but there was no stopping our first look at the Citadel.

All I could do was nod and whisper, “Yeah.”

If our plan didn’t work, everyone on this station was going to die in a few short months. Nothing like the responsibility of a few million lives in the immediate vicinity to overwhelm you.

“Come on,” Shepard said. “We have to go.”

We tore ourselves away from the window at her urging and followed through decontamination and the security screening toward the elevator. Oddly enough, no Bailey there to greet us. Maybe Joker had already talked to him when we were requesting permission to dock, which would make sense. Why would the Council send a guy down there to talk to us when they could just pick up the phone? Useless waste of time and energy.

The elevator ride had been a long one, and I’m pretty sure we changed direction more than once. This was no regular elevator, you understand—this shit was straight out of Willy Wonka, going forward, backward, and side to side in addition to up and down. On a station like the Citadel, uneven as it was, I suppose that was a necessity. Unless you just wanted to fly a shuttle everywhere.

Oh shit. I was gonna have to get behind the wheel at some point.

Soon enough, the elevator skidded to a halt and we stepped into another reception area, this one for the human embassy on the Citadel. Amazing how receptionists manage to always portray that façade of pleasantness despite having to deal with ignorant, uncaring people every second of the day. Even more amazing that the majority of those receptionists were asari rather than human. Of course, being the most commonly accepted race in the galaxy due to their influence and cultural entanglements of a rather physical nature, asari were the logical candidates to work in any race’s embassy.

Following Shepard’s lead, we veered to the right trailing the group and up a rather lengthy staircase into a final hallway. On the left were doors leading to Bailey’s office and the secret Spectre room, and on the right was Anderson’s office. Damn but this place looked nice. Not a hint of dirt or dust on any surface in sight, no trash whatsoever; almost appeared that no one ever visited this part of the station except to clean it. Generally in huge cities—which, make no mistake, is exactly what it was—nothing is spotless. People are chaotic and messy forces of nature. Perhaps it was just the fact that I’d worked maintenance so much in the past, but it didn’t seem physically possible that everything could remain so pristine.

Then again, we were in space. Between depressurization and decontamination, I doubt a single molecule of bacteria ever made it further than the airlocks. Certainly with this many species living in harmony, any cross-contamination could be lethal. It made me wonder how the Citadel could cater to everyone’s life support needs without introducing the risks involved with certain everyday viruses and bacteria. Surely there had to be more than just the volus and quarians whose immune systems couldn’t adapt to cross-species bacteria. Or perhaps our protein structures were all similar enough that such things didn’t matter. To simply be able to all breathe oxygen was a monument to the fact that our cellular structures had to be more similar than I’d first imagined.

But alas, the vague notions I have of science and curiosity are getting the better of me. In truth I don’t know much at all about chemistry or biology—definitely not about alien adherence to our standards. I guess the point was: how the fuck were we all so different yet able to live in the same atmosphere completely unaffected by each other? Maybe I’d need to take a few lessons on xenobiology and how it works in unison with human systems.

In any event, we had entered Anderson’s office only to find an asari awaiting our arrival. After an extremely brief chat, Shepard and company headed off to a shuttle bound for the Council Chambers, leaving Troy and I alone in the office.

That was when I’d broken the news. I told Troy everything that had transpired in my conversation with Shepard; that according to how I’d described it, we were information gatherers who’d managed to stay in the shadows; that we knew everything she did about the Reapers, plus a little extra; that we had a way to stop them; that we would need to find the Catalyst and try to find a way to get the Council’s support for the Crucible.

Which brings us back to the moment.

“You told her WHAT?!”

I didn’t think I was supposed to answer. After my five-minute spiel detailing everything in my talk with Shepard, Troy had stared at me dumbfounded for several seconds. Only when I opened my mouth again did he resort to raised voices in order to stop me from making it worse. We had agreed to fill the crew in on a few things so the Reapers would have less of a bite, but we’d never discussed going into specifics; certainly not mentioning the Catalyst or the beacon on Thessia. Those were two of the major reveals of the game, and trifling with them so early on was sure to cause some chaos. Even if we didn’t fully understand how our actions might affect the outcome of the war, both of us knew the potential of our monumental capability to fuck things up. By the look on his face, Troy thought I had already started us down that road.

“So let me get this straight,” he continued, emphasizing each word. “Not only did you lie explicitly by saying we’ve been to other planets and found prothean tech, you told Shepard about the beacon on Thessia and the Catalyst? What if they fucking find the thing?! What if the Crucible isn’t built yet so it doesn’t find its way out or whatever, and then decides to just blow up the entire fucking Citadel because it thinks we’re worthless?”

“Okay, for one thing, I didn’t exactly lie,” I argued, even though it was a flimsy attempt. “We have been there. Kind of, in a way. But all that aside, if I hadn’t mentioned the Catalyst or given some tangible proof to back up my story, I never would’ve gained Shepard’s trust.”

“And you think she really trusts us?”

“Well we’re here, aren’t we? We’re on the fucking Citadel, dude, waiting to speak with one of the Councilors. I’d say that counts as a bit of trust, yeah?”

His face flexed in frustration and he turned to head toward the window at the far end of the room overlooking the Presidium ring. It was a gorgeous sight really. The “ceiling” of the ring was actually a virtual display of a garden world sky, giving you the feeling that you were outside on a beautiful sunny day. White cumulus clouds rolled lazily by against a blue backdrop, and seeing as there were several garden zones littered with foliage and ponds absolutely everywhere, it was easy to get lost in the idea that we weren’t even in space. It all felt too comfortable considering what was going to happen to this place in the future.

Troy was probably imagining the same thing as we stared out the glass. Every one of the people walking down these streets was destined to die at the hands of Cerberus or the Reapers. I mean, maybe some of them managed to hide or get to evacuation, but the fact remains. Millions of lives.

“That’s why I told her,” I said, staring out the window with one arm leaning against it. “Whether we make things better or worse, we’ll be trying. Maybe if we just try hard enough something good will actually come out of it.”

No argument from his end, at least. More than likely it wasn’t the fact that I’d revealed those little morsels that worried him, but rather how it would affect the chain of events down the road. However, given that those events were pretty shitty even without our interference, there wasn’t much that could be said for just letting it all happen naturally.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. We were fucked either way, so might as well go with the option that had a sliver of a chance to make things better.

The next half hour or so was spent going over everything we knew about history according to the games and what we could do to improve upon that history. It occurred to me only minutes into our discussions that we actually had no idea what had happened, seeing as Mass Effect was a game with consequences based on the player’s actions as Shepard. We were no longer in control of those actions, so events could have played out in a number of ways. Shepard had given us both standard-issue Alliance omni-tools shortly before heading to her meeting in case she needed to reach us for whatever reason, and after a rather lengthy period of time just figuring out how to work the damn things, we managed to get linked up to the future’s version of Google. There we were able to learn a few things about the past, but a huge majority of Shepard’s hunt for the Reapers was obviously classified. We’d have to ask her sometime about a few specific events that were crucial to understanding where the galaxy stood.

From what we could glean, it seemed Shepard was the epitome of a Paragon character. She’d saved the colonists on Feros from the Thorian rather than wiping them all out, which likely meant she’d released the rachni queen as well, and had decided to save the Council in the Battle of the Citadel several years ago. That one should have been apparent since she’d mentioned Tevos by name, but overwhelmed by all the possibilities, it had slipped my mind until I read about it in a news article published at the time of the attack.

The events of Shepard’s cooperation with Cerberus were way harder to come by. Seeing as she had essentially been working as a deep-cover Spectre agent in the Terminus Systems, almost everything she did was classified. We were able to find out a few things by rumor and speculation, the largest being that she’d had an audience with the quarian flotilla and managed to open a line of communication between them and the Alliance, so Tali was probably still a member of the Fleet. Or likely Admiral by now, taking her father’s seat on the board. Just from the general way everyone spoke about Shepard and the few bits of important news we could find, it was safe to say that she’d done everything a pure light-side player would have done. All possible crew members saved, the Collector Base destroyed, the genophage data saved, so on and so forth. Working with that assumption, we had a fairly more concrete timeline to map out.

We started by going over the events of the game as they were supposed to happen chronologically had we not interfered: the mission to Palaven, Sur’Kesh, Tuchanka. Then the Cerberus assault on the Citadel, the quarian/geth conflict, Thessia, the Illusive Man’s base, and finally, earth.

The krogan/turian/salarian situation was surely the least of our worries. We could inform Shepard about Mordin assisting Wrex with the genophage cure without much repercussion, although we would definitely want to stay out of the picture on that one. Wrex and the rest of the krogan would be in an uproar if two strange humans began helping them for no reason, and even more trouble would follow if we told them everything we knew about their infrastructure and how Wrex was planning to cure his people. All we could do in that situation was warn Shepard about Cerberus’ interference and reveal the Shroud as the quickest way to disperse the cure once Mordin developed it. Unfortunately the game didn’t go into detail about the chemistry behind the genophage or its cure, so it wasn’t like we could help develop it faster.

As for the Cerberus attack on the Citadel, all we could do was warn the Council to be on high alert and have C-Sec vet humans in positions of influence or power that potential sleeper agents would want to be in. It’d be a huge undertaking and increase suspicion against humanity, but if they wanted the station to be safe, it would have to happen.

The geth/quarian conflict was a bit more of a problem. If I remembered the timeline correctly, I knew they weren’t at war yet, but it was soon to happen. We could attempt to persuade the quarians not to attack the geth and instead set up a meeting between them, which could potentially avert the war altogether, but it seemed like a pipe dream. It’d be awesome, because that would completely eliminate the need for Legion’s death among hundreds of other geth and quarians, but unlikely. In more practical terms, we could warn Shepard about the Reaper Destroyer on Rannoch so the war could be considerably easier to manage. That one sounded a lot more feasible.

Then there was Thessia. Honestly, we’d eliminated the need to go there by revealing the secret of the beacon. They’d still need help with the war, of course, but the same could be said of every planet under Reaper attack.

Horizon. We could tell Shepard about the indoctrination going on there and shut it down early. It’d deal a blow to Cerberus and via proxy, the Reapers. And speaking of Cerberus, we needed to confront the Illusive Man. The sooner we took him out, the less trouble we would have along the way.

Of course, all of this would be rendered useless if we somehow managed to finish the Crucible early and deploy it. But considering how much trouble Shepard has in the game getting the resources needed to build the damn thing, that didn’t seem likely.

And damn. I hadn’t even gotten around to the myriad of side missions in the game. Each was equally as important as anything else in their own ways, and I was stuck trying to figure out the best order in which to do everything. Obviously we had to go to Palaven first to work on the turians and krogan, seeing as that was a Cerberus-free mission and necessary to gain turian support. From there it would probably make sense to take down Horizon and the Illusive Man’s base, and then we could deal with the quarians and geth. But then, the more time we wasted on one mission, the worse things got elsewhere in the galaxy. Time was not on our side.

We must have spent over an hour talking, throwing out ideas, and then cursing ourselves for coming up with a load of nonsense and impossibilities. This could never work. There was no way to make any significant changes or expedite the process of winning the war. The best we could do was make things easier on Shepard. Hopefully.

Once we’d damn near exhausted ourselves by this maddening endeavor, the door at the opposite end of the room slid open with a hiss. Troy and I snapped to attention, leaping to our feet to conceal the fact that we had, only moments earlier, been reclining lazily and quite pitifully on the plush couches across from the Councilor’s desk. People laugh at this, but critical thought is draining. The brain is the most important muscle of the human anatomy, and using it—just like any other—fatigues you immensely. Why do you think it’s so tiring to read and write?

Luckily Shepard was first to enter the room and even if she did see a bit of informality, by that point I was sure she wouldn’t have cared. Councilor Tevos followed soon after, dressed in a long form-fitting blue dress that accented her skin color perfectly. What the hell was it with asari, tight clothes, and the color blue? In any event, she looked elegant as all hell, and coming from me that means something. I’m not the kind of guy to usually notice the refined side of life.

The two of them stopped just in front of Anderson’s desk, turned to face us. By the curiosity in her eyes and the relaxation of her body language, I didn’t think Tevos had been let in on the good news yet. Great. Not only would we have to convince her of our honesty, we’d have to tell her we were the ones who had uncovered her government’s biggest secret. That was sure to go over well.

“Councilor,” Shepard enunciated. “This is Troy and Donovan, the ones I told you about.”

I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for us to shake the Councilor’s hand or not, so I decided that unless she initiated the exchange, I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself. Handshakes might mean something totally different to another culture, after all. It could be the equivalent of flipping the person off, and that was not a risk I was going to take with the asari Councilor.

“I see,” Tevos said. Her voice was steady and resolute; if there was any doubt as to why she was attending this meeting, it didn’t show. “So you are the humans who uncovered knowledge of the beacon on Thessia.”

I swear I felt my face twitch. Shepard had told her everything and she still walked into this room completely unfazed by it? Christ, we were in trouble. Holding secret truths and using the surprise of their knowledge was our best weapon, and Tevos had just rendered it completely useless. Fucking politicians. We could probably tell her that a Reaper was going to be destroyed on Tuchanka by a massive Thresher Maw and she wouldn’t even bat an eye.

So with our leverage pretty much completely inert at this point, why was she even here? I mean, there had to be some significance to the revelation that two humans knew about the beacon, otherwise Tevos wouldn’t have come. But asari always had a reason for every action and contingencies should their maneuverings fall by the wayside. The concern was what she wanted from us, as she knew we had planned on stunning her into manipulation to find the Catalyst.

Not my best moment, fully embracing the idea of manipulating one of the most powerful people in the galaxy, but life demands what it will of you.

“That’d be us,” I said. “I’m sure you’d like to know exactly how we managed to do so, but that would be a long and boring conversation. Why don’t we talk about what that beacon pointed us toward, instead?”

“Indeed,” Tevos said, pacing toward the window behind Anderson’s desk. “Commander Shepard informed me of your findings with the beacon. I must say I am impressed. It has taken our wisest matriarchs centuries just to glean what little we have learned. As there are very few relics of the prothean language, it has been difficult to translate even the simplest of ideas.”

“That’s because the protheans communicated a lot just by touch,” Troy said. “I’m blanking on what the technical term is, but they had the ability to communicate thoughts, ideas, even memories just through physical contact. Somewhat similar to the asari mind meld, but less involved. Barely took a second for them to transfer complex ideas from one individual to another. Eventually they learned to harness their abilities to interface with technology, which explains the beacons. Any non-prothean who hasn’t received the Cipher would barely be able to understand it—hell, they’d be lucky not to be killed by the overload to their brain.”

Tevos’s head raised slightly as if to say, “Ah, no wonder.” In an ideal world she would realize that the possibilities of everything we had to offer far outweighed the consequences of trusting us if we were working for Cerberus or the Reapers. However real life is far from utopia, even if we were living in a future where interstellar travel had become an everyday occurrence.

“And this weapon the Alliance found in the Archives on Mars,” Tevos mused, “the protheans believed it was capable of stopping the Reapers when joined to the Catalyst mentioned in the beacon.” In all honesty I had expected a question, but the Councilor stated it as simple fact. She believed it, or at least she was entertaining it as a possibility. Politicians have to consider every angle, I suppose.

I also wanted to tell her that it wasn’t even a matter of belief—the weapon did work, Troy and I had seen it firsthand—but according to the personas we’d established, all we had was the protheans’ word.

“They did,” I replied with a nod. “All the evidence seems to support it, and if we can find the Catalyst I’m sure it’ll tell us the same thing.”

“You understand my hesitation in this matter, I’m sure. Now that the Reapers are here we can hardly ignore anything that might aid us, but they are an enemy unlike any we have ever known. Not only do they outnumber and outgun us, they have it within their ability to turn us against each other. After seeing what Sovereign did to Saren, suspicion is at the forefront of the Council’s thoughts. It is overwhelming to think of all the individuals we may not be able to fully trust anymore.”

Or trust at all, I thought, finishing what Tevos undoubtedly meant to say. She brought up a good point, though. How did we know she wasn’t indoctrinated? It would make sense, given the Council’s complete disregard for everything Shepard had uncovered in the last few years. Here they were determining whether or not to trust us when we should have had the same suspicions about them. Hell, what about the Indoctrination Theory? Shepard could have been an unwitting agent of the Reapers for all we knew.

I dismissed the thought easily. This wasn’t our world anymore; it was the world of Mass Effect, and as unhappy as fans had been about the ending, that’s the way it was. We could trust Shepard, end of story. The Council, on the other hand . . .

No, I couldn’t go down that line of thought either without something to back it up. Trial and error had to be our foundation for determining the do’s and don’ts. If we were met with resistance, we’d know something was wrong, but so far Tevos had shown nothing but acceptance and a willingness to listen. That was a miracle in and of itself.

“We understand perfectly,” Troy said, answering while I was lost in my mind again. “We know how this all has to look, but the Reapers are here and they aren’t going to give us time while we sit around and interrogate each other to find out who we can trust. Right now we need to look at who’s trying their hardest to stop the Reapers and go with the options that present themselves. We’ll learn who to put our faith in from there.”

A damn good line of reasoning if I had ever heard one.

Fuck the wait-and-see approach, let’s do some shit and work everything else out as we go. Hell, we’re practically living in a revitalized Wild West era. If someone screws us over Shepard can just shoot ‘em in the face and keep going.

It wasn’t as simple as all that, of course, and I knew it, but I was getting tired of playing the indecisive bullshit game despite only having been part of it for about five hours. When you’re not used to finessing people into action it gets old quick. Little did I know, I was about to learn that everything gets irritating when you’re at war.

A slight tremor shook through my bones for an instant, and had I not seen the others flinch at the same movement I would’ve assumed it was just my body’s reaction to being in such a tense state. Shepard and Tevos both looked puzzled, as if something monumental and unexpected had just happened and they were caught like a deer in the headlights.

“What was that?” I asked.

At the same moment Shepard got a ping on her omni-tool. She raised her arm, pressed the flashing holographic light, and disappeared into her conversation with whoever had called her. The rest of us waited in silence, Troy and I with absolutely no clue why a sense of urgency seemed to pollute the room and Tevos with mild surprise playing behind her eyes.

Was something wrong? Were we in danger? Why in the hell did it seem like some crazy shit was about to go down when we still had convincing to do and a Catalyst to find? For the love of God, couldn’t the universe just cut us some slack once in a while?!

Finally Shepard faced Troy and I, giving us a solemn look, and uttered, “Let’s go.”

Nope, no slack whatsoever. Thanks, universe. If karma can affect a soulless object, I hope it bites you in the ass one day.

“Go where?” I knew I wasn’t going to get a reply, but it was more logical than asking what the fuck was going on and why the fuck we even had to go anywhere.

Shepard snatched her pistol quickly with one hand and opened her omni-tool with the other, scanning through it for something unbeknownst to me. Tevos activated her own, presumably to feel like part of the loop, and her brows cringed at the result.

“I can’t get through to anyone,” the Councilor said. “Commander, what is happening?”

As if in reply, Shepard dug around in one of the small pouches on her waist and brought out two flat disks, then threw them to Troy and I. “Noticed you didn’t have any shield emitters,” she explained. “Put these on. They’re not top-of-the-line, but they’ll protect you from a shot or two.”

Troy and I exchanged worried glances while fastening the devices to the belt loops on our jeans. Getting prepared for a firefight could only mean one thing.

“Cerberus, or the Reapers?” I asked.

Shepard gave me a solemn look, the first real expression of dread I’d seen her display so far. “Both.”

I had to squint, as if looking at her more closely would change what I’d heard. Reapers and Cerberus? At the same time? So fucking early?! It didn’t make sense! Perhaps the Illusive Man had decided that striking with some modicum of surprise would be his greatest advantage seeing as the AI was unable to transmit the data from Mars, but there was no reason for the Reapers to join them. For all intents and purposes, the Citadel practically was a Reaper. Or at least, inhabited and controlled by the same artificial being that commanded them.

“Both?” I asked, just to make sure. No reply. “That doesn’t make sense, I . . . ”

Honestly, I didn’t know what to think. Not only was something happening that caught me completely off-guard, I had no idea how in the hell we were supposed to deal with it. All our planning had assumed that everything would happen as the game described it, and I suppose that brought a sense of security to a terrifying situation. Now that the unexpected had become reality, that security vanished and was replaced by a new kind of fear; the kind that comes from being in serious peril with no escape plan.

“This isn’t the time,” Shepard said, strutting to the door confidently. She turned briefly to address Troy and I. “The station’s under attack. Right now our priority is getting the Council to safety, which means making it back to Normandy in one piece.”

“But Commander,” Tevos interrupted, even though Shepard’s attention was now on covering the door. “What of the others? Sparatus and Valern? If they don’t make it through this assault the political climate will be rendered useless. There will be even more resistance attempting to coordinate any effective military strategy against the Reapers.”

“I’m sure that’s what they’re counting on,” Shepard said, fiddling with her omni-tool. “I’m patching you all in to the Normandy’s comm channel. The rest of my team is working on securing the other Councilors.”

“Wait, we aren’t gonna try to save the station?” Troy asked. I was thinking the same thing, seeing as Shepard repels the Cerberus invasion quite easily, but with the Reapers banging down the door as well . . .

“There are six capital ships closing in on us as we speak,” Shepard said. “Even with C-Sec and the turian defense forces, the Citadel is already lost.”

I can’t even begin to describe how overwhelmed I was in that moment. Not only did I have no clue what the fuck was happening or why, we were essentially abandoning the Citadel to the Reapers, along with the millions of people trapped on board. Courtesy of the Reaper IFF Shepard had picked up in her hunt for the Collectors, the Normandy was safe, but any other vessel attempting to escape would likely be destroyed without a second thought. Even if we attempted to evacuate the station, the Normandy was one ship that could fit maybe a couple hundred people if they all crammed every inch of space available.

It was unbelievable. My better half screamed inside my head and my chest caved in as if all the life was being sucked out of it. We’d just taken a shot to the spine that would leave us paralyzed no matter what the outcome. Everyone aboard was going to die, and we’d lose the Catalyst before we even began building the Crucible, effectively rendering that entire plan inert. The sudden thought that Troy and I had completely doomed this cycle to extinction raced through my mind a million times like a song stuck on repeat. This would never have happened if we hadn’t been there.

As much as I know you all love seeing me wallow in self-pity, the Reapers weren’t going to allow me much time to think about my fears and failures. A voice came in on the comm, which seeing as I now had a microscopic implant in my ear linked to my omni-tool, I was able to hear as if he were in the room with me.

“Commander, it’s Kaidan.” In addition to his voice I could hear the sounds of mass effect-propelled slugs being fired and the occasional explosion. “We’ve got Valern, but there are more problems than solutions at the moment. Sparatus was headed your way last time anyone saw him and we’re pinned down by a few dozen of those batarian things. We’re gonna have a hard enough time just getting back to the Normandy.”

“Copy, what about Cerberus?” Shepard quickly asked. While this was a dire moment, she’d seen dozens of similar ones and was focused on nothing but the task ahead of her.

“Sounds like they got here just before the Reapers did,” Kaidan replied. “Took them by just as much surprise. It’s chaos out here, Shepard, so watch your back.”

“You too Kaidan.”

Then it was all business. Shepard hit the door panel before I even had time to process what had happened, and we were all alerted to the fact that the fight wasn’t isolated to wherever Kaidan and the others were. I could hear screams, gunshots, the scuffling of soldiers—whether enemy or ally, I wasn’t sure—and it brought Vancouver to the forefront of my mind. A sense of nauseating dread filled my gut at the thought of us four actually going out into all that madness.

“Stay close to me,” Shepard addressed the group at large. “You see anything that looks hostile, find cover and stay down. Especially you, Councilor.”

We all nodded, taking one last breath in this room of relative comfort and safety before tentatively following Shepard into the hallway. Even from there we could see Reaper drones—Cannibals and Marauders—taking aim at the civilians and presumably C-Sec officers in the lobby ahead. As horrible as the din of war was, my mind had numbed in response to the emotions threatening to paralyze me. All I felt was the distant beating of my heart and the wall formed in the back of my head to keep anxiety and fear out. Enduring mental illness does tend to make you a bit stronger in that regard.

Shepard advanced, motioning for Tevos to stay back. I suppose Troy and I weren’t quite as important. As we reached the top of the staircase it became clear that C-Sec was losing the fight; bodies littered the ground, both Reaper drones and sentient individuals, but much fewer drones. Everyone was still getting used to fighting Reapers.

Following our fearless leader, we began descending the staircase. Despite wanting to stay out of all the action, I found myself thinking I’d feel much more comfortable holding a gun. The thought was only increased when the first drone took notice of us and Shepard summarily put two rounds in its head.

The sudden death of one of their comrades alerted the rest of the squad in the lobby that they faced a new threat, so propelled by a surge of adrenaline, we all flew down the staircase and darted for the nearest cover: a lengthy reception desk that ran along the adjacent wall. With my back to the protection I could feel the other side being riddled with bullets. Two of the Reapers’ main targets were in this room, and they weren’t going to let them slip away easily.

Shepard popped up from cover momentarily, squeezing off a few shots, before ducking back down to let her shields recharge. I hadn’t taken a proper count of our enemies in all the chaos, but I knew there were at least a dozen out there. Even with all her badassery, Shep couldn’t take them all alone. What video games fail to mention is that if one person is up against multiple individuals in a firefight, it’s damn near impossible to win, especially with such limited positions of safety. See, twelve soldiers (by my count, anyway) could easily lay down a field of fire on the entire length of our protection that would allow for a few seconds of exposure at best; any more and the exposed party would be dead within seconds, having been riddled by the bullets of a dozen different enemies. But, with even one ally, it becomes uncertain to the enemy who will take the risk or when, and that can be used to great advantage. Any two well-trained warriors could withstand an onslaught the size of the Persian Army if they knew strategy and tactics well enough.

Unfortunately I didn’t have much grasp of either, aside from what I’d seen in movies and games, but the fact that there was an abundance of weaponry littering the ground around us gnawed at my better judgment. It was almost like God was telling me to pick up a gun and shoot, even if I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Yes, I’d probably get shot, and yes, I would probably die because I had only a vague idea of how to actually productively fight from my tussle in Vancouver, but so what? I had shields, and I had the biggest badass in the galaxy at my side. What could go wrong?

I scrambled out of cover for the briefest of moments, grabbing the Avenger rifle while bullets scarred the floor all around me, and fell backwards into the safe zone. I checked the sights to make sure they weren’t fucked up and proceeded to check the mag to make sure it was full, only then realizing we weren’t using magazines anymore. Future, Donovan, we’re in the future.

“The hell are you doing?” Troy yelled, barely audible over the gunshots and guttural screams of the Reapers drones.

“Plan D,” I replied.

“And what the fuck is Plan D?”

I couldn’t suppress a smirk from making its way to my face. “Fuck it.”

Timing myself with Shepard’s movements, I stood when she ducked, found the nearest drone, and squeezed the trigger until I thought my arm was going to shatter. Troy hadn’t been lying when he said the thing kicked like a mule. God, the bruises. I knew I was going to regret this.

And sooner rather than later, as fate would have it. I felt the strangest sensation, almost like being punched without the pain it usually entails, and it took a moment to register the fact that I had just been shot. Not myself, naturally, otherwise I’m sure this story would come to a rather unspectacular ending. Rather the shields Shepard had given me absorbed the blow; the resulting tremor I’d felt had merely been the kinetic barriers warning me to get the hell down or risk getting blood all over this new shirt. I laid off the trigger and bent back down, collapsing on my ass to get a second’s reprieve.

“Satisfied?” Troy asked, anger and disbelief playing in his voice.

“Nah, I don’t think I actually hit anything.”

“Yeah no shit, I told you that gun’s a piece of crap.”

I allowed myself a laugh. For some reason, the worse things get around me the more I seem to ease up. I was terrified as all hell at that moment, but there was a sense of freedom in the ‘fuck it’ mentality. Not to mention it had worked well for me before, so there was no reason to bet against it. At least this time I wasn’t being held together by medi-gel. The odds seemed like they were in my favor.

“That was a dumb idea,” Shepard yelled through gritted teeth as she stooped down to our level again. “Now head over to the far end of this desk, we’ve almost got these bastards.”

I complied immediately, passing the group before realizing I had to ask something. “Hey, did I actually manage to hit one?”

From the distance between us and the jarringly chaotic movement all around us I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw a smirk cross Shepard’s face. “You put three of them on the floor.”

Fuck yes! I truly hadn’t expected to have even got a real shot off, but three on the floor? That was fucking incredible! They may still be alive, of course, but that was something I was willing to remedy quite easily as soon as we took down the rest. Eat shit and die, Reapers!

I reached the end of our cover position and looked back to Shepard, waiting for her go. She signaled me with a nod and I was up, reverberating with the impact of the rifle, pointing it at whatever abominations I could find for several glorious seconds. As we’d hoped, they hadn’t expected me to start shooting from a different vantage point and as such I had a good window of opportunity before their attention and bullets turned to me.

When I went back down I saw Shepard was already up and firing and heard bullets being absorbed by kinetic barriers. She was intent on taking the Marauders down. If that was the case, we’d likely already cleared out the Cannibals—after all, any decent war gamer knows you take out the easiest enemies first before moving on to the tougher ones. I wasn’t sure how many Marauders were out there, but it could safely be assumed we were close to clearing the room.

So, with that in mind, I stood and leveled my gun across the reception desk to stabilize it and let loose on the trigger. In between the flashes of light accompanying my gunshots I could see we’d thinned the room down to about three fucked-up turians. Our crossfire had one falling before the other two could pick a target, and seeing as it was me, I backed off and let Shepard have at it.

I’m not sure how many of you have ever fired a gun before, but for those of you who haven’t, let me just tell you that depending on what caliber of gun you’re shooting, they can be extremely loud. In movies people are always just blasting away and having conversations shortly after, but that’s not how it works in real life. Anything above a .22 caliber will leave you momentarily deaf if you’re not wearing ear protection, and if the gun in question is an automatic, you basically have to resign yourself to not being able to hear a goddamn thing for quite a while. Eventually the shots themselves start to dull down.

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard a massive detonation that I was sure shattered my eardrums and any glass in the area purely with the force of sound. I spun left and right, sure that we were about to be doomed to being crushed by a Reaper capital ship, only to find Troy leaning over the desk with a long rifle in his hands. He quickly ducked back down to safety, displaying the fact that the gun he held was a sniper rifle, complete with scope and long twin barrels.

“Where the hell’d you find a sniper rifle in all this shit?” I screamed, sure that no one would be able to hear me after that shot.

“Dude, there are bodies everywhere!” he screamed back. “At least someone was smart enough to carry one around with him.”

Well, okay then. If life hands you a sniper rifle, blow some fucker’s head off with it. “Did you get anyone?”

Troy peeked up over the top of the desk. “Uhhhh . . . ”

I leaned up momentarily to find what he was looking at and saw a massive splatter of violet blood against the far wall. Perhaps a few chunks of brain as well, I wasn’t sure how similar turian anatomy was to our own.

“Yep, you definitely got him.”

A moment later the shooting stopped, the room settling into an almost surreal silence. Shepard lowered her pistol, satisfied that the battle was won for now, and the rest of us stood to take stock on our surroundings. Based on what I could see from our position, there must have been thirty or so corpses in the room, not counting the Reaper drones we’d put down. There were maybe ten or fifteen of them. If the rest of the station was like this, there was already a shitload of casualties.

“Come on,” Shepard said, jogging towards the elevator. “We’ve got to get to Sparatus before the Reapers do.”

Urgency pushing us forward more than rational thought, Troy and I brought up the rear as Tevos followed Shepard into the elevator. Moments later we were being rushed in every direction imaginable, on our way to yet another warzone no doubt rife with Reapers and Cerberus troops.

“Kaidan,” Shepard called, opening a channel via omni-tool. “We’re in the elevator headed for Sparatus. Where are you?”

“Making our way there now, Commander,” Kaidan replied. The gunshots and screams still rang in the background. They must have been in a more heavily occupied area than we were. “What’s left of the C-Sec forces in the area are covering our retreat, but we’re running into resistance at every turn. We have to get the hell outta here before we get trapped inside.”

“Copy that. We’ll find Sparatus and hold down the fort at the elevator, then make our escape to the Normandy from there once you join us.”

“Uh, yeah, Commander?” Joker’s voice interrupted. “There might be a problem with that. Husks are swarming the docking area. Dunno if the IFF prevents them from seeing us or what; they’re leaving us alone, but you’re gonna have a big-ass crowd to wade through once you get here.”

“We’ll take care of it when we get there Joker. Just be ready for emergency FTL as soon as we do.”

“Roger that. Joker out.”

I wanted to add something useful to the conversation. I wanted to be able to draw upon my vast knowledge of Mass Effect and tell Shepard where every bad guy would be and the best strategy for killing them. If that encounter had been true to the game and it was only Cerberus attacking, I probably could’ve. However, as it was, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. All I could do was look at Troy and wonder how it had even happened. Did the Reapers somehow know about us and what we’d told Shepard, or was this simply an alternate version of the game in which the attack on the Citadel came right after invading earth? And then there was Cerberus; had the Illusive Man just decided to strike now while he had the element of surprise? It was just as likely that the Reapers had planted the suggestion in his mind and he put it to motion. No matter how many theories I came up with, the answers remained unclear.

In the end it mattered very little, because after a short period of calm in the midst of a hurricane, the elevator slowed to a stop and ejected us into the midst of more chaos. We ran out of the el at a full sprint, spewing our guns at any target that looked grisly enough to be a Reaper drone, and met up with a small force of C-Sec officers taking refuge in what appeared to be a number of storefronts along a wall opposite the Reapers. We managed to vault through a blown-out window and despite C-Sec’s initial worry, when they saw us they laid down cover fire so we could get to safety.

“Commander Shepard!” one of the officers yelled, a turian with dark skin and purple accents across his mandibles. “Thank the spirits! We’ve been holding out here since the initial attack!”

“Do you have the Councilor secure?” Shepard asked.

“Yes, he’s safe in the back room.” The turian nodded in that direction where a doorway branched off further back into the room. “Councilor Tevos, I suggest you make your way there as well.”

Tevos needed no further encouragement, trailing off at the behest of another officer who escorted her to better protection.

“What’s the situation?” Shepard asked, attempting to get a handle on what we were about to go up against.

The turian replied, but I had lost interest in the conversation as soon as he’d said Sparatus was safe. My primary focus had shifted toward our surroundings and our chances of defeating the drones in the immediate vicinity.

The area was considerably larger than the reception area back in the embassy, but also much more open. At least twenty meters of no man’s land separated us from the drones at the other end of the room, where they too were holed up in various storefronts with plenty of cover. The main difference between our positions was that on the Reapers’ side of the battlefield, just to the left was a corridor that presumably led to another area of the station. And from that corridor, Husks, Cannibals, and Marauders continued to spew forth onto the battlefield. C-Sec had done a good job holding the line, but we weren’t going to clear this area as easily as we had the previous one, if at all.

Troy was already well underway taking potshots with his newfound sniper rifle, muttering curses whenever he missed. At least half a dozen C-Sec officers were scattered around the building we took refuge in, and if there were as many in the others adjacent to us, we likely had a good twenty or thirty guys on our side. Hopefully it would be enough to hold out until Kaidan and the others could arrive with Valern.

I ducked into cover for a few seconds to take a bit of heat off me, then took my rifle and leaned up over the small counter I was using for protection. The Husks were the easiest and most available targets, seeing as they were crossing the open battlefield in an attempt to reach us, so I fired away at the perversions of humanity in an attempt to allow the more seasoned soldiers to focus on the threats across the room. The detonations from Troy’s rifle were still piercing the madness of the firefight, but since he was a decent distance away it wasn’t as deafening as it had been earlier.

It amazed me how relentless the Reapers were. Of course, killing Shepard and the Councilors was undoubtedly their foremost objective, but they were throwing away dozens if not hundreds of ground troops in this assault. Surely it would be more beneficial to simply turn off life support to the station or vent us all into space. Instead the drones continued pouring out of the corridor on the far end of the room, and we did our best to halt the tide while dodging bullets and the occasional concussion blast.

If only we had a few grenades, or some C4 to blow up that access corridor. But then Kaidan and the others would probably be trapped as well.

The battle raged for quite some time, although I lost track of it entirely after just a few minutes of pointing and shooting. My main targets had remained the Husks trying to edge their way across the warzone, and I’d done a pretty damn good job of keeping them at bay. Only twice did they reach us, and between the six guns in the room, they were easily taken care of. In fact I think my kill count had begun to grow so steadily that the Husks began focusing solely on me, allowing the rest of our allies to deal with the Cannibals and Marauders across the room. Surprisingly enough I was shooting pretty accurately despite the bruising of my shoulder every time the rifle fired, and apparently Troy was as well. After about a minute or two of constant cursing indicating his misses, he had grown steadily quieter. Hopefully that meant he was kicking the shit out of our enemies.

I had no idea where Shepard was. After a short talk with the turian officer, she’d darted out the window in a storm of bullets and ran off toward one of the other shops C-Sec had set up in. Either she felt comfortable that we had the situation under control here, or she had more pressing concerns to attend to. Or she thought we were hopelessly doomed and decided to save herself, but I put that thought out of my head. Not only was it unrealistic, it was depressing just to think about.

The Husks were none too hard to put down, seeing as a good shot to the chest or head would take one out of the fight. My only problem was having to take cover every so often to avoid fire from the Cannibals and Marauders. Generally with me and a couple other guys in the adjacent stores taking the Husks and the rest of our allies fighting the shooters, I wasn’t in anyone’s sights very often. But in the event that I was, I just managed to reach safety before my shields hit their limit and fell apart. After some time of ignorance I noticed that my omni-tool actually had a full read-out of my kinetic barrier strength, so I checked it periodically just to make sure I was protected. In that frenzy, it was easy to ignore a shot or two to the shields, and more than once I was caught off-guard when my shields suddenly dropped. Luckily I had twenty or thirty other guys there covering my stupid ass.

Finally, after what seemed like an endlessly long yet somehow extremely brief period of time gunning down Husks and the occasional Cannibal, we began to see gunshots filling the Reapers’ access hallway and several of them walked out with their backs to us, shooting in the opposite direction. As soon as I saw bodies being hurled into the air and Husks exploding in a red haze of carnage I knew it was Normandy’s stray crew coming to join the fight. We all pushed ourselves a little harder, took aim a little faster; the realization that we had just hit the home stretch wore off any fatigue that had accumulated in the battle, giving us a renewed invigoration. If we could just hold out a little longer, the end was in sight.

Kaidan emerged from the hallway, firing his pistol in one hand while blasting drones away with his biotics, followed swiftly by the almost supernatural blasts coming from Liara and the craze of detonations from Vega. Half a dozen C-Sec troops brought up the rear, with Valern at the center of their formation to keep him safe.

As if out of nowhere, Shepard darted across the battlefield, plowing right through the troops that had spilled out into no man’s land. She was making a beeline for the group, no doubt to secure Valern and get him to the elevator before the Reapers had a chance to take him out.

“Come on!” I yelled at Troy, motioning him to the back of the store.

As I’d expected, Tevos and Sparatus were still safe in the back room guarded by two C-Sec officers, one of them being the turian Shepard had talked to earlier.

“We’re ready to move,” I shouted, hoping he could hear me through the chaos that had become the battlefield.

“Right,” he replied. Then, with a hand to his ear and his eyes looking over my shoulder at the Reapers, he said, “all units fall back to the elevator. Valern is in sight, I repeat, Valern is in sight. We’re getting the Council to Normandy, everyone on alert!”

No sooner had he ushered the Councilors to his feet and began leading them out of the store did the rest of C-Sec make their way to us. As one unit of about twenty people we stormed our way to the elevator, firing blind shots at the Reapers just hoping some of them would hit their mark. As I ran, I could hear the impacts of bullets as they struck the men beside me and even felt a few tremors in my shields, but I zoned it all out and kept my mind focused on one thing: making it to that elevator.

The guy in front of me fell to the floor after a shot pierced his helmet and I nearly ran full-force into him. As I stumbled my way around the corpse, my head turned just enough to let me catch a glimpse of the Marauder who had shot him. It was one of the most disturbing sights I ever saw. It looked straight at me with its face twisted in an almost hateful scowl, as if it had intended to hit me and missed its mark. I shook it off by spraying a few rounds at its face and resumed my sprint, ever onward.

Shepard was at the elevator waiting for us, holding down the fort with Kaidan and the others while the Councilors hurried their way inside. Taking a few last shots at the Reapers, I was about to rush in there myself when something collided with my backside so hard I flew face-first into the wall, collapsing to the floor in a heap.

My head throbbed. My shields were down, I was sure of it, and had it not been for the C-Sec guys covering me I probably would’ve been shot and killed. As it was, all I could see were glimpses of the battlefield between the feet that stood in front of me for protection, and the monstrosity that had pelted me with such force.

“Banshee!” I yelled, as if screaming this revelation would somehow lessen the world of shit we were now in.

Everyone darted for cover and I sprang to my feet, finding the black rifle I’d grown so accustomed to, but it was little use. While the perversion of asari flesh moved relatively slowly, its biotic abilities easily made it the most dangerous target we’d faced yet. Biotic explosions went off around the room like a succession of fireworks, with bodies flailing in every direction and people yelling their frustration with more force than the sound of gunshots going off. I leveled my gun and fired away, but to no avail. The Banshee’s barriers were too damn strong.

“Come on, get in!” Shepard yelled, dragging me by the arm with such strength I was sure she was going to yank it off.

“No!” I protested, attempting to fight my way free of her. “Those guys are all dead if we don’t stay here and—!”

The back of my skull vibrated with the impact of blunt force trauma, and for a second I was sure Shepard had shot me just for being so resistant. A stupid notion, but when you’re passing out you think all kinds of dumb things.

That’s exactly what I did. As my vision started to blur I could see the doors of the elevator closing, stranding all the soldiers out there to take on the Reapers by themselves. We’d just resigned them to death.

And then the world turned black.

When I came to, I was in Normandy’s medbay yet again, Doctor Chakwas standing over me with a light while Shepard, Troy, Liara, and Daniels all waited patiently in the corner of the room to hear what the verdict was. Nothing major, just a concussion and a fracture that had been easily remedied with medi-gel. Shepard packed one hell of a punch.

I was relieved to hear that we’d made it back to the Normandy in one piece, including the Council and a couple C-Sec troops that had managed to squeeze into the elevator with us. They’d told me that after that fight in the Wards, the Husks waiting for them in the docking bay were hardly any trouble even with Vega carrying me over his shoulder. That explained the bruising along my rib cage.

Apparently we hadn’t seen Cerberus during the attack because they didn’t make it very far. Whether they’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time or the Reapers had lured them there to wipe them out, that was anyone’s guess. All we knew was that they’d kicked the door down for the Reapers, and the drones took just about all of them out before they could even think about retreating.

I gulped it all down with a mild satisfaction until they broke the news. The Citadel had been destroyed by the Reapers. Not just taken over, not just cleared of all organics. They’d blown the damn thing to a million pieces trying to stop Shepard and the Council from getting away. I couldn’t believe it. I actually didn’t at first until they showed me a real-time feed of the debris field left in its wake.

The Citadel was gone. The Catalyst was gone. The Crucible was completely useless. As shocked as I was at this revelation, I had already begun considering why the Reapers would do such a thing but the options were endless, and the answer was clear.

This wasn’t the reality I thought it was.

Something had happened to change events, or maybe BioWare had just gotten it all wrong, but something was different about this reality. I went on a rant about how none of it made any sense and it shouldn’t have been possible, but in the end it all amounted to nothing because it had happened. That was the plain and simple truth. The Citadel was gone. Some hundreds of millions of lives lost. And any hope of using the Crucible to defeat the Reapers was destroyed.

We were fucked. That’s the only way to describe it. For once all the strategies and possibilities and questions faded from my mind, replaced by the constricting knowledge that we were all going to die. I had thought that Troy and I held the key to saving this galaxy from massive amounts of devastation, but everything we knew about the Mass Effect universe amounted to absolutely nothing now that the Citadel was gone.

Look around and witness the weight of this darkness. I can assure you that ignorance is not bliss.

I don’t know why the lyric ran through my head. The song was about learning to see how inhuman society had become and what we had to do to overcome it, not how to deal with loss and the knowledge that you, along with trillions of others, are doomed to death. Maybe the Reapers needed to be shown what monsters they were.

After getting the all-clear from the doc, I left the medbay followed by the quartet who’d come to check up on me. Shepard mentioned something about someone wanting to talk to us over the FTL communicators, but at that point I didn’t really care. I followed her and Troy, if for no other reason than because I needed something to take my mind off all the darkness crowding it at the moment.

We reached the comm room after a few silent minutes of traversing the Normandy, and Shepard had EDI patch her through to Admiral Hackett. Of course, he’d want to know what the hell had happened and who we were, courtesy of everything Shepard had no doubt told him. Hopefully Troy was up for talking, because I sure as hell wasn’t.

Hackett came through the quantum entanglement processors soon enough, a distorted blue form probably four inches my better in regards to height. With the white goatee, broken nose, and the scar across his face, he was hard to mistake.

“Shepard,” Hackett said, barely able to put into words what he was thinking. “We just heard about the Citadel. Everyone get out all right?”

“We did, sir,” Shepard replied. If she felt any regret for leaving those troops behind, she knew how to mask it. “All crew members and the Council are safely aboard, plus a few C-Sec officers that helped us escape.”

“That’s good news,” Hackett said, though his voice conveyed the fact that he was hardly jumping for joy. “And the other two you were telling me about? Did they manage to get out with you?”

He was talking about Troy and I naturally, so with a concerned glance at each other we stepped forward to flank Shepard on either side.

“This is them, Admiral.”

“I see. Commander Shepard tells me you two know some interesting things. Once things settle down a bit I’d like to talk to you about this war, but right now I have another pressing concern.”

“Something more pressing than the Reapers blowing up the damn Citadel?” I blurted out. Got some unfriendly stares from Troy and Shepard, but Hackett seemed to let it roll right off his back.

“Perhaps not, but equally confusing. As you’re aware, Councilor Anderson has been leading the fight back on earth, and the troops there came across a rather disoriented individual wearing the same kind of gear you both were wearing when you approached Shepard at Vancouver. Anderson wanted me to see if there was any relation between you.”

Someone else from our time period? Great, now there was a third person to fuck things up in this reality. The love just continued to spread itself around.

“Have you identified him?” Troy asked.

“We can’t,” Hackett answered. “Like you, he doesn’t seem to be registered in any system we have access to. Apparently Doctor T’Soni can’t even locate him. He says his name is Ashbrook.”

Troy and I both gasped and looked at each other. It couldn’t possibly be . . .

“Give me just a minute,” Hackett said. “I’m being told they’re trying to patch him into this conversation.”

My breath caught in anticipation, my heart beating wildly. I wasn’t sure if I should be elated or concerned, but in the moment all I could do was hope to God it was who I thought it was.

Then a form began to take shape next to Hackett’s, all static at first, but once EDI cleared it up we could make out his features immediately. Even with the dirt, blood, and sweat covering his face, we knew this was our cousin.

“Adison!”