Shepard,

In case Troy and I don’t make it, there are a few things you need to know that I’d rather not go down with us. I know you don’t completely trust us yet and you have every right not to, but what I’m about to say is extremely important and completely unbelievable. So naturally I’ll need you to believe me.

My cousins and I shared an experience a while ago that gave us all the information we have on the Reapers, Cerberus, even you. But the kicker is that it also showed us something else. Everything we’ve told you, everything that we’ve predicted that’s come true, we literally saw it unfold. We saw you fighting Sovereign and Saren three years ago, we saw you take on the Collectors, and we saw the events of this war. Everything from the invasion of earth all the way to you stopping the Reapers. That’s why we showed up, because things get really shitty and we were hoping that we could help out in that regard. Best way to prevent tragedy is to know it’s coming, right? I’m leaving you this message in the hope that if the worst does happen to us, you’ll know everything we do.

First, to stop the Reapers you’ll need everyone’s support, and I mean everyone. We can’t win this fight on our own. No one can. The only way we have a chance to pull through is if the galaxy is operating as one unified body. Soldiers, citizens, even criminals. According to the way I saw things unfold, you’re supposed to work out a treaty between the krogan and turians by curing the genophage. Mordin is already on Tuchanka helping Wrex. You just need to be there to fight off the Reapers when they come knocking and make sure the plan goes off without a hitch. This is where things get a bit weird. The way I saw things happen, Cerberus and the Reapers didn’t attack the Citadel so early. I’ll explain later on, but Cerberus should’ve been a major pain in your ass up until you take them down just before the end of the war.

I guess you could call what I saw a different reality. Maybe it was what could’ve happened as opposed to what did happen. Either way, in this other reality Udina was on the Council rather than Anderson, and he assists Cerberus in an attempted coup on the Citadel. You manage to head them off and keep the Council alive, but a lot of people die in the chaos. Also the Citadel isn’t destroyed, so it’s used with the Crucible to end the war. I’ll get to that in a bit.

After foiling the Citadel coup Hackett informs you that you need the quarians and geth. They’re back at Rannoch fighting over the planet. The quarians developed some kind of countermeasure against the geth that makes them easier to kill, so the geth are going to ally with the Reapers out of self-defense. Legion doesn’t agree with the consensus, but the geth are already controlled by a Destroyer on Rannoch, so you take it out before you can attempt to negotiate peace. I know it seems impossible because of the quarians’ hatred of the geth, but if they’re shown that the geth are willing to entertain a peace treaty, and if the geth believe the quarians can uphold that kind of deal, it can be done. In this other reality you need their fleets and technical expertise to combat the Reapers and build the Crucible.

There are a bunch of smaller things too that don’t hold quite as much weight, but are equally important, like Javik. Unfortunately he doesn’t know much, but he’s a hell of a soldier. I don’t know how different things are here compared to this other reality, but it couldn’t hurt to be prepared so I’ll just say this: be sure to get in touch with all your old crew members—they’ll need help in their own ways, and they can offer quite a bit of it in the war.

Now, in the other reality, once you’ve worked out a peace between the krogan and turians, the salarian government isn’t too happy with you, but there are a few that understand cooperation is more important than millennia-old prejudice. Captain Kirrahe helps you out there, as well as a Spectre named Jondum Bau, if he’s still alive, so maybe they can do the same here.

As for the asari, you shouldn’t need much convincing. Liara holds a lot of sway on Thessia and I’m sure Tevos will be amenable to an alliance after seeing what happened on the Citadel. The way I saw things unfold, you head to Thessia to find that beacon I mentioned. Kind of irrelevant now since I told you everything important about it, but like I said, never hurts to know.

It’s worth mentioning that everything I’ve seen depends on the Crucible. When you ultimately win the war, it’s by connecting the Crucible to the Catalyst, which turns out to be an artificial intelligence created by the Leviathans, the first race to master space travel. The Leviathans realized there would be no way to ensure a lasting peace between organics and their synthetic creations, so they created an AI to find the solution. Brilliant move, I know. Essentially the Catalyst determined that the best way to eliminate conflict was to preserve organics in Reaper form every fifty thousand years, ensuring that they weren’t completely wiped out by synthetics. But when the Catalyst realizes what the Crucible is capable of, it gives you three options. I ranked them from “fucking terrible” to “Goddamn nightmare.”

#1. Destroy the Reapers. This will also destroy all mass effect technology in the galaxy. The relays, ships, cybernetics—everything. On the up side, no more Reapers. On the downside, we depend on that technology for damn near everything, so we might as well be dooming ourselves to the Stone Age again.

#2. Control the Reapers. This one’s not too bad I guess, aside from the fact that you will essentially become the Catalyst, and the Reapers’ actions will be solely your choice. Doesn’t take away the abominations of nature, but it does stop the war.

#3. Merge synthetic and organic DNA into one form. All life in the galaxy will be rewritten at the genetic level, forcing us all to the apex of evolution. Honestly I’m not sure what this means, only that it brings the galaxy to harmony at the cost of losing our identity as organic life forms.

The real problem is that in all these scenarios, you die. I’d like to be gentler about it, but I don’t think you care about me placating you when the galaxy’s at stake. And of course, this is all moot unless you can find a way to operate the Crucible without the Citadel. That’s why I was so surprised when the Reapers destroyed it; I couldn’t see any fathomable reason why they would, since the Catalyst is what controls them. But I’ve come to the conclusion that my experience wasn’t true to life. Some things have already changed, and many more are sure to do so, which means there may still be hope. If the Catalyst isn’t relevant or simply didn’t exist, maybe there’s another solution to beating the Reapers. Maybe if everyone stands up together against them, we can make it through to the other side.

Then again, this is all according to how I saw it go down in this other reality, and that obviously isn’t what’s happening. I thought I knew everything that was doomed to go wrong and could help prevent it, or at least find a way to minimize the damage. Now I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. The Reapers are hitting us harder than I expected. Hopefully when you track down Leviathan and Javik, Hackett will have a plan in motion. I just thought that you should know how things could have gone. Maybe it can still help in the future.

So, that’s it. That’s everything I know. I would say feel free to ask me if there’s anything you need clarification on, but if you’re reading this I’m probably well on my way to the afterlife. Just take care of yourself Shepard. And if I die and the others don’t, take care of my cousins. They’re idiots.

Donovan

I finished writing the letter and reread it for the third time, looking to make sure I didn’t forget anything. In all honesty I doubted it would be helpful, but in the event that something happened to Troy and I, it couldn’t hurt to let Shepard know what should have gone down.

The shuttle rocked with the vibration of atmospheric entry momentarily, and I snapped the omni-tool shut to return myself to the moment.

“Writing your memoirs over there?” Troy asked, cradling his new sniper rifle.

“Just planning a contingency,” I replied. “Can’t hurt to leave behind a little advice in case we get shit on down there.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Garrus said. Even after the initial awe of meeting him back at Sentinel, seeing him standing at his full seven feet was still a sight to behold. “First rule of combat: never underestimate yourself. If you think you’re going to die, nine times out of ten you probably will.”

Words of wisdom indeed. Fight like hell and you’ll come out alive. And to aid that noble pursuit, you need some badass tools.

After receiving our orders, Troy and I had been geared up with some spare equipment back at the Outpost. We hadn’t had a huge selection to choose from, but anything was better than nothing. The armor was actually much lighter than I’d originally thought it would be, and it fit me like a glove. Looked pretty damn cool too, a bit like Colossus armor, and with the red undersuit accenting the black plating we actually looked like legitimate badasses. Redundant kinetic field generators, shock-absorbing tri-weave armor plates, and muscle-enhancing servomechanisms all augmented our ability to stay alive. Just from our small field test I could already see a marked difference in reaction time, physical strength, and durability. Took a good deal of physical conditioning just to function, but I was in pretty good shape even before being thrust into a war. Most of the jobs I worked back home were manual labor; when you get paid for your muscles they tend to get pretty strong.

That wasn’t to say I wasn’t going to have difficulty with the cardio part of the whole deal. My body’s built for short, intense bursts of strength. Duration was something I was going to have to work on. The downside of being a smoker. Luckily Troy never smoked quite as much as me, so he probably had it a bit better off.

Thankfully the weapons we’d grabbed during the assault on the Citadel weren’t just pieces of shit carried by low-level C-Sec officers, either. I hadn’t had time to notice it during all the commotion, but I’d actually grabbed an Avenger X assault rifle. Not the best in terms of stopping power, but the rate of fire was incredible and whoever had previously owned it had attached something of a cross between a thermal clip and an old-school heat discharge system. Best of both worlds. If it overheated I could pop the clip out and put in a new one, or if I didn’t feel like messing with it I could just wait a few seconds and let it cool down. Lucky for me, the ammo block was so big and the ROF so good that I hadn’t even had to cool off in the fight on the Citadel. Hopefully the trend would continue.

Troy, however, got the winningest end of the deal. The sniper he’d picked up was an M-99 Saber. He said the thing damn near blew his arm off every time he fired it, but the clip held twelve shots that could apparently cut right through a Marauder’s shields and pop its head like a melon in one blow. Adjustable tactical scope for close or long range engagements that could also display enemies on the HUD from a hundred meters away. With him on scout duty, we’d never get caught unaware by Reaper ground troops unless they dropped on top of us.

“They need names,” Troy said from the other side of the shuttle. “The guns, I mean.”

I laughed at that. We were really doing this. Despite debatably not wanting to get involved in the actual fighting, there we were flying to Jerusalem in full body armor to take on the Reapers. Not only that, we were forming sentimental attachments to our weapons. The spare pistols we’d grabbed at Sentinel didn’t matter much, but the rifles were the weapons we’d used to hold back the Reapers and save the Council. They deserved a bit of respect.

“I like Veritas for yours,” I replied.

“Truth,” Troy said, translating the meaning. “Fuck yeah. Always finds its mark. Yours should be Invidium.”

I frowned. I know as much Latin as the next guy, but I can’t speak it fluently. That one wasn’t on my list of commonly used words.

“Invidium?”

“Means hatred,” Troy answered. “Figured it fits, you know, since most of the guys you’re gonna kill with that thing deserve nothing less.”

Huh. Invidium. The more I said it in my mind, the more I grew to like it. In addition to matching a killer name with a killer weapon, it seemed like a good metaphor. We all carry hate around with us—no one can deny having baggage, whether they have it under control or not. At least this way I was using it productively.

“I like it,” I finally said. “Invidium and Veritas. Sounds like we’re ready to kick some ass.”

“Well, if that’s settled, then,” Garrus chimed in.

“Oh come on, Garrus,” Troy pleaded. “You’re one of the best snipers in the damn galaxy. You haven’t named your rifle?”

“This rifle’s just a weapon. It does its job like it’s supposed to. If I give it a name it becomes a pet.”

“Or a friend,” I added. “That’s what friends are there for, right? To save your ass when Reapers come crashing through the atmosphere?”

“To each his own, I guess. Just make sure you’re ready. We’re touching down in five.”

With that, the biggest turian badass in history turned and headed for the cockpit. It wasn’t until then that I realized I had no idea who was flying the shuttle, but really, who gives a damn? As long as it wasn’t a Reaper in disguise I really didn’t need to know.

Five minutes to drop. I wasn’t even worried about the fact that we were literally going to jump out of the shuttle from a hundred meters. I’ve done plenty of stupid, life-endangering things before; I was more focused on what Shepard was doing at that moment. Probably still travelling to Eden Prime. With Cerberus gone and the Leviathan really beyond my area of expertise, I wouldn’t have been much good accompanying her, but I’d planned on guiding her every step of the way. Knowing she was going off with her entire squad while Garrus was stuck with two inexperienced guys as his backup didn’t help.

I still didn’t understand why he was there. He’d said something about the fight on Palaven being irrelevant until we found a way to combat the Reapers effectively, but it still didn’t make sense. More than likely he and Shepard were hiding something, levelling the playing field a bit. Obviously Hackett had some ulterior motive for sending us to earth, but I decided to just be happy that he’d trusted us enough to send us on an important mission.

After the initial meeting on Sentinel Outpost we’d had a short debrief with Garrus about what we were headed into, during which Hackett had requested the room so he and Shepard could speak privately with our turian ally. If it had been anyone other than Garrus I would have been nervous about the whole thing, but I felt like I knew the guy almost as a brother. As far as honorable people go, he was one of the coolest characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting in my gaming experience. If he said we were going to Jerusalem to fight the Reapers, okay. Secrecy aside, I knew he wouldn’t let anything get in the way of our safety or that of the mission.

It’s probably stupid to trust a fictional character you’ve never actually met before. Honestly though, I didn’t really care. My world had been flipped upside down and torn apart. I had to take solace in whatever form it presented itself. The fact that that form was Garrus Vakarian was fine with me.

In the end, it all came down to Hackett finding a solution to the Reaper threat and getting Council support. We’d have to trust him that this mission wasn’t borne of simple curiosity.

“Time to go,” Garrus said, strolling purposefully out of the cockpit to grab his weapons.

Troy and I stood simultaneously, collapsing our rifles and mounting them to the holsters on our backs. After a few mishaps getting acquainted with all the futuristic gear, we managed to get it down to an easy reflex. By that point we could holster and draw our weapons in less than two seconds.

“Ready?” Troy asked, both of us flanking Garrus on either side.

I nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Without warning the shuttle door opened abruptly. Wind whipped at my armor ferociously as we skimmed across the surface of Israel’s deserts, forcing me to put effort into keeping myself in the shuttle. I switched the auricular implant on and listened for Garrus’s go. In addition to the wind I could hear the ominous moans of Reaper Capital ships and the occasional blast of laser fire.

We waited for at least thirty seconds. The landscape was complete destruction; you wouldn’t think a desert could get much worse, but when you see the craters left by mortar fire and the corpses of people who didn’t make it to shuttles on time, you appreciate the undisturbed beauty of nature a bit more. We always appreciate things more when they’re gone. What’s that saying? Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

Fuck that. We have to learn to value what we have before we lose it.

My thoughts were cut short when Garrus yelled into the comms and suddenly jumped out the shuttle. In spite of the adrenaline pounding in my skull telling me not to, I kicked my feet off the floor of the shuttle and lost my breath as it whooshed on past, leaving me suspended in mid-air.

I can’t begin to describe how surreal the experience is. If you’ve ever been sky-diving I’m sure it’s probably a relatable situation, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been. All I know is that I was met with an initial surge of terror and a knock to the stomach that took the breath right out of me. The wind snapped past savagely as we plummeted to the ground, gravity and velocity increasing the speed of our descent. If it weren’t for the helmet and visor covering my eyes, I wouldn’t have been able to keep them open.

After about fifteen seconds, when the ground started to creep up on me at an increasingly rapid rate, the air instantly lightened and my body twisted as gravity bent from the distortion of the shuttle’s mass effect core. It essentially broke the laws of physics so that gravity was acting on me in two separate directions: the stronger force pulling me towards the earth, and the weaker one pulling me towards the shuttle. Without the armor it would have snapped my spine in half. Thank God for futuristic, gravity-resistant space suits.

After only a few more seconds, I hit the ground just lightly enough not to break anything but hard enough to force me to collapse on all fours and roll half a dozen times to reduce the impact. Sand kicked up in a whirlwind as the three of us hit solid ground, touching back on earth. Of course, my first experience with atmospheric re-entry had to be falling out of the sky.

“Everyone in one piece?” Garrus asked.

I pushed myself to hands and knees, spitting sand. “Yep, all good. These suits can filter waste, right? Because I think I’m gonna hurl.”

“At least you didn’t kick yourself in the ass,” I heard Troy say from somewhere to my left. I wasn’t even going to try opening my eyes yet.

“You did what?” I asked, stifling a laugh.

“The fucking wind, dude. I was flipping around like a damn coin in the air.”

And I burst out laughing when I realized he was serious. “You actually kicked yourself in the ass? How is that even possible?!”

I think even Garrus got a kick out of that, no pun intended. I’m not sure because I couldn’t hear anything above my own uproar, but there was no way he didn’t find that funny. The Reapers were probably even laughing if they’d managed to see it.

It took about ten seconds for me to finally collect myself, and I managed to stand upright despite the uneven sand. Thankfully Israel wasn’t all desert. We had about a kilometer to travel until we hit Jerusalem, where it would turn into a mix of desert and grassland. Even from that distance, we could see at least two Reapers looming over the landscape.

I’ve questioned my sanity a lot during the course of my life, and I did it again right then. We were about to walk right up to these bastards and ask what the hell was going on. Well, maybe not ask, just riddle them with bullets and run like hell until our curiosity was satisfied. Not the best plan I’ve ever been a part of, but when in Jerusalem you might as well fight a war however the hell you want.

“Damn,” Troy uttered as he stood to his feet, gazing out at the same sight Garrus and I were taking in. “And we’re walking into that alone?”

“Not quite,” a voice called out from behind us. Even though I knew the voice I instinctively spun to find the source, and relief hit my blood harder than I’ve ever felt it.

“Adison!” I yelled.

“Dude!” Troy exclaimed, joining me in a rush to greet our brother. I made it to him first, nearly tackling him to the ground in a rushed embrace, and a second later Troy collided with both of us. We didn’t even care that Garrus was watching or that there was a platoon of Alliance troops just beyond; our cousin was safe and presumably about to join us in this crazy state of affairs. Some much-needed celebration was in order.

After a few seconds we all finally pulled away and looked each other over. Adison was decked out in full Alliance military gear with at least five weapons on him, one of them being the kind of rifle Marauders typically use. No doubt Troy and I looked equally out of place in complete body armor.

“It’s good to actually see you guys,” Adison said, a light smile spread across his face.

“Fucking glad you’re okay dude,” I replied. My breathing was deep and strained, probably just from the ease of mind stemming from finally seeing Adison with my own two eyes.

“Well I’d ask what you guys have been up to, but I’m pretty sure I get the picture.”

“Yeah I’m getting the same vibe from you,” Troy said, staring over Adison’s shoulder at the veritable army behind him. At least thirty or forty soldiers marched in the sand followed by two Mako-looking assault vehicles and a group of guys carrying what I assumed to be some kind of artillery. This wasn’t going to be a quick in-and-out mission like I’d assumed.

We were there to blow the Reapers to hell.

“So what are we waiting for?” Garrus asked from behind. “Let’s go kick some Reaper ass.”

Twenty minutes into our journey through the sand I was really beginning to doubt my decision to go along with this mission. We’d reached the far outskirts of sprawling Jerusalem, surveying the city from a slightly elevated extrusion of the earth, and an ominous dread pierced the air while we watched two Reapers ambling amongst the ornate architecture. There was no fighting in the heart of the city, or anywhere else, for that matter. Evidently Hackett had been correct when he’d said the Middle East had been well evacuated. That or the Reapers had already dominated this sector so completely that resistance was impossible.

But oddly enough, the quiet wasn’t calming. If I could hear explosions and the pained metallic groans of the Reapers, see mortars dropping or gunshots firing, at least I knew humanity was fighting on and we had some chance, however small, of driving the Reapers back. The silence meant that there was no chance. No one was fighting, no one was resisting. They were either dead or subsumed by the enemy.

It makes a difference, believe it or not, walking into an open battlefield as opposed to being the one to start the fight. If there’s already a battle in progress you can rush into the fray rather easily, comforted by the knowledge that you’re not the first and won’t be the last to throw your life into the hands of chance and danger. On the other hand, if you have allies that have already been beaten by your enemy and can’t find the willpower or ability to rebel, the notion of restarting a fight that’s already been lost becomes a bit disheartening.

“Well that’s creepy,” Troy remarked. Half the platoon stood on either side observing the scene in front of us while the other half waited back by the tanks for orders. Though there was an Alliance Major there commanding the unit, Hackett had given Garrus command of the troops seeing as he had the most experience fighting Reapers. The simple fact of his association with Shepard and his status within the turian military commanded respect from the soldiers despite not being human.

“So . . . do we have a plan?” I asked. “Because somehow I don’t think we’re gonna learn anything by asking nicely.”

Garrus pulled the rifle off his back and checked its sights, then on to the clip. “Yeah.” Then he marched down the hill without uttering a single word.

Troy, Adison and I exchanged looks, and Adison faced the troops massed behind us to motion them forward. Slowly we trudged onward, rifles in hand, confusion and the odd doubtful thought plaguing my mind as I stared at the two enormous death machines ahead of me.

What was Garrus keeping to himself? Why would Hackett send us on what was, as far as I could tell, a completely useless mission? Far be it for me to question military strategy seeing as everything I thought I knew was pretty much invalid, but still the thoughts lingered in my mind. If there was a reason for our presence in Jerusalem, someone should have at least had the courtesy to tell us what the hell it was. Even Adison and the Marines that accompanied him were clueless. All they knew was that Anderson had been in touch with Hackett and this was where they were supposed to be. No rhyme or reason.

And at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking it really didn’t matter. We were in this completely screwed up universe with no way out, no beforehand knowledge, and absolutely no reason to belong there. If we weren’t on this mission, we’d just be elsewhere in the galaxy doing the same stupid shit. Only difference was we’d probably be running away from the Reapers rather than heading straight for them.

It’s odd how when you get lost in thought, you lose track of time as well. I think everyone’s had that moment where you step out of your car and ask yourself, “How the hell did I get here?” so it should come as little surprise that I asked myself the same thing when I nearly walked full-speed into an immobile Garrus.

I stumbled back a bit and snapped my focus to the moment, realizing that we had stopped just outside the city wall. When I looked up, half of my field of vision was dominated by the nearest Reaper. Damn the things were big.

“Why haven’t we been attacked yet?” one of the Alliance soldiers asked. I think it was the Major, the guy technically in charge of the other soldiers in the unit.

“I don’t know,” Garrus replied, scanning the walls for signs of movement. “The Reapers have to know we’re here. It isn’t like them to just ignore us.”

“I got nothing on scanners,” Troy said. “If there’s anything moving within a hundred meters I should see it. No drones?”

“Probably don’t need them,” I answered. “Everyone ran when the Reapers landed. They might have thought ground troops were unnecessary.”

“The Reapers are always prepared though. No matter what the situation, they’ve always got a million ways to screw us over. There have to be drones around here somewhere.”

“Can’t be an ambush,” Adison added. “They can’t think we’d be stupid enough to fall for that.”

“Why not?”

“Because why would we waltz right into the city with two of those massive things just poking around? There’s no reason for them to think we were coming here, so there’s no reason for them to set a trap.”

“Unless they knew we were coming,” I said. “Maybe they saw us drop out the damn shuttle and pulled all their drones in so they could hit us hard in the confines of the city.” I looked at Garrus to see what he was thinking, but the man still eyed the city walls like he was looking for porn in the Bible. You think it has to be there because the book is so massive, but no matter how hard you look you never really find it.

“Maybe . . . ” was all the turian uttered before he took off into the city.

“Is . . . he okay?” Adison asked as the Marines rushed past us.

My gaze followed Garrus’s reflective armor down the city street, watching him scan each rooftop and check every alley he passed. “He seems focused,” I said, “but I dunno. He’s usually not so secretive.”

“And you guys know this because you know him from the games?”

Have I mentioned how astonished I was that Adison was handling this so well? Aside from the odd comment about how convenient it was that we’d been dropped into one of our favorite game franchises—and one he never put more than a few hours into—there was a refreshing level of acceptance. Frankly, if we’d had to convince him this was real it probably would’ve made me doubt the whole fucking thing.

“He’s a good guy,” Troy answered without really answering. “There’s just something weird going on. Come on, we’d better catch up if we want to find out what it is.”

Without much further discussion, we followed. One of the tanks pounded on by alongside us while the other one trudged further ahead with Garrus and the rest of the Marines. The Reapers couldn’t have possibly overlooked our presence, so if they gave a shit, they definitely weren’t doing anything about it.

Seeing Jerusalem in that state was almost depressing. There are a number of cities I’d always dreamed of visiting one day, but that was back in 2016 when my life was fairly stable and didn’t involve galactic war. The ancient architecture was beautiful; the ornately decorated churches in particular caught my eye more than once. Always admired that about Eastern cultures. Religion had become so frowned upon and for good reason, but there’s something to be said for people who chase more in life than the latest trends. I’m not saying we should all just turn our backs on civilization and devote ourselves to a monastic lifestyle, but when I look at certain Eastern cultures I don’t see the condescending tone of disapproval we’ve come to associate with religion. I see people who are genuinely content with their lives, and when you see someone who has found real happiness that pervades every aspect of their society, it encourages you to aspire to something more. More than the self-centeredness we consider normal. Perfection may not be within our reach, but happiness is something we can strive for.

And yet, to see it all in ruins made my chest swell with sadness. I gripped Invidium firmly in my armored gloves. No better way to drive away sadness than with anger.

We’d been treading slowly ahead for a good ten minutes before Garrus held his hand up in a fist, eyes scanning the perimeter. We were directly under one of the Reapers and the other was damn near at hand, so the actual mission part of this mission had to be coming up quick.

Just a bit quicker than I would’ve liked, actually.

The Reaper screamed, a guttural, metallic wail that made me wince just before the ground in front of us was torn apart by red light. Instinct kicked in, augmented by the adrenaline amplifiers of the new suit no doubt, forcing me back a good ten feet while the buildings to either side of us toppled to the ground in a plume of dust. Another salvo of laser fire laid waste to the tank behind us and in desperation I turned and ran into the nearest alley, making sure Troy and Adison were close behind.

What the hell had just happened? The Reapers suddenly changed their minds about having guests? I’m not sure which was worse: the fact that not attacking didn’t make sense, or the fact that attacking didn’t make sense. Either way, we ran further and further through the alleyways of the city, turning whenever the whim hit me and trying to avoid the crumbling buildings the Reapers were shooting down all around us.

“What the hell was that?” Troy yelled as we ran. I’m not sure how he even had the presence of mind to speak. All I could focus on was keeping my feet in front of me and not getting crushed by brick and mortar.

I heard someone’s weapon discharge and realized it had to be Adison’s. Not only was Veritas loud enough to blow out my eardrums, I doubted it would be effective in such confined spaces.

Then Marauders appeared from an intersection just ahead and I knew I was right. I hit the dirt hard, taking a few shots to my shields but not nearly as many as I would have if I’d been standing, and unloaded on the first abomination in sight. Violet blood showered the wall behind it so I can only assume Troy had gotten off a beautiful shot on the other one, and after I’d sufficiently drained the Marauder’s shields I pulled the pistol from my side and fired a few more rounds at its head. Don’t think I managed to actually hit it, but with the rifle and the pistol firing in conjunction it went down all the same.

“Come on,” Adison said, lifting me back to my feet and taking charge of the group.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I dunno. Aren’t you guys the ones who are friends with the big monster guy?”

Fuck! Garrus! Why the hell hadn’t we heard anything on the comms?

I hit the auricular switch on my helmet to open the channel, but received only static for my efforts. Then I tried listening on all frequencies. Same result.

“Comms are down,” I said. “Reapers must be jamming us.”

“Can they do that?” Troy asked. “In the games people were always using the comms, never seemed to matter.”

“This isn’t the games anymore,” I replied.

Well, that was disheartening. Way to go, Donovan, make a shitty situation even shittier. I’m proud.

“So we pop smoke,” Adison said, detaching a canister from his chestpiece and popping the top off with his thumb. “Find a good place to hold out and wait for the others.”

“Wait for what? We don’t even know what the fucking mission is! They might not come back for us!”

“Dude, it’s Garrus,” Troy refuted. “He’ll come back.”

FUCK! Why don’t I believe that?

“Fine,” I breathed. “Adison, you’re the cop. We’ll follow your lead.”

He nodded and swapped the clip out in his gun. “I’ll take point. Troy, you’re in the middle. Keep an eye on that scanner and call out locations. Donz, bring up the rear, keep them off our backs.”

“Got it,” Troy replied.

“Keep close guys.”

And we were off again. I lost track of our position relative to where the initial assault had occurred not long after our first skirmish, so hopefully Adison had kept track or else we’d be lost in the massive city. Turn after turn, fight after fight, we progressed until Adison spotted a building that the Reapers had already halfway blown apart. It easily stood ten stories high; not high enough to survey the entire city, but we were at a high point in the city’s terrain so it gave us a good view of the alleys leading to it. Troy went up top on lookout detail, I found a place roughly halfway up the building, and after sending up the smoke signal, Adison stood guard down below to keep drones from reaching us. While two walls and the majority of the roof no longer existed, the stairwell remained mostly intact and there was just enough mortar left to take cover if the need arose. In the rare instance that one of us became compromised, we’d simply move up or down a level and repeat the process any time we came under heavy fire.

I can’t remember how long we held that building or how many times I saw the Reaper firing its cannon and thought we would be obliterated. Troy wasn’t picking up any friendlies on the scanner, but we could hear gunshots in the distance and the Reaper was obviously shooting at someone other than us. The only thing I could do to stay sane was focus on the drones that presented themselves and try not to die. Much easier said than done. I took a few slugs that the automated medi-gel dispenser patched up well enough, but after you’ve been shot so many times you start to realize that eventually you won’t be able to fix them all.

And where in the hell did the Reapers get all their ground troops? I lost count after putting down about a dozen Cannibals, Marauders and Husks, and I knew the guys had to be doing better than me. Add to that the fact that Garrus was probably still out there kicking ass and some of the Marines might be with him. Yet the drones still came. You’d think that after the first fifty or so troops lost they’d realize we had them funneling into a killzone, but they continued their attempt to take us down. Thankfully the spot Adison had chosen was accessible only via the two narrow alleys on either side, otherwise the drones could’ve just shown up in force and ended the fight easily. As it was, they were going to have to bleed us dry. I almost would’ve preferred a “get it over with” scenario.

But on the other hand, if I was going to die fighting the Reapers without knowing what the fuck was going on in this universe, I was going to take out as many of them as I could along the way. Yeah, screw quick and quiet. If I’m going down, I’m taking all you fuckers with me.

I was almost beginning to feel good about being resigned to death when I saw a bluish blur at the very edge of my line of sight. Being surrounded by brick, clay, and mortar all of a very earthy color, the sheen of biotic manipulation was pretty easy to spot.

“We got a Banshee!” Troy yelled from his vantage point, a piercing shot subsequently telling us we needed to get our focus off whatever it was on and start throwing some serious shit towards the omen of impending death.

The thing was hideous. I know we’ve all seen them before, but as with everything I’d seen lately, coming face to face with such a perversion nearly made me hurl. I levelled my gun at the monster, firing away to no avail. It teleported every few seconds, and on the rare occasion that I had it in my sights, the bullets hit its barrier like pellets against a concrete wall. Not even a dent.

The other drones were closing in. We’d all shifted our focus so completely to the Banshee that crowd control had gone out the window and Cannibals were swarming because of it. If I peered out of cover for a second my shields dropped instantly, riddled by countless Reaper slugs.

This was it. We were going down, no fighting it. The only choice was whether to go out at the Banshee’s hands or the Cannibals. Bullets, or biotics and possibly spiky claws? I’d been shot before and was growing accustomed to the feeling, whereas being flayed or skewered alive wasn’t something I wanted to try.

Bullets it is, then.

I stood to my feet and ran to the staircase, thinking that I could head down and help Adison fend of the drones at the doorway. Troy was probably the smartest one out of us all, so maybe we could buy him some time to think up a way out of this. At the very least, he was the most deadly with that rifle, so he could take more drones out.

But halfway down the stairs I noticed the drones were uncharacteristically inaccurate. I hit cover at the next floor down but didn’t hear any gunshots, aside from Troy’s rifle still firing from the top floor.

I couldn’t believe what I saw when I peered outside. All the drones just stood there immobile, weapons down and apparently in no danger of being fired. Even the Banshee had stopped its ominous journey towards our holdout location and drooped over like a depressed giraffe. Were they giving up?

Another shot rang out from Troy and I saw a Cannibal go down in a red cloud of blood.

“Troy, stop shooting!” Adison yelled from below.

“Why? We can’t take advantage of their sudden retardation?”

“We don’t know what’s happening!”

“Yeah that’s kinda the point! They probably don’t either and it might not last long, so let’s take as many of the fuckers out while we can!”

Then one of the most terrifying moments of my life happened. The same dark metallic groan of the Reaper sounded off again, but not in an inaudible shout inspiring horror and dread.

It actually spoke.

“You.”

I looked up at the thing, almost expecting it to look back at me. If Reapers had eyes I’m sure it might have, but in reality all it did was point a glowing red orifice in our general direction.

“You are not like the others. Possessing knowledge and expectations that do not belong. Your very existence does not belong.”

Um . . . okay? How the hell do you respond to something like that? How the hell do you respond to anything when it comes from a friggin Reaper? And while I’m at it, why would a Reaper stop in the middle of a fight just to talk? Did it want to insult us? Pour salt in the wound? If it just wanted to tell us how inferior we were and that we were so incapable of understanding their existence, I’d have rather just kept fighting.

“The fuck do you want?” Troy yelled.

“T!” Adison chided. A wasted effort. He didn’t know the extent of the Reapers’ brutality like we did or their arrogance, so he didn’t understand that we’d pretty much accepted the fact that we’d lost this one.

But strangely enough, the Reaper didn’t just incinerate us on the spot.

“You are an anomaly. We have monitored the development of this cycle for fifty thousand years, as we have for each cycle before it. The species of this cycle developed in a predictable pattern according to our desires. You are less developed, and yet . . . somehow more so.”

This was unbelievable. I know I’ve said that a lot; meeting Shepard was unbelievable. Being a passenger in the Normandy was unbelievable. Fighting Reapers on the Citadel was unbelievable. And coming back to earth to go back for more may have been the stupidest, most unbelievable thing yet. But talking to a Reaper? God could have smitten them all or turned them into kittens at that point and I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“What do you want from us?” Adison asked. A futile question; something about being incapable of understanding or our overall uselessness was surely the response.

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” I asked rhetorically. “We’re incapable of understanding, right? Just primitive organics who can’t even begin to fathom the nature of your existence.”

“Organics are not incapable of understanding, merely accepting. But you are more capable than most.”

Oh. Well, that was unexpected.

“Sovereign told us we wouldn’t understand,” Troy replied. “That your reasons are so far beyond anything we’re able to conceive.”

“Nazara was constructed from the ashes of the Prothean Empire, a race more savage and totalitarian than any existing in this cycle. The views of the protheans were a part of it. Arrogance does not become us.”

What . . . the hell? This wasn’t right. Sovereign and Harbinger were always so uppity, and here this thing was telling us we might actually be able to understand their reasoning? Forget the fact that we knew their reasons (assuming we were still correct about the Leviathan theory), the thing should be telling us how incompetent we were and that killing us would be doing us a favor. The fact that it was behaving so contrary to the standard of Reaper attitudes didn’t exactly set my nerves at ease.

“So tell us what you want,” Adison demanded.

“Desire is irrelevant. Objectives are not. Our goals should be the goals of any who claim to have obtained a modicum of wisdom. We exist to ensure the continuation of this universe, an idea that has been in peril since the dawn of its creation.”

“Right, right,” Troy mocked. “You’re protecting organics from their own synthetic creations. Keeping us alive by wiping out the species capable of creating artificial intelligence and leaving the more primitive ones. How’s that working out for you guys?”

“Foolish creature. You have seen but a glimpse of our nature and claim to understand it. Your preconceived notions are but one of an infinite number of possibilities. We do not exist to conquer and destroy, but to preserve. Destruction shall occur whether it is by your hand or that of the universe. It is inevitable.”

So we’d been wrong about the Catalyst after all, assuming the thing was telling the truth. They weren’t trying to preserve organic life, just the existence of the universe. It sounded like they believed something similar to a Big Crunch theory was imminent and they had to do something to stop it. They were ensuring their own survival.

“So you’re saying the universe is going to be destroyed?” I asked for clarification.

“What, you actually believe this fucking toaster?” Troy chided.

“Your belief is irrelevant. All that you know is nothing but wind and silence. You form rationalizations and justifications grounded in a lack of evidence and consider it proof. We have no desire to obtain your trust, nor is it necessary.”

“Then why are we talking right now?” Adison asked.

“In an effort to ease the process of this transition. Should you find the ability to understand and accept our motivations, our objective may be achieved more swiftly. We must take action, or risk everything we have cultivated throughout the eons.”

“But we have time, right? The universe isn’t going to end right now, is it?”

“Ignorant children. Time as you perceive it is merely a concept to assist organic life in understanding the way of the universe. You measure it as if it is simply a trifle. You count your life spans with it, plan your actions around it. You attempt to control it because you are powerless to stop it. That which has no beginning and no end is an impossibility. You cannot control what does not exist.”

“But you just said—“

“The universe will end. This is not due to the imaginary construct of time. It simply is. And like your attempts to control that which does not exist, attempting to avert this catastrophe will also end in failure.”

“So why are you doing this?” I yelled, more due to the fact that I was agitated than because I actually wanted to know the truth. “Why are you wiping out organics every fifty thousand years? If the universe is doomed to destroy itself why do you care what species are allowed to live and when?”

“You are unable to change the future. We are not.”

I swear my heart stopped for a solid ten seconds. What he was implying . . . it was insane! Not only was he trying to tell us their whole reason for the cycles was because the universe was going to implode, but that they were really the good guys trying to stop that from happening? No. No way this shit was real.

“And how do you intend to stop the end of the universe?” Adison asked, one last desperate volley at the storm of insanity the Reaper was throwing at us.

“The manipulation of dark energy over the course of many millennia has weakened the fabric of our reality. Only an equally powerful reaction will reverse the damage dealt. We have come each cycle in search of a primitive species capable of ascending to our status while retaining their natural abilities. We are incapable of dark matter manipulation. You are not.”

Oh my God . . .

If I was right, he’d just told us how we’d gotten there. Continual use of biotics since the dawn of time had ripped the fabric of space-time, distorting reality by throwing us into a parallel universe.

Furthermore, he’d just revealed what their true motives were behind the cycles. They were looking for powerful enough biotics to undo countless years of what was essentially environmental decay on a galactic level. Every time someone opened up a warp field or fired a mass accelerator or jumped to FTL they’d thrown another pebble in the dam, taking us one step further to the end of reality.

I don’t know why I believed the thing, but somehow it made sense. Maybe it was just me wanting to believe in something—anything—other than the Catalyst’s explanation, or maybe it seemed for once like a Reaper was actually levelling with us. Whatever the reason, it clicked.

Even when Troy asked the final question of the conversation, it clicked.

“So what do you want from us?”

The glowing red orb that had remained unwaveringly steady the entire time finally faltered, like a puppy averting its owner’s gaze knowing it had done something wrong.

“Your genetic material is necessary to bring this cycle to fruition. We will bring about your ascendance, and should the worst come to pass, we will wait for the next cycle. This is the way it has always been. If our plans never succeed, this is how it will always be until the end comes. No matter what the outcome, your sacrifice is for a noble purpose. Necessity dictates that in the end, you will be nothing but dust and embers.”