"We're here. I don't see the beacon."
I said this while sending a short message to the SSV Normandy, then turned back and looked at the newcomer in our group. Though the fact that I was looking at her was only visible by the direction of my visor.
"Williams, where could they have moved the beacon?"
Knowing the canon is good, of course, but I decided to verify this information anyway.
"Only to the spaceport... there are two roads from here: one we came by, and the second to the spaceport. So they could only have moved it there."
"I see."
I activated my Omni-tool again.
"According to unconfirmed reports, the beacon may have been moved to the spaceport. Moving to verify."
After that, the APC started moving, but things couldn't be that simple, could they? Well, they weren't. We had barely driven two hundred meters when snipers opened fire on us. My Biotics protected us, of course, but... it was unpleasant.
"Why are you just sitting there?!"
Jane addressed Ashley Williams irritably.
"It's not possible... the rangefinder says the snipers are about five kilometers away. For a human to shoot at that distance..."
"I get it. You're a useless idiot who thought she could hitch a ride with our team."
"Jane, I can sit like this for a long time, I have the strength for it. This isn't Elysium, where my group was being shot at with everything the pirate armada had. However... maybe you could do something?"
"One second, sir."
She didn't show a hint of displeasure, and when I looked back at her, I saw her climbing out of her exoskeleton—after first securing it to the armor—pulling out a Sniper Rifle, and starting to shoot.
No, she couldn't hit them from that distance, but she wasn't trying to; she was just laying down suppressive fire, which allowed the number of shots hitting us to drop by about a third.
"Why the hell are you still sitting there?!"
Jane barked at Williams.
"Do what I'm doing!"
When Williams started shooting, the number of shots hitting us dropped a bit more, and the Geth started dying, as the APC didn't stand still and kept moving forward.
"Okay, we've arrived at some kind of transport hub... everyone, look around! Unfortunately, the dome is almost useless here, so I'll hold a shield in front of us."
"Sir, there's a body here..."
I walked over to Rebecca Lee, who had drawn my attention to the body, and without surprise, I found Nihlus Kryik.
"Oh yeah... you really do move toward death faster alone."
"Kha..."
I stared at him in surprise as he coughed and struggled to open his eyes.
"...I... kha... am not dead yet."
"Fuck..."
I knelt beside him and ran my Omni-tool over his head, switching on a specialized scanning program.
"You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, damn it..."
I shook my head.
"...it looks disgusting, of course, but in fact, the bullet ricocheted off your skull. Aside from a cranial injury and some external tissue tearing, you've got nothing."
"Hah, and you were talking about death."
"Don't move."
I quickly began pouring Medi-gel over his wound.
"Okay, now you won't die from blood loss either, though there was a chance of that. Now, get into the APC. You're barred from taking part in combat operations."
"I'm not some damsel..."
"I'll knock you the fuck out."
I showed him a fist glowing with Biotic fire.
"Into the APC it is."
"Good."
I helped him into the APC, then was about to leave when I heard his question.
"You don't want to ask how it happened?"
"No. Everyone makes mistakes. It's just that some, like you, get lucky and the mistake turns into a wound and nothing more, while others pay with their lives—and it doesn't matter if it's their lives or the lives of those around them. And the specifics don't interest me as long as I'm not in the Spectre corps."
"Hah, the right approach."
"Sir, I found a witness!"
"A witness?"
I looked at Jane, who had literally dragged a puny-looking man out from behind some crates by the scruff of his neck.
"And what is he a witness to?"
"I saw one Turian shooting another!"
"Oh... get him in the car and have someone watch him so he doesn't run off. We'll need witnesses. Cameras?"
"What cameras, for heaven's sake?"
Jane smirked crookedly.
"This is a temporary transport hub that was supposed to be dismantled after the excavations were finished, just like the monorail that leads from here toward the spaceport."
"I see."
A few gestures, and I, Jane, Rebecca Lee, and Ashley Williams move toward the platform sitting on the monorail. We had to leave the APC behind, as there was no path for it here.
"Contact!"
I signaled that the enemy was ahead, and Jane and Rebecca Lee immediately doused them with fire from their exoskeleton cannons.
"Why am I even here?"
"Cut the chatter..."
I shot Ashley Williams a displeased look. Every minute, I like this fool less and less. I didn't like her in the canon either, and she only survived until the third game because, choosing between her and Kaidan Alenko, she annoyed me less. But in reality... she's just irritating. Even Kaidan Alenko with his migraines irritates me less. At least there, I can help if needed. He's a coward, sure, but I ordered him a new implant. L3-M-V3 generation. Which stands for Biotic implant L3, modified, version three. Essentially, it's devoid of the L2 implants' drawbacks, but nothing more. Meaning he'll stay within his current capabilities.
"Contact."
The girls doused the Geth with fire again, and we soon reached the platform.
"Okay, take positions and wait for daddy."
"Yes, sir!"
Jane, Rebecca Lee, and Ashley Williams immediately took their positions, and I returned along the already cleared route to the APC, which I simply lifted with Biotics and very carefully carried onto the platform, placing it sideways so it could be used as additional cover.
"Alright, Jane, activate the platform."
I said this and sat down, leaning my back against the APC's wheel—sitting in front of it, not behind it, so any enemy who saw us would open fire on me first. Though they'd be hindered by the Biotic dome covering the entire platform.
"Damn, he's some kind of monster..."
Ashley Williams wasn't speaking quietly enough, so I heard her perfectly, but I didn't react to her words. In a sense, she's right. I'm not a human, but a monster... a chimera whose creator couldn't maintain control over it. And all because someone in high circles decided to play a joke and settled a soul and mind from another world into the chimera's body.
"Williams, shut up."
There wasn't a drop of friendliness in Jane's voice.
"But ma'am..."
"I said shut up, or I'll shoot you in the knee."
"..."
Ashley Williams finally fell silent, and I only smirked under my helmet. It had all started so strangely...
A laboratory... some weirdos in lab coats teaching me English. Fortunately, I had studied the language in school and was capable of saying, "I am from Russia." Only I didn't say it. I decided to do what I was told and listen.
I quickly figured out that I had ended up in another world, and my creator—my father—would come to me and, telling tall tales, try to make sure it was ingrained in my brain that I was his heir and owed everything I had to him.
But that wasn't all.
Father believed I should be the best at everything, so from the age of six, I began intensive training and education.
And that was when I realized exactly where I had ended up, because you'd have to be an idiot not to understand when a blue girl without hair stands before you in a skin-tight suit and talks about Biotics. Well, rather, I would have been an idiot if I hadn't realized where I was, since the Mass Effect world was one of my favorites.
But realizing which world I was in didn't make my life any easier. Quite the opposite. It made my life even more miserable. Because now, not only did my mentors start tormenting me, literally hammering knowledge into my head, but I myself began to strain every nerve. After all, the Reaper invasion I'd likely have to face isn't a bunch of cute kittens. It's a global problem, damn it.
However...
At that time, those were all such distant prospects that I didn't dwell on them; I just took what I was given and then some.
At some point—I think I was about eight—I learned my father's name: Henry Lawson.
I remember being a bit stunned for a couple of days, thinking I had replaced Miranda Lawson in this universe, but... replaced or not, I had to keep learning. And as much as I wanted to help other familiar characters, like Subject Zero, I knew criminally little to make it happen. And besides, I simply didn't have the opportunity, because to Henry Lawson, I was a project—a project that had to be seen through to the end.
He kept me in the lab; I had one single room, plus a training ground where I was trained in both martial arts and Biotics, and that was it.
I started thinking about escape at fourteen...
But I pushed those thoughts away, realizing that even if he didn't know it, Henry Lawson was currently giving me everything I would need to survive the coming disaster. And so I endured. I endured his pretentious lectures on how other races were just a resource. I endured his statements that Humanity must be above all, and only one's own family should be above Humanity.
In short, I endured and nodded at the right moments.
And when I turned sixteen—not exactly on the day, but close enough—I learned that I had two sisters. And one of them had run away, stealing the second.
That day, Henry Lawson lost his vigilance. He came to me without the guards he had sent to search for my sisters, and I decided not to miss the moment and simply struck him with Biotics.
No, I understood that I couldn't kill him now, so I didn't kill him, only knocked him out. Then I took the Omni-tool off his arm, put it on mine, and...
Bingo!
Henry Lawson was a paranoid man and wanted to control everyone and everything, and for that, his Omni-tool had numerous programs that could control not only the lab we were in, but also the estate and the corporation he had created.
Oh, how I laughed then, locking Henry Lawson in the room where I had spent so much time, and then issuing orders in his name. And the best part was that the orders were followed without question. So less than three hours later, I was sitting in Henry Lawson's office, looking at security camera photos of my sister Miranda Lawson carrying away a little girl.
I had no intention of stopping them; on the contrary, I gave the order not to interfere. Of course, I could have tried to stop them, but...
Why?
Miranda Lawson wouldn't believe the soldiers if they shouted that Henry Lawson had stepped down and his son had taken over. The soldiers themselves would try to attack me... after all, I was a sixteen-year-old child, and they might well decide to act aggressively and seize power.
Realizing this and that I had no choice, I found the contact of an extremely eccentric lady who already had everything. Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't try to seize power in the corporation, but... perhaps, since she already had everything, she would at least leave me the crumbs.
That was what I was thinking when I contacted Aria T'Loak.
* Seventeen years ago. *
"Yes, Henry, what do you want?"
Aria T'Loak's voice was slightly tired. However, it was extremely commanding, and one felt like bowing their head, acknowledging the power of the voice's owner.
"I offer my deepest apologies, Lady Aria T'Loak, but this is not Henry Lawson; this is his son, John Lawson. And I am calling you with a very interesting proposal."
"Kid... does your daddy know you swiped his Omni-tool?"
A note of threat appeared in Aria T'Loak's voice.
"Well..."
I looked at one of the monitors in the office.
"...not yet. At the moment, he is unconscious, locked in the room where he kept me for sixteen years while trying to raise me as his loyal follower."
"He... what?"
I was surprised, because now there was so much hatred in Aria T'Loak's voice that I got goosebumps the size of small piglets.
"Boy, you don't joke about things like that."
"Lady Aria T'Loak, I'm not calling to joke. I'm calling because I perfectly understand that I won't be able to keep control of the corporation in my hands. Even though I was given an excellent education, it's not finished yet. However, I know that Asari have a special attitude toward children, so there's a chance you won't dismiss my request. And I'm asking you to help me manage the corporation. Naturally, I understand that you will receive very significant advantages from this. However, this option is the only one that will allow me to at least finish my education and get at least the crumbs from the table, without becoming a puppet who thinks Henry Lawson is a god and the ultimate truth."
"And what do you want from me?"
"I... forgive my audacity, but I wanted you to fly here, to me, and help. I understand it's bold of me, that it would be easier for you to continue dealing with Henry Lawson, but... it would be easier for me to destroy the corporation than... I'll return everything to Henry Lawson. And if I do that..."
"I'll lose profit. To hell with you, kid, let's just say you've piqued my interest. But if all of this is some stupid joke, I will personally horsewhip you. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Queen of Omega, transmitting coordinates..."
* End. *
"Contact!"
Jane was the first to spot the enemies positioned in the folds of the terrain and opened fire on them, while I simply remained seated. Of course, I could have done some shooting myself, but why bother when I have subordinates?
***
Read the story months before public release — early chapters are on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan