Chapter One: Stranger in a Strange Land
Ethan Sunderland woke up. His vision was blurred, and his confusion was a sign of a concussion. He blinked and finally resolved his vision enough to make out his surroundings. It was dark, and he was in some sort of alleyway. He checked his equipment, most of it seemed intact, including the Colt M1911 pistol and the Survivalist’s Rifle, a custom variant of the AR-15. But some of his stimpaks were smashed into pieces. He had a Stealth Boy intact, in case he needed to hide. He was nothing if not prepared.
The last thing he remembered was improving his Transportalponder's efficiency at Big Mountain. He took extra precautions, but he overloaded the device, creating an explosion in the facility.
Spotting his Transportalponder across the alleyway, the Courier picked it up. When he looked at it, he found the whole thing trashed. Part of the antenna snapped off, the plastic casing that contained the power cracked. The chip—the source of the Transportalponder's power—burned to a crisp. Unless he could find the right parts, he couldn't jury rig it, let alone fix it.
"At least I could play with it like a toy gun..." he muttered.
He brought up his Pip-Boy 3000 and switched to the map tab. It showed few details of the place he was in. The date and time read 10/19/2284 5:38 PM. He sighed, relieved the blast didn't damage his Pip-Boy in the slightest.
He checked his surroundings, only to find a security camera tracking his moves.
Okay, so I'm not in Freeside. But where am I, exactly? From the looks of this place, this isn't the Sierra Madre or the Divide. No Marked Men or those Tunnelers swarming, no Cloud, no Ghosts. Thank god. I really hate those places. Guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.When he stepped out of the alleyway, he found that the place had trash everywhere, a foul odor whiffing about. The filthiness reminded him of Freeside. The brown skyscrapers showed lights of many colors—neon pink, purple, and orange.
The locals are even stranger to Ethan. Many aren't human, or at least a ghoul or a super mutant in a sense. Some of them are raptor-like, metal plates encasing their faces. The others are slender with rounded, horned heads and black eyes. The rest looked human enough. But some of the women's skin color range from blue to purple, and they possessed tendrils instead of hair. Ethan noticed a giant, four-legged creature guarding a nightclub.
The armor some of the gunmen wore and the weapons they carry outclassed his, including his armored Vault 21 jumpsuit. He also saw orange lights glowing on some of the inhabitants' forearms. He was curious of their exact nature and would like to find out how they work.
When the Courier tried to ask the locals for information that could understand him, he received dirty looks. He managed to learn a few things. First, the place was a space station, formerly a mining facility, called Omega. A ruthless warlord named Aria T'Loak ran the place. Second, the year here was 2183. It was hard for him to believe that, wondering if he ended up in the past.
Omega was a haven of crime, a hellhole. Just like Freeside before the second battle of Hoover Dam.
As the Courier traveled down the crowded streets of Omega, he listened to the news brought out by the loudspeakers. The only thing he understood was a military hero got killed in action some time ago. Not only that, but humanity didn’t destroy Earth in a nuclear war. He was wrong about being transported to the past. He was in an alternate universe.
Upon passing by an alleyway, he stopped as he felt something metallic against his temple. He turned to his right, only to find a brown, four-eyed humanoid pointing a strange pistol at his head.
"You're going to mug someone who's armed to the teeth? Are you serious?" Ethan asked. "That's gonna end well for you."
The four-eyed thug replied in a strange language. His Pip-Boy couldn’t translate what he was saying, but it seemed like he could understand what he said.
Before the thug could pull the trigger, the Courier grabbed the thug's gun arm and pinned him against the wall. He kneed the would-be robber in the stomach, causing him to groan in pain as he dropped his pistol. The Courier drew his pistol, switched the safety off, and pointed it between the four eyes, now widened in terror. They soon went blank as Ethan fired his pistol once, killing him. To Ethan, it could’ve ended better than getting ambushed by a group of old ladies armed with rolling pins at Freeside.
The body of the four-eyed creature slumped to the ground. Ethan went through the thug's belongings after holstering the pistol, its safety back on. He found what appeared to be a slip fashioned as a way to transfer money and an earpiece. The deceased criminal's ears were small and pointy, so the earpiece wasn't of any use. The slip, though, would be more useful to him than the thug.
He picked up the strange pistol. It was a semi-automatic pistol with iron sights like the ones on the Browning Hi-Power and the M1911 pistols. It lacked a hammer, but the muzzle was there. A laser sight attached to it. He unloaded the magazine and found blocks of metal too large to be bullets. One of the blocks felt hot enough to make him drop it.
He picked up the block and put it back into the magazine, ignoring the pain from the heat. Taking the pistol, he left the alleyway without wasting any more time. He already had enough attention as it is. The crowd was gathering around the body.
When he arrived at the marketplace, Ethan approached the nearest kiosk. He hoped that the slip would be enough to provide him some basics. The human clerk turned to see him. He sported short, red hair and wore some coveralls over his body.
"Hey there!" the human clerk spoke. "You look like you've been through a lot. What can I do for you?"
"Finally, someone that can speak English," Ethan spoke as he placed his arms on the counter.
"I take it's your first time here?" the clerk asked.
"Yeah," Ethan answered, shrugging.
"Without a translator," the clerk stated.
Ethan nodded. "Yeah. Got one?"
"Yeah, I do," the clerk replied. "Use the terminal to your right to make a transaction," He tilted his head to the orange screen. "Do you have an omni-tool? If not, then you can buy it here. Everybody does."
"An omni-tool?" the Courier asked, confused. He turned his attention to the terminal before returning to the clerk. "Also, what's up with the terminal? Concerned about security?"
"Yeah, something like that. You can also see these terminals on the Citadel," the clerk answered. He stared at the Courier as he raised an eyebrow, showing his confusion at Ethan's ignorance of the galaxy at large. "Omni-tools are multipurpose handheld tools with a computer microframe and other stuff. I'm a bit surprised you didn't know about them before."
"Sounds useful. So why would I need one?"
The clerk blinked. "It’ll also give you a small kinetic barrier," he answered. "But it does squat against radiation, like laser, temperature, slow-moving objects, and poison. Your chances of getting shot are higher than getting irradiated or cooked alive. I don’t need to spell it out to you that Omega’s a dangerous place."
"Kinetic barriers, huh? So it gives me a bit of protection from that pistol with blocks in the magazine?" Ethan asked.
"Blocks? You mean thermal clips?" the clerk replied, rolling his eyes as he went along. "They're detachable heat sinks when you reload your gun. Y'know, to keep it from overheating."
"Oh, okay. I'll just take a look at the terminal, then," Ethan replied. He turned to the terminal once more and browsed the selections. He found an omni-tool and a translator of seemingly sufficient quality. He used the slip he stole from the batarian to buy them, costing him about 7,500 credits, greatly depleting his stolen funds.
Ethan blinked, finding it shocking that these items cost so much. Anything that cost that much are usually weapons and armor, not tools. He wondered if there was inflation involved with this form of currency.
"Here you go," said the clerk as he handed out a headset and a small PDA. "One Logic Arrest omni-tool and a Rosetta translator headset coming up!"
The Courier took the translator and the PDA, and fitted the translator over his right ear. A holographic interface appeared in front of his eyes, allowing him to read different languages. He looked at the PDA object with a confused look on his face. "This is—"
"Turn it on and see for yourself."
The Courier did so by pressing a button. To his surprise an orange holographic light appeared around his right arm, reaching up to his elbow. "Nice!" he grinned as he attempted to use one of the functions. He fumbled a few times, but he managed to get a paper-thin video screen to appear above his omni-tool.
"All right, I should be going," Ethan replied. He deactivated his omni-tool and put the device in his pocket.
"Take care!"
The Courier sauntered out of the marketplace as he looked at the map on his Pip-Boy. He remembered passing by the nightclub earlier. It would be a great place to find some news from the locals.
Looking up on a network known as the Extranet on his omni-tool, he learned what he can as he went to a nightclub, Afterlife. Its name appeared in giant white letters above the entrance, surrounded by bright-purple lights.
He found out they're not mutants. They're aliens. And he saw them in the flesh.
The four-legged creature, an elcor, stood as a doorman. There was a line consisting of several people of the various races. Turians, asari, salarians, krogan, and humans. All are in two straight rows.
Someone bumped into him. A hooded man shuffled by. He muttered a quick apology and vanished into the crowd, completely bypassing the line and went straight into the club.
The Courier wanted to cut past the line just like the hooded man did, but thought better of it when the line hadn't budged. Instead, he walked away from the club.
"Dr. T'Soni?"
Liara looked away from the elcor, interrupting their conversation. "May I help you?" She looked up at the hooded figure, then down at the hand he placed on her shoulder.
"Should I..." she asked as she looked closely at the hooded figure sitting beside her, his black eyes looking back at her. Upon a closer look, with the dull lighting of the club, his skin—or rather, his scales—were a bright set of hues. The news projected on the holographic display across the table. It informed the denizens of Omega about the repairs the Citadel was taking in the aftermath by Sovereign and the geth. It felt like it happened so long ago when Shepard was around.
Here she was in the Afterlife on Omega, talking to an elcor patron about Shepard's whereabouts, but it went nowhere. It was worth a try, if only because she felt that not asking would be akin to letting her hope die down bit by bit.
She blinked once more when a realization dawned upon her that someone else dropped into the conversation.
"Oh, I apologize," said the asari. "I was…preoccupied at the moment."
"That's all right," the hooded man replied. "I'm Feron, Dr. T'Soni. Pleasure to make an acquaintance with you."
"Please, call me Liara," replied the asari. "It's what Shepard usually calls me by."
"Shepard…" Feron muttered, nodding as he crossed his arms and looked at the asari. "You're looking for the whereabouts of her body, correct?"
"Yes," the asari answered. "What do you know?"
Feron glanced around the surroundings and leaned in closer to the former archaeologist. "I can't tell you here. It isn't safe," he whispered. "We should go outside."
"Of course," she agreed. Both the asari and the drell stood up and walked out of the club, with the asari following close behind her hooded companion.
The Courier leaned forward against the rail in one of the less populated part of Omega. He looked through one of the windows, seeing the distant stars blinking in and out in space. A giant asteroid field circled the station. He saw the traffic there, ships of various shapes and sizes traveling all over the station.
When he made his way through the crowds, the locals gave his armor some suspicious glances. He stuck out, something he should take care of. It didn't pay to attract too much attention. There were mutterings of his actions, some of praise and others of fear and concern.
His thoughts turned to the experiment back at Big Mountain, pondering about the possibilities in the wake of it. He didn't think he died and ended up in a purgatory, somehow. The blast didn't disintegrate him, he remembered. Plus, it would have been ironic, with the name of the club being Afterlife.
Gunshots snapped him out of his thoughts. Out of instinct, Ethan sprinted. Minutes later, he arrived at a large, arching, brown hallway. He heard tiny metal slugs zipping by. He realized the shields from his omni-tool would last a few shots in an intense firefight. He had to be quick on his feet and resort to hit-and-run tactics.
His Predator pistol out, the Courier pressed his body against the wall to his right. He poked his head out of the alleyway. Closest to him, a large group of humans, turians, and batarians in blue-and-white armor took positions behind several stacks of crates.
To his left, a hooded man using similar crates as cover. Ethan recognized him—he was the one who bumped into him at the club. He wore a brown cloak over his tan-green armor. Alongside the man was an asari in indigo armor.
"We got a witness here," he heard one of the shooters speak. "Kill him. We don't want any suspicions of what happen here."
"I got him," another one, a woman, replied as she approached him with a flamethrower in her hands and a large tank on her back.
Capitalizing on the tank's exposure to incident and gunfire, the Courier popped out of cover and aimed down the sights of his pistol at the flamer in question. He activated the VATS program on his Pip-Boy. According to its calculations, he had a good chance of hitting the tank on the first shot. For each extra shot, the chances go up.
Time slowed down, adrenaline rushed through Ethan's body as he quickly fired five times at the tank in question with great accuracy. He made the shot on the first two tries, but missed on the third. Before the flamer realized what will happen, it was too late for her. The last two shots hit the tank. It exploded in a fiery radius, engulfing her and two of the mercenaries nearby.
"Dammit, she's down!" one of the shooters exclaimed.
"I'll take him out," a turian spoke as blue lights appeared in front of his body, providing him extra protection. He approached the Courier with a shotgun, taking his shields out in a single shot.
Ethan ducked behind cover to wait for his shields to recharge as he got out his Bowie knife. As the turian was about a step away from him, he grabbed the turian, pinned him against the wall and went for his exposed neck with the knife. The turian struggled, dropping his shotgun as he attempted to push the knife away. He stunned the turian with a headbutt and stabbed him in the neck, ending his life.
Ethan grabbed the soldier's rifle attached to his back and the disk-shaped grenades. He discarded his old frag grenades by taking off the belt. He pulled the pin off from one of the grenades, and tossed it toward the armored shooters. The fragmentations from the detonation left little effect on them thanks to their armor and kinetic barriers. His old weapons are out of the question.
He heard more gunshots going off behind him, and he turned around to see the hooded man shooting back with his pistol. "Hey!" he shouted. "Unless you want to get shot, I would suggest you get over here! That place will leave you wide open!"
Following the strange man's advice, Ethan holstered his pistol for the assault rifle. He fired at another shooter in several three-round bursts, taking out his shields, as he slid behind a crate. The asari glowed blue as she summoned a projectile and threw it, tossing the armored soldier away.
Ethan blinked, staring at the asari in disbelief on her ability to manipulate some strange energy. But the two strangers took a double-take at him for outright showing up out of nowhere.
"What are you doing here?" the hooded man asked, his voice sounded filtered. The Courier realized his translator was doing the work.
"Oh, you know," Ethan replied. He popped out of cover and activated VATS once more, shooting down a few of the armored soldiers with great precision. "Sightseeing, taking a walk down the station, walking into danger, the usual. But what are you guys doing here?"
The strangers stared at him in disbelief with his ability to shoot at an implausibly fast and accurate rate. The asari blinked before speaking. "I'll give you the short version: we're looking for someone's body," she answered. "Feron is my contact." She indicated the hooded man.
The hooded man, Feron, frowned at this. "Liara, are you sure this is a good idea, trusting a human we just met?" he asked, indicating the asari.
"He has gotten into a firefight on our side, so it's as a good time as any," the asari, Liara, replied. "We're looking for the body of Commander Shepard. Feron here had some information."
"Commander Shepard? The one I've been hearing all over the news recently?" Ethan asked. He popped out of cover and threw back a grenade at a nearby group of the attackers. The blast had caught some of them, but the remaining few rolled out of the way. "Guess she's more popular than I thought."
He realized he wasted his breath as the two gave him incredulous looks. "You…" Feron said.
"How did you not know who Shepard is until now?" asked Liara.
"You'd think you would've known her by her reputation, being human and all," said Feron.
"Like I said, I'm new around here," Ethan replied as he poked his head out of cover in his direction. He found more armored troopers coming in.
"Aren't we all?" added Feron as he shot another attacker. "We know people who are not from around here as well."
"Yeah, sure," Ethan retorted. "But I don't want to get shot for having a conversation."
A metal slug whizzed by soon after. "Good idea," Feron replied.
"For once, we agree," Ethan nodded as he continued firing at the mercenaries. It felt like no matter how many they killed, two more would replace one. But Liara leaned out of cover from a pillar nearby and gathered much of the blue energy as she can, forming it into a sphere in her hands. Within a second, she launched the ball at the mercenaries in question. It stood there, suspended in the air. Soon after, it began pulling those nearby toward it, flying around the object as if they were like string attached to a ceiling.
This gave Ethan and Feron the advantage. They focused their fire at the floating mercenaries in question, while the Courier used VATS whenever he can. He ducked as one of the floating mercenaries flew above him. He continued firing, with Liara firing her pistol at another mercenary that came running on the scene.
Firing ceased as one of the turians entered the fray with a large, bulky rifle in hand. Liara leaned out of cover and pulled off another attack. A blue barrier appeared on the turian, preventing him from moving.
Without warning, one of the mercenaries dropped dead with a bloody hole in his head. "Sniper! Look out!" one of the mercs cried out in fear, but another shot pierced his head. Several of the attackers got shot down. Capitalizing on this, Liara ran first, tossing another merc with her biotics. Feron came next, dashing away as he grabbed Ethan's arm, following the asari. None of them looked back as they ran, rounding corners and through corridors. After several minutes of non-stop running, the Courier felt they were safe from their pursuers for now. He owed the mysterious sniper his thanks for giving them the opportunity to escape.
"Okay," Ethan spoke as he stopped. "I can look up a safe spot on my Pip-Boy."
Feron paused in his tracks. After running a few steps, Liara turned around, with Feron looking at the Pip-Boy strapped on Ethan's left wrist. "What?" Feron asked.
"Let's see here…" the Courier muttered as he browsed through the map on his Pip-Boy. "What about this here, in the middle of the market?" He brought the cursor onto said spot. "We could blend in there, lose our pursuers, and slip by, with none the wiser."
Feron nodded. "The Blue Suns wouldn't think of tracking us down there." He pointed his index finger at a spot on the Courier's Pip-Boy. Judging by the format on the map, it appeared to be a large mining facility. "But the marketplace is a public place, which is risky for us since we can be easily detected."
"The Blue Suns?" Ethan asked. "Are they the ones that attacked us, right?"
"Correct," said the asari as she approached the two.
"They sure did their job well," Ethan replied. Thanks to the regenerative powers of his Phoenix Monocyte Breeder, he was largely unscathed. "Anyone hurt?"
"No," Feron answered. "But we would like to ask you some questions."
"Alright, shoot," he replied as he brought his arm, which has his Pip-Boy strapped on it, down.
"Who are you?" asked Liara. "And what exactly is this Pip-Boy you have?"
Ethan hesitated for a moment, deciding whether to tell the two his real name. They did help him, after all, and showing back some trust would be an excellent way to gain new friends and allies.
"Name's Ethan Sunderland," he answered, "but people usually call me the Courier. A messenger, in case you don’t know what I'm talking about." He showed Liara and Feron his Pip-Boy. "This is a Pip-Boy 3000. It has a Geiger counter, a radio, a health monitor, and a clock and calendar. It can store data and I can brighten the screen to use it as a flashlight. It's like your omni-tool."
Both Liara and Feron stood stock-still as Ethan mentioned this. "Why would you need a Geiger counter?" the asari asked.
"Back on Earth, there was a lot of radiation," the Courier answered. "It decayed over time, but there are still some spots of it here and there."
Feron only gave the human a confused look. "Earth has large levels of radiation?" he asked. "I heard the slums of most of its cities were bad, but I'm surprised the Alliance dealt with enough radiation to provide a Geiger counter into that Pip-Boy of yours."
"Actually, this device was made by RobCo Industries," the Courier corrected. "At a…different version of Earth."
This has left his company even more confused. "RobCo?" asked Liara. "I've never heard of…" Her frown only intensified. "Wait. If you're from an alternative timeline or perhaps an alternative universe, then when did humanity first develop the nuclear bomb?"
"1945, near the end of the second World War, when America developed and deployed it against the Japanese forces," Ethan replied. "Come to think about it, I kinda felt bad for them, being nuked and all. Next."
"Okay… how about the transistor?"
"I haven't seen much of those things outside from Big Mountain and robots," the human answered. "There was also the Great War between the Americans and the Chinese back in 2077. Basically a restart button for humanity."
Liara glanced to Feron, with the two exchanging confused looks, and then looked back at Ethan. "There was a war between the United States of America and China little over a century ago?" Liara asked. "I don't know what to believe…"
The Courier sighed, shaking his head. "That didn't happen in this universe. The date on my Pip-Boy reads 2284, but I'm off by about a century here. Yeah, I'll bet that's a bit hard to wrap that together, that I'm from a parallel universe and ended up on this station."
Liara glanced down at the ground for a second. "I… don't know to respond to that," she stated.
"You're correct," Feron replied. "But Omega is thousands of light years away from Earth."
"Damn, that's quite a ways away," the Courier retorted, biting his lower lip. After a second of thought, he pulled out his broken Transportalponder out of his backpack and showed it to Liara and Feron. "This device brought me here."
Liara stepped forward, looking at the device in question. "What is that?" she asked. "I have never seen anything like it…"
"You do now," Ethan deadpanned. "It's a Transportalponder, made from Big Mountain. This thing can transport me from the Mojave to there and vice versa. I tried to improve its efficiency, but…anything can go wrong. I needed some unique materials to fix it."
Liara and Feron glanced at each other. "Goddess…" she muttered as she turned to Ethan before looking back at Feron. “Feron, do you think what he said was true, let alone even possible?"
"I…I don't know," said Feron. "He has made a large assumption about himself."
"Aside from him being insane, it's the only explanation I can come up with." The asari gestured to Ethan. "Do you have an omni-tool?"
"Just bought it," said Ethan as he pulled out the omni-tool out of his pocket. His right forearm glowed an orange light momentary before putting it away.
Liara nodded. "So what do you know about the Protheans? Does your Pip-Boy have that kind of information?"
"No, I don't have that," Ethan answered. "I don't know much about them."
"And the turians?"
"Yep, thanks to the extranet. Seen them myself, too."
Liara placed her fingers on her chin. "Alright… mass relays?"
Ethan shook his head after looking through the data on his Pip-Boy. "No, there aren’t any references to the mass relays. As far as I know, they can send you to another part of the galaxy in an instant, faster than the speed of light."
"So the data in your Pip-Boy proves it," said Liara, raising an index finger after looking at the Pip-Boy to be sure. "I don't know how or what happened, but you're right. You're not in your own universe anymore."
"I don't know what to make of this…" said Feron, shaking his head as he placed his hands on his hip.
"That's enough," a female voice spoke from behind.
"What?" asked Liara, looking around. "Who's there?"
"An ally," a black-haired woman in a black-and-white uniform replied as she approached the three. Two bodyguards, clad in white-and-yellow armor, followed her behind. "Relax. We're working towards the same goal. Finding Commander Shepard," said the woman.
"The one I've been hearing about a lot recently?" asked the Courier. "News travel fast, it seems."
As the woman and her bodyguards gave him confused looks, Liara sighed. "It's a long story," she said. "We only just figured it out."
The asari turned to Ethan. "I'll explain in full later, but Commander Shepard…none of us would be here if she hadn't stopped an invasion on the Citadel."
"Right," Ethan replied as he rubbed the back of his neck, processing what Liara told him. "The way I hear it, she was missing in action a few weeks ago. If she turns out to be dead, I'll bet it'll be a terrible loss."
"That sounds about right," said the black-haired woman. "This…wasn't what we expected to find, I admit."
Liara glanced to Ethan and Feron, right as the latter removed his hood. Ethan saw what looked like a lizard man. The man’s skin—scales, actually—was a set of various colors. He felt like he was the odd one out, with him being ignorant of the new universe at large.
"I wasn't expecting the day to end like this," Liara admitted. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"I am Miranda Lawson," the woman answered. "And I'm here to take you to my boss."
"Well, you're quite quick to trust us," Ethan chuckled. "What does he want us for?"
"He's after the same thing you're after," Miranda answered. "He wishes to find Shepard as well, and he may have intel in regards to that."
Feron glanced to Liara, frowning. "I don't trust this set-up," he said. "Cerberus is pro-human. They're only interested in Shepard because she was human."
"Does it matter?" the asari asked. "We have the same goals as they do. Let's meet up with their boss."
"Very well, then," Miranda replied, brushing some strands of hair out of her face. "Follow me."
The woman set out soon after, with Liara following along immediately. Feron hung back, and Ethan caught up with him.
"I have a bad feeling about this," the lizard man stated.
"Well, I got myself dragged into an alternative universe. I nearly got mugged, and got myself into a gunfight with you guys. Now we're working with a human supremacist group to find a dead hero," Ethan replied sarcastically. "Of course you have a bad feeling about this!"
Liara, Feron, and Ethan are in a small room. It shared much of Omega's architecture. An emblem of diamond-shaped outline was surrounded by two orange strokes. It traced down to its bottom, embedded on the walls. Ethan and Liara sat down on a nearby chair. A suitcase containing a suit of armor sat near the Courier.
Ethan looked at his pistol and the new weapons provided by Cerberus manufacturers. He tried to repair his Transportalponder, but he didn't have the time to nor did he have the materials. The engineers showed interest in it. He refused to give it to them.
Not long after, the door slid open. Miranda walked through. She looked to Liara. "Our leader wants to see you now."
Feron shook his head. "No thanks. I think I'll stay."
"Me too. Little busy here," the Courier stated.
"I wasn't asking you two." Miranda turned and exited the room, with Liara following behind.
As they waited, Liara was in another room. She talked to the Illusive Man through a quantum entanglement communicator. He told her of the Shadow Broker and the Blue Suns’ involvement. That and the Shadow Broker made an agreement with the Collectors.
Liara had only heard of the Collectors. Almost no one has seen them, which made her skeptical of their existence altogether. For many people, the Collectors were an urban myth. They appeared in the galactic spotlight five centuries ago from the Omega-4 Relay. For some reason, they're the only race capable of entering and exiting through that relay. The Collectors are an isolationist race of scavengers. They made deals involving unusual specimens in the Terminus Systems. If the Illusive Man was right, then they took an interest in Shepard. So they must be stopped from claiming the Commander's body.
Reluctantly, she agreed to work with them. When she returned, it was much later than expected.
"How'd it go?" Ethan asked.
"It went well," Liara replied. "We might have the intel about Shepard's location."
"That's good to hear," said Feron. "But we still have to…" he turned to Ethan. "Ethan, right? Or do you prefer Courier? Either way, what will he do?"
The Courier shrugged. "I dragged myself into this mess." He placed in the small metallic objects-which are heating sinks-into his pistol. "It might be stupid for me to leave now since more of these mercenaries might come after me. I might as well help you. Guess I owe you for helping me back there."
"Can't argue with that," Feron agreed. "He has seen a lot more than most people."
"Yes, of course," Liara continued with a nod. "But there's the fact that he jumped into an alternative universe."
The drell frowned. "You still believe that?"
The Courier sighed before rolling his eyes. "Yes, I'm from another universe," he stated, annoyed. "What, you want me to show you a stimpak? I can show you one."
"That's not what I..."
The asari approached the human. "I was an archaeologist. I was studying the Protheans, their history, and culture before I joined Shepard on her mission to stop Saren. Let me see if I can carbon date your jumpsuit and this Pip-Boy of yours."
"Go ahead," Ethan replied. Liara scanned his Armored Vault 21 jumpsuit with her omni-tool.
After a moment of scanning, Liara picked Ethan's left arm up and scanned the Pip-Boy. Finally, she let go of his arm. She entered a series of commands on her omni-tool, presumably calculating the age of his suit and his Pip-Boy. Thinking about it, he remembered that these Pip-Boys were made before the Great War.
The former archaeologist had a perplexed expression on her face. "That's strange..." she muttered as the numbers appeared on her omni-tool. “According to these calculations, your Pip-Boy was made around 213 years ago." She looked up to the Courier. "Were there Pip-Boys in the Earth year 1970?"
Feron frowned. "Last time I checked, no. I’m sure there aren’t any devices that advanced. You sure you done the numbers correctly? Radiocarbon dating may not be the most reliable way of confirming his claims."
Liara sighed as she turned her omni-tool off. "I guess there's only one other solution: I can join my consciousness with his."
Ethan blinked, giving Liara a confused look. "How will you do that?" he asked. "Telepathy?"
"It's a melding," Liara explained. "While I can attune my nervous system to yours, we can exchange thoughts and memories. Are you sure you wanted to do this?"
"Yeah. Let's get this over with," Ethan replied after a moment of thinking.
Liara approached him once more. "Relax, Ethan," she told him as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Her eyes turned black as Ethan jolted from the electrical impulses coursing through his body. Many of his memories showed up in his mind, flashing before his eyes. He saw himself shaking hands with an NCR officer at the Strip. He saw himself, alongside his companions, fighting Lanius at Hoover Dam. Then, he saw himself at the Sierra Madre vault, trapping Elijah in it. He saw himself approaching Ulysses at the ICBM facility, talking to the other Courier.
He spared the Think Tank. He banished the White Legs from Zion Valley with Joshua Graham's help. He trained the Misfits. He killed Benny with his own gun.
So many memories, so many accomplishments.
He found himself tied up near Goodsprings. Jessup and McMurphy stood behind Benny, the man in the checkered jacket. Benny pointed his golden-plated Browning Hi-Power pistol and fired two rounds at his head.
And just like that, it was over. Ethan blinked. He would have trouble describing what he went through. His head felt like it got squeezed into jelly, so he rubbed his temples to ease off the headache.
"Goddess, that was… disturbing," Liara rubbed her forehead.
"You all right?" the Courier asked.
"Yes. Sometimes a melding can be intense. But it wasn't as tiring as the meldings with Shepard's mind ... It's a lot to explain."
Ethan turned to Feron. "Are you convinced now, Feron?" he asked.
"Fine. I think I can see where you're coming from," Feron admitted.
"Well … I guess we'll have to get you used to the galaxy at large, then," said Liara.
"What else can you tell me about her?" Ethan asked. "All I know she stopped this galaxy from certain doom."
"Yes. That's … the gist of it," said Liara. "Not only that, but she had been chasing an elite soldier. A turian Spectre named Saren. He was the one that led the invasion. She … put an end to his madness." Her eyes became misty from the tears. "I was part of her ground team. And I saw her die on the Normandy…"
"Sounds like you were a good friend to her," Ethan commented.
Liara nodded. "She was tough and stern, yet a friend to those she cared about."
Ethan looked at Liara. "I know it's hard for you, but sooner or later, the only thing you can do is to accept her death, dust yourself off, and move on."Liara let out a sigh. "I know, but…"
"Begin again, but know when to let go," the Courier said. "That's what I have done. No reason for me to let my past take over my life."
Liara looked up to the human as Feron stood off to the side, crossing his arms in front of him. "We'll see," she said. "There'll be an exchange taking place with her body soon. We need to figure out where it's taking place."
Feron nodded, agreeing. "We can ask Aria T'Loak for Shepard's whereabouts," he suggested. "Come on. I don't think she had left Afterlife since we left." He looked to Ethan. "And on the way, we can get him up to speed as much as possible."
"Hold up," Ethan replied. "I need to suit up and get ready." He pulled up the suitcase and opened it, showing a grey suit of armor. The way it looked reminded him of the Stealth Suit from Big Mountain.
Liara turned to Ethan. "Okay," she nodded. "We'll wait, but you better hurry." She stopped just as she was about to turn. "Oh, and Ethan? It's good to have you with us."
"Yeah," Ethan nodded. "I'm one of the best couriers out there. Eh, long as the package isn't too big and it doesn't involve human trafficking or any devices that triggers a catastrophic event."
Feron and Liara left the room. Ethan began putting on the armor after taking off the paddings from his jumpsuit.