Chapter 5 – Old Ghosts, New Beginnings
The Normandy
Uncharted Space
"Morning Kelly," I yawned, walking into the Command Information Centre and greeting the cheerful Yeoman. "Any messages for me?"
"About twenty nine," Kelly said, already at work and looking fresh as a daisy. "You really should clean out your inbox, sir."
"I'll get round to it. I don't suppose you could make me a cup of coffee?" I asked hopefullly.
"I'm sorry sir, I still can't find my coffee beans and other ingredients. Rupert forgot to get them for me during our last supply run."
"Kasumi..." I muttered under my breath. "Forget it then."
"Oh, Jack wants to see you down in her hidey hole," Kelly piped up.
"She does?" I asked doubtfully. "How do you know?"
"Um, she kind of grabbed me by the neck and shoved me against the wall and said 'Get the soldier boy down to my place now, ginger bitch, I need to talk to him,'" Kelly said, shifting her weight from one leg to another.
"I...see," I said carefully. "When did this happen?"
"A little over an hour ago."
"Are you okay? You should have told me earlier."
"I'm fine, sir. And I didn't want to wake you up."
"Thanks," I said, deciding that Kelly seemed alright, even after her little encounter. "I'll go down there immediately."
When I went down to the cargo hold, Jack was pacing back and forth and running her hands over her shaved scalp. She was restless, on the edge and clearly agitated about something. She reminded me of a white Siberian tiger I had seen once in a zoo.
The amazing, beautiful, deadly animal had stalked the length of his enclosure again and again, always placing all of its feet on the exact same spot. All that power caged and shackled, the similarities with the volatile biotic was striking.
"I've got thoughts like...little bugs buzzing around in my head," said Jack, sounding agitated. "I can't or sleep, I need to deal with this. Now."
"Calm down. Tell me what's bothering you."
"Those files you gave me? I found what I was looking for. I thought I'd only get a few names and old dates. Maybe that fucking AI thought I was too dumb to dig deep enough. Whatever," said Jack, without pausing for breath. "The point is, I found out the exact place where they did their sick experiments on me. It's called the Teltin facility, on a planet called Pragia."
I took the datapad she was holding and looked at it. "It's in the Dakka system of the Nubian Expanse. Quiet place. No one goes there."
"Which is why Cerberus picked it for their most fucked up experiments. We need to go, Shepard. I can't rest knowing it's still there."
"You're absolutely certain the place was run by Cerberus?"
"I was a kid, but I wasn't stupid. I knew how to listen. It was Cerberus, don't care how far down the chain it was. They thought they were so clever," sneered Jack. "Turns out, mess with someone's head enough and you turn a scared kid into an all powerful bitch. Fucking idiots."
"What exactly are you planning to do?" I asked uncertainly.
"I wanna bash my way in and go right to my old cell. I want to plant the biggest fucking bomb you've got on this ship right in the middle of it, and I want to blow the place to hell. I want every last trace of that fucking place gone forever. I need to do this, Shepard," she said. She didn't sound like she was kidding.
I decided to talk it out. "Hold up just a moment. I don't like Cerberus either, but they are giving us supplies and intel for the mission. Wouldn't blowing up one of their research facilities piss off the Illusive Man?"
"The data says Teltin was abandoned long ago. It's just an old ruin now. Why would they care if I blow it up?" Jackie shot back.
I could hear the desperation in her voice, and I knew that she knew I was aware of it. To be as powerful and self-proclaimedly independent as Jack, it couldn't have been easy asking for help from anyone. I knew she wanted this more than anything she'd ever had in her life, but she would still rather die before she begged me or anyone else for assistance.
Hell, that kinda reminds me of myself.
"EDI!" I called.
"Yes Commander?" replied the AI instantaneously, from a speaker in the room. Jack glared at me, unsure what I was up to. She might have thought I was going to ask EDI to deny her access to further Cerberus information. She needn't have worried.
"Tell Joker to plot a course for the planet Pragia, in the Dakka system of the Nubian Expanse. Inform him we're going there right now."
"Commander, I must inform you XO Lawson has recommended a different course to be plotted, as per our ultimate campaign against the Collectors," EDI intoned. "There are still dossiers on specialists that have yet to be recruited. Pending your final approval, of course."
"EDI, you do know I consider you a part of my crew," I said pleasantly.
"Yes Commander. If I might make an observation, few humans have been willing to display such acceptance." Was she making a comment about human society? Oh hell, did I just refer to her as a 'she?' How things had changed.
"Well spotted. However, the first thing any member of my crew learns is to obey my direct orders quickly and to the letter. Miranda is not the commanding officer on board this ship, I am. Now contact Joker and relay him my orders at once," I said, my tone becoming a little more firm towards the end.
There was a slight pause, before EDI replied. "Aye aye, Commander."
"Why do you treat that thing like a person?" asked Jack with some distaste, once she was sure EDI was gone.
"The same reason I'm plotting a course for Pragia," I replied easily. "EDI's crew."
Pragia
Dakka System
Pragia turned out to be a damp, jungle-choked world filled with huge animals and rapidly-growing vegetation. The Normandy's scanners indicated that a fierce thunderstorm was taking place over the region where the Teltin facility was located.
I wasn't expecting trouble, and Jack didn't seem to want others to follow her, so only I would be tagging along. Sounded simple to me, we go in, plant the bomb and blow the place sky high. To tell the truth, I was kind of looking forward to. If half of what Jack said was true, about the scientists and the horrors they committed within, it deserved to be nuked twenty times over.
There was a strained silence in the Kodiak shuttle. Jack looked uncomfortable, likely the old memories of the facility, trauma she'd rather stay buried was returning to her. I looked out of the window, but I couldn't see much. Rain lashed against the glass, and all I could make out was the dark shape of the jungle below us.
"I hate this place," Jack muttered. "See that landing pad? Has to be on the roof, or else the plants would overgrow it in a few hours."
EDI suddenly chimed in. "I'm detecting a number of thermal signatures coming from within the base, Commander, but none from the landing pad itself."
"Something's disturbing the sensors," I said, frowning. "Probably wild animals that broke into the place. Or maybe a few machines they forgot to turn off. This was a secret Cerberus facility, and they built their equipment to last."
"Assholes," said Jack with some venom. "It was a mistake coming back here, Shepard."
I looked at her until she was forced to meet my eyes. "Hey," I said gently. "You said you needed this. I think you do too. If blowing up this base is what it takes, to make it easier for you to come to terms with your past, then that's what we're going to do."
Jack looked away. "Yeah. Okay," she said quietly. "Let's get to that landing pad."
The entire facility loomed over us, dark and foreboding. The few windows I could see were broken. There were plants growing everywhere, and perhaps it was Jack's recollections of her torture at the hands of those deviants, but I felt as though the very air was choked with the memory of sin and pain. With the lightning, thunder and heavy rain in the background, the overall effect was like that of a Gothic castle in some old movie.
We clambered over the catwalk and managed to find an entrance into the place. I had the bomb strapped to my back, a small, one-man nuclear fission device. Primitive, but powerful. It could devastate everything within a fifty kilometre radius and leave nothing behind but scorched earth and charred rock. I was just the tiniest bit apprehensive about lugging that thing around so close to my body, however.
"I never saw this room," whispered Jack. We appeared to be in some kind of lobby, the floors were thick with dust and grime and mud, old crates were strewn haphazardly about in the corners.
"I think they brought new kids in these containers. They were messed up, starving, but alive. Usually," Jack said, her voice breaking the stillness and silence.
We went down another ramp, and a security console was replaying an old holographic message, over and over. The image was of a bearded man in black armour.
"The Illusive Man has requested another report and our operation logs. I think he's getting suspicious. We'll be more careful this time."
"Looks like they were working behind the Illusive Man's back," I remarked, watching as the console repeated its message. It must have done so for years, on and on without anyone to pay attention. I shut it off.
"He didn't say what they were hiding from him," Jack said. "That bastard still could have ordered the start of their experiments. Let's just move on."
We emerged into a large room dominated by a clear glass ceiling. In here, as in everywhere else in this ruined place, tendrils were snaking everywhere on the floor, covering up broken and damaged equipment and furniture.
"I remember escaping to this room. Fighting here," Jack mused, pausing for a moment. "I remember seeing sunlight through the cracks in the ceiling. Only a half-dead guard between me and freedom. He was on his knees, begging for his life."
The expression on her face made it clear what that guard's fate had been.
We had gotten about halfway through the room when a couple of wild varren charged at us, their jaws wide in anticipation. I shot one right in its open mouth, Jack flung the other one against a wall with her biotic powers so hard I could hear its spine break. I resolved not to holster my weapon. Evidently the place still had its dangers despite being abandoned.
An old bloodstain on the floor caught my attention. It was in the middle of a fenced-off area. It kind of reminded me of an arena. I called Jack over, and she confirmed it.
"Yeah, they used to stage fights here. Pit me against other kids."
I was about to say something when Jack went on. "I loved it. Only time I was ever out of my cell."
Not the answer I was expecting.
"What were they studying?" I asked.
"Hell if I know. Maybe that's how they got their kicks. I never understood any of the shit that went on in here. I was in a cell my whole life. Sometimes they took me out and forced me to fight, filled me with drugs and other shit."
"Did any of the other kids die in these fights?" I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
"I was a kid myself. I got shocked if I refused or hesitated. Narcotics flooded my veins the instant I attacked." That feral smile crept across her face again. "I still get warm feelings during a fight," she said in a voice that was almost sultry.
I thought I had heard all there was to hear about the Teltin facility, but I was wrong. More than anything else, this shocked me, offended me on some deep and personal level. This kind of shit did not belong in a civilised universe.
This was barbarism, moral bankruptcy of the vilest kind, and what was the worst thing about it to my mind was the fact it was supposedly done in the name of 'science'. That pissed me off immensely. The people here did not deserve the title of scientist, nor did they deserve to claim the name of science as justification for their own sick evil.
Science was a tool for the betterment of mankind, not nightmarish horrors to be inflicted on innocent children. Children!
The only comparable level of disgust I'd ever felt was when I was communicating with Sovereign, that millennia old dark god from deep space. There was the same sense of utter revulsion, and it made me so furious I wished Jack had brought me here sooner so I could have blown this place to hell sooner.
Remember whose logos are on the walls of this place. The Illusive Man can deny it till the day he dies, but even if he didn't order these experiments, they still couldn't have been done without his resources.
"Let's get going," I muttered.
"Hell yes," agreed Jack.
We walked further into the facility, and came across another security console. I bid Jack to halt while I tried to replay the last message recorded. Maybe I could find some answers.
The holo image of another man in black security armour was displayed, and he began to speak. "Security Officer Zemkl of Teltin facility. The subjects have escaped, and they're tearing the place up! Subject Zero is going to break loose, I need permission to terminate, repeat, requesting permission for a kill order, stat!"
The man stopped talking as another voice answered, presumably the head of the security control. "All subjects beside Zero are expendable. Shoot the little fuckers dead, but keep Jack alive!"
"Understood. I'll begin the - "
Zemkl was cut off as Jack stopped his holo recording. She turned to me, looking confused.
"That's not right. I broke out when the guards disappeared. I started that riot in the first place," she said slowly.
"Things might have happened that you didn't see," I said.
"The other kids attacked me. The guards attacked me. The automated defence systems attacked me," she said, her voice rising. "That doesn't leave a lot of room for interpretation!"
I had nothing to say to that, and we moved on in silence. We came across another dead varren, the blood still oozing from its wounds.
"This place is supposed to be empty. Who the fuck shot that varren? It's a fresh kill," said Jack, her sharp eyes spotting something I'd missed.
My instincts had been telling me Teltin was a bad place before I'd even stepped foot on it. Now it was a wailing alarm inside my head. I got the feeling we were not as alone as I had first thought, and found myself wishing I had brought along more people for cover.
"Keep your eyes open. Something doesn't feel right," I said.
We went down some more steps and entered a small room that was lined with tables. Old cloths draped one or two of them, and it was clear this place had been a morgue.
"Why did they need a morgue? This place was a small facility," asked Jack, sounding confused.
"Other children must have been dying in large numbers. Maybe they couldn't endure whatever it was those sick fucks were doing to them," I hypothesised.
"Bullshit," snapped Jack. "I had the worst of it, I was tortured the most, and I survived! I made it out alive!"
So she had, but I couldn't help but wonder if there was more than anger that put an edge in Jack's voice. I was willing to bet there was a touch of guilt as well. It was clear that many children had died here, and from the security logs it was clear Jack was their prized specimen. The thought that somehow, even it was indirectly, that you were responsible for the countless deaths of other children...
How do you live with that?
I glanced at Jack. She had to, somehow. And it had cut her up worse than she could bear with. I was beginning to realise why Jack was as broken as she was.
"It feels so strange to be back here. I feel like...I'm pissed off. It's like, I'm a dangerous bitch, but then I'm a little girl again," muttered Jack irritably, walking ahead of me.
Again, I didn't know what to say. I found myself wishing I had brought Kelly along, although there was no guarantee she'd know what to say either. Who could, when confronted with evil of this magnitude?
"Shit, I don't know. It's complicated," she said at last. "Let's just go plant that damn bomb."
We passed by a row of open cells that looked oddly familiar. It took me a moment to place it, and then it hit me. I'd seen similar arrangements on Purgatory. Except they didn't keep hardcore criminals on lockdown in this place, they were imprisoning children here.
Maybe God could have forgiven the people who ran this place, but I wasn't about to, because I knew damn sure that they knew what they were doing. And they went ahead with it anyway.
We entered another large room, dominated by a tree in the middle and a catwalk leading to the far side, where a large opaque pane of glass took up the length of an entire wall. Jack went up to it and pressed her face against it, ignoring the dirt.
"This is a two-way mirror? My cell is right on the other side. I could see all the other kids out here. I screamed myself hoarse for hours, and they always ignored me," she whispered.
Eventually she pulled herself away from the glass. I knew we were getting close to the end.
We came to a laboratory area, a dark space with a surgical chair in the middle, illuminated by a flickering light from the ceiling. I didn't want to think of how scared the children must have been, to be strapped down in it, injected with drugs and who knows what else. They could have been pumping the kids with chemicals or viruses. That was something akin to rape. Your body, being violated, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.
"I must have come through here when I escaped, but I don't remember it," said Jack, looking around. "This is a bad place."
"No shit," I agreed. I spied another data console and hoped it was still in working condition. It apparently was, and I played back the last few entries.
A thin, bald man with a moustache popped into the air in front of us. He was wearing a lab coat instead of armour, and I guessed he was one of the scient...no, I wasn't going to dignify that worthless piece of crap with the name of scientist. One of the monsters who headed the project.
"The introduction of PergNim went poorly," he said. "Subjects One, Four and Six died. We lowered the core temperatures of the remaining subjects and tried again, but no biotic enhancement was noted. As a side effect, all of the subjects died. So we'll not try that on Zero. I hope our supply of biotic capable test subjects last, we're running out of them fast."
My hands clenched convulsively. I wanted to grab that monster by his throat and choke him to death. Speaking about the deaths of children with no emotion other than mild annoyance...
"Bullshit!" roared Jack. "They weren't experimenting on other children for my safety!" She slammed a fist down onto the console, making it spark and die. "I survived this place because I was tougher than the rest. That's who I am! Not because those assholes wanted me to live!"
As much as I wanted to agree with her, I couldn't. All evidence pointed to the fact that the entire purpose of Teltin revolved around Jack and what she was capable of.
"It doesn't matter, Jack. You move on, harder and stronger. They tried to break you, but they didn't. They wanted to control you, but they couldn't," I said, trying to convince her. She had to see the truth. "They lost Jack. You survived. Nothing else matters."
Jack stared at me with such hurt in her eyes. I wanted to go over to her and hold her. Just a touch, simple human contact to let her know she was not alone, that at least one person understood her. But it wouldn't have been wise. It wasn't the right moment. Jack never responded well to physical contact at the best of times, and this was hardly the best environment.
Surprisingly, the console fizzled back to life again. It was the same man, but a different message.
"What a...ing disaster! This girl was a living weapon, and its...gone to hell! We'll cut our...shut the whole thing...sneak into the Alliance's Ascension prog...that way, maybe we can..."
The image looked to its left.
"Who are...Zero, no!" The man was flung off screen, and the holo died for good.
"Shepard, they were going to start again. From within the Alliance!" said Jack worriedly.
"Ascension is an Alliance-run programme," I said. "I've known a few marines who graduated from there. It's a school for biotic kids, they don't torture anyone."
If Jack could be persuaded that she had stopped the next generation of Teltin from occurring, it might be what she needed to put this all behind her. I had to make her believe that.
"A lot of this isn't how I remembered it," she said, almost petulantly. "We're almost at my old cell now. The place where I came from. Let's go."
I opened the door, and took a step back. The ante room was filled with a number of vorcha carrying heavy weapons, and a group of krogan in red battle armour. One of them tapped his communicator upon seeing me and spoke into it.
"Hey Aresh, it's Kureck. Yeah, the intruders are here. If you want them dead, it's going to cost you extra."
Guess they were the thermal signatures EDI had picked up while scanning the place, and like a fool, I'd assumed it wasn't a threat.
"Who the hell are you?" demanded Jack. "This place was supposed to be empty!"
The krogan ignored her. "You said there'd be good salvage, but this place is a dump! Yeah...yeah. Okay, whatever. Alright, kill them."
I was about to spray the room with bullets, when I remembered I had a certain thermonuclear device strapped right in the middle of my freaking back. One stray round or rocket or jet of flame, and everything within a hundred kilometres would be reduced to their constituent atoms.
"Jack, I need to hide the nuke! Try to hold them off until I come back!" I yelled, diving out of sight. I ran back into the lab and tried to work the nuke off my back as quickly as possible. There were a ton of mercs in there, Blood Pack most probably, and she was going to need my help.
There was a lot of shouting and screaming and the guttural roars of the krogan coming from the room, followed by a massive shockwave as something big went off, but as long as it wasn't the nuke I ignored them. Finally I shrugged off the last strap and charged back into the room, weapon raised. I skidded to a dead halt, mouth hanging open.
Jack was standing on a crate in the center of the room, breathing heavily. Around her were dead vorcha and dead krogan. Not one of them had survived. Blood splattered the walls, pieces of broken armour littered the floor.
She turned to stare at me, and I felt a chill go down my spine despite myself.
"Sorry, I had to find cover," I managed to say. "I had a freaking nuke on me, one shot could have blown us to Kingdom Come."
Jack blinked. "Oh, yeah. The nuke, yeah. Sorry, forgot about that. No wonder you were running. Should have realised that. The only room left is my cell. Whoever Aresh is, he's in there."
I retrieved the nuke, opened the last door, and we went in.
Jack's cell was a small, dark room. Standing in the middle of it was a man dressed in nondescript clothing. He looked young, but his face looked as weary and ravaged as that of an ancient.
"My name is Aresh, and you are breaking into my home," he said slowly, with a strange inflection to his voice. I know you, Subject Zero. All these years, and I thought I was the only survivor."
"My name is Jack," she said, aiming her gun at his face. "How the hell do you know who I am?"
"We all knew your face Jack," he said quietly. "They inflicted their horrors upon us so their experiments wouldn't kill you. You were the question, and I am looking for the answer."
"Why are you here, Aresh?" I said carefully.
"I hired those mercs. We're rebuilding the facility, piece by piece. One day this place will be restored to its true glory. Then I will unlock the secrets those scientists were looking for."
"I wanted a hole in the ground, but this crazy bastard wants to restart the whole thing!" Jack cried.
"Aresh, the monsters here deserved to die painfully for what they did to you and the other children. You'd start that all over again?" I asked.
"Our pain and suffering must have been worth something!" he shouted suddenly, making us jump. "They wouldn't have done such terrible things to us if they didn't have good reasons...surely...surely we didn't suffer for nothing..."
"He's insane!" yelled Jack. Her arm glowed blue, and Aresh was flung off his feet and knocked to the ground. Jack aimed her gun at him and tightened her finger on the trigger.
"Please...just leave me here...this is where I belong," gibbered the poor man.
"Stop! Look at him. Killing him changes nothing," I said quickly.
"Fuck that!" screamed Jack. "He wants to torture and kill people all over again, I won't let that happen!"
"Jack, think about it for a second," I said urgently. "He's a broken down trauma victim who hasn't got two credits to rub together. He knows nothing of biotics and his team of mercs are dead. All this talk of rebuilding Teltin are the ramblings of a broken man. Do you want to live like he does? Endlessly reliving his pain over and over, trapped in the past?"
Jack's arm trembled, still gripping her gun tight. Then she lowered it.
"Fuck. Fuck off, Aresh. Go!"
Aresh scrambled to his feet and took off like all hell was at his heels.
"He's not worth it. None of this is," she said, her arms slumping to her sides.
"You're right. You have to let it go, Jack," I said softly. "All of it."
"Yeah," she said glumly. "Just...just give me a moment to look around, okay? This room was my whole childhood."
"Take all the time you need."
I watched as Jack showed me all the relics of her past. The bed where they'd tied her down and pumped her with drugs and sedatives. The table where she'd crawled underneath to cry. The 'window' where she pounded and screamed, never attracting the attention of the other children. Even the bloodstain on the corridor outside where she killed her first man.
"Okay," she said at last. "No more wallowing in the past. Let's blow this place to hell."
We raced away in the Kodiak shuttle. The storm hadn't let up, instead it was raining even harder now. We had set up the nuke in the middle of Jack's cell and armed it.
She flicked the top of the detonator switch, opening and closing it obsessively. I had warned her not to press the button until we had gotten further than fifty kilometers.
Click...click...click. There was a strange expression in Jack's eyes. She looked lost, hurt, even vulnerable. But I knew she was taking an important step on the road to her recovery.
I looked at my omni-tool. Forty seven...forty eight...forty nine...
I nodded at Jack. She flicked the switch open and pressed down hard.
The resulting explosion was one of the most satisfying I had ever heard.
It was a few days after Teltin had been reduced to randomised atoms. Jack had been quiet and withdrawn, even more so than usual. The rest of us carried out a couple of assignments, nothing major, and worked on upgrading the Normandy. I knew Jack needed time to deal with what we saw and heard there, and I wanted to give her all the time she needed.
I went down the stairs into the engineering deck, carrying some food. It had become a ritual, almost, and I was eating down there more often than in the Mess or in my own quarters.
"Hungry?"
Jack was sitting on her bunk, staring into space. She snapped out of it when she heard me.
"Yeah. What have you got there?"
"Fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Old family recipe, taught Gardner how to make it. Tell me what you think."
Jack accepted a tray and ate noisily, the only way she knew how. I tore the meat apart with my fingers and ate it that way. Half the fun was in licking them off afterwards.
"Listen," she said hesitantly, once we were done. "I needed to wipe that place off the map. It's done now, thanks to you. I guess I owe you."
She lay flat out on her bunk, staring at the ceiling.
"You don't know what it's like, to have shit like that following you around," she said quietly. "It marks you in ways you don't expect or understand."
"I've seen a lot of death myself," I said. "Maybe I was never tortured or drugged or abused, but there are some things in my past I'm not proud of. Everyone has baggage. But all of it can be put aside. Maybe you don't forget, but it ceases to matter as much."
"You know, I never thought anyone would understand," she said. "Huh. Shows what I know."
"I never thought I'd see you show mercy, but you let Aresh live."
"He was stuck in the past, reliving it every day. You showed me how that could have been me," she said firmly. "I'm better than him, I'm better than that. I'm not carrying around that crater with me a second longer."
"Feel like you've changed?" I asked.
"I...yeah. Somehow."
I sat down on the bunk beside her. I could sense the way she automatically grew wary, like an drilled instinct to fight or flee. But she didn't back away. She was actively trying to quell her fears. After a long while, I placed a hand on her arm. She trembled at the touch, but did not pull away. I held it there for a long moment.
"Your past doesn't define you. You use it, draw strength from it, but never let it control who you are," I said firmly.
"Shepard, I'm not good at this but...ah hell. Thanks. Even if I don't get why you'd go to all the trouble."
"You heard me," I said. "You're crew."
We sat there for a long while, saying nothing, but feeling as though some great chapter had finally been closed.