**I DONT OWN MASS EFFECT, MASS EFFECT BELONG TO BIOWARE blah blah blah**

#I will just start with this is my first story ever in English that I have written in my spare time so I am only warning for bad flow and/or grammar. I am mostly doing this for my own betterment in written English. I must say that I have gotten a bit addicted to this site, it helped me pull myself out of a dark hole I was in before. When I was little I would play a lot of games but in my teens, that was put in hiatus after Bootcamp I had just nothing to do so I found my old favorite game Mass Effect and played trough it in just some days, after that I learned that it had 2 sequels and started playing them after that was kind of bummed when it was all over and I just stumbled over this site and started reading, a thing I haven't done since my early teens. I just want to thank this community for all the help it has gotten me, it's funny to think that I have become a sci-fi nerd again hahaha.

This story is something I just have had back in my mind sometime now, it is SI because its a lot easier for me to write about "me" when try to come up with another personality. Yeah, I now that SIs are kind of stupid but I am beginning to get around for them, there are a lot of god-tier stuff in this theme on this site and I know that mine is shit in comparison, I am not that good at expressing myself in English so I hope this little adventure will help with that.

Oooh and it is not my real name used in this story, it's a play on my own background. Also wrong intoxication that triggered my near-death experience . and I am not a bodyguard for politicians it was just something I was offered after Bootcamp. The other background things for my OC is going to be mostly true for my own lazy ass.

Lets quit my ramblings now and lets start my shit-tier story.#

Everything is dark, nothing pains me or even feels anymore. Is this death? My mind replays my last moments in life again imagining the feeling of pain when the first bullet hit my leg, hearing the screams of pain from both civilians and soldiers alike. The next bullet slammed into my chest, "luckily" I had my gear on and it didn't pierce the plate. The rattling of assault rifles and screams filled my world but was then cut out by a lonesome bullet penetrating my skull sending me here in this weird place.

I don't know if this is purgatory or something else. I can't feel a body but all my memories are still here, I can still think and can still feel my anger and confusion.

I don't know how long even I have been here, can be everything from a couple of seconds to years, is this my spirits home or what?

But I digress, the one thing I can do here is thinking, better when nothing I guess. My name is Alexander Böhm, I come from a pretty normal Industry town in Sweden, living on the drug highway to the rest of the North. I grew up pretty poor, had a couple of good friends, being outside a lot, a pretty normal childhood around there. In my teens, I got acquainted with the wrong crowd and started moving drugs, partying a lot too, and being the hormonal teen I was, I did get into fights regularly. It all boiled down to an overdose on speed that almost was the end of me to realize that what I was doing with my life was not the life I wanted to be living, so I joined the army at 20, going through Bootcamp without a big problem and getting a job through the Armed Forces as a bodyguard for VIPs like the one I was protecting in my last moments.

My mind was going through details after details of my life, all the shit bad I have done, all the good, and my memories of my family and friends.

It was first now I felt an almost "grab" at my nonexistent body like something started pushing or hauling me somewhere, first I was just too startled to even react but when the pace of my journey started to pick up I became terrified.

Suddenly a blue tendril appeared in front of me worming towards me at an insane pace. When it connected my world turned to a blue bubble.

This new place had a distortion in different shades, the shades almost pulsation.

After a while, I noticed that there was a mist around me that started to diminish slowly, first then I noticed other objects in my presence or what I mean is that I noticed objects outside of my blue bubble. I was starting to get very confused by this seeing that the objects that were not very clear but were moving around.

To say I was startled when I heard the first sound since that crack from my skull is an understatement, it almost sounded like a Protoss Gateway from the game Starcraft sounds when you select it.

"What the fuck", I said out loud stunning myself 'Can I speak? How the fuck can I do that..' I thought.

I didn't have a lot of time to think about my sudden ability to speak, because it was then I heard a high pitched chirp. "Hello?" I began, "Anyone there?". The objects stopped to move around, this is beginning to creep me out, I thought I was dead for crying out loud.

It was now that hell broke loose, high pitched clicks, chirps and squeals that sounded oddly familiar, of course, I was still to shocked to even make a sound or try to identify the sounds from my now autobiographical/"perfect" memory.

The mist was beginning to break away completely, revealing some sort of humanoids on the other side of my bubble. 'This is insane, I must have survived that fucking bullet and this is some kind of weird fever-induced acid trip'.

"Where in hell am I?" I asked the humanoids hoping they would understand me. The sounds stopped? I don't know anymore this is too weird for me.

I tried again to get an answer, "Hello do you understand me, where am I and what are you?" I asked with an increasing tone of fear.

Some more time passed without a sound, it was then when a slightly more lower-pitched click almost made me jump, of course, I can't jump without a body but that's not important.

"Hello, we are Geth, this workstation contains 732 units of Geth. We are in Geth research center NA3. We have a question, are you of the species human? You are communicating through a language from humanity so we are assuming this, if the answer is yes how did you get into this machine?" the more lower-pitched clicker said with a strong digital voice that distorted at different times.

'Geth?, yeah right. Hahaha, this must be some wacky fucking trip, no way this is real.' I thought with a chuckle. 'Wait what did it say lastly? "how did you get into this machine" what does it mean with that? I can always play along with my seemingly insane mind.'

"Hello glad you answered, I was starting to think I was insane". I said followed almost by a snort. "Yes, I'm a human as you guessed, but what I mean is what am I in, a box? Maybe some kind of crystal ball?" I said with a chuckle. "I can see you standing there with your "geth" but what are you? Some kind of AI?" I played along with what seemed like my own bored spirit.

"You are existing in a crystal placed in an Inusannon machine found in a long-abandoned ruin on Eingana, Amada system". The geth said with an "even" voice, kind of hard to tell when it does not even show emotion.

"Yes, we are AI". It said.

'Geth and some prothean predecessor? So my spirit is playing Mass Effect RP to slug away some boredom'.

"Okeeey cool then". I said with a smug on my imaginary face.

"Your tone indicates that you think we are trying to deceive, We must tell that it is not possible for Geth to deceive". That "geth" said again with that even tone.

"Why would I even try to speak with my mind demons anyway? If I didn't know I was killed I would set my self in an asylum and throw away the damn key. What is even the deal with all this? I thought the afterlife would be chill not some damn fantasy world". I ranted.

"We do not understa-". I cut the damn mind demon off."You see I would like some peace and quiet, for fuck sake are not that the reason for all the fuzz about this afterlife bullshit?"

"We do not understand what you are implying, have you died?" It said.

"Hell yeah that is what happens when a 7.62mm bullet pierces your head, you would have thought that your own mind would now that". I said after a loud sign.

"7.62mm bullet? We must ask, are you a spirit? Bullets have not been used by the Alliance since the discovery of the Mars Archives. We must also ask why you are referring to us as "mind demons", We cant build consensus as to why". It said.

"To the spirit part, I can only say that I think so at least, last I checked I don't have a body, got grabbed by some gigantic tendril that sucked me here from my tranquility and now my mind is trying to have some fun it seems like"-I said with a slightly tired voice-" and I remember correctly, like that would be hard with my newfound "prefect" memory I died on the 12 august 2024 at 27 years young protection some civilian shithead from my home country". I said casually.

"We are building consensus of the possibility that you are trying to deceive us, 2024 in the Alliance Calendar was 152 years ago "- It said and I just sighed' Wait what?' -"We ask again of the "mind demon" part."

"Are you serious? First of all, I know I got shot so don't try to put the "deceiving" part on me"- I said with a hint of frustration -" Secondly you must be some kind of imagination of my bored mind, spirit or whatever, AIs does not exist in my knowledge and I know that some 3 fingered, flashlight headed does not exist". I said with some anger and a little splash of confusion mixed in. 'Im starting to fucking freak out a little bit, who the fuck would have thought that the afterlife would be some kind of shitty ME SI fanfic'

"We do not deceive, We found the crystal and machine in Inusannon ruin under the bedrock of Eingana, We collected them for research for the betterment of the Geth, We started testing different methods of starting the device, We came to a consensus that it was worth the risk too start the unknown device". It said with that even slightly irritating voice

"Hmmm, do you mean that I just was here then you started the machine or whatever?" I said with an imaginary grin. 'if, that's a big IF, this has some sort of truth to this and this is not some kind of mind game to stifle my mind boredom it would be best to withhold my knowledge of this either a videogame inspired afterlife or an alternative universe, that means playing dumb about all of this, just think about it Alex a clean slate and a whole galaxy to explore... Maybe I should ask this geth something else…'

"We apologize, in the testing we started the device and it seems that it found you and took you from your spirits dwelling."- it said with a hint of regret?-" We could try to bring you back? That would mean more testing."

"So it seems like you owe me a favor!"- I said with an almost joyful voice -" And no I don't think I want that, where I was before was just me and me thinking about me over and over again". 'Should try to get a body, first of all, can't be just a damn crystal. Bored mind or not this I think would be a lot better than to stay in that dark place again' I thought.

"And I have another question is this crystal some kind of device or is it something else?"

"We are still building consensus if you truly are a human spirit or are an AI trying to deceive us, if not we would be obligated to help you seeing that we caused this"- it said with a pause-" The crystal that you are inhabiting is a crystal of unknown origin, scans show it is composed of 73% Element Zero, 5% Gold and 22% Unknown Element".

"Any way that I could interact with things outside of this then? Maybe you should test it out for research, get something out of this mess ". I said trying to tickle their curiosity if they had any.

This prompted more and more conversations about the machine, the crystal, and different sciences in this new universe, I must say that it was interesting to learn about this stuff. The conversations took a turn when I asked about the Geths history and it spiraled from there to both my own background(Ofcourse no mentions of the games) and the other species I now shared this galaxy with, can't say it wasn't interesting. We began testing for interaction between me and different devices. Some tests were successful and others were not, it seemed like I should interact with both machines like geth arms and eyes and respectively move the arm and see through the eye, getting my first nonblue tinted glance of my new world. The geth didn't have any organic mass to test with so that was out of the question now, but it was still on the test list for later.

One of the tests involved trying to get data from "my" crystal or my mind without me interfering, this didn't work because it seemed like the crystal only sent out information or signals when I wanted it to, so data-stealing was now beginning to show not being a problem and that should prompt all my dirty secrets to be just that: mine.

"We have come to the consensus that you are truthful"- it began after many hours of both work and conversations, you would think this was beginning to be too much for me, yeah I was beginning to come to the conclusion that this shit meaning all this around me now was not just my bored out mind making something interesting but shockingly I was taking it pretty well for a human mind in a damn crystal-" We ask if it is something you would want from us?" it asked.

"I would want a body, I mean it is interesting to just lay here in this weird thing but it would be nice to stretch my legs or some legs I mean, my biggest wish would be a synthetic human body with all it outside quirks, after that me and you geth can begin to design the insides of it, for now, I could just take a work platform if that is acceptable with you?" I said.

"We could spare a workstation, we can also begin to work on a new body for you. This is the first encounter since before the Morning War we have had a positive encounter with an organic, and we are truthfully glad for the opportunity to gather new data". It said with a hint of amusement. 'Fake amusement or not I will take it anyway' I thought.

"Okey, let's start immediately then, it does not seem like I have to sleep and lose out on work hours!" I said cheerfully 'it was true, I didn't even fill a hint of fatigue, seems like a pro with being a "soul crystal" sitting on a good power source'.

"Ooh, I have another question, does geth biotics exist? It just occurred to me now that you didn't mention it when you were explaining that stuff". I said with wonder. 'Hmm maybe we could make something like that happen with my own body then, only the thought of it makes me wanna giggle' I thought with my imaginary smile.

"We do not utilize biotics, we came to the consensus: Quantity and cost-effectiveness meaning that it was to resource-heavy too be integrate biotics to our combat stations, in biotic organics the element zero makes nodes throughout the nervous system and to implement biotics to synthetics would become resource-heavy also weight of combat stations would increase forcing chances to combat doctrine, quantity is better when quality here. Testing has shown that it is possible but needs a strong element zero core and nodes throughout the station". It said.

"Yeah, I could see having just more ships and soldiers is better than too just have some stringer soldiers and some ships". I pondered. "I was just thinking, this crystal is almost only element zero could it not be a core of some sorts, would be effective for me to have, more options if combat came, of course, it is your resources that we are spending then". I said 'having biotics would be fucking cool and would help me a lot in this universe'.

"We could test it out, if it is wanted we will implement it"- It began prompting a loud "NICE" from me -" We as if work with the workstation should commence?".

"Yes it would be best to start with that, it would be nice to be able to move at my own accord". I said with an even voice.

#Yeah I know it is shit but hopefully my expressive talent is going to get better moving forward, I'm mostly seeing this as a challenge for my self but I would be happy for pointers in how I can make the story more immersive, etc.

I am starting on the next chapter right away but that is hopefully going to make to my 5000-word mark so it can take some time, maybe 4-5 days? I don't have anything better to do anyway so I should begin.#