Lightning Blades

Disclaimer: Don't own Mass Effect copyrights. (N.B. I am not a physicist, so if I get anything wrong, please just bear with it and try to enjoy the story, thanks).

My name is Anastasia Volkov, and I've somehow ended up in Mass Effect. So I bet you're thinking that I'm somehow going to immediately fall in with Cerberus and gain the skills I need to help Shepard, or I'm going to meet an Asari with major combat experience that wants to take me on because she sees some potential?

Yeah no, that's not going to happen. For one, I have no money, save for a couple of twenty pound notes, and two, I don't even know where I am, save that I'm likely somewhere on the Citadel since the architecture looks familiar.

I've played the games, at least once each; enough to know what the Citadel looks like, for the most part at least.

I decide to walk around and observe my surroundings a little, wondering if I can pick up some details, but alas, I can't hear anyone speaking English or Russian. There are a few humans about, but I haven't been able to hear any of them.

I mean seriously, what the fuck do I do? In stories like this something always happens to get the person that's ended up in an alternate universe started, some omnipotent entity gives them some direction, or they fall into a situation that gives them an objective.

I don't know how to set up a new identity, I don't know how to insert myself into a place I've never seen before; I know nothing! And millions of people enter and leave the Citadel every day, C-Sec are no going to pick up on a random person with no identity immediately, if at all. All I can rely on is myself.

Hell, I majored in theoretical physics and minored in engineering, and that all means potentially nothing in the face of a universe that is 1. Presumably so many years ahead technologically and scientifically that my knowledge will be practically useless and 2. May operate on a slightly different set of rules than my home universe.

I stop outside what looks like an internet café to think for a moment. I've somehow ended up in the Mass Effect universe. Naturally, I don't know what year it is or anything, and I only have what was with me when I was sent here somehow…

I turn out my pockets. I have my Galaxy S7 phone, which has no Wi-Fi signal or reception. I check my other pocket and retrieve my wallet (carrying a handbag and a purse is such a hassle, seriously, just wear jeans with big pockets and use a wallet, it's so much easier), and look inside. The two £20 notes I knew I had, a card for a dentist appointment, some change, my driving license, my N.I. card and my gym card.

None of which is particularly useful.

What am I supposed to do in a universe that as far as I knew only existed in a game? It's not like the codex covered everything in that game, and I didn't even read all of that! Besides, real life is a lot more complex than what any game could replicate…

Alright then. The first thing I need is information. I doubt there are any libraries around, and even if there were I wouldn't know what one would look like and if they'd even have books in English.

So that means I need access to the extranet, but to do that I either need an omnitool or a computer. Lucky me I'm standing outside an internet, or well, 'extranet' café. Well I say that but I've been walking for a good twenty minutes, I was bound to find something, it's not like I'm stuck in the wilderness or anything.

I wonder if those already existed or if humans brought the idea and it cottoned on? Whatever, it doesn't matter.

In the games Shepard only ever waves her omnitool and it transfers credits, I believe that's basically the same as using a credit card here, since I remember in the second game there's that argument between a Volus and a Quarian about the Volus' credit chit. Which leads me to believe that credit chits are the equivalent of small change.

So, the question is, how do I get some chits? I could scrounge around for any that anyone has dropped, but I have no idea how likely people are to drop them. I could mug someone, but I don't know if there are any C-Sec nearby, nor anywhere quiet that I could do it, and even then, I wouldn't know if whoever I mugged would have any chits.

I could beg, but I don't look like a beggar and to be honest that's going to be my last option. I need a plan. The only people I could talk to would be other humans, since I'm pretty sure the omnitool has a real time translator in it and I don't have an omnitool. I need to convince a random human that speaks English or Russian to lend me enough money for a coffee so I can use the extranet in the café.

I look around and realise something; I look very different to most people around, enough to get some looks. Most everyone is wearing those bland modern clothes like you see in the games. I however am wearing a pair of torn and faded denim jeans, a tight black t-shirt and black DMs. Plus I have long black hair dyed red at the ends, as well as a lip piercing, an eyebrow piercing, a nose stud and three studs and a bar in each ear, all silver. I also have a full sleeve tattoo on my left arm.

Yeah, I stand out a little. I wonder what everyone, especially the aliens, are thinking as they look at me?

As luck would have it I see a European looking human (hopefully that means they're more likely to speak English) walking in this general direction. I walk offset from his path so that it doesn't seem like I'm confronting him, and try to get his attention.

"Excuse me, sir?" I say loudly in slightly accented English; I moved to London from Vladivostok when I was eight, old enough that I will always have a bit of an accent, but not too young that it will ever disappear completely.

He looks up at me and his eyes widen slightly in what I think is fear. I raise my hands to show I'm not holding a weapon or anything. "Y-yes? What d-do you want?" He asks shakily, but at least he's speaking English, an American by the sounds of it, so I suppose his ancestors were European at least.

"I'm sorry to bother you, my omnitool was stolen along with my credit chits, and without the translator I can barely speak to anyone. Could I beg enough credits to buy a coffee so I can use the computers in the café? I just need to contact someone for help."

He looks at me for a moment, no doubt taking in my appearance, but when his eyes flick to my wrist and see the lack of omnitool (which I can now see is a clear plastic wristband) they soften a little, and I can't help but do a little victory dance in my head.

"Ah, of course miss. A coffee costs around 30 credits, but you look like you need a break, so here's a hundred so you can get some food as well," he says kindly, and hands me a chit with a small holographic '100' on it. I smile brightly at him and thank him. He's about to move off when I think of something else.

"Oh!" He turns back to look at me. "You wouldn't happen to know where the nearest shelter I can bunk down for the night is, would you?" I remember that Quarian I mentioned earlier saying about surviving in a Turian shelter, so I imagine there are other shelters on the Citadel for the races that inhabit it.

Also considering the Presidium looks pretty damn far away I must be quite low down on the wards, so I imagine there's bound to be somewhere relatively close by.

"Of course, there's an Asari shelter a three minute walk back the way I came from, it'll be on your left, big blue sign; you can't miss it. Glad I could help…?"

"Volkov. Anastasia Volkov," I reply, thankful that I'm not going to have to go hunting for somewhere to sleep tonight.

"And I am Walter Marks, a pleasure to help you." I can't help but feel a little lucky that that went so well, but I also think I just made a good judge of character. They say first impressions mean nothing, but we wouldn't have them otherwise, would we?

"Thank you Walter, I appreciate it." He nods and walks away. Step one of my vague plan complete. Now let's just hope that the server in the café is either human or doesn't talk much and just accepts the money.

I walk in normally, trying not to let my nerves show. I walk right up to the counter since there's no line and wait for someone to come out and serve me. The place is very human-esque, black and white tiled floor and clean stainless steel counter with some advanced looking coffee machines behind said counter. All in all a nice place.

I stop my observations and feel my stomach drop a little as an Asari greets me in whatever language the Asari speak (although maybe they still have different languages like Earth does?). I decide to just wing it, hoping she said 'what can I get you?'

"Um, yeah, can I get a coffee and… some food that I can afford after getting that coffee," I say, holding out the credit chit. She takes it and nods, and then says something else. I look at her blankly. She frowns and I start to panic a little.

I hold up my hands in a pacifying gesture, hoping it isn't something insulting in Asari culture. Her glare intensifies until she sees my wrists and notes that I don't have an omnitool, at which point she adopts a look of shock.

From the reactions I've had so far, I get the feeling that not having an omnitool is a rare thing.

"Oh, I am sorry madam, I did not realise," she says in slightly French accented English, and evidently she sees the surprise that crosses my face. "You are surprised I speak English, yes? I make it a point to learn at least the main language of the different races here, it is good for business," she explains with a smile.

I release a sigh of relief; this is going to makes things much easier. "That's a relief. So what were you saying before?"

"Ah, I was asking what you wanted as we have a few things that you could afford. I recommend a couple of sweet rolls, they're our specialty," she says.

"Thank you, that sounds good. On another note, I just want to make sure that I am allowed to use the computers here after buying something, aren't I?" She looks at me funny and then laughs a little.

"Aha, I'm sorry, the computers here are free to use, you don't have to buy something to use them," she explains, and then turns around and begins preparing the coffee and the sweet rolls.

Face, meet palm.

All of that and I could have just walked in and used them anyway! And from the way she laughed, it's common for that to be the normal way of doing things… which leads me to wonder why Mr. Walter Marks didn't say anything. Maybe he just doesn't use extranet cafés? Oh well, it isn't important now anyway, I'm unlikely to ever see the guy again.

Anyway, this is why I need to do some intense history and culture reading; it's the little things that will trip me up and make it a nightmare trying to function. I need to establish in my head a behavioural protocol that won't make me look like some whack job with brain damage.

I don't want to be carted off to a padded room just yet thank you very much.

With that, and receiving my coffee and sweet rolls, I sit down at a computer and try to figure out just how to use this alien OS.

Ok, so it only took five minutes, the OS was kind of intuitive. I wonder what to research first, but then considering my degree I figure I'll look at major scientific advancements of the 21st century and go from there.

I type 'the discovery of the Higgs Boson,' into the search bar at the top of the page (the computer uses a search engine called 'IniFurtix,' but there is thankfully next to no difference compared to Google). Imagine my surprise when it pops up with 'No direct matches found.'

'Gravitational waves 2016' – No direct matches found.

'A-symmetrical particles' – No direct matches found.

'Closed-time-loops' – No direct matches found.

I was working with a rather large research group that was bouncing between labs across Europe before I somehow ended up here, and those were some of the more exciting experiments and discoveries being investigated at the time (at least in the scientific community).

And yet there's not a single mention of them, not even a hypothesis stated in a history book if what I'm reading is right. Some more time spent researching shows that this version of Earth was somewhat behind my original one, and around the 2030s all of the scientific research and investigation that I'm familiar with halted in light of the discovery of Element Zero.

More research shows that all of the other species in the galaxy did exactly what humans apparently did; they took the easy route. And it's reached a point where people don't even realise that they're thinking inside of a box.

A box which as far as I can tell shouldn't work. Now, there are deeper mysteries of physics than I care to count and gravity hadn't been included in the Standard Model when I left, but what we did have worked, and the mass effect breaks that.

The explanation behind the Mass Relays, in Layman's terms is that, according to the extranet anyway, the 'mass free corridor' they create massively increases the speed of light so that ships can travel faster without approaching a speed that would result in excessive time dilation.

The problem (bear with me here) there is that if the speed of light changes, then just about every constant of the physical universe is broken, which more than likely would result in the instant destruction of the object attempting the journey.

Assuming that the speed of light could change in a localised area without breaking the universe, the energy requirements to approach the original speed of light would still border on infinite and due to the reference frame of the rest of the universe there would still be a time dilation.

Even if the mass of the ship and everything in it was lowered to a point barely above zero, the energy requirements for approaching the speed of light are still exponential, with the speed of light representing the point at which the required energy to speed conversion is infinite.

And finally, if the mass of the ship was lowered to zero, it would cease to exist. Mass is defined by a particle's interaction with the Higgs Field. Every bit of mass in the universe vibrates. This vibration is what allows the particle to interact with the Higgs Field and causes it to have mass. Also, not only would reducing mass to zero stop interaction with the Higgs Field and thus erase the existence of that particle, everyone in the ship would freeze to death first as they approached absolute zero, since the speed at which a particle vibrates translates to its thermal energy.

Not to mention cooling something to absolute zero is as impossible as reaching the speed of light since E = mc2 (Energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared), and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

So there, a little physics lesson for you. In short, this universe shouldn't work since apart from Element Zero and its magical mass affecting properties, it operates under the same universal constants as my home universe as far as I can find. There may be things of which I'm unaware, but the fact that the Citadel produces artificial gravity via centrifugal force as well as Element Zero suggests otherwise.

It occurs to me that this provides an opportunity. Everything in this universe, from space flight to weapons, operates through eezo (that is so much easier to say than element zero, honestly.) Eezo does these things by manipulating mass and therefore gravity.

Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces, since a relatively massive amount of mass is required to have a noticeable effect. Electro-magnetism on the other hand is much more powerful. What I mean by that is that if you took two amounts of mass, they would have a gravitational attraction of the value A. If you were to give these masses equal and opposite charges, the strength of attraction would be A x 10 to the power of 39.

Now, this is important because as far as I can tell, technology where and when I am now is at a point that electromagnetism could be used in place of or in conjunction with eezo on a macro level. The problem is that electromagnetism occurs on an atomic scale, and so does not easily transfer to person sized equipment. Eezo could solve that by allowing much more powerful charges to be used in systems designed to make use of attraction and repulsion.

If it is possible, it will allow me to have much more powerful weapons and shields both on a personal level and on a ship. That degree in physics and engineering is looking pretty sweet at the moment.

I eat my sweet rolls. They're not bad.

I knew the shelter the moment I saw it, and not because of the information Walter had given me.

In the game, all of the Asari you interact with are part of high society, have secure jobs, work as dancers in clubs or are commandos.

It's quite jarring to see an emaciated Asari.

The woman is entering the shelter wearing rags that barely cover her modesty. She looks like I could fit my thumb and little finger around her wrist. Her collar bones, ribs and hip bones all protrude sharply from lack of flesh covering them. Her skin has green splotches and the blue seems faded and weak, giving way to grey, indicating lack of nutrition and disease if I'm guessing right.

She's not the only one I can see, the opening to the shelter is quite open, but she's the most different looking, and I can't help staring. Unfortunately, just as I'm about to look away, she turns and catches my eyes.

Her eyes are sunken and wrinkled, where the whites on a human would turn yellow, hers has lines of the same green as the splotches on her skin snaking their way to her irises.

She shambles towards me, and even that looks to be somewhat of an effort for her.

Once she's close enough she looks me up and down with a critical eye, and I can catch a slight wheezing with every breath she takes. Her eyes roam from my lack of omnitool to my piercings to my boots. I can't tell if she's planning on stealing them or not; she wouldn't exactly be hard to fight off.

"You speak English girl?" I nod, not trusting my voice, because she sounds like she's from Liverpool. It's somewhat disconcerting, but the aliens would have to learn English from someone, and that someone could have come from Liverpool.

"Good. The name's Kiellan, and I help this 'ere shel'er screen people. We don' want no thieves or nasty sor's round 'ere, you hear?" I nod again, trying to put on a trustworthy sort of face.

From the look she gives me, I don't think it worked.

"Why you in a place li' this?" Oh god now she wants me to speak. I feel like Austin Powers when he's talking to that guy with the giant mole on his face.

"I have nowhere to go, no one to contact, no money and nothing that I'm willing to part with for money. I am literally just here for a place to sleep for the night."

I feel like her stare pierces my soul and judges me, but I breathe a sigh of relief when she gives a short sharp nod and beckons me in.

I look around as she leads me to the back so I can put my name down for a bed. The place is cramped, and smelly, and loud, but it's somewhere to sleep for the night. Almost everyone here is an Asari, there are a couple of Krogan, a few Salarians dotted here and there, and most surprisingly, a small Drell child.

He (at least I think it's a he) is sitting in a corner watching everyone with a blank expression, dark blue, almost black eyes taking in everything around him. He's small enough that I reckon he can't have been more than eight or nine.

"Jinta; the boy hardly ever does anytin' besides ea' and drink during the day. He an' 'is parents have been 'ere for 'bout a year now; they're savin' up for a place, bu' they can barely feed themselves on the money they're earnin'," the Asari explained.

I felt my heart go out to the kid, and before I knew what I was doing, I made my way over towards him. He doesn't register me as I approach, doesn't even look at me as I crouch down next to him so we're face to face.

After a moment his eyes flick towards mine, and we meet for a brief second, but then they turn away and he goes back to daydreaming, or remembering if he's doing that Drell 'perfect recall' thing that they can do.

I couldn't talk to him if I wanted to, but I get the feeling that he doesn't want to speak, so I give him a friendly pat on the shoulder, and walk towards the bed that Kiellan had pointed out for me.

It's nothing but a cot really, a thin metal frame with a single unwashed sheet covering it, but it's better than sleeping on a cold hard floor, and after the day I've had it feels like heaven. Needless to say I'm out like a light.

I wake to the feeling of a hard foot kicking the bottom of the cot. I jump up and take a defensive stance before my mind registers exactly what had happened yesterday. I take a moment to notice that the one who had kicked my bed was Kiellan, and that she was holding a bowl of a thin blue soup with slightly iridescent swirls in it.

"You okay there girl?" She asks while staring at me with something that might be understanding, might be pity, or could be how Asari look at people oddly, I don't fucking know.

I relax. "Yeah, sorry about that. That for me?" I ask, pointing to the soup. She nods, and I'm glad she's not making a big thing out of my reaction. I'm fine if I wake up naturally, but some bad experiences with an old boyfriend left some scars that will probably never heal.

"Thanks." I take the bowl, lift it up to my face and take a sip. It doesn't really taste like anything if I'm honest, maybe a bit like carrot soup, but it's so bland that I'd just as readily say it had no taste at all.

But food is food. I gulp it all down.

Kiellan whips the bowl out of my hands and heads off to the side of the shelter, where a wall has peeled away and there's a large counter with a variety of Asari behind it cooking the soup and handing it out, along with a few volunteers from the shelter, like Kiellan.

It's jarring to see just how similar poverty looks, no matter where you find it.

With no one to talk to, I feel a little lost. I didn't really have a plan beyond making it to today. The question is, what the fuck do I do?

It's all well and good figuring that I could do some awesome shit if I got my hands on the equipment to build handheld electromagnetic railguns. The problem is that said equipment requires money to buy. I would need a place to live and a lab, both of which cost money. I would need an omnitool, which costs money. Everything comes down to having no money.

Which means I need to figure out how to make money. Firstly, I need to figure out how to make enough money to live, then I need to make enough money to fund very expensive research.

To earn money I need a job. To get a (legal) job I need credentials, an identity, and my degree, even if it's applicable means sweet fuck all without the documentation to prove I have it.

Right, step one, get an omnitool. Once I have an omnitool I can talk to more people. Once I can talk to people, I can inquire about jobs. Once I'm earning some money, I can have a trawl through the extranet to see if there's anything else that this version of humanity are missing out on. I figure if there's anything I know about from my reality that this one seems to lack, I can probably make some money on it.

I wait until breakfast has been served for everyone, and make my way towards Kiellan. I have to wait for a Krogan to finish talking to her first, and I notice something else that's different; humans are smaller.

I have no idea why, I thought maybe everyone I had seen so far was just short, but I'm about the same height as the Krogan in front of me, and I got the impression playing the game that all Krogan are massive to every other race but the Elcor.

My being at the same height as him puts my eyes above his. I can see the slight surprise in them as he turns and sees me once he's finished his conversation with Kiellan. I stand my ground as he walks past, somehow expecting him to bang his shoulder into mine to show his physical superiority (I figure it's just the Krogan thing to do).

What I don't expect is for neither him nor me to budge. He obviously doesn't expect it either.

"Ashig kkragan!" He shouts at me, gaining the attention of dozens of people around us. I barely notice that however, as I'm puzzling in my head why this has occurred. It doesn't make any sense, the only thing that's different is eezo…

That's it. Humans can change rapidly, within generations, just look at the change in the space of a hundred years between the Victorian era and the early 21st century; even in that short time Humans were getting taller, living longer, and simply changing due to the benefits of medicine, food and lifestyle changes.

If the whole of society has had access to eezo for over a hundred and fifty years? With people spending time on Mars, which has lower gravity, using cars and trains and spaceships with dampeners so people didn't experience g-forces, with no actual gravity and only simulated gravity for most people for most of their lives, there must have been an effect.

Over time, Humans have changed. There are probably other factors at work than I can think of right now, but the fact remains that it is entirely too plausible that my 21st century body, which I have kept fit and healthy, is naturally taller, stronger, and possibly even denser, than the average Human of today, simply due to the stresses of a life without the high end technology of the Mass Effect universe.

Since everyone I've seen is shorter than I'd imagined, even the Krogan, it only makes sense that eezo has had a similar effect on every species that has used it for generations.

WHAM!

I fall to the floor and nearly vomit up the soup I ate earlier as the Krogan's fist buries itself into my stomach, the breath being forced out of my body and my stomach telling me to curl up into a ball and cry.

However, I'm made of tougher stuff than that. Ignoring the screaming protest of my abdomen, I push myself to my feet, and before the Krogan's surprise has even registered, I bring my leg up and kick him between the legs as hard as I can.

Everything stops. No one breathes. Then, a small squeak comes out of the Krogan's mouth, and he slides backwards off my foot and onto the floor, clutching between his legs as hot salty tears flow onto the metal floor.

Gratified, I then grab my stomach and fall back to my knees. I take deep breaths to try and stop feeling winded. Once I can breathe normally again, I roll over onto my back and just hold my stomach as the throbbing pain continues. Just because I'm different doesn't mean that Krogans aren't naturally stronger than Humans, and it doesn't mean that my stomach doesn't hurt a LOT and it's probably going to be black and blue for days now.

That thought makes me want to get up and give the Krogan bastard another kick in his ovaries.

I can hear Kiellan laughing herself hoarse behind me while whispers carry through the surrounding crowd, who all begin to break off when it's obvious that neither I nor the Krogan are going to be getting back up anytime soon.

They can regenerate, they can't stop the pain of being kicked in the balls.

I hear steps and chuckling getting closer, telling me that Kiellan is approaching. "Heh, thanks for tha' girl, tha's the bes' thin' I seen in years. Heh heh. Le's get you up, 'ere we go," and she helps to my knees then to my feet, though I have to keep a hand on my stomach. We approach the Krogan, who isn't crying anymore but he's still gasping for breath and clutching between his legs.

"Get up Garosh you fat lump!" She says as she kicks him in the back of the head. He growls at her but it lacks any heat due to the fact that he's lying in a puddle of his own tears. After a moment of glaring at me and Kiellan he grumbles and pushes himself to his feet, though he's still cupping between his legs like I'm still holding my stomach.

"Kua jeggan li ashis kkragan?!" He says forcefully, pointing a stubby finger at my face. I stare at him blankly, having no idea what he said, and he looks like he's about to hit me again before I hold up my arms and point to my wrists.

He looks shocked for a moment (I'm beginning to think that most criminals at least leave people their omnitools, which is kind of weird). He says something to Kiellan.

"He says you shoulda le' 'im know the firs' time, bu' he's sorry for hittin you," Kiellan informs me. I nod graciously; I hadn't expected a Krogan of all people to apologise, but then a game like Mass Effect has to create and constantly enforce stereotypes to maintain the value of different cultures. In truth, people are a lot more complicated than the scripts of a game and the set responses thought up by developers.

"Thank you, and I'm sorry for hitting you… there," I reply, gesturing vaguely towards his crotch. "I just got lost in my own mind wondering why we bumped the way we did," I explain.

"Kua mishunp?" He said 'kua' again.

"Does that mean why?" He nods.

"I honestly don't know," I say to him. And I don't know. I have my suspicions, but don't have any evidence of those suspicions and so cannot know the true reason. Also, it really helps that at least he can understand me, and we have a translator in Kiellan, who is still with us.

He and Kiellan say something to each other. Kiellan looks surprised and looks to me. She looks back to Garosh and says some stuff in rapid Asari. Garosh nods and gestures towards me. After a moment, Kiellan turns towards me.

"Well?" I ask a little smarmily; they had been talking about me while I was right there.

"Garosh works at a factory on the next level down as a loader. It's a large place and there's only him and one other Krogan there to move everything, and they could do with another set of strong hands. He says you're strong enough for the work and is willing to buy you an omnitool if you promise to take the job and pay him back for it."

Well, if the universe wanted to throw such an amazing opportunity in my lap, who was I to disagree? It was one hell of a step down from theoretical physicist, but it was also a hell of a step up from where I was before the offer.

And it was step one in my plan to earn to some real money (which I still wasn't too sure about, I mean I was looking at needing to earn millions of credits, but that was a problem for another day).

"Absolutely yes. When do I start?"

"You can go with him right now."

"Then let's go."

I had been confused as to how a strap on your wrist was supposed to translate, but it turns out that the omnitool comes with a few little strips that go just behind the ears (at least the human ones, every race has their own type of omnitool apparently). The omnitool acts as a microphone and a speaker, and the strips provide the translation.

I have no idea what make the omnitool is since I couldn't understand Garosh and the teller while they were talking. If only there were a way to solve this…

"Garosh, what make of omnitool is this?"

"It's an Apple iTool."

Well, who'd of thought?

"So, who's in charge of this warehouse, and are you sure they'll take me on?"

He looks at me and narrows his eyes, but seeing that I'm unintimidated by an eye squint, he rolls said eyes and answers my questions.

"The warehouse is owned by some old human called Ciaran Kelham, but the place is run by a Turian called Jeerfan. He told me to keep my eye open for an extra pair of hands, so yes I'm sure he'll take you on. Now shut up."

I have a feeling that I'm not going to get much more out of him, so I turn to the handy new device on my wrist. I can't help but grin as a holographic display appears, sporting Apple's typical iPhone layout, which thankfully makes it easy to navigate. It causes a pang of homesickness, but at the same time a sense of comfort. A lot of things have changed, but at least some things always stay the same.

Anyway, I tap the extranet button (which is a picture of the Milky Way now) and search for something that I've been putting off until now; what year is it? A calendar shows up (the iTool also uses that IniFurtix search engine) to show that the date is the 12th July 2175.

That… is actually a pretty good time to land in. Much earlier and there would have been barely any humans around and a lot of discrimination from Turians, any later and I wouldn't have the time to prepare for the Reapers.

Because I am going to prepare for them, mark my words. The thing is, I'm probably not going to end up with Shepard, I'm not a soldier or anything. I'm not going to end up with Cerberus because they're fucking evil and all that. I could go to Omega and join Aria, but she gets fucked before she gets better and I have a high chance of dying there every day, let alone when the Reapers arrive.

So I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do something.

I have a trawl through the internet – sorry, extranet – trying to think of something that I can make a lot of money off of because no one thought of it here. However, I'm stopped short as Garosh's dulcet tones break me out of my concentration.

"We're here."

I look up from my omnitool and observe the area. It's kind of stereotypical; apart from the different races and the alien architecture, it's easily distinguishable as the warehouse district.

He walks me up to a large blue door with a logo I don't recognise on it, a trio of white twisted spikes going through some alien animal. Garosh starts talking as we walk through a few corridors to an office.

"This place stores dextro-amino food that comes in from Turian planets and organises it to be shipped out over the citadel. It requires manual labour because only Krogan and YMIR Mechs are strong enough to lift the crates and move them around stably, and YMIRs cost so much to run that the place would almost be losing money. The downside is that Krogan, and you, are levo-amino based, so if there's an accident you gotta be real careful."

I nod, it makes sense. Those YMIRs were rare in the games (which was a shame because I loved making them blow up), and it makes sense why now.

We enter the office and a Turian with all white face paint looks up. It's honestly impossible to see the difference between Turians without their face paint in the game, and this is the only Turian I've seen in real life, so I've got no one to compare him to.

"Ah, Garosh. And this must be the woman you messaged me about. Jeerfan Shikor, at your service," he says with a small bow. I can't help but immediately like him, he's smooth and got a Casanova air about him.

"Anastasia Volkov, at yours," I reply with a small curtsey and a laugh, causing him to laugh as well.

"You know he does this with every female he meets. Even the Elcor." Jeerfan turns and glares at him, but doesn't refute the statement, causing me to laugh. After a moment he turns back to me.

"So, Garosh says you're strong enough to move the merchandise despite being human. Help Garosh out today, and if he says you did ok then you got a job. Deal?" He holds out a taloned hand, which I shake. He squeezes, visibly straining his arm, no doubt to test if I'm actually as strong as Garosh says.

In reply I squeeze back, and he quickly lets go, to Garosh's rumbling chuckle and deadpan "I told you so."

"Alright alright, off with you, no one's making money standing around doing nothing. Anastasia, come back at the end of the day and if Garosh says you did ok then I'll give you today's pay cash in hand."

"Thanks," I reply as we walk out of the door into the main warehouse. It's as big as you'd expect, with three levels of walkways with wide sets of stairs leading between them, and each step large enough for a full movement. All in all in looks like a pretty good work environment.

"Ok, just follow me for today and help with my workload."

"So, how was your day?"

"Uuuugggghhhhhh."

"It can't have been that bad."

"I can't feel my elbows."

"Stop whining."

"But it makes me feeeeeel betteeeerrrrrr."

"How old are you again?"

"22, and what?"

"You're acting like a child."

"And here I thought I was acting like a potato."

Today's work was hard! Just because I'm as strong as Garosh and keep myself fit and healthy does not mean that I have that Krogan's freakish endurance. Jeerfan said I'd get used to it, but I'm not sure I will.

And now Kiellan is making fun of me.

Thanks to the fact that I have a translator now, Kiellan is speaking Asari and it's being translated into proper English.

"Well, how was the pay?" She asks. I briefly wonder about the collection of people that I've already somewhat befriended, but figure that that's just life. It'd be impossible to go through life without talking to people and liking some of them.

"960 credits, but that was cash in hand, so to speak. After today I'll actually have a job and have to pay income tax, which is 20% for my tax bracket," (and isn't it convenient that taxes and the like work just like back home). "So from now on that's 768 credits a day based on an eight hour day. That gives me a rough salary of 199,680 credits a year after tax." (Which as far as I can figure is the equivalent of about £22,000 a year).

"How… did you just figure that out in your head here and now?" Kiellan asks a little shakily.

I look at her with confusion; surely, being an Asari, once you've met someone over the age of 300 even the clever humans must seem slow. "Yeah, why?"

"Well, not many people can do mental arithmetic like that. It was surprising, is all," she explains. "Anyway, you seem all recovered, do you mind helping me hand out dinner?"

"Uuuuugggggghhhhhhhhh!"

Money is money, but after a week of the monotony that is picking up crates and putting them down elsewhere (I am unfortunately already getting used to it, damn it Jeerfan), I have decided that I need music. Music can be bought online or at a store. Since I just want it for a handheld device, I decide to buy it digitally.

Being an Apple iTool, the iTunes store is still up and running. I dedicate my evening to building a playlist. I decide, first things first, to listen to the top ten songs of each of the genres I like. And I discover something.

Everything sounds almost exactly the same. I mean they're different songs, but it still feels like there's no variety, it all sounds like the music you always heard in the game at Afterlife or Flux.

A quick extranet search of the greatest musical productions in history is surprisingly short for a galactic community, and every great work of art mentioned on all of the sites I visit are classical pieces of some sort.

With some trepidation, I begin researching, both online and on the iTunes store, my favourite music from before I arrived in this universe.

And none of it is there. No Linkin Park, Jimi Hendrix, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Evanesence, Calvin Harris, Hardwell, twenty one pilots, Wham!, David Guetta, Justin Timberlake, Arctic Monkeys, The Heavy, Black Sabbath and so on and so forth. According to what I'm seeing, none of this music exists here. Absolutely none. It's horrifying.

However, before genuine panic can grip me, my thoughts turn in another direction. This could be a golden opportunity. If I could recreate even a fraction of the amazing music of my home universe, that could be my answer on how to make a shit load of money.

It would be difficult. I would need a program that would allow me to recreate the music, and I would have to learn a lot about composing music; something which I suspect might have to be self-taught considering the underwhelming musical talents of this universe.

Easy or not, it's the start of a plan. I need to earn massive amounts of money. To do that I need to recreate the music I love. To do that I need to learn a lot about music. To do that I need a music creation program. To get that I need a programmer. To get that I need money. To get enough money I need to save like you wouldn't believe, or take another job and still save the best I can.

So, the next step is to get another job, even if it's only a weekend one. I need something that's not physically draining as well, or I'll drop dead within a month, or more likely a week.

I look around the shelter. There's just as many people as there were before, though I'm able to pick out the familiar faces. I look over at Jinta, who I still haven't actually said a word to. He's sitting with his parents, and it's easy to see that he's got his mother's eyes but his father's looks.

Kilat and Alrova, Jinta's father and mother respectively, both have jobs that pay relatively well, everyone knows that, but it occurs to me that no one I've spoken to knows what exactly their jobs are.

And after a year of apparently saving the best they can, they still have barely any money, and feeding a child can't be that much of a drain. That leaves a few options.

The first is that they're lying about how much they're earning. It's not likely as it doesn't make sense, but it's still possible.

The second is that they're lying about not having much, leading me to believe that they're saving for something secret, or giving their money to someone.

The third is that they're being extorted by someone.

Either way, maybe I can help with a little financial advice, and maybe that will lead towards another job.

One can only hope.

Three weeks later

Something's happened to Kilat. No one knows what, but Alrova came back alone this morning, crying her eyes out and refusing to talk to anyone.

I make my way over. I have spoken to Kilat and Alrova a few times, and gotten on well with them, though Jinta has yet to speak to anyone.

Speak of the devil. Before I can reach the crowd around Alrova, I feel a light tap on my leg, and look down to see a small Drell. Without a word Jinta grabs my hand and pulls me out of the shelter. I see Kiellan watching and getting up to follow, but I put my hand up and tell her to stay put.

We just go round the corner into one of the many alleys that populate the Citadel. I kneel down so that Jinta and I are face to face, and wait for him to do something.

I imagine that he's come to me because I'm the only one I know that hasn't tried to get him to speak before he's ready, merely asking him yes or no questions when I do talk to him, so he can just nod and not speak.

After a few silent moments, he speaks the first words I've heard from him. "The bad men have daddy," he says, voice quiet and not yet possessing the deep resonant voice that adult male Drell are known for. "Mummy and daddy work for Lojiin, he makes them pay for stuff. Mummy bought me some new clothes, and they couldn't make the next payment… I want my daddy back."

He wraps his arms around my neck and hugs me as hard as he can, fat tears rolling down his face and soaking my shoulder. I let him get it all out, but inside my mind is whirring.

Jinta obviously thinks I can do something about this, but what I don't know. I'm not a soldier or even a mercenary, I have no weapons or shielding or armour or engineering tools or biotics. I can't afford any of those things either.

But what I am is clever. And I have a friend in Garosh and Kiellan, who would be likely to help me if I could come up with a good plan.

Why am I even thinking of doing this? What am I even thinking of doing? Rescuing Kilat? Taking out this Lojiin? Getting into a firefight or something?

Don't get me wrong, I plan on getting some training, from a professional, when I can pay for it, and do it safely, not in a live firefight!

But if I can think of something, and I can do something, don't I have a moral responsibility to do it?

"Daddy!" Jinta unwraps himself and runs behind me out into the street and straight into the legs of a taller Drell.

Kilat has obviously been roughed up, and he's holding his left arm gingerly, but he's back and hugging Jinta and they're making their way back into the shelter. I can't help but feel it's all somewhat anti-climactic, but it suddenly occurs to me that I'm basing too much of my expectations on the game again.

In the games, the only point of view you have is that of a soldier, who deals with the big bad evil guys, the mega corporations, the Council, and everyone of that ilk. This Lojiin is a small time thug extorting some money out of poor people, of course it isn't going to be as bad as you would expect from the game!

Kilat still looks troubled, and it's obvious that if he and Alrova don't make up the payment then the next person to get roughed up is going to be Alrova or Jinta. However, Lojiin is still going to want their money, so no matter what he'll more than likely leave them able to work and make money for him.

It's cruel I know, but as I was thinking earlier, what can I do about it?

Actually…

What can I do about it yet?

Because if my plans go through, then I'll have the money, and the power, to stop things like this. Eight years until the start of the first Mass Effect, making that ten years until the Reapers arrive; a lot can happen in that time, and I'm not going to just sit and wait for them to arrive.

In the mean time I can become a force for good. Maybe I'm here for a reason, or maybe it's just luck, but the fact of the matter is I'm an anomaly in this universe, and that means I can be a force for change.

I may not be able to help Jinta and Kilat and Alrova the way I want to yet. I may not be able to make tons of money through music yet. I may not be able to develop incredibly powerful electromagnetic based shielding and weaponry yet. But I will.

Until then, let's see if I can crunch some numbers and help out a poor Drell family with their budget.