And It All Seemed Harmless: Chapter 23

Jack is looking at the floor when it happens, studying the metal as if looking at it long enough would cause the metal to peel away, allowing them escape. Miranda and Liara are pacing the cell, each of the intellectual women trading theories about possible weaknesses in the electronic prison. Their hope is starting to annoy Jack.

There is no way out of this thing…not from the inside…we would have found it by now...

Suddenly, the metal floor begins to reflect a flashing red light, a red that coats the room, tinting each surface. The alarm follows, a loud blaring sound that causes Jack to grit her teeth, the vein in her head visible as she mentally thrashes against the sound. She hates alarms. Alarms were for prisons, for experimental facilities she couldn't escape...

The alarm gives Miranda and Liara pause, both women exchanging glances of confusion, then subtle relief.

"Do you think..." Liara starts, her voice hopeful, her shoulders lifting from the depressed sag they had began to exhibit as time in the cell had worn them.

Miranda responds with a smile, her eyes light for the first time since that monster had spoken to her. "It must be Shepard. It has to be. God she really pissed them off…all of the emergency protocols in this damned place must be activated."

Jack suddenly lashes out, ignoring their hopeful banter and slamming her fists on the ground. The alarm is killing her… the sound is fucking deafening. A chorus of bad memories floods her small body with every tone sounding. If it is Shepard…she needs to hurry her ass the hell up and get us out of here…

Miranda glances towards Jack, concern etched in her brow at the smaller woman's outburst. Jack slams her fists again into the ground to relieve her frustration, only this time, her biotics flare of their own accord when her knuckles meet metal.

Shit I hope I didn't scare Cheerleader with that flare up… my biotics flare when I'm fucking pissed… wait, did I just use my biotics?

She raises her chin, meeting the awestruck gazes of the other two inhabitants of the cell. By the confused looks on their faces, they're thinking along the same lines.

"Did you…"

"Yep…"

"So we…"

Jack doesn't respond. She stands up, feeling as powerful as she was accustomed to being. Miranda predicts the biotic's behavior before it happens, and grabs Liara's wrist, tugging the asari away from Jack to the opposite corner of the cell.

In one swift movement, the convict ejects a warp into the side of the cell. It breaks the metal bars in the center of each beam like pencils. Jack crosses the cell, and grabs the metal pieces, intending to tear them apart and create an opening, but a shock travels through her body the moment her hands touch the bars.

"Aaagh! GOD. DAMMIT." Jack yells, instinctually leaping back from the bars. Miranda rushes to her side, but Jack waves her off, glaring at the metal bars like she would at a person who wronged her.

"Let me handle this, give me a fucking second," Jack retorts, shaking her hands as if doing so would remove the sting.

"Jack...we need to find a way to break the electric field."

"I fucking know it, Cheerleader."

Jack's eyes trail to Liara, looking to the scientist for any possible cue as to what to do next in addressing the problematic field. However, Jack is not greeted with the typical know-it-all demeanor she had hoped for. The broker's body is rigid, her brow creased with stress as her eyes dart about the cage. Liara had already evaluated the cage once before to no avail while the other two had been preoccupied discussing Jack's injuries. Now, even with their biotics, the electric field was still clearly stumping the asari.

"Aaaagh!" Jack grunts in frustration, causing Liara to shift nervously. An apologetic look forms on the asari's features, as if she blamed herself for not being able to immediately solve their conundrum. The convict begins to circle the cage in an animalistic manner once again, her face hardened as her narrow eyes review each possible square of their space for weakness. Miranda reaches out her hand to catch Jack's wrist to halt her pacing, her face riddled with concern as her eyes trail to Jack's broken ribs that are causing the convict to limp in her step. Jack stops for a moment, then shrugs out of the contact. The operative frowns, her arms crossing her chest.

"Jack. You irritating your ribs isn't going to get us out of this hell any faster."

"I don't see either of you doing anything!"

"We're all thinking Jack. And you need to think while sitting still or you're going to break another goddamn bone."

Jack looks at Miranda with an expression of pure murder, but the operative does not react. Her frown does not leave her features, and she stares with an unwavering certainty into the convict's eyes. An uncomfortable feeling stabs at Jack as she holds Miranda's gaze, and the convict's discomfort escalates as the she realizes that right now, that discomfort was because Miranda was looking at her like that. Relenting, Jack sinks to the ground, sitting with her legs tucked beneath her. She does not look away from the operative as she lowers herself, her face contorted in a slight snarl that softens slightly when Miranda offers her a small smile as her body reaches the ground.

In the corner of the cage, Liara watches the unusual exchange silently, her eyebrow quirking as somehow Miranda manages to tame the wild convict for the moment.

"I don't believe the source of the field is within this room." Liara starts, her hand nervously smoothing the folds of her head. "If we're going to get out of here, we may have to pray to the Goddess that Shepard somehow deactivates the field."

Jack doesn't miss the slight bitterness in Liara's voice as she states their situation was hopeless without Shepard's express help. Somehow, the convict sympathizes with the asari. She also hated relying on others for help, and she couldn't imagine she would be ecstatic in the asari's position calling on Shepard again.

There has to be something we can do…

Jack's lips curl into a wicked smile as she glances at the metal wall serving as the back of the cage. She had been able to lean against it earlier, which meant the field did not extend through it. Standing, Jack begins to charge her biotics, her eyes locking with her metal target.

"Jack...what are you doing?" Miranda starts, her voice uncertain. Her heels click against the metal floor as she crosses the cage quickly to Jack's side.

"That wall is most likely reinforced, Jack. A warp won't do anything to it. Even with your power the most advanced warp averages a force of 700 Newtons. That wall is likely built to withstand over 900. You'll just irritate your body putting it through that kind of energy dispellation and recharge."

Jack nods slowly, uncaring. Her biotics continue to charge, the bright blue web of energy around her body becoming brighter with every second. Liara looks between the two, clearly also uncomprehending Jack's plan. And then, suddenly, she understands what is about to happen.

"JACK!" Liara's cry is shrill as she too leaps up, crossing the room and grabbing the convict's arms to restrain them in an unusually bold motion for the reserved asari. Jack hisses, sharp pain reverberating through her rib cage as she is jostled about and then held still by the asari.

Blue bitch is stronger than she looks…

The energy about Jack dissipates as Liara restrains her, and she thrashes in the asari's grip, a string of curse words dripping from her mouth. Miranda begins to step forward on blind instinct to protect Jack, but manages to still herself as she takes in the grave look on Liara's face. Liara would not cause Jack any harm without logical cause. The operative was very aware of that fact. Though she felt some...need to take care of Jack, she had to trust Liara. She wouldn't have restrained the injured woman had she not been gearing up to make some sort of grave mistake. Taking a calm step forward, Miranda places her hands on Jack's shoulders, causing the thin woman to pause in her thrashing. She continues to pant, her frustration evident in each irritated breath, but her fiery eyes turn to Miranda and soften. Miranda strokes Jack's shoulders in an attempt to comfort her, but her eyes are filled with an almost desperate desire to be unrestrained.

"There is one biotic ability that would be able to penetrate a reinforced wall..." Liara starts, her voice firm as she looks at Jack with an expression one would expect from a disappointed parent that had just caught their child about to jump off a building with no heed for their safety. "A biotic charge. Some of the most powerful biotics have been known to release a force between 1105-1205 Newtons…."

Before Liara can finish, Miranda is fuming. Taking her hands from Jack's shoulders she throws them up in the air in frustration.

"YOU WERE GOING TO CHARGE THE GODDAMN WALL JACK?! Are you serious? You're not a vanguard! None of us are! Attempting something like that could kill any of us, and most certainly would break the rest of your goddamn ribs!"

Jack thrashes again and Liara reluctantly releases her. Continuing to hold her would likely just cause the biotic to irritate her ribs further, and the asari trusted that now that Miranda was aware of the situation, it would be very unlikely she would allow Jack to follow through on her wild plan.

"What the fuck else are we going to do, Cheerleader? Wait here until Shepard saves our asses or until we get fucking shot by the next wave of guards? I know how to charge. I was taught the ability. It's not my go-to tactic like Commander 'I always have a concussion' Shepard, but I'm VERY capable Cheerleader."

Miranda throws her arms into the air in frustration, her eyes bright with a fire as she turns to the convict. "Frankly, I don't give a damn if you know how to charge, Jack! You're injured! That kind of force on your body at this moment could be catastrophic!"

Jack's eyes flick between the two women. Both have their eyes trained on her, their bodies slightly tensed as if ready to intercept her from charging at any given moment. She was stuck. With gritted teeth, Jack looks into Miranda's eyes, fury practically radiating from her thin body.

"There is no way we can wait for Shepard."

"You need to find another way then, Jack."

"Liara! This is Shepard…. come in Liara! Please! Liara? Come in! This is Shepard! Liara?!"

The spectre's voice cracks on the last word she cries out, her usually strong tone beginning to waver with each unanswered communication. The soldier's throat strings, her voice hoarse from screaming into the omni-tool as she runs. Her freshly looted armored boots clink against the floor as she races down the hall, squeaking slightly each time she skids to a pause in front of each open door that doesn't reveal those she desperately needs to see alive. The only response to each of her communications is static, an ominous reminder that each of her companion's communication tools were still in the building currently bathed in red light from the dangerous protocol. Goddammit. Maybe they're not answering BECAUSE of this protocol. It probably triggered a some kind of communication jammer so we can't call for extraction…

Shepard curses herself silently. This wasn't her first time in a situation alike to this. She should have expected a communication lockdown from the moment the protocol was initiated. Resisting the urge to lash out and contact a wall to release her frustration, the soldier grinds her teeth in annoyance. She needed to be at her best right now. For Liara.

And yet, because I could lose her, I'm not thinking straight.

Shepard pauses in her mad sprint down yet another hall, taking a moment to breathe. Get a hold of yourself soldier! If you don't calm down you're worthless to them. The soldier curls her hands into tight fists, then slowly releases them, an exercise she used to still her nerves in her early days as an N7 recruit, when her hands would still shake around her weapon. She only does the simple exercise three times, unwilling to waste any more time than that. Suddenly, it dawns on the spectre how strange it was she had not been attacked by any more mercenaries in at least two halls. Why are they gone in such a hurry?

Unable to provide herself with the answer, the soldier switches her attention to her communicator, to something she knows she can control. The soldier jams down the call button into a locked state, a steady stream of static erupting from the little device. Taking a few steps down the hall experimentally, the static increases in volume. The change in level is barely detectable, nearly masked by the steady noise of the alarm, but the soldier's focus is now sharper, her mind fueled by her new plan. She can hear it all right. She can hear every damn change.

Now you're thinking like an N7, Shepard. Follow the static. Omni-tools get noisy when they're close to interference devices.

Resolving to find the interfering device first, the soldier begins to trail down the next hall, her razor sharp focus locked as she listens for each barely detectable difference in the static noise. Each time the level rises, the soldier is bolstered by the knowledge she is getting closer. Closer to hearing Liara's voice.

After several winding halls, the soldier finds herself before a locked door, her omni-tool practically distorting with a loud static overdriving the speakers of the tool. This is it.

Dropping to one knee beside the door panel, the soldier sets to hard wiring her entrance. She is nearly done when it begins.

It starts with one. One horrific, gut-wrenching explosion rings out, shaking the very floor the soldier is kneeling upon. For a moment, she can't breathe, a part of her begging whatever Divine power that was out there to have not let Liara be in that explosion. Another explosion shakes her from the rabbit hole of her own mind, almost thirty seconds after the first. Shepard frowns, a creeping hunch beginning to seep into her mind. Explosions were never that perfectly timed. Never. True to the soldier's instinct, another explosion shakes the ground another thirty seconds later, and the spectre's heart leaps to her throat.

It's a purge mech…

Shepard had only seen one other purge mech in her career, in a remote facility on some unimportant Alliance Space moon that became a hiding spot for a faction of rogue scientists. When the small Alliance team had arrived to detain them, one of the scientists had refused to let their data be confiscated. Rather than surrender, he chose to trigger an emergency protocol that unleashed the violent mech.

Purge mechs were not made to discern. Only to destroy. Once a mech of the type was activated, it would systematically destroy everyone and everything in each room of the building. One arm of the mech was typically armed with explosives, ready to fire into each space the mech recognized as a habitable room. The other arm was a solid flamethrower, used by the mech to torch the parts of each space that the explosives didn't incinerate. That's why their men left, to save themselves.

Oh god….

It's involuntary, the way her body seizes at the horrible memory. Dread spreads through her body like a drop of blood in a glass of water, tainting every part of her with fear her nightmares of the past were about to reprise themselves.

Shepard had heard the sound of the mech in her sleep, in vicious nightmares. She had heard the systematic firing of explosives every thirty seconds as the mech destroyed a room, then moved on to the next. Only three of her sixteen man squad had survived on that moon, the rest incinerated in their posts. And if she didn't hurry, the next time a purge mech made it into her nightmares, Liara would be there too. Screaming at her like the men she hadn't been able to save in that facility.

Her hands are shaking when she finally finishes her process in gaining entry to the door. To the soldier's disgust, there is nothing she can seem to do to stop them from quivering in each movement.

The spectre was not one for denial. She was well aware of the physical and mental toll constant violence had taken on her body. Yet, she was accustomed to managing her symptoms of trauma to such an extent, few even realized she experienced such a disorder. Now, with her hands shaking as much as she felt her soul was, she knows she isn't managing at all.

One of the most successful coping mechanisms for the soldier over the years had been mental escape. She couldn't freeze like she was a recruit back on Akuze if she could mentally avoid being back in that horrible colony. In the years before meeting a certain blue scientist on Therum, her mental safe place had changed about as often as her arsenal of weapons. Each place chosen for temporary relief had a happy memory attached. A small significance that worked well enough to remove the body paralyzing fear she sometimes felt when a memory surfaced on the battlefield. The places were trivial, but they were enough. Tactics such as imagining the screams of drunken, hilarious patrons in her favorite Citadel bar had aided her for years in keeping from hearing the screams of her lost squad when her mind conjured from the noises on the battlefield. It was a silly memory, but sometimes, all a broken soldier needed was a small piece of their humanity and joy to cling to while a battle threatened everything they were.

The moment Liara entered her thoughts, becoming her safe escape, she didn't just have a piece of her former joy to cling to, she could feel true joy again. She felt it in any passing thought involving the asari. She was no longer treading water, but swimming again as if her confidence had never been shaken in the water. After that first meld, when she had been transported to a place where she was fully entrenched in the woman she loved, the soldier had never changed her safe escape again. That thought, that place, could give her the strength to withstand.

She tries to picture it now to stop her hands from shaking. She tries to picture her hands not on metal, but on blue skin. Tracing a freckled expanse she craved in every passing moment.

She tries, but the her hands do not change, do not leave the cold hallway even in her mind.

That thing was coming to mar her blue canvas, her ocean of escape. And her hands don't stop shaking.

The door opens with a hiss, and the soldier charges in on instinct, her body finally reacting how the soldier needed it to. The room is empty aside from a single console, and the spectre crosses the room to it instantly. Syncing her omni-tool to the console, the soldier is greeted with a console administrator page instantly...in a coding language she has never seen before.

The soldier instinctually begins to type on her omni-tool as if she could contact EDI, then a deep frown spreads across her face as the realization that was not an option comes crashing back into her mind. The soldier flips from her communications display back to the unfamiliar page, her mind racing as she tries to discern any portion of it. Her armor clinking from the shakes that still affect her body is a distraction she wishes she could silence.

Suddenly, the door slides open with a hiss the soldier barely catches through the shroud of the alarm sound. Spinning on her heels, she has her weapon prepared in moments. The barrel trained on the intruder, a bullet ready in the chamber, the soldier's eyes narrow as she watches the last thing she wanted to see enter the room. The purge mech.

It's larger than she remembers. The stature of an Atlas with no pilot inside. It entirely blocks the doorway, making escape near impossible. With two large metal crashes, its mechanized legs step further into the room, preparing itself to launch yet another purge. The Commander has a second, maybe less than that.

With another moment to spend taking in the beast, maybe she would have reacted differently. Maybe her trauma would have paralyzed her, the fear taking its time spreading into her extremities. That fear does not have that time to overtake her. She has a split second to react, and her body follows only the compulsions of her training, not her disorder.

Without thinking, Shepard leaps behind the console, her metal armor clinking against the floor as she rolls along her shoulders and her spine, stopping her rool behind the metal stand. She focuses any biotic energy she could muster in a moment to create a barrier, a barrier she hoped would at least save her life.

The last thing Shepard heard before blackness overtook her was the sound of shells being fired.

The cell had gone deadly silent when the explosions began. Liara paces, trying to keep herself from breaking down each time another sound breaks their stillness. Miranda smiles at Liara weakly from her place beside Jack on the floor, her attempt at a comforting smile not quite reaching her eyes, but still, it was a welcomed attempt to reassure the other woman. Liara is grateful for the operative. She had fought for each of them today. Even Jack. Which took a compassion the asari could admire. Jack's temperament made the asari question her role in Shepard's squad several times, and that was just in one day of fighting alongside her.

And yet there was Miranda, a woman able to tame the convict when her irrational mind threatened action that could endanger all of them, especially the convict herself. Without her hand currently resting on the biotic's knee where they sat, Liara was absolutely certain Jack would be nearly killing herself trying to make it through the metal wall. Jack is strangely serene at the moment, her body a bit less taut than usually. Liara is happy for them, happy they comforted each other. But, she can't help but feel a pang of jealousy. They were there for each other while the world was falling apart around them, and she had no idea if her world was even alive.

"It's a purge mech."

Miranda's voice cuts through Liara's thoughts, and she looks at the operative with a quizzical stare.

"What did you say?"

"I said it's a purge mech. Cerberus designed them based on a design from a rogue facility we scrubbed. Their purpose is to, well, purge everything…" Miranda trails off in her last sentence, obviously a bit regretful for Liara having to hear the violent reality of what was taking place around them. The operative's nature was bluntness however, and she felt the broker should known.

Liara nods solemnly. Shepard had mentioned purge mechs before.

Liara wakes with a start to her love thrashing in bed beside her. Reaching out, her mind still in the haze of sleep, she places her hand against the soldier's back, rubbing light circles into the tensed muscles. The soldier's back is hot, soaked with sweat as if she had been racing through a battlefield. The asari thinks nothing of it at first, after all, the soldier had been slick with sweat for a good portion of the night. They both had.

However, Liara's eyes snap open when the soldier jerks away from her soft touch on her naked back, the spectre's fists curling into the sheets. "Shepard?" Liara says softly, taking in the soldier. The soldier is shaking, her eyebrows furrowed as if behind them she is witness to some unmentionable horror.

The scientist sits upright then, swallowing the nervous lump that rises in her throat. The young asari knows exactly what this is even if she has not experienced it. She had read articles about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder episodes when she and the commander began seeing each other. It was on their second dinner date that the soldier had finally decided to confide in her asari companion that the 'great Commander Shepard,' much like so many of her colleagues, suffered from PTSD. The asari had spent that night researching the condition, her knee jerk reaction to everything she didn't fully understand. And yet, with all her research, seeing it now, seeing Shepard so scared, Liara is scared as well.

"I'm sorry ….I tried to..." Liara sees Shepard's lips move, is aware the words came from her, and yet, they don't sound like the spectre at all. Her confident tone is gone, replaced with a frightened plea, a voice so timid it has to be the voice of another. Maybe another Shepard. A younger version of the staunch Commander. One Liara hadn't met before. The sound cuts Liara's heart but she realizes in that still, anxious moment, she loves all versions of her heroic soldier.

Gently, Liara shakes the soldier, trying to wake her from her horrible alternate reality. She doesn't stir. Taking a deep breath, Liara places her hand in the center of the spectre's chest, her eyes fade to a black sheen, and she melds their consciousness.

What she sees then is chaos, melting metal and men. And one broken soldier in the midst of it. Liara makes her way through it and takes Shepard into her arms. The soldier's eyes widen with fright when she sees Liara, and Liara can sense the soldier trying to close in on herself, trying to shield her from seeing the horrors she sees every night. Liara doesn't let her. She clings tighter to the soldier until all Shepard can do is sob, clinging to Liara's hold for dear life.

Suddenly, they're in Shepard's bed again. The black tint of Liara's eyes fade and her vision restores to reveal the soldier in her arms. No longer blood soaked, no longer fully armored, fully naked and vulnerable, in her arms.

She's still crying, sobs wracking her muscular body. Liara holds her, her long blue fingers stroking red bright red hair. Shepard says nothing for a while, just presses her body against Liara's as her tears wet Liara's bare shoulder. Liara blinks, an image of the horrible metal monster that had taken the lives of Shepard's friends seared in her mind for the moment.

"What was that thing?" She says softly, gently kissing the top of her soldier's head.

"A purge mech."

Liara snaps out of her memory to her two companions fighting once again. Jack is pacing the cell, fear evident across her face. Miranda is standing to the side, her arms crossed and hip cocked in annoyance as the two berate each other.

"Why the fuck would Cerberus even make something like that?!"

"To protect research, Jack. We make a lot of weapons. You don't seem to have a problem with killing."

"It purges facilities, Miranda. It could be used to purge facilities with fucking test subjects!"

Miranda pauses, clearly regretful for not immediately understanding why Jack hated the mech the second she described it.

"You're right. It's horrible."

Another explosion rings out, the sound shaking the walls around them.

"It's getting closer..."

"I know that, Jack. I just know what it is I don't know what to do about it!"

The three are suddenly knocked off their feet, each of them tumbling to the ground as the floor beneath shakes.

"It's in the next room…" Liara breathes, leaping to her feet and frantically moving about the cell.

There has to be a way to escape… we can't die here… not like this… I won't let Shepard find us like that..

Miranda does the same, moving about the cell in a hurry, her eyes brimming with tears from the genuine fear that was piercing her body. Jack stands slowly, her eyes trailing over Miranda's frightened body, gaining resolve as she watches the other woman's panicked state. Liara whirls around to meet her gaze for a moment, just before it happens. She doesn't see what Jack is about to do. And then she does.

"Jack!" Liara screams, causing Miranda to whirl on her heel but it's too late. With a blue flash, Jack charges through the metal wall at the back of their cell.