2They'll pay for this brother, I promise. He reminded himself his brother's last words run... escape..Cerberus echoing in his mind But I need a plan. Alex finally collected himself enough to notice small wristband laying near Nick's hand, he picked it with is fingers carefully examining unknown item. He slid it onto his left hand, experiencing sudden pressure on his wrist, series of orange hologram plates surrounding his arm. An omni-tool... Nick's omni-tool. The urge to break down greatly supressed, now he had to escape from this facility and avenge Nick. When the device asked for user password he hesitated for a moment Where is the keyboard? He touched text field visible inside circular display over his palm. The hologram on his forearm shifted showing letters and symbols. Okay, now the password... the usual, think Alex, what was his usual password...
Without any other thought he tried every password he knew Nick used, everytime he'd seen -acces denied- message. Finally he gave up frustrated I tried EVERY password I knew, what the hell Nick!
Frustrated he slapped the omni-tool with open palm. Again he found himself surrounded by thick web of bright shifting lines. This time curiosity replaced suprise, he'd seen this before when he touched the door. He now took more time to look at the patterns, he realised that what he took for lines were actually data streams, some of them connecting with other ones, coming into small glowing orb, some of them coming outside and disappearing far away, other ones dissolving just before contacting it. Alex tried tried to connect himself to one that was making it through into the orb, but he felt resistance blocking his approach, he pressed harder eventually he managed to catch the stream.
Momentarily he was back surrounded by the carnage from before. He looked back at the display showing him short message.
-Acces granted.- He allowed himself small smirk at his victory, frustration leaving him. Whatever they did to me, this ability definitely comes in handy. Back to business now. He pressed one of icons on the interface, momentarily images, text and video logs scrolled through his vision. To his suprise, they appeared before his eyes, instead of on his omni-tool.
He finally paid attention to other icons around his field of vision. He noticed small human outline and a number 100 slightly above it, below he could see bar, one fourth full, flashing in red. Central spot was obviously filled with files from omni-tool. No time for it now. He thought as the images faded. He looked at number on the right - 31.03.2183 E.S.T,- All things considered, this isn't the worst...
"Charlie team what's your status"
Voice echoed in guard's radio interrupting the thought. Shit, shit, shit. His sight followed to one of dropped guns. Fight my way out? No training, no shields, with only a gun against god knows how many trained enemies, on unknown ground. Sounds fucking perfect. He grabbed one of the assault rifles. Lighter than I imagined. His HUD recognized it as M-96 Mattock. 12.84% succes chance in open combat... what the fuck did I just... nevermind. He gave mental sigh. 12% doesn't sound too reassuring. So what now, sneak past them? He looked again at the gun and shrugged. Better have it and not need it.
He scanned the room again, then he took notice of a vent in the corner. He suddenly felt wave of calmess when he pulled out the grate and crawled inside, he put the grate back in its place. He looked back for the last time, saying his last goodbye.
Alex slowly crawled through the ventilation, careful not to make any noise. He came across another grate, and peeked between its bars. To his eyes came long corridor, darkness disturbed only by occasional red lightbulbs. Where am I. I could use a map. As soon as he finished his thought word "map" image appeared in his vision. Whoa! So this place is called Ares Facility. Right, Mass Effect... Hangar bay! That's my chance, I think I could put this hacking magic to get something and fly away. He looked closer, plotting his route. Hmm, follow this vent for about 40 meters, get out, then turn left, go through maintenance tunnel, open the doors then hijack a shuttle and voila.
As he made first move, doors to his left opened and revealed four guards patrolling the corridor, one of them barking orders. Alex stopped momentarily, not willing to reveal his position. Guards positioned themselves around opposite doors, first one typing on his omni-tool, others covering him. Finally doors slid open and they stormed through them, . They went into direction I came from, better hurry before they find the bodies. Alex thought, when the last of them disappeared from his view. He crawled furher ahead, until he arrived to the end of the ventilation. He scanned the room looking for any guards, not finding any, he pushed the grate and jumped out of the vent, precautiously pointing his assault rifle towards the door. He didn't bother closing the vent behind him, and quietly sneaked closer the exit.
Alright, time for the magic. Sesame Open! He thought while simultaneously placing his hand on the red hologram. Again he'd see strings of data flying at every direction, creating incomprehensible web of connections, but he didn't hesitate, he connected himself to the nearest stream and sneaked past the firewalls giving command to open. I'm getting better at this. He thought with a little smirk, as the doors slid aside revealing to his eyes huge room.
It was filled with all kinds of vehicles. Starting with six-wheeled bulky IFV's with small turrets on their tops, lower profiled tanks with covered wheels and about one and half times bigger turret, trident shaped planes, possibly fighters, far ahead behind the large opened doors he could see a landing pad with few shuttles parked on it. He also could see lots of plants, extremely dense rainforest far away from the pad. M-35's, M-29's, F-61's and UT-45's in there according to my HUD. Cerberus people, mechanics and guards were everywhere around. And a shitton of Cerberus.
He moved closer to the nearest MAKO and hid behind it. Fortunately no one noticed him entering the room. He moved to the left, hiding behind the crates and fuel tanks. Okay, now go through the entire hangar, preferably unseen.I think I could stick to these crates, then cross 10 meters to the exit and run to the landing pad.
Sneaking from cover to cover he came halfway through the hangar when alarms came to life filling the air with impossible cacophony of sounds. Hangar doors became slowly closing, and every person inside started running deeper into facility. Fuck Alex didn't have the time to waste, he jumped out of his cover and ran as fast as he could purely focusing on getting throught the doors before they closed. He didn't pay attention to suprised shouts and the following sound of gunfire and bullets flying all around him.
...6 meters... 5... 3... 2... 1 meter. He stormed through half meter gap in the doors. Losing his balance when he felt powerful force pushing him forward. Minor damage to shoulder. His HUD reported. He collected himself and ran towards the nearest shuttle. Lone man stepped out of it and tried to stop Alex from getting in. Without slowing down Alex pushed the man out of his way, clearly stronger than he thought, the operative flew in the air out of the pad, screaming in panic. The scram was cut off when Alex jumped into shuttle through open hatch. He sat in the pilot seat and scanned the controls. He got an idea. Hope it works. He thought as he tried to connect himself to the shuttle.
World around Alex blacked out for a moment, to come back, but from different perspective. Everything around the shuttle came as gray mix of shapes, few extremely bright human shaped figures disrupting the monotonous background. Shuttle powered up, thrusters activating and lifting it up. Shots being deflected by the kinetic barriers. Come on. He urged, shuttle obediently speeding up as it gained attitude and breached the atmosphere. I made it! Now where to now. Navigation says I'm somewhere in Crescent Nebula, this thing has the FTL drive. I could fly the hell away from here. Alarms in the shuttle activated, scanner picking multiple signatures pursuing him from the planet. Damn it. Engage FTL. He thought, choosing first system from the list. Shuttle rocked the same moment it engaged the FTL drive.
A/N: Second chapter is up. I also slightly fixed one element in previous one.
Anyway, I think I'll be updating this story once per week.