MEHR Interlude 4 snippet 2 (Patreon)

“Never mind, joke's from way before your time.”

[h+]

It  was the Golden Hour of the morning, and Adam found Garrus sitting on  top of a hill, his rifle leaning against a rock as he looked upon the  horizon blazing with shades of purple and orange. Adam approached him  quietly, his burden safe back in the cave.

“Listen,” said the turian.

“I  don't hear anything,” Adam replied. It wasn't quite true: his augmented  hearing picked up the quiet whisper of the wind and the distant song of  swallows, he didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.

No,  that wasn't quite true either. The bird's song... it didn't sound  right. There's no mystery as to why: the birds were likely bioroids as  well, but it raised the question... who made them and why?

Is this a giant zoo? he wondered.

“Exactly,” said Garrus, pulling Adam from his thoughts. “It's quiet.”

Garrus took a deep breath, savoring the peace. “This is how the world should be.”

Adam felt a crawling sensation in the back of his brain again, but this time it came with a sense of dread.

“Sorry,”  Garrus continued. “I'm still adjusting to the concept of not being shot  at by crooks or monsters... or crooked monsters and monstrous crooks.”

“And here I thought you wanted to get back to investigating as soon as possible.”

“Yeah... so did I. Still want to get back home and back to business as usual, but... but there's no rush.”

Adam sat besides his partner, letting the golden hour wane.

“After we deal with the Snatchers, I'm going back to Palaven.”

“I figured you would,” replied Adam, unsurprised. “Unfinished family business?”

“Yeah, that.”

They said nothing, letting the wind whisper.

“I've  got something for you,” said Adam, as he produced the crystal entrusted  to him by the dying Leto Valerius. “Your... father? Your father wanted  you to have this.”

He dropped the crystal in Garrus' open palm.

“I remember this,” said Garrus. “My... Leto Valerius kept this on his person at all times, but Brutus could never figure out why.”

“Do you know what it is?” asked Adam. He knew it was Messian tech, but...

“It's a key,” said Garrus. “To what, I'm not sure.” Garrus pocketed the gem. “But it doesn't matter now.”

Adam and Garrus got up, and began the short walk down the hill.

“I just realized,” said Garrus, a slight chuckle escaping his mouth. “We finally made good on our vacation time.”

“Don't jynx it,” said Adam.

As  soon as he said that, he noticed a streak of light hanging in the sky  above them, headed towards the east. Garrus zoomed in on it with his  sniper rifle's scope, boosting its lens' magnification with a digital  zoom. “That's... that's no meteor.”

“Technically...” Adam began.

Garrus cut him off. “I mean, it's not a space rock.”

“Let me have a look,”asked Adam, and Garrus handed him the gun, and zoomed in:

The  falling object was made of dark metal, and kept itself safe from  atmospheric friction through some kind of energy shield. It wasn't a  mass effect field, or some kind of omni-gel barrier... no, the shield  seemed to come from wheels of light. Definitely engineered, he thought. Too bad I can't make out any more details.

Sensing  his thoughts, the 108 deployed the helmet, and its sensor suite scanned  the object, and zoomed in further than the scope could.

Emblazoned on it was the symbol of a five petal flower.

That  logo... seeing it made Adam's mind go back to the Durendal's hangar,  where the ruin of Elsa' craft lay. Then, to that fragment in time where  the immense Reaper warforms were being destroyed in dark space.

Before Adam could fully process the implications, the 108's AR display dropped another bombshell:

Luciferase 451 detected.

Adam  double-checked the files he had downloaded – apparently Luciferase 451  was potent battery fluid for Gen-5 Androids and above, and with Elsa  being 'Gen-6', she was apparently compatible with the stuff. If  Luciferase 108 had a 25 percent chance of resurrecting her, perhaps 451  had better odds?

“Wonder where it's landing?” wondered Garrus out loud, as the meteor merged with the sunlight.

“Same place we're headed, looks like,” replied Adam. Then, he clarified: “Detroit.”