Parallax

A/n: Hey everyone. I know it's been a few months since this has been updated. It's very hard to be motivated when it feels like Bioware is ignoring the Virmire survivor entirely. That being said, I'm trying to push through this writing slump. Hopefully y'all are still around to read :/


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The brush felt like a claw raking itself through her hair.

It was the same kind of brush she'd used for years, though it was much too large for the amount of hair the Alliance allowed her to keep free of a bun. She'd never been content with her hair; hopefully she'd die with the secret that her hair was a light mousey brown instead of its fake glossy black. Throughout her career as as professional junkie, she'd had her hair every possible combination of unnatural color and black. Upon her retirement and subsequent joining of the Alliance, only the black remained.

The large rectangular brush slogged through Shepard's hair once again, becoming ensnared by a mammoth tangle. Memories of a rough hand fisting itself into her hair the previous night played through her mind. Her eyes wandered over to her ruined thong on the floor, a devious smile spreading across her face.

Shepard hastily drew the brush through her hair, ignoring the violent feeling of tangles being ripped apart. When she found herself free of tangles, Shepard snagged the pair of destroyed panties and shoved them deep into the pocket of her fatigues.

Her feet carried her to the elevator; when it landed, she glanced around the cargo hold with a grin. It was empty.

With purpose, she strode over to Kaidan's locker, her hand wrapped around the balled-up panties in her pocket. Shepard opened the locker, removed the panties, and stuffed them into her Lieutenant's locker behind his armor.

That'd give him something to think about.


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Kaidan secured his armor and grabbed his sidearm, ensuring that it was firmly in place. He reached for his shotgun and paused in mid grab as something out of place caught his eye.

In the back of his locker, a small bundle of cloth rested, its red ruffled lace stark against the grey interior of the locker. The Lieutenant hooked it around his finger to investigate. The cloth unraveled, a broken string swinging loose to dangle in front of his face. The majority of the fabric was stiff as if it had been soaked through and dried in a heap.

"Oh, you naughty thing," Kaidan murmured.

For a moment the Lieutenant simply stood in front of his locker, eying the incredible prize in his hands. It was the pair of panties that he'd ripped off of Shepard in the heat of passion.

Behind him, Kaidan heard the elevator doors open. He reluctantly shoved the panties into the back of his locker for safekeeping before turning to face approaching footsteps.

It was Shepard, the enabler herself, a sly grin spread across her face. Garrus followed behind her in short, stiff strides.

"I got your message," Kaidan smirked. He shut his locker door while his eyes wandered over her spindly armor-clad legs.

"Good," she replied, "don't forget it, Lieutenant."

He moved away from the lockers to give Garrus room to suit up. Giving the Commander one last heated glance, Kaidan watched Garrus' movements intently. Though the turian moved with the same dexterity that he usually possessed, there was something hasty in each action that he performed.

This assignment was vastly different from others. It was something personal that Garrus had dealt with for years; it was an unclosed case that the former Officer couldn't let slide. The turian tracked an illegal organ developer all the way out to the Kepler Verge. Not even a name change could save the doctor; Garrus' sleuthing skills were on par with those of the Spectres.

Kaidan gave Garrus a nod before they followed Shepard up to the elevator, a quiet ride and trek to the front ensuing. The Commander stopped in front of the cockpit and pressed a button to activate the intercom.

"Medical team, are you ready?" she asked.

"Yes, Commander," the voice of Dr. Chakwas replied.

Shepard nodded and shut off the intercom. She'd told the medical team to be on standby to assist people of multiple races that could have serious medical complications from Saleon's experiments. After their arrival, they'd signal for transport to pick them up for further treatment.

"Establish communication with the MSV Fedele," Shepard ordered.

"Connected and awaiting communication," Joker replied, pressing a few buttons on his side console.

The Commander stepped toward the console, shooting a glare in the direction of the communications speakers.

"Attention MSV Fedele," Shepard said, "this is the SSV Normandy. We were in the area and noticed that you are running silent and are willing to provide assistance as needed."

A minute of tense silence ensued, the Commander's eyes narrowing at the console.

"MSV Fedele, we have a Council Spectre on board and it would be wise of you to respond," she snapped, "if you do not reply, you may be charged with obstruction of justice."

Still, more silence.

Shepard nodded to Joker and he shut off the comms and extended the airlock port to connect with the MSV Fedele. Wordlessly, the ground team followed her to stand in the decon scan in order to enter the other ship. As soon as the doors closed behind them, Garrus shifted behind her.

"You alright, Vakarian?" she asked, her eyes darting to pin the turian with a sharp look.

"Never better," Garrus chirped. He stroked his rifle lovingly as his raptor-like eyes focused intensely on the door in front of him.

In a matter of seconds, the airlock to the foreign ship opened and the team sneaked in with their weapons at ready. Shepard signaled the trio to halt as she peered into the disheveled cargo area of the ship. Seeing nothing but a row of stacked crates, the Commander inched forward cautiously, her boots barely making a sound against the metallic floor.

It was a bad location; the crates blocked them from seeing most of the room. Shepard double checked her radar and saw that there was no indication that there were hostiles in the room. Quickly, she whipped around the corner with her team, guns at ready.

Her boot made contact with a blue substance and lost traction; the Commander landed sharply on her knee. She hastily stood as her eyes darted about for any sign of hostiles.

They were surrounded by corpses, all in various states of putrification. Shepard had no idea what in the hell they were; the corpses certainly weren't of any dead body that she'd seen before.

And she'd seen a lot of corpses.

A movement to her right drew her attention and Shepard's shotgun whipped around to find one of what she thought was a corpse in her sight. Its gnarled arms lurched forward, shaking as they slowly brought the creature into a more visible position.

"What the fuck is that?" the Commander murmured. She'd shoot the damn thing if it so much as farted at her.

The creature attempted to sit up but fell on its elbows; five-fingered talons scraped along the floor of the ship in a high pitched screech. The human-like skin of its palms sloughed off as it attempted to sit up again and it fell into a heap of blue blood. Letting out a low keening sound, the creature rolled over and pinned Shepard with its raptor-like eyes.

"Uh," Shepard murmured, unnerved that she was stuck in a staring contest with it, "stay here, thing. We'll get some help in a minute."

It blinked its eyes and laid down, seemingly satisfied with the Commander's declaration. Shepard shrugged and motioned her team to follow. They waked up a short set of stairs and turned right to face a decrypted door. Immediately, Kaidan set about the procedure of hacking the lock on the door, the team at ready to cover for him.

The door opened to reveal a salarian, his tattered labcoat covered in blue splotches.

"Oh, thank you so much for finding me," he gasped, "I hid in here when those things attacked me and I locked the door and they couldn't get in. I'm not really sure what they are but I didn't want to test out their claws because those look like they'd hurt a lot and -"

"Alright, slow down," Shepard said. She regarded the salarian in front of her. Was this scrap of a creature really worth the time? By the telltale pock marks on his arm, the Commander could tell that the Doctor had been shooting up. He'd been doing it for a long time as well; his slender salarian frame was disgustingly thin, as if his spine would snap under the weight of trying to support his horned head.

"Garrus, are you sure this is the one?" she murmured, unsure if she wanted to put the salarian out of his misery or to provide help.

"Yes, that is Dr. Saleon," he replied, "I'd know him anywhere."

"Saleon?" the doctor interjected, "I don't know of any Saleon because I am Dr. Heart. I specialize in organ replacement surgeries which can be of the utmost delicate nature. Under me, patients have a higher survival rate for this extremely risky surgery."

"Right," Garrus scoffed, "Well, I'd harvest your organs first but we really don't have the time."

Dr. Saleon froze, his eyes growing wide. He reached for a gun on his left but was shot down in mid-grab. The doctor's lifeless body crumbled to the floor.

A moment of silence followed, Garrus staring at the body of the person he'd been tracking for so lon.

"Alright, let's see if we can find any information about that thing in the other room," Shepard commanded, ending the silence.

Kaidan followed her around the room, trying to find useful information among the unsanitary medical equipment. Finding nothing, they circled back to the entrance to the room. Garrus was still there. He continued to stare at the lifeless body of his prey, unmoving.

The Commander and Lieutenant exchanged a nod before exiting the room, leaving Garrus behind. Together they entered the cockpit to attempt to find information; all backups would likely be on the main computer.

Kaidan sat down at the terminal in the cockpit and began to carefully remove all of the security measures that Dr. Saleon had put in place. Scanning the newly opened files, he searched for any kind of clue as to what the doctor had been doing.

"Find anything yet?" Garrus' voice chimed from the doorway.

"Looking right now," Shepard replied, nodding toward her Lieutenant.

Kaidan paused in his reading, his brow drawn into a tight frown. Blinking a few times, he typed in a few more keywords and continued to read.

"This is not good," he sighed, running his gloved hand through his hair.

"What?" Shepard asked. Garrus began to pace the short area of the cockpit.

"It seems that Dr. Saleon was trying to increase the universal marketability of the organs," he replied. "The creatures in the other room were his attempts at making some sort of human-turian hybrid."

Shepard glanced back at the solemn turian behind her; he'd paused in mid stride.

"Remind me to never fuck you, Garrus," she chuckled.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Garrus snorted, "I don't want to get my neck snapped by a biotic kick any time soon."

"Does it say how he came up with that idea?" Shepard asked, returning quickly to business mode.

"Could be the meth he decided to start shooting up," Kaidan murmured, "he's got dozens of logs of buying the stuff."

"Why would he choose that?" Garrus wondered. "I mean, there are safer, less antiquated and easier to find drugs out there. Instead, he goes for the obscure human drug. Not to mention that it's illegal everywhere. At least sand is legal in some places."

And now they would never know; Dr. Saleon was dead. Shepard shifted in her seat, anxious to leave. She didn't want to think about someone else's drug habits.

"It doesn't matter now; what's important is figuring out what to do with the remaining survivor in the other room," Kaidan interjected, cutting off Shepard's thoughts.

"The prognosis is grim," he continued, glancing at the rest of the team, "essentially, the hybrid creature's organs are attacking each other. Its body is literally killing itself by the second and there is no foreseeable cure."

Shepard stood slowly, her mind mulling over the obvious decision she had to make. She felt her team follow behind her as she reentered the cargo bay. The creature was waiting for her, its eyes locked on to her position. Now Shepard found herself able to see which parts of the creature were from inherited from a human and which were turian. Knowing its origin had little effect on the uncanny creepiness that it exuded.

"So, you're going to die," she addressed it, "Either it can be slow and painful or quick and painless. Your body is slowly destroying itself. There is no cure."

The Commander drew her pistol and held it against the creature's head. It maintained its gaze with disturbingly blue turian eyes as it leaned the side of its face further onto the barrel of her weapon.

Shepard exhaled and fired.