Unseen: Mass Effect FanFiction (Being edited)

Chapter 6

Shepard walked away from the shuttle as Garrus started it up and got ready to take off.

"Ka'li," Shepard called out. "Grab the bags, our shuttle is leaving."

"Right away," Mirithea said.

"Dianvi can take them," Dr. Susan hurried to say.

"That's kind of you," Shepard replied, smiling.

Once Dianvi had grabbed their bags off the shuttle and Garrus had taken off, Dr. Susan led them to the main building.

"You'll be staying in the west wing," Dr. Susan said, as the main entrance opened. "Each building is code-protected; you'll need one to get around. Your codes are being programmed as we speak. Keep in mind that the code opens doors that are relevant to your security clearance."

"The cafeteria is part of the main building," Dr. Susan continued as they went into the west housing unit. "All three meals are brought out and the tables are set up every time."

"Here we are," Dr. Susan said, stopping by a door labeled six. "Everything's been set up for you. You should be getting information in a few minutes on your omni-tool."

Dianvi opened the door, set their bags by the door, and excused herself. Soon after Dr. Susan and Dianvi said their goodbyes and left. Shepard and Mirithea waited a few minutes before speaking.

"That went better than expected," Mirithea mumbled grabbing their bags and setting them on the bed.

"You think?" Shepard replied beginning to unpack. "Let's just hope the Captain and his gun-happy turians don't ruin it for us."

"You can never be too sure," Mirithea said. "The turians follow orders, as long as Councilor Sparatus doesn't overstep his boundaries then everything should work out fine.

Shepard grunted but didn't reply. She didn't have much hope that the Councilor would stay within his boundaries. After they were done unpacking, both of them received several pings of notifications on their omni-tool.

"Here I was thinking they had forgotten about us," Shepard muttered changing into more comfortable clothes. "After that fiasco at the docks."

Once Shepard was settled in bed, she took the time to look through the information sent to her. Like any other job, most of the information sent to her contained polices procedures, dos, and don'ts, and an itinerary for the rest of the week. From the looks of it, there were several newcomers.

"Ka'li, I don't see anything in the itinerary that includes you," Shepard muttered, going through her omni-tool. "Did they send you anything?"

"No," she replied. "I didn't see anything in regards to tomorrow or the rest of the week."

"Odd," Shepard replied. "I guess we'll know tomorrow. They are bound to say something at orientation."

"They might," Mirithea stated, also getting ready for bed. "Tomorrow will tell and we can finally start working on what we came to do."

Shepard couldn't agree more.

The next morning Shepard and Mirithea got up bright and early. The hallway was quiet except for the occasional sound of heels hitting the polished tile. Breakfast was already waiting for them when they reached the main building of the Science Academy. Some of the tables were occupied while others were empty. 

The pair of them ate as much as they could before the newcomers were called away by Dr. Susan to another room for orientation. The 12 of them were taken to a room not far from the main building where they sat in a room with a small stage and podium.

It appeared that most of the newcomers had an assistant accompanying them, Shepard thought looking around before taking her seat. At least Mirithea won't stand out in the group.

"Take a seat anywhere," Dr. Susan said as Dianvi walked in carrying several data pads.

"In front of you, my assistant has given you all a data pad with your assignments," Dr. Susan began. "Take the time to read through everything. You all will be assigned to different departments so each datapad is loaded with a different map corresponding to your department."

"The Director will be stopping by in a few minutes." She said before taking her leave, Dianvi following after her.

The 12 of them waited a few minutes with no sign of the Director.

"I should go ask where he is," Mirithea whispered getting ready to leave. "You shouldn't be kept waiting this long."

"Thank you for your patience," a man said interrupting the group's chatter as he walked in the door which they entered. "Please take a seat."

"Welcome," he said. "I am Alec Ryder, Director of the Science Academy."

                                                                           *POV Change*

"What's their status?" Nihlus asked pacing around the Command Center.

"All we know is that they are inside," Garrus replied, typing away at the monitor. "I'm recalibrating the devices to ping their location."

"Let me know when you have something," Nihlus said continuing his pacing. "We can't lose them. The Council would want to know what's going on in there."

"Don't worry I'll make sure they are found," Garrus replied turning his attention back to the monitor once more.

After Garrus and Maenia had departed Juxhi and docked on the cruiser, he hurried to the Command Center where Nihlus was no doubt waiting for him. He had to know that their plan hadn't worked.

"We weren't welcome," Nihlus stated as soon as he entered.

"I'm surprised we didn't get shot down," Garrus replied walking over to him. "I don't think sending Maenia with me was a good idea. Could have gone better if it was just one turian."

"Yes well, Maenia was sent to keep you company," Nihlus answered, boldly.

"Just in case you were allowed to stay," he said as an afterthought continuing his pacing.

"I don't need Maenia to keep me company," Garrus muttered going over to one of the consoles.

He didn't think telling Nihlus about his arrangement on the Citadel with Aster was a good idea, he would never hear the end of it. Nihlus wasn't known to be fond of humans.

"You think the good doctor would?" Nihlus asked amused. "That would be fun to see. Heck, I'll pay to see that."

Garrus rolled his eyes but didn't reply and set to recalibrating the devices. Not only was the code not working, it seemed like the code kept changing every few seconds. That was only making it harder to get a lock on it, not to mention to try and hack it at the same time but he had promised Dr. Lang that the Captain had a plan to get them out and he wanted to make sure he followed through on that promise.

The next couple of days were the most intense Garrus had felt in a long time. Not only was he unable to filter out the interference, he was unable to establish any kind of communication with Dr. Lang. Surely, she had gotten the message he had sent her. The message contained a code that would allow him to connect to her omni-tool directly without having to go through all the data from the outside. It would be very helpful in this situation.

Garrus sat in front of the monitor for five days with no communication from Dr. Lang. He sent her countless messages but never got anything in return.

"Anything yet?" Nihlus asked for the 100th time in the last 5 days.

"Nothing," came Garrus's reply for the 100th time as well.

"Find them!"

"Working on it," Garrus muttered, frustrated. He couldn't believe his expertise in technology was of no use in this situation.

A/N: Chapter 6 has been edited.