Awake. An unfamiliar ceiling - white, unadorned.
That wasn't right. For the better part of a year now, Commander Ryougi had been waking up in her small cabin on the Normandy. This was not it. A bunk barely big enough for one under a blue-black ceiling was replaced by a massive, fluffy bed, in the midst of a brightly lit white chamber.
Still groggy, she swung sideways, sitting up on the edge of the bed. The room was bigger than her cabin, but not by much worth speaking of: a few feet on each side. The bed in its center was the prime feature of the room, pushing a small desk and a chair out towards the plain, windowless walls.
Standing up, she walked to a door set opposite to the bed, taking note of her clothes – some kind of generic military off-duty wear, with no real identification of any kind.
As she palmed the control panel, it flashed red: locked. She whirled, looking for another exit, a growing unease in her stomach. This was wrong. She shouldn’t be here. She should be-
A massive curve of ice dominated the sky, occasionally obscured by fragments of metal and jets of gas drifting across it. She hung below it, clinging desperately to a beam. Her other hand reached out, barely making it to the launch button for the escape pod.
Joker drifted away, just as a ray of yellow light lanced into the last intact part of the ship-
Oh. She should be dead.
At the least, it explained why she wasn’t in her cabin. But Heaven this was not, and she thought that Heaven was unlikely for her in any case.
---
She sat on the bed, running through a series of focusing exercises designed to deal with exactly this situation: isolated, with no goal to work towards, no stimulation, just waiting. As much as she wished for something to happen, nothing did.
The stillness brought back thoughts that had been instantly suppressed when they first surfaced. A hallucination, spawned of oxygen deprivation in her last breath. Limbo, some kind of cosmic waiting room. Something else, far beyond her comprehension…
Ryougi had never been one to fear death. But it was inevitable that once you were faced with the aftermath of it, it would be the location of your thoughts.
So, that was where she was drawn. She sorted through years of memories, trying to recall any scrap of philosophy or scripture that would make sense of the situation. However, it wasn’t the scramble of a condemned woman trying to find an answer before oblivion. If she found an answer, she would have one. If she didn’t, well… she supposed it wouldn’t matter.
Maybe half an hour later, the room suddenly began changing. The gentle white light dimmed, moving from clear to dimmer and dimmer levels, slowly blackening. Calmly, she stood from the bed, watching her small world as it disappeared into darkness.
Ryougi couldn’t really say whether she was disappointed or not when light burst into existence again.
She appeared to be standing on a plane of black glass, extending left and right as far as she could see. In front of her was something that even she, with her years in space, had never been able to see in person. The star was dying. A weak red giant, its massive envelope crawled around its core in complex fluid patterns, causing it to shine in orange and ice blue. Corona of flame streamed off its surface, circles of fire that could swallow the Earth with ease.
Unnerved by the sudden change, she swept her hand behind her, seeking some kind of stability. Fabric… the bed was still there, even in the apparent change of location. However, a glance confirmed that it seemed to not exist – as far as she could tell, she was touching air that felt like a blanket. Some kind of hologram then… and a confirmation that this probably wasn’t some kind of supernatural space.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” came a woman’s voice from behind her. Deliberately, Ryougi turned. No use in looking like a frightened rabbit now.
A chair stood at the point where the light from the star began to fade into blackness, on the border between world and void. A woman sat in it, dressed in what would be called business casual: dark pants and a collared shirt, unbuttoned a bit farther than one would expect in polite company. The light made determining any kind of real color difficult, but her hair, pulled up into a ponytail, appeared to be red or orange. Taking a drag from the cigarette in her right hand, she watched… the sun, or Ryougi?
“What are you supposed to be, Saint Peter?”
The woman laughed. “Oh, no, you’re not dead - and I’m not a saint.”
“Then who are you, and where am I?”
“Well, where you are depends on how you look at it. I guess, in a sense, you’re dead: unknown to the rest of the galaxy, only a memory. On the other hand, you’re certainly alive: I made sure of that. We can’t afford to lose you.”
“Stop speaking in riddles. Who’s we?”
“Mmm, the whole galaxy. But more specifically, it’s I at the moment who needs you. Call me Jorden’s Puppeteer. The name should be familiar.”
She paced back and forth in Udina’s office, trying to figure out some way past this. The Council was obtuse as always: their evidence had been refuted as faked and unlikely. Not that it should have come as a surprise to them: it was the word of a dockworker against that of the first Human Specter. And as little as the Council thought of Humanity, they were still far more willing to give their word to him. Not to mention the Alliance, of course – he’d practically have to walk onto the Citadel and shoot the Ambassador in the head before they’d take any action against him.
&^*(&)^#$%^&*_^&
A burst of static through her headset. “(&@&*/*#@-ignal, check, check.”
She lowered her head, turning away from the door. “Who is this?”
“Ah, good. I’m Jorden’s Puppeteer. I might have something that interests you.”
“…it is.” A moment of silence, as she thought over her situation.
“What’s this about, then?”
Yeeaaaah.
Really, I should have made this longer, but I wanted to get something up to motivate myself.
Originally Posted by asterism42
Reply With Quote
