Guard Dog of Hell 1.5

"Hurry up, Shepard!" the Voice returned.

You ignored The Voice and knelt down by the corpses. Using the training Wrex had given you, you quickly searched the dead for anything that could be useful in your escape. You didn't find much, a few credits, a coupon for a free bowl of ramen on some fast-food-ramen joint venture on either the Citadel or Omega of all places and an additional thermal clip. You'd just turned the last corpse over when you saw something that made you grin: a datapad! It looked kind of important, and you quickly downloaded the data from it. The data was encrypted, but by the looks of it, it was a standard encryption code you could break in a few minutes. For now, you saved the data for later. It wasn't the time to linger around, not with crazy mechs all around you.

Gained:
50x Galactic Credits
1x Ramen Coupon (only useable during the Happy-Hour local time)
1x Thermal Clip
1x Data about: Unknown

"You're taking too long, Shepard. Move up!" It is obvious where the Voice wanted you to move on to. Of the two doors, only one had a working haptic interface. You smirked, that's classic railroading you'd only seen in some bad games. With a quick look, you found the next camera and looked directly into it.

"I followed your commands enough. I think it is time for some answers. Who are you, and why am I here?"

"Shepard, I would prefer if we could save questions for later."

"Yeah, how about no? How about I get some answers to why I should follow your orders around? Each time I ended up with some mechs around that tried to kill me." You moved over to the door with the defective haptic interface. With the experience of an engineer, you quickly found the emergency release and removed its cover. On the inside, a quick look told you that air and pressure was normal beyond the door before you began to pump the opener to open the door manually. "Because to me, it looks like you're doing your best to kill me. Not the most impressive I've seen, but you get extra points for trying."

"Do you really need to be this childish, Shepard? Without me, you wouldn't be here."

"Whatever you say, mysterious Voice," you answered as you pumped the manual release a bit harder. Slowly, the door slid open. You could see a dark corridor on the other side, only lit weakly by some red emergency lights. "So, let's assume you aren't trying to kill me but to save me. How would you do that?"

"I have a shuttle waiting for you. It will bring us to a secure hideout, where everything can be explained."

The door was opened wide enough by now that you could squeeze through it even in full armor. "Right. I think I'll take option B. Any last words of wisdom for me?"

"Most of the surveillance equipment in that area of the station has gone dark. The same is true for the sensors. It's also where most of the fighting happened. I can't help you if you go there. I strongly advise you to follow my lead."

"No thanks, but I appreciate the tip. Good luck getting off the station."

Then you forced yourself through the door into the corridor. Only the emergency lamps gave off some red light. Everything else was dark. You raised your pistol and started walking down the dark hallway. After a few steps, you reached a room marked as Checkpoint #23. You saw several bodies, each having taken several shots, and some loading stations for mechs when you glanced into it.

It seemed that this space station relied mostly on mechs to provide security. Cheap, but not unusual. Still, the question remained how they could've been hacked. Even the simple civilian models you encountered up till now had software that prevented most hacking. If someone tried to hijack a mech, it usually shut down and had to be manually reactivated with a switch. Only the best combat programs or hackers could work around that. So, if a total genius or a military outfit weren't behind this, that left only one answer: it was an inside job. Someone had reprogrammed the mechs directly.

You stepped into the room and looked around for a bit, hoping for some more thermal clips, but you didn't find any. Also, there wasn't any terminal still operational. After a few minutes looking through the room, you left it behind as it became clear that there is nothing to find here that is useful. You resumed walking down the corridor. It seemed as if the Voice had told the truth, you didn't meet anyone or anything.

After a while, you stopped in a mess hall that was evacuated in a hurry and suddenly found yourself feeling hungry. Trays with food, datapads, and even game cards of Citadel: The Gathering lay around. You moved to one of the snack machines and smashed the window with the butt of your pistol. After a small look, you took one of the power bars and started to eat it – never before had anything tasted so good to you.

Finally, as you ate a second one, you took a look at the data you downloaded from the datapad earlier. The data was about …

[ ] Project: True Believer
[ ] Project: Next Gen Enforcer
[ ] Project: Controller
[ ] Project: Dopple

The name itself sent shivers down your back. Nothing good could come from a project that was named "True Believer." For some reason, it sounded evil to you, like someone had created a cult for political or military matters. Your instincts were soon proven valid. The more you read about this Project, the more you realized that it might not have been the good guys who found you drifting in space and healed you. To be honest, it sounded like that crazy Cerberus shit you had stumbled over during your hunt for Saren.

TO: M. Lawson (Project Lazarus Leader)
FROM: J. A. Garrison (Agent / Agent Leader)
SUBJECT: (Project) True Believer / Testing phase under Field Conditions

Ma'am,

I know that the recent positive results of Project Lazarus speak for themselves, and I'm glad about it. From the start, I knew that my Project was more an emergency measure rather than an essential tool we hope to use like Lazarus will be. But I urge you to not cut our funding yet, as my Project can still support Lazarus Cell in the long run.

When we begin to truly see some results, Codename Jesus has done remarkably in recruiting and indoctrinating more and more subjects to the cult. He is yet unaware of our involvement and should be left in the dark, as he regards Cerberus as an enemy. The chance of him discovering our manipulations and covert funding of his cult is unlikely. Codename Jesus is as dense as we had hoped. Especially since he started the cult.

His messages gather more and more followers. As hoped, our stimulations of the more violent undertones of the doctrines have led to the formation of the first militia forces. They started to call themselves PARAGONs and have begun a military campaign against criminal forces on Codename Scum Hive. They follow in the footsteps of the vigilante Archangel and his small crew there. We aren't sure if Archangel isn't, in fact, a highly capable member of the cult. I will personally look into this but don't think that it is true. The PARAGONs show violent behavior and beliefs as we hoped but lack the military abilities Archangel has demonstrated.

Our original plan hasn't borne fruit, mostly due to the resilience of Codename Jesus to pro-humanity doctrine. But this initial failure has resulted in improvements, as a high number of aliens have joined the cult, especially amongst the PARAGONs, giving us a pool of alien cannon fodder if needed and stimulated the right way. But to keep the cult growing, I require additional funds, as we have almost reached the point where the Project can carry itself but not completed yet. An additional four million credits are needed.

Please consider the long term effects this Project can have as a supporting element for Subject Lazarus and Cell Lazarus long-time operations, especially in the Terminus Systems.

Agent J. A. Garrison
Project True Believer

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

When you finished your reading, you made sure that the data was secured on your omni-tool. This sounded horrible, and it also proved your worst theories of who these people were. You'd been brought back to life by Cerberus. For you, it wasn't clear how long they needed to do it, but it wasn't so long ago for you when you stumbled over their experiments. You remember all too well what they did to the Marines of Admiral Kohaku, then there had been poor Corporal Toombs. All of that made sure that you were more than confident that this project had some horrible implications.

If you read the text right, then they had formed some form of a cult that they controlled. And their plan was to use them as soldiers for something. The note that they were rather happy about the aliens in the cult meant that they would use them to align humanity against the other species. Maybe in the form of terrorist attacks? History was full of religion-inspired terror attacks and how that could turn people against each other. Whoever this Jesus person was seemed to be unaware that his cult had been taken over. Maybe it could be a good idea to warn him or her about it. With some luck, that would be enough to stop whatever Cerberus was trying to do to these people.

But to do that, you needed to get off this station. You swallowed the last bite of your meal and stood up. Now that you knew who the enemy was and that they were planning something, you could react. In your mind, your mission changed from simply escaping to escaping and then wreaking havoc on their asses. You left the mess behind and followed the next corridor a bit until you reached a T-shape junction. Carefully, you looked into each of the passages, but didn't see anything that seemed like an immediate danger.

In the left corridor, you could see signs of heavy fighting. It was littered with corpses and bodies. The right one looked mostly clear, aside from some bullet holes in the walls. Which way should you go?

[ ] Left, the corridor with the dead, and the signs of heavy combat. There had to be a reason for that.
[ ] Right, the corridor with fewer signs of combat. It should be safe, hopefully.
[ ] Write-in