Sunday 1 September 2013

A Child's Dream - Part 1

"The commander took her into his arms as his ship left the atmosphere, gliding gracefully into the depths of space. He was the captain not only of his ship but of Keli'Ria's heart.
The end."
Emi sighed. She flicked back quickly through the pages of her favourite book - the first in the series - and began reading it again for what must have been the tenth time in the past week.
The book was called 'A Child's Dream' and was about a Quarian girl who fell in love with a Commander in the Alliance military. She nearly knew it off by heart but she still wasn't bored. It was her favourite. Her only escape from life on the Migrant Fleet.
She sighed again. This time not in happiness as tales of romance and love disappeared from her mind, just to be replaced by the fact she was hiding in a cupboard. A cupboard used by kitchen staff to store flour, that now covered the back and legs of her suit.
What she was hiding from were her duties. Every week her parents told her to go to the trade floor and see what she could buy. This week she was too busy reading. She enjoyed reading. Most other Quarians took refuge in technology or by telling stories. She preferred to read. She loved to be taken into the world of romance. Especially between a human and a Quarian. It was something that was considered impossible and she liked it. It... Tore down barriers. Allowed her to believe it would one day happen to her.
Even though she knew it wouldn't.
She had been told several times to stop imagining such ridiculous things but it didn't stop her. She liked to pretend. Even though she was twenty two years old it didn't stop her. The book was in so much detail it was like she could almost picture it. Every single moment of the book imagined in her head in almost perfect detail.
But it wasn't Keli'Ria's helmet she imagined. It was her own. She was lost within her own endless mind, thinking of things that could never be but of what she hoped would one day come true.
But as the book suggested, it was a child's dream. It could never happen. Not to her. No human would want her. She doubted any Quarian would want her either. Forever alone, just her and her book.
She wasn't a technical genius. She wasn't pretty. She had nothing she could offer the Fleet. Her pilgrimage was coming up in the next few days and she was looking forward to escaping from the cramped conditions on the spacecraft.
She would probably go to Earth. She had never seen a human before. Apparently they had five fingers on each hand. Weird, but interesting.
She looked down at her own hand and tried to imagine it with two extra digits but she failed. It wouldn't look right.
She was dreading her pilgrimage as well as being excited about it. Some of her friends had never returned and were being used as slaves on an Asari planet. She was glad she was going to Earth, where slavery was prohibited. She couldn't stand being used like that.
Her pilgrimage had been halted due to a war with the Geth - the race of humanoid robotic beings that they themselves had created. They had evolved and it had frightened many people and the Quarians lashed out against them.
She opened the cupboard a little to see if anyone was there, pushing her mask against the inside of the door. There was no one.
Cautiously she stepped out, holding her book out of the way of any stray flour that could otherwise harm her favourite piece of writing. The kitchen was empty so she quickly walked back to her family's allocated area, which was inside a small room meant for storing medical supplies. They shared it with another family who belonged to the Yasil clan.
"Mother?" she called, sweeping the patterned blanket to the side so she could step under it.
"Emi!" her mother shouted, "You were supposed to be on the trading floor three hours ago!"
"... Sorry," Emi apologised, "I was... busy."
"Reading that bosh'tet of a book again?"
Her mother disliked her reading intensely. Unlike Emi, she knew that technicians and machinists were more valuable to the Flotilla than literacy and other trivial matters.
Emi's mother had a pink and black environment suit and had a grey glass mask on her helmet. She was sat on the edge of a small stool and seemed to be creating some sort of machine using a circuit board and a piece of scrap metal, which was rusted slightly around the edges.
"... Yes. I'm sorry... it's a really good book. What does that do?"
"It will be a hydrothermal displacement engine using element zero. It uses water droplets in the air to create a small kinetic barrier which should help a combat drone to be sustained for longer."
"... Uh... right... Don't you think father should go to the trading floor? I have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking for..."
Her mother sighed, "It's just a simple element zero shield generator used for armoured units in the field."
"... But I don't know what one even looks like..."
"That's why you should get your head out of that book and go and learn about technology. That book doesn't even matter."
"... But I can't do tech. You put me into schooling, remember? I tried to make a miniature mass relay that should have been able to transport a pencil across the room but I accidentally blew a hole in the floor... That was not my fault, by the way. I had faulty equipment..."
Her mother laughed, "You strapped the mass effect generator into the element zero core but left the outer panel open. You created a weapon, dear. That was your fault."
"... B... But it didn't have one of the things you pull to fire it..."
"A trigger? It didn't need one, it fired automatically when you connected it."
"... Still wasn't my fault..."
If Emi had no helmet on, she'd have been blushing. The incident at the schooling ship was probably the only thing she was known for. "The girl who blew up a school whilst trying to send a pencil faster than light for less than a metre". Though generally it was "the idiot".
But she didn't feel like an idiot. She just wasn't very good when it came to technology. And it wasn't her fault. She just had no natural gifts. She couldn't fight, she couldn't build things... maybe she was useless.
Her mother was starting to despair with her. Her father shouted at her every time he saw her. But she still didn't want to leave the Migrant Fleet... not much, anyway. Although she didn't feel at home, she didn't want anything to change either. She was scared, she admitted to herself, very scared.
What if she did end up being a slave? What if she did end up with people being mean to her because of what species she was?
"... I guess I should go," she told her mother, "I'll try and find father to tell him to get to the trading floor..."
She ducked underneath the blanket again and exited their living space, walking back into the corridor of the large spacecraft. Emi immediately drew her book and began reading.
"It was a quiet night on board the Hision, a quiet civilian vessel that floated alongside the Migrant Fleet. Keli'Ria was stood on the observation deck, staring out across the dark space - at the glowing planet that floated before her.
Keli'Ria wore a bright environment suit - pink and purple, and she had a yellow mask that glinted in the light from the large hovering sphere. Her mind was full of possibilities that could occur on the planet.
She felt lonely. Desperately lonely. She craved love more than anything in the world. Keli had never felt the glow of a relationship nor the warm of someone's skin against hers. But she wanted to. She definitely wanted to.
Keli didn't understand why she had not fallen in love with another Quarian. But none seemed appealing to her. She had been asked several times to have something to eat with men from her deck on the Hision, but she had always turned them down.
She still wanted-"
Emi felt herself collide with something. The book flew out of her hand and she stumbled backwards.
"Oh shit. I'm so sorry. Are you ok?" a male voice said. He didn't sound muffled by the glass of her helmet. There was an almost echo effect on Quarian voices - an effect that he did not have.
The first thing she noticed about his voice was that it was smooth and almost assuring, even with a curse.
Emi leaned over and collected her book from the floor, then finally looked back up at the person who she had accidentally walked in to.
It was a human. The first human she had seen. He wore black body armour and carried a grey rifle that immediately made her shy away in fear. The man had 'N7' written on his chest. She didn't know what it meant but it must have been something important.
The man had dark brown hair. She couldn't tell how old he was because she was unfamiliar with the human aging system, but his eyes were full of... something. Almost as if he had seen too much in his life. It scared her.
"... Yes... I'm fine... sorry..."
"... Are you sure? You seem a bit... scared?"
She pointed at his rifle which he had unintentionally aimed towards her knees.
"Oh damn," he sighed, putting the gun on his back, "I'm really sorry. I need to look where I'm going and what I'm aiming at."
"... I'm sorry too... I was too busy reading to see where I was walking... and I'm kind of scared of weapons... had a bad experience..."
"Hey Thomson, get your bloody ass in this shuttle so we can go and shoot some Geth!" another male voice shouted from behind a doorway. If she remembered correctly it was the shuttle bay, which would explain why the man had mentioned a shuttle... She sighed. She was not exactly the smartest Quarian ever. She didn't even know what a shuttle bay was. Not as such anyway. She knew it housed shuttles but had never had a reason to go into one. She wasn't even sure what a shuttle looked like... she had been kicked out of the school before she learned.
"Sorry," said the man who she had bumped in to, "See you."
See you? Of course he saw her... what kind of goodbye was that? She didn't understand what it meant, but nodded, pretending she understood, then replied, "... See you."
Emi got back to reading.
"She still wanted love. But she had not found someone who she liked to be with so much to consider a relationship with them. She hadn't even found someone who she liked to be around. She was alone."
She quickly looked up from her book so she could turn a corner in the corridor and head towards the machinist work area. It had a complicated name, something to do with static energy being conducted by metal rods within the drive core of the engine.
Emi called it 'work area'.
"Keli decided to act. She would not stand by and let life pass her whilst she idly waited for love that would never come. She would go to the planet below and see if she liked anyone there. It was a human colony, after all. And she always liked humans."
"Emi," said her father as she nearly walked into him, "Put that book down or I'll throw it into the drive core."
"... Would that destroy it?"
"Almost definitely."
"... Oh. Sorry..." She put the book in a small pouch in the skirt part of her environment suit. Her father was working on a terminal where a holographic orange circle was spinning slowly. He was tapping away at the screen, doing things she had not got a clue about.
"Why are you here?" he asked, "You're supposed to be on the trading floor."
"... Yes... That's kind of the problem... I don't know what I'm supposed to look for... I thought I should come and get you..."
"Fine. I'll be there in five minutes."

Emi walked to the stall in the market that sold vitamin paste. Her stomach was rumbling so she decided she should buy something that she was familiar with. She bought some. It cost her half a credit.
The paste was a green liquid in a small tube, which was compatible with the emergency induction port at the front of the underside of her helmet. She clicked it into place and drank from it. The green paste filled her mouth.
She wished she knew what it tasted like. But she had nothing to compare it to. Quarians lived on the vitamin paste - it provided their full needs for an entire day in a small tube. She had never tried any other food. Or drink. Whatever it was classed as. But she didn't mind its flavour.
Then she remembered. All Quarians who were going to leave on their pilgrimage were granted free access to several upgrades for their environment suit. Things like radiation detectors, Omni-tool upgrades and NerveStim programmes. Anything that would help her on her chosen planet.
Emi walked up to the terminal where she could buy the modifications and activated it by pushing her finger against a central hologram. It flared into life and a list of possible environment suit upgrades was visible.
She bought NerveStim Deluxe Edition - the best. It was free, after all. She also pressed RadiDetect 3.2, Immuno-Boost Max, an upgraded Omni-tool, an environment detection system and other assorted free upgrades, including a link to the extranet.
"Thank you for shopping at Environment Suit Upgrades. We hope to see you again soon," said a synthesised voice from the terminal. Her suit whirred as the upgrades were performed.
The bad thing was she had no idea how to use the upgrades.
She decided to ask someone.

2 comments:

  1. Oh my. ^^
    "... Would that destroy it?" *grins*

    She's kind of cute. ^^

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  2. I think it's really interesting to go deeper into Emi's backstory and then put the person from the backstory on top of the person we know. :)

    I think this is probably one of the best parts you've written yet . . . Everything fits really well together and it's really interesting. :)
    In other words, AWESOMENESS. *nods*

    #ChaseForBookNine

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