A drell with a love for gossip, a quarian who could out-swear hardened Alliance marines, a human ex-Alliance commander, and now an AI onboard a ship that technically should not exist. Cole had no idea what to think as he followed her to the elevator, though he left his belongings just outside the doors in the CIC. For some reason bringing his pack up to her personal quarters just felt... wrong. Everything about this felt so wrong, but in a sense that he hadn't experienced since childhood. It was the sneaky wrong, the sort of 'wrong' that didn't actually have moral implication.<br/><br/>Once in her quarters--and oh, there was no<i>possible</i>way those leather chairs were military, no sir--he sat down and leaned back, listening to her explanation with a carefully neutral face.<i>Anti-Spectre. Hand-picked. Any job.</i>It sounded to him like N7, but deeper. Darker.<br/><br/><hr class="bbc-hr"/><br/><i>"I can't promise you satisfaction, son. But I can promise that this is something big. Bigger than N7, bigger than me or than you. You'll be designated Cat-6. PTSD, honorable discharge. Then you'll be sent to the Citadel."<br/>
<br/>
"On whose orders?"<br/>
<br/>
"Councilor Sparatus. The turian."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought Shepard let them die."<br/>
<br/>
"The battle's outcome can be hazy at times, but no. The council survived, and thanks TO Shepard. And now, for some reason, they're asking for you specifically. I know this is a tough pill to swallow... but try to look at it as an opportunity. This might be something greater than whatever you could have done as an N7, Cole. This might be a whole 'nother galaxy of greatness."<br/>
</i><br/><hr class="bbc-hr"/><br/>"Makes sense, doesn't it?" he said to Reese quietly, letting his shoulder slump a bit where he sat. "Y'know, I was days from graduation. I was about to get my N7 patch, the black carbon armor with the red stripe, the whole set of shit." He leaned forward and chuckled, no small amount bitter, and smirked up at her grimly. "But that would have been too noticeable, huh? If an N7 had just disappeared... permanently. Sure, it's one thing for them to go dark for weeks at a time. Mission parameters call for it now and then. But to never surface again? To be just... blacklisted, on every official record, despite the designation? Would have stuck out like a sore goddamn thumb. Better to make me a washout, another one of thousands who came so close and stumbled right at the fucking finish line."<br/><br/>He looked instead at the glass table, the reflection of the soft lighting from above playing across the glass. "I'll be straight with you, ma'am, since you've been straight with me. I think it's bullshit. I don't like the idea of losing everything without even a whiff of my own say-so, to be taken to fight for a cause I didn't choose, with a crew I don't know on a ship that doesn't exist. Yeah, kneejerk, this is all kinds of fucked up and I don't like it."<br/><br/>Cole looked back at her, his blue eyes shining with a sort of excitement despite his bitter words. "But hell if I'm not interested. We do what Spectres can't? Go where they won't? Step in dirt even they won't touch?" He grinned at her and leaned back in his seat again, hands spread. "At least it's an interesting as hell thing to be doing, even if I didn't pick it." His hands dropped back down to the armrests on the chair. "So. This... crew, this whole thing. Is the history all restricted access? You could tell me but I'd have to quietly disappear? And what's my place gonna be among all of this? If you read my dossier you know what I specialize in. Should I expect more of the same?"