Chapter 20: The Collector Warning
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POV: Marc Wayne
The reports began as whispers in Aria's intelligence networkâpeople disappearing from Omega's forgotten sections with the kind of precision that marked professional operations rather than random violence. What made these disappearances noteworthy wasn't their frequencyâpeople vanished on Omega dailyâbut the evidence they left behind: a distinct insect-like smell and strange organic residue that defied conventional analysis.
Marc stood in Aria's private office reviewing the accumulated data, his enhanced senses detecting subtle wrongness in the trace elements that made his genetically modified instincts scream warnings his conscious mind was only beginning to process.
[BIOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS: SEEKER DRONE TRACE ELEMENTS DETECTED]
[COMPOSITION: ORGANIC COMPUTING MATRICES, NEURAL INTERFACE RESIDUE]
[ASSESSMENT: ACTIVE COLLECTOR PRESENCE CONFIRMED]
[WARNING: TIMELINE DEVIATION CRITICAL]
The evidence chilled him more than facing Garm in single combat ever had. This wasn't the dead samples Eclipse had been studyingâthis was fresh residue from active Collector operations. His game knowledge screamed warnings that shouldn't need to be screamed: Collectors weren't supposed to be this active, this organized, this early in the timeline.
"My presence is accelerating events in the worst possible way,"Â Marc realized with growing horror. "Every change I've made, every timeline deviation, is pulling the galactic crisis forward. I'm not preventing catastropheâI'm making it happen faster."
Aria studied his expression with the calculating attention of someone who'd learned to read micro-expressions as a survival skill. "Your assessment?"
Marc tried to explain the danger directly, but his speech curse activated with malicious precision: "The bug people are conducting a charity drive!"
The absurdity of the statement hung in the air while Marc's frustration mounted. Instead of wasting time fighting the curse, he activated his omni-tool and began displaying the biochemical analysis, letting the data speak the warnings his voice couldn't articulate.
The residue patterns told a story that made Marc's enhanced biology react with primal fear. The samples were fresher than anything Eclipse had possessed, indicating not just Collector presence but recent, organized activity. Someone or something was coordinating with beings that shouldn't exist in this timeframe.
"Timeline acceleration," Marc managed to say without triggering the curse. "Events happening years early. Massive threat level."
Aria's expression shifted to something approaching concern, which on her face looked like tactical reassessment rather than worry. "Show me."
Marc, Anto, and Kreek's pack descended into Omega's sealed lower sections following a trail of evidence that led deeper into the station's forgotten infrastructure than Marc had ever ventured. The air grew thick with industrial recycling and the ozone scent of poorly maintained life support systems, but underneath lurked something organic and wrong.
[ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN: COLLECTOR PHEROMONE TRACES DETECTED]
[TRAIL STRENGTH: INCREASING]
[WARNING: APPROACHING SOURCE OF CONTAMINATION]
[RECOMMENDATION: TACTICAL WITHDRAWAL]
The trail led to a hidden chamber that had been sealed behind false walls and debris, concealed with the kind of professional skill that spoke of serious resources and planning. When they breached the concealment, Marc's worst fears materialized in front of them like a nightmare made manifest.
Collector drones moved through the chamber with insectoid precision, their bio-mechanical forms assembling something that pulsed with sickly bioluminescence. Marc recognized the construction from his game knowledgeâa transmission relay designed to coordinate Collector operations across vast distances. But seeing it in reality, watching it grow under alien hands that shouldn't exist yet, was profoundly different from encountering it as a plot device in a video game.
[MULTIPLE HOSTILE SIGNATURES DETECTED]
[SPECIES: UNKNOWN (GENETIC TEMPLATE: CORRUPTED)]
[THREAT LEVEL: CRITICAL]
[GENETIC MATERIAL: HEAVILY MODIFIED]
[RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE TACTICAL WITHDRAWAL]
The System's analysis painted a picture of beings so modified by Reaper technology that their original species was unidentifiable. These weren't just enemiesâthey were the transformed remains of people who'd been processed through biotechnology that turned organic beings into tools for galactic extinction.
"If they complete that relay, they establish permanent infrastructure on Omega years before the Suicide Mission timeline,"Â Marc thought as he processed the tactical situation. "Thousands will die in the harvest operations that follow. But if I attack them, I confirm that there's organized resistance, which might accelerate their plans even further."
The choice was impossible in its clarity: act and potentially make things worse, or withdraw and guarantee catastrophe.
"We blow it," Marc said quietly, making the decision that would define everything that followed. "Whatever comes next, we deal with. But we don't let them establish operations here."
Anto's expression suggested he thought Marc had gone insane, but his military training kicked in anyway. "Explosives?"
"Improvised. Target the power coupling. The whole thing should cascade failure if we hit the right connections."
Kreek's pack moved with pack-bonded efficiency, placing charges while Marc's enhanced perception tracked Collector movement patterns and identified optimal timing for the attack. The aliens worked with mechanical precision, seemingly unaware that their project was about to become a crater.
The explosion, when it came, lit the chamber like a miniature sun being born and dying in the span of seconds. The transmission relay collapsed in cascading failure as its organic components overloaded and began consuming each other in biotechnological cannibalism.
But the Collectors detected them immediately.
The pursuit that followed was a nightmare of running combat through collapsed tunnels while insectoid screeching echoed from surfaces that seemed to amplify the aliens' cries into psychological warfare. Marc's enhanced awareness tracked multiple threats while his pack coordination directed Kreek's Vorcha through tactical movements that kept them ahead of pursuit that moved with inhuman persistence.
When Collector weapons fire caught Marc in the back, dropping his health below the threshold that triggered Krogan Blood Rage, the transformation felt different than previous activations. The alien environment, the presence of Reaper-modified enemies, the knowledge that he was fighting beings who represented the future extinction of everything he cared aboutâall of it focused the genetic enhancement into something approaching religious fury.
[KROGAN BLOOD RAGE: ACTIVE]
[COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: +200%]
[WARNING: PSYCHOLOGICAL MODIFICATIONS SEVERE]
[ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AMPLIFYING AGGRESSIVE RESPONSE]
Marc held the tunnel entrance while Anto and Kreek collapsed the passage behind them, his enhanced strength and regeneration letting him trade blows with Collector drones that should have overwhelmed any single combatant. But the Blood Rage felt different in this contextâless like tactical enhancement and more like channeling the fury of an entire species that refused to accept extinction.
They escaped, but barely, emerging into Omega's civilized levels with evidence of an active Collector incursion and the growing certainty that the galactic crisis was accelerating beyond any timeline Marc had prepared for.
[MISSION COMPLETE: COLLECTOR RELAY DESTROYED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: +700 XP]
[PROGRESS: 1200/3500 TO LEVEL 7]
[COLLECTOR SPECIES DATABASE: 2% COMPLETE]
[WARNING: ENEMY AWARE OF ORGANIZED RESISTANCE]
[TIMELINE COHERENCE: 89.3% â 84.1%]
When Marc presented his evidence to Aria, her response confirmed suspicions he'd been harboring since their first meeting about timeline discrepancies.
"The Collectors weren't supposed to move this openly for years," she said with the casual precision of someone stating established fact rather than speculation. "Something changed the timeline. Something or someone."
She looked directly at him, her ancient eyes carrying the weight of knowledge he'd never confirmed but could no longer deny.
"Then we prepare for early arrival," Aria continued, her voice carrying the authority of someone who'd decided to face impossible odds with characteristic pragmatism. "Marcus, you just became my chief advisor on Collector threats. Whatever you know, whatever you've seen, I need you to find ways to communicate it without words."
The burden settled around Marc's shoulders like armor made of responsibility. He was no longer just surviving Omega's chaosâhe was responsible for preparing an entire station for threats most people couldn't imagine. The weight was crushing and liberating in equal measure.
[NEW QUEST CHAIN: THE COLLECTOR WARNING]
[OBJECTIVE: PREPARE OMEGA FOR COLLECTOR ATTACK]
[FAILURE CONDITIONS: MASS CASUALTIES, STATION COMPROMISE, USER DEATH]
[SYSTEM COMMENT: NO PRESSURE]
That night, Marc sent an encrypted message to Miranda: "It's happening faster than it should. The Collectors. We need to talk. Soon."
Her reply came within minutes: "I know. The Illusive Man is moving up his timelines too. Something broke the pattern. We'll figure out what. Together."
Marc allowed himself a moment of hope as he stared out at Omega's teeming masses, all unaware of the insectoid nightmare preparing to harvest them. He had allies now, resources, power that could make a difference when the crisis arrived.
But looking at the thousands of people going about their lives in blissful ignorance of the extinction-level threat approaching with mathematical inevitability, Marc felt the weight of impossible responsibility settling around him like a familiar burden.
The galaxy was moving toward crisis, but perhaps this time, when the Collectors came for Omega, they would find more than helpless victims waiting for them.
Perhaps they would find the first organized resistance that had ever successfully anticipated their arrival.
Whether that resistance would be enough to matter remained to be seen, but Marc was finally becoming the kind of person who might actually make a difference when the moment arrived.
The avalanche was coming, and Marc was learning to steer it toward something better than extinction.
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