Need to Know (Miranda/Ashley) 22/?
anonymous
December 27 2014, 22:07:26 UTC
She found herself in a philosophical mood as she made her rounds, checking in with C-Sec about the recruitment and security measures, then on to the comm towers, taking her time, strolling leisurely on the wide avenues and walkways through strangely deserted neighborhoods with a lot of damage and nervous denizens, listening to C-Sec and repair crew reports and giving instructions. And between two stops, she was musing about the incredible set of circumstances that lead her here. Every time she entertained some conspiracy theory or another, eventually her thoughts returned to Miranda Lawson, her bikini-clad curves, and that cocky smile popping into her mind. And then those awkward moments when she took her to that motel room and took care of her injuries…
Ashley tried to brush those thoughts away, until she left the air traffic control and on her way to the Spectre offices she took a passing glance at one of the hospitals, bridging over the citadelscape. And then it suddenly hit her. Her steps faltered. She spun around, picked up her pace and almost ran into the Spectre HQ. She hastily sat down at one of the terminals and accessed the surveillance feeds. One of the perks of being a Spectre was that she had clearance to tap into the Citadel’s networks. Cerberus was smart enough to take out all cameras during their attack and many of them were not up yet, but Ashley wasn’t interested in that.
She accessed the camera feeds of the Huerta Memorial Hospital and vicinity and started to go through the footage around the time she was admitted there. She settled in for a long shift, grabbing some food and drinks and fast forwarded to every instance when there was movement in her room.
It was weird to see herself on the cameras, battered and bruised, pulled out for surgery and then back in, tubes sticking out of her, and doctors standing around her. She worked her way backwards in time, and after a couple of hours of multiple angle footage, she thought she saw something.
A nurse was standing at her bed, doing nothing, just watching for a bit. It was hard to tell who she was, but she was not doing the usual checkups and chores. Later she caught the same nurse using an omnitool, and she knew she found something. It was too sophisticated and unnecessary for administering doses or checking the readouts. It looked like it belonged to a doctor. Or…
”There she is!” Ashley sat up suddenly, freezing the frame as she felt her heart beat faster. It was her all right. She would recognize that shape anywhere. She blushed a bit from the excitement as she played the recording. Lawson was adjusting something on her datasheet, tweaking the dosages probably.
Ashley looked for recognizable markers and set them into the search memory so she could run a recognition on all the footage from that point on back, until she was admitted to the hospital. She waited until the program compiled all the footage from her room and the nurses’ reception where it was most likely Lawson would also appear. It seemingly took forever.
She sent the recordings to her omnitool and then wiped her search clean, but not before grabbing a good enough image and setting it onto a personal watchlist under a generic “person of interest” tag. The Spectre infrastructure was supposed to be very secure but she didn’t want to take a risk and put Miranda in more danger. The system would alert Ashley if it recognizes her face on the Citadel.
All the way back to her quarters, she could not stop thinking about those short segments that she watched before, the way Miranda was checking up on her. She went to a lot of trouble to get into the hospital and get close to her. Not to mention actually fixing her up.
It made Ashley’s heart beat faster. Why did she do that? What was her goal? What did she get out of it? Why…? She shook her head to clear her mind. The only thing she knew for certain, that her suspicions were correct: the doctors’ confusion was due to Miranda’s meddling, who probably fixed her better than the hospital could have done. Ashley guessed that after putting Shepard back together, fixing her was a piece of cake. She didn’t know how to feel about that, or Miranda Lawson for that matter. She just wanted to get home and watch the videos to know more.
Re: Need to Know (Miranda/Ashley) 22/?
anonymous
January 6 2015, 20:31:54 UTC
I like this so far. The writing is solid, but i think it's way too fast-paced. It also feels like whenever things start to get interesting there is a sudden timeskip and a completely different location.
Re: Need to Know (Miranda/Ashley) 22/?
anonymous
January 6 2015, 23:03:06 UTC
A!A here. Still working on the final parts, and I'll start posting it any day now. I appreciate the feedback though, it is very useful. After I finish the fill, I'll definitely go over it and might ask for more details to know where to polish it (or explain some of the whys).
Ashley tried to brush those thoughts away, until she left the air traffic control and on her way to the Spectre offices she took a passing glance at one of the hospitals, bridging over the citadelscape. And then it suddenly hit her.
Her steps faltered. She spun around, picked up her pace and almost ran into the Spectre HQ. She hastily sat down at one of the terminals and accessed the surveillance feeds. One of the perks of being a Spectre was that she had clearance to tap into the Citadel’s networks. Cerberus was smart enough to take out all cameras during their attack and many of them were not up yet, but Ashley wasn’t interested in that.
She accessed the camera feeds of the Huerta Memorial Hospital and vicinity and started to go through the footage around the time she was admitted there. She settled in for a long shift, grabbing some food and drinks and fast forwarded to every instance when there was movement in her room.
It was weird to see herself on the cameras, battered and bruised, pulled out for surgery and then back in, tubes sticking out of her, and doctors standing around her. She worked her way backwards in time, and after a couple of hours of multiple angle footage, she thought she saw something.
A nurse was standing at her bed, doing nothing, just watching for a bit. It was hard to tell who she was, but she was not doing the usual checkups and chores. Later she caught the same nurse using an omnitool, and she knew she found something. It was too sophisticated and unnecessary for administering doses or checking the readouts. It looked like it belonged to a doctor. Or…
”There she is!” Ashley sat up suddenly, freezing the frame as she felt her heart beat faster. It was her all right. She would recognize that shape anywhere. She blushed a bit from the excitement as she played the recording. Lawson was adjusting something on her datasheet, tweaking the dosages probably.
Ashley looked for recognizable markers and set them into the search memory so she could run a recognition on all the footage from that point on back, until she was admitted to the hospital. She waited until the program compiled all the footage from her room and the nurses’ reception where it was most likely Lawson would also appear. It seemingly took forever.
She sent the recordings to her omnitool and then wiped her search clean, but not before grabbing a good enough image and setting it onto a personal watchlist under a generic “person of interest” tag. The Spectre infrastructure was supposed to be very secure but she didn’t want to take a risk and put Miranda in more danger. The system would alert Ashley if it recognizes her face on the Citadel.
All the way back to her quarters, she could not stop thinking about those short segments that she watched before, the way Miranda was checking up on her. She went to a lot of trouble to get into the hospital and get close to her. Not to mention actually fixing her up.
It made Ashley’s heart beat faster. Why did she do that? What was her goal? What did she get out of it? Why…? She shook her head to clear her mind. The only thing she knew for certain, that her suspicions were correct: the doctors’ confusion was due to Miranda’s meddling, who probably fixed her better than the hospital could have done. Ashley guessed that after putting Shepard back together, fixing her was a piece of cake. She didn’t know how to feel about that, or Miranda Lawson for that matter. She just wanted to get home and watch the videos to know more.
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