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He stood in a line. One of those left behind. No name. No identity. Not even a race, not really. Something else. Something the Alliance hadn’t get decided how to name them. They were human, in part, but also something else. The other half was husk. His skin, like all of those who were lined up, was a grayish tone. The eyes were blue, as was the vertical scar the ran from eyebrow to nostril.
Once they had a purpose. They had innate skills and someone gave them direction. Orders. But they weren’t like those spoken aloud. There was a sound that came through their helmets. I ordered him. Controlled him? He wasn’t certain. Nothing was certain.
Like the others, he was stronger, faster, and more durable than others. His reflexes were incredible. His aim was not, which most thought was a side effect of the indoctrination process. He wasn’t indoctrinated anymore. Maybe. No one knew what that meant when the Reapers were no longer around to control them. It was hard to think. Before he didn’t have to but left on his own he was confused.
A woman stood before him. She held a slate in her hand. He recognized it. Had to use one? He wasn’t sure.
“Can you read any of this,” the woman asked.
He stared at it. There were shapes. Not shapes but lines and curves. Some of them connected but each of them had a space between them. He thought that maybe they were words. Did you know words? He wasn’t sure. Without a command to guide him in what to do he was lost.
“Can you read any of this,” she repeated.
He looked up at her, his eyes bright, with no irises or pupils. She flinched. He didn’t know why. If something about him scared her wouldn’t the same be true of the others she’d already seen.
He shook his head.
“Put your finger on the slate,” she directed.
He did as he was told. That was easier.
“Slide your finger down it and then take your hand away.”
He did that. The words moved with his finger but eventually they came to a stop.
“Put your finger on one of the words.”
He did.
She pulled the slate away. “Frank. That’s your first name. Now do the same thing again.”
He, Frank, repeated the action and she again took the slate.
“Freeman.” She laughed. “Almost appropriate. Your name is now Frank Freeman. Can you remember that?”
Frank showed strain on his face but then nodded. “Frank Freeman. That is my name. Frank Freeman.”
She nodded, and he thought she might have softened her face. “Remember the name, Frank Freeman. Someone will come to help you but they need to know your name.”
“Frank Freeman is my name.”
She smiled before moving on to the next person in line. He glanced over. The other had a blank look on his face. He was less responsive than Frank had been. He wasn’t able to move his hand on the slate without help. She chose a name for him but he couldn’t repeat it. Or he did so sluggishly. The words came out as a slur. When she asked him to repeat his name he started but trailed off. The words didn’t seem to want to come out of his mouth. She made a note on her slate and moved on.
Frank turned to the other one. “My name is Frank Freeman. Yours is Chris Moyers.”
He looked at Frank, still confused, but less so than he had been. It was like he was identifying with Frank more than the woman and more receptive to his words.”
“Chris,” Frank said. “Your name is Chris. Can you say your name?”
“Chris,” came the reply. “Chris…” His voice trailed off.
“Chris Moyers. Can you say your name?”
“Chris…Chris…Moyers…?”
“Chris Moyers.”
Something came over Chris. The name clicked into place. Something like an emotion came over him. Frank couldn’t say it was a smile but there was a change for the better.
The exchange hadn’t gone unnoticed. A man spoke to another man and pointed at them. Frank didn’t know if he were going to be reprimanded. Had he ever been reprimanded? He wasn’t sure.
One of the men walked over to them. “What’s your name?”
“Frank Freeman,” Frank replied.
“And you,” he said, looking at Chris.
“Chris…Chris…Moyers. Chris Moyers.”
The man looked at a slate he held and shook his head. “You know your names?”
“The woman told me my name,” Frank responded.
The man glanced over at the woman who had been moving down the line. “That’s Lt. Fox.”
“Lt. Fox. She gave me my name.”
“I have it here that Moyers could not say his name.”
Chris looked at Frank. “He taught me my name. He told me how to say it.”
The man looked at Frank. “My name is Lt. Commander Perry. I want you to say your name, his name, the name of the woman and my name.”
Frank thought for a minute. “I am Frank Freeman. He is Chris Moyers. She is Lt. Fox. You are Lt. Commander Perry.”
Perry moved his wrist upward toward his mouth. A glowing object surrounded his arm. An omni-tool, he thought it was. The man said some things into it that were too fast for Frank to follow. Then he nodded and the omni-tool went away.
“Come with me,” Lt. Perry said to Frank.
“Don’t leave me,” Chris said. “I want to stay with him.”
Perry looked at Chris for a minute and then nodded. The omni-tool appeared once again. The lieutenant typed something into it and then closed it again. “Let’s go.”
The two followed Perry. Others watched them go, surprised that any of them had been removed from the line before being handed identification.
After a short walk they entered a room with another man behind a desk. “Two more. One, actually, but he did what the others did. Frank Freeman and Chris Moyers.”
“My name is Commander Sinclair. Tell me your names.”
They each replied in turn.
Frank wasn’t finished. “He is Lt. Commander Perry. There was also a woman named Lt. Fox. She told us our names.”
Sinclair looked at Perry and raised an eyebrow. Then he looked back at the others. “I want you to know that you’re different than the others. Most of them can’t remember their names or even how to slide their fingers down a slate. Frank, you could not only do those things but also remember the names of others you’ve encountered. You were able to teach Chris Moyers his own name. It is, shall we say, unusual. There are others like you but it is very rare.”
Frank looked at Commander Sinclair. “I don’t remember a lot. My thoughts” He put his hand to his head and pinched his nose “are unclear.”
“They’re becoming clearer, aren’t they?”
“Yes. When Lt. Fox gave me my name I could remember it. I heard her talking to Chris Moyers and I learned that. Then I taught him to be able to say his name.”
“As I said, you are not the only one. Those like you seem to be able to teach others, at least to an extent. We don’t know exactly what Cerberus did to you so we don’t know why you can think when husks were destroyed and indoctrinated do little more than drool and have to be fed through an IV.”
“I looked at others,” said Frank. “No one was like that.”
“No, none of you are like that. All of you can take orders but it’s difficult. Based on what we learned from Commander Shepard, the Reapers used a sound or pulse that could control husks and the like. The Illusive Man found out how to recreate the signal and used that to control you and the others. Without the signal, the indoctrinated don’t know how to function. There is more functionality in your kind. We don’t know for certain but it seems like you and the others like you may regain complete mental and emotional normalcy. You could leave productive lives. With your…enhancements you might also make excellent soldiers.”
“What will you do to me? To us?”
"We're going to teach you, Frank Freeman, how to be human. Then you’re going to teach the others.”
The idea of teaching was both exciting and fearful. He always followed orders. Deciding what to do on his own, how to teach, was more than he could imagine. Frank knew that he wasn’t always this gray man with the strange appearance. Not always so inhuman. There must have been a time where he thought for himself. Even if he’d always followed orders he must have known that it was a choice. He hadn’t had a choice for a long time now.
“When can I start to learn?”
Commander Sinclair smiled and Frank knew his world was about to change.