Author's Note: Written for the February 'Moment of Silence' contest in the Aria's Afterlife forum. The challenge is to write a fic where less than 1% of the words written can be dialogue. Surprisingly tricky!

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He was surprised at the transformation. It didn't take much: a simple baseball cap, some civilian clothes, and one of those 'microcomputer visors' that obscured the upper half of his face. As he stepped out of the elevator and onto Zakera Ward, he gazed at the horde of faces to see who might stare back. But there were no signs of recognition – not even a second glance in his direction. This was good.

It had been years since he had visited this part of the Citadel. He remembered there being plenty of people strolling about, but even still he marveled at just how many there were at this time of night. The clock display on his visor indicated it was just prior to midnight, so he reasoned that there was time to revisit the nightlife of the wards. Part of him knew that he was stalling – delaying the inevitable – but he ignored the uncomfortable truth. Adjusting his visor, the man ambled into the anonymous moving mass.

He walked at a casual pace, letting the river of people flow past and trickle into the side shops or alleys. It was loud, but not distressingly so. The collective voices of every galactic language blended together, forming a constant wave of sound that he allowed to wash over him. One would need to yell or stand incredibly close to be heard, but this mattered little to the man for he had nobody to talk to.

As he went on, the street expanded into a wider area, ringed by shops or restaurants on one side and a vast window on the other. This was a popular area for people to watch the stream of ships and shuttles zoom past as an unending blur. The man paused to watch the dizzying spectacle. From beside him, he noted another group of spectators – a family consisting of two parents and their daughter.

It was an asari and a human woman, with their small blue child sitting on the shoulders of the latter. The man reflected, remembering a time when humanity still believed itself alone in the galaxy. But in such a brief window of time, humanity had ascended to become an integral part of the culture and government of the galactic community. And now, they had ventured amongst the stars, finding love and making little blue babies. A ghost of a smile played across his lips.

But as he looked closer, he noticed something else. The asari woman wore the distinctly nondescript brown and gray uniform of an asari commando unit. It was well-worn: scuffed, scarred, and pockmarked by the trials of battle. She held the hand of her partner, as their daughter gazed out sleepily from atop her perch. Nobody said a word, but instead stared out the window – perhaps enjoying a final few minutes of unity before the war split them apart. The man sighed and turned away.

The disguised man came upon a nightclub, feeling the potent heartbeat of the heavy bass long before he could hear the actual music. It was too dark inside the club to see, but through the open doors he could feel the heat emanating from perhaps a hundred dancing bodies within. The perfumes, colognes, and perspirations of a dozen different species mixed to form a strange scent, something the man found oddly enticing. He passed by, but his head nodded in time to the beat. There may not have been any sparkling waters or verdant fields like on the Presidium, but here there was still so much life.

However, a few doors down from the raucous nightclub, there was a crowd of people congregated about a news vid screen. The reporting never ceased, detailing the misery of war: the systems lost, the fleets vanquished, and the predictions as to where the Reapers might strike next. The crowd – a mixture of alien and human faces – watched in silence to mourn the death of people and places they had never known.

The man frowned as he observed the dichotomy. Some people immersed themselves in hedonistic pleasures, refusing to believe or acknowledge the threat of extinction. Others chose to wallow in the inevitability of their defeat, unable to look away from the carnage.

The ambient noise was too loud to hear any of the specific news reports, but the man didn't need to listen. He knew all too well. In fact, the truth was more dire than what the news networks were willing to cover. Worst of all, Earth – his home – was bleeding. But perhaps there was a way to staunch the wound…

The man headed down a side alley, towards a small bar on the fringes of Zakera Ward. Shops and nightclubs on the main street were generally more upscale, and thus more popular amongst the Citadel's inhabitants. But even the Citadel had its seedier locations, especially on the lower levels of the wards. As the man walked down the fetid alley, he stepped past a drunken, unconscious batarian who had curled up against the wall. He looked at the alien with a measure of concern, but decided to move on; C-Sec would likely find this vagrant during a periodic sweep and take him somewhere to sober up. Homelessness and poverty was becoming more and more prevalent on the Citadel. Every day, more refugees arrived, and the great station was nearly filled to capacity.

The name of the bar was the Red Giant, an ironically small establishment with a dingy gray façade. It was usually busy, being an easy place to buy cheap alcohol. For that reason, it was also a place where one had to be careful; most nights culminated in a fight of some sort. Stepping through a pair of sliding doors that rattled on their misaligned rails, the man weaved through tables of boisterous customers. The bartender was an older man with an unkempt beard, who upon seeing the man enter, gave a sly smile. Before the man could utter the pass phrase, the bartender handed him a drink and pointed him to a table on the upper balcony.

As the man reached his table, he started to fiddle with his visor and cap, making sure they still adequately covered his features. The bartender was rightfully expecting him, but the fact that he had seen through the disguise was disconcerting. Taking a hasty gulp of the acrid drink, he scanned the faces below to see if anybody was watching him. Nobody seemed to be paying him any attention, but that did little to allay his nervousness. He took another swig.

To his dismay, he noted two C-Sec officers sitting at a table below, though they appeared to be off-duty. Neither carried their service weapon, and the human member of the pair had his C-Sec jacket slung over the chair next to him. His turian companion looked to be several drinks ahead and was gesticulating wildly as he recounted some humorous tale.

Up on the balcony, a woman slipped into the chair across from the disguised man. She was a small plain-looking woman, dressed in simple clothing lacking any notable flourishes or decoration. She wasn't unattractive, but in a bar setting such as this, nothing about her warranted a second look. This was intentional.

The woman smirked as she saw where her companion was looking. With a surreptitious nod in the direction of the C-Sec officers, she pulled a pistol out her pocket and slid it across the table. The man's face went deathly pale as he realized the implied suggestion. His arms darted forward in panic as he attempted to conceal the weapon under a napkin. He shoved it back towards the woman. She chuckled at his reaction, shrugged, and slipped the gun back into her pocket.

The man's face reddened. He reached into his own pocket to pull out a data pad, which he thrust toward his female contact. Ironically blowing him a kiss, she accepted the device and began to look over its contents. The man found himself drawn back to the C-Sec officers below.

The two officers were senseless with laughter at the conclusion of some amusing tale, and in the process of ordering another round of drinks. They had no idea of the illicit deal being struck on the upper balcony, and were just enjoying a night at the end of a long shift. The disguised man noted how young they were, possibly too young to even remember the Contact War, the conflict of their fathers. It was good to see old scars healing.

But what of new scars? The man glanced at the woman across from him. She was smiling, evidently satisfied with the information she was reading on the data pad. Looking up, the woman gave him an accepting nod – the deal was done. The two stood and shook hands, but before the man could pull away, the woman pulled him in closer. She whispered into his ear.

"The Illusive Man thanks you, Councilor Udina."

As Udina walked out of the Red Giant, he paused to shift the visor and rub at his reddened eyes. For weeks, sleep had been fitful, but now the deal over. He headed back through the alley and rediscovered the drunken batarian still on the ground. Udina looked at his palm, at the credit chit the Cerberus woman had slipped him during their handshake. He had no idea how much money it was, but Cerberus tended to have deep pockets. He knelt down and slipped it into the unconscious batarian's coat.

It was never about money, and he had never requested nor expected any. This was about Earth. The Crucible project might bear fruit eventually, but until that time? Too many friends were dead already. Cerberus would give him the Citadel, and the council fleets needed to drive the Reapers from Earth while the Crucible was being constructed. The other council races would know the details soon enough and curse his name – possibly curse all of humanity for what was to happen. But it would be worth it. A victory might throw the Reapers off balance. A victory might give hope to other fighters across the galaxy. A victory would save countless human lives.

Udina trekked to his apartment, reciting those reasons in an attempt to steel his resolve. He undressed and slipped into bed, still silently rehearsing his midnight litany.

A victory might throw the Reapers off balance. A victory might give hope to other fighters across the galaxy. A victory would save countless human lives.

The die was cast – all that remained for him was to stare at the ceiling and repeat the litany, a prayer for the deliverance of sleep.

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A/N: I'm aware that in ME3, Shepard and Anderson theorize that Udina's betrayal was the result of indoctrination, but it's never confirmed. Anyway, I was never a huge fan of how frequently indoctrination got used to explain the evil/morally ambiguous actions of characters, so I provided my own take on Udina's story.