Author's Note: Due to a novelized cutscene, Mass Effect 2 and all involved characters (and dialogue) belong to Bioware and EA Games.

'-click-…'

Life's tough out in space; someone always tries to fuck you over. Friends, family; not just enemies. Even some you just meet on the street. They don't give a damn about you, your feelings, or even your gender. To them, you're just another account with credits. But enough philosophy.

I was in that cell for a while. A cell-that's a joke. It was a fuckin' freezer. The little boys outside were too afraid of what I'd do to them, so they strapped me in tight under ice.

Whatever. It gave me time to think, you know?

They called the prison Purgatory. That's a crock of shit. Purgatory is punishment for your soul, if you believe all that religious crap. That place was a permanent frozen hell. It can't even be called a prison; more like a slave market. Prison is a place you can escape from, give them a good work-out session. Out on Purgatory, there was only space, nowhere to go. But boy, do I love visitors.

That scaly bastard Kuril learned the hard way that I'm a tough bitch. We had some shoppers come, looking to buy some "help". People never change; they wanted slaves. Either to kill or work to death or even to fuck; I don't care.

So I got out, stole their ship. Got all the way to Erinle before the Blue Suns caught me again. After that they learned not to put a Biotic in a box. So they stuck me in the freezer.

Yeah, I'm a Biotic. I don't know if I always was, and I don't care. Chances are I was made this way by those pricks at Cerberus, back before I escaped from them. Then they finally caught me. Some big hero named Shepard or something. So I guess I work for the people I hate.

But that's life, you know?

Shepard gave me access to a shit-ton of Cerberus files, so I'm finding out all sorts of fun secrets, though there's still a lot of holes. The first place I can remember was a Cerberus facility. I don't remember the planet; Prague, or some shit like that. It was hot all the time. The only thing that made the heat bearable was the constant rainfall. Of course, that made it comfortable for more than those Cerberus pricks; mutated plants were a constant danger.

Good thing I was worse.

The other kids – kids like me – they were sheep. We'd have fight sometimes-the guards called them "test runs." They usually ended with one dead kid, and I'll give you two guesses on who always won.

I loved to fight, loved the thrill of it, the tingle in my fists, the warm feelings… I had to love it, otherwise I got the active end of a cattle-prod. Half the time I didn't know what was going on. The scientists would inject me with a cocktail of drugs and I would just black out. Next thing I knew I was staring down at a dead kid, their body all twisted and battered, and the guards were dragging me back to my cell.

After a while, I started trying to fight the guards too.

I wanted more, always more. I felt like a fuckin' Krogan; no brain of my own, just the anger and the power and the adrenaline. It felt good. Every time those guards would drag me back, I would struggle and kick like they were dragging me to my death.

Maybe they were, after all. But I guess they also found out why they shouldn't have put me in a box.