A lone figure stares out into the dark void that is space. The room he sits in is bare, six rectangular metals walls enclosing him, the only features the window out into space, the door into the room, and the single white mat laid out on the floor, which he is sitting on. His feet are crossed in front of him, his arms held loosely by his sides as he stares sightless at nothing and everything in his meditation. For it is only in this state, and only in this room, that he can retain some semblance of what he used to be before everything changed.

But as with all things, a man cannot meditate forever. There are some needs that the mind cannot overrule the body into forgoing, such as sleep, food and other amenities. Thus it is that he reluctantly ends his time staring out, his mind calm and blessedly quiet. He stands up, his mind still retaining its razor-sharp focus as he walks over to the door. As he exits the door, and the only sound is his footsteps and breathing in the cool air, he wonders if today will be different.

Breathable atmosphere being maintained at 78% N2, 20.9% O2, 1.1% trace gases. Air pressure at 101.3 kilopascals.

He mutters under his breath, saddened that today's mediation efforts only bought him 15 seconds of peace before it started again.

He walked down the hall to his study, steadfastly trying to ignore the other voice in his head. The first voice was soon joined by another as he sat down at his desk and began reviewing everything that had transpired in the last day.

Mass effect generators maintaining artificial gravity at 0.95 Earth Normal. Generator output stable for last 157.526984 days.

He tried to ignore the voice as it split and multiplied into a cacophony in the privacy of his own skull. He picked through the intelligence reports his agents had brought to him, searching for the one thing he was certain would stop it all. Stop him hearing the voices that made him think he was going crazy, help him return to the man he used to be, instead of what he had become.

Communication encryption level 3 at risk of possible outsider decryption. Implementing automatic encryption upgrade process.

He heard the sound of the door to his study opening, the hard echoing footsteps announcing the arrival of his top lieutenant.
"Sir, good evening."
"Good evening, Anzhelika. I can't find anything in the intel reports, but perhaps you have some news for me, da?"
"I'm afraid to report there is nothing Sir." The seated man rubbed his temples, both in frustrations and hoping that the pain would keep his mind on the task and not on the voices that plagued him night and day.

Vocal recognition of subject Shchekochikhin, Anzhelika: average F0 pitch – 225 Hz. Accent and intonation consistent with Slavic cultural community, likely origin region Ukraine.

"She is the most famous woman in the galaxy Anzhelika. She retired in front of the entire Council, and it was broadcast on anything that could receive a signal. Are you seriously telling me that the woman has simply vanished from the known galaxy like mist in the morning?!" Trying to ignore her boss' increasingly erratic behaviours, she calmly replies.
"Sir, what I'm telling you is that she, or someone else, has covered her tracks extremely well. The last thing anyone saw of her was her very public retirement. After that, no confirmable sightings and a dozen lookalikes and impostors debunked. No record of her movements, all her accounts emptied and closed. None of her former friends or crew seem to know anything about her, or at least won't say anything to the media. We've been attempting to tap their communications as you are aware, but we have found nothing yet. She's a ghost sir, she might very well be dead for all we know. And of course, no response from the woman herself to any of our public offers or inducements, nor any credible leads from the public either."

Heart rate rising, current speed 108 bpm. Breathing rate increasing, blood pressure rising. Vasoconstriction levels suggestion high stress.

"I don't care if we have to find a grave Anzhelika. She know what happened, and she knows how to fix it, you can be sure." He tried to slow down his breathing and heart rate as best he could before he exploded.
"Sir, if you want my honest opinion, we aren't going to find her. We've even gone to the Shadow Broker to find her, and he says it can't be done. She's gone sir, and we won't find her by looking." He looked up slowly, a mad gleam in his eye.
"Maybe you're right Anzhelika. Maybe we've been going about this all wrong. We've been looking for a ghost who obviously isn't there. Maybe it's time we tried a different approach." He sat back a little, his thinking mind temporarily blocking the voices.

"I wonder, how long do you think it will take for our agents to procure and prepare appropriately large WMDs?"
"Are we talking explosive, biological, or chemical?"
"A good mixture I think. No need to become one-dimensional."
"A month, Sir, give or take. Are there any particular targets you had in mind?" The man picked up the datapad and began a series of rapid button presses, before handing it to Anzhelika. She reviewed the list of targets, her eyebrow rising further as her eyes read down the list.

"Rannoch, Palaven, Thessia, Mindoir, Tuchanka, Freedoms' Progress, Amaterasu, Australia, Horizon, the Citadel?!" she looked up at her employer, and his look that he adopted when trying to block out his insanity. "Sir, these are high-profile targets on fortified planets in the full swing of rebuilding. This will make you an enemy of the entire galaxy."
"What it will do is get people's attention Anzhelika. Then we can make our demands. Take a closer look at the target coordinates on each place."
"I'm not seeing anything except a collection of targets that will ensure the crew of the Normandy will see red."

"They are all connected to her. If we manage to take out at least one of them, then we can make our demands known. This is about getting her attention, lure her out so we can get her to fix this!" he was on the edge now, and could feel himself slipping away, to the point where his implants would auto-sedate him.

Biorhythmic reading reaching critical levels. Auto-sedation will initiate in 45 seconds unless levels decrease to normal.

"I don't care about the damage, but try and limit casualties. I want her able to reason, not after my blood."
"Anything else Sir?"
"Keep looking for her in the meantime. I want her found!" he shouted, slamming his fist into the desk for emphasis. His body hit the limit, and his implants began administering a sedative.

"Shepard is all that matters now. Find her, or we'll make her find us," he muttered as his body began to cruise to unconsciousness, slumping into the chair. For her part, Anzhelika nodded. She hated seeing him like this, her own uncle, and would do anything he wanted to make sure he got better. He was certain that Commander Shepard could fix it, but she steadfastly refused to come forward or be found.

So if Muhammad won't come to the mountain, the mountain would come to Muhammad. She sent out the orders for agents to acquire the weapons.

A/N: Hi All, this is my newest story, a continuation of the events described in 'War and Peace and what comes After.' I hope you will join me in a tale that will shape Shepard's future, and that of the galaxy as well!

Please leave reviews to let me know what your thinking and if you like/hate/feel ambivilent about this story, any good jokes you've heard recently, or any novels or Ph. D theses you may have prepared for my perusal.