The Illusive Man was a hard person to read. It wasn't just the fact that Miranda had only met him twice in person, it was his whole demeanour. He had a practiced apathy about him. The way is synthetic eyes blinked on an exact and regular rhythm no matter what happened. The constant smoking, a habit one rarely saw with such obnoxious regularity on people those days. And the apparently random way things caught his attention. He had been tremendously interested in the single word, reapers. The idea that those things were real was almost too ludicrous to consider. After reading the letter Roy had left for Shepard, she was pretty sure it had to be the delusions of a madman.

But if the Illusive Man did believe they were real, his reaction to the information she was revealing was very... mild, to say the least. A race of ancient machines that wiped out the protheans was coming back in less than fifteen years, so advanced they had no hope of ever defeating them. And he was patiently smoking his cigarette, listening.

"Is that all?" he said.

"There is more," Miranda replied, looking at the paper in front of her. "But Shepard felt uncomfortable sharing some of the things Roy wroteto her."

"Of course, use your own discretion," the Illusive Man replied.

Miranda resisted the urge to bite her lip as she read through the letter again. She had read the entire spiel on the reapers verbatim, including the fact that, somehow, Roy knew the date when they would reappear from dark space. There was a mention of an alpha relay, which she couldn't reconcile with any relay identifiers in known space. She had mentioned Saren, the fact that there was an active Reaper somewhere in the galaxy, and the information on Eden Prime.

That was it. There was more, but Shepard wasn't happy with having the Illusive Man on the other side of the line. According to Roy, he was brainwashed. Indoctrinated. Ridiculous. She had worked with the man since she was twelve, and ran away from her father's estate with her baby sister in her arms. His methods were sometimes questionable, but he always had humanity's interests at the forefront.

He wasn't serving any reaper.

"So what is next?" Miranda said.

"You concentrate on working with Shepard. Earn her trust. Find out what happened to Roy, that should give us more to go on. Use whatever resources you need."

"Very well."

"I will begin deploying assets to look into Eden Prime."

With that, the communications ended, and the holoscreen went dead. Without the screen glaring directly at her face, she could finally see the silhouette of Shepard leaning against the wall, arms crossed and looking at her.

"As promised," Miranda said. "But for the record, Shepard, I think your doubts are unfounded."

"Unfounded? Roy said so! He wouldn't lie!"

"He wouldn't," Miranda agreed, her voice calm. "He might be mistaken."

"I don't think so."

Miranda shrugged, not letting herself give the impression of having her mind made up one way or another. She had to tread carefully. To her surprise, Shepard had rebuilt herself up with shocking alacrity, no longer giving the impression of being a broken, scared young woman. She was no longer scared, she was angry. With proper training and guidance, she could be dangerous. An asset, perhaps, if the heat was handled correctly when forging her into a weapon.

"I will begin investigating Roy. It is not easy to deploy assets in Thessia, but it is possible. It has to be done through third parties, with appropriate care and redundancies."

"So?" Shepard said.

"So, I want you to understand that it will take time."

Shepard's head tilted forward. Miranda could just imagine her brow furrowing angrily. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"

She knew she wasn't asking because she was lost, or unsure. No, she was asking because she knew Miranda had plans, and wanted to hear what she had in mind for her. It didn't mean that she would simply accept.

Miranda smiled. She would accept, once she heard it.

"As you are, you'll be nothing but a liability," Miranda said, her voice even despite the harshness of their content. "You need training."

"Bootcamp?"

"You cannot return to your military life," Miranda said. "Too open, too dangerous. Too many questions. We can provide adequate training."

"And you?"

"As I said, I will start looking into the events on Thessia." She looked at the letter in her hand with obvious disdain. "And perhaps try to confirm some of the details in this-"

She didn't finish the phrase, as the paper was snatched out of her hands by an angry Shepard. Too easy. She was too emotional. It was going to take quite a lot of training.

Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. Also, a brown dwarf on the Thorne System, and the alleged location of a dead reaper. Miranda had made his way to the system with a small detachment, a single ship, and a whole lot of probes.

The idea that there was a dead-but-still-active ship (which she had started to call Schrödinger's Reaper) was ludicrous, but she didn't want to give Shepard a reason to start doubting that she had looked thoroughly for the ship. She had managed to strike a deal with her: she'd try to confirm the details she had wanted to keep secret from the Illusive Man, and then they'd go from there. If Roy was wrong, she'd let her tell the Illusive Man about the rest, and she'd accept working with him. If she was right, well, that was a different case. Miranda had agreed that she'd look into verifying whether the Illusive Man was indoctrinated or not.

It was such a ludicrous proposition that Miranda had agreed without any argument. They had started with Mnemosyne, and then they'd move on from there Binary Helix was the next target. Ilos was known in academic circles as a prothean world, spoken of like a mythical place. The possible location was deep in the Terminus systems, with no known relays connecting to that area of space.

If the Mu relay was a connection to that section of space, it was a good resource to find. Of course, that was putting the cart ahead of the horse. Actually, it was putting the fusion reactor ahead of inventing fire, that's how far fetched the story was.

But, here she was. As for Shepard, she was in training. One of the many training camps Cerberus had for ground units.

"Anything?" Miranda said, looking over the shoulder of the tech at the terminal.

"It's hard to tell boss," the tech said. "It's a brown dwarf. Big mass, fusion activity, it's just not that nice or stable."

"This is a waste of time," a deep voice grated from behind her.

She turned to see the origin of the voice. Commander Gaynen, one of the Illusive Man's pets. She had already intercepted one of his messages to the Illusive Man, giving him a carefully crafted response. There was a difference between being loyal to Cerberus, and being a pet, and Gaynen belonged to the latter category. An attack dog to be used carefully. One she didn't much care for.

He was also a bad leader. Temperamental, demanding without an ounce of leadership abilities to back his demands up. He didn't care about his subordinates, didn't even give the impression of caring either, and that was the real problem. All resources were valuable, whether she respected them or not. Gaynen didn't understand that.

She could understand his annoyance, though. They had spent two weeks running silent, with long-range probes deployed around the planet. Waiting. If Roy had the knowledge they had inherited through the letter he had written, the asari, of all aliens, would have been able to access it. Thus, she had been cautious. But so far, nothing.

Maybe Roy had managed to hold on better than I gave him credit for.

Resisting mind melds wasn't easy. Resisting mind melds when there was no possibility of escape was suicidal. She had an inkling of what had happened to him, based on the Thessian police report, but she hadn't shared it with Shepard. Not yet.

"It is my waste of time," Miranda replied, turning and crossing her arms. "If you have a problems with your orders, I am sure I can find someone else to carry them out."

She wasn't one for such overt rank pulls, but it was a calculated move. Gaynen antagonized the crew, and she antagonized him. It was a good exchange. Specially if Roy turned to be right. A few muted chuckles, quickly silenced by an angry scowled look from Gaynen, confirmed her assessment of the situation.

"I found something," the tech said. "I think."

He brought up a three-dimensional map of the surface, and the overlay of gravitational forces. As with every large body with its own nuclear reactions, there were always minute variations along the surface, but the tech had found a substantial one. About three kilometers wide - barely a speck compared to the size of the planet - and with fluctuating mass, registering as a blip of a few percentage lower than expected gravity pull. Not only that, but it was lagging compared to the prevailing atmospheric drag.

"Good job," Miranda said, ignoring the grunt from Gaynen. That lump of meat wouldn't kow a real discovery if it came from the heavens and slapped him on the face.

"Orders?" Gaynen said, his voice acidic.

"Send a probe, let's see what's in there."

Miranda followed the flight of the probe on the projection, slowly approaching the anomaly.

"Fifty clicks, applying airbrakes. Twenty. Ten. Five..."

As soon as the probe got into range, the onboard instruments came to life. Motion detectors, atmospheric measures, radiation scanners, and even an external camera.

"What the fibblebug is that?" the tech said.

He made a swipe over the console, and brought the visual feed up. It was distorted, but they could see something in the sea of clouds.

"Switch to manual," Miranda ordered. "Take it slow."

The tech obeyed, and assumed control of the small craft. The image shuddered for a moment, but quickly stabilized, as the tech moved it closer. It was like looking at a bunch of large beams, perhaps the ship was severely damaged.

"I'm bringing it higher, I think... Oh fibblebugs!"

As the probe rose, coming closer to the ship, the clouds disappeared, and showed the ship in its entirety. Because it was a ship.

"Is that what a fibblebug is supposed to look like?" Miranda said.

"..."

"How big is that thing?" Gaynen said.

"R-runing scans," the tech said. A few seconds later the terminal lit up with the results. "Fibbl- Erm, sir, it's two kilometers long! That's twice the size of the Everest."

Outwardly, Miranda didn't even flinch. The Ice Queen wasn't fazed by the remains of an alien ship that made the Systems Alliance's dreadnoughts look like aircars. But inside, her mind was racing. That ship was not only there, it was the kind of ship she would have expected to find if it belonged to an ancient race of machines capable of wiping out the protheans.

"Commander," Miranda said. "Take Jones and Fibler. Small team. The tree of you are going to board that ship on the shuttle."

"Just three of us?" Gaynen immediately replied.

"It has been dead for millions of years, commander. There's little to worry about," she said, flashing her most condescending smile.

"I want to take Allen and Minnow," Gaynen said. "At the very least. We should be bringing the whole crew if we are going to explore that ship."

Typical. He wanted to flex muscle. If she refused, he'd have grounds to complain to the Illusive Man, demand more control over his units. Petty, it wouldn't do any good, all it would do is antagonize her. But more importantly, Allen and Minnow were not lapdogs. If the boarding went as she expected, she'd rather not have them onboard. The rest of the crew... They were all listening. She could use that.

If it didn't work as planned, she'd have to explain to the Illusive Man what had happened. A risk she could take.

"No," Miranda replied. Gaynen bristled, but didn't complain. "And take the short range comm gear. I don't want to lose contact."

She felt the eyes of the entire bridge crew on them. With a huff of annoyance, Gaynen nodded and went off to collect his crew. Miranda cast an icy glance around, and all eyes quickly turned to their work. Only a few minutes later Gaynen and the other two were off, taking the only shuttle with them. So, now she would sit and wait.

It took several hours, but to Miranda's infinite unease, Roy had been right. Seeing the transformation, hearing them losing their mind, she knew what it was. Indoctrination. Worse still had been those things, those giant spikes. Gaynen had impaled himself with one of them. After a while, he had become this strange zombie-like abomination.

She had watched the whole thing happen without saying a word. The rest of the crew... not so much.

"Miss Lawson, we have to do something!" the tech, whose name she still hadn't bothered to learn, yelled.

"Yes, this has gone on for long enough," Miranda replied.

With a few commands of her console, a signal was sent. A moment later, the backup comms gear she had ordered the team to take, a collar with built-in microphones over the throat of the three operatives, blew up. Three heads rolled on the ship, and the entire bridge fell into deep silence.

It was several minutes until someone spoke. Allen, the navigator.

"Did... did you know this would happen?" he said.

"No," Miranda replied, turning her chair around. She looked at the blonde man and crossed her legs. "But it was a known possibility. Hence the reason why I didn't let Gaynen take you; or anyone else."

She looked around, taking the faces in. Surprise, sure, but also confusion. The fact that she had offhandedly sacrificed Gaynen, but had prevented him from taken anyone else, left them feeling confused.

"We do not report any of these," Miranda said. "Gaynen was the Illusive Man's man, he'll want to know. Any questions, you refer them to me. Understood?"

Nods all around. Good. There was a lot of work to do, and she had to gather all the resources she could.

All the people, too.

Author's Notes: Well, here we go. Crazy stuff. I'm going to make smaller updates than on my other stories, and it will be mostly scenes scattered all over the place. Just a word of advice, this is the bad future. Expect a severe renegade makeover for Shepard.

Hope it's worth it! Thanks for follows, and reviews too :)