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"Try again."

"I can't."

"Yes you can."

"I'm too tired."

Anaya rolled her eyes. "Come on Casey, you're the one who told me you wanted to learn how to do this stuff."

Casey, who was currently face down on her pillow did not attempt to roll over, and simply grumbled, "I never realised it would be this much work."

Anaya grabbed her by the arm and heaved her up onto her feet. "It gets easier," she assured, "But only if you actually work at it, now come on!"

Casey scowled, "I don't think I like you anymore." Anaya just laughed, and motioned towards the pencil on the desk. Casey sat down on the desk chair and tried to remember everything Anaya had already taught her. Focus on the object, but don't fixate on it. Think that it's the most natural thing in the world to be able to move it with your mind, and you will.

Easier said than done, Casey had thought even then, and after two days and no success, she was still strongly attached to that belief. She was beginning to wonder whether Fendris had been wrong, whether Cerberus had actually unlocked any kind of biotic potential in her. It did seem a little unbelievable. But Anaya said she could feel something: that other Biotics could sense it, and there was definitely something there.

"Focus!" Anaya scolded, gently slapping Casey across the back.

"Sorry," she groaned, her eyes locked on the pencil. Move, she thought. Move!

Nothing.

Casey sighed and stood up. She'd broken a sweat from concentrating so hard.

"You're not giving up," Anaya began.

"Oh yes I am," Casey growled. "We've been trying this stuff for two days, I feel like I've done nothing useful for anyone else, because I've been stuck in this room trying to get this goddamn pencil to move!"

She waved her hand at the desk, and suddenly the whole thing lifted into the air and shot across the room, crashing into the wall and breaking into a hundred pieces.

Anaya and Casey stared at it for a few moments, before Anaya broke the silence. "Well…you moved the pencil."

"…And the desk."

"Yeah, well, the pencil was on the desk…"

"Kind of broke it though."

"Yeah I didn't want to say anything…"

"That was nice of you."

The two women burst out laughing at the same time, as Fendris ran into the room to see what had made such a loud crash.

"Seems like anger is the key," Anaya noted, helping Casey to pick up the remains of the desk.

"Sure looks that way," Casey replied. "Though I'd rather get a bit more of a handle on it than that." Her thoughts drifted to Jack, who certainly understood what it meant to be an angry biotic. Casey had accidentally spilt spaghetti on her once and was almost smeared against the wall.


There was a noise from downstairs, Casey could hear the sounds of worried conversation, and the occasional shout. She caught Anaya's eye with a sense of dread. Leaving the remains of the desk where they were, she hurried towards the stairs and down into the main room, where a crowd was forming around the only Krogan in their group, Patriarch.

Patriarch had joined a few weeks after Omega went to hell, after Aria had left and the station was taken over by Cerberus. He was a very old Krogan, however he'd been one of the strongest members of their group: fantastic in any frontline assault.

Now, however, he didn't look too good. He was spattered with blood, and was leaning against the table for support. The crowd around him kept a safe distance: a wounded Krogan could almost certainly be more dangerous. It was when they felt like they had nothing to lose that they became the most violent.

"Patriarch?" Casey began cautiously.

His eyes, slightly glazed, seemed to come alive, but he said nothing. Fendris passed him a glass of water nervously, which Patriarch grabbed so violently that he almost took the Salarian's arm with it.

"What happened?" Casey asked. Patriarch had left that morning with a team of nine other men. They'd heard about a group of workers living down in the mines who were willing to join their cause. Patriarch's team had been sent to bring them to safety, yet here he was, alone.

"Went down to the mines," Patriarch finally began. "The people living there had been slaughtered. Thought it was by Cerberus, but it wasn't."

There was a collective gasp amongst the group. If Cerberus hadn't killed them, there was only one other explanation.

"Adjutants?" Anaya asked. "But, I thought they were trapped? Cerberus said they'd sealed the areas with Adjutants off so that they could deal with them-"

"You believe Cerberus?" Patriarch interrupted angrily. "It was them. They've escaped, or Cerberus let them out or something. Either way, the mines aren't safe for us anymore."

"Is there any chance of them coming further in?" Casey asked.

Patriarch shrugged. "I barricaded the door we came in through, but who knows whether there's another way they could get out. We're going to have to be a lot more careful from now on."

He got up from the table and strode away, no doubt looking to find someplace quiet. Casey knew he would be devastated about the loss of his team, they all were, but she couldn't help but admire his ability to get away. There were very few on Omega who could say they'd escaped an Adjutant, and even fewer who could claim to have defeated one.

Well, there was one she knew of.


It was much busier tonight, but that was to be expected. Over the past few days more and more Cerberus troops have been arriving on Omega. They had made no attempt to cause trouble, and the official word was that they were there on shore leave, however it was enough to make many of the species on Omega very nervous. Casey kept her head down, she had worked for Cerberus with Commander Shepard, but seeing as how Shepard was locked up on Earth, and it was all over the extranet that he had cut all ties with the organisation, she decided it was best to stay as far from them as possible.

Then there were the abductions. It seemed like every day there was more and more news about people disappearing. Now this was Omega, people went missing every day and no one batted an eyelid, but this was different. The sheer numbers were staggering, and it almost felt like people were being 'rounded up'. But there were no bodies either, and that was almost more frightening. Where were all these people going? Were they being kept alive?

And so people were beginning to stick together, and come to places like Afterlife: crowded places, places that felt safe. But no one actually felt safe. Casey could tell that by the looks in their eyes, the way they danced, and the number of drinks they were putting away.

"Casey, you ok?"

Casey turned around, Anaya, a dancer and drinks server was looking at her in a concerned way. Casey nodded. "You looked worried," Anaya pressed, putting down her empty tray on the bar and joining her behind it. Anaya and Casey had hit it off from their first shift together, and had soon swapped rooms with other girls so that they could become roommates in the dancer's quarters. There was something about Anaya that was so likeable: she was sarcastic, strong willed, but also kind. She almost reminded Casey of Kasumi, though she didn't like to think that. She valued both friendships far too much to try and draw comparisons.

"I'm fine," Casey reassured her. "Just thinking about everything that's going on at the moment. It's a little scary."

Anaya nodded, "Sure, but then when is Omega not scary? I was walking home the other day through that shortcut I showed you, and all these guys surrounded me. It was horrible…"

Casey raised her eyebrow, "Yes, but Anaya, you told me earlier that you threw them into the trash compactor with a biotic throw."

"Oh yeah, I meant it was horrible for them." Anaya flashed her trademark wicked grin, and began to pour more drinks.

Then there was a noise, a scream so loud and so tragic that everyone in the club stopped what they were doing and looked around them for the person who had made it. Suddenly the door to the club opened, and an Asari ran inside. "Help!" She cried, "It's coming!"

The door opened again, and a creature appeared in the entrance. Casey had never seen anything like it before, and would struggle to describe it to others later on, it was so beyond her understanding. The only two things she could vividly remember were the glowing blue eyes, and the tentacles that hung down from its mouth. It was almost like the Husks she had encountered with Shepard…but these were far from Human.

The creature surveyed the club for a moment, while the customers panicked and ran for the other exit, climbing over and crushing each other at the door. A Turian who had been in the club every day since Casey came back removed a gun from its holster and opened fire on the beast. The shots had no effect, other than to make it angry, and it ran to him at such speed that he had no time to escape. It grabbed the Turian and tore him in half with its bare hands. Then it moved on to any other stragglers still in the club.

Casey felt something at her leg, and was pulled onto the floor. Anaya had pulled her out of sight. "Stay down," she breathed, and Casey nodded.

CRASH!

The sound of glass breaking drowned out the latest scream, and Casey couldn't help but peek over the bar. Aria had smashed the glass of her window, and used a biotic throw to launch the shards at the creature. She landed gently on the ground, and threw more and more biotic attacks at the thing. It was slowing it down, but not killing it.

"Someone get me a fucking gun!" Aria yelled, fighting to keep the creature on the floor. But most of the customers had gone, and the rest were cowering under their tables. Casey fumbled around under the bar for the pistol that was always kept there. "Here!" She threw it to Aria, who caught it one handed and fired three shots into the creature's eyes.

It stopped fighting, and its eyes began to dim. Casey moved around the bar, followed by Anaya, and looked around her. The club was littered with the remains of those the creature had ripped apart: so many pieces that Casey couldn't even see how many victims there had been.

Aria stood over the creature, looking down at it with loathing. When she spoke her voice was steady, but filled with intense anger. "Does anyone want to tell me what the FUCK that thing is?!"


"Rough day," Anaya sighed. She was on her stomach on the bed, picking at her dinner. The food in their safe house wasn't exactly up to much, but they did the best they could. Casey had already eaten all of hers, she supposed the biotic throw earlier had taken a lot out of her.

"Mmmm," Casey replied in agreement.

"I thought all we had to worry about was Cerberus, now we've got fucking Adjutants too?"

"Maybe life seemed too easy for us before?" Casey suggested lamely. Anaya grinned.

"I wish I was back on Thessia, the food on Omega has always sucked."

"That's where you'd go?" Casey asked. "If you could get off here, you'd go back to Thessia?"

Anaya seemed to be thinking for a minute. "I don't know, maybe. I mean, I didn't exactly leave things on good terms with my mother."

"How come?" Casey asked. They'd never really talked about Anaya's family before. Casey felt like she'd told Anaya everything about herself: usually in the form of crying on her shoulder back in those early days when nights without Garrus became too much to bear. But Anaya, though she'd never exactly been secretive, had always been rather mysterious about her own life: often stating it was "far too dull" to talk about. Casey hadn't wanted to pry, friends were in short supply here.

"I fell out with my mother over the same reason most people fight with their parents," Anaya sighed. "Relationship stuff." She moved her dinner around her plate once more, before putting it onto the bed side table. "Mother was really old school, she wanted me to get an Asari girlfriend."

"I thought most Asari preferred not to?" Casey asked.

Anaya shrugged. "We don't have a problem with dating our own species, but usually we're encouraged to settle down with someone from a different race, the whole genetic diversity thing. But like I say, my mother was really old fashioned. She didn't like aliens…then I came home with a human girlfriend…Let's just say she didn't go for it."

"How old were you?"

"Really young, still living at home. I think she could've gotten over the human thing, but I wanted to see how far I could push it. We didn't exactly have the best relationship. It got to the point where it didn't matter if I even liked the people I was bringing home, I just wanted to shock her. I think it was the Hanar boyfriend that tipped her over the edge. She kicked me out and told me not to come back until I'd matured."

"So I guess you'll never go back then."

Anaya threw a pillow at Casey. "Very funny," she replied sarcastically.

"Would you go back?" Casey asked.

Anaya didn't answer for a few moments, before nodding. "I think so. I've been away a long time, it'd be good to see if she's dead yet." She grinned, and Casey knew she was kidding. She continued, "Yeah, I'd go home. And I'd take you, you'd love it."

Casey smiled, "Deal."

"What about you?" Anaya asked. "Where would you go, if you could?"

"I don't know," Casey replied. And that was the truth of it. She knew who she'd want to be with, but she had no idea where he was.


She'd seen Garrus once since arriving on Omega. Not in person of course, but she had found a vid with him in it on the extranet. She'd searched his name for weeks, wanting to horde any information she might be able to get her hands on, but there was nothing about him since Shepard's arrest, and very little before that. So Casey had moved on to news about Shepard instead. There was more about him, though the updates were becoming less and less recent. She supposed long term incarceration didn't really give the press much news.

On one of these extranet searches she'd found a clip of the Normandy arriving on Earth, where Shepard was handing himself over to the alliance. He gave a short interview, the usual stuff in which he somehow managed to get the whole crowd on his side, and was then taken away. It was at that point Casey noticed that the rest of the crew were standing slightly off camera and to the right. They'd obviously come back with Shepard for moral support, and they watched him get escorted inside.

Casey could only just see Grunt and Miranda, but then the press seemed to spot the Normandy crew, and charged over to try and get interviews. Casey felt her heart swell when she saw Grunt punch a reporter in the face for saying something he deemed 'insulting' about Shepard. James and Jacob gave a short statement in which they gave their full support to Shepard, and the rest of the crew declined to comment. Kasumi was nowhere in sight, though that was to be expected. She caught sight of Samantha Traynor as she quickly scuttled out of sight, looking like she hadn't slept in a long time. Casey wondered if it had anything to do with her, after all they had been taken to the Collector base together. Casey hoped Sam wasn't carrying some kind of guilt, what happened to the two of them hadn't been her fault, and Casey had never once blamed her for their capture.

Just as Casey was beginning to wonder whether or not he was even there, she saw Garrus! He was standing right at the back of the group, his eyes on the floor. As the rest of them turned to leave, each apparently heading for a different shuttle now that the Normandy was impounded, one of the reporters noticed Garrus, and soon the camera was right in front of him.

"Garrus Vakarian, sir, can you give us a statement?"

"What do you think about Shepard's arrest?"

"Were you there when the relay was destroyed?"

Garrus said nothing, and his silence, his cold stare, seemed to silence them all. Then he turned and walked away, disappearing out of shot. A woman's voice said "There you have it, Shepard's crew giving their full support for the man who destroyed a Batarian colony. Have they been brainwashed by the legend? Or is there more to this story than meets the eye? We'll be talking to Captain David Anderson later on, in the Battle Space." And that was it, the clip ended.

Casey rewound to the part when Garrus was in front of the camera, and froze the image. She put her hands on his face, tried to imagine that he was standing in front of her. But she'd never seen him look like that. Broken. Defeated. Cold. He looked like a different person.

Then she saw something, something around his neck that was just visible above the line of his armour. A chain of some sort. She moved closer to the screen, her nose practically touching his face, trying to work out what it could possibly be. Garrus had never worn any kind of jewellery or dog tags.

My necklace.

The thought had hit her like a bullet. The necklace he'd bought her all that time ago on Illium, the one that had reminded her of her mother's. At some point during the Collector attack on the Normandy she'd dropped it. Had Garrus found it? Started wearing it in her memory?

"I'm not dead!" She yelled at the screen. But of course, he couldn't hear her.