Dark Messiah
3. Negotiation
"I have to admit, I never expected James to decline our offer. I thought he'd jump at the chance to get out of Purgatory." Hackett looked as defeated as he sounded.
"We just need to be patient," Anderson replied. "I know Shepard; he won't pass up this opportunity. We've planted the seeds of ideas in his mind, and now he needs time to dwell on them. Those seeds will take root and grow, and Shepard will change his mind. Though we may have made a mistake in not taking Shepard right away. We told Warden Kuril that he was going to stand trial, then failed to take him into custody. That's got to have piqued his curiosity."
"I'm not worried about Kuril," said Hackett. Even despite everything that had happened, and the massive setback they'd suffered on Purgatory, he was still calm, logical. "If we'd taken Shepard right there and then, we'd only have to find somewhere to put him whilst he comes to his senses. I'd rather have him sitting in Purgatory than on the Normandy, regardless of the suspicions it raises."
Silence settled over the comm room. In accordance with Kuril's wishes, the Normandy had moved a few klicks away from Purgatory. For "safety" reasons. But it wasn't as if the prison vessel could out-run the Normandy. For now, Kuril, Shepard and the military's five million blood-money credits weren't going anywhere.
It had been six hours since Shepard's rejection of Hackett's proposal. Six hours spent waiting and wondering. And although the face Kaidan presented to the others was one of disappointment, deep in his heart he harboured a secret relief. If James wouldn't go along with the military's plane for him, then Kaidan and the rest of the Normandy crew wouldn't have to lie to people. To deceive men, women and children who deserved only the truth. And Kaidan wouldn't have to bear the responsibility of babysitting a dangerous, murdering madman.
"Sir," he spoke up, "how long are we going to sit here waiting for Shepard to change his mind?"
"As long as it takes, Lieutenant," said Anderson. "As long as it takes."
He nodded, the answer only confirming his suspicions. "Then with your permission, I'll go and notify the rest of the crew."
"Of course."
Kaidan left the Captain and Admiral to their plotting. If these were the sorts of decisions that had to be made when one reached a higher rank, then he hoped he'd never be promoted above Lieutenant.
o - o - o - o - o
Slender blue fingers danced across his skin, tracking the scars which criss-crossed his chest. James lay on the small, comfortable bed looking up at the same white ceiling he'd stared up at three nights a week for the past five years. By now, that ceiling was as familiar to him as his own cell.
A sigh issued from the woman lying beside him. She sat up and reached for her vest. The rest of her clothes were dumped unceremoniously in a pile beside her bed, her pistol serving as the cherry topping. In many ways, she was a cruel and sadistic as Grek, only her taunts were less obvious. More psychological.
Bitch.
"I suppose I'll have to find myself a new play-thing," she said. Her voice was deep, rich, the kind of voice a man could fall in love with, if that man wasn't James Shepard. Did she realise, he wondered, the strange dichotomy she posed? How he felt torn in two every time she summoned him to her room for her own entertainment?
Of course. She had to know. She was a woman, and all women were predators regardless of whether they were asari or human. Salia had a fine body. A voice which could tug at a man's testicles. Flawless blue skin. There were men who would have paid through the nose to spend even a single night with her. Who would have considered themselves blessed to be summoned and used by her three nights a week. And though James was never left unsatisfied—as long as he satisfied her first, of course—he still, after five years, couldn't quite get over the fact that she was blue.
She interrupted his reverie with another interjection.
"You're unusually quiet. What's the matter? Grek got your tongue? Or are you just thinking about how much you'll miss these little trysts of ours when you're gone?" She smiled without warmth and tugged on her pants. She was due to start a shift in half an hour, but even when she had time to spare she didn't like lying around in bed cuddling and playing lovey-dovey. All business. That was Salia. Wham, bam, thank you sir.
He sat up, grabbed one of her ankles, and pulled her down the bed. She very nearly squealed as he pinned her shoulders to the bed with one hand. He free hand snaked up her pants, sliding beneath the undershirt. Her skin was smooth as velvet.
"I always wondered why Kuril hated me," he said, his voice low, sinister. "Why he let Grek loose on me every once in a while. Figured he didn't like my mouth. My mom always said I had a smart mouth. But when I saw him today, standing outside that processing room door, I finally figured it out. Saw it in his eyes. Gotta burn; a big man like him, being dropped for some low-life human scum. That's why he can't get rid of me fast enough. He'll be sticking it to you again before the end of the day."
A blast of biotic energy sent him flying. He curled his arms around his head whilst he was airborn, and hit the far wall. A jolt of pain shot through his shoulder. By the time he'd uncurled himself and sat up, the biotic glow had faded from her body and she was halfway to being dressed.
"I hope that smart mouth of yours serves you well in your new cell on Earth, Shepard. Doubtless your own people won't put up with your bullshit like we did."
She clipped her pistol to her belt and left him naked and in pain sitting on the floor, his back propped up against the wall. Best that he didn't linger. Grek was outside, waiting to take him back to his cell. Salia liked Grek to be the one to escort him to and from her room, because she knew how much he hated Grek, and she knew how much it pissed Grek off to know that James was being given any sort of comfort or pleasure. Two birds, one stone.
A sadistic bitch indeed.
He pulled on his pants and his shirt, and finally his uncomfortable prison-issue shoes. They were elasticated. Most prisoners couldn't be trusted with laces, in case they tried to use them to garrotte a guard.
When he left the room, he found Grek inspecting his weapon. How easy it would be, to grab that weapon and turn it on its owner. But even if he managed to kill Grek before another guard arrived, he'd only suffer for it. It wasn't like there was anywhere he could escape to. Purgatory only travelled to an inhabited system once a month, to offload prisoners and take on new flesh.
Perhaps it was a time for a change of scenery. Accepting Hackett's offer had been his plan all along, but the matter of how long to leave the Alliance stewing was an important one. Come running back too soon, and they'd think he was playing them. Leave it too long, and they might actually depart and make other plans.
Tomorrow. He'd get one last good night's sleep in his cell, and get Kuril to make the call tomorrow. It wouldn't be hard to make the military think him cowed. He'd play along for a while. Be the good soldier. The dutiful son. Eventually, Anderson would slip up and lower his guard, and James would get his chance.
For once, he didn't mind when Grek growled at him to get moving or lose some fingernails. He drowned out the krogan's voice by humming an old Earth tune inside his head. And as he hummed, he heard an echo of his mother's voice providing the words for the song.
Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!
o - o - o - o - o
Most prisoners on Purgatory only saw the processing rooms once in their whole lives. The lucky ones, who'd been serving less than life, saw them twice; once when they arrived, and once when they left. James Shepard had now seen the processing room three times, and two of those times within the past twenty-four hours. It was something that had never happened to any of Purgatory's prisoners before. But then, mom always said he was special.
It was just him, Hackett, Alenko and David. Kuril was waiting outside the door, probably ready to head towards the nearest relay as soon as James had been removed from the ship. But first, there were a few details to work out. You didn't sell your soul to a bunch of self-righteous pricks without first asking for your own weight in gold.
"So," said James, as he leant casually against one of the processing room walls and offered a casual grin, "I believe you wanted to deal?"
Anderson grumbled something inaudible. Alenko shifted his weight from one foot to another. Hackett ignored them both, choosing instead to fix James with his watery blue-eyed gaze.
"There is only one deal on offer. You either take it, or you leave it. Our terms are thus: You will pose as your brother until the Normandy's current mission is over. After completing the mission you will be given an apartment on Earth. You'll be fitted with a subdermal tracking chip, and be required to check in with a probation officer once per week. You'll be allowed to travel to any of the planets within Sol, but you are forbidden from leaving the home system. From time to time we might need you to attend public events and give speeches as John Shepard, and you will comply with our requests in a manner befitting a Commander of the Alliance military."
"Not good enough," he said. "You're asking me to trade one prison for another. After I'm done with your little mission, I want autonomy."
Hackett shook his head. "Never going to happen. We can't have the man who looks like John Shepard going back to his old ways. We don't want you continuing your vendetta against the batarians, and we don't want you dropping off the radar. You live our the rest of your life on Earth, as John Shepard, highly decorated Commander and retired Spectre. You're still a criminal, James. Even if it was within my power to grant you autonomy, I wouldn't risk letting you loose. I'd rather you spent the rest of your life on Purgatory."
James looked at Hackett, trying to get a measure of the old guy's resolve. Not that it mattered; there were always ways around the rules. Did they think a subdermal tracking chip would make him think twice about going on the run? Subdermal chips were easy to remove. What was one more scar to a man who bore more of them than most soldiers?
"What assurances do I have," he asked, "that when you're finished with me, you won't just make me disappear? After all, a missing Spectre is bound to generate an air of mystery. Encourage more young idiots to aspire to become like their absent hero. How do I know you won't try to make my brother into a legend by simply disposing of me?"
"Don't tempt us," said Anderson.
Hackett merely shook his head. "We're not in the business of making people disappear, James. You have my personal assurance that you won't be disposed of after the mission."
"For whatever that's worth," James sneered. It wasn't as if the guy was going to sign his name to a written contract. "Alright, I'll agree to your terms, but I get to pick the city and the apartment."
"Agreed."
"And my silence is going to cost you."
"Get this through your thick skull, Shepard," Anderson said through clenched teeth, "this isn't a negotiation. You don't get to make demands."
"Au contraire. I think you'll find that a negotiation is exactly what this is. As for my demands, they're not excessive. If nobody knows Johnny's dead, then you're still paying his wages. Keep paying them to me. And I get his retirement pay, too. If I'm going to be my brother, then I should benefit from my duplicity. Any money I make from advertisements and endorsements is mine to keep. You'll ensure I'm given a monthly allowance for food and you'll pay all the bills on my apartment. Oh, and I want a skycar. A new one. I'm a bit out of the loop so I'll just take whichever is the best model at the time I 'retire' from my duties."
"Anything else?" asked Hackett.
"No, I'm not greedy. As long as my basic needs are met, I'm happy. You'll find that six years in prison will lower a man's expectations. Do we have a deal?"
"We have a deal."
James grinned. "Now. Perhaps you'd like to clue me in on the 'mission.' What important work was my brother doing before he was shuffled loose from the mortal coil?"
Anderson stepped forwards, to take care of the minutiae. He liked doing that. Being in charge. Issuing the orders. Made him feel big and important. Some things never changed.
"He'd been given a mission by the Council to track down and apprehend a rogue turian Spectre named Saren. John was following up on a lead when he was killed in a firefight."
"Rogue Spectre, huh? I thought those guys were allowed to do whatever they wanted to accomplish their missions. What did he do; drown a bag of puppies? Fiddle with someone's kid? Space somebody for the sheer fun of it?"
"He led an army of synthetic AIs known as 'geth' to our colony on Eden Prime," Kaidan spoke up. "They killed almost everyone, then tried to level the place with bombs. I was there with John, to catch the tail end of the violence. It was a slaughter."
A quiet voice began ranting inside James' head. Images whirled in his mind, transporting him to another place and time. Memories of corpses piled on corpses. Dusty streets stained red with the blood of innocent men, women and children. The acrid scent of smoke and char filled his nose and choked his throat, and above it all were the screams… the screams of pain and death and Jamie, help me!
He shook his head, dispelling the images, and shivered. The three men were watching him. God, how he wanted a smoke.
"Why'd this Saren guy lead an army of these geth to Eden Prime?" he asked. Anderson and Alenko shared a glance, hesitation written all over their faces. He knew right then that whatever they told him would be a lie, so he held up his hand to stall them. "Fine, don't tell me. I don't care that you don't trust me. It doesn't matter. I'll find this 'Saren' and stop him. No sweat. Then I'm out. No more missions. No more jumping through burning hoops. Agreed?"
"Agreed," said Hackett. "Are you ready to leave Purgatory?"
"What, right now? I figured I'd get chance to go pack a bag. Say goodbye to some of the crims I've forged brotherly friendships with. Engage in some last-minute shower-based camaraderie. Thank my therapist for all his hard work."
"Smart-ass," Anderson muttered, shaking his head.
Kuril was waiting outside the processing room, with Grek and another of the guards. James fell into line behind Hackett. Whatever story the old man had told the Warden, it would probably be best to play along. Play the part of the scolded puppy. Let Kuril think he was rid of James once and for all. A complacent man rarely saw the dagger until it was sticking out of his chest.
"We'll be taking James Shepard into custody now," Hackett said.
"Good riddance," said Kuril. He offered Hackett his hand. "It's been a pleasure doing business with the Alliance, Admiral Hackett. Please, keep us in mind should you need to procure any more prisoners. Nobody sheds a tear when men like these go missing."
As they walked back towards the docking bay, James realised he should have been feeling something. Elation at getting out. Regret at not being able to kill Grek while he had the chance. Disappointment at losing access to the finest piece of asari ass in this sector of the galaxy. But all he could think about was getting back to his original mission. To tell himself he was free would simply be a lie; he wasn't free, he was just in a cell with a slightly better view and less random violence. And deep down, he still felt hollow inside. There was a hole inside him, and it had been there since he was sixteen years old. Since the night he had lost everything, including his own soul. Only two things could fill that hole, and he'd find neither of them on the Normandy.
When he reached the threshold of the airlock, he turned back and looked at the krogan behind Kuril.
"Hey, Grek. One day, I'm going to come back here, and I'm going to carve my name into your still-warm corpse."
"You know where to find me, princess," Grek replied, blowing an air-kiss.
He spun back when prompted by Anderson, and watched his former jailers as the airlock door swished closed. There was one good thing about getting out of this place, he thought, as the decon procedure automatically started up and began scanning the four men in the bay. At least he wouldn't have to put up with any more krogans.
