Sorry about that. But FFN seems better now. I've corrected a math error and changed Oriana's location to Eden Prime.

The skeleton was as black as charred flesh. Wires poked out of the chest and eye sockets. The top part of the skull was completely missing. Matt looked down at it with poorly-concealed disgust. "I'm going to be stuck in that?"

"It's only the frame. The quantum computer isn't even in yet."

Matt's lips thinned. Miranda shot him a sideways glance. She found herself looking at him often these days, and not out of anything as pedestrian as desire. He was a marvel. The muscles of his jaw appeared to tense, his chest appear to rise and fall at regular intervals, all without the muscles that would work by instinct in an organic body. What sort of computer had the power to regulate and replicate the thousands of involuntary functions of the human body? It made Miranda's head spin just thinking about it.

"I was just…I was hoping for something a bit more, er, human."

She smiled at him, placating. "You looked much worse the first time around. Wilson vomited, and I didn't sleep soundly for a week. And you came out all right. Synthetic skin is virtually indistinguishable from the genuine article except under a microscope. No one was able to tell Eva was a synthetic until after the shuttle crash. You'll be outwardly indistinguishable from what you were before. And you said yourself that we're all hybrids now."

But Matt kept staring at the metal skeleton, his gaze managing somehow to be both distant and pained. Miranda's heart sank. After the death of his family, Matt had fought a long, grueling war of attrition with depression that had ended in stalemate. Time and therapy had seen him through the worst of it, but sometimes the ghosts still returned to haunt him. And Miranda was never quite a match for ghosts. No matter how many books she read or psychologists she consulted, her talents tended more towards manipulating a mark than helping a lover.

"EDI," he said softly. "I told her she was a person. And she was. Almost like having another little sister. But she wasn't human. She was a brand-new species. The only one of her kind. And I'll be the only one of mine, as different from you as an asari is from a salarian." He looked at her as if she was supposed to have the answer. "How am I supposed to deal with that?"

And perhaps she did have the answer. She was, after all, a construct in her own way, designed according to a template set down by another human being. Luddites and religious fundamentalists had called her an abomination, a perversion of the natural order of reproduction. Miranda Lawson looked human, felt human, but she wasn't and never would be anything other than a latter-day Frankenstein's monster. Henry had been more than happy to use their ignorance to convince her that she would never find a place in the world except as his legacy and tool. It had taken her years to break free of that particular mental prison. "You said EDI was a person. Well, so are you. You have friends. You have me. You have an entire galaxy of people who worship the ground you walk on. If you can't identify with your species, identify with the community you chose for yourself."

"And so I finally get the real reason you joined Cerberus." He smiled weakly. "I just wanted us to be the same species."

"Henry wanted a master race lording above all others. I chose to help them instead." Her fingers traced the outline of his cheek. "Besides, I seem to recall someone once telling me that compassion and drive were the true marks of humanity."

His smile grew a little brighter. It was a start. "And sexual compatibility. Don't forget that."

Miranda chuckled. Men. "That will not be a problem, I assure you. Some things might take a little getting used to, but we'll work it out. You've always been an exceptionally quick learner when properly motivated." And then she would exit this desert of celibacy. He wanted her? Miranda was more than happy to oblige. Anonymous sex geared toward relief or procreation was all very well, but that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted a lover, someone who wanted to please her and be pleased by her. She wanted to run her hands over a body she knew better than she knew her own. She wanted to display every erotic trick she'd learned and know that there was no need to hold back. And then he would show a few of his own. She wanted Matt: alive, whole, and in her bed.

"I'm motivated." A casual observer would have called his tone teasing, but Miranda knew a brave face when she saw one. It was his turn to stroke her cheek. The hologram caused no sensation at all, not even the cold that was supposed to accompany being touched by a ghost. "This is all the motivation I need."

Miranda didn't say anything. They stood like that for a long time. Miranda fought the urge to turn her face and kiss his palm. It would only remind them both of all the intimacies great and small that were currently denied them.

And the truth was that this resurrection would be harder than it seemed. EDI's body had been badly damaged in the battle for London. From the small shreds of information Matt had been able to recover from Cronos Station, the EVA project had moved much more quickly than Lazarus, but had been no less complicated. The human mind was a complex thing, and creating an AI that was not merely sentient but could pass the Turing Test with flying colors was no small matter. EVA had been designed to mimic humans, even be capable of seduction and manipulation as necessary. Matt had his personality already, but the hardware that had given EVA hers would need to be painstakingly re-created. Matt couldn't just control the body like a marionette. He would have to inhabit it the way he had inhabited the original.

EVA had been to the field of artificial intelligence what Lazarus was to biology. And it would have to be re-created without notes or any of the expertise that had made it possible. Miranda was brilliant, but she knew she had stood on the shoulders of giants with Lazarus. And this time all the giants were dead.

Then there was the problem of biotics. Biotics had been as much a part of Matt as his painting. He had rivaled—did rival, Miranda corrected herself—Jack in power, without having been subjected to the horrors of Teltin. It was why the Alliance had been interested in him in the first place. But no synthetic, no matter how advanced, had ever been able to manipulate mass effect fields. Even if this project was a success, it was possible that it wouldn't quite be Matt who came back. Unless Miranda was very clever. Leng hadn't been a true biotic either, but the Phantom implants had given him impressive telekinetic abilities. Perhaps Miranda could create a similar simulation suitable for a synthetic body. Perhaps.

"You okay? Thought I'd lost you there for a second."

"I'm fine." Matt had enough to worry about without her confiding failures that hadn't even happened yet. He needed to be shaken from his melancholy, not driven further into it. "I got you a gift. I was going to wait until after we were finished up for the day, but I think you deserve it now. Check my personal computer for software installed in the last six hours."

Matt stepped back. The green light in his eyes faded the way it always did when he was accessing hardware, and his holographic body pulsed and wavered. He was gone, lost in a world of data streams, and considering the gift Miranda had given him, he might not be back for the rest of the day.

But the light came back on in his eyes. He grinned like a teenager getting his first car. "PaintWorks Pro 2186! Wow. I mean, it's not exactly what I'm used to but—"

"—but you can work again." His resurrection might be uncertain, but she could still make him happy. "I'll even sit for you in the evenings if you like."

"I'd like that very much." His voice cracked. "Got to start making up for all the pieces I lost. Stupid sketchbook, getting destroyed by a Reaper."

And then he was off, discussing vector and raster graphics, and how he could get the shading effects he wanted. Miranda listened, drinking in the tone more than the words. Miranda never understood what he saw when he looked at a canvas or the process he used to transform it into art. It was alchemy; only instead of turning lead into gold, he turned paint or charcoal into subjects with a life all their own. But the quiet intensity, the possessive, knowing way his gaze raked over a subject, that she understood. The desire to record, to transform, to improve was something they had shared for as long as she had known him.

"I'd like to paint you in your office. The sun flooding in behind you, bringing out the highlights in your hair. Humanity's savior as she plans to make all our lives better."

Miranda raised an eyebrow. "Last I checked, I wasn't one who killed the Illusive Man or threw myself into a glowing beam."

Matt bristled. "It sounds a lot more impressive than it was. I'm really good at blowing stuff up, but that isn't what the galaxy needs right now. We need scientists, politicians, people who will make sure I'm not the only one who can do this neat stuff. We need to get the infrastructure working again beyond Coffs Harbour. That's not my fight; logistics makes my head hurt, and I only speak enough biologist to understand you. But you? You understand this stuff. And you have the vision and drive to make it happen. I've had my hour. Now it's your time. Yours and Mordin's and Brynn's. The new saviors of the galaxy.

A lump formed in Miranda's throat. She would never understand precisely how she had gotten so lucky. Matt looked at her and saw more than a beautiful woman to ogle. He saw her vision for humanity, her desire to push the limits of the possible. He didn't demand he hide her gifts to satisfy his ego. No, he celebrated them. And he had come back for her. It its own way, it was as much a miracle as the development of sapient life: a thousand factors coming together to create something wonderful.

"And personally, I'm looking forward to retirement once I get my body back. Painting again. Oils. A big canvas. Not just sketches I do whenever I find the time between bouts of blowing some bastard's head off. Far as I'm concerned, Commander Shepard did die on the Citadel. Long live M—"

An alarm sounded. Miranda jumped back. Apprehension simmered beneath her skin. "Was that you?"

Matt shook his head furiously, and Miranda switched on her comm. "What the hell is going on?"

"Code Orange. This krogan broke into one of the offices and started screaming his head off, demanding to know where we were hiding Professor Solus. No gun, but he headbutted Webber. Might have fractured his skull."

Miranda swore under her breath. Mordin's survival and employment at Lawson Biomedical had been kept a secret precisely to avoid a situation like this. Even an unarmed krogan could cause damage. And if he found Mordin… "I'll be right there."

"I'll hack a couple of the security mechs, make them shoot straight if we need it." Matt vanished.

It wasn't just any krogan raging. Wreav stood over the broken body of one of the security guards, who twitched feebly on the ground. The Event had made him even more fearsome, if such a thing were possible. His red eyes had turned a brilliant green, and silver tendrils snaked over his skin where his veins used to be.

"Where is that pyjak? I'll rip his head clean off!"

Miranda took a deep breath. Tests showed that effective strength had quadrupled across all species in the last two weeks. Which meant Wreav could now break every bone in her body with a quarter of the effort. Great. But it didn't matter. He was stupid and brutish, the best argument for the genophage she had ever seen, and she would not let him hurt her people. "What do you want, Wreav?"

He rounded on her. "I want a lot of things. But right now, I want Solus' head on a platter. He sabotaged the cure. He doomed my people to extinction!"

"Mordin did no such thing." Perfectly true. "The cure was dispensed, as agreed. Not that any of us will ever know the results. Now, leave the premises before I call the rest of my staff to escort you out. They won't be gentle."

"Hiding behind a bunch of goons, just like your boss." His eyes gleamed like freshly-polished emeralds. "Figures you'd protect the salarian. Cerberus did everything they could to screw with the krogan. And your blood still bleeds black and gold, doesn't it?"

"Leave. Now."

He took a step forward. "The salarian is hiding behind you like you hide behind your dead boyfriend. What's Solus doing for you? Figuring out new ways to kill us all? Maybe I'll make you tell me. You act tough, but I know how to make a human scream."

And then he charged. Miranda had just enough time to summon a barrier before he slammed into her. The force of it knocked her several steps backwards, and only sheer willpower kept her from tumbling to the ground. Her teeth rattled. Think. She had to think. Wreav was bigger, stronger, and faster. But he didn't have biotics. The first thing she had to do was create distance between them. She sent all the power she could muster at Wreav. He staggered backwards. Not nearly as much as he should have. But it had bought her a few seconds.

"Code Omega. Room 404." There. That would bring the entire security staff here. All she had to do was survive less than two minutes.

It only took ten seconds. Wreav bent his head, preparing to charge again. Typical krogan, trying the same brute force approach until it worked. Miranda tensed, preparing to sidestep at just the right moment. Trip the bastard, neutralizing his physical advantages. And then let her team do the rest. Only a fool fought with honor.

But then Wreav fell to his knees. He choked and spluttered as he clawed at some invisible assailant. The green light in his eyes shone more brightly now, brighter than Miranda had never seen it. The tendrils danced and shimmered across his body. Miranda had suffocated people before, but it had never been beautiful.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway as the first of the security team arrived. These were not mere guards. They were the men and women who she had sent to help take down Cronos Station. They clutched assault rifles and their body armor was battered and scarred. Wreav didn't seem to notice them. He was too busy convulsing. Miranda held up a hand.

"Die, you miserable son of a bitch," someone whispered.

And die he did. Wreav stilled abruptly, his limbs frozen at odd angles. Miranda stared at him. "What the hell was that?" Krogan, with their redundant vital organs, didn't have heart attacks. They didn't asphyxiate for no reason. The krogan clan chief had died, and what was left of the Alliance would have questions. Questions Miranda couldn't even answer for herself.

I think I know. Send the guards out. Matt's voice was panicked—and coming from inside her own head.

What?

Please, Miranda.

"Call for medical. And a cleanup crew. I want us to be in control of the information flow here, not the krogan or the Alliance. Notify all teams that Code Omega has ended." Somehow Miranda managed not to stammer.

Matt materialized as soon as they were gone. If he had been flesh and blood, Miranda would have said his face was ashen. His voice was distant, tinged with amazement. "I panicked when I saw him come after you. And those mechs were too far away to do any good. So I jumped into him instead. The nanites. I killed him before he could kill you. People are tech now. I can control them now."

He looked down at his shoes. "That voice in your head? That was me. I wanted to send you a message without the rest of them hearing, and so I put one in your head. Just by thinking about it."

Miranda's mind stopped. What he was saying… he couldn't… "You're saying you can control us like the Illusive Man controlled Anderson?"

"More than that. I touched your mind for a moment. And when I did…" He looked up at her, his face a mixture of guilt, hope, and wonder. "…and when I did, I could feel what you felt. The air conditioner. The sweat clinging to you. Everything.

"Miranda, for a second, I was alive again."