Chapter Three: Consequences
October 2183
"Guests of Shuttle Flight 6417, we are making our final approach to the Citadel."
Alenko jerked awake as the flight attendant finished her announcement, just in time to see her smile vacantly into the shuttle's PA transmitter. They had been in transit for a little over two days. "We will be docked in fifteen minutes. Please ensure your seat belt is securely fastened and await crew instructions before disembarking. Thank you."
The Agincourt wasn't due back to port for another month. As a high-value prisoner, Farrell had been left at the nearest Alliance outpost and escorted to a proper facility for treatment. Their medical officer managed to stabilize him as best she could, but some things were beyond what a frigate's med bay could provide.
As an officer on medical leave, Alenko had been deposited on the dock and expected to make his way home on standby, to await the dreaded attentions of other specialists.
He hadn't slept much. A catnap here or there over the past six days since he woke up in the Agincourt's med bay strapped down with velcro restraints. A sick feeling as he saw Farrell's limp form in the bed across from his, the VI assistant bot hovering over him, making delicate adjustments. The doctor's brusque judgement when she asked him if the headache was subsiding. His migraine from the attack had been so savage she actually put him under until the worst of it passed. After experiencing those final fading hours, Alenko didn't want to even imagine the worst of it.
There was a gentle thunk as the shuttle made contact with the magnetic docking clamps, and then the stomach-dropping moment when the its gravity turned off and the Citadel's rotation took over. Around him the other passengers rose, grumbling, and pulled their bags from the overhead compartments before shuffling down the aisle to the tube. He hauled down his rucksack and followed the tide.
He'd never set foot in the Citadel's commercial dock. Despite its resemblance to every other station dock in the galaxy in all respects save for scale, it felt an alien place. Something not of this world, something he could look at without quite being able to touch. The very air seemed strange. Though he spent most of week trying to get here, he realized he never quite expected to arrive. Arriving made everything that happened on Chasca, and on the Agincourt afterwards, terribly real.
Alenko stepped away from the stream of passengers departing the shuttle and adjusted the pack on his shoulder, trying to get his bearings. Trying, in fact, to figure out what to do now.
Even the smallest decision like walking towards the exit seemed impossibly out of reach, his thoughts soupy with an exhaustion far more profound than lack of sleep. Three months desperately holding onto his life with his teeth and for what? He might as well have given up the day they laid Nathaly to rest; it all ended the same. There was no way DMHS wouldn't discharge him, no matter what he said about the attack. There was no no way he still had a career or indeed any kind of personal identity left. It all disappeared in a cloud of debris along with her body.
It might have been a minute or an hour later when a pair of marine privates in crisp dress blues entered the docking bay. At first Alenko thought they were on their way to the shuttle, returning, perhaps , to the small outpost he just left, until they veered towards him and stopped several feet away. "Staff Lieutenant Alenko?"
Alenko was abruptly conscious of his sweat-stained and rumpled utilities, which he hadn't been able to change in days, his greasy hair and stubbled face. He cleared his throat. "Yes?"
"Sir." The nearest man straightened to something near attention. "We're to escort you to the naval outpost."
"I'm sorry," he said, fumbling through his confusion with a brain that would only work at half-speed. "An escort to what?"
"Apologies, sir. We have orders to bring you directly. If you'll come this way, we have a car waiting."
He took in their stiff, almost bored formality and really saw the dress uniforms, and finally recognized these men for what they were- guards. Likely stationed at the office of some very senior commander aboard the Citadel. There were always a few grunts standing post around a place a like that, for visible security and running little errands like this.
Which meant he didn't really have any choice but to go with them, or a make a scene that likely ended with him going anyway, possibly with an intermediate stop at C-Sec.
Still. "This is crazy. I was on that shuttle for forty-eight hours. All Command had to do was order me to report."
"I couldn't say, sir." Implacable. "If you'll just follow us, please."
Alenko regarded that face a moment longer, empty as it was of all expression. Then he hiked his rucksack up on his shoulder and allowed them to lead him to a blue and white Alliance aircar. One of the marines climbed in the back with him, while the other sat at the controls. The ward flowed beneath them as they gained altitude, a ribbon of gray buildings and orange light, only one of the Citadel's five long arms. That, at least, was familiar.
Once or twice, he tried another question, but they were no more forthcoming than on the dock. His trepidation grew.
At the Alliance naval outpost, his keepers marched him to a waiting room and left him there. So at least nobody thought he was a security threat. Twenty minutes passed, and then an hour. Enough for him to start getting really nervous. Wild speculations crossed his mind- that he was being arrested, that he was being discharged, that behind that door waited the Minister of Defense herself, here to ream him out personally- though Alenko knew quite well that wasn't how any of it worked.
He jumped when the hatch finally slid open. "Staff Lieutenant Alenko?"
"Yes." Belatedly, Alenko noticed her rank and found his feet, clumsily. "Captain."
"Come in." She had a clockwork air about her, a brisk efficiency, like he was merely one of several dozen tasks on her list for the day.
Her office was a good one, for the cramped confines of the Citadel. A bulky port looked out over the neighboring ward arm- Kithoi, if memory served. Her desk of clean white epoxy looked new, the dark leather padding the steel chairs almost real to the eye, metal parts gleaming. She gestured for him to sit.
Alenko did so, awkwardly, resting his great lump of a rucksack on the floor as she took her own seat behind the desk. "Nobody's told me what I'm doing here."
She ignored the question, opening her terminal. It was an old style with a metal backing rather than a transparent holographic interface. He couldn't read the screen backwards from across the desk; he couldn't see it at all.
The captain tapped at her keyboard. "You really landed in the soup with Farrell."
A tiny jolt of something like adrenaline shot through him. "I don't suppose you can tell me what you did to him," the medical officer had said. "Looks like something put his organs through a blender."
"I still don't know who you are," he said.
"Oh, right." She folded her hands on the desktop and looked at him directly. "I'm Captain Rahimi, the senior intelligence officer assigned to Admiral Hackett's office, and one of his adjuncts aboard the Citadel. I keep him apprised of events beyond Alliance space."
"Intelligence?" Alenko felt he was fumbling through an unfamiliar room in the pitch dark, and kept stumbling over unexpected surprises. Her being on Hackett's staff was like tripping over a motorcycle in a living room.
"The man calling himself Geoffrey Farrell is of great interest to a number of people." White teeth flashed briefly in her olive face, a perfunctory smile.
"Farrell isn't his real name?"
"Let's say it's one of his real names." Rahimi was all business. "In his day job, Dr. Farrell is a leading researcher in the field of bio-digital neural interfaces. Cyborgs, in the popular parlance."
"Is he ex-Alliance?"
Her easy tone never wavered. "And why would you ask that?"
"Dr. Wayne is," he replied evenly, naming another scientist captured at Nepheron, the one responsible for murdering Nathaly's squad on Akuze.
"He was a researcher for the intelligence ministry." Rahimi sat back, folding her hands in her lap. "And I think you know enough about Cerberus to know that's not unusual."
"And in his off-hours he fed all that research to Cerberus?"
"I'm sure you appreciate Farrell's dossier is strictly need-to-know. One objective of this interview is to determine what, if anything, he told you that you didn't need to know."
His confusion deepened. "I barely spoke to him."
"Ah, but you did speak." She tilted her head. "All the major players are interested, but Farrell refuses to say a word to anyone. Aside from his doctors, on strictly medical matters resulting from your… altercation."
Alenko's face reddened with traces of shame at the reminder. "Yes, we spoke."
After being relieved of duty, on their last day aboard ship, Farrell asked to speak to Alenko. Still wincing with guilt and tired of finding ways to hide from the contempt and pity of his former crewmates, he agreed.
"Farrell was barely lucid," Alenko added. It was not entirely true. Farrell was heavily drugged, mostly to cope with the pain, and rambling, but his speech was clear enough. "It wasn't a productive conversation."
"Did you know each other?"
He shook his head. "Farrell claimed we met on Nepheron last May, but I don't recall him myself. The scientists we detained kept their heads down."
Nathaly had been on the warpath after discovering Akuze was an elaborate Cerberus experiment. Even her own crew were hesitant to wander into her line of sight, to say nothing of Dr. Wayne, or Farrell, or any of their accomplices.
"Nepheron being the Cerberus lab captured by Commander Shepard near the end of the war."
"Shepard was a bull in a china shop," Farrell sneered, reclined in his hospital bed, apropos of nothing but tattered dignity. "All destruction and no appreciation for what was in front of her."
He tried hard not to think of her in the days that followed, as they waited for the navy patrol to arrive to take over lab, wavering between a wound that bordered on mortal and incandescent rage. Nothing he did could soothe her.
Alenko cleared his throat. "Yes."
Rahimi entered something into her terminal. Not being able to see what she recorded was driving him up the wall. Without looking away, she said, "If you didn't know him, then I have to ask, why try to kill him?"
"I wasn't trying to kill him." The bluntness of the question came out of nowhere and left him off-balance.
Her tone remained mild. Like they were discussing what they brought for lunch. "That was a brutal attack for someone with no history of violent tendencies."
Sitting in that faux-leather chair in Rahimi's little office, Alenko could still feel a ghost of the tide of dark energy coursing down the nerves of his arm and shooting towards Farrell, answering the urge of something deeper than his conscious mind but still entirely himself.
He could still hear the thud and sickening crack of Vyrnnus hitting the bulkhead.
No history of violence.
When he remained silent, Rahimi prodded. "You launched some manner of biotic attack, and then proceeded to beat him about the head with your rifle."
A trickle of sweat ran down his back and soaked into his filthy shirt. That had been Nguyen's addition to the official report, though Morris corroborated it when asked. Alenko cleared his throat a second time. "I don't remember that."
"Your squad had to pull you off him bodily-"
"I already gave my report to Captain Belanger back aboard the Agincourt," he interrupted.
"Yes, I have it here."
"Then you already know all this." Managing a hint of impatience. A push back against having to recite that story a second time. Rahimi was even sharper than Belanger, and he still had some distant hope that at the end of this incident, he might salvage something of his career. What else did he have left but the work?
"Belanger placed you on medical leave rather than detain you pending investigation and court martial." Rahimi clicked through a document, presumably Belanger's own report. "He concluded your attack on Farrell was a traumatic response and remanded you to DMHS."
Back in the Agincourt's med bay, Belanger rubbed his chin, regarding him. "Your squad said you were provoked. Even Nguyen agreed on that much."
As if reading his mind, Rahimi said, "The report indicated you were provoked."
Alenko took a breath. Folded his hands in his lap, realized he was fidgeting, and moved them to the arms of the chair instead. "As I said, my report is available. And if we're going to continue on this topic, I deserve to have council present."
"Staff Lieutenant, I couldn't care less whether your assault was excusable per regulations." Her eyes bore into him. Each word was like a thrown dagger. "I am trying to determine what Farrell communicated to you that caused a mild-tempered officer to fly into a fit of rage so extraordinary that his own memory ceased to function. My sole objective is to maintain the security of the Alliance. And nothing that is happening in this room right now should be mistaken for a request."
He stared. Rahimi sat back, returned her hands to the haptic keyboard, and looked at him coldly. "So I'll ask one more time. What did Farrell say?"
And maybe out of shock, maybe out of a lifetime of conditioning to respond to that tone from a superior officer, and maybe just a little because Farrell deserved to have some of his vileness displayed, Alenko answered. "He was fixated on the circumstances of Nathaly's death."
That was the most Alenko could say about it, without speaking Farrell's graphic conjectures aloud, without seeing those imagined scenes play out against the inside of his eyelids again. Without breathing that sort of life into them.
It was not what Rahimi expected to hear, and it took her a moment to process. "You're referring to Commander Shepard. That's what set you off?"
The implication- that's ALL that set you off?- set a match to his nervousness and sparked a flame of anger. One that doused self-preservation. "He said he hoped Nathaly died in agony from slow suffocation after the attack on the Normandy."
"Seems a pretty empty taunt," Rahimi said, full of doubt. Her eyebrows raised, just enough to notice, a deliberate comment on his outburst. "Shepard's been dead for months."
A second wave, something closer kin to rage. He opened his mouth-
Then took in her continued calm, the arch of her eyebrows, the way she snapped back and forth between threats and indifference like shrugging on clothing. She was goading him. This wasn't an interview; it was an interrogation. And from all appearances, it was being conducted by an expert in the art.
That was why he was brought here immediately, tired from travel and stewing on events, with no warning or opportunity to prepare, and made to wait so long.
Alenko bit back his initial response. Instead, he thought about Farrell's bitterness as he explained later, aboard ship, that he wasn't even supposed to be on Nepheron. It wasn't his work site. He was less than an hour from departure when Toombs set fire to the base to buy a distraction while he hunted the scientists who tortured him.
The Normandy arrived not long after. It was one of the more powerful coincidences in a mission that seemed chock full of serendipity. And from there, well, Nathaly happened.
Farrell rightly blamed Nathaly for his capture. But that wasn't what had him so disgusted with being caught again. And it didn't explain Rahimi's interest.
His eyes narrowed. "Why do you care what Farrell said about Nathaly?"
"You know, Shepard's caused me a lot of work over the years. Before, during, and even after the war. Her dossier would sit this high if you printed it out." She hovered her palm about six centimeters above the desk. "You're the first person I've debriefed who calls her Nathaly."
Alenko couldn't remember when that started. Sometime after Noveria. That was how natural the transition felt.
"She preferred it," he said with a measure of frost. Broadly speaking, this was true. Nathaly just wasn't any good at wanting things.
"Hmm." Rahimi tapped out a few more notes, her fingers dancing in the air. Letting the silence play out until Alenko was squirming. He couldn't help it. She spoke to the terminal screen. "Did Farrell mention his area of study? The sorts of experiments he conducted?"
Alenko shook his head. "Not in so many words."
"But he hinted."
Farrell's face, ratlike and strangely earnest in the wan light, as he spoke to Alenko from his hospital bed. Slowly, Alenko said, "He claimed Cerberus is going to save humanity."
Rahimi actually laughed. "I'll bet he did."
He sat back, crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, fidgeting again. That was unlike him. The five days of leave since the Agincourt deposited him on that map dot of an outpost hadn't done much to improve his state of mind. Nor did being back here, aboard the Citadel.
Nathaly was still dead. He'd still tried to kill Farrell over it. And Captain Rahimi sat here laughing.
He looked away before the words he was thinking could slither onto his tongue.
Rahimi eyed him over the top of the terminal, as if she could read his every emotion. "What else about his work?"
Halfway to the hatch when Farrell asked, "What has the Alliance done about the reapers since Sovereign fell?"
Alenko started. "How do you…"
"What has the Alliance done?" Farrell repeated. "I'm all sincerity"
"I'm not going to discuss-"
"It's nothing, right." Farrell shook his head. "I know I'm right. They've done nothing. Cerberus has collected information about the reapers for at least a decade. Maybe longer. My clearance didn't go that high."
He folded and unfolded his hands, then silently cursed them into stillness. "He mentioned the reapers."
Captain Rahimi stopped typing. Alenko carried on. "I know everyone thinks they're a figment of Na- of Shepard's imagination, but I know what I saw while serving aboard the Normandy. And Farrell knew something about them, too. I'm sure of it."
"Lieutenant Alenko, I will remind you that this room is not cleared for discussions classified above Secret, as advertised at the entrance to this wing." Her eyes fixed on him, abruptly sharp, enough to make him edge back in his seat. "Furthermore, you are not briefed to the relevant programs. Your discretion is required."
His mouth dropped open. It took him a moment to recover his voice. "Are you saying-"
"I won't remind you of your legal obligations again." Her gaze returned to the terminal display. Alenko let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. If it was classified- but nobody was looking into the reapers. The navy had made a laughingstock of everyone who insisted they were real since the end of the war.
Rahimi resumed her notetaking, blithely ignoring the bomb that had just dropped into the room. "Did he mention Project Osiris?"
His mind was chasing itself in circles over that set of implications. It took a moment to register her question, and another to process it. His brow furrowed. "You mean Egyptian mythology?"
"That's a no, then." She seemed satisfied.
And… relieved?
Alenko leaned forward despite his better judgment. Apparently serving on Nathaly's crew didn't wear off that easily. "Look, this would be a lot less of a fishing expedition if you'd just tell me what you're looking for."
"Let's stick to the script," she answered, a touch harshly.
He wasn't at all inclined to play along. "Why is Farrell even working for Cerberus? I can't imagine there was a shortage of work for a man of his talents during a synthetic invasion."
"You can't seriously be laboring under the delusion that Cerberus is forced to recruit only those people with no other options." But then she paused. "Farrell has some significant family difficulties. There's speculation Cerberus may have been more sympathetic than his previous employer."
"I can't imagine how Farrell might have alienated his family."
Her expression soured at his sarcasm. "That comment tells me he didn't mention that situation, either. Did he disclose any of his interrogations by the navy after being taken into Alliance custody?"
Alenko wanted nothing more than this conversation to be over. "No."
"Did he mention how he planned to rejoin Cerberus on Chasca?"
"I don't think he did." Alenko stuffed his hands in his pockets, then remembered himself and folded them in his lap. "I speculated that they wouldn't come back for him unless he could offer them something worthwhile, and he didn't deny it. I think that's why he went to Chasca."
"And what, exactly, was he trying to retrieve?"
Alenko shook his head. "No idea."
"Great." She typed a final word and set the her hands down on the desk with a click of her nails. Smiled at him, politely. He anticipated the interview was almost over, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.
Then she said, "Just one final clarification. You spoke to Farrell twice, during which he apparently never mentioned anything worth reporting, and yet you came within five units of blood of ending his life. Why? Because he talked a little smack about Shepard?"
"She was one of the closest friends I've ever had." The words came hot and hard, and true as any he'd ever spoken. He missed her in a thousand ways, but that was the one that hurt the worst, that kept him up at night and slogging through the days. Going on about it was unwise, but he couldn't have stopped himself for anything. A little smack- Farrell had been downright insulting. "She died alone, a long way from home, to get as many people as she could off that ship. Including me. So yes, when someone goes out of their way to disrespect what happened, I get riled up."
"I simply have to wonder if there is a more substantial history between you and Dr. Farrell than what has been conveyed."
His aggravation subsided. His brow furrowed. "Are you asking…"
And then he stopped himself and straightened in the chair, because the end of that sentence was if I'm an agent of Cerberus, and there was no way voicing that suggestion ended well for him. No matter that it was patently false. "There is no history between me and him."
Rahimi tried a new tact. "Did Shepard ever mention Farrell to you? Since you were such close friends."
"You're saying Nathaly knew him before Nepheron." He blinked. Rahimi was an expert in yanking people around. "That's impossible. She would have recognized him-"
But would she? In that state of mind, with as hard as the scientists were trying to become invisible?
Farrell was so intensely resentful of her. Maybe even too much so for his circumstances.
Sensing an opening, Rahimi prodded him again. "Did she ever express wanting to hurt him? In any sense of the word?"
Alenko stared at her, dumbfounded, completely unable to even guess where she was going with this. Rahimi pressed the point. "Maybe you recognized him, or the name Farrell, and did it for her?"
His mouth opened without seeking any kind of permission from his brain. "What did he do to her?"
Her expression turned doubtful. "So she really never said a word."
"No. She didn't."
Their eyes met for a long moment, his hard, hers speculative. He held her gaze, sudden suspicion overriding nerves.
You hid Akuze from Nathaly, he wanted to say but did not. And Wayne's very public preliminary hearing just hit the news in a banner headline. What else did you do to her that you're so afraid of someone finding out? What are beans are you worried Farrell spilled?
Then Rahimi broke off, pushed out her chair, and extended her hand. "Thank you for meeting with me. We may have some follow-up questions."
He took her hand, again unsteady, hated knowing that was her intent. "You know where to find me."
"Good luck with your… recovery." She flashed a smile, sharp and predatory. "Someone will be in to show you out."
The promised aide soon materialized, and left him standing in the lobby, rucksack in hand with his head still spinning. Apparently Farrell was a higher-value prisoner than he thought. But that wasn't for him to worry about, and he used up every scrap of self-possession he had to make it through the debrief in a coherent fashion.
Standing outside the Alliance outpost and caught up in a steady traffic of navy personnel headed home, Alenko lacked conviction he'd managed even that much. Belanger warned him before he disembarked that Farrell was radioactive, but refused to say anything further. Possibly he didn't know enough to cite specifics.
He'd said something else as well. "If I thought you meant to harm Farrell, I'd hang you out to dry. As it is, I think you could benefit from some time away from this and some professional assistance. But I can't have a marine on my ship who can't keep a grip on himself."
Alenko shuddered. Then took a deep breath, and forced his feet towards the nearest taxi stand. People kept saying assaulting Farrell without meaning it was somehow the better option. All it told him is he learned not a damn thing about self-control in the past fifteen years. Not with Farrell, and not with Rahimi now, either. Maybe if he had, his grief wouldn't still have ahold of him like this. Maybe he'd still be on the Agincourt.
The cab took him home. As much of a home as he had on this station.
Thumbprint access let Alenko into the apartment building. The elevator took him to the twenty-sixth floor. There was no such thing as non-compact living in the Citadel wards.
The building's VI greeted him warmly as he stepped through the hatch. "Good afternoon, Lieutenant Alenko."
He stared into the empty room. It had been his apartment for three months, one week, and five days. Which was one week less than when he and Nathaly started looking for a place to live. Neither of them was picky, and they were working on a short timeline, with him due to report for transfer to the Agincourt. Anything would do.
God, but he'd never seen her so worked up as when she got notification of those transfer orders. If an expression could truly freeze a person solid, he'd still be an icicle on the Normandy deck. But then she did something he thought he'd never see- she sat down and listened. He told her he wanted to make them real, and she asked him if he was serious enough to sign a lease. Because she always went full-tilt at everything.
The original plan was for him to spend a few days furnishing the place before re-deploying. But after the funeral, he focused what little energy he had on getting re-activated- getting away from here. He slept in the bathtub. That was Nathaly's only request, that the apartment have a bathtub, and she never got to use it.
And so the only objects in the apartment were a few towels and toiletries, a half dozen frozen meals and plastic cutlery, the ill-fitting suit Liara made him wear to the memorial, and Nathaly's flag folded up on top of her jacket by the wall.
He crouched down and picked up the fabric in both hands, running his thumbs over the coarse blue cotton broadcloth, along the stitching of the stars and prow that signified the Systems Alliance flag. Stupid custom. Even sillier when there wasn't any body to bury- just an empty coffin to make the positively asinine ceremony a little less awkward. Alenko got the sense Nathaly's mother felt the same way. Certainly, she hadn't shown any reluctance about offering him the stupid thing after.
The jacket technically belonged to her father, and Alenko had a hunch he would like it back, but he had nothing else left that Nathaly had ever touched or worn or cared about in any way. She left it at a Citadel restaurant just before that last mission. When he retrieved it months ago, there was still a trace of her scent on the collar. Still her shape in the ways the leather molded to her over the years. Now he was afraid to smell it, certain it had gone but not wanting the confirmation.
Instead he picked up both bundles and put them on the shelf in the coat closet. Shut them away, his head too full and sore to think about them any longer. Things would be better in the morning. They had to be.
Alenko bunched up his rucksack on the floor, laid his head down on it, and tried to sleep.