As soon as the elevator lurched into motion, Max spoke up.

"You have to do something about the Shadow Broker, Morris. If you put it off for too long he'll get suspicious."

"Yeah, I know. There are just so many things to consider. I can't rush into this decision."

"Whatever it is, you haven't got much time left. This time tomorrow at the latest."

"Alright, I get it. I'll come up with something."

"See that you do."

"Christ, who shoved a stick up your ass, Max? The hell's your problem?"

A pause.

"What are we even doing here? What's the point of all this? At first I thought it was about selling the ship's technology or something, but that's obviously not the reason. We're wasting our time. There are so many other things you could be doing rather than chase a rogue spectre around the galaxy."

Despite my frustration with him, Max had brought up a good point. Why was I here? Surely if Shepard could make it on her own in the game, she would do fine here as well, with or without my help. Would it be a better idea to stop meddling?

I dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. Even if it was true, it was too late to back out now.

"Max. I know what I'm doing. Just stick it out. I get the feeling that this is a lot more important than it seems."

Max huffed. "You know something I don't."

I shifted my weight onto the wall and rubbed my temples, silently hoping the elevator would go faster so I had an excuse not to answer the veiled question. As if on cue, the elevator ground to a halt. Almost tripping over myself in haste, I got out of the elevator.

Max was unimpressed. "You can't run from the voice in your head."

"Watch me."

I picked my way past several crewmen heading for the elevator and arrived at the mess. As I was about to turn the corner, I heard a sudden belt of raucous laughter.

"What?" Shepard laughed, leaning back in her chair.

Across from her sat Kaidan, who was trying and failing to keep a straight face. Garrus sat between the two biotics, burying his face in his large talons. I raised an eyebrow at the group, silently questioning.

Shepard looked at me and pointed at Garrus, face flushed with laughter. It seemed that she was about to say something, but failed when she fell into a peal of giggling. Instead, I turned to Alenko, who seemed far more in control.

"Care to explain what's going on?" I said, motioning to the table and the incapacitated Commander.

Alenko grinned. "Our resident turian here just told us about his latest… ah… conquest."

I sat down next to Garrus and swiveled the chair to face him. "Oh? I have to hear this." All right, Mr. Reach and Flexibility, let's hear the details.

Shepard seemed to have calmed down, crossing her legs. "Come on Garrus, tell Morris what you told us."

Garrus groaned and hit his head against the table. "If I knew you'd act like this I wouldn't have said anything."

"Come on, Garrus," I coaxed. "It can't be that bad. I mean, you got laid, right? Nothing to be ashamed of."

Garrus sat up a little, mandibles tight against his face. "Why can't you bother Alenko? Or Morris?"

"Simple. 'Cause teasing you is more fun." She looked up at Kaidan with a smirk. "Although…you have been quite silent on the subject, Alenko. You have something to share?"

Kaidan squirmed under her gaze, and Garrus sat up, clearly relieved that he was no longer the subject of the conversation.

"Well… I…."

"What about Rahna? You two ever…"

"What? Of course not!" Kaidan spluttered. "We were friends. Good friends."

I chuckled. "Let's talk about something else. It's clear that this line of conversation is going nowhere."

Shepard sipped at her drink, peering at me over the rim. I shook my head and fixed her with a glare.

"Don't even go there, Shepard."

She set down her mug with an exaggerated sigh. "You guys are no fun."

Remembering why I had come up here in the first place, I turned to Garrus and took out his Karpov, sliding it across the table.

"There. Ashley and I fixed it for you and freshened it up a little. A couple of the mods were outdated, so I took 'em out. Should work good as new, though."

Garrus picked up the gun carefully, as if the slightest sudden move it would cause it to explode. "Damn," he said with a flick of his mandibles. "Ashley said she would clean it out but I didn't believe her." He examined the gun almost reverently.

Suddenly, Kaidan grunted and ground his palms on his temples. Concerned, the three of us looked over at him.

"You should go see Chakwas, Kaidan. Get something for your migraine," Shepard offered.

Kaidan shook his head. "I'll be fine. I'll just sleep it off. Nice talking to you all," he said, standing up. He threw a final smirk at Garrus before leaving.

After Alenko left, Garrus unholstered his Razer and replaced it with the Karpov. As the gun compacted, he tossed his previous pistol over to me. I fumbled it for a moment before dropping it, eliciting another laugh from Shepard. I quickly scooped the gun off of the floor and placed it on the table as Garrus headed for the elevator.

Shepard and I sat in silence for a while as she drank her coffee and I tinkered with the weapon. The ammo block was barely used, and showed no signs of rust or corrosion. The emergency vent was properly cleared, and the small canister of compressed gas was airtight. I would have to swap out the handle for one designed for fingers rather than talons, but other than that the gun had been maintained exceptionally well. With a grunt of approval, I put the gun in a thigh pocket (seriously, why did Alliance uniforms have so many?) and looked up to see that Shepard was eyeing me with what could only be described as curiosity.

I raised a brow at her. "What, is there something on my face?"

She sat up a little. "It's nothing. Just never took you as the type of guy who was good with guns."

I leaned back, shrugging. "What can I say? Everyone's got a hobby. Back on the station, I would tinker with 'em whenever I had down time. Kept my mind off the situation I was in."

Shepard frowned. "Garrus told me about that. I still find it a little hard to believe."

Shit. "Why?"

She shook her head. "It's nothing… I just imagined the Alliance was better than that. But I suppose even idealists like me have to look at the facts every once in a while."

"You've talked to Kaidan, right? About brain camp and that thing with the turian instructor?"

She did that thing where she moved as if to brush her hair behind her ear, only to stop once she realized she had it in a bun. One of her tells. She worked the sudden movement into a neck scratch. "How do you know about that?"

I chuckled. "One of these days you'll learn to stop asking me that question. Anyway, you know what the turian bastard did to those kids. Some of them died, Shepard. And that was all above-board, approved by the Alliance. What they did on the station – most of that was off the record. The Alliance kept pressing them for results, and they couldn't keep up, so they took it out on the kids. On me." Shit, I thought. I might've just recited Jack's entire backstory.

Shepard nodded, but she clearly wasn't quite satisfied. She furrowed her brow for a moment, as if deliberating whether or not to ask a potentially hurtful question.

"Well go on, spit it out."

She swallowed, averting her eyes slightly. "I was wondering… I mean, slavers took the station, right? That was… about a week ago now. How are you … you just seem so calm, all things considered."

Better come up with something good, fast. "I uh… didn't really get to connect with the others, really. It was the same for all of us. We were kept separate, you know? We had classes together, but the supervisors encouraged this… really competitive atmosphere, and we all learned to hate each other. They wanted us to become attached to our handlers instead, and eventually, our AI constructs."

Shepard rarely let herself be surprised or caught off guard, but I saw a small twitch of her jaw that gave her away.

"AI?"

"Yeah. A pipe dream, really, but it was why they were doing all that research. I never got a definitive look, but I think they were studying geth and their ability to network, and see if they could do the same with VI's instead of simple programs to create some sort of artificial intelligence. I'm not sure how far they got with it, though."

"Shit," she said, shaking her head. Suddenly, she leaned forward, tense. "Did the slavers get any of that data?"

"Uh, no. They weren't geniuses; they were only there for a slave run. The scientists scrubbed the servers. They couldn't salvage anything. I doubt the Alliance'll be able to either." As Shepard looked to be about to ask another question, I came up with an idea. Drawing my face into a grimace, I leaned over the table. "Damn batarians," I muttered.

Whatever Shepard was going to say died in her throat, followed by an almost imperceptible pause. I felt a little guilty for exploiting her experiences on Mindoir, but at least I had derailed the conversation. I didn't quite trust my ability to make up a coherent story on the fly. Eventually, I figured, I would have to sit down and sort it all out once and for all.

The moment passed, and Shepard spoke up again. "I still can't…you know, deal with batarians. I know its wrong to generalize, and the majority of them aren't slavers, but it's more of a subconscious thing, you know?"

"What's this? The first human Spectre, paragon of inter-species cooperation, is a closet racist?" I teased.

"Bite me," she snapped good-naturedly, before looking back down at her empty mug with a sigh.

"Hey," I said, getting her to look back up. "You all right?"

"Yeah," she said with a dismissive wave, her flippant manner only slightly forced. "I've had years to get over that mess." She turned her gaze to me, the obvious question unvoiced but heavily implied.

"Don't look at me like that, I'm not a sociopath. As I said, no one on that station gave a shit about me as a person. My peers shunned me, my handler treated me as a tool to be used, and the project managers thought I was an experiment. God, that slave raid was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me."

The words were out of my mouth before my brain could catch up, and I froze, hoping that they didn't come off as facetious. Shepard, however, didn't seem fazed in the slightest.

"But why would the Alliance assign you so quickly?"

I frowned. "I'm not sure. If I had to guess, I'd say it was because I was already done training and my psych eval was solid. They had nowhere to put me, so they figured they might as well imbed me in a ship."

Shepard nodded.

"Look, Shepard… would you mind not reporting the stuff I've told you to brass? I don't know how many of the higher-ups in the Alliance were in league with the directors of the project, but if word gets out that the station was rogue, you can bet they'll look for leaks, and it'll be my head on the chopping block."

"Are you that distrustful of the Alliance?"

"Let's just say that after the last few years, I'm not very well-disposed to liking them."

Thankfully, she seemed to understand. "Alright. I won't say anything in my report."

"Thank you, Shepard," I said, genuinely grateful. I stood to leave.

She touched my wrist as I passed her, causing me to look back around.

"If you need anything…I'm here."

I smiled. "Thanks for the offer. Don't stretch yourself too thin, Commander."

"Noted. Now rest up, we hit Feros in a couple days and I want you on overwatch again."

With a final nod, I turned the corner and headed for the elevator.


Shepard sat with her empty mug in hand, staring at nothing in particular. As much as it went against everything that had been ingrained in her since she signed up at 18, she had to admit that the Alliance certainly wasn't the benevolent organization she had pictured when she enlisted. And if what Morris said was true, than it might have been even worse than she thought.

Opening her omnitool, she started to read the messages she had missed while she was under. The only one that caught her eye, however, was a reply from Enigma for her earlier inquiry. She skimmed it over and was about to tap out a reply when she stopped herself. She had been eager to find out more about Morris at first, but now that she knew him a little better, a bit of guilt had seeped in. Even if he weren't telling the complete truth, there was no indication that he wished harm on any of the crew. To top it all off, she wasn't even sure if she could get that many credits. She certainly didn't have it, and the Council wasn't going to give it to her without good reason. At any rate, she doubted they'd be willing to let her pay a potentially criminal information broker for ultimately non-vital information. She wrote out a reply, hesitating for a moment on the wording. Satisfied, she sent the message off and sat there for a moment, simply listening to the low hum of the engines and the light snoring of the crew beneath her. Then, she stood up and headed for her quarters, leaving the mess quiet and empty.


A/N: I really should stop writing so many of these notes.

At any rate, sorry for the long wait for a short chapter. Turns out the one week of school I miss for Cancun is the one week all of my courses have projects assigned. Of course. I had to spend a long time catching up, only to have more piled on recently. So updates will be slow, I'm aiming for one every two weeks at bare minimum, but ideally once a week.

Feros in one or two chapters! Finally getting into the meat of all this.

One more thing - I have a couple ideas floating in my head for how to proceed, some immediate, some far in the future. I'd like someone to bounce these ideas around with. As long as you don't mind me spoiling everything about everything in this fic and what is to come. PM me if interested. DO NOT PUT IT IN A REVIEW. Ideally come with some ideas of your own, and we'll talk it through. Not a requirement though. If you have any, put the ideas in the first PM you send me. Offer expires when next chapter is posted. (Sounds like a late-night infomercial)

Have a great day!