Chapter 7, published 12.02.12, last updated 6.1.13. Details appended to chapter text.


The Battery door whizzed open. Garrus looked over his shoulder, surprised.

"Shepard?"

The commander nodded, scanning the room, then strode over to the rail and reached behind it.

"Ah," he said, comprehending, as she came up with a tiny device in her hand.

"Find the rest of 'em," she ordered, and put two fingers to her ear. "Lawson. I need to see you in the Battery, now."

Garrus ran his talons along the seam of ceiling and wall. "What are you going to do?"

"Stop it," Shepard said tersely, prising up a corner of the floor.

A break in the ceiling's surface. "Think I...yeah," he said, twisting it free of the cabling. "Looks like an extranet protocol cam."

Metal screeched on metal as the plate ripped free.

"Shepard, what are you doing?" Miranda's voice drifted in through the door.

The commander stood, leaving the plating where it lay. "Give me that."

He tossed it across. Shepard closed her fingers over the bugs and strode out, doors shutting behind her.

Not that he couldn't hear the whole thing, anyway.

"Mordin found surveillance bugs in his lab," the commander said. "I just checked the Battery and found more. I want an explanation, Lawson, and it'd better be a damn good one."

A pause.

"The Illusive Man invested heavily in the Lazarus Project, Commander. He has a right to monitor our progress."

"Twice daily reports not cutting it?"

"Shepard—"

"Listen to me, Lawson. You want me to trust Cerberus, but every time I look I'm seeing another reason not to. You want me to trust Cerberus, but trust's gotta go both ways. I've got EDI copiloting the ship, a Cerberus XO I didn't appoint, and the Illusive Man playing gatekeeper for every dossier and crap piece of intel that comes my way. That's enough. Bugging the rooms where my crew sleeps and works is where I draw the line. Understood?"

"I—"

"Understood?"

"...Yes, ma'am."

"I want all of these removed and deactivated, today. EDI's surveillance functions included. Vid-feed's fine in common areas. No audio anywhere."

"It's—your decision, of course, Commander. It would be a courtesy to speak with the Illusive Man about your concerns personally. You can settle on a course of action together."

"I'll pay him the courtesy of not chucking these out an airlock," Shepard said shortly. "I know they must've cost something." A rustle. "Take 'em. And when you report, think about this. As commanding officer of the Normandy, it's my prerogative to decide the rights my crew has and the liberties they're allowed. Your boss can be my backer or a headliner on Galaxy's Most Powerful or God in his own damn mind, I don't need his permission to run this ship the way I see fit. And if he's got a problem with that he can bring it to me. I'll gladly shove it up his ass."

Shepard walked back in, hands empty, and Miranda's steps moved off a moment later.

"We clean?" she said curtly.

"Yeah." He nodded to the hardware sitting on his crate. "Found two more. They've been decommissioned."

"I appreciate it." She hooked her thumbs into her pockets and looked around. "EDI?"

"Gunnery Officer Vakarian has located all secondary surveillance devices in the Battery," the AI replied. "Per your request, I have also disabled my closed circuit feeds in this room."

She bent to examine the aperture where he'd found the last device. "Tell Lawson I want a report on my desk once she's pulled the bugs. Full disclosure, got it? Where your cameras are, what's considered a public area, and who has access to the feeds."

"Sending message now."

"And EDI." She straightened. "I don't need to explain that if Cerberus pulls a stunt like this again, I walk."

"Understood, Commander. Logging you out."

The intercom shut off, but Shepard didn't move. Her shoulders were crisp against the grey of the Battery, posture brittle and too tense.

Just like the last time.

Shepard braced herself on the rail, looking down at the comm controls. She hadn't spoken a word since leaving Citadel Tower. Now, she had to tell them they'd failed. Noveria, Virmire, all of it, for nothing. Williams, standing with arms crossed by the Comm Room door, exchanged a look with him.

She activated the comm and leaned over it.

"This is Commander Shepard. The Council has denied our request for reinforcements, and the Normandy has been grounded."

The news had been a blow to all of them, and it had hit Shepard the hardest. Her ship; her mission; her responsibility; her failure. They knew she saw it that way. Even her officers had avoided her. But Anderson had made contact a few hours in, and the problem had solved itself.

They wouldn't be so lucky this time. Cerberus was the problem here, and Cerberus was the one thing she couldn't walk away from. That was bad enough; but everyone she knew was tangled in it, too. Chakwas and Joker had joined Cerberus of their own will. He and Shepard had woken up in Cerberus facilities, precluded from even making a choice.

Frankly, he could live with that. Looking at the commander's biometrics, he wasn't sure she could. His armor scraped as he settled against his console to wait, and she turned abruptly to face him.

"Sorry about that, Vakarian."

"It's all right." He chose his words, watching her for cues. Hard lines had etched deep around her mouth, and her tone was deliberately casual. "Anything the Illusive Man saw, everyone already knew. I code all day. Sometimes I sleep."

"C'mon." A muscle jumped in her jaw when she smiled. "You telling me you don't have a couple porn subscriptions or dates with a phone sex goddess now and then?"

"Sure. But the porn downloads directly to my visor, and I only cyber in text chat. To a surveillance cam, it just looks like I'm doing my job."

Her laugh was clipped. "Sounds like you're experienced at dodging responsibility."

"Work in law enforcement long enough, you pick up a few things," he said, watching as she lifted a miniature transmitter from his crate. "Bad eating habits. Banned erotic vids 'misfiled' by Evidence. The occasional criminal."

Shepard shook her head. "Glad my taxes paid your salary." She fell silent, weighing it in the palm of her hand.

"You planning on pawning that?" he inquired, when it was clear she wasn't going to speak.

"Dunno. What's the going rate?"

"For the voltage and make, I'd say about seven hundred credits. Not a bad return, if you're willing to find a buyer."

"That 'return''ll buy me about one percent of a decent rifle mod."

"Well, when you put it like that."

She dropped it in her pocket, then pulled it out and studied it. "You ever get interference?"

"Not that I noticed. Then again, I didn't know we were under surveillance. Why, you?"

"Nope." She scowled, following that thought where it led, then shook herself out of it and raised her eyebrows at him. "Wanna see some mystical powers?"

He didn't comment on the change of subject. "Only if they're real. I see a mass effect field anywhere, I'm filing a complaint with your booking company."

"They're real." She transferred the bug to the other hand, then showed him both sides of her receiving hand, fingers spread. It was nowhere in sight. "Couldn't do that with biotics even if I had an implant."

His mandibles twitched in amusement. "Sorry, Shepard, but I think that was a sleight."

"Parlor trick." She passed her hand over her open palm, and the transmitter reappeared. "Only people I can fool're usually drunk off their asses."

"I'm not drunk yet, and you're better than some I've seen. There was a salarian illusionist on the Citadel a few years back who got laughed out of Zakera Theater."

"That's just physiology. Can't do coin tricks with three digits." She took the transmitter between her thumb and forefinger, rolled it, and turned her hand palm up. It was gone.

"All right, I don't see how you did that," he admitted. "But then I'm not a closet magician like you."

"Nah, I'm a warlock. Higher base attack bonus."

"I don't know where you get this crap from, Shepard."

She shrugged. "Copy of the D&D 13.5 Handbook in the head."

"No, I mean I don't—" he stopped. This talk was making less sense than usual, and Shepard was too distracted to throw him a line the way she normally did when he didn't follow. Back in C-Sec, he'd been given a manual on human conversation patterns. That knowledge had helped him comprehend human colleagues in the early days, when he'd still expected things to compute. It's relevant, he told himself. You just can't see how. "What's D&D?"

"Classic RPG back on Earth. Think it was invented about a century ago."

It took a second for the acronym to register. When he remembered what it meant, it didn't help. "There's a handbook on hundred year old rocket-propelled grenades in the women's bathroom?"

"Rocket-propelled...the fuck? No!"

They stared at each other.

"What are you talking about, Shepard?" he demanded.

"What are you talking about?"

"The D&D 13.5? The...RPG. What does that have to do with magicians?"

"They're some kind of class. I dunno what—ah." Her expression cleared. "RPG like roleplaying game, Vakarian. Not RPG like rocket launcher."

"It stands for both?"

"Yeah."

"Too many acronyms," he grumbled. "If we ever find a magician, I'm telling him to vanish them from the human lexicon."

"We ever find a magician, I get to use him first. I'd pay a lot of money for a guy to vanish Cerberus." There was an edge in her voice half-hidden by the joke.

"Sorry." He cocked his head to the side. "Should've kept me in the dark about your lack of magical aptitude. Now you're just a con artist."

She snorted as the device reappeared in her palm. "Somethin' wrong with 'Marine who knows coin tricks'?"

"Come on, Shepard. You can't fit that on a business card."

"I don't have a business card."

"Yeah, because your captions are terrible. What's your CV banner say? 'Alliance officer, likes guns?'"

"Actually it says 'humanity's last hope and good at just about everything.' Why, what's yours say? 'Garrus Vakarian, master of the universe, closet stripper'?"

"I'll have you know there's some who'd pay a lot of money to see me strip."

"Yeah, that's 'cause they're planning to blackmail ya with the footage." She vanished the transmitter. "Bet you're a good con artist, yourself. You've got misdirection down."

"Meaning?" he drawled.

"For about half a sec I thought you were capable of feeling, 'stead of a walking talking robot. Glad I was wrong."

He chuckled. "Just keeping you on your toes."

"My toes have nothin' to do with it." She raised her eyebrows. "Last act, Vakarian. You ready?"

"I'm ready. Make it good."

She showed him both sides of her hand, then closed her fingers over her palm. "Magic word."

"Con artist," he said in turian.

Shepard shook her head and reopened her fingers, revealing the transmitter.

"Wow."

"I know, real theatrical."

She swept the hardware into her pocket and settled onto his crate. Her thumb tapped against her knee.

Garrus watched her hand. Restless fidgeting, avoiding eye contact, iterative motions like coin tricks under a pretense of exaggerated normalcy. Back in C-Sec, he'd have flagged her for suspicious behavior.

"So, sleight of hand." He crossed his arms.

Shepard glanced up. "Yeah."

"Where'd a respectable woman like you learn that?"

She scoffed. "And by 'respectable' y'mean what? I load my gun with my pinky finger out?"

"Something like that. You know, alerting me before you queer my shot. Offering terms when you know your opponent won't surrender."

Her mouth twitched. "Gotta observe the common courtesies, Vakarian."

"Oh, naturally. It's all that separates us from them."

"Them?"

"Cerberus. Reapers. The assholes we're about to put in the ground."

"Right." She linked her fingers and sat forward, knee bouncing.

He went to the hole she'd made in his floor and crouched, picking up a piece of plating. "So what was it, Commander? Baseball? Alliance?"

"Reds." Her heel drummed against the floor. "I played baseball in the Alliance. Pitched for the Marines."

He fitted the plate back into place. "Tell me about it. The, uh. Origin story of your so-called mystical powers."

Tap-tap-tap. "Reds did a lot've petty theft and vandalism when I still ran for 'em. MO was a two team play. One to do the job, one to run interference. Keep cops and civilians lookin' the wrong way."

"By doing what?"

"Tripping an alarm. Breaking a window. Loitering really fucking obviously outside the storefront." She stopped, mind clearly elsewhere. "I was always distraction, not point."

Garrus sat back on his heels to check that the seams were flush. "And that meant?" he prompted after a few seconds, turning to see her.

She looked over at him, thumbs tapping together. "Meant I took the blame if I didn't bug out fast enough. That, and I had a lot've time to learn stupid shit."

"There's always time to learn stupid shit," he commented. "Take your helmsman. He's subscribed to about fifty different vid-series, and he still manages to fly the ship."

"Joker gets to sit on his ass all day 'cause if he stands up too fast, his bones break." She shifted. "Any Alliance officer who earns his stripes in PT's got less time to spare than a vorcha in breeding season."

"And PT's...physical training."

"Yeah."

"So—"

"So Moreau's a great pilot, but he had an edge his classmates didn't. He won't admit it, but he knows it. It's one of the reasons he has to be the best."

"He overcompensates." He held up his hands when she scowled at him. "I remember, Shepard. No making fun of the incurable diseases. Just proving a point."

She shook her head, not answering. Shepard, damn good officer but an incurable idealist. Hard decisions and hard judgments were part of a military career, and she'd made them in her time, just as he had. That she wouldn't look it in the eye and admit the necessity of doing so was her call.

He stood, dusting off his hands. "So you had time to kill, once. I guess the Alliance changed that."

"Alliance changed a lot of things. ICT most of all." She stared at the wall, brow creased. "New family. New rules."

"New baggage?"

"That too." The commander looked at him over the steeple of her fingers, then shook her head. "Cops. You profile me yet, Vakarian?"

"Awhile ago, yeah."

"Join the club."

"Just a habit, Shepard. You know I don't mean anything by it."

Her eyes were fixed on the far wall. "And what's your habit tellin' ya?"

Garrus considered. "Under duress."

The commander nodded and fell silent. He waited, counting heartbeats. One, fifteen, twenty-one. Her fingertips tapped slowly against each other, keeping their own time.

"Think I may've been too hard on Miranda," she said at last.

He thought about that. Political blowback had been a constant threat in C-Sec, whose prominence in the public eye and mandate to keep the peace spawned hundreds of civilian complaints per day. It was one of the reasons he'd been content to stand back and let Shepard take point two years ago. As a liaison without commission on the Normandy, he hadn't been responsible for mitigating fallout when they did crap like detonate a nuke on a habitable world or loose a rachni queen.

"I've heard worse," he said mildly. "As commanding officers go, your hand's pretty light. Besides…" he shrugged. "It's your ship, Shepard. Cerberus needs to know they can't jerk you around."

"You're saying to find a balance," she said flatly. "I feel like I'm walkin' through a minefield, chucking grenades all over the place."

"A small minefield, maybe. But it's simpler than you're allowing it to be." He leaned against his console. "Lawson's not an idiot, and she's not made of glass. You censured the Illusive Man, not her. She followed his orders, and now that you've made your position clear, she'll follow yours." He crossed his arms. "I wouldn't ask her for anything beyond the call of duty, but she'll respect your authority without undermining it. Besides, she's fair. She'll like you if you get the job done, Shepard. And you always do."

"...All right." She pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, closing her eyes.

Garrus studied her. In the entirety of his time on the SR1, Shepard had never voiced uncertainty. Then again, things had been a lot more black and white then. Alliance was good. Reapers were bad. Politicians were assholes but understandably so.

"You did the right thing," he pointed out. "This is a new crew. You need to set down ground rules."

"I know." She glanced up at him, and her mouth jerked up at the corner. "I was just thinkin', 'shove it up his ass' was prob'ly overkill."

"Definitely," he agreed. "It was still a nice touch."

She rolled her eyes. "Course you'd think so."

"What does that mean?" he drawled.

"Look, Garrus, you're kind of a dick."

He shrugged. "Sometimes."

"All the time."

"When it counts. Anyway, you like it."

"That so."

"I'm always first in on a mission. I know a favorite when I see one."

Shepard raised her eyebrows, but a tiny smile had appeared. "You ever think I bring you along for your good eye?"

"It's crossed my mind," he admitted. "But I prefer to believe you don't just use men for their bodies, Commander."

"Actually, if I haven't used a guy for his body by breakfast, I'm not doin' my job right."

"Is that so. Who was the lucky victim today? Or—" he checked the time on his visor. "Zero eight hundred. Had breakfast yet, Shepard? Or is there, uh, something you wanted to ask me?"

She snorted. "We all have our delusions."

"That's what you humans call them?"

"The hell else could you call 'em?"

"On a good day, propositions. On a bad day…" He shrugged. "I've never had one."

She shook her head, pushing to her feet. "All right, I'm gonna head out." Her mouth twisted. "Find somethin' to do."

"Anyone need saving?" he inquired. "You know I'm always up for some target practice."

"Nah. More like empty my inbox. Clean my gun. Chuck shit into the fishtank, see if it floats. Thanks for the help, Vakarian."

He checked her vitals again. "Any time."

"Talk to you later." She walked out, hands in her pockets.

Trust Cerberus to screw with Shepard's head when she needed it clear for the mission. Garrus turned to his console and opened his email client.

One thing he knew was that kicking around the ship would make things worse. For a woman who slept everywhere and who, he admitted privately, was rock steady with a sniper rifle when she wanted to be, Shepard was restless. Combat had always been the best antidote to that, but upgrading her team's kit was a close second. Guns, mods, and gear were the only things he'd ever seen her drop credits on, the way species-targeted ads were forever telling humans to splurge on faceted gemstones. Whatever they were called.

The hard ones made out of pressurized superheated dead crap.

Garrus scanned for an address, still groping for the name of those fucking rocks. Turians didn't give a damn about gems, so it'd been yet another thing he'd had to research upon leaving Palaven. One of his first cases had involved recovering a stolen one.

Carbon. Covalent bonds. Crystal lattice. 2800 B Umi Street, Kenzo District.

"Diamonds," he muttered. He shut down his equipment and strode out of the Battery. "Shepard," he said, opening a channel. "You there?"

"Yeah?" Her voice went live over his communicator, doubled in real time across the Crew Deck. He looked for the source, walking down the hall.

"Where are you?"

"Waitin' for the elevator, where the fuck else," she said as he rounded the corner, and looked over her shoulder. "Hey."

"Hey. You ever find those FBA couplings the engineers wanted?"

Shepard shook her head. "I poked around the lower markets on Omega, but I didn't see 'em."

"Maybe you weren't looking in the right place."

"Maybe," she admitted. "I didn't spend the last two years squatting in that shithole. Unlike you."

"Glad you asked nicely," he drawled, stepping into the elevator with her. "We're in the system anyway, Commander. Let's go have another look."

She glanced sidelong at him, lifting an eyebrow. "You tryin' to take care of me, Vakarian?"

"No. If the suicide sprints are going to be a regular addition to my day, I want better kinetic barriers covering my ass." He reached around her and hit the button for the CIC. "I'm just bringing you along for the ride."


12.03 Rewrote ALL Garrus introspection. Added more banter. Rewrote a number of Shepard and Garrus's spoken lines for voice and flow. Tightened up syntax and cut unnecessary clauses. || 12.23 Reworked a couple of Shepard's lines near chapter end for voice. || 12.31 Tweaked diction throughout for voice. Tightened up syntax throughout for style. || 1.02 Minor diction edits for style. || 1.30 Cut superfluous clauses. || 2.02 Added dialogue to opening scene. || 5.07 Rewrote opening scene with an eye to character dialogue and narrative flow. Fixed two naming conventions. || 5.09 Cut clauses for voice. Replaced a comma with a question mark, because it's GRAMMATICAL. || 6.1 Replaced "doors" with "door" for consistency. Cut a clause for style. Tweaked diction, cut articles, and cut clauses in Shepard's early lines and some prose lines for voice.