Shepard glanced around the office, irritation threatening to sweep her away as she listened to Miranda. She'd gone there hoping for some explanation about her biotics after the events in Haestrom, her bruised hand a painful reminder that something was amiss.
"Look, Shepard. We had no choice but to replace your amp and your implant when we were rebuilding you. You don't honestly think we could reuse the old ones after what they were subjected to, do you?" Miranda asked, leaning back in her chair.
"Replacing them isn't the issue—it's what you replaced them with," Shepard said, taking a deep breath. "How do I know you haven't replaced them with something dangerous?"
"You don't," Miranda said flatly. "But it's hardly likely that we'd do anything that would affect your ability to do your job. That's the whole reason we brought you back."
Back from the dead. She owed them her life, and that knowledge felt like a noose around her neck. "You brought me back for your own reasons. It had nothing to do with me," Shepard muttered, picking at the Cerberus logo on her top.
"Shepard, like it or not, everything you've done has furthered our agenda. Everything Cerberus, and you, have done is for the good of the human race, and you can't deny that. We have a common goal—stopping the Reapers."
"So why won't you show me the schematics? You won't show me what you've done to me?" Shepard said, her fists clenched as she leant towards Miranda.
Miranda stared at her for a moment, considering her carefully. She opened her mouth as if to say something then looked away, staring at her screen. "And why the hell should we do that? You've made no secret of how you feel about Cerberus, and until you trust us, I'm damn well not trusting you. You do your job, and I'll do mine."
"So that's it? I'm supposed to shut up and get on with it? This is exactly what I expected from Cerberus, and from you," Shepard snapped, getting to her feet.
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"What does it matter? You do your job and I'll do mine."
Shepard headed straight for the shuttle bay, her biotics charging before she'd even got in the door. Power surged through every nerve, and Shepard threw herself at the nearest stack of boxes, obliterating the first one with her initial charge.
There was a time when her powers had been finely tuned. She had known the limits of what she could do and how far she could go. Now even that had been taken away from her, leaving her with uncertainty and the fear that she had become what she hated.
A puppet of Cerberus, theirs for the bidding.
She lifted another box and threw it across the room, staring down at her hands as the thought struck her.
The implant itself was embedded in her brain. That left the amp connected to it, a hard nodule sitting at the base of her skull. It was easy enough to find.
Shepard took the pen knife from her pocket, used her left hand to locate the small socket, and closed her eyes as she dug the knife tip into her own flesh.
There was a pulling sensation. A buzz in her brain. Then the amp come away.
The difference was immediate. Her power surged through her fingertips unchecked, leaving her lightheaded as she got carefully to her feet and examined the bloody clump of metal. The Cerberus logo was clearly recognizable beneath the gore.
She'd only tried this once, back at the Academy, and that was with supervision. If she could master this now then perhaps she wasn't entirely their creature.
Shepard closed her eyes and felt the power jump up behind her eyelids, purple sparks creeping into the edge of her vision. Without another thought she opened her eyes and jumped, throwing herself across the room at the last stack of boxes.
The noise rang hollow through the air, and Thane immediately identified it as an impact.
There was a short silence then another boom, this one loud enough to shake the floor beneath his feet.
"EDI? Are we under attack?"
"No, Sere Krios. The source of the noise is Commander Shepard. She is still located in the shuttle bay."
Thane quickened his pace, reaching the door and pausing only to bring his barrier up. When the door slid open the scene that greeted him was one of complete devastation. Boxes and equipment lay strewn around the floor, and in the midst of it all stood a flickering purple figure.
She turned, and Thane had to catch his breath.
It was Shepard, ringed in a shifting halo of purple light that twisted out from around her in glittering tendrils. She walked with her arms outstretched, brilliant wings of energy holding her above the dullness of her surroundings.
"Thane…I can't…"
Her voice shimmered with pain, and Thane understood instantly. "EDI, get Garrus down here now," he ordered, walking towards Shepard with his hands outstretched. "Shepard, give me your hands."
She watched him with unseeing eyes, blood trickling from her nose, and he wondered if it had already gone too far.
"Shepard, move!" he ordered, and this time she responded. He closed the distance between them in seconds, reaching out to take her outstretched hands.
Their barriers touched, and the power surged through him, threatening to engulf him. He only had one chance.
He felt the pulse of her power beneath his fingertips, then the answering call of his own. There was a blue flash and Shepard jolted, her body crumpling forwards as the flickering aura of her wings started to collapse over them.
The light streamed downwards, and Thane felt the weight of her folding into his arms. Her biotics guttered out into nothing, leaving him blinking away the bright afterimage of her wings.
"Shepard?"
She groaned and twisted herself away from him, sinking to the floor with her head in her hands.
"Shepard? Spirits..." Garrus ran up, wrenching Thane away from her. He stared at them both, towering over the drell who simply stared back. "What the hell did you do to her?"
"Stop it," Shepard said thickly, looking up at them. Blood was streaming down her face, and her eyes were bloodshot, struggling to focus. "I did this. I took my amp out."
Garrus clicked his mandibles, evidently struggling to understand. "I think we need to get Miranda down here," he muttered, and the effect was instant.
"No," Shepard said, clambering slowly to her feet and wiping the blood ineffectually with the back of her hand. "If you bring Miranda down here, I can guarantee you things will get much worse. Don't you dare, Garrus."
"Perhaps Mordin would be better able to deal with this," Thane suggested, watching the two of them bristle at each other.
Shepard looked at him, swaying slightly on her feet. "Mordin. Okay."
Thane followed her into the elevator, stopping only to scoop up the small tangle of bloody wires from where she'd thrown it.
Nobody spoke as the elevator carried them upwards, and Thane couldn't help noticing the blood that was trickling slowly down the skin of her neck, soaking the back of her white vest.
His own hands bore red smears from the seemingly innocuous object that he carried – the object she had ripped out of her own flesh.
Mordin looked up in confusion as the three of them entered but reacted at speed, drawn by the sight of the stumbling and bloody Shepard.
"Shepard? Here, sit down."
He pulled out a chair and examined her quickly before turning his attention to the object in Thane's hands.
"Ah, removed amp manually. Very dangerous. Can cause brain damage, even death," Mordin said, lifting Shepard's sodden hair to find the source of the bleeding. He examined it for a second then went to fetch a scanner that he started to wave over her head, muttering under his breath at the display.
"Look, Mordin, could you look at it for me? I'd like to know more about it, if possible," Shepard asked blearily, shutting her eyes and slumping forwards in the chair.
"Scans likely to show very little. Would need specialized scanning equipment to check programming. Test parameters. Normandy does not have required equipment. Without it, nothing," Mordin said, turning away to hook the scanner up to his computer. "No long term damage. Should be able to repair what damage you have done."
"Nothing," Shepard repeated. "Damn it."
"There is another way," Thane said, and everyone turned to look at him.
"And what's that?" Garrus asked, standing beside Shepard with his arms crossed.
"During my training I performed a number of tests that explored the limits of my capabilities. It would be easy to replicate them here," Thane explained, watching Shepard as she lifted her head slowly and tried to focus on him. "The amount of power granted by your implant varies greatly from individual to individual. I was taught how to harness that power, but first you have to unleash it, to find the limits of your strength and use it accordingly."
"What would these tests involve?" Shepard asked as Mordin shoved a needle into her arm. She didn't seem to notice.
"The tests vary in difficulty, from lifting boxes to creating large force fields, though I would understand if you wished to leave out the more advanced tests. They would demonstrate exactly what you are capable of."
"Suggest leaving tests for at least four days, given the damage you've sustained. Will look into methods of examining implants. Could always use more test equipment," Mordin said. "Will reattach this for you."
"Thanks," Shepard whispered. "And thank you, Thane. I'd like to do these tests. Oh, you came to see me. Was there something you needed?"
"Yes, Miss Chambers said you wished to speak with me."
She frowned then looked intently at him. "Of course, I wanted to know if there was anything you needed. Ammo, medicines…."
Even bloodied and broken she still showed concern and compassion for her crew members. It made him feel uncomfortable.
"No, thank you, Shepard. If I have need of anything, I will be sure to ask."
"Ah yes, Keprals. Would be happy to talk anything over, if you have concerns," Mordin said, humming quietly to himself as he laid the amp out in a dish and checked the connections. "Have contacts in the Illuminated Primacy involved in the search for effective treatment, should you have any questions."
"I will bear that in mind. Thank you, Doctor," Thane responded smoothly, unwilling to say another word about his illness to a medical professional. He had heard enough on the subject, had dwelt with the knowledge of his impending death for years, and nothing could change the acceptance that he had reached. There would be no cure for him; all that was left was to atone for his sins. He looked back at Shepard, her head starting to sink forwards. "If that is all, Shepard."
She gave the tiniest of nods, her eyes rolling shut.
Thane left the room, his eyes still burning at the sight of her, winged and weightless as some legend of old.
Garrus waited until the door was shut before breaking, his panic getting the better of him. When he'd seen her crouched before the assassin, blood streaming down her face, he had been seized by the urge to kill the drell right there.
Now he was having to reassess the situation, and fast.
"Spirits, Shepard, what is going on with you?" Garrus snapped, unfazed by her pale face and closed eyes. He'd seen her much worse and still picked a fight.
"I don't know. I thought…I thought if I could just… Garrus, what am I doing? If Thane hadn't stopped me..."
He looked at her, battered and bruised. She was lost, and he hadn't even realised.
"This is all about Cerberus isn't it?" Garrus said softly, crouching down next to her. "Whatever they've done to you, Shepard, I know you can still do this. And once we've beaten the Collectors, we take the Normandy and go back to the Alliance. Show them we were right after all."
"I wouldn't say that here," Shepard muttered.
Garrus glanced up at Mordin who was working on the back of Shepard's neck, his hands moving with surprising delicacy. "Have no allegiance to Cerberus," Mordin responded. "Only Shepard."
"I don't mean Mordin. They've got surveillance bugs everywhere, I've been trying to find them all and get rid of them," Shepard whispered, wincing as Mordin clicked the amp back into place. "Fast as I get rid of them they get replaced."
Things weren't going to be as simple as he thought. They never were.
"Then we discuss this off the ship. Where are we next?"
"Omega. Got some engine parts to pick up on the way to Illium."
"Ah, there could be a problem."
"No shit, Archangel."
Beneath the blood Shepard managed a smile, her hand reaching out for his. "We get through this and we'll work the rest out later, okay? Just…don't go anywhere."
"Hell, Shepard, it's not like I've got anywhere else to go. May as well stay here and keep you out of trouble."
"Thanks. You can get right to that as soon as we leave Omega."
Garrus squeezed her hand, looking at the bruised knuckles and the smooth skin that used to be decorated with battle scars. That was until Cerberus had rebuilt her.
"New and improved, huh?" he asked, looking up at Shepard. Her eyes were closed, and he could tell from her breathing that she'd fallen asleep even as Mordin patched her ragged flesh back together.
He kept hold of her hand, and stayed.
