June 2176—Terra Nova Central Bank

"I'll kill him! You hear me? I'll do it. Stay back!" The suspect clutched a squirming volus to his chest as he backed towards the front doors.

Bank staff and customers stared agape at the scene, throwing inquiring looks Joe's way. He made calming gestures with his hands, urging everyone to stay where they were.

"It's over. Let the volus go and you might live to see a trial," Joe said, knowing that negotiations weren't his strong suit. He just needed a clear shot.

The suspect was now at the glass door where ten cruiser cars blocked his way and at least twenty officers had sights on him. Joe could already hear tac teams through his comm helmet as they got into position, surrounding the bank.

"This is Sergeant Denton, what's the situation like inside, officer?" The voice was not familiar to him. His helmet HUD reacted by displaying the Sergeants image, name and rank on-screen as it verified the voice on the other end. The green acknowledgement light lit up and the Sergent's entire service record scrolled down the screen. Not the most diligent of cops, letting two armed robbery suspects slip as well as tampering with evidence. Yet, he would take an incompetent cop over a corrupt one.

"This is Sergeant Rikshaw, badge #2532. I need the suspect alive. He's connected to an active classified investigation." Informants said the armed man was supposed to be Michael Moser Lang, the ski mask and sunglasses over his face made facial ID impossible. Voice analysis couldn't find a match to the database.

The Sergeant scoffed on the other end, not used to newly minted Sergeants giving him orders. But Joe didn't much care what he thought.

Michael froze, considering his limited options as he frantically glanced between Joe and the door. The volus had yet to say a word, only the steady hiss of the breather let him know the alien was still alive.

"You think I will bow down to the Alliance?" Michael yelled. A low chuckle escaped the mask as he mashed the gun barrel against the volus' spongy suit. One shot and it would all be over.

"Sorry we're late to the party, I have a clear shot, Joe. On your word," Lisa's voice crackled in his ear.

"Now just a damn minute—"

The Sergeant's voice was cut off and replaced by an aloof methodical one. "Situation's under control outside, we're ready if you need backup," Sergio announced. Knowing they had taken over the scene put Joe at ease, but he still had a nervous suspect a tremor away from pulling the trigger.

"Hold fast. I'm going to try and talk him down. Shoot him in his right shoulder if it doesn't work, volus is on the left."

Their acknowledgement lights winked in unison and Joe switched on his helmet's external speakers. "Michael, the people you work for are not PLA."

It seemed to work as Michael's pistol dipped. "What would a dog like you know about my cause?"

"I know you're angry—"

"Angry? Have you seen what they did to Beirut? There's nothing left!" Michael shouted, spitting onto the ground between them. "You dogs and your Alliance masters killed my people."

Joe had to bite down a careless response. The volus' life rested on every word, he couldn't let the loss of his homeland compromise the job. "If you die here, you won't be helping any of them."

"I don't plan to die. I intend to carry out my mission and deliver a crippling blow to this pathetic regime you call an Alliance," Michael rambled, squeezing the volus around the neck.

"You're surrounded." Joe stepped closer, keeping both his palms up. "The minute you hurt anyone, you're dead. I can promise you that, Akhii."

Michael's head cocked at the phrase in curiosity. "I am not your brother. You might speak our language but you're not one of us."

It was tempting to remove the helmet and continue the rest of this negotiation face-to-face in native Lebanese. But that was an unnecessary risk their negotiations instructor would have zapped them twice for even thinking of the option.

"We're investigating the eezo exposure accidents. You could help us make sense of what happened in Beirut." Joe's helmet read a decrease in heart rate as Michael seemed to calm down. "We can get justice for the lost."

The volus bounced on the ground, slipping from Michael's grasp. As soon as he was clear, Joe raised his Razer service pistol and activated comms. "Sergio, get the civilians out through the back door. I'm apprehending the suspect."

"Way ahead you."Joe heard the back door burst open as officers yelled for the witnesses to move out.

No one needed to be told twice as the entire room was vacated in minutes. Only the volus waddled slowly past, Joe.

"Thaaaaaaanks...shhhh..."

"Move," Joe commanded, waiting until the little guy was secure before moving towards Michael who only stared at the floor. Not moving an inch. "Drop your weapon."

The Karpov pistol that started this whole ordeal clambered onto the tiles. Michael didn't say a word, but Joe's HUD beeped at the change in core temperature. A scan of the suspect's body showed a heat originating from the brain.

"What's going on there? I'm reading a significant heat spike, Joe," Lisa said into his ear.

"Don't know. Stay focused. It could be—"

Blue biotic hues engulfed Michael. When he raised his head, white eyes met Joe's. "Take him out!" Joe ordered as he hurtled behind cover, blue energy kissed his shields, depleting them by fifty-percent. The officers who evacuated the civilians weren't so lucky as the warp struck and snapped their limbs.

Joe cut his channel before their cries could deafen him. Nothing in Michael's file mentioned biotics.

The windows shattered as Lisa fired two armor piercing plutonium tipped rounds. Both struck the invisible biotic barrier and clattered to the floor. "I'm swapping to warp ammo. His barriers will drop, but the kill shot is yours."

"Got it." Joe grimaced at the ineffectiveness of his weapon, locked between standard and incendiary rounds it would be useless until Lisa's intervention.

"I have asari and human vanguards standing by," Sergio added. "Say the word."

Joe dove behind a desk as his cover vaporized. "Negative. I'm not escalating this."

"But he is," Sergio stressed. He could read the impatience in his voice, but it wasn't enough to justify a heavy force like the vanguards.

"What's wrong, dog? Did your masters forget about you?" Michael taunted as he swept a hand across the right side of the room and warped the furniture into a singularity.

"You let the hostages go, that's a step up," Joe yelled over the carnage as Michael charged his biotics. "Come quietly and you will be guaranteed a trial."

Michael flung the sphere of energy his way and Joe was thrown from cover. A sharp table leg caught him in the stomach, draining the last bit of his shields.

"I will destroy everything you three-headed dogs stand for," Michael announced as he loomed over him. The sunglasses couldn't contain the light from where his eyes should have been. Joe was frozen in wonder, before bullets from officers near the front door distracted Michael.

Michael swung another fist into the air and the front door exploded, showering everyone outside with glass.

Two more shots came from the window, this time the bullets did more than impact the biotic barrier, they dissolved into it and broke down the dark matter. Joe yanked his pistol and fired two incendiary rounds right into Michael's chest before he could detonate a squad car.

The fire licked Michael's inner shields, creating a nice distraction as Joe took the chance and leapt from his position a good nine feet into the air. His omni-tool transformed into a military-grade nano-fibre blade, all ten inches of the energized sword plunged into Michael's neck. Cartilage, muscle and bone parted like cheese. Joe landed from the heavy strike and caught Michael's dying body.

As soon as he yanked the blade out, thick aortic blood pulsed from the wound. There was so much of it that Michael had his own pool in seconds. "You call yourself justice, asshole?" he asked weakly.

"I'm not justice," Joe replied, as he retracted the blade. "I'm the law."

Michael coughed blood as he laughed. He struggled for breath as his lungs continued to fail. "Airi bi immak ya ibn el sharmouta," he sputtered.

"Urqud bissalam," Joe replied, holding the body tightly even long after Michael bled to death.

Thirty minutes later, Joe stormed into the squad room and glared daggers at his assembled team. "Biotics. How did we miss that?"

Sergio cracked his knuckles and leaned back. "We've been grilling asses all day. No one knew."

Joe whipped to Lisa, who typed furiously at her console. "I'm going through all of Michael's communications with his supporters. There's nothing about biotic implants or red sand."

"Dig deeper into his childhood, those records exist. I don't care if we have to go to Beirut to see when he was exposed to eezo," Joe demanded, wrenching his helmet off and slamming it onto the table. They swallowed their questions as he stewed over the fact that they lost their only lead on the PLA's activities.

The door opened and Carter Lowe popped his head in, the new rank of Staff Sergeant on his armor flashed in the light. "Captain wants to see you, Joe."

"I have a case to dissimulate," Joe barked, "it can wait." He wasn't about to let one case ruin the squad's perfect record. The twenty-fourth precinct's major crimes unit hunted terrorists and neutralized them before they were a problem.

Carter cocked his head in amusement. "This is the Captain, your boss in-case you've forgotten. I'll give you five minutes to get yourself together. After that, you're officially a sore loser."

When Carter left, Joe regained his composure and made a bee-line for Montoya's office. He knew what she was going to say, nearly a decade of living under her roof gave him insight on that front and it wasn't pretty.

He pushed through Montoya's heavy oak double doors and into her mid-sized office overlooking New York. Carter and Klassen were discussing something with her but quickly stopped at his entrance.

It was rare to see Klassen around the precinct. Ever since his appointment to chief, he was off doing things nobody cared about. Everyone thought Montoya was crazy for passing the position over to Klassen, but she was just happy to be rid of the useless lackey.

"Joseph, how you been kiddo?" Klassen asked, feigning a jovial attitude.

Joe's response was to cross his arms and wait. He didn't have time for formality, people were dying. "You wanted to see me, Captain?"

"Right on time," Montoya greeted, as she turned to her party. "Please excuse us. It was nice seeing you, Chief."

"Yes of course." Klassen's pudgy fingers curled tightly around his cap.

Carter followed but stopped at Joe's shoulder. "I stand corrected. You're not the biggest loser here."

Joe suppressed a smirk. When they were gone he stepped up to his first failure. "I can ex—"

"Have you heard of a group called Cerberus?" Montoya asked, reclining in her chair as she thread her fingers together.

The name rang a bell, likely flagged in the hundreds of news reports overflowing his data-pad. "They were responsible for the eezo disaster on Yandoa. They also tried and failed to steal the SSV Geneva in 2156," he stated, scouring his brain to find a link. "Why?"

"I QA'd your audio logs," she said, eerily calm. The media was already out for blood in light of President Aguilar's assassination. Now his killer was lost to the afterlife, his motives forever unknown.

He knew he botched the negotiation. She didn't need to say it. "Capatin—"

"Horrible negotiation techniques notwithstanding, you struck gold." Montoya swiped her hand through air and pulled a holo screen of his transcribed standoff. "Your man mentioned a three headed dog."

Joseph frowned in confusion. That only elicited a tired grin from his adoptive mother. "It's a sad world where we train killing machines and forget to teach them greek mythology. Study it. You might learn something," she chided, before bringing forth Michael's autopsy.

Michael was barely recognizable on the metal slab. The pathologists did such a hack job that his body resembled a tied up piece of meat rather than a human being. Yet it was the medical examiner's report that had him shake his head. "No eezo nodules were found in his nervous system. That's not possible."

Montoya snorted. "I think you of all people had the truth literally slap you in the face." She tapped the report and scrolled to a rescinded news report. "This was the second time I've seen Cerberus in the news. The story was pulled 42 hours after it was published. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but the publisher, Constant Times, had changed ownership within that time frame."

A clipping of a business news paper, the text-heavy 'mainly for volus' edition lit up on her table. Joe grabbed the nearest data-pad and followed along with everything she dug up. "The news report claims that at the time of our president's assassination, Michael was wired credits to his account at Terra Nova Commonwealth bank. That account is now defunct. Both of these businesses are owned by CDR holdings, a Cerberus shell corporation which maintains shadow clearance to operate without oversight, just like other Alliance assets."

"So Cerberus strung him out to dry." The pieces started fusing together. "Then what was he doing there today?"

"That's what your team will have to figure out," Montoya answered. "They can't rule out a connection between Michael and Cerberus, no matter how small it is."

"I'll get on it." He started to walk away but her voice stopped him.

"Joseph, you know which cell Michael was operating under."

He cringed, not ready to have this conversation and hating every minute that it was referred to as a terrorist group. "He wanted revenge. Nothing more," Joe said, echoing Michael's mentality as if it justified the killing of a well liked president.

"Regardless, when the team makes the connection between the PLA and Cerberus, it will link back to you," she warned, jovial attitude leaching from her features.

"If not when." He faced her. "We don't know if the PLA had anything to do with Cerberus at this point. Speculation is futile."

"Do give them credit," she said, inclining her head. "I can't protect you if they figure it out."

"I understand." He held up the data pad full of his first lead in months. "Thank you."

"Thank me when you're not dead," Montoya whispered as he retreated.