On Omega, an unconscious Asari in her sleeping robe being carried somewhere by two humans wasn't enough to arouse protest, unless the Asari worked for Aria. As far as anyone knew, this one didn't.

Liara was slung backward over the first man's shoulder, and the man behind him was watching for a tail, so no one saw her eyes flicker open thanks to the slow-release stimulant she had taken earlier. As she remembered what was happening, she closed them again and concentrated on keeping her breathing steady and her muscles slack. She was still partly numb from whatever they'd shot her with, which helped. But it felt as if the drugs were waging war inside her.

"Hey," the first man said, slowing. "She doing anything?"

The second man reached for one of Liara's head-tails. It took an immense effort of will to remain limp. She blocked the nerves just in time, but her body still spasmed as he gave one of them a sharp pinch.

"She's out," the second man said. "If she were awake she'd be screaming."

Liara had bitten her lip hard enough to taste blood, to keep the sound in and the tears back.

"Yeah, that'd really help," the first man said. He exhaled. "Get back there and keep watching."

She nearly passed out again. Dimly, she heard the sounds of the nighttime streets fade, then the hissing of a door, then another.

The smells were what woke her. At first, they took her back to the hospital on Earth. First was disinfectant in various flavors. But there were other smells beneath, smells that made her stomach heave. Sweat, and other, less noble fluids. She tried breathing through her mouth, but it felt as if the miasma were coalescing into putrid droplets on her tongue.

There were two other people in the room besides Liara and her abductors. One was lying on a table, the other standing next to it, bent over a set of monitors.

"Any luck?" The man carrying Liara bent and laid her on another table nearby. As he reached for one of the heavy straps that would secure her to it, her left hand whipped into the side of his neck. He gagged, his eyes bulging. She had seized his collar with her left hand and now shot the heel of her right into the same place, snapping his head back. Liara hated hurting anyone, but right now his pain was a welcome distraction from her own.

The other kidnapper almost had his pistol aimed. Liara's biotic field lifted him off his feet and smashed him into the shelving behind him. He sank to the floor, where he was buried under an avalanche of boxes, bottles, tubes, instruments, and other equipment that bounced and rolled in every direction.

The first man wasn't out, but the butt of Garrus' rifle cracking into the back of his head finished it. Garrus turned the rifle on the third person, who was still standing next to the other bed. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open slightly, but her left hand was slowly moving toward a panel in the wall. Garrus twitched the rifle at her. She stopped. At his order, she stepped toward him, hands on her head.

"Any more?" Garrus asked her. The barrel of his rifle was pointed at her stomach. "Think carefully."

"Any...uh, uh, no," she stammered, jerking her head to one side. "No one."

"Liara, there are handcuffs in my right hip pocket," Garrus said.

"Oh God!" the woman cried. "What are you - "

"Shut up." Garrus jabbed her in the stomach. He glanced at the table, where her victim - Kovelli? - was secured with thick straps across her neck, wrists, waist, thighs, and ankles. It was all he could do not to simply smash the rifle butt into the woman's skull. Or pull the trigger. Only when Liara clicked the handcuffs on the woman's wrists did the urges abate. He was still a cop, after all.

They checked and secured the two kidnappers as well, then turned to the woman on the table. She was alive. Her eyes were half-open, but unseeing; her parched lips were moving in some kind of litany. Garrus leaned close and listened. "- don't know...I don't know..."

Her hair was longer and darker than before, her eyes and skin tone lighter, but...

"Garrus..." Liara said. "I know this woman."

"She looks familiar," Garrus said, "but humans tend to look alike to me."

"She was on Noveria. Her name is...Sini something."

"Parasini," Garrus said. "Gianna Parasini. Which might not be her real name either. But what the hell is she doing here?" He shook his head. "It'll keep. What are all these?" Parasini had an intravenous drip inserted, with several smaller packets draining, like tributaries, into the main one.

"Whatever they are, they are not good," Liara said. She turned to the - torturer, Liara supposed - who was kneeling on the floor. "What is your name?"

The woman's eyes fastened on her. They were green. Her hair was brown, shoulder-length, with just the faintest hint of gray. She didn't look like a torturer, just a frightened, middle-aged human woman. "N-Nina. Nina Maxwell."

"Nina, can we unhook that IV safely?" Liara said. She let her eyes flick to Garrus' rifle, to let Maxwell know what would happen if she lied. The way Nina's head jerked up and down made Liara ashamed. She did not want this kind of power.

Garrus was no nurse, but he'd watched his share of medical procedures during his time in C-Sec. He stripped off his suit gloves and clamped off the IV tube. They waited, watching Parasini's vital signs carefully. Parasini stopped mumbling, but otherwise she seemed unaffected. Liara began unfastening the many straps that held her to the table.

"Maxwell?" The voice came from the panel on the wall. It was an Asari.

"Damn it," Garrus whispered. He stepped over to Maxwell and hauled her to her feet, then shoved her over to the panel. He placed the muzzle of his rifle against her lower back.

Maxwell swallowed and cleared her throat. "Yes, ma'am?"

"Has there been any progress?"

Maxwell's face was ghastly white. "No, ma'am, no progress."

Adessa swore. "You told me you'd have results in less than a day."

"I, I'm sorry, ma'am. The subject is very - "

"Keep at it," Adessa said. "Have O'Neil and De Soto brought back this Thanoptis yet?"

"Ah - " Maxwell started. Garrus shook his head. "No, ma'am."

"They must have run into trouble. I'm going over there. Call me if they show up." Adessa cut the channel.

Maxwell slumped, trembling.

Garrus turned back to Parasini. "We've got to pull this now." He held the catheter in place as he peeled away the tape, and pressed a square of gauze against the site as he gently slid out the catheter. "Is there any antidote to this crap?" he asked Maxwell.

"N-no. It should wear off within an hour, though."

"Great," Garrus said. "Liara, take Parasini and get out of here. I'll meet you at our other hotel."

Liara looked at him. You are going to interrogate Maxwell, she thought, or one of the others, and you do not want me to see it. You do not have much time. You will have to be cruel. Then you will have to kill them all. They have seen us, and heard Parasini's name. Then she felt ashamed of her imaginings.

"There is another way," she said.

Garrus shook his head. "I don't know how to administer those drugs, or how long they take."

There were tears in Maxwell's eyes. "Please..."

Liara turned to her and took her shoulders in her hands. For what she had in mind, surprise was best. "It is all right, Nina. You will not be hurt." A lie. She told herself this was a mercy. That she was doing it so Garrus wouldn't have to. That she had to do it, for Shepard. None of it helped.

Maxwell realized what was coming and opened her mouth to scream.

"Embrace eternity!" Liara said.

When Liara came back, she sank to her hands and one knee and threw up on the grimy floor. The room revolved slowly around her. She shook her head, willing it to stop, and spat again and again, trying to rid herself of the taste, and the memory of what she'd just done. Maxwell was sitting propped against the wall, hugging her knees and sobbing quietly.

Garrus knelt and slowly helped her up. "You all right?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. It took a distinct effort to shape the words. "We can go." She hoped he wasn't going to kill Maxwell and the others. She didn't have the strength to argue.

Garrus was standing between her and the main entrance to the room, so he took the brunt of the biotic wave. He knocked Liara down as he smashed into the wall and sat down hard. He began crawling toward his sniper rifle. The rifle leapt away from him, arcing through the air and coming to rest in an outstretched blue hand.

Matriarch Adessa's facial markings were the color of blood, streaking away from her eyes like a tiger's stripes. She checked to make sure a round was chambered, then pointed the barrel at Liara's forehead. It looked about a mile long. Liara didn't bother trying to put up her barriers; in her weakened state, they wouldn't stop a single round from that thing.

"Rana Thanoptis, I take it. Let's start with your real name, and why you're here."

Liara had to concentrate to form words in the face of that rifle. "Who sold me out? Was it Ish?" It was the first thing that came to her. Just keep Adessa talking until she could -

The roar of the rifle in the enclosed space was deafening. The muzzle flash seared Liara's face. She felt little insects stinging the back of her neck, her head. She realized they were bits of debris from the wall behind her. Adessa had averted the rifle just enough.

Liara couldn't hear and could barely see, but she felt a thud nearby. She blinked, trying to clear the afterimages, and saw Parasini, awakened by the shot, had rolled off of her table and landed clumsily on the floor beside her.

Adessa's voice sounded far away. "Name." The sound of her chambering another round was surprisingly clear.

This time there was a double explosion. Adessa staggered, the rifle spewing flame again but sending another round wild, this time into the shelving behind Parasini. Gray liquid spurted out of a shattered container and spattered Parasini and the floor.

The room erupted in thunder. Bullets stitched through the air from behind Adessa. Most of them caught her in the back, but her barriers had been up. Two of them caught Maxwell, her body jerking like a kicked doll, the wall suddenly fanned with her blood. Adessa turned and hurled another biotic field at her attackers. The shooting lessened, but didn't stop. There had to be at least half a dozen shooters out there.

Garrus jerked Liara to her feet. He pushed Liara and Parasini in front of him as he staggered toward the rear door. For the moment, Adessa was blocking most of the bullets, but several pinged off Garrus' armor, the kinetic barriers sizzling and sparking as they overloaded. To Liara's horror, Parasini slowed and looked over her shoulder at Adessa, an emotion on her face that Liara couldn't identify. Sadness? Garrus gave Parasini a stiff shove and got her moving again.

Liara slapped open the door and an icy blast of air hit them. The door led onto a small balcony. Liara estimated they were at least ten floors up.

"Jump!" she said. She did. Then Garrus, and after a few seconds, Parasini.

The farther they fell, the faster they would be going, and the harder it would be to catch them. Liara brought up the biotic field almost at once. For a moment, they continued accelerating, and for a horrid instant she thought they were going to die, smashed heaps of blood and bones, on Omega. Then the field took hold and their descent slowed. Only fear gave her the strength to keep the field up until they landed, and even so, she heard a sickening snap come from Garrus, saw his leg go out from under him, saw him land hard on his side.

He was up almost at once, almost hopping on his remaining good leg, trying to put a little more weight on the broken one with each step so he could run faster. The pain had to be unbelievable. Liara tried to form another biotic field, to carry him, but she had nothing left. Fog clouded the edges of her vision.

"Run!" he said. They did.

"They've found Team 102," Miranda said. "All dead. Along with Adessa's team. They were restrained, and died in the firefight. She must have decided she couldn't trust them."

The boss rubbed his temple. "And Adessa?"

"Escaped. There's a lot of Asari blood, but the place used to be a medical facility, so we have to assume she was able to patch herself up somewhat."

"What else?"

"Adessa was having Maxwell torture someone. We found a few logs, but they don't tell us much. The subject wasn't cooperative. She was a human female going under the name Kovelli."

"Was Kovelli killed too?"

"No. And that's the interesting part. A witness reported seeing a human woman, a Turian, and an Asari jump from the balcony. Another Asari, who fit Adessa's description, came out and looked for them a few minutes later - presumably after she finished with Team 102 - but then went back inside. She was limping and bleeding."

He exhaled a long, satisfied cloud of cigar smoke. "So T'Soni and Vakarian have some kind of lead on the body. That must be what Adessa's after. But what does a traitor want with Shepard's body?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Any word on that information the Shadow Broker's supposed to be getting on her daughter? That's the key. It has to be."

"None yet."

"Keep at it. Whatever it is, it's probably a lie - Adessa must be working for him if she's looking for that body - but we have to try." He stubbed out his cigar. "Meanwhile, let's hope our second Asari recruit is up to taking out our first."