Collateral

The voices that Miranda heard from the other side of the wall put them all on alert. Garrus set his visor to nightvision, turning his world different shades of green. Ignoring the ache in his arms, he drew his assault rifle and flicked the safety off. The others followed suit and fell into formation without being told.

Unlike the main level, there was no long hallway with numbered doors. Instead, they found themselves inside a wide, short antechamber that led out to a cavernous space, lit by the dim red emergency lighting. The room, which looked to be the factory floor or warehouse storage, was lined from wall to wall with five-by-five meter cubes. Upon further inspection, they discovered that the cubes were cages.

It became apparent that the voices they'd heard belonged to the prisoners, with no wardens or jailers in sight. There were moans and cries and deranged ramblings, all emanating from the cages to create a low, echoing murmur. Garrus stopped short. Whatever he'd been expected, it wasn't this.

Nevertheless, they had a job to do. "Kaidan, search for some kind of log or records of prisoners. Miranda: you and I will take the left row. Samara and Liara will search the right."

"And what exactly are we looking for?" Liara asked, keeping her voice down so as not to alert the prisoners to their presence, lest they create a disturbance for the jailers to investigate.

Garrus gave the room a quick scan. "Prisoners who look like Shepard. Or anyone who's lucid enough to answer questions about what this place is." The two asari nodded. Garrus added, "And keep an eye out for Oriana."

Garrus could hear Miranda suck her breath in as they passed each cage, releasing it as they moved on to the next. A lot of the prisoners were in bad shape, beaten and bloodied by their captors. Some were unconscious or dead by the looks of it. There were prisoners of nearly every species: turian, asari, human, drell, batarian, krogan, salarian, and even a hanar lay crumpled in its cell like a deflated party balloon.

One of them caught Miranda's eyes. "Ori?" Her voice came in a frantic whisper. "Oriana, is that you?" The human woman who was previously face down on the ground lifted her head. She had a distinct birth mark around her jawline. Definitely not Miranda's sister. He doubted that someone artificially designed to be perfect would have something as random as a birth mark on her face.

The woman stared up at Garrus and Miranda for a moment. Her lips trembled and her eyes watered, but she didn't say anything. She let her hair fall in front of her face, then once again resumed her position on the ground. Garrus tried to get her attention again, but she was unresponsive.

"What have they done to them?" Miranda asked, unable to hide her horror.

Garrus glanced over his shoulder and saw Kaidan immersed in a hacking job. "We'll find out soon enough."

"Hey."

Garrus whirled back around, assault rifle trained on the source of the voice. "I'm over here." The voice, female, was coming from one of the cages. Weapons raised, Miranda and Garrus moved closer. As they approached, they discovered that speaker was one of Shepard's look-alikes.

The resemblance wasn't that obvious. The woman had a similar build to Shepard's: tall, lean but muscular, broader-than-average shoulders. Her hair was brown, and looked like it had been hastily cut to copy Shepard's own hair. Garrus noticed that there was a long, jagged scar along her ribcage. It looked as if it had only recently healed. Overall, she made a poor duplicate for the commander.

"Who are you?" the woman asked. "You don't seem like you're with the... people in black. Are you mercenaries?" She noticed Garrus's blue armor, but was unsure of whether or not it meant she could trust him. Still, it didn't look like she was too picky about who came along if they could rescue her.

"The people in black. They took someone, and we're trying to find her," Garrus revealed.

The woman gestured at the space around them. "Take your pick. There's a lot of cages here, mister."

"What's your name?" Garrus asked.

"Officer Laurel Tracit, City Police. I was drugged and taken from my home about... shit, I don't even know how long it's been."

Garrus found it strange that the Shadow Broker was willing to take a police officer. He thought it would've attracted too much undue attention, but the Broker seemed to be pulling out all the stops for Shepard. "Do they ever speak to you? The ones who took you from your home."

Laurel shook her head. "No. Occasionally they shove food through the bars, but it's all spiked with some kind of sedative. Knocks us out, keeps us quiet."

"The person we're looking for. She's tall, has dark hair and blue eyes. Have they brought anyone like that through?" Garrus asked, trying to describe Shepard as best as he could to someone who had never seen her before.

"You're gonna have to be more specific than that, friend." She had also noticed that many of the human prisoners shared common physical traits.

Garrus glanced around and dropped his voice. "We're trying to find Commander Shepard."

Laurel let out a low whistle. A few of the other prisoners looked up at the noise, but lost interest, their minds no doubt clouded by the drugs they'd been slipped. "I know what she looks like. My daughters idolize her. The first human Spectre, and a woman, to boot. Damn fine role model. She's been captured?" Garrus nodded gravely. "But... who? Why?"

"You ever heard of the Shadow Broker?"

"Is that... are they the ones keeping us here?" Garrus nodded again. "Why?" Laurel repeated.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," he told her. He didn't want to reveal too much information to a complete stranger they happened to stumble upon, but Garrus doubted that she would purposefully do anything to hinder their mission progress, especially if she was a police officer as she claimed. Besides, she could provide them with valuable information regarding Shepard's whereabouts.

"I..." Laurel kneaded her forehead with her knuckles, as if she were trying to coax the answer from her brain. "I didn't get a real good look at her, but they brought someone with a bag over her face through here, all strapped down and whatnot. She had been gassed, like the rest of us, but there was something different about the way they treated her. More careful with her, I guess. They thought we were all out of it, but I could've sworn I heard them say her name. I can't be sure, though."

Garrus felt his heart race, blood pounding in his head. "Where? Where did they take her?"

Laurel looked distressed. "There's a door, over there at the end of this room. Every now and then, people will be moved from their cells and taken through the doors. There's always a ship waiting, and they all get loaded on. But... they never put Commander Shepard in a cell. She went straight through to the end."

A ship. Shepard could be anywhere. But they were getting closer to finding her, and that gave Garrus hope. Hopefully Kaidan would find something in the terminals.

Sensing that Laurel had run out of Shepard-related information, Miranda fired off the only question that had been on her mind. "My sister, Oriana, was taken by the Shadow Broker. Have you seen her? She's practically my twin."

A strange look came across Laurel's face, and she took a step back from the edge of the cage. "You? You're the sister?" Laurel's hand rose into the air, moving towards Miranda. "She talked about you like you were a guardian angel or something. She was convinced you'd find her. No offense, but I didn't believe her."

With startling ferocity, Miranda lunged forward, her fingers wrapping around the bars of the cage. "Where is she?" she demanded.

Laurel knelt down next to a motionless form that Garrus and Miranda had completely missed in the dim light of the warehouse. Gently, Laurel shook the form. When the figure rolled onto her side and opened her eyes, Miranda saw that it was her sister.

"Ori!" she cried out. The younger Lawson scooted towards the edge of the cage, her face lifting at the sight of her guardian angel.

"Miri," she said weakly, "I knew you'd come for me."

"Of course," Miranda said. She slid down onto her knees, realizing that her sister didn't have the strength to stand. She stuck her arms through the narrow space between the bars, caressing her face despite the barrier between them. "Shh, I promise, we're going to get you out of here. It's all going to be okay..."

"I told her the food was poisoned, and the poor girl nearly starved herself. She had just a little of it, and it's already making her sick," Laurel told Garrus in hushed tones. He nodded.

A moment later, Samara and Liara approached, bearing news of their search. "We spoke with an asari wise enough to consume only the water," Samara announced. "She's been captive for twelve days."

Liara continued, "According to her, Kamala was in charge of the female human prisoners. However, she would occasionally single out other captives, taking them in a back room to..." She didn't finish.

"Each time she claimed a life, Kamala grew stronger," Samara said. "It is as I feared. The strength she drew from her victims enabled her to subdue Shepard, and now, doing Goddess only knows what to her."

If the Ardat-Yakshi was with Shepard, that meant that eventually, they would have to face her to get Shepard back. Garrus swallowed hard. Glancing over at the justicar, he was glad that they had a bonafide Ardat-Yakshi slayer on the team, but by the sounds of it, that was still a fight that they could very well lose. Except it doesn't even matter if we can't find them.

"Okay," Garrus said, trying to fit all the bits of information into a feasible plan. But they were still missing a few pieces. "Kaidan? Anything?"

Right on cue, Kaidan made his way over to the rest of them, after having sifted through all the information on the terminal. Honestly, there hadn't been much actual data. Most of his time was spent on decrypting the damn thing. But still, he'd found enough useful intel to get them pointed in the right direction. "The logs didn't include any kind of manifest, but it did have the itinerary of Kamala Nasar, our Ardat-Yakshi. It says she left on a shuttle about twelve hours ago, not long after Shepard was taken."

"My guess is that she and Shepard were both on that shuttle," Liara said, knowing that the Ardat-Yakshi would have ecorted the high-profile prisoner to wherever it was that they went.

We're getting closer. "What was the shuttle's destination?" Garrus asked Kaidan.

"Unknown. There were just coordinates to the nearest mass relay."

Dammit. Garrus began to pace back and forth, the rhythm of his stride helping him focus. "If it only takes them to the nearest mass relay, they must need a pilot to manually navigate the rest of the trip."

"That makes sense," Liara said. "The Shadow Broker has always been notoriously paranoid about security breaches. The only pilots who can get to the location are the Broker's own people, meaning that it would be impossible for any outsiders to reach the destination, wherever it is."

Garrus exhaled loudly. "We need one of those shuttles to get to the destination. And also a pilot." He pointed to the end of the rows of cages, to the place Laurel had indicated was the shuttle port. "We already know where one of those things is. All we have to do is get the pilot." Easier said than done.

"How?" Kaidan asked. "Even if we searched this entire building, we may not be able to find one. Let alone convince him to fly the damn thing." And that was counting on the fact that there were pilots inside the factory where the prisoners were being kept. And if there were pilots just laying around, Kaidan shuddered to think of how many others agents of the Shadow Broker there would be. At the moment, they weren't equipped to go on a full out raid of the place. At any rate, Kaidan didn't think they could spare the time or man-power to do so.

Liara seemed to agree. "We won't be able to take one of them by force. We'll need to take a stealthier approach."

"Kidnap one?" Garrus suggested. That still left the problem of determining who exactly their target was. A nametag or something would be helpful. Or maybe a room labeled "Pilots." Yeah. That'd be nice.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Liara said, getting Laurel's attention. "The shuttles: do they leave on a regular basis?"

Laurel nodded. "Fairly regular, as far as I could tell."

"I didn't find any schedule on the terminal," Kaidan said, revealing a flaw in the idea.

Liara propped her chin up thoughtfully on her fist, resting her elbow on her hip. "No, but we can figure it out for ourselves. If we get in contact with Spike, I'm sure he'll be able to work out some kind of pattern in the shuttle departures using the surveillance camera footage."

She tried to open a link back to Daryn's hideout, but to no avail. "Damn. Power must still be out," she said. "We'll have to go there and ask him in person."

"Okay. Good idea," Garrus said.

They were getting ready to move out when Miranda spoke up. "What about my sister?"

Liara, Kaidan, and Samara went quiet, and looked to Garrus. Laurel, too, was watching him expectantly. She had two daughters to get home to, and the strangers seemed to be her way out. After all, they were friends of Commander Shepard, hero of the galaxy. Surely they'd be able to provide some sort of assistance.

Liara noticed him hesitate. "Garrus, if we do anything to tip the Shadow Broker off that we're on Shepard's trail, they could..." She didn't need to finish for him to understand what she meant. Shepard was at the Broker's mercy. If he thought they were getting to close to finding Shepard, there was no telling what he would do to her.

Kaidan realized what direction Garrus was leaning towards. And it was a direction he did not want to follow. "We can't leave all these people here. Look at them, Garrus. They'll die if we don't let them go." It was true. Many of them seemed to be on their last legs, on the verge of death.

Miranda shot to her feet. "We don't have to take all of them. No one will notice if we just take Oriana," she said. There was no way she was leaving her baby sister in that hellhole.

Samara's eyes flicked towards the exit. "We have little time to waste. Garrus, whatever your decision is, make it quickly."

His throat felt dry. He usually made his mind up pretty easily about most things, but he wasn't accustomed to making snap decisions with these kind of moral implications. Dismally, he realized that in the time it took the others to give their point of view on the situation, Shepard would have already made up her mind about what to do. And what would you do, Shepard? What would you choose? Garrus knew, with an uncanny degree of certainty, that she would've chosen to free everyone who was well enough to move on their own, then send back-up to retrieve the rest.

But Garrus wasn't his commander. He couldn't risk Shepard's well-being for the prisoners, even if it was the morally "right" thing to do. "Let's move out. We'll send reinforcements and a medical team for the prisoners after we can get a shuttle and someone to fly it."

"No," Miranda said forcefully. "We're taking Oriana with us."

Garrus was afraid she was going to say that. But he didn't let it show. If Miranda saw any sign of weakness in him, she would manipulate it to get what she wanted. Garrus couldn't let her do that. "I'm giving you an order. Oriana, and the rest of the prisoners, will be fine until we get them help. We're leaving. Right now."

Miranda had went through too much trouble ensuring her sister was safe from her father to let her just sit in a cell, sick and half-starved. "I'll take her place!" Her voice was borderline hysterical. "No one will notice, I swear." She got to work on the lock, hitting it with a biotic warp, and when that failed, drawing her pistol and firing three shots at it. They reverberated in the gaping room, causing the usually catatonic prisoners to snap to attention. The lock remained unaffected.

"Lawson: if you don't stop that and follow the damn order, we're going to take time out of both Shepard and Oriana's rescue in order to escort you back to the ship, where you will be confined for the rest of the mission." His assault rifle was slightly raised, pointed at Miranda's thigh. She stopped trying to destroy the lock. "Is that clear?"

The tension could've been cut with a knife. Or maybe a chainsaw. Her cold stare never wavering from Garrus's eyes, she said, "Perfectly."

When Garrus and the rest had turned their backs to leave, Miranda knelt down next to her sister and promised her she'd be okay. Garrus heard Oriana whisper faintly, "Miri, don't go."

But Miranda stood anyway. Laurel gave her a curt nod and said, "I'll take care of her. Good luck." Miranda thanked her, then jogged to catch up with the others.

Shit. Garrus hated being the bad guy. He was supposed to be the the knight in shining blue armor, fighting for his damsel in distress, who was currently locked up in a big black castle guarded by a lilac dragon with pink eyes. Instead, he was abandoning a warehouse full of helpless prisoners, including Miranda's little sister. It tore him up inside, but the only choice was to keep moving forward. I just hope this screwed-up fairy tale has a happy ending.