Chapter Twenty-One - The Many Uses of Masks
October 30, 2154 (IPE Dome, Mars)
Jack leaned back in the chair and rested an arm over his brow, careful not to put any pressure on his eyes. Well, the bandaged-over receivers and electronics that he'd lived with for the past two weeks, anyway. Truthfully, although only Patricia knew, he'd spent the most terrifying two weeks of his life in a void where not even darkness existed. It didn't matter that the doctor gave him a sensor net so he could move around and interact with others. And while it helped, It didn't matter that Patricia never moved farther away than the next room.
He sighed, a long, nasal breath. Patricia's presence and his children's endless optimism helped keep him sane. They deserved more credit than his sour grapes gave them. They kept him tethered him to the light even when he couldn't see it.
The door behind him opened, startling him, but then the scent of antiseptic and Old Spice, and the heavy, loose tread of Dr. Ron Jarvis eased him back down into the chair.
"Well, how are you feeling?" the doctor asked, his stool squeaking like an old buggy across the floor. He stopped close enough for Jack to feel the heat cast by his knee.
"I'm ready to see, Ron." Jack shifted in the chair, uncomfortable being watched without being able to watch back. Patricia teased, calling him, Captain Control-freak, to pull him back when fear made his temper flare. The title pretty much hit the nail on the head.
"I'm going to remove your right bandage," the doctor said before warm, rubber-gloved fingers touched Jack's face, peeling the adhesive away. After thirty seconds and some gentle prodding, the doctor hummed. "Now for the left." Again, poking and then clicking that signaled Jarvis's penlight in use.
"You've healed up very well, Jack. The implants show no sign of rejection, so good news … I'm to go ahead and place the artificial eyes." Fiddling, plastic and paper crackling, more squeaking from the stool betrayed the doctor's position until the penlight clicked again. "We're going to take this slow, and there may be some discomfort as the connections click in and those neurons have to start earning their keep."
Jack wriggled a little, and relaxed his neck and shoulders the best he could. "Let's get it done. I've been on the sidelines for nearly a month with this entire production."
Jarvis laughed. "Believe it or not, Jack, humanity can get by without you for a few weeks."
The door opened, and the scent of strawberries and violets drifted through on the stirred air, announcing Patricia's arrival. The door closed and her hands wrapped around his. "How are things going in here?" She lifted his hand to press a kiss against his knuckles. "You all right there, love?"
Jack squeezed her hand, his heartbeat making a liar out of him as he replied, "Fine, just impatient."
She chuckled. "I feel like I should be scolding you for giving him that sensor net, Ron. He did nothing but pace the entire time." Her thumb caressed his hand from wrist to first knuckle, slow and steady, her magic slowing his breathing and with it, at least some of his impatience. "Never one to sit still, my Jack."
One of her hands stroked the back of his neck, a heaviness and heat behind it that pulled a smile from him. What would he do without her? How had he survived all those long years alone after Shanxi? Taking another long breath, he breathed in her scent, pulling it all the way down into his gut as if he could lock it away.
"My apologies for making him too ambulatory," the doctor said. He took a deep breath. "All right. I'm going to place the right eye. As I said, there might be a slight … " Even before Jarvis finished his warning, the back of Jack's eye felt as if a wasp the size of a Pekingese stung him, the pain sizzling like a lightning strike in his brain. "... sting."
Jack clutched Patricia's hand, his grip loosening as the pain eased back. A slight sting, his ass. Still, it faded to a low, electrical hum, one that felt natural, as if something had been missing until that moment. Strange that something so foreign might feel like home. Of course, the sensation owed its familiarity to that other life.
Patricia stroked a thumb across his cheekbone. "You okay there, love?"
"Yeah, Ron just lied about the slight sting." Jack took a deep, shaky breath. "I'll be ready for the next one."
"Which I'm going to seat right now," the physician said, "so brace yourself."
Rubber-tipped fingers prodded at Jack's face for a moment before another giant wasp stuck its stinger all the way through his eye socket and into his skull. At least, that time he knew the worst was over. Strange, but he didn't recall there being a great deal of pain involved in the installation the last time. Of course, physical pain meant little in that life, his entire being consumed by an agony strong enough to drown out even the worst injury or affliction. He tightened his grip on Patricia's hand.
"All right," Jarvis said, his stool squeaking as he rolled away. "Close your eyes. I'm going to activate them. We don't want to overwhelm you with stimuli."
Jack did as he was told, and then a second later, the void filled with the comforting wash of deep rust red. He'd missed it, that simple view of the insides of his own eyelids, the light creeping through. Chuckling, he squeezed Patricia's hand.
"I take it they're working," she whispered, her lips close to his ear, the tip of her nose cool against his temple.
"They are." He tried to recall the way his world looked through augmented eyes, but he couldn't bring any images to mind.
"Okay, slowly, open your eyes. I've lowered the lights, but if it's too bright or you experience any pain, stop and let me know."
Jack turned toward his wife, wanting her to be the first thing he saw, and opened his eyes slowly. A blurry wash of dim colours focused into Patricia's smile, emerald eyes glistening as they stared into his. Unlike the searing stabs the moment before, actually using the eyes proved pain-free.
He reached up and caressed his wife's cheek. "The most beautiful first sight anyone could hope for."
"Excellent," the doctor said, clearly ignoring the sentimental display in favour of the business at hand. "Look at the projection on the opposite wall, and read the first line for me."
A half hour of fine tuning followed, leaving Jack able to see differently than before, the world somehow both sharper and oddly deeper, like watching a 3D movie for the first time after a lifetime of 2D.
At last he pushed himself up out of the chair and gathered his suit jacket from the hook on the back of the door. He shrugged into it, then stepped in front of the small mirror on the wall above the equally small sink. For a moment, he just stared, the view both overly familiar and terrifying, the ghost of the Illusive Man made manifest. A nightmare pulled into the waking world.
Patricia stepped up behind him and, looking over his shoulder, fixed his collars so they sat properly. "Perfect," she said, dusting down his shoulders. "Just perfect." She smiled and eased him around to face her. "Come on, let's get home. Wait until Matt sees your new eyes."
Jack chuckled, chalk dry. "He's going to lose his mind and demand his own glowing, cyborg vision." He took her hand, then turned to the physician. "Thank you, for getting all of this done so quickly. I appreciate it, old friend." He released Patricia just long enough to shake Jarvis's hand, then slipped his arm around his wife, guiding her out of the office, suddenly needing to escape that specter of his old life. Not that he could, it would haunt him from every reflective surface for the rest of his life.
"Stop worrying," Patricia said once they stepped into the elevator up to the tram station. She pressed into his side, her arm snug around his waist. "We're here, we're all safe. You avoided the war with the turians." She rested her cheek on his shoulder. "They're just eyes, not some portent of things to come."
Closing those eyes, he held her. She felt everything he went through, more perceptive and empathetic than any human being had a right to be. Of course she knew what they meant to him; that other life stalking him from his own shadow, waiting to snatch it all away.
Instead of taking his family for granted, the last handful of years they just seemed more precious and fleeting, as if the day they died in that last life ticked toward them: a deadline. Each second weighed more than the one before, each warning him to cherish what time would surely steal.
He turned his face into his wife's hair and breathed her in, kissing the gold silk before pulling away. "I know they're just eyes," he said, the lie bitter on his tongue. "I know."
April 15, 2156 (Arcturus Station)
"Ladies and gentlemen, honorable members?" The voice on the PA squealed a little—feedback from something or other, strange that still happened—and the gavel's sharp hammering echoed off the circular walls of the Alliance parliament's chambers. "Please take your seats." The speaker waited for the members of parliament and the onlookers in the gallery to take their seats before she continued. "As Speaker of the House, I call this Session 23 of the Interplanetary Alliance to order. The proposal set before you today is regarding the purchase of one hundred heavy stealth frigates from Interplanetary Expeditions Incorporated … ."
Jack leaned back further into his corner of the gallery, a large, leather armchair sitting in the shadows where he watched without being too closely watched. He never attended parliament to see how the debates and votes progressed or what bills the members brought forth. He knew all of that before he set foot on the dark red carpet, his chair creaking as he lowered his weight into its embrace. No, he attended parliament to observe the jesters to see which hid brains and cunning beneath their clown costumes.
He watched to see which ones could dance about the king without getting to greedy for power, and those who wouldn't wet themselves and start flailing at the first sign of the headman's axe. Odd how many of humanity's best and brightest proved themselves of little use beyond playing the fool.
"Ah, the magician attends his own show." A broad hood drawn down over her face, ex-Senator Myeki Uong stepped up to his table, taking a seat in the other chair without waiting for him to invite her. She leaned back and crossed her legs, one hand poised like a black and white film star, long fingers holding an even longer, filtered cigarette holder. Odd, that she—one of the most consummate actors and someone dedicated to parting his head from his shoulders—proved the most trustworthy face in the room.
Jack held a vast wealth of pressure points to use against the Right Honorable Myeki Uong, member of the Alliance parliament, namely her philandering husband, Japanese shipping magnate, Franklin Goto. The man's many less than licit personal and business relationships provided Jack with a wealth of dirt under which to bury her without having to bring up their baby daughter. Still, he preferred not to throw Uong out of the 'forthright enemy' column into that of dubious, resentful ally.
She gave a soft sniff and brought the cigarette holder to her lips, pursing ever so slightly as she inhaled, every move a part of her dance. "What brings you here, today?" she asked before exhaling smoke that smelled of jasmine and honey. Even her herbal cigarettes broke the rules, but no one ever mentioned it … well, at least that they'd admit. "Are you simply watching them rain credits down on you, or do you have a more nefarious purpose?"
Jack laughed, low but genuine. All of her noir melodrama entertained him. "My purposes are definitely nefarious, but why would I share them with you?" He reached for his coffee even as an attendant set it on the table between them, the china ringing. A quick nod thanked the young man.
"Because you enjoy showing off for those few people who can recognize your genius even as your spin your web from the shadows." She waved the attendant away with a flick of her hand, her eyes never leaving Jack's face. "So, come, tell me what you are up to here in your corner of secrets."
"I need an envoy to meet with Clan Urdnot and what Urdnot Wrex calls his coalition of undesirables." Jack sipped at the coffee, then set it down. "There are council positions awaiting humanity and the krogan if we are smart about it. Wrex has been playing this game for nearly three hundred years longer than we have, and he has several powerful matriarchs on his side."
"And you need someone who has no problem riding krogan coattails into the council?" She scoffed, and narrowed her eyes at him, more warning than appraising. "The krogan are brutes. The council neutered them all because they are brutes. What makes you think associating ourselves with the krogan and the other outcast races won't block our ascendency rather than advance it?"
Jack looked out over the tiers of MP's, their arguing and passive-aggressive insults carrying past him without hooking his interest. "Urdnot Wrex has turned his race from wandering mercenaries and outlaws into paladins. He's found a way to channel all that instinct and rage into a way of life filled with purpose and honour." His stare cut across to her, then back to the stained glass along the far wall. "He won't let us down as an ally."
Her stare heated the side of his head, the laser focus uncomfortably warm. "How have you done all this?" she asked. "Either you are unbelievably and inhumanely ruthless and possess an uncanny way to hide the bodies—my personal theory—or you're part of a conspiracy on a level so high that even I can't catch its scent."
Jack chuckled and reached for his coffee. "Maybe I just travelled back in time forty years and so possess detailed knowledge of the future."
She scoffed. "Very well, keep your secrets. I knew you'd never reveal the truth, but however you're doing all of this …" She swept her hand in front of her to indicate the chamber and everything beyond. "... it seems to be working in Earth's favour, even if you've become obscenely wealthy in the process."
Jack's turn to scoff. "Surely you've put my accounts under the microscope. You know that other than my family's modest salaries, my share of IPE's profits is rolled back into research and development. The entire push has been self-funded along with my partners and IPE backing." He sipped at the cooling, bitter brew, the taste narrowing his attention back to pinpoint precision. "Haven't you tired of trying to prove my guilt after a decade?"
She turned in her chair, taking a long, elegant pull off her cigarette. Blowing the smoke out the corner of her mouth, she gave him a twisted smile. "Let's say I have tired of our dance. " One perfectly plucked brow arched. "Is this where you pull a magical contract from the inside pocket of your jacket and have me sign over my soul in blood. I, Uong Myeki, do hereby exchange my soul for twenty pieces of silver? That sort of thing?"
Jack waggled his head side to side a little, tacking a shrug onto the end. "More like a keep everyone on the level and under control sort of thing."
She grinned, a startled—if judging by the way her pupils dilated and the quickly controlled leap of one eyebrow—flash of teeth. "Really? You want to make me your headsperson? But Jack, you already have a queen of hearts."
"I have many interests being run by people who, while competent, can't always be trusted to take the more humane route to their goals." Waiting for a hungry flash, he watched her eyes. He always assumed her drive to see him strung up came from moral indignation, but his instincts and his people had proven him wrong more than once. "I need someone to keep an eye on them … keep them from flipping to the dark side."
Eyes narrowed, she held his stare, a silent contest of striking wills and questioning parries. After nearly a minute, she turned to look out over the chamber, her cigarette drawing his attention to her mouth, a blood-red bow against pale skin. Had that skin grown more pale at his offer?
"It means reading you in on some of the craziest and most terrifying intel you'll ever hear," he said after allowing the tension to drain away a little. "And, naturally, it is all highly secret."
When she turned to him, an aura of exhaled smoke hanging around her hood, she let go all of her careful masks. "Why me?" Another quick flash of teeth, but that one looked anything but bright. "Why would you trust me with your secrets? Me, of all people?"
Jack chuckled and reached for his cup, his throat dry. A couple of sips later, the pinch in his throat eased enough to speak without coughing. "You've always been upfront with me. You don't trust me, but you've never lied about it." Setting the cup back on its saucer, he left his hand wrapped around it, pulling in the heat. "I need that honesty. Frankly, I need someone with the guts to stand up to people like Henry Lawson and hold their nose to the line."
"You're not just trying to buy out the competition?" She withdrew a small, metal case from her pocket, stubbing out her cigarette inside it before replacing it. Her chair squeaked a little as she stood. "Better to have me drinking your kool aid rather than sifting through your garbage?"
"I fully expect you to sift through every single bit of trash, account for every bandaid and plank, and eyeball the accounts as if my people were spending your money." Jack sighed and relaxed into his chair. "Think about it. I'll be back on Mars within the week."
Myeki Uong nodded, a slow vertical sweep of her head, deep enough to be a bow. "I intend to."
May 3, 2157 (IPE Dome, Mars)
Jack stood at the front of the tram, his hands gripping the ledge of the window hard enough to turn his knuckles white. The tram offered the most impressive views of the dome: the neat rows of houses, the parks and greenhouses, the fields beyond. The dome bustled with life, nearly a million people working and raising their families inside that massive, half-globe of graphene, metal, and force fields.
On Shanxi, his family possessed wide open spaces, grass, and sky. They lived in a big house in a quiet corner of the settlement. He drove his big, noisy car to work at speeds that gave Patricia fits. A good life. They found a really decent and happy life on Shanxi.
Until that day. May 3, 2157. When the turians bombed his house and his beauties into charred bones and ash. May 4, 2157, he, Ben, and Eva reported to General Williams, offering their skills. Two months later, everyone he loved was dead, leaving him alone with his rage and his mission.
"Jack?"
He looked up, then around him, realizing the tram had arrived at his private dock. For a moment, when he saw Patricia—her golden hair gleaming under the lights—he forgot how to breathe, her beauty a revelation. Never one given to fancy, he suddenly understood how the poets referred to their beloved as angels.
He replied with a tight press of lips, trying to pass it off as a smile. A pocket of vacuum bounced between them, and for one, fleeting moment, he wondered if the past decade and a half existed only inside his head, hallucinations and madness sprouting from his grief.
"Love?" Eyes clouded with concern, she stepped over the threshold, the air pouring in ahead of her to vanquish the airless beast.
"I'm fine." He took her hand. "I was just lost in thought." He drew her into his arms and held her, savouring the feel of her body against his. He'd never found another who suited him as well.
Her arms wrapped around him. "It's understandable, today of all days." She rested her head on his shoulder and let out a long, sighing breath. "The kids are making us supper," she said after a long silence, neither making any move to leave the tram. "They have the table set up on the lawn with lights and candles." She chuckled and pulled back just far enough that her gaze met his. "They're calling it a family candlelight romance."
Jack laughed and hugged her back in tight, his face turned into her neck. "That's both sweet and incredibly morbid."
Patricia laughed and then kissed him, soft and chaste. "That's what I said, but they're determined that you make a memory as good as that other one is terrible." Another kiss. "Their very strange hearts are in the right place." She slipped out of his arms, but held out a hand, gripping his with a fierce strength.
"And if this is morbid, let it go unremarked." Her smile contained both heat and love. "But, our children won't be ready for us for nearly an hour." She led him toward the elevator up into the house. "And I think I might have an idea of what we can do to pass the time."
Jack let her pull him along. He might never have realized it until that moment, but he owed his entire life to Urdnot Wrex's volatile temper and the Crucible's destruction.
November 31, 2162 (Coalition Shipyards, Anadius, Horsehead Nebula)
Rahat - (krogan) Expletive equivalent to human 'shit'
Jack strode from the elevator, staring straight ahead despite the krogan thundering beside him.
"Three more scuffles with the batarians, one of them inside their own borders." Urdnot Wrex's words came out in a carefully modulated roar.
Jack felt sure the rumble owed its lack of volume to the fact that the base's corridors acted as echo chambers. "None of the 'scuffles', as you call them, were initiated by IPE or the Alliance. They hate us enough to render provocation and reason meaningless." He stopped outside the conference room door, one hand resting on the lever. "We're not provoking them, Wrex."
The krogan chuffed, a harsh laugh, the lack of humour behind it sending a jolt of frost along Jack's nervous system. Despite the krogan's unflinching civility and professionalism, Wrex carried an air of menace around Jack that never eased or abated, even after years of working together. Or rather … keeping watch over one another from the closest range possible.
Wrex leaned in, his huge, carmine eyes narrowed. "Goyle might be able to bat her eyes at the council and spoon feed them that rahat, but don't think you can shove it down my throat and call it steak." Wrex set his shoulder into the door without opening it. "You need scapegoats for all the work you don't want to admit to doing: all the experimental eezo exposures and assassinations."
Jack met the krogan glare for glare and clenched jaw for clenched jaw. Of course the clan leader saw through the mirage of hands waving and people jumping up and down, calling 'over here … look over here … ignore the man behind the curtain.'
Wrex shrugged, massive shoulders heaving, his armour scraping like diamond against the frosted glass door. "You don't have to justify yourself to me. I've made mistakes that killed millions." For a fleeting second, all the bravado disappeared from the clan chief's face and posture. "Millions." The second passed. "You need to keep the reaper tech out of batarian hands? Fine." He grumbled. "Until you're all indoctrinated and killing the rest of us. Then not fine, but at least there, I hope you learned your lessons."
"But if you piss off the batarians enough, it's going to have consequences beyond what you can predict." Shoving his side of the double doors open, Wrex shrugged again. "If those spill over onto Shepard, you'll need eyes in the back of your head, Illusive Man."
Jack bristled despite the krogan's admission of error, arrogance and indignation flash-flaring beneath his skin. How dare the krogan threaten him? How dare Wrex compare them? How dare he constantly sling the Illusive Man at Jack like an ape throwing feces? There could never be a comparison made between the krogan blundering through three centuries on mostly good luck, compared to Jack's carefully planned and delicately enacted strategy? Not ever.
Once the infuriated steam drifted from beneath his skin—tainting the air with an over-ripe, sickly sweetness—his Illusive Man moment abolished along with it, Jack nodded. He understood the weight the clan chief bore, and his affection for Shepard. Over the course of the war, the two grew as close as blood.
"It's most likely that Sovereign will look to the batarians now," Jack replied, his voice quiet even though they'd arrived at the meeting before anyone else. "The collectors as well. Either way, we need to keep a weather eye on them, particularly now they've withdrawn their ambassador."
Wrex just nodded and took a long breath. "While we're kicking that dead pyjak, we both need to take a look at a basic mistake we've been making in our plans."
Jack stopped and turned to face the clan chief, one eyebrow cocked.
"We've been making our calculations around Shepard."
Stepping back, Jack watched the krogan's expression, surprised by the turn from 'screw things up for Shepard and I'll kill you' to 'we're relying too much on Shepard.'
"We aren't unorganized and unprepared this time. Last time, we needed an icon to pull people together." Wrex held his arms out to embrace the war room. "We're already organized, and we're a great deal further ahead. It's a mistake to rely too much on the odds that Shepard remembers or becomes the same woman." Judging by the clan chief's grimace, the words tasted bitter, but still he took a breath and said, "We need to be prepared to fight the war without her."
His last words spoken, Wrex headed for his seat, heavy strides thudding across the deck plating. The krogan's silence stabbed Jack with contritious splinters. His earlier thoughts had been unkind and false. Wrex never spoke without having something to say and listened with an attentiveness that no one gave him credit for. That amounted to his super power. Despite taking up all the space in the room, he used very little of the air.
Jack walked past his chair to the windows looking out over the Anadius asteroid belt. From that vantage point, he could see all the way down the port and starboard shipyards, each dock filled with partially completed vessels and dotted with the flashes of arc welders. Twenty heavy frigates at a time flew out of those docks, beautiful and complete with cutting edge technologies straight out of their coalition think-tank.
Speaking of …. The doors opened, Rael'Zorah, and his geth counterpart—a diplomacy-research designated platform named Legion—walked through, already deep in discussion of the implementation of ship-based biotic weapons. Matriarch Saela S'aris and her granddaughter, Liara T'Soni, followed the quarian and geth through, as deeply involved in the conversation as their counterparts.
Jack opened his omnitool and jotted a quick note into his schedule to call Gavin Archer and make arrangements for Myeki Uong to spend some time observing the biotics project. Saving humanity came a great deal easier without the entire stigma of being a terrorist organization. Although, unlike the horror of Project Overlord, Archer's younger self seemed to be sticking to ethical practices. They'd even developed an intrauterine treatment to save eezo-exposed fetuses from a wide range of birth defects and cancer.
Still, vigilance remained necessary, no one proving that more than Henry Lawson.
Myeki Uong threw both doors wide to glide between them, her ever-present hood drawn down over her face. Instead of sitting at the round table, she stepped up beside Jack. "We need to talk about Henry Lawson," she said, then moved away before he could respond.
Damn, the woman loved her dramatics, her every movement theatre. She also possessed an uncanny knack for hitting the exact nail he was trying to hammer into place. Neither trusted the other even after years working together, but that distrust made the relationship work, her suspicion exactly what he needed and where he needed it.
In fact, that described all of the people assembling in his conference room, taking seats at his table.
The drell representatives from both Rakhana and Tuchanka entered, solemn and silent, their dark eyes unfathomable. Both brought multiple doctorates achieved at three universities, including one on Earth and another on Thessia, to their sessions. Both also moved with their species' grace, that gift turned deadly thanks to training on Tuchanka, learning from legendary krogan, asari, and turian warriors.
"Can we get this ship launched?" Wrex called as the last few members of their committee entered. "Some of us have other things to do today."
March 9, 2164 (Cronos Station, Anadius, Horsehead Nebula)
Cronos Station offered a most spectacular view of Anadius, the star's massive EM field ideal for hiding both the station and the shipyards, although there, Jack took the extra precaution of using the asteroid belt to disguise their growing fleet.
Jack Harper stood at the massive, shielded window, staring out at Anadius's roiling surface. He found the view enhanced his concentration and imagination, stilling his inner dayplanner.
His intercom chimed, dragging him away from that calm refuge and he turned, a sigh whispering between tight lips. "Yes?"
"Mr. Lawson is waiting on the QEC, sir." The slightest hint of distaste soured Ms. Obikwelu's professionalism.
Jack didn't blame her. He'd seen more warmth in a shark's gaze than Lawson managed on his best day. He returned to his chair and sat, one leg casually draped over the other knee. Suddenly, he felt the lack of the glass of bourbon and the cigarette from his previous incarnation. The props formed much of the mask that hid anything real and personal away from associates and enemies alike.
Once he settled, he connected the call, the rigid person of Henry Lawson appearing as the imager scanned him. Instead of greeting the business magnate, Jack simply watched and waited, forcing Lawson to begin the conversation on the defensive. While he'd asked Lawson to call him, Jack never allowed the evil bastard to feel the slightest bit of control.
"Harper," the man said by way of greeting and nodded, crisp and sharp as new paper. "You wanted an update?"
"Have you secured the second reaper corpse?" Jack asked, lacing a good, strong vein of impatience through the words. When they retrieved the IFF from the Leviathan of Dis, Jack ordered it turned over to the ship design team. They needed to deconstruct it and put a workaround in the IFF's of all their ships. Still, he wanted one shielded and stored on the Cronos base just in case.
"We have. It's in orbit of Horizon, and we have the shielded corridors and workspaces installed." Lawson puffed up a bit, his ego unable to assign any credit to anything but his genius. "We've begun the extraction of the IFF, but with your order to restrict time aboard the reaper to less than fifteen minutes, it's going slowly."
Jack shook his head. "I'm not loosening that restriction. Fifteen minutes a day, five days a week." He reached for the bourbon that wasn't there, then covered by brushing away the wrinkles in the rough silk of his trousers. "Are any of the workers showing signs of indoctrination?"
Lawson shook his head. "As you ordered, we monitor their brain waves aboard the reapers and administer cognitive tests every day when they report off shift. In addition, we monitor and log their sleep-dream states to assess even the slightest change. Nothing so far." The man paced the width of his QEC pad. "What we're discovering about these vessels ..."
Taking a deep breath, Lawson swallowed hard enough that Jack saw the man's adam's apple pole vault in his throat. He stopped pacing, eyes narrow and troubled as his gaze locked onto Jack. "We must move faster, and we must research indoctrination." He leaned into the console, the heels of his hands braced against the invisible surface. "We can't hope to counteract it without testing." He closed his eyes, visibly bracing himself. "Without human testing. Although, we could use prisoners of war; batarians aren't that dissimilar to us. My team assures me they will make acceptable test subjects."
Jack opened his mouth and took a breath, but then he looked down at the empty ashtray and shook his head. "Enough, Henry. As much as we need to research indoctrination, committing war crimes—and without actually being at war—will only ensure that we end up fighting the reapers alone. I refuse to alienate the rest of the galaxy."
He stood and closed the distance to Lawson's hologram. "If you feel that you are unable to follow the project guidelines, I can turn it over to someone else." Although phrased as an offer, Jack launched the words with enough weight to leave holes in the arrogant bastard on the other end. When Lawson didn't reply, Jack nodded. "Very well. Now, what's the situation with the Arca Monolith? Is it in turian custody?"
He needed to rely on the turians to find the monolith as they had before. He'd learned a great deal about the object while working with Ben and Eva on Shanxi, but never where the turians located the damned thing. Which meant waiting for his ears in the hierarchy's communication and intelligence systems to pick up any chatter.
"Nothing solid yet." Lawson's expression lit up, greedy and excited at the prospect of a new toy. "But the turians have a science team working in the Esori system." He picked up a datapad and scrolled down for a second. "Here it is, the research team is on Kailo in the Esori system, Aethon cluster." His stare returned to Jack. "That could be our dig site."
Jack returned to his chair and sat, assembling his pose like stacked marbles, needing the time to fabricate his calm just as carefully. "We'll have our people on Irune keep their ears open. Any intercept will have to be handled delicately." He nodded, twice, so tight and quick that his neck crackled. He swept at his trousers with the backs of his fingers, keeping his temper in check. "How is Miranda progressing?"
Lawson scrolled through his datapad, making a show of finding information that Jack knew buzzed like wasps at the very front of the man's mind. Lawson didn't need to look up his daughter's status, nor did he underestimate Jack enough to think Jack didn't already know everything he would say.
In fact, it spoke to the hubris of the man that he didn't see the fury rolling beneath Jack's calm professionalism. How had he managed to deal with Lawson in his last incarnation without strangling him? The honest answer to that question crawled just beneath Jack's skin, maggots drawn to the rot; Lawson's ruthless disregard for life had been useful, an expeditious means to an end.
Almost a minute passed before Lawson said, "Miranda has completed her post-secondary education. Matriarch D'tarra resigned two weeks ago, and since—"
Enough. Jack sliced the air with a hand. "In fact, Matriarch D'tarra resigned six months ago, and to avoid telling me why, you've brought in thirteen other instructors who have all left for the same reason." He reached over, his finger hovering over the disconnect control. "I'll have a security retinue there first thing in the morning to collect Miranda. She can complete her biotics training with me."
Lawson hesitated, stiffening for a fight. "I created Miranda and those before her to continue my legacy, not to provide you with a social secretary or some plaything." As he said the last, he folded his hands behind his back, squaring his shoulders.
Jack relaxed down into his chair, not slouched, but still. He refused to match Lawson scream for scream; the man could throw his tantrum once Jack hung up. "What is best for your legacy is to have an heir untainted by indoctrination. They'll be there by noon, have her ready." He cut off the channel before Lawson could reply.
He'd have Yakani take a platoon to pick Miranda up. His head of security wouldn't hesitate to shoot her way through everyone on the base if she needed to. Cocking his head to the side, Jack stretched his neck, then his jaw. Talking to Lawson always skewered the muscles along his spine with bamboo splinters.
Ms. Obikwelu appeared in the doorway, a large, steaming mug in her hand. "Thought you might need this." When he nodded, she strode across the gleaming, black-tiled floor, the effect of the reflections an interesting one: as if she floated in a field of stars. After she passed him the coffee, she held out a datapad. "This just came in from the surveillance satellites in orbit around Mindoir, sir. I knew you'd want to see it right away."
Jack set his coffee down and activated the datapad, skimming the information. His assistant knew better that to read tactical information before he did, but she also possessed excellent instincts. And damn, wasn't she right? An incoming fleet. Five slave transports and fifteen support vessels. All his blood drained down to pool in his legs, leaving him dizzy, a sudden aura blinding the center of his vision.
Too soon. They'd come too soon. He looked up, searching his assistant's face for any sign that the situation might not be as dire as it appeared. No luck. Of course not, why should the messenger know by what means fate intended to take its due?
He needed to respond, but did he race in to save Shepard? The main colony had enough firepower to repel the batarians, but the farming colony did not. While it had three anti-aircraft cannons, all the batarians needed to do was land away from the colony. In Grizzlies, it would take minutes to overwhelm the defences on the ground.
"Get Urdnot Wrex on the QEC for me," he ordered, keeping his voice steady and controlled. Even at ten, Shepard knew how to use a gun. Wrex admitted to gifting her scaled-down, custom weapons for her eighth birthday, slipping it past her parents disguised as knowing basic safety when it came time to pass her father's size and strength test.
He stilled his hands' trembling by pressing his palms against the heavy silk covering his thighs. Wrex appeared too slowly, the imager insisting on starting at his feet, climbing his legs with enough sloth that Jack stood, using the seconds to close on the image.
"What is it?" the krogan demanded when he stood there, whole at last. Wrex stared at him for a split second, then turned away from the imager. "Get my ship, krantt, and family ready to fly. We're headed for Mindoir as soon as we all get there."
Pivoting back to meet Jack's stare, Wrex let out a low roar. "Is it the batarians?" Apparently finding his answer in Jack's expression, he thundered on. "Six cycles early?" He lunged toward the imager, enough fury burning in those crimson eyes to force Jack back a step. "What did you do to piss them off?"
"Does it matter?" The blade of Jack's hand sliced the air between them. "No. It doesn't. How many can you get there, and how fast?"
"I have a hundred warriors a half hour from hitting the relay." Wrex moved to close the call. "I'm taking her off that planet, Illusive Man." The last two words sank venomous fangs into Jack's jugular. "She's not your puppet."
Jack closed the distance, standing practically nose to nose with the krogan's hologram. "It's not about having a puppet. It's about making sure we don't repeating our lives again in twenty years." He backed up. "Just get to her. We'll figure the rest out later."
"I intend to." The pad flashed and went dark as Wrex hit the disconnect.
Jack returned to his chair, legs crossed pleat-perfect, and picked up his coffee, holding it between his hands to warm his fingers. At least their work had only stirred up batarians, not the collectors. They weren't ready to fight collectors, but the batarians attacking Mindoir could be spun to move humanity and the krogan toward council positions.
He let out a long breath and sipped at the scalding liquid, wrestling with his previous distress until it calmed. They could end up ahead of schedule thanks to the batarians moving early. And Wrex had always been right: Shepard wasn't nearly as important this time around.
(A-N: So much happening. So many threads coming together. Next chapter, we're off to Mindoir. As always, I can't thank everyone enough for reading, fave and following, and reviewing. I feel like many of you have become friends. *hugs and saucy kittens*)