It took only a matter of minutes from the time the announcement had been made that the Reaper artifact was located until Dr. Bryson dispatched her team of trained excavators to the site. In the hours since they left, Ann grew more and more incapable of sitting still. She paced back and forth in the Project Scarab lab, checking her watch every few minutes, anxiously awaiting any news as to the artifact.
"Okay," Ann finally spoke up after looking at her watch for the hundredth time, "Someone give me something to do or I'm going to drive all of you crazy."
"We have everything taken care of, Doctor." Miranda replied with annoyance in her voice as she continued working busily.
"Well, then walk me through what you're doing, I'm desperate for a distraction." Ann begged.
"We're running our sample DNA against the reaper code fragments your team discovered." Miranda spoke with an irritated sigh
"And what are you looking for?"
"Confirmation that they are the source of the alteration."
"How many mutated samples do you have?"
"Two." Miranda replied, flicking her eyes toward the Commander.
"And they share the same mutation?"
"Correct."
"And how many don't?" Ann questioned
"I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean." Miranda replied, clearly annoyed by the doctor's questions.
"How big is your control group? How can you be sure you're not just finding something that was already there and that exists naturally?
"This is a pretty specific scenario, I doubt testing hundreds of people whom we know will be negative will have any direct bearing on our current research." Miranda said condescendingly.
"Do you think it's possible that this extends beyond It's current members?" Shepard asked the team cryptically, attempting to keep Dr. Bryson out of the loop.
"Not impossible," Mordin interjected, "but unlikely."
"But we thought Javik would be impossible too," Shepard pushed, growing more and more concerned.
"The Commander has a point," Dr. Chakwas stated, "We should cover all our bases,"
"Agreed," Mordin agreed, "Will start mass testing. Scarab employees will make good first focus group. Good variance."
"You can't just volunteer them Mordin," Shepard admonished him.
"I can't see any reason why we can't help," Dr. Bryson said, "That is, assuming the tests aren't too invasive."
"Blood sample. Soft tissue sample. Completely non-invasive." Mordin confirmed with a smile
"I'll send out a blast and send all the volunteers up…" Ann started, breaking off as her com unit lit up and a shrill ring sounded. Everyone watched as Ann listened to the voice on the other end of the com. She nodded ever few moments and soon she smiled broadly, thanked the person on the other end, and clicked the com dead.
"We got it!" She exclaimed as she quickly gathered her things and headed towards the door. "Commander, would you like to accompany me?"
By the time the shuttle touched down at the excavation site, Ann's mix of excitement and anxiety had reached critical levels. Much of the ride was spent in either complete silence or in rushed conversations about nothing in particular. For her part, Shepard spent the ride paying close attention the feeling in her gut that everything was about to go wrong.
They expected to be greeted by the smiling faces of the students who had excavated the relic, but as the shuttle doors opened, they were greeted only by silence. Shepard could feel the unmistakable presence of death.
Although not as attuned as Shepard, even Ann could feel something was wrong, but she shrugged it off and started moving towards the camp, only to be held back by Shepard's hand on her arm.
"What is it?" Ann started to say, quickly found her silence as she saw the commander draw her assault rifle.
Shepard pulled the doctor behind her, "Stay back and stay down," she warned the fear filled doctor, receiving a obedient nod in return.
She started a slow, methodical search of the area, entering room after room using standard infiltration tactics, looking for any sign of what happened. Ann obediently followed only after receiving Shepard's all clear sign, but her obedience failed when she saw the first body.
Shepard could only watch as Ann ran towards her fallen coworker, knowing she was desperate to save the scientist, but sure there was nothing that could be done. The body showed signs of a savage beating, and the blood spattered room painted a picture of an intense struggle. It didn't take long for Shepard to find the long, blood covered pipe that served as the murder weapon.
"Who…who could have done this...?" Ann asked Shepard through her sobs.
"You might have had a mole on your staff." Shepard offered the only explanation she could as she crouched next to the mourning doctor, stroking her back to calm her.
"For the artifact?" Ann said, looking up at the commander with tear stained cheeks.
"Come on," Shepard said as she half picked the scientist up, "You can't stay here alone, but there might be worse things to come."
"I know...I just don't understand…"
"Ann, look at me," She pulled the doctors eyes to hers, "I need you to block out everything else. It's just you and me okay? Just you and me." Ann nodded and Shepard could see the torrent of tears slowing, "Now Ann, we're going to keep moving forward, but I want you to keep your eyes on me. Don't look anywhere else, no matter what happens. Can you do that?"
"Yes Commander."
"Good. We're going to figure out what happened to these men and stop it. Okay?"
"Okay," Ann agreed as she dried her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
The started moving slower than before, and Shepard managed to keep Ann in control every time they passed a body. As before, Shepard did a quick examination of the scene and found that as the first one, each was killed with blunt force. By the time they reached the dig site, Shepard had counted a total of twelve bodies.
She didn't expect the thirteenth. He laid crumpled on the floor in a large pool of blood, his clothes covered in a multicolored combination of human and nonhuman blood. His face was bashed in beyond recognition, and Shepard could only confirm his identity by the ID tag on his breast pocket. The indented, bloody wall above him spelled out the gruesome manner of his death.
"How many people were down here?" Shepard asked Ann who was still covering her eyes.
She thought for a minute, "twelve...no thirteen."
"Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yes...why?"
"Because this can't be just about stealing the artifact."
"Oh God," Ann started crying again as the realization hit her, "They're all dead aren't they?"
Shepard couldn't stop Ann from opening her eyes and looking at the man. She stood eerily silent as she processed the scene in front of her. "Stevens?...He killed everyone and then...just ran into the wall?"
"It appears that way."
"But he was such a good kid, why would he hurt all those people? Why would he kill himself like th..that?"
"He did do this of his own free will, he was indoctrinated."