Chapter 21

We never stop for a moment as we head through the halls. Every few turns, we get the jump on a few assassins and make use of the fact that EDI scrambled their communications. In between those, a squad of the assassins might get the jump on us, but they typically then find out why we're not the sort of people you mess with.

As we come up on the next hall, I search the area quickly. "No one this way. We might be getting closer. See if you can find one of those terminals that EDI said would—"

Before I can finish, the vents over our heads pop open and several of the assassins jump out. One of them instantly starts to come at me. The second I see them approaching with one of the knives, I duck enough to avoid the strike and grab them by the arm. But instead of seizing the opportunity to shoot my assassin down like the others do, I twist the arm I've taken hold of until they cry out and drop the knife, which I then snatch from the air halfway to the floor and drive up into their chest. The blade pierces far enough for me to feel it as their heartbeat slowly fades. As they finally drop to the floor, I remember two of the entries I saw on the data for the clone—"Skeletal system modified" and "All internal organs pressurized and restored." Looks like I just acted in retaliation.

Maybe it shouldn't bother me so much that they did all those things to the clone. But she's a clone of the love of my life, the woman I loved and lost forever. To think of them so extensively terrorizing someone with the same body even with a different mind…someone with the same blood, the same heart…

"Ow!" she winced, flinching back from me.

"I barely touched it," I pointed out as I more carefully reached for her arm, where she'd been grazed by a bullet after her armor cracked in a close-up fight with a Cerberus trooper.

"It's a fresh scratch. Those have a way of stinging from the slightest—ow!" She started to flinch again.

This time, I outright grabbed her arm and started to put pressure on the "minor" injury. "This is what you get for using the last medi-gel on me."

"Yeah, well, you got shot in the arm and I've survived a lot worse than this, so it wasn't even a choice in my head."

I just gave her a brief look. Just feeling the warmth of her blood on my hand was enough to bring back the concern for her sake, however small the actual wound was. "I swear, if Vega isn't back with Cortez and the shuttle in five minutes…!"

"Garrus! It's a flesh wound! It's not like I'm going into a coma!"

"You'll forgive me for being a bit too worried over the fact that my girlfriend got hit and I can't even stop the bleeding."

She understood that. The small measure of annoyance peeking through was instantly replaced by the beginnings of a swell of sympathy. "Hey…" She reached to take hold of my free hand and placed it against her chest, just over her heart. "See? Still going strong."

…thump…thump…

I shake it off. I lost myself in the rest of that memory enough back at the clinic. Now is certainly not the time.

I look back at the others and find that the rest of the assassins are down as well. "…well…that was deceptively sneaky. EDI, did you miss an alarm or do they always crawl through their own vents?"

"It is most likely," EDI counters, "that they heard us coming from the next hall over and chose to surprise attack us. Obviously, this was not an efficient strategy."

I groan. "This is just gonna keep getting harder, isn't it?"

"And we will continue to not make it easy on them," Samara points out.

I turn my attention back to the hall around us. It doesn't seem to lead anywhere, but there are six doors between us and the end, three on either side. I head for the door nearest to us and open it. There's no one inside and nowhere to go from here, but we've finally found one of the terminals EDI mentioned.

Grunt starts scanning the room himself, not letting his own gun down for a second. "So they ambush us in the hall when we can outmaneuver them, but not in here when we have access to their information?"

"Grunt's right," I say, "Keep your guard up. Half of what's happened with these guys hasn't made tactical sense."

"And the other half?" Jack questions.

"Is so genius it's scary." Still, the others are ready to cover me and no one's coming right now, so I approach the terminal and access the data log stored on it.

"Our window is closing," Orion's voice comes through the terminal, "It's past time the Shadows stepped into the light. But to do that, we first have to overthrow the Council. Our sufficient force should be more than enough to handle any opposition, but it's not enough to just win. We need to hit the Council where it hurts. We need an agent for our insurgency, someone who can show the galaxy that we have not just the strength to perform such a feat but also the power to enforce it. I hate to say it, but we may need to take a page from the Reapers for that one. We need to turn the Council's own strength against them. So I believe the search should take place among the ranks of the Spectres."

"They were gonna do what?!" James instantly demands.

I sigh. "Guess it was pretty inevitable for us to eventually get to someone with a 'take over the entire galaxy' plan."

"Well," Liara comments dryly, "at least it's a reprieve from all the 'destroy the entire galaxy' plans."

"Alright…" I check my gun again before heading to the next door. "…let's keep going. We'll find the rest along the way." After the next two doors we check come up empty and the third has us meeting an assassin who goes down after one shot, I turn to EDI again. "You're sure you can't find any schematics for this place?"

"There were none available at the security terminal, no," EDI answers even as we head to the next door.

"Nothing's ever easy with us…"

Only two doors left. Both of which are prime spots for another ambush. Tali, James, Samara, Grunt, Miranda, and I head for one while Liara, Wrex, Jack, EDI, Jacob, and Ash take the other. We all head in at the same time, ready for a fight. No assassins, but…

"I think we found the door to the next hall," I call to the others.

"Same here!" Ashley calls back.

"Alright, we'll stay split up and head through, then meet up when we find Orion. Or the clone. Don't turn your COMMs off until we get there." So I open the door to the next hall and lead the five following me off. The hall is dimly lit and a bit too quiet. That usually means…

Of course. Less than ten seconds after we've entered the hall, the Shadows start in. The fight breaks out instantly. There's only six of us instead of twelve but there are more Shadows now than we've been facing this whole time. Enough to make you wonder just how many of them there could possibly be.

"We've encountered heavy opposition!" Ashley reports over the COMM, "There's a lot of them but they're only slowing us down!"

"Same here!" I report back as I shoot off one of the assassins, "But past experience says that just means we're on the right track. Keep pushing ahead and don't let them too close!" Figures that, as soon as I say it, Grunt goes charging past and mows down five of our attackers. "…except to the krogan."

We don't let up until all our targets are down. Then we keep moving down the hall and following the trail of people trying to kill us. No doors we come across lead anywhere, so it's probably a straight shot from here. All we have to do is stay alive until we reach the end. The Shadows seem pretty intent on making sure we don't get that far, but they don't exactly stop us. We finally come to a door at the end of the hall and figure that must be the way to our targets. We storm in…and come face-to-face with Ash and the others.

I take a moment to look around in confusion. Our halls just connected with no Shadows waiting for us and no doors or alcoves. "OK, I know these old mines are usually like mazes, but this is just ridiculous!"

"We must have missed a door back at the entrance," Tali says, "We'll have to double back."

"Wait!" I grab her by the arm before she can head out. I can see from here that there are Shadows pouring over the hallway we just cleared. Like we just fell into a trap. One glance at the hall Ash and the others came through says it's the same for them. "We're boxed in. We'll be lucky to get all the way back to where we started before we're massacred."

"Hold on!" Tali then fires her shotgun four times at the wall. When I look, I see why: she just opened a vent shaft. "It looks like it might be big enough for all of us to get through."

"Good thinking. Let's go!" I crawl in with Tali just behind me. The others move in after us, Wrex coming in last. "There's no room to maneuver if they flank us!" I call back to him.

"I got it!" Wrex calls back, his insistence instantly followed by the beeping of a grenade he tossed back into the hall we cleared. Just when we get out of range, it goes off and completely prevents the Shadows behind us from following. "What would you guys do without me?"

I just shake my head at him, smirking to myself, and keep moving. We finally reach a grate. I move towards it and kick it open, dropping through to the room below. As the others follow, I look around and find that it's similar to the security room, complete with a terminal likely carrying more of Orion's data log.

"Looks like we're getting closer to the big fight," Grunt comments.

"Which means they'll start coming at us even harder when they see what we're doing. Watch your back." I watch as they all ready their weapons for a new fight. Then I access the terminal like I did the previous one.

Once again, Orion's voice comes from it: "Brainless terrorists. Cerberus just had to go crazy and try exactly what we were planning. At least they proved that a 'coup' is possible. But they also proved that it'll never succeed as long as Commander Shepard is around. On the other hand…she is a Spectre…so if we could convince her…we may have just found our insurgent. Still, 'convincing' her will be the hard part. She's a regular 'paragon of virtue' if ever there was one. However, the intel we have on her suggests she has severely extreme emotional attachments to most—if not all—of her crewmen. They could be our leverage. Now all we have to do is wait for an opening to act on that plan…"

"They were planning this before Shepard even died?" Ashley asks, most of us following her into shock, "And they were going to use us to blackmail her into killing the Council and giving that Orion jerk total control?!"

"It's a brilliant plan, actually," Miranda grudgingly admits.

"How can you say that?!"

"…because it would've worked."

Sadly, we can't debate her over it. We all know she's right again. Shepard gave her life to save the galaxy, but she made every other risk imaginable for us. If the Shadows managed to get their hands on us like they did on the Citadel, then anything Shepard could do to free us besides going along with their plan might've gotten us all killed. She'd never risk that. And no one would be able to stand in her way.

"Attack strategy aside," Jacob finally says, "the real question is…what were they going to do with us and with Shepard when they were done?"

That's even worse. We all know what the answer is. There's no way they would've just let us go knowing that, as soon as we were loose, Shepard would take us storming the Citadel to undo the damage. No way would they have risked their "insurgent" toppling their "perfect" regime. Once they were through with their takeover, they would've killed us anyway…and, when they couldn't control her anymore, taken Shepard with us.

"That…that…!" Tali practically growls, searching for an insult.

"Bosh'tet?" I finally bring myself to ask.

"…that's not nearly strong enough."

"…yeah…can't say I thought so myself." Because I didn't.

Killian Orion. Who not only took it upon himself to become ruler of the galaxy but sought to use the love of my life to do so, plotted to use those closest to her to turn her into a slave, and now has given every force at his disposal to ensure that those people he would've used will die suffering. …who used her blood for his own purposes and then tortured the product and is probably still doing so now. There aren't enough insults in every language in the galaxy to add up to that. If I got my hands on him now, I'd…!

…I would…

"I'm getting a little worried about you, Garrus. You were pretty hard on Harkin."

"You don't think he deserved it?"

"It's just not like you."

"…what do you want from me, Shepard? What would you do if someone betrayed you?"

"I'm not sure. But I wouldn't let it change me."

"I would've said the same thing before it happened to me."

"It's not too late. You don't have to go through with this."

"Who's going to bring Sidonis to justice if I don't? Nobody else knows what he's done, nobody else cares. I don't see any other options."

"Let me talk to him."

"Talk all you want but it won't change my mind. I don't care what his reasons were! He deserves to die!"

"I understand what you're going through, but do you really wanna kill him?"

"I appreciate your concern…but I'm not you."

"…this isn't you either."

I couldn't hear it then. I couldn't see it. I didn't care. But I hear it now. I hear the pleading in her voice. When she all but begged me not to go through with my plan, she really meant something else. Something more. "Don't leave me like this, Garrus. I can't lose you. It's killing me to see you this way. I didn't realize it until now…but I love you."

…I can't do it. She fought so hard to keep me from crossing that line. Now I'm planning to try again and worse? She wouldn't want that. If she were here, if she were with me right now…

"Garrus?" Liara is at my side. She must have noticed my distress coming back.

Not here, Garrus. Not now. I sigh, pulling it together. "Every second we spend here is another second they're getting ready for us. We need to keep moving." So without another word, I pull my rifle back out and hit the door, leading the squad into the hall. This hall is the darkest yet. "Stay close," I give the order, keeping my voice low, "Turning your lights on will give us away."

"Well, this ought to be fun," Jack groans.

We sneak down the hall for a while. We don't pass any doors that we can open or anymore of the terminals. It seems that the lower levels are more secure. Which means we must be getting closer to our targets. It doesn't look like any of the Shadows know where we are now (if EDI's hack is still holding, half of them might not even know we're here at all), because we aren't ambushed on this level like the last one. No problems present themselves at all until we hit a fork in the road.

I look around at our three paths. "No way are we splitting up here. EDI?"

"I cannot determine which path is the correct one," EDI answers, "My thermal scans are not even picking up any readings on this level."

Well, her sensors have never steered us wrong before. It could be argued that somehow the Shadows have another jamming signal set up that could interfere with her readings, but our COMMs wouldn't be working if we were close enough for her to be affected. Time to approach this logically. We'll have even less of a chance of getting out of this place alive if we end up getting lost and we'll have more of a chance of getting lost if we start turning down every hall we come across.

"Just keep going straight," I sigh, heading forward once I'm certain they're all following closely behind me, "If there's no one on this level anyway, then we—" Suddenly, I feel something shifting under my foot as it hits the floor. I instantly stop walking and look down. It's too dark for me to tell but I can feel a vibration there, like something's…

Uh oh.

"Why are we stop—?" Ashley starts to ask.

Before she can finish or any of us can move, the structural weakness in the floor I just put pressure on gives way and drops open, sending all 12 of us tumbling through the hole and down into a pile in the room underneath.

I instantly start struggling to get back up. Nothing's broken, I've still got my weapons—looks like I'm fine. "Is everyone alright?"

"We are still in one group and no one is injured," EDI answers from not far away.

"Right," Miranda growls, "Now. Whoever's hand that is, you have five seconds before you lose it!"

"Sorry!" James says.

I shake it off and get back on my feet. This room is the darkest one yet. I can't see two feet in front of me. I quickly start feeling around for a wall. Luckily, it doesn't take long to find one and the one I find is not far from the lighting controls. This time, I throw caution out the window and turn the lights on right away. That gives the others a better chance to recuperate and shows us where we are: the lowest level in the entire facility, the entrance to what was once the mining caverns. I look around and find that we're completely alone and the only way out (besides the obviously-unhelpful way we came in) is a small grouping of elevators that don't even seem active.

There's also one last terminal right next to the lighting controls.

"No one is here," Samara observes, "It appears we missed our quarry entirely."

"We'll have to get the elevators running," I strategize, "Start at the top levels and work our way back down to the way we came in."

"We're on it," Liara says as she heads over with most of the others to try reactivating the elevators. While I turn my attention to the only other object of interest in the area.

I'm not exactly eager to turn on the terminal.

But I still do.

"I don't believe this! The Reapers got their hands on the Citadel before we ever got a chance to bring out our master plan. And now Shepard's gone and made that ultimate sacrifice. Stupid heroics… We're not cancelling the plan now. We'll just have to find another way to retrieve our investment. …and this way might just be even better. If we can gather the baseline material from Earth, we can 'revive' her. She already came back from the dead once, so no one should have any trouble seeing a clone as the real deal, especially taking into account the circumstances of her latest demise. The best part? She'll be our perfect soldier permanently and the galaxy will never know the difference. Shouldn't be too hard to find a decent blood sample either, considering only one person ever reached that beam. And she was injured when she got there."

I just barely resist the urge to shoot the terminal like I shot the console where we found the contract data. The same rage is coming back. Don't do that to yourself, Garrus. She'd never want that.

"We have to find that guy," Wrex growls, "He needs a good killing!"

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Wrex," I comment as I head over to the elevators. I reach them just as Tali and EDI manage to restore access. "No point in waiting then. Let's get going." The others start into the elevators and set them for the highest floor they can access.

But I still cast one last glance at the terminal before heading out. For some reason, one thing Orion said in that last log sticks out most to me.

"The galaxy will never know the difference."

…I would've known.