The salarian secretary sat typing at his desk they way he usually did. The marred wall now adorned with a gaudy paining of some asari artist's distorted view of what was attractive to look at. He wished Ms. T'Soni had let him pick out the art. He was the one who had to look at it all day. He would have preferred something more masculine, but with over three quarters of the population in Nos Astra being female and most of those being asari, he understood her choice.

Vakarian, Krios and Shepard made their way up the steps. Liara's assistant barely gave them a glance before opening the doors to her office. Garrus chuckled when he saw what was covering the hole in the wall. He gave the salarian a wink when he glared up at them as they passed his desk. The salarian was visibly taken aback at the gesture, eyes opening wide to reveal the yellow coloring of his eyes all the way around. Garrus laughed, mandibles wide in a grin.

"Interesting choice of art work, Liara." He said when she rose to greet them. "I never knew you were so cultured." He teased.

Liara eyed him. He was clearly being sarcastic.

"I'm sorry if your tastes are too common to appreciate the finer things in life, Vakarian." Liara said flatly. "My clients expect a degree of class when they come to see me. I'm not ashamed to show that I possess it."

Garrus was not grinning anymore. The expression had quickly changed to a glowering stare. Shepard cut him off before he could retaliate.

"It's a lovely paining, Liara, but that's not why we're here."

Really she had no idea what it was supposed to be. It was brightly colored with varying hues of blue and purple with shapely lines and speckles. It was pleasing to look at either way, at least to her eye. She ignored the glance Thane gave her.

"Thank you, Shepard." Liara nodded her head in thanks for the compliment. "What can I help you with today? Have you had a chance to read the data I sent you?"

"Yes, well.. not all of it." Shepard said as she took the seat offered to her by the asari. "Do you have any information on the current location of Jack aka Subject Zero?"

"The human biotic who was on your team?"

Shepard nodded.

"She may be difficult to locate. She uses no sir name and does not stay in one place for long."

Liara sat down in front of her console and began typing.

"There are several thousand human females within an estimated age bracket on record that have used the name 'Jack'. None of them have an alias listed as 'Subject Zero'." She said shaking her head. She hit a few more keys.

"I've isolated the ones with criminal records. Three of them list no sir name. Two are currently imprisoned on Earth. One has location listed as unknown."

"That is likely to be the Jack we seek." Thane spoke up behind Shepard.

"Indeed." Liara replied without looking up. "She was last seen while hijacking the UT-50 drop shuttle Karelian."

"That shuttle was made to mimic the Kodiak. She was after it's FTL capabilites." Garrus stated in military fashion, talons behind his back.

"Where would she be going?" Shepard wondered aloud.

"Who knows. It's Jack. She's crazy." Garrus shrugged.

Shepard hid her smile with a poorly executed 'hand over the mouth in thought' gesture.

"If we put a bounty on her, alive of course, it will draw attention to her."

"More than she already gets?" Garrus teased. Thane ignored him.

"It could give us a more recent hit on her location."

"She already has a warrant out for her arrest." Liara stated.

"A warrant seldom pays as much as a bounty." Thane pointed out.

"Leave it to the assassin..." Shepard thought with that bizarre bit of arousal that had attracted her to the strangely spiritual and deadly alien in the first place.

Even after all this time, she was in a constant state of desire for him. She wondered briefly if it had been this way for Irikah, and if it had, how the poor woman dealt with his absences.

"What would we offer? We have little to spare." Shepard asked him over her shoulder.

Thane looked at her wasn't a side of himself she'd seen much of, the side that learned to use his skills for free lance and therefore taught to think in monetary terms.

"It doesn't matter what we offer, as long as it's more than the warrant reward. We won't be giving one. It's only a lure for her location. If she is successfully brought in, we have two options. Negotiate a settlement, or kill the bounty hunters."

Shepard was at a loss for words for a few seconds. He'd just suggested murder to her as if he were suggesting they take a walk in the park that evening. She'd foolishly romanticised the life he'd lead before, how dangerous he really was. Surely he would prefer the former, what with the guilt of having blood on his hands and all. She considered him, standing there strait as ever, a professional death dealer, her lover and husband. Mordin had been right when he said Thane was complex. Of course the assassin was right, as well. That would be their only two options in the unlikely situation that Jack could be brought in against her will by less than a small army.

"Okay. Let's set this up. I want to spend as little time chasing ghosts as possible." She said and got up to leave.

"One last thing, Shepard." Liara called to her.

Shepard stopped in her tracks and half turned to her former lover.

"I may be closer to the Shadow Broker than I thought. You may want to speed the process of gathering your team."

The cold tone of Liara's words sent an uneasy chill through the Commander as she nodded to this blue woman who had never been so alien to her until this moment. She clearly did not know who Liara was anymore.

The salarian eyed them again as they left. He didn't know what they wanted with his boss, and he didn't care. He just did his job and when home, most days anyway. Sometimes he'd hit the lounge or a strip club that had less expensive dancers willing to go home with him. The asari had that going for them. He could experience pleasure with them that didn't involve sex, something salarians couldn't do anyway. Reproduction didn't work like that for his species. He was glad about that. The whole idea seemed way to messy and... intimate for his tastes. If only the asari had been a race of men instead of women. He may have considered the idea of a permanent mate... Or maybe if whatever species that one was could do what the asari were capable of... He eyed the drell as he descended the stairs.

Thane felt the salarian's eyes on him. It wasn't the first time he'd been ogled by another man. He didn't mind being thought of as attractive by whatever found him to be so, but it was not an avenue he was interested in traveling. He glanced back coolly at the assistant before the line of sight was broken by the rising horizon of the stairs, making it clear he knew and that he did not return the interest.