Hello, Time Bomb

Chapter 35

Old Acquaintance

Three

It took Shepard more time than she had anticipated to get back to the Citadel. Menae was a disaster mitigated only by their successful extraction of Primarch Victus. She had expected the devastation on Palaven and its surrounding colonies but it brought new gravity to the situation on Earth.

She had EDI running constant scans on people she knew, set up to immediately alert her if anyone passed through a checkpoint in Council space, was checked into a medical facility or listed as a casualty. Nearly every tracking system was in disarray but her limited surveillance allowed her some peace of mind. Her schedule was so full that emotional weakness simply couldn't be allowed, her allotted time for personal care was barely enough to shower and dress, any nagging worries cut into her already insufficient sleep rations.

Her visit to the Citadel would be a deciding factor in her personal well being for the next week. She was anticipating a reunion with Mordin on Sur'Kesh in three days, which she knew would help to stabilise her mood. If she could deal with Kaidan's business without any major incident she could rely on an unimpeded adherence to schedule for the immediate future.

She checked her omnitool as she made her way through the spaceport, she had half an hour to see Kaidan before she was due at the Spectre ops centre to meet Jondam Bau. She was actually looking forward to that, she liked Jondam.

"Lazarus."

She stopped in her tracks, a familiar voice pulling her attention away from her schedule.

The Cerberus... Miranda Lawson was leaning casually against the railings by the window, looking out over the air traffic. She looked, as always, like she had more time than anyone else to maintain her appearance, she was well hydrated and lovingly styled, her hair smooth, her skin clear, her makeup applied perfectly.

It had been six months since they had last spoken. Since she had all but thrown Lawson off her ship.

"It's Shepard," Shepard said.

Lawson raised an eyebrow, an expression of professional pride crossing her face. "So it's true. I heard that you'd made progress, I wanted to see for myself."

This was pointless. Lawson was cutting into the time allotted to Kaidan. "You've seen."

Shepard turned to walk away.

"Wait, Shepard."

She shouldn't turn back, she knew that. This was unproductive, butting into her scheduled time with Kaidan and a possible emotional stressor she hadn't factored into her calculations.

But she had a morbid curiosity about Miranda Lawson that wouldn't be shaken. The brazenness exhibited in the simple act of approaching Shepard, her former lab experiment/brainwashing victim in public, as if they had some amicable relationship, was at least worth considering.

"What?"

"I couldn't get anywhere near you when the Alliance had you locked up. I'm surprised they didn't court martial you, they aren't known for their flexibility."

Shepard felt a ghost of an itch on her inner wrists and elbows. "What did you need?"

"What's happening on Earth?"

"The Reapers are there."

Lawson looked perturbed. "What's the situation?"

"We're working on it."

"I'm sure you'll find some way to even the odds. Everyone has a weakness, even the Reapers." Lawson sounded strange. Shepard couldn't place it at first, but she found that there was a distinct lack of forcefulness in Lawson's speech. She sounded almost contrite.

"Why are you here?"

"I needed to talk to some people. Like you. There's something I need to deal with."

Shepard leaned in closer. She had a history of disliking Lawson's projects. "What?"

"I haven't heard from my sister, Oriana, for a while. I'm getting worried."

If Lawson was here to ask for help... Shepard cursed internally. If Oriana needed help then she would get it. "What do you need?"

"Nothing, you have bigger things to deal with. Just... Shepard I know you must hate me, but I tried to help you."

"Is that what you're here for? Forgiveness?"

"I just want you to know that we're on the same side."

A flash of bitter anger ran through her. She rolled up her right sleeve, just enough to show the red burn mark on her wrist, and exposed the skin to Lawson. "I don't want you on my side."

"That was voluntary," Lawson said, her voice taking on that familiar, stubborn tone.

Shepard turned away. "If Oriana needs my help, you call me."

She walked away without waiting for an answer. She tugged her sleeve back into place as she made for the rapid transit. Being powerless was a state she was getting used to, but she didn't have to be polite. It was a force of habit to not cause trouble, to keep her head down, never be memorable, never rock the boat. It made her a good infiltrator. But she had limits.

The transit recognised her Spectre status and she punched in the number for Huerta Memorial. The pit of anger in her chest didn't want to shift, filling her with impotent ire and nervous energy. This situation lacked a clear resolution. She didn't like that. She could storm into Kaidan's room, demanding that he charge the Cerberus doctors with their numerous crimes. She might even see a few of them locked up, but that wasn't closure. Her death had just been the start of her surgical adventures, she had been on more operating tables than she could count in the last year, the majority of the procedures a blur. There was only one doctor that she thought had her best interests at heart throughout any of it, and he was waiting for her on Sur'Kesh.

When the transit arrived at the hospital she found herself keenly aware of her surroundings. Of patients in hospital gowns, of needles and pill bottles, the faint sound of heart monitors. Damn Miranda Lawson, she had thrown off all Shepard's emotional allowances. This would cut into her schedule, she couldn't afford to let medical care disturb her.

She strode a little too forcefully into Kaidan's room, but pulled up short at the sight that greeted her. He was still in bed, although fully clothed now, the bruising to his face now just a mottled discolouration. And every single surface of the room was covered in datapads.

"Commander," he said.

"Sir..." She looked around the room.

"How did Menae go?"

Shepard folded her arms tightly under her breasts. "The Primarch was successfully extracted."

"What's the situation like there?" He was looking at datapads in his hands, talking to her without actually seeing her.

"It's... bad."

"Yeah, well, I guess we expected that."

"Can I ask about the..?" She made a bemused sweeping gesture with one hand.

He looked up at her, finally, and she felt a little of the tension ease out of her body when their eyes met, some Pavlovian response to his presence. He really did have lovely eyes. If he'd just show her that smile again.

"This is what I need your help with," he said. "It turns out that I inherited Shepard's assets. I, uh, I was wondering if you had any memories of weapon mods."

Shepard blinked. She had forgotten about her patents. He looked stressed, a deep line between his eyebrows, his shoulders held almost as tightly as her own. This was hard for him, she realised. He was deliberately asking her to access her memories, memories he considered the property of someone else.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I remember."

"I just... you know, I can't let these go to the wrong people. Shepard wouldn't want that."

She decided to let that one slide. He was trying to trust her. "I'll help. What's your system?"

He almost smiled. He gestured to one side of the room, then the other. "Mods I know, mods I don't. Alphabetic from this end."

She nodded and immediately started working. She was supposed to be meeting Jondam in fifteen minutes. Ariake wanted high end mods to sell to mercs. That wasn't going to happen. Tungsten rounds would do. Lotus might benefit them, she'd have to do more research. They weren't getting high explosive.

Quickly sorting, she began developing three piles, one affirmative, one possible, one negative. Unfortunately most of the datapads were ending up in the 'possible' pile. Once she had reports from some other planets she could get a better estimate on what would be most useful in the field. She dropped the first pile of affirmative into Kaidan's lap.

"Tungsten rounds for Ariake. Lotus for Armax, turian husks are shielded. Tungsten as well, but only above mk 5."

"Why?" Kaidan asked.

She kept filing through datapads as she talked. "The standard issue turian assault rifle packs twice the burst output of the Alliance model. Low end tungsten mods won't improve the output, they'll just be wasting their money. Devlon... where is...?"

She made her way to the other side of the room and found the stack of Devlon applications. She picked out a priority request and dropped it in Kaidan's lap.

"I was wondering about this one," he said. "What are leviathan rounds?"

"Deep sea fishing. They'll be useful on Kahje."

"Deep sea fishing," he repeated deadpan. "Do I even want to know?"

"It's classified," she teased.

"Classified deep sea fishing is even more intriguing."

She smiled, making her way back to his 'known mods' sector and continuing her work. "I was on an oil rig for a few months, eating nothing but rehydrated protein bars. There was this delicious species of local shark."

It was one of the few fond memories she had of her crew before the first Normandy. They'd used the oil rig as a base to monitor a nearby batarian operation, it had been painfully monotonous until she had developed the leviathan mod. She remembered laughter, lots of laughter as her team went fishing with their pistols, using sonar to help them target. That shark had been some of the best meat she'd ever eaten.

Lotus rounds needed a full release in areas under Cerberus assault. Those Atlas mechs were formidable. She would have to attempt to hijack one, the glass protecting the pilot looked like a weak point.

"How have you been?" she asked, still sorting through the stack from Elanus.

"I should be back to mission-ready in a week or two."

Not exactly what she'd asked. Distancing behaviour. Not unexpected, but disheartening. She should get ahead of this. The situation was unprecedented but she could still gather data to estimate likely outcomes. EDI could help her.

"And your implant?"

"Rattled, but working."

She picked up an application from Gungren Industrial. Primarily a manufacturer of utility arms for the Tuchanka DMZ. They wanted high explosive rounds. She stared at it. Tuchanka hadn't been hit by the Reaper forces yet, but she was anticipating it. Once krogan husks hit the field the DMZ would be helpless, their armour was virtually impenetrable even without Reaper upgrades. High explosives would be the only way to burn through it. Of course, if any of them survived then disarming Tuchanka would be next to impossible.

"What do you think of Gungren?" she asked.

He took the datapad from her. "Who do they supply?"

"The krogans."

"Ouch. What's Tuchanka looking like?"

"No Reaper presence yet, but it's expected and I'm trying to organise a ground force to break the line at Palaven. High explosives would be useful against harvesters."

"I really don't know. That's why I asked you here, to get Shepard's opinion."

"My opinion is that I'm not sure."

"And you have nothing in there to give you any insight?"

Shepard clenched her jaw. "It's a brain, not a computer."

Don't start a fight. She had to get out of this without emotional complications.

"Yeah. I guess I'm just not sure how... this works just yet." He said the words with a gesture of one hand, up and down her body.

This wasn't going to work. She was going to punch him or kiss him if she stayed in the room and either outcome would be disastrous to any hope of reintegration. She picked out a few more datapads. "You know what? I'll just ask Mordin. He's done the proper studies, he can advise me. We'll work through more of these when I get back from Sur'Kesh."

"You're bringing someone else in on this? Wait, Mordin, you mean Mordin Solus? The STG guy you contacted on Earth?"

"Yes."

"What is he to you?"

"A friend."

Kaidan frowned suspiciously. "He was on the SR-2 wasn't he? A Cerberus friend?"

"Cerberus don't recruit salarians. He was my science officer, my doctor. My friend."

Kaidan turned the datapad over in his hands and Ivy realised she was gripping her own too tightly. She was unable to relax over this, feeling constantly on display, constantly judged. That wasn't a paranoid feeling, she knew he was watching her every move for signs of disloyalty.

She had saved him on Mars, had prevented a data transfer to Cerberus, what more could she do?

"I don't want to bring in anyone else."

Shepard sighed. She moved closer to him, edging up alongside the bed. He was as afraid of a repeat of Moscow as she had been a few years ago. He was afraid of making the wrong choices. "Major. My – Shepard's – Ivy's – opinion is that we need an expert consult on this one. Mordin has done advanced work on krogan socio-economics, there is no one more qualified to predict the outcome of this decision."

Kaidan paused, thinking it over. "And he's with the STG?"

"A veteran."

"Alright."

Shepard checked her omnitool. "I'm late for a meeting. Approve those requests, with the stipulations I gave you. We'll see what the others look like in a week or two. I'll try to make it back here after Sur'Kesh but I may be needed on Tuchanka. Call me if anything looks urgent."

"I will." Kaidan looked at her and gave a pained smile, trying to be friendly. "Thanks for coming out, I appreciate it."

"Anytime, Major."

She gave him a shy wave as she left, immediately realising how stupid that looked. But it was alright. No major incidents.

She made for the embassy and her now-overdue meeting with Jondam, confident that she could get through the next week, if only on a half-smile from Kaidan.