When Garrus entered the cabin not fifteen minutes after Shepard's terse call, the difference in mood was palpable. Gone was the almost-normal, almost-tender, almost-right feel of only a few hours earlier, replaced by tension so heavy it made it hard to breathe. Even the fish seemed to be moving slower. The last time he'd seen Solana's expression so unnerved, she'd been fresh from a paternal discussion about the many levels of disappointment it was possible for a frustrated father to feel.

In the years he'd known her, Garrus had witnessed a vast range of Shepard's emotions, and though anger was rare, he was nonetheless familiar with it. Hell, she'd been angry with him almost the first time they met, when he shot the man holding Dr. Michel without considering the risk to the hostage. That, however, fell closer to annoyance on the Shepard-fury spectrum. Her fuse was an exceptionally long one, and he didn't even need the six fingers of both hands to count how many times he'd seen her truly infuriated since. This, he suspected, was going to rate, and rate high. He could practically hear the tick of the timer counting down, the hiss of the slow-burning wire leading to a truly cataclysmic pile of explosives.

This wasn't the loud, frustrated, expletive-heavy rage he'd seen after Han'Garrel's misstep, though. This wasn't the frustration Udina had often stirred in her. This was the cold anger he'd seen after Aratoht, when she was already calculating exactly how best to use herself as a living weapon, and Spirits help anyone stupid enough to stand in her way. Even him. Well-timed quips were a potent weapon against her heated rage, but nothing—certainly nothing he'd ever learned—could stop the timer once the cold had been activated. It didn't matter that she was still wearing her fluffy hooded sweatshirt and not a uniform or her hardsuit or the I-mean-business dress blues. It didn't matter that she'd given him command and insisted she'd take a back seat. It didn't even matter that she was completely unarmed. This Shepard, immovable and certain in her righteous fury, was the one that led people to speak of Spectres in hushed and terrified whispers. And for damned good reason.

"Where's Brooks?" she demanded. Her expression gave him nothing. Her voice only confirmed how infuriated she was: somewhere above the anger of being shot at by supposed allies, but below the rage of finding out the asari had held back vital information until most of the galaxy was already in flames. For now, anyway.

Garrus crossed the room and stood at the end of the bed, linking his hands loosely behind his back and adopting an easy sort of parade rest, as if she were behind a desk and not propped up against a pile of pillows, respectful without being subordinate. "Doc wanted to wake her up slowly. And I didn't want to walk into this ambush blind. What the hell, Shepard?"

Beside Shepard, Solana flinched, her mandibles flicking into a subtle gesture of dismay. Shepard didn't so much as blink at his impertinence; this, at least, was familiar ground. It was a dance he knew exceptionally well, the give and take, the lead and follow, sometimes one and sometimes the other as the situation dictated. This was Commander Shepard and Advisor Vakarian. This was conversations about ruthless calculus and the difference between turian and human ideas of acceptable loss, no holds barred. His sister, even at her most impudent, was too good a turian to dream of speaking to a superior so baldly. And right now Shepard's entire being practically oozed superior in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with rank.

"Miranda left the book," Shepard said. "Honestly? I think it's a warning that nothing's as it seems."

"I could have told you that weeks ago."

"I don't think it's a coincidence that when Liara went looking for Miranda, she found Brooks instead."

"And that's the word you found? Miranda?"

"Actually," Shepard said, "it was 'Miri.'"

Garrus' mandibles fluttered in confusion. "I'm gonna need more than that."

Shepard lips compressed. "It's the nickname her sister uses. Which means either she was trying to keep her own name out of it, but leaving enough of a clue for me to figure out her identity, or it means she cooperated because someone was holding Oriana for Miranda's good behavior. Or both."

"You mean so she'd betray you."

Shepard shook her head faintly. "I don't begrudge her wanting to keep her family safe. God knows there're few enough families left in the galaxy." Pausing, she glanced down at the book beside her. "I'm not sure betrayal was in the cards, in any case. She left me this book. A book about things not being as they seem. A book about mirror images. A book for children, but so much more than that."

Solana finally found voice enough to say, "You quoted from it earlier. Was it… was the quote important?"

"'If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!' It was something she marked. Page and sentence, but she wrote the numbers out instead of using the symbols. I'm pretty sure there are more. And now that her code's broken, I'm sure she left similar messages in the turian."

"You think Miranda wrote in turian?"

Shepard snorted a mirthless laugh. "You don't think Miranda Lawson was schooled in every major alien language alongside a dozen of the more prominent extant human ones? Imagine the incomparable superiority if you can eschew the translator and speak in a being's home tongue. Besides, she had to have a backup in place, in case I wasn't cognizant enough to play translator on my own." Shaking her head, Shepard tapped a fingertip against the glossy cover. "If she found this book, she could have found others, is what I'm saying. So I'm certain she chose this one on purpose."

"Who would use her, then? Who would hold her sister hostage? Why… why would she do what she did? To you?"

Shepard steepled her fingers and stared at him for several long moments before speaking. "What did she do, though? Think about it. I was broken when you found me, but I… I got better. Mostly. And this is Miranda. If she figured out how to bring me back from the dead, I'm pretty sure she could wrangle up a way to fake the broken Shepard they wanted."

"But who's they?" Solana asked. "And why did they want you broken in the first place?"

"No idea," Shepard admitted. "But I'm hoping Brooks might prove a window."

Garrus sighed. "So you think Cerberus is involved somehow."

"I always think Cerberus is involved somehow. When hasn't Cerberus been involved? But I think Solana's asked the real question: why? If you'd taken me back to Earth straight away I might've been an object for pity, but I can't see how pity for the once-great Commander Shepard serves any purpose of Cerberus'." She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Which brings us back to Brooks again. You ever wonder why the clone—the other clone—Brooks' clone—chose such a strange path? The tactics were so skewed. The purpose was so muddy. Stealing the Normandy was one thing, but what on earth did she intend to do with it after?" The coldness seeped back into her voice. "I don't like muddy conspiracies, Garrus. They smack of secrets."

"And you hate secrets."

"I despise secrets."

As if cued, the door chime sounded. Shepard lifted her gaze to his, and though her voice, when she spoke, was steady, he saw the silent plea in her eyes. "Brooks is old business. I wonder if you'd mind me taking point on this."

He inclined his head. "Whatever you need, Shepard."

The hint of a smile she gave him held at least the memory of warmth. "Just like old times?"

"And right there behind you into hell."

Solana grimaced, and Shepard said, "Figuratively, we hope." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, like an actor preparing to set foot on stage. "Come in," she called out, all icy rage once more.

To the doctor's credit, Brooks didn't look at all groggy as Chakwas and Samara led her in. Garrus grabbed the desk chair and settled it at the end of the bed, setting Shepard up as interrogator. Halfway through a sneer, Brooks met Shepard's eyes and the expression froze and cracked, leaving only disquiet in its place.

"That will be all," Shepard said. "Dr. Chakwas, Samara, could I ask you to wait outside?"

"Is that wise, Commander?" Samara asked.

"I'd guess Garrus is a potent enough threat to keep her in line for now. If she values her other knee."

That faint disquiet broke even further, letting true distress leak out. Garrus even believed it was honest, for a change. "I'd rather the Justicar—"

"And I'd rather she didn't," interrupted Shepard. "In this room, on this ship, I'm afraid my wishes rather supersede yours. Samara. Karin."

Samara's expression remained serene as ever, but Chakwas couldn't quite hide her uneasiness. Shepard offered no other reassurances. She didn't even smile. She merely turned a sharp gaze on the former Cerberus operative and stared, unblinking, until the cabin door closed, leaving the four of them alone under the blurry stars.

"So, Maya," Shepard began, the conversational tone entirely feigned, "I believe it's time we had a history lesson. How was your history? Passable at least, I suppose. No one's accusing you of failing to be clever."

Shepard folded her hands in her lap. "The mythical Cerberus had three heads. Cerberus might have started as one man's crusade, one man's fight against his race being overwhelmed by older, more established aliens who had no real reason to care what became of Earth or her denizens. Hell, I even believe he had humanity's best interests at heart, in the very beginning. But you don't guard the gate to hell without some of the dark leaking into your pores."

Brooks glanced up at Garrus, and inched away, trying to move the chair. He settled a hand on the back of it to keep her in place. Shepard continued in the same wandering storyteller's manner, indifferent to Brooks' little struggle. "Now, Maya, here's where you can be of some help. I'm starting to think maybe the terrorist organization's structure ended up similar to the mythological dog's. The Illusive Man was the biggest head, the centermost head. The mouthpiece. The one everyone looked at. But a man like that has deputies, other heads doing other work and telling other tales. More than that? I think a man who walked the road he walked had nervous friends packing their secret bags and waiting for the right moment to cut and run. Like you, right, Maya? Did you leave before or after you realized the kind of abominations he was creating with Reaper tech?"

She waved one hand dismissively, before returning it to her lap. "Doesn't matter. What matters is that I need to know about the other two heads. Who were they? What were they doing? I imagine one might even have been Henry Lawson, or someone of his ilk. Research and development. But who was the third? Where does respectability come in? I know the Illusive Man must've been working toward it. And I know you're just the conniving creature to have that information, aren't you?"

"I don't. I left."

Shepard's eyes narrowed over a smile gone even colder. "Try again. Who was the political voice waiting in the wings? Was Cerberus nurturing political alliances? Were they trying to make a move against the Alliance? Or infiltrate it?"

"How should I know? I… I was only R&D, you know. Tech and biology."

"Psychology?"

"Something of a forte." As if hearing the echo of her own arrogance and fearing what disaster it might spell for her other knee, Brooks added, "We all have our strengths, after all. Little point denying them."

"Why bother with the clone, then, if you didn't want to dip your toes in politics? Commander Shepard's a pretty recognizable figure, I hear. Someone only interested in R&D shouldn't have wanted to get within a hundred feet of someone—something—so visible."

Brooks gripped the edge of the chair's seat, holding her shoulders stiff. "She asked a question," Garrus rumbled, and Brooks jumped, as though she'd forgotten he was there. Brooks' mouth opened and worked silently, but nothing emerged.

"Silence isn't a good tactic," Shepard said. "And neither is making me angrier than I already am. I'd start explaining myself, Maya, if I were you."

"I don't have anything to say to you. Go ahead. Have your pet turian take another shot at me. At least the doctor's drugs are good."

The smile that pulled at Shepard's lips was icy, her gaze so cool even the green seemed to have faded, leaving only Noveria-grey storminess behind. "What do you know about Proteus?"

Brooks blinked, obviously having expected some other question. Garrus couldn't say he blamed her; he'd never heard Shepard mention it before. Shepard didn't wait for a response before continuing, "Really? And you such a connoisseur of my service history. 2180? Solo infiltration mission? Suspected terrorist cell setting up camp in the brand new baby human colony? Ringing bells yet?"

Brooks flushed and lifted her chin, almost defiant.

"I have three medals from that mission," Shepard continued, mild only if one ignored the way her eyes narrowed further, and the jumping muscle in her jaw. "Would've been four, but they don't hand out the Star of Terra for killing people in their sleep, no matter how necessary the deaths. Still, it was quite the commendation. That Shepard, they said. Give her motivation enough and damn, she'll do anything."

"There is absolutely no record of Proteus in your file. And I have been privy to even your sealed Spectre dossier, I'll have you recall."

The smile widened, slipping sideways into dangerous. Solana looked like she was calculating blast radius and not much liking her chances of survival. Garrus could've told her she was fine—Shepard didn't believe in collateral damage—but figured her visible anxiety only added a layer of verisimilitude she could never have carried if she were pretending. "You'll have me recall?" Shepard scoffed. "You'll have me recall? Oh, Maya. You don't know the first fucking thing about me. Proteus was expunged. So were two dozen other solo missions. Any commendations and medals I earned solo were attached to less politically… nebulous missions."

"The military doesn't—"

"The military," Shepard snapped, so sharp Garrus half expected blood to bead up where it cut, "does what it needs to do. Especially with covert special operatives. Sometimes that means they erase a paper trail, to keep those papers from people like you. Sometimes it means a paper trail never existed at all. You know what Admiral Hackett did after reading my report on Aratoht? He handed it back. Of course I did the only thing I could. Of course he couldn't publicly condone it." Shepard lifted a hand and tapped once at the embroidered white N7 on her breast. "You think you understand this, right? What it signifies? What it means?"

"Of course I—"

"No," Shepard said. "You're really very clever, Brooks. I give you that much, and I was taken in by you once. The sooner you understand it's not going to happen again, the sooner this conversation is over, and you're released back to Samara's care. Who were you working for, when you stole the clone?"

"She came willingly enough."

"Garrus," Shepard said, her inflection never changing, her gaze on Brooks unwavering, "dislocate her shoulder."

"What?" Brooks yelped, jerking away, though she was too hobbled to get far. "That's not—you don't—"

He reached for the shaking woman, but Shepard held up a quelling hand. "I don't what?" Each word was a bullet, aimed to kill. Shepard always was deadly with someone in her sights, and Brooks had nowhere to hide, no cover to dive behind. "Hurt people? Kill people?"

"Use torture," Brooks gasped, wide-eyed. "You have—you have a code. It's right there in, in all your files."

"The ones you've seen."

"I've seen them all!"

The predatory gleam in Shepard's eyes was something wholly unfamiliar, even to Garrus, and yet he found himself fascinated instead of perturbed by it. "I guarantee you haven't. Didn't I just give you a history lesson, Maya? Weren't you paying attention?" Shepard leaned forward. "I think you're suffering under a kind of misapprehension. It's not your fault. They love to talk about Elysium, after all. Less so Proteus or Sirona or the McCrikken drop. I can shoot a man between the eyes without anyone ever having known I was there. If you think causing a little pain is beneath me, I'm afraid you are sorely mistaken."

"No," Brooks insisted. "No. Archangel—Vakarian—he's the one with the—he's the one who—you don't. You're a girl scout. You're all words. D-diplomacy. You build bridges, not burn them. It was—you have no idea how hard I had to impress that upon the clone. She wanted to destroy. She wanted to burn. And I wanted her to be you. With words."

Shepard lifted a disdainful brow. "Is that what you think is going on here? You think I'm the good cop and he's the bad? You think it was weakness or indecision on my part that saved your life the last time around? Do you think you can fuck with me and get away with it, Maya Brooks?" Shepard gave him a nod. "Garrus? Shoulder. Keep her conscious, please."

He settled a heavy hand on Brooks' shoulder and she wheezed a terrified, "Wait. Wait."

"For what? For you to think up a suitable story? I think you're the kind who tells the truth when she's in pain. Why train the clone? What was she for? Who was angry when your mission failed?"

Shepard nodded at him again, and he squeezed—not hard enough to actually cause damage and not the right torque to dislocate, but enough to cause a deceptive kind of pain. "I worked alone!" Brooks cried. "I just wanted… I wanted… revenge? I wanted revenge!"

"Maya," Shepard said, each word clipped and enunciated with forbidding clarity, "I do not believe you." She sighed a weary sigh. "And I'm starting to think pain isn't enough of a motivator. I took a man's fingers on Proteus, you know. He was tough. He didn't crack until the ring finger on his second hand, and by then it seemed important to take the whole set. For symmetry, if nothing else. I like symmetry. He did talk though, in the end. I think I knew the name of every school teacher he'd ever had and every woman—and man—he'd ever thought inappropriate thoughts about by the time we were done. Perhaps you'll be more willing to cooperate if I start having your fingers thrown to my fish. The eel looks hungry."

A swift glance at his visor's readouts told him Brooks' vitals were off the chart. There was no faking that kind of heart rate. "This is insane. You're insane!"

"A fact you really ought to have known, if psychology were quite the forte you thought it was." Shepard stroked the N7 on her breast again, leisurely, like it was a pet. "This? This means I'm unpredictable, Maya. It means I get the job done no matter the cost. Ask the batarians. Ask the Reapers. Ask Garrus; he knows. Hell, ask your dead fucking clone." She waved toward the desk. "There's a ceremonial knife in the bottom drawer. It's dull, but it'll do well enough on fingers, I think. And the added pain can only loosen a reluctant tongue."

"Spirits," Solana whispered, before covering her mouth with her hands. Shepard didn't look at her.

Brooks, wild-eyed, did. Gaze fixed desperately on Solana, she said, "You—you're—you can't let them do this."

"Talk," Solana pleaded, a keening note of horror in her subharmonics, loud and obvious enough even for a human to hear. "The people you work for aren't here now. Spirits, talk."

It was very convincing. Garrus wondered, a little, if it hadn't been part of Shepard's plan all along, if Solana's visible disgust wasn't the reason she hadn't been banished to the corridor with the others.

Brooks opened her mouth. Closed it again. Turned an extremely sickly shade, and whispered, "They'll kill me if they find out I talked."

"I'll kill you now if you don't, Maya. Or I'll let Garrus do it. He didn't want to save you in the first place, and you've really managed to piss him off. He is… alarmingly creative about enacting poetic justice on an enemy. I almost find myself curious what he might do to you, given free rein."

Brooks bowed her head. Her heart still raced, and he was close enough to hear the rapid, insufficient breaths wracking her. "T-terra Firma approached Cerberus. With all the cozying up to the Council you'd done, they were… they weren't in good graces. They had some clout, though, and their people had money. With the Lazarus Project and all the… all the Reaper tech projects… the Illusive Man was hemorrhaging funds. He needed money. They needed a figurehead."

"The clone?"

"If Commander Shepard stood with Terra Firma, it would mean something. And they knew Cerberus had… had some kind of relationship with you. They wanted to capitalize on it. But they were too late, of course. You'd already flipped your middle finger at the Illusive Man and cut the apron strings."

"Yes, they tried to prevail upon me once. I didn't go for it then. I sure as hell don't agree with it now." Shepard shrugged. "If the clone had succeeded in her coup, I'd never have been able to stop the Reapers. You'd all be paste. It was a short-sighted plan. I will never understand why every damned race in the galaxy decided the invasion of giant sentient ships heralded the appropriate time to start infighting politically."

Brooks gathered herself, telegraphing her defensiveness. Before she could launch into it, Garrus squeezed her shoulder again until she cried out again. "It's why—oh, God, stop—it's why we waited so long to strike. My—our—we knew the Crucible was all but finished. You'd already gathered all your allies. We didn't—agh—we didn't think it would so spectacularly come down to you in the end. And the clone could've done almost everything you did. She was really—aghhh, fuck—she was very clever. You brought out the worst in her."

Shepard smiled her new feral smile again. "Yes, well. I'm sure she's not the first to think so. Did your people contact you again when Liara found you? What were you meant to do here, with me?"

"I didn't do anything to you. Look, I've done any number of other things, certainly, but I swear I—everything that happened to you was outside of my purview. I thought—I thought if I could get you to them, they might forgive me the colossal clusterfuck of the last mission. I thought—I thought perhaps I could begin to sway that broken version of you the way I swayed the broken version of her."

"Sweet-talking and lies?" The smile vanished. "I don't like you very much at all, Maya Brooks. I want names. Connections. I want you to allow Samara to sift through your mind. Or I think I'd like to let Garrus fulfill his creative potential. Your call. No middle ground. No compromises."

Once more Garrus closed his hand around her already-bruised shoulder. A part of him had to respect that she was still fighting it, fighting him—fighting them. The other part wanted Shepard to live up to her end of the bargain.

"The asari," Brooks finally sobbed. "Give me to the fucking asari, oh my God."

"Get her out of my sight." Shepard cleared her throat meaningfully. "I will kill you if you've lied to me, Brooks. Think about your story. If there's anything you want to amend before Samara goes looking, you may find me willing to be as merciful again as I was before. Perhaps."

Garrus escorted her to the door himself, helping her limp along on her still-healing leg. She didn't look at him, and neither the color nor the smirk had returned to her face. If she was faking her brokenness, she was doing an astonishingly good job. Fearing she might try to take herself out of the picture before her unwilling betrayal could be completed, he warned Samara to keep a constant watch on her, and then he returned to Shepard's bedside. Solana had retreated to the other side of the room, but watched them with barely disguised alarm.

Shepard, in the meantime, had collapsed back against the pillows, the color once again rising in her cheeks, her cold mask fallen off to reveal the exhaustion beneath.

Garrus perched next to her, reaching out to touch the healing burn-scars on her cheek. He had no doubt they, too, would vanish in time, like all the rest. Poor Shepard. Constantly remade, without even the proof of suffering to serve as the badge of honor it was. "That didn't happen, did it? Proteus? Uh. Cutting off a man's fingers?"

She smiled wearily, but at least it was warm. "Was it convincing?"

"Frighteningly so."

"I saw it in a vid, once, the thing with the knife. The threat is enough. Most people are too weak to require the follow-through." She sighed, closing her eyes. "I thought she was going to call my bluff."

"She might've, still. She's a good liar."

Shepard nodded, "We'll see what Samara says." She cracked one eye and smirked up at him. "But you and I both know I play a mean hand of Skyllian Five."

"I am never playing cards with you," Solana muttered, almost to herself. At least she no longer sounded mortified. Or afraid for her own life. "Never. Ever."

"And why," Garrus asked, twining a loose lock of her hair around one of his fingers, "are we in such a desperate hurry to get back to Earth?"

"Because," Shepard groaned miserably, "that's where all the damned politics are."