Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Hot Labs Survivors

The VI named Mira had a pleasant look, designed to be perfectly average in all ways, a sympathetic front into which to pour one's inquiries. Studies had proven people were far less likely to express anger or violence at a VI's inherent limitations if it presented itself as a colleague- hence the rather expensive projection systems.

"Status report," Shepard ordered, concisely ignoring all of that carefully rendered design intended to make her feel a human connection to a complicated piece of software.

But a VI couldn't begin to care. Its virtual expression glazed over momentarily as it accessed the requisite information. "One moment please. Diagnostics in progress… Critical failure. Reactor shutdown in accordance with emergency containment procedures. Manual restart required. Critical failure. Landline connections are disabled. Passenger tram systems are offline. Report complete."

The reactor problem seemed straightforward. It was, however, the first time Shepard had heard the term "landline". "What are the landlines are why are they disconnected?"

Mira intoned blandly, "The landlines connect my mainframes here at Central Station to the various subfacilities of Peak 15. This allows personnel to remotely access my databases from the comfort and security of their labs. The cabling is automatically ejected under emergency protocols."

Shepard glanced at Liara. "Where are these 'landline cables' located?"

She searched her map. "They appear to connect to the main systems on the roof of the operations center. The access elevator isn't far."

"Alright." Shepard crossed her arms and paced a few steps, before looking back at Mira. "Tell me what happened here."

"I require a more specific inquiry."

Shepard rethought her phrasing, modifying it for the literal logic of a VI. "Tell me what happened immediately before you were shut down."

"Identity unknown. Please authenticate before proceeding."

"Commander Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

"One moment please… Council authority confirmed. Processing previous inquiry…" The VI tilted its head and recited the warnings monotonously. "Stage I Alert issued at hot labs. Contaminants released from Laboratory Pod Gamma. Emergency protocols implemented."

"Contaminants," Wrex spat. "She must mean those things we fought off."

Mira continued without break. "Stage II Alert issued at hot labs. Tube breached. Tram shut down. Landlines to hot labs ejected. Stage III Alert issued locally. Contaminants in tram tunnels. Facility shutdown and evacuation initiated. Code Omega sent."

"Great," Alenko said. "So we can look forward to more overgrown shellfish on the tram."

Shepard doubted her much-touted Council authority would buy her an ID on the hostiles, but asked the question anyway. "Can you tell me about the contaminants?"

"I'm sorry, Commander," Mira said, and to her programmers' credit, the regret sounded nearly real. "Inquiries into our research require privileged access. Only Binary Helix executives possess that level of clearance."

She gave it another shot. "What about Matriarch Benezia? Can you tell me her whereabouts?"

"Lady Benezia departed on the passenger tramway to the Rift Station subsidiary labs. User Alert: The tram system is currently inoperable."

Shepard sat back on her heels. "Benezia crossed over to the hot labs and shut everything down. Why?"

"So we couldn't follow her?" Garrus suggested. "Maybe she wasn't worried about the Code Omega or the antimatter strike, as long as she got what she needed."

Tali tilted her head. "What did she need? It's not like she could take an army of… contaminants with her, not without help."

"When we find her, we'll ask." Shepard focused on their more immediate problems. "We need those landlines to hook the VI into Rift Station, and we need the generator to power the tram. Anyone know anything about nuclear reactors?"

Mira interjected, "I am available to walk untrained personnel through the relevant procedure to restore functionality."

"Wonderful." Shepard pointed at her squad. "Alpha Team will see to the landlines on the roof. Bravo Team, the reactor's all yours. Maintain radio contact and rendezvous here when we're done."

Williams nodded. "Yes, ma'am. See you on the other side."

Bravo Team departed for the reactor. Shepard turned to her squad. "About that roof access point, Liara?"

She nodded. "Follow me."

Three more of the escaped creatures waited for them on the roof, along with a good dozen of the larvae. The latter left pools of acidic offal wherever they fell. Shepard wondered if they'd ever entirely rid themselves of the stink. She scraped her boot off best she could.

Alenko shoved the last of the remains away from the landlines console. "So, what, they can operate elevators now?"

"We already knew they could open doors," she noted grimly. The notion of an army of creatures this tough and evidently at least as intelligent as dogs made her fervently glad she decided to pursue this link between Saren and Binary Helix. Hopefully she could nip those plans in the bud, here and now.

"Maybe they crawled outside, and climbed along the tunnel exterior," Garrus speculated, more as a comfort than anything else. It was true the hallways they passed through had curved sides of glass displaying the craggy walls of the caves or steep ravines along which they were built, but they found no access hatches or even cracks.

The "roof" was hardly more than a gap in the mountainside. A corrugated metal sheet suspended high over their heads attempted to keep snow from accumulating on the deck, but it still crept in around the edges where they met the rock walls sheathed in ice. Shepard could only wonder at the weight of snow and ice that must be lying on the sloping cantina-style roof. With the creatures dead it was quite quiet; they were so deep within the mountain that the wind was nonexistent. So quiet, in fact, she could almost hear the hushed hiss of one flake meeting another as they drifted gently to the ground.

"Get those landlines resynced," she said, not looking back. "I'm going to explore a bit."

A little to her surprise, Liara padded along silently beside her. The snow drifts became deeper as they moved aft, first ankle deep, then knee- or even hip-deep in places. The rooftop had gone neglected for most of the storm, maybe longer- how many years had it been since the last time the landlines needed any attention? It wasn't like Noveria had spring melts.

They neared the back wall. Here, the gap between the roof and mountain widened, enough to allow a shuttle flown by a very steady hand to land. Which was exactly what they found sitting in a pile of snow-covered ice, where it melted and refroze beneath the heat of the retrorockets.

It was an NDC shuttle, marked and numbered, though of its crew there was no sign. Shepard brushed the snow from its pizoelectrically opaqued ports, but on this setting there was no hope of seeing inside. "It's cold, and this snow cover is thick. Nobody's used this in…"

But Shepard had no sense of weather and couldn't say how long it took for that much snow to accumulate, except that it looked like a very great while, days. Liara brushed her hand along the sliding side door and found the handle. It pulled open easily at her touch, showering the interior in snow. The craft was utilitarian; more comfortable than military shuttles, but none of the luxuries Shepard would expect for executive ease. A duty vessel then, not one for enticing new clients or coddling existing ones. There was no sign of the pilot or any passengers.

Liara climbed aboard and sat in the pilot's couch, bringing the instrumentation online.

"Going somewhere?" Shepard asked lightly, but the asari refused to hear the joke.

"This shuttle isn't much different from the ones I used to rent for research expeditions." Liara began searching for the log. "I should be able to pull its manifest and heading."

"As soon as this is over, you can get back to your studies." Shepard meant it to sound reassuring, but it came out charitably naïve, or disingenuous at worst.

Liara continued scrolling through the records. "Maybe it seems that way to someone accustomed to having her life torn apart."

The comment stung, as it was meant to. Shepard stopped trying to play the role of the sister or the friend Liara clearly didn't want, and became all business. "What can you find?"

"This was my mother's shuttle." The words were empty. "ERCS flew her out six days ago, despite the weather, though if these readings are correct the blizzard worsened considerably between then and now. Officially, she went to investigate the Code Omega."

"This isn't a landing pad. Benezia instructed the pilot to set down here and bypass the garage."

"She must have already suspected what happened."

"So Saren was in charge of this breeding program, or whatever you want to call it." That was a depressing if expected confirmation.

Liara continued her findings. "The crates of geth were brought in a separate shuttle. There's no record of their landing coordinates."

"We have to assume there were more than the few we found in Central Station." If they were lucky, by now the loose experiments and the geth would have significantly reduced each other's numbers. If they weren't, Benezia had control of the creatures remaining in the labs and simply didn't care about those already loose.

The asari copied the log to her omni-tool and rose to leave. However, as she reached the door, something caught her eye. She stooped and pulled a bag from under one of the seats. Shepard peered at it. "What's that?"

It was leather, a fashionably cut and expensive satchel, with a drawstring closure. Liara held it on her knees and stared into its mouth. Her voice was rough. "Toiletries. She must have forgotten them."

She reached in, sifting the contents through her fingers. "Armali perfume. 700 credits an ounce, her favorite."

Shepard crouched in the snow just beyond the shuttle's sliding hatch, folding her arms on the shuttle floor. "Your mother isn't herself. You saw Shiala. You've seen my memories through the lens of the cipher. You have to hold onto that."

Her hand was wrapped around the slender bottle in a death grip. "How can she be indoctrinated to do these terrible things, but still enough herself to pack her favorite perfume?"

The commander regarded her evenly. "Are you ready to hear some truth, Liara?"

"What do you mean?"

Shepard's words were steady, though not unkind. "I've read your mother's history. Nine centuries is a lot to take in, so I'm sure you're more familiar with it, but it was obvious Benezia was a high-level political operative for the Asari Republics. Some of that seems to come with being a matriarch but a lot of it was her, her intelligence and charisma and drive, and the things she wanted to do with them."

Liara still didn't look up. "She never told me much about her work."

It was something she'd said before, often. Shepard shook her head. "I'm not her equal, but I've done a lot of things of which I'm not entirely proud in service to my people. Keeping the peace isn't always an honorable or pretty job. Lady Benezia's been implicated in some of-"

"Get to your point, if you have one."

Shepard touched her free hand, tentatively, gently. "My point is that she was packing the perfume for a long time, Liara. The difference is before it was for the good of the asari, freely given, and now it's compelled by the will of Saren."

Her head lowered further, drooping to the floor, until all Shepard could see were her head crenellations. But she didn't withdraw her hand, fingers only curling tighter on hers. "I never wanted to believe that."

"It's up to you to figure out which parts of her are most important. My mom is... detached, and a slave to her job, and bad at… listening, but she's always loved me, and most of the time I try to remember that." Shepard squeezed her hand earnestly. "But right now, I really need you to pull together. You wanted in on this mission. If you can't handle it-"

Her head snapped up and her eyes flashed. "I can handle it."

"You've been like a mannequin since we left Port Hanshan. You only seem to wake up when we're in imminent danger or I ask you a direct question."

"I'll be fine. I want to see this through to the end. I want to hear what she has to say." For the first time, there was a break in Liara's rigid neutrality, some real passion behind her words, something not filtered by careful self-control. "I want her to look at me and tell me why."

"Ok." Shepard wasn't sure if it would hold, but for the moment it worked. She rose, pulling Liara with her. "We've got work to do now."

She nodded, and followed without resistance- but Shepard saw her slip the fragile bottle into a utility pouch as they left the shuttle behind.

Garrus and Alenko were leaning against the terminal, waiting, with arms folded. The lieutenant straightened as she approached. "Landlines are connected and fully rebooted, ma'am. Mira is in touch with the sub-stations."

Snow had drifted into his dark hair and stuck between the strands. She had to resist a sudden urge to dust it off. Instead, she hooked her thumbs into her utility belt. "Good. Head for the rendezvous point. Hopefully Bravo Team's got the reactor back and we can finish this."

They weren't left waiting long. When they reached the power junction, each unit was already lit up and humming. The lights were coming back online in series, room by room. Soon after Wrex, Williams, and Tali joined them, smiling.

"The He-3 lines were cut off," Tali explained. "It was simple to fix."

"Resistance?" Shepard asked.

"Not anymore," Williams said with smug satisfaction.

Wrex clarified with a grunt. "Geth. Maybe a half dozen. You?"

"More of those acid-breathed bastards. If we want to avoid the orbital strike, we'll need to find a way to clear them all out."

"Assuming none of them left the facility. Cold doesn't seem to bother them." Wrex grinned, as though he rather liked the notion. "They could survive, live wild in the hills."

There was a pleasant thought. Shepard rolled her eyes. "Let's not suggest that to NDC. We need to find that tramway."

Holographic signs posted in the hallways illuminated the way to the Decontamination and Transit Hub. As they approached the station, however, Mira's artificial voice erupted from the intercom. "User alert. Loose contaminants in the decontamination chamber. Access to passenger tramways inadvisable."

Alenko glanced towards the speaker, brow furrowed. "Isn't that a little oxymoronic? I mean, the point of a decontamination chamber is to get rid of contaminants."

The final hatch opened. Shepard regarded the scene. "Yes, I think that's exactly what it's designed to do."

Several of the creatures were trapped in another glass airlock, their pincers and pointed legs scrabbling at its smooth sides. Their screams of frustrated rage were continuous if muted by the walls. There was a thin strip of ceramic nozzles connected to external hosing penetrating the glass tube.

Tali blinked twice. "Are those plasma jets?"

The airlock's security terminal stood waiting. Shepard examined the menu. "It would appear so."

Williams was unsettled. "What, they just vaporize any 'contaminants' they don't like?"

"Given what they were working with?" Shepard shrugged. "Makes a kind of sense."

She tried scanning the stolen ident card. Unsurprisingly, garage staff did not have clearance to activate the decontamination protocols. "Tali, I need an override here."

While Tali worked, Shepard watched the creatures. Had they walked all the way down the tram line after Benezia cut the power? Or had she cut it to limit the creatures' mobility, knowing they could operate a tram? Was the power outage to slow her down or slow them down- or both?

"He has a geth army," she said aloud. "What the hell does he want with an organic one?"

Garrus shrugged. "Who wouldn't want an army that comes with its own built-in armor and weapons?"

Alenko had a different idea. "What if the geth thing is a partnership? The geth are in this because they want to see their 'gods' return, right? So maybe Saren just wants to wipe out humans, or seize the galaxy, and needs units under his complete control."

"He has indoctrination for that," Shepard pointed out. "But who knows if it works on software as well as on brains?"

Tali interrupted their idle musing. "Permission to fire?"

Shepard turned back towards the airlock. "Do it."

White-hot flames spurted from each nozzle, small, but powerful. Shepard expected the creatures to char, but the heat was far too much for that. They melted. The segmented carapaces softened, buckled, deformed. Legs collapsed one by one. She watched with a kind of morbid fascination, simultaneously intrigued and repulsed.

The jets kept running until no life signs registered in the tube. There was little but sludge remaining. They cracked the outer hatch and the smell almost knocked them over. Nobody wanted to take the first step inside.

In the quiet that followed, Shepard asked at last, "We're sure the protocol is deactivated?"

"Yes," Tali said firmly. "I triple-checked it."

"Check it again."

The remains were sufficiently compelling that Tali didn't even argue. She tapped at the terminal. "We're clear."

Shepard stepped into the airlock before she could think about it too hard. The hatch slid shut, the standard decontam protocol- same as on the Normandy- swept over her, and the far hatch split open. She let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

By the time the rest of the squad piled in and cleared decontam, she figured out a very basic strategy. "We make for the tram. Whatever we need to clear to get there, we clear, but the second we're aboard we roll. We can worry about the hostiles left at Central Station once our primary objective is met."

"And what is that, ma'am?" Williams asked.

Shepard expelled an exasperated sigh. "To stop Benezia."

"How-"

"Won't know until we figure out what the hell she and Saren wanted here." Shepard held out both arms in an appeal for patience. "Best I can do. We're figuring this one out as we go."

The gerbil tube tunnel took a sharp left and turned into a staircase, which turned into a large hollowed-out habitat that housed the tram station. It was cavernous, with ceilings at least four times Shepard's own height, and long tunnels disappearing into the depths of the mountain. Holographic markers labeled each passage. Rift Station was nearest, and the only one with a tram parked at the platform.

They were halfway to the tram when the hissing started.

It came from all directions, growing in volume and number, and joined by skittering and the occasional cry. Shepard remembered Wrex's comment that the creatures were hunting, and never felt a stronger instinct to vacate a situation as soon as humanly possible, a sense of being prey. Most armchair philosophers got fight-or-flight wrong. It didn't define two categories of people. Possessing a fight-or-flight instinct meant the ability to do one or the other when appropriate, to avoid the paralysis of indecision, and in this particular circumstance the smartest thing to do was get the hell out.

She pointed her gun towards the shadows and gestured her team forward. "Keep moving. Quickly."

They ran on ahead of her. She was happy to bring up the rear, laying down enough cover fire to make the gathering shadows think twice about leaping. The group moved steadily towards the tram. The bugs crept steadily closer, beginning to flank them.

Shepard was the last one aboard. She slammed the sliding door shut and secured it as best she could, but it wasn't meant to lock. "Someone get this damn thing moving."

Alenko hit a button. On the tram intercom, Mira's voice announced smoothly, "This tram is departing for Rift Station in sixty seconds. For your safety, please ensure all clothing and other items are free of the tram doors."

Beyond the glass, the creatures were forming up to rush the tram. Shepard imagined enough of them, in force, could push the tram off its rails. Breaking the glass would be a parlor trick. "Override! We need to depart immediately!"

"Trying!" Tali said, her voice strained.

Silently, the others lined up beside Shepard, sighting on their targets outside the tram. Shepard held her rifle steady. "Hold your fire until they breach the glass. Let's not make this easier for them."

"This tram is departing for Rift Station in thirty seconds. For your safety-"

As one, the creatures flung themselves at the tram.

It rocked with the force of the impact, teetering sideways. Shepard was ready for it and kept her footing. Liara was knocked to her knees and Tali slammed into the side wall, interrupting her work. Shepard could hear her cursing to herself.

Their enemy backed away, just enough to make another run, and charged once more. It was less organized this time, with individuals striking at different moments before backing off to run at it again. Cracks began to appear in the windows. Shepard pressed against the trigger, ready to fire on the next assault. "Here they come."

"This tram is departing for Rift Station in ten seconds," Mira announced, still unruffled by events.

The final wave struck the tram just as it lurched and began accelerating down the tunnel. Several creatures jumped onto empty air. One was scraped off on the tunnel wall as it narrowed leaving the station. And one erupted through the window, tearing at the seats as it struggled to arrest its momentum inside the cabin.

Shepard barely turned before it tensed for another leap, to bring its whip-like pincers into range. Damn, this thing is fast.

Far too fast to aim with any reliability, so she simply pointed at the red blur and held down the trigger. In such confines, with the single hostile unit so outnumbered, the outcome was inevitable no matter how graceless the plan. Confused by the barrage and in considerable pain, it attempted to burrow into the cushions as though they were soft earth rather than vinyl covering a thin sheet of polyurethane foam. It died half-curled over a bench.

Several of the lights dangled from the ceiling on thin wires, smashed or flickering, and the interior of the tram resembled a ground zero disaster zone, but the car itself remained intact and hurtled down its rails as smoothly as ever.

Calmly, almost delicately, Shepard sat down in the one remaining untouched seat and crossed her legs to wait out the ride.

Rift Station's tram depot was not as large or ostentatious as Central Station's, but it was even more abandoned. Though an attack was half-expected, there was no sign of the creatures anywhere. They followed the directional labels adorning the walls a short distance to an elevator marked "Hot Labs", only to find it locked down. The one beside it, however, was not. The posted signage indicated it led upstairs to housing and security.

Shepard pressed the call button. If the loss of power and the runaway experiments left any survivors, this was the mostly likely area to find them, and she wanted answers. At the very least, the scientists should be able to explain their creations.

When they arrived on the upper floor, they found themselves facing three unwavering rifle barrels across a barricade of overturned lab benches and supply crates.

"Stand down," Shepard called, keeping her hands in plain view. "We're here to help."

After a moment's hesitation, a dark man in white and blue armor emblazoned with Binary Helix's corporate logo lowered his weapon. "Sorry. We couldn't be sure what was on the tram when we saw it come in."

He nodded towards a bank of windows overlooking the Rift Station Transport Hub. Shepard looked back at him. "Can those things operate a tram?"

"Fuck if I know." He shook his head. She noticed then that all of the guards were harried and beyond exhausted, with that wild look to their eyes that indicated heavy stim use. Their leader continued, "You're clearly not a bug, but the station's sealed off and I've never seen you or your people before in my life. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm a spectre, sent by the Council to find Matriarch Benezia." It was close enough to the truth. She held out her hand. "Shepard. And you are…?"

"Captain Ventralis. I head up the security team for this outpost." He shook her hand with a nice firm grip. "Between the hot labs and the secure research area, Rift Station needs a little more than the rest of the facility."

"What happened here, Captain?"

He ran his hand over his bald pate wearily. "The aliens overran the hot labs last week. Only Han Olar made it out, and… well, he ain't exactly all there anymore, you know? Next thing I know, they're clawing into my security office. Took us by surprise. We lost a third of our detachment in the first few minutes before we rallied and drove them back. Now, we get attacks hourly, testing our defenses."

"That's damn hard," Shepard said, meaning every word. She folded her arms and tilted her head. "What are they? The bugs, I mean."

"Don't know. Don't really care. I don't need a name to shoot them." He shrugged. "It was a highly confidential project. Maybe under the circumstances you can talk one of the scientists into elaborating."

Alenko cut in. "So there are other survivors?"

Ventralis nodded. "About a dozen or so, yeah. The board sent some asari to clean up the mess- maybe your matriarch. She disappeared into the secure labs and locked things down tight. I'm sorry if you wasted a trip."

Shepard glanced between the barricade and the elevator. "Your alien bugs didn't stay in the hot labs. They've overrun the place, all the way to the garage in Central Station."

"Damn it. That's worse than I thought."

Tali folded her arms. "What exactly is a 'hot lab'?"

"The kind that exists to do stupid crap that gets people killed." Ventralis spat. "It's built into a glacier, an old, thick, stable one. If something goes wrong, they heat up the whole lab block and sink it into the ice. Hence the name."

"Right." Shepard nodded to herself. "Ok. Can I speak with your scientists?"

"Sure thing. Just give me a sec." He relayed instructions to his team, and then gestured towards her. "This way."

As they walked, Shepard made small talk, hoping to pry out a little more information. "How are your people holding up?"

"It ain't been easy." He sighed. "We're staying on top of things with long shifts and mandatory stims. I don't like it, but all the options here are bad. The ERCS folks the asari brought with are helping out a bit."

"She didn't take them with her?"

"No, only her own people, more asari. Carrying a boatload of gear, too, in these huge crates. Made us round up the pallet lifts. Shit was heavy as hell."

So commandos and geth surrounded Benezia down in the labs. Shepard tucked that away for future consideration. Ventralis opened a hatch and waved her through. "These are the central barracks and sick bay. We fell back here after the attack. Anyone left alive is in these rooms. Good luck."

"Thanks." She watched him go with narrowed eyes, then rubbed her forehead.

"Ma'am?" Williams asked.

"They're working for her," Shepard stated flatly. "The captain's the first person on Noveria to have no reaction to my spectre rank, and they've been cut off from all communication. Benezia warned him we might be coming."

Garrus was unconvinced. "That's a big leap."

"It feels right." Shepard rubbed at her eyes with thumb and forefinger, trying to wipe away the veil of tiredness slowly creeping in. The drive up the mountain was exhausting in its own right, and the clock was moving towards midnight.

"It sounds like mother," Liara volunteered, unexpectedly. "She would not want people unnecessarily hurt. She wouldn't instruct the guards to fight a spectre unless there was no other way. Instead, they waylay us."

Alenko shook his head. "Bottling us up with the scientists."

"What are we waiting for, then?" Wrex's brow lifted higher over his eyes, speculative. "Let's find a door and break it down."

Shepard wasn't ready for such drastic action. "I want to know what they were breeding here. I want to know if Saren was their only client. And I want to know what defenses Benezia might have at her disposal besides those she brought in herself."

Williams watched the scientists, huddled in groups towards the far side of the room casting the occasional furtive glance towards the Normandy squad, the stone-faced ERCS and Binary Helix guards with their rifles relaxed in their hands, the powered down terminals lining the walls, and bit her lip. "It doesn't look like anyone's going to tell us much, ma'am."

"They'll talk, Chief." Shepard abandoned the doorway to move into the room.

The space was the very definition of utilitarian with its unpolished, cross-hatched metal floor, powder-coated portable countertops, and military-issue cots. Corrugated steel staircases led right to more bunk space and left to the med bay. Equipment storage lockers formed lonesome islands in the middle of the room with their electronic locks blinking perfunctorily at nothing. With the power restored, the fluorescent bulbs dangling from wire mounts were at full force, washing the air in sterile colorless light.

There wasn't so much as a cheesy corporate promotional poster in sight, Shepard noted. This lab was entirely preoccupied with bare functionality. Or, put another way, Binary Helix never expected outsiders to see it. Compared to the ostentatious splendor of Central Station with its high ceilings and thick glass windows, Rift Station was a desert. The work must be highly proprietary.

The survivors comprised a mix of species, mostly human, but interspersed with asari, salarian, and even an elcor, brooding quietly in a corner. Their expressions were that curious mix of dog-tired and terrified one got after a week of living under siege. Conversation was hushed. When Shepard questioned them, she didn't learn much aside from none of them survivors were allowed in the most secured labs, where the casualties had been the worst, and had no idea the creatures existed until the containment breach.

Shepard recalled Ventralis' mention of the volus, Han Olar, who managed a harrowing escape from the hot labs, and made her way down to med bay, hoping to speak with him. Instead, she found a worried doctor moving from bed to bed with a defeated air as he attended to prone patients. "Excuse me. Can I have a few minutes of your time?"

He straightened and turned towards her, removing the cigarette from his mouth. "And you are?"

"Commander Shepard, Council Spectre," she said, keeping it brief. "Smoking around your patients?"

"It's important for my nerves. I'm a microbiologist, not a medic. Zev Cohen at your service." He offered her a rather old-fashioned bow suffused with more weary courtesy than sarcasm and took another drag. "I don't suppose you have a smoke on you? This is my last one."

"I wish, but no." Shepard smoked on occasion, but cigarettes were more recreation than habit, something to relieve the tension when she was back on Arcturus waiting for the next mission. Not that she hadn't wanted one lately. She jerked her chin towards the patients. "What's wrong with them? They don't look like they got mauled by those things."

"No, most of those who came within reach of the creatures didn't survive long enough to require medical care. But that was hardly the only experiment in progress, when the power went down."

An asari sitting cross-legged on one of the beds rolled her eyes languorously. Shepard furrowed her brow, and the woman heaved a sigh. "What?"

"You don't look sick."

"I'm not sick," she explained as if to a toddler. "I'm meditating."

Shepard was dubious. "It looked more like you were mocking the doctor."

She made a sound of disgust and shifted her gaze towards the ceiling as if she couldn't possibly be more annoyed. "I suppose it might look that way, to a human."

Shepard's patience wore thin. "Who are you?"

If she'd been human, she would have flipped her hair, but as it was, the asari simply leveled her look. "Alestia Iallis. Don't strain your monkey vocal chords trying to say it. Molecular geneticist. I specialize in biotic-enhanced allele specific hybridization."

Shepard recognized Iallis was trying to make her feel stupid with garbled jargon, and didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she returned her attention to the doctor. "These people were exposed to some sort of… what, bio-weapon?"

"We test our fail-safes monthly, but quarantine procedures were disrupted in one of the labs. We had to lock it down manually. By then, a good half-dozen people were exposed." He tutted. "If I had my equipment, it would be a simple manner to treat, but those hare-brained idiots from security didn't see fit to retrieve it before sealing the facility."

It didn't escape Shepard's notice that the doctor refused to confirm the nature of the toxin. She decided it didn't matter, at least not right now. "I'm looking for Han Olar. I hoped to find him here."

"My apologies, Commander. He wanted to return to his old quarters downstairs. I thought it might be best for his mental health to allow it. Han is… quite shaken by events."

"Lost his mind, is what you mean," Iallis muttered, contemptuous.

Cohen gave the asari a nervous glance and tugged at his lab tunic. "Yes, well. Perhaps I can beg a favor of you, Commander?"

"Maybe we can help each other. I'm looking for an asari matriarch, Benezia."

His eyes slid briefly back to Iallis, who glared, and he cleared his throat. "She's within the secure labs. I don't know any more than that."

Shepard turned her most intimidating stare on the asari biologist. "What about you? Know anything?"

"Why don't you ask your friend?" She pointed to Liara.

Liara drew herself up, glaring as well. "Because I don't know anything about the matriarch."

"Then why should I?" Iallis drawled, with a deprecating smile. "It's not like all humans know each other."

Shepard's eyes lingered on her a few moments longer than was strictly necessary before addressing Cohen. "You want me to retrieve your supplies."

He nodded. "Captain Ventralis has refused my pleas for entry, but a spectre's voice might carry more weight."

Shepard snorted. "I wouldn't count on it. Is he right to keep the lab sealed?"

"No," Cohen answered emphatically. "The… period of viability is extraordinarily brief. After that, it breaks down into simple protein chains. We're well outside that window now. But the man dismisses anything he deems 'technobabble' out-of-hand."

"You can't blame him for being cautious." Shepard glanced back at the patients. "If I find myself near your quarantined lab, I'll see what I can do. No promises."

"Thank you. That's all I can ask." The doctor watched them depart.

Shepard was halfway up the stairs before she heard him exclaim something about forgetting to give directions, and then he hurried out into the hall, waving to get her attention. "Commander!"

Shepard paused, looking over her shoulder. "Doctor?"

He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "The guards have been on edge, waiting for you. They're not to let you through, do you understand me? They're in your matriarch's pocket."

She regarded him. "What do you suggest?"

"I did some of my work in the secure labs. Help me retrieve my equipment, help me spare these people, and I'll give you my access."

Her squad exchanged glances. Shepard drew her rifle and checked it over. "Where to?"

"I'll show you. It's just down the elevator. Follow me." Cohen took off at a rapid walk, almost a jog, forcing Shepard to run a bit to catch up.

"You seem nervous," she remarked.

"Aliens invaded my lab and killed my colleagues. We spent the first few hours after lockdown showering off the blood and brains. How am I supposed to behave?"

They crowded into the elevator and Cohen hit the button, his hand shaking a bit. "You don't know what they're like," he said quietly.

Her brow furrowed. "What who's like?"

But the doctor simply stared at the door and waited for it to be over.

The elevator spilled them into a low-ceilinged room thick with pipes and the hum of serious computer equipment. He strode briskly to a vault-like hatch looked after by a turian in a Binary Helix security team hard suit. The guard gave him a bored stare. "We've been through this, Zev. I'm not opening up against orders. Get lost."

Cohen folded his arms and looked down his nose imperiously. "Not this time. I've a spectre with me."

He gestured to Shepard. The turian burst out laughing. "There aren't any human spectres."

Shepard shot Garrus a smug glance, validating her earlier extrapolation of Ventralis' lack of surprise, and put a hand to her ear to activate the comm link. Finding the correct frequency was trivial; they weren't using any scrambling. "Commander Shepard to Captain Ventralis, come in."

There was a pause. Shepard's eyes never left the turian's face as the communication played through both their comms. "Spectre. What do you need?"

"Access to your quarantine lab. Order your man to stand down."

"God, I wish we could help those guys, I really do. But we can't risk an outbreak now."

"Captain, this isn't the moment for timidity. You've lost enough friends and colleagues. I've got Dr. Cohen here and he assures me there is no risk."

The next several seconds stretched. The link crackled. "You want to gamble with your life, that's your business. We're locking you in. When you're ready to leave, sensors are going to sample every inch of you. Even a hint of contamination, and you're going to stay in there."

"That's fair." She folded her arms and stared at the turian. "Open the door."

Ventralis said, "Stand down, Sergeant."

He grumbled, but began working the electronic lock affixed beside the hatch. Shepard smiled. "Thank you, Captain. Shepard out."

The hatch lock turned green. The turian eyed her sullenly. "You got a death wish, lady, that's your problem. I'd recommend manning the barricade over this."

There was another piece of information she wanted, and her instinct told her that if she pushed now, she could have it. "Please. All you've faced since the initial assault are probing attacks."

"Fuck you." He jabbed a finger in her chest. "We lost good people-"

"Don't I know it." She carefully avoided crossing the line into mocking their loss- that was tasteless and the goal wasn't to provoke him into an outright attack- but she kept her tone light enough to be offensive. "It's not surprising a bunch of overcooked shrimp caused this kind of damage. Some professional advice? Three coordinated guys could take this place."

She had the attention of the entire room. Cohen was open-mouthed with shock, her team was confused, and the turian guard was simply enraged. His anger was cold and sharp. "You don't know shit. Narrow tunnels and limited access points make the facility more defensible than it looks. That's without counting the automated defenses, like our mobile turrets."

Shepard curled the fingers of her gloved hand idly as if examining her fingernails. "Turrets can be overridden."

"We've got alarms, and cameras." He ticked them off one by one. "Everything routes through a central office and good luck breaching that. It's the only way you can take the defenses offli-" His brain finally caught up to his mouth, which snapped shut with a clack of his mandibles, chagrined.

"Thank you, Sergeant, for that illuminating speech." She offered him a crisp smile. "Man, I can't imagine why the Hierarchy navy chucked you out."

"They didn't kick me out. I was discharged after I served my term," he answered, stiffly.

"Of course." She slid past him into the lab airlock, and turned around. "Dr. Cohen, if you'd join me. We shouldn't be long."

The hatch shut behind them, the air automatically purged to clean-room levels, and they were admitted to the quarantine lab proper. Equipment abandoned-in-place sat strewn across the counters and floor, where it was knocked over in the scientists' haste to evacuate. The door to the walk-in refrigerator stood open. Shepard stuck her head in. Wire racks stacked high with test tubes, petri dishes, and all manner of chemical compounds stood waiting, condensation slick across their surfaces.

Cohen went to a desk and began sorting through the contents, throwing things into a bag he found tucked in the kneehole. "You did that on purpose."

He sounded as if he didn't know whether to be upset or concerned. She paced the room, examining the remnants of the laboratory. "Anger's the best interrogation technique I know. I needed information about how this place is defended and it wasn't like they were going to just tell me."

"They might have."

She gave him a cynical and somewhat amused look. "You don't believe that."

He answered with chilly silence, stone-faced as he continued stuffing the bag with gear. Shepard continued her inspection.

After a minute or two, there was a crash from outside the lab. Shepard's hand flew to her sidearm. "What was that?"

He glanced toward the door. "Another attack?"

Anything they could hear through the quarantine airlock had to be awful loud. The crash was followed by the sound of the airlock cycling, a hiss of air and electronics. Shepard took aim. "Get into cover."

"Cover-"

"The refrigerator. Go."

The doctor half-ran across the lab, pulling the door shut behind him. Shepard took another careful step forward. The hatch slid open.

Her eyes widened. "You know, I ought to be less surprised."

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Alestia Iallis stepped sideways, her own gun drawn, unwavering, while her left hand glowed with the telltale sign of a primed biotic attack. "How in this era of interspecies cooperation as soon as the term 'racist bitch' comes to mind, it blinds us to everything else."

"But I suppose I'd know that, if I wasn't such a primate?" Shepard grinned without humor.

"So it wasn't entirely an act." She returned the smile. "Can you disagree? Look how easily I cornered you. My… staff should be making quick work of your squad."

"Don't be so sure." They were circling each other now, one wary step after the next, trying to subtly gain some sort of cover, or distraction, before the other could. "My people are the best, and nobody had to brainwash them into service."

Iallis' grin faded. "Your mission ends now, Shepard. I was ordered to eliminate you should the opportunity arise, and here we are."

"And the guard? Were you ordered to eliminate him too?" Out of the corner of her eye, Shepard spied a potentially useful pipe, supplying the lab with hot water. Just another step… "You may be a sleeper agent for Benezia, but I don't think that one's in her playbook."

"He was in my way. And I don't think you know her very well."

Shepard lunged for the pipe valve at the same time Iallis fired.

The shot struck one of the ceramic plates affixed to her chest and Shepard felt it crack under the impact. What the hell is with tiny people and high-caliber guns? But her gloved hand closed on the valve and yanked it open, flooding the room with boiling steam and the gush of water.

More bullets followed in rapid succession, but without more than a shadow to aim at, all missed. Shepard kept moving. A ball of blue tinged energy cut through the fog and smacked unerringly into her back, causing her to stumble. Her skin felt like it was on fire, but as all her muscles kept moving, she ignored it. Pain was simply a form of organic alarm. With sufficient training it could be shut out enough to remain functional.

She returned fire, not having any better line of sight but tracking the asari by her footsteps. Wrex was wrong. Killing people wasn't fun. It was messy and somewhat awful, and not infrequently involved a certain amount of paperwork. Being really, really good at shooting guns, though- that was fun. She heard the tell-tale warble of a shield going down and then a cry of pain.

Another shot, not as successful. A shatter of glass as it hit some delicate instrument or other. Her face twitched, annoyed. Across the room, plastic snapped under Iallis' boot. The asari was pissed off. "You can't hide for fucking ever."

Apparently, Iallis was under the impression the first two shots were luck. Shepard fired into the steam again to prove her wrong. There was a surprised yelp. Not a serious hit, then, but the woman stopped talking.

Iallis had a point. The temperature of the water was falling rapidly now that the line was exposed to the air. Her artificial fog wouldn't hold up much longer, and she had a bruise the size of her spread hand welling up on her chest from the asari's opening round. Her armor wouldn't last against that kind of firepower.

Shepard narrowly dodged another blind biotic attack by ducking behind a desk at the last moment, too late for the orb to alter its trajectory. There was a microscope sitting atop it. She seized it in one hand, held her pistol outstretched in the other, and charged through the remaining steam.

The second she glimpsed the asari, she flung the scope as hard as she could. It didn't miss. While Iallis was distracted, she shot out her shield, and kept her finger on the trigger as she smoothly added a second hand for steadier aim. Her opponent slumped to the floor where blood began to pool beneath her body.

Shepard wasn't going to leave anything to chance. As she approached, Iallis managed to roll onto her back through dint of great effort, wheezing unsteadily. She stared up at Shepard and began to laugh, the ragged, pulpy laughter of shredded lungs, as she took in the biotic-singed and dented armor. "Where's your shield, you damned idiot?"

"Well," Shepard said, kicking her gun out of reach and squatting beside her, "I wanted to make sure you got a fair fight."

Iallis managed one last contemptuous eye roll before her head lolled and the rigidity left her body, relaxing into the final rest. With clinical distance Shepard confirmed death with an omni-tool scan. The sounds from outside the lab had quieted. She hoped that was good news.

The refrigerator door cracked open, timidly, and Cohen stepped out. He caught sight of the corpse and blanched.

Shepard looked up mildly. "Alright there, doc?"

"I told you, I'm not a medic." His face was a faint shade of green. "All these theatrics are a bit beyond me."

"Got what you need?"

He nodded. "Please, let's just… let's just go."

The touted sensors cleared them easily, and the outer hatch of the lab opened on a scene of chaos. Several of the ceiling pipes were leaking fluid, bullets pockmarked the walls and floor, and inactive geth chassis lay in pieces all around them. The obstinate turian guard was dead at her feet. Shepard stepped over him.

"Report," she barked.

"Hostiles neutralized. No friendly casualties," Alenko relayed dutifully. "There are a few scientists hiding out in the bunks. They scattered when the geth showed up with that asari."

"Where did they come from?"

Garrus winced and rolled his shoulder, massaging it. "Not sure. They came up from behind. Got me good a couple of times before I realized what was happening."

A shaky voice overlaid by heavy-duty breathing apparatus issued from behind a server rack. "I may be able to address that question."

He was small, less than 120 centimeters, dressed toes to nose in an envirosuit. Unlike quarians, who wore the suits to protect their delicate immune systems, volus like this man had ammonia-based biochemistry. The pressures and atmospheres comfortable to all the other sentient races were poison to them. Nothing of his anatomy was visible beneath the heavy panels, tubes, and webbing of the suit, but to Shepard volus always rather unkindly resembled overgrown raccoons, sans tails. It was something about the thick metal-ringed lenses that allowed them to see out of their pressurized breather helms and snout-like mouth apertures which filtered their voices. They were stocky running to fat, with stubby arms and legs, and a reputation for cut-throat trade and finance that hardly endeared them to the galaxy. All the best bankers were volus.

This one, however, appeared to be a scientist. He twiddled his fingers. "You came to find out about them, didn't you?"

Shepard furrowed her brow. "What, the geth? No."

"The rachni," he corrected. His respirator rasped into the sudden silence. "The bugs."

"That's preposterous," Liara said at last, but it was weak.

Wrex was outraged. "The rachni are all dead. My ancestors saw to that."

Shepard didn't think her eyebrows could climb further into her hair. "Who are you, and what the hell do you mean, rachni?"

"My name is Han Olar. I was assigned to the rachni project." He sucked in another noisy breath and let it out. "There was an egg, on a derelict ship. Cryogenic storage, since before the end of the wars." Hiss, clunk, rasp. "Binary Helix thought they could clone it, but inside was a queen- able to produce her own workers, using the stored DNA of her fathers."

Cohen interrupted, alarmed. "Han, you can't talk like that. The non-disclosure-"

"I shit on their non-disclosure." He said it so flatly and without passion that it raised the hairs on Shepard's neck. There was nothing but emptiness behind the words.

She kept her focus on the facts. "I need to know everything you can tell me."

"I told you all I can. We brought the rachni back from the dead. In retrospect, a bad decision."

Alenko rubbed his chin, fascinated. "Drifting out there, all those years… that's wild. How'd anyone find something like that? Can't imagine it had much of a heat signature."

Olar shrugged. "That was before the rachni workers birthed by the queen reached my lab. But there's something wrong with them. They act crazy. Incoherent. No sign of a self-preservation instinct, just… unparalleled rage."

Tali's voice held a trace of wonder. "Captain Ventralis told us you were in the hot labs when the rachni got loose. How did you survive that? Just a handful of them almost overwhelmed us."

"I…" The volus trailed off. He stared into space. "I killed her. We were getting on the tram, about to go to lunch, when we heard the alarms… They came pouring out. I shut the door. She… she banged on the window. I shut the door. I killed her. They clawed at her. Split her head like a melon."

Screams and thrashing in the dark. She tore at tent flaps as she ran by. Get out! Move your asses! Make for the goddamn trees- they're too big to follow! While all about them entire rows of tents were flying up into the air as nameless, shadowed shapes caused the ground to ripple and sink like a living thing and not a dead floor of planetary rock.

God, she could remember their stinking breath, warm rotten air like a thousand carcasses making her sweat and gag and want to breathe shallow breathes through her mouth right when she needed oxygen most, in a flat-out run on a tropical greenhouse of a planet. Her boots slapped against the mud.

"You couldn't know," Williams was saying as Shepard abruptly returned to herself, a stab at empathy. "You did exactly right. And you're helping us put those bastards down for good."

"You think I want absolution?" Olar asked, a touch sharp. "There is none."

Shepard looked down at the hunched figure. "You survived and she didn't. Was it worth it?"

He glanced up at her. There was no reading his expression through the suit, but something about the way he stood seemed searching and ashamed. "I don't know."

"Good answer," Shepard said, uninflected as she was honest. "You'll be ok."

Strangely, that seemed to mollify him. He nodded. "The geth came from the maintenance tunnel. It leads into the secure labs."

Cohen fumbled at his belt and produced an access pass. "Here. Take it. This equipment won't do my patients much good if the geth come up and slaughter us all."

She clipped the laminate badge beside the one from the garage staffer. "Garrus, Tali- find that central security station. I want all the drones and anything else you can find shut down. Geth and a commando unit are enough to deal with."

They glanced at each other and nodded. Garrus said, "We're on it. Good luck, Shepard."

She returned the nod and watched them take off towards the elevator. "Olar, Cohen- anything else about Benezia? How many people did she bring with her?"

Cohen grimaced. It was clear that despite the urgency, he was torn between protecting his job and wanting to survive long enough for job security to matter. "Not counting Iallis, maybe five. Six?"

Williams swallowed. "Six asari commandos."

Shepard looked back at the lab where Iallis' body lay. "They're not so bad. We can do this. Let's go."