***Author's Note***
Hello again! We've got a little change-up on Miranda's back-story
here, as I never really liked the "I joined Cerberus to get away from
my father, but hey look my father is working with Cerberus" inconsistency
with ME2 and ME3. It'll be fleshed out a little more in this chapter and the
next, just know that I'm re-writing Miranda, hopefully for the better. =P

As always, thanks for the reviews, PM's, and favorites! I appreciate everyone
letting me know what they think of the story, especially as we move into ME3
territory!

36 - Hidden Threads

They moved almost in slow motion, at least to him. He threw his arm up almost lazily to block the man's frantic attack, then spun low, sweeping his legs. Continuing with the momentum he finished the turn in time to slam his elbow into the side of the man's head just as the rest of his body hit the floor. The man groaned in pain, grasping with futility at his head as his body unconsciously curled up into a ball.

"The access codes," he said plainly, waiting for a response. The man continued to ache on the floor in front of him, and Kai Leng shook his head slowly, completely disgusted. Without a sound, he crossed the room, reaching behind a chair and grabbing a handful of hair. The woman the hair was attached to screamed as much as the gag he'd stuffed in her mouth would allow as he dragged her in front of the man and threw her to her knees, placing the barrel of his pistol to the back of her head. "I'm not asking again."

The man crawled to his knees. "Please! No! I'll give you what you want but for god's sake stop pointing that gun at my wife!" In reply, Kai reached back, pistol whipping her with the weapon. She went sprawling to the floor away from the two of them, and Kai's weapon trained back on the man. "Alice!" he yelled, and made to move towards her. Kai fired off one shot, just grazing the edge of the man's boot. He turned to Kai then, fire and rage and hatred filling his eyes, then crossed the room, inputting a multifaceted code into the hidden safe there. After a moment, he retrieved a datapad, handing it to Kai, who skimmed through it, his pistol still trained on the man. "It's all there," the man pleaded, "everything you asked for. Now please...please just le-" Kai squeezed the trigger in three short bursts, and the man was dead before he hit the floor, blood slowly pooling into the soft tan carpet underneath his corpse. Satisfied with the datapad, Kai tucked it into a utility pouch at the small of his back, then crossed the room again, untying the woman's hands and removing the gag from her mouth. She coughed a bit as he did.

"Appreciate it, you really know how to cram that in there." She winked at him as she stood, smoothing out her green blouse and black skirt. "You hit pretty hard with that pistol though, I think someone might be a bit of a sadist." Her deep red lips turned upwards in a ruthless smile.

Kai stared at her, his expression unchanged. "You leaned into the hit," he said after a long moment. "I think someone might be a bit of a masochist."

She laughed quietly, then raised a single, pale hand. "Guilty as charged." She let the hand fall to rest on his shoulder. "So, are they all there?"

"Yes," he replied, "and they show no signs of alteration. He'll be happy with them."

"Oh, good..." she cooed as she closed the gap between them. "We wouldn't want to upset him." She let her lips brush his ear, he did not flinch. "So, I played my part, got you what you were looking for, why don't we go back to the bedroom and I'll show you the other parts I'm good at playing?"

"You wouldn't want that," he whispered.

"Oh really?" She laughed. "And why's that, tall dark and deadly?"

"I just don't think you'd have the stomach for it." Three muffled shots thumped into her midsection, and her eyes grew wide as she stumbled backwards and away from him, her fingers fumbling awkwardly at the blood hemorrhaging from her stomach. After a moment she crumpled to the floor, whimpering as her life poured onto the ground. He stepped past her and knelt, running his fingers through the now-burgundy-red carpet. He reached out, running his hand across her cheek, smearing her own blood onto its soft pale surface. "Orders were 'no loose ends.'" His hand trailed downwards to her neck, and he closed down on it, strangling her amidst muffled cries and choked-up blood until her body no longer twitched with the will to live and her eyes rolled back. He put a bullet in her head to be sure.

Crossing the room to the window he'd unlocked to get in, he opened it once more, activating the magnetic surfaces on his right hand and foot at 50% strength. He slid down the metal siding of the building, some three stories, to his shuttle hovering at the 42nd floor, the hatch still open. He climbed inside, lowered the hatch, input his extraction point, and the car sped off into the bustling Ilium night.

Opening his omni-tool, he extracted the files from the datapad, then corrupted the device and threw it out the window. He uploaded it's contents from his omni-tool to the secure black-channel network, and waited for the response. As per usual, a few seconds later a confirmation notice came. It said his work was appreciated. It said he should wait for further instruction. He tapped the message away on his omni-tool, then took manual control of the vehicle, flying it to the top of a nearby building. He landed it, opening the hatch and stepping out into the crisp night air. He crossed to the edge of the building, sitting and looking out over Ilium. In the distance, he could still see the marred and twisted framework of the remnants of the Dantius towers. His lip curled up in a smile to look upon it. He'd been impressed with Shepard when he'd heard of the destruction, but to see it was a whole other thing entirely.

The wind whipped through his black hair, and he reached up to secure it once more behind the mask that covered his eyes. Kai Leng. That's what they called him, though it wasn't his name. Not even the Illusive Man knew his name. That had only made it easier to betray the man once he'd been informed of his weakening resolve against the lesser species. The man had given Kai a way out of the Alliance death-grip he'd been in, and a way into a life of meaning, one with purpose. But Cerberus could not have a spineless leader. Not now, not ever. And so when the first messages from the Voice of Truth had come, his interest had been piqued. He'd watched, waited, and when the opportunity presented itself, he quietly changed sides. He didn't know who the Voice was, and didn't care, quite frankly. The man, or woman, or group, had the right idea, and obviously the backbone to support it.

His omni-tool chimed again, the Illusive Man checking in. Shaking his head, the man called Kai Leng returned to his vehicle, closed the door, and took the call.

The soft sounds of classical music tapered through the air in Miranda's office as she sat on the edge of her bed, wringing out her hair. It had been a much needed shower, truth told, more for the mind than the body. Still, she had work that needed doing, and little time to do it in, if Shepard's current rate of specialist acquisition would continue. She hadn't been given any further dossiers from the Illusive Man, did that mean...were they approaching the end? She shook her head softly. She needed to be strong, if for no other reason than to inspire the Cerberus crew. Shepard may run the ship, but they looked to her for reassurance that the Illusive Man was pleased with their work. Or at least they used to...Her brow furrowed as she realized that she hadn't had a crew report in close to two standard days now.

"EDI," she called out, "please run a report collation with my name tagged and filter them to my personal console."

"I have finished your request, Operative Lawson," the dulcet mechanical voice replied after a few seconds. "Contents include five crew reports, three confirmations of mission report receipt from Cerberus headquarters, and one black-listed file, under heavy encryption."

Her hands stopped their motion. "A black-listed file? EDI you shouldn't even have access to those..."

"That is correct. However, Commander Shepard authorized Lia'Vael nar Ulnay to hack into my programming, and release certain restrictions that might allow me to access Cerberus details."

She stood, furious. "And how long have you been hacking the black-list databases?!"

"Approximately four days, though the actual aggregation of data took only six minutes. I have mostly been assisting in an analytic capacity."

Miranda looked at her console, hating Shepard for the decision, but curious as well...At last she sighed heavily, crossing the room and sitting in front of the terminal. She opened the file, a series of log entries, and played the first one with hesitation. A man's image appeared in an unfamiliar Cerberus compound, and her chest tightened. The Illusive Man sat behind a desk, speaking with him.

"If it's the treatment that bothers you...I can assure you-"

"No, I don't care about that," the man said, interrupting. "Just give me another one to take back with me, and you can have this one. What I'm worried about is my connection to this facility becoming common knowledge."

The Illusive Man took a long drag on his cigarette. "I can assure you, Mr. Lawson, that won't be a problem. We'll perform the procedures entirely within this facility, which is itself behind a complete communications smokescreen. Once the process is complete, we'll perform a cerebral re-write, she won't even remember a thing." He took a drink from a glass on the table. "Hell, we could even send her back to you if you wanted."

Lawson shook his head. "No. She was imperfect anyway. Use her for your procedure, then do whatever you wish with her. Just make sure mine is perfect."

"Of course, Mr. Lawson," the Illusive Man said, reaching across the table to shake the man's hand. "Cerberus thanks you for your generous donation to humanity's future."

Lawson took his hand. "If I benefit Cerberus, I benefit myself."

The recording ended, and Miranda slumped back in her chair, her mouth agape at what she'd seen. That man...that wasn't her father. Or at least, not the father she'd lived with; the one who'd always seemed uncaring and aloof...For minutes she sat, unable to move. At long last, she reigned in her thoughts, her horror, and checked with shaking hands the name of the facility. C-14 was all the log would divulge. The door to her office opened, and Jacob stepped in, immediately seeing her panicked gaze snap to him. He turned instinctively, locking the door behind him and all but rushing to her side. He knelt down beside her chair, putting an arm around her.

"Woah, Miranda, what's wrong?"

Words failed her. She shook her head, then replayed the log file for him.

"Son of a bitch..." he whispered as it concluded once more, the two men shaking hands in the unknown room. "That's your father?"

"I don't...I can't..." she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and mentally slapping herself across the face. When she opened them, her voice was steel again. "I can't remember. I had a father, but that isn't him. He died years ago, we never really connected. He was on a transport...attacked by batarian raiders...his death pushed me into Cerberus in the first place.

"Sounds like the Illusive Man's been a part of your life for longer than you thought..." Jacob whispered. Her eyes met with his, and she shook her head again, dumbfounded for the first time in a long while. He leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers. "It'll be alright, Miranda. We'll figure this out, and I'll be next to you every step of the way."

She closed her eyes, living in the moment for the briefest of seconds, before pulling away and standing up. "We can't. Not right now. We've got a much more important mission, and if we don't focus on it, it won't matter who my father was, or what his plans were."

"Miranda, you're not going to be able to focus with this shit rattling around inside your head."

"I will," she said decisively, shooting him a look that said she'd brook no argument. After a moment she let it melt. "Jacob...I'm sorry. Yes, it's horrible and terrifying, but I can't be terrified. Not now. The mission is too important for anything else."

Jacob was silent for a long moment before nodding. "Alright, if that's how you want to play it. But once Shepard brings us back from wherever this suicide mission takes us...we're getting to the bottom of this. Together."

She smiled at him. "Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"I'll hold you to that," he said, pointing at her as he walked back towards the door.

"Jacob," she called, and he stopped, turning back to her. "Didn't you have something you came here for?"

"I did," he began, "but it hardly seems appropriate now." Even though his words sounded embarrassed, his lips curved up in a small smile; one which she returned.

"When have you ever been concerned with being appropriate?" She crossed the room, and he took her in his arms, their faces inches apart as she wrapped her arms tightly around him. She had been a fool to run away from this. His mere presence here was soothing, though she'd never admit it aloud.

"Recently, I suppose," he responded in a hushed tone. "Though, I could stop if you'd like. I could never be appropriate again." He smiled.

"I'll hold you to that," she whispered, leaning in to press her lips to his.

The datapad lay on the table, its orange holographic interface projecting upwards into the dark piping structure below the Engineering deck. Jack hung from the pipes, her legs wrapped around them, her face inches away from the tables surface as she read it from her upside-down position. She sighed, reaching down to swipe sideways to the next Cerberus record about her. Subject Zero, it had called her, and she'd heard the name before. But she hadn't been the first. Dozens of cells had tried the same experiment, the same biotic impressioning regimen, and the thought of it disgusted her. Still, she hadn't so far been able to find any reference to her specific facility, just broad messages about the success they had at long last obtained with her.

The next report loaded, and she stopped, her eyes widening as she read its content. In one fluid motion, she let go of the pipes above with her legs, tucked in and tumbled forward off of the bench, standing up to look back at the datapad. It was her. It was Jack, laid out on a datapad screen in numeric and log-entry form. Dates, doctors, procedures, trials, results...everything Cerberus had on Subject Zero. But still, no facility name. She roared, hurling the datapad across the room, where it slammed into the wall inches from Samara's head.

"Fuck..." Jack breathed heavily, "Didn't know you were there."

"I am not surprised," the asari said quietly, "I came to make sure everything was alright, you had not come to meditate with me today."

Jack squeezed her eyes shut in rage. "Well, it's not helping anyway, so let's just forget it."

"You cannot expect the process to w-"

"I don't care!" Jack yelled, turning her back on Samara and staring into the dark red glow of the emergency lighting behind her cot. "My rage is what keeps my alive. I don't have the time to sit around thinking about the universe, I've got Cerberus bastards to kill."

"Jack," she said soothingly, "I have walked this galaxy for almost a millennium, I can tell you that revenge won't g-"

"Just shut up!" she screamed. "I don't have a millennium, alright? I've got a hundred years if I'm lucky, and every day those fuckers live is a wrong in the galaxy I'd like to correct! So don't stand there and preach to me about the evils of revenge. I've got news for you: I am evil. The shit I've done, the people I've killed; if there's a human fucking incarnation of evil, you're looking at it! So I'll have my revenge, thanks. Get the hell out of my space."

Samara looked into her eyes for a long moment, pain evident in their purple irises. It stung Jack to say the words, though she'd never admit it, but she couldn't get soft. Not now. Samara crossed the room to where the datapad lay on the ground, and activated it. She looked at the information on its screen, flicked through a few records, and when she spoke, her voice was stone.

"Your conditioning sessions follow a three week on, one week off structure, though there is no medical reasoning for not continuing constantly with the trials. Cross referencing the maintenance record database shows a facility that shut down for a whole week in every four for 'Reclamation Maintenance'." She looked up, tossing the datapad back to a bewildered Jack, then turning to leave up the stairs. "Your Cerberus facility is on Pragia."

Around him, darkness swirled and churned, shapeless clouds becoming faces, people, places, monuments, words, and then shapeless again. It was enough to drive a man crazy, if you let it. Everywhere he turned, the clouds were there, threatening to overtake him, absorb him. He shook his gaze free of them, raising it once more to study the mosaic of light beaming down from the ceiling above. They were arranged differently in this place, they always were. He would have sighed, if that were possible in this form. Every light, every time, all the same; a room full of swirling clouds and shapeless beings from the past. Their sounds came more regularly now, voices almost, hushed and muffled as if he heard everything through a thick pillow. He couldn't make out the words, but he could hear the tone, the inflection.

Panic. Fear. That had been new. In some ways, he thought, he might be acclimating to this place. It seemed each time he came he discovered something new, something small and likely of little to no import, but something new nonetheless. He tried to focus on the voices harder, devoting everything he had to them, but to no avail. Reluctantly, he returned his gaze to the ceiling and picked another light at random, allowing it to engulf him completely in its blazing glow as it reached out to take him.

His feet hit the ground. Not the cold, dispassionate stone floor of a chamber, but honest to goodness ground. He opened his eyes, looking around at a landscape that seemed to fade into the familiar dark fog after about twenty yards in any direction. But beneath his boots, grass. He reached down, taking a knee as he grabbed a handful of the stuff, gently pulling it out of the ground and watching small clumps of soil tumble away as he did. After a moment, he let it go, and surveyed his surroundings. Around his small sanctuary, only the smoky walls of his makeshift cell. But there, just before him, lie the open mouth of a cave. Cautiously, he entered, and an ambient light seemed to follow him.

It appeared to be nothing special, a cave full of rocks, but from behind a small pile emanated a shrill, if faint, whine. It was like the sound of a shuttle taking off a mile from where you stood, and it gently brushed on the edges of his hearing. He stood closer, pulling away each rock one at a time. With each stone the sound grew louder, until it bordered upon unbearable. He pulled the last stone away, tossing it across the room, and light erupted forth from the floor, so bright he staggered backwards. He fell onto the floor, looking at the torrent of light pulsing forward, and in it...the form of a figure...

John's eyes snapped open, and the cold steel of the bulkhead greeted him once again, as it had so often these months past. He remembered it all, he always did. This time, however, that memory may just be worth hanging onto. The smoke, the grass, the light...it all still swam in his head. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, stretching as he stood before EDI's voice filtered through the cabin.

"Shepard, Jack is waiting outside your quarters. She wishes to speak with you."

"Uh...alright," he managed, surprised at the house call. "Send her on in."

Thunder roared in the atmosphere above, loud enough to drown out the engines of the Kodiak as it touched down on the single landing pad outside of the Pragia facility. The side hatch slid open, and a curtain of pouring rain greeted them as they stepped out onto the metal walkway. John took point, with Jack and Miranda flanking him. The hatch slid shut behind them, and Joker kept the shuttle idling. They moved forward along the seemingly-abandoned catwalk, and John looked over the outside of the facility with an appraising eye as they approached. On all sides, vines climbed like hungry animals, grasping and weaving their way around the steel and glass. Here and there a window, punched through by an ambitious vine, allowed the torrential downpour to enter the building unabated.

"This facility should only have been abandoned for ten years, tops," John said aloud as they approached the main entrance to the building. "What's going on here?"

"Pragia is a densely-forested world, Shepard," EDI's voice filtered into his earpiece and, he imagined, those of his squad-mates. "Its flora experiences massive boosts to regeneration and growth during the monsoon season."

"And how long is monsoon season?" John asked as they came to a stop.

"Ten of the planet's twelve calendar months," she replied. "It was listed as a significant deterrence to colonization efforts."

"Significant..." he chuckled. "Yea, I'd say..." A clap of thunder in the distance seemed to underline his thoughts, and Jack spoke up.

"Yea, really mysterious. I think the bigger mystery is why the hell she's here." Her glare focused on Miranda, drilling into her and refusing to let up.

"As I said before," the Cerberus agent said with as much feigned politeness as possible, "I'm here to break through any security problems we encounter."

"EDI can do that," Jack spat back, "and I'm guessing she can do it a hell of a lot faster than you can. Try again."

"EDI has more important things to worry about, and I don't have to explain myself to you, Jack. We've got a mission to do, and this little side-track is taking up time. Would you rather stand out here in the rain arguing with me, or have your answers?"

Jack's glare continued for a moment before she shook her head. Miranda crossed to the keypad and entered a combination; an override code she'd discovered. The doors snapped open to reveal tile floors slick with rainwater, computer terminals covered with vines, chairs with rusted-through bottoms, all bathed in the flickering lights above, tied into failing power grids all over the facility.

"You sure you want to blow it up, Jack?" John said quietly as they stepped inside, the doors closing behind them. "Looks pretty wrecked as-is."

"Positive," she replied, checking the computer terminals to make sure they were truly inactive. They moved as a group through the dark rooms, each one just as derelict as the others. Here and there they would find terminals still in an operable state, but they only opened doors or controlled vid screens. Everywhere around them, the planet worked to regain ownership of the ground the facility stood upon. Roots made uneven cracks in the floor, the large branches and trunks of newly-forming trees pushed their way through the walls and windows, and the steady hum of the rain pervaded the otherwise silent venture they made. Opening a door into a large hall, Jack stepped forward, looking with remembrance on the place.

"I remember escaping through here. That was where I got out." She pointed above them and to the left, where a gaping hole in the superstructure's roof had been blasted open. "Took everything I had. Shit, by the time I got to the shuttle my nose was pouring blood. Worth it, though."

"What was this space even used for?" John asked as they walked through the open hall.

"Fighting, mostly. They'd pit me against kids every so often, make me fight them to show my progress."

"To the death?" Miranda asked.

Jack shrugged. "Sometimes. I got shocked when I hesitated, narcotics flooded my veins when I attacked."

John stopped his survey of the ceiling to look at her. "They conditioned you to attack?"

"Yea," she replied. "Hell, I still get a warm feeling in a fight."

"How many were there?" Miranda asked quietly.

"What, your handy officer's logs don't give you that kind of detail?" Jack snapped at her.

"I don't have access to facilities and missions outside of my direct leadership," she replied coolly.

"Well then why don't you just stick do 'hacking doors' and opening consoles, like you supposedly came along to d-"

"God damn it, Jack!" Miranda yelled, cutting her off. "You're not the only person who wants answers from Cerberus!"

Jack's normally surefire look wiped off of her face for a second, replaced by a mask of pure shock. In a second it was back, joined by a cocky grin for having broken Miranda's composure. "Well," she said at last, "isn't that interesting? The coach is even hiding things from his best cheerleader." Miranda shook her head, and a long silence fell between them.

"Over here," John called out, ending the awkward pause. They crossed to him to find a diagnostics terminal housed in a side-room, into which the vegetation had not yet intruded. He fired up the log, and a scientist holding a datapad materialized above the console's surface.

"Entry One: I must say I'm excited to begin. So far, Project Legacy is proceeding as planned. We've collected specimens from many colony planets as well as large-scale worlds. The necessary mercenary groups have been paid for their services, and we're ready to begin the procedures and trials as soon as possible. Pragia is mostly known as a smuggler's transit point, but we've set up operations in a relatively remote area of the planet, and automated perimeter systems should keep the facility clear for us."

John tapped another button on the interface, and the scientist's image flickered, resuming again after a moment, then fading again.

"The log files are damaged," Miranda said. She tapped a few keys, scanning through to the next playable log. Once again, the scientist appeared.

"Entry Seventeen: Most specimens are rejecting the tissue grafting procedure. Or the DNA re-sequencing. We aren't sure yet. The project director assures us that the Prime Subject is genuine, and genetically modified to suit our needs, but the others are beginning to wonder."

"They were grafting tissue and re-sequences the DNA of these kids?" John asked quietly. "For what? What could possibly be worth that?"

"I want to know what the Prime Subject is," Jack said. "Go to the next one."

Miranda keyed the logs forward, her heart in her throat. Against all logic, though, she held out hope. All couldn't be as she imagined it was. There had to be an explanation for all of this.

"Entry Twenty-Six: Finally! We had begun to give up hope, but one specimen has adapted to the procedures of the Project and is recuperating. Subject Zero is already showing signs of biotic potential, lifting and pushing items in her anger. She doesn't understand her abilities, and it is our task to hone them before she can do so on her own. We've already removed her from the other children, and will begin the conditioning stage in the morning. I..." His image looked off to the left. "I can still hear her screaming..."

"Jack..." John began, "I'm sorry."

She looked away from the image of the scientist in anger, her eyes boring holes into the tiled floor as the past came up again to haunt her. After a moment, she shook her head, turning back to the console and tapping the key. "Last one," she mumbled. The scientist's image appeared again, this time hunched over and grasping at his arm, or at least where his arm should have been. Even in digital form, blood could be seen pouring down his coat. His voice was pained, and cuts and bruises marred his face.

"Entry Forty-two: Subject Zero has escaped. Three hours ago, while under guard. She blasted a hole in the ceiling of the hall. Daniels hadn't given her the suppressant before bringing her out...she was at her full potential. So many are dead...Ah..." He swayed slightly, catching himself on the back of the chair in front of him. "The Prime Subject has already been moved off-world. Subject Zero's tissues were easier for the specimens to adapt to, so we've begun using hers instead. We completed the memory wipe last week, and Operative Grant, or should I say 'Mr. Lawson' has agreed to take custody of the girl; his new identity is being generated by our technicians as we speak. I'm forwarding all data on this project to the Illusive Man. We're...we're getting the specimens ready for transport now. Can't take the risk of someone finding us here."

"Holy shit..." Jack breathed, backing away from the console. John's eyes darted between the two of them as the silence almost deafened out the rain. After a long moment, Jack turned to Miranda. "You mean to tell me...they spent all this time fucking with my head, making me into a killing machine, with your biotic tissue?! With your fucking DNA?!"

"It was all a lie..." Miranda whispered, her eyes still transfixed on the scientist. She had thought there would be an explanation, a reason for her doubts. He'd lied to her about the Collector ship, he'd sent her into mission after mission without intel for fear of it leaking, but surely...surely he hadn't lied to her about who she was. Everything she'd known, the parents she'd lost and wept over, was all of it a lie? She stressed her mind, shutting her eyes tightly and trying to remember anything they hadn't told her, but it was all blank. "I can't remember...anything..."

"Miranda," John said quietly. "Are you alright?"

"Is she alright?" Jack demanded. "Holy fucking shit, Shepard."

"Miranda is as much a victim here as you are, Jack," he shot back, rounding on her. "In fact, the Illusive Man and Cerberus have lied to everyone in this room. They took her past, they tried to take your future." A long pause hung in the air, and Jack looked away, up toward the walkways above them. "But it doesn't sound like Miranda was complicit or even aware of what was going on."

"I guess you're right," Jack admitted after a moment. Miranda turned to look her in the eye, and she spoke again. "Well, if this isn't enough to convince you Cerberus are a bunch of assholes, what is? Right?"

"But ma'am, we don't have the supplies to make it to next week, much less a month from now," David pleaded with her as he followed her along the uneven steel corridor. From a far distance, about:newtabshe could hear the sounds of more drilling as their construction teams continued to drill them out a base of operations in this unobtrusive asteroid. Her assistant tripped over the uneven flooring, then caught himself with a muffled curse and continued. "The Alliance has already said they can't rendezvous with us in-system for another two months, and we still need a lot of military-grade components to proceed with re-purposing the asteroid."

She stopped walking to enter her pass-code on a keypad beside the door to her lab. "It will be fine, David," she said softly. "We'll keep scavenging the Omega debris fields for the pieces we need, and we'll send undercover agents to the station itself for supply runs."

"Actually set foot on Omega?" he asked with shock. "That's fairly dangerous, doctor Kenson."

She laughed as she turned to regard his terrified expression. "More dangerous than snooping around right under the Hegemony's nose in a supposed time of peace?"

He rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean! We'll be out of here before they find out, there's little risk if we stay smart and calculate our moves. Omega, on the other hand, can't be calculated at all."

"It's a risk we need to take, David. It's that or ask the batarians for supplies."

"Ok, I know you're joking, but come on..." he objected.

She smiled, stepping inside her lab and turning around to face him through the doorway. "Tell Pierce and his team we'll need them doing the supply runs. No one with half a brain, of any species, will give them trouble." David sighed but nodded at last, saying farewell and departing up the corridor. The door slid shut behind her, and she crossed the room to her desk, stopping short as her omni-tool let out a chime.

"This is Dr. Kenson, report."

"Doctor, this is Stills with the construction team. We...ah...you're going to want to see this, ma'am."

"What is it, Stills?"

"I think...I think it's what you came here looking for."

"Well I'll be fucked," Jack mumbled, running her hand along the dark glassy surface. "A two-way mirror. My quarters are on the other side. I could see all the other kids down there," she gestured to the open mess hall below. "I'd scream at them for hours...they'd all ignore me."

"I still can't believe they kept children here," Miranda said softly. "Those weren't rooms...they were prison cells."

Jack barked a mirthless laugh. "We weren't children, we were prisoners."

They continued along the corridor, into another hallway just as overgrown as the rest. Beyond it, they crossed into a large room with security consoles. Jack crossed to one of them and began tapping into its interface, trying to get any more information she could out of it. Miranda stood near one of the shattered windows, looking out into the dense vegetation. John crossed to her, looking out at the Pragian landscape.

"How you holding up?"

She chuckled. "I...don't really know, Shepard. It hasn't quite sunk in yet, that everything I grew up with was a lie. How many of my friends were Cerberus plants? How many enemies? Hell, my whole reasoning behind joining Cerberus was fabricated, shouldn't that make me more of a wreck than this?"

He put a hand on her shoulder. "You're a strong woman, Miranda. But you're not perfect. None of us are."

She shook her head. "Still, I should have seen this, should have noticed something."

"You can't blame yourself for this. And as terrible as it is, you can live in the past. You've seen what happens when you let that take you over." They both looked over to Jack, who slammed a fist wreathed in biotic flame into the console with a curse as it refused to assist her further. Miranda's gaze caught his own, holding his eyes for a long moment before she spoke.

"You didn't kill me on the Collector ship. You had every reason to."

John smiled. "There's a difference between an organization and the people it employs. You've got a mind of your own, and while we don't always agree, you're a good person, and one hell of an asset to the team, Miranda. You're not the first person the Illusive Man has lied to in pursuit of a goal, and you won't be the last." He paused, then added, "Besides, you kept an eye on Tali for me. That's got to count for something."

She smiled, nodding slightly. "Thanks, Shepard. If I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to be my friend."

He laughed. "Just maybe. Though to tell you the truth, I may need a handful of friends when this is all over."

"Really?" she asked. "Why's that?"

He smiled as he walked away to assist Jack with the door to the next corridor. "Because if the Illusive Man thinks I'm giving him this ship back, he's out of his mind."

Despite the pain of the situation, she had to laugh. Just days ago she'd have informed him immediately if Shepard had so much as insinuated keeping the SR-2 after the mission, much less stated it outright. She looked down at her omni-tool, then switched it off and moved up to access the door. Jack was working the encryption lock when she approached, and after a moment stepped aside to let her try. Miranda had it open in two seconds, the doors sliding apart silently.

"Oh for fuck's..." Jack started, then caught Miranda's gaze. "Thanks...I guess..."

"My pleasure."

They stepped into a long, dark corridor. The lights in here didn't flicker, and John ignited the flashlight on his omni-tool, shining in down the hall's full length. Along the left wall, a trail of bloodstains led to a corpse in front of a lone terminal.

"I know that bloodstain..." Jack whispered, crossing to it and touching it gingerly with her fingertips. "He was the first," she breathed, her eyes lowering to the helmeted guard's armor on the ground. "The next door leads to my room, this was the first hallway I came down after breaking out."

"I've got the log up, if you like," Miranda said, gesturing to the console.

"Thanks," Jack said again, the word still sounding strange coming from her lips. From the console's surface, a different scientist's image sprung to life. His lab coat was bloodstained and torn in numerous places, and his voice was panicked. "All subjects are loose! We're putting them down as fast as possible, but I'm losing men in droves! I'm initiating SitPlan 662, and enabling the gas protocols. I've forwarded all my data to the BioSphere cell. They'll piggy-back onto the Alliance's Ascension project and resume project operations undercover. The Teltin facility has to be shut down...at any cost..."

"Fuck!" Jack yelled, rounding to face them. "Shepard, they're still doing this shit!"

"They can't be," he reassured her, "Ascension is an Alliance military-run program, with direct oversight from Hackett and Anderson. It's a school for biotic kids, not a testing site."

"Maybe that's what they're saying," she replied frantically. "Maybe there's other shit, Cerberus shit, going on behind the curtain!"

"That's impossible," Miranda said quietly.

"What? How?"

"The BioSphere cell was dissolved eight months after the time-stamp on this message. I didn't know anything about what their operational directives were until just now, but the Illusive Man said the Alliance had uncovered and terminated his agents within the Ascension program." She paused, meeting Jack's panicked face. "Whatever this man wanted, it never panned out. I promise you."

Jack looked into Miranda's eyes for a long moment, then tore her gaze away, looking back at the bloodstain and nodding. "Ok...alright. Then let's plant the bomb and get back to the Normandy.

"You don't want to see your room?" John ventured.

Jack spat out a laugh in response. "Fuck no, Shepard. All I needed was for these fuckers to have gotten what they had coming. And based on the way our holographic friend over there is still choking on his own vomit, I'd say mission accomplished. Let's blow this piss-hole to pieces."

"Alright," Miranda said. "Back to the Normandy, then."

"What?" Jack replied. "What about blowing it up? Cratering this prison full of sick fucks?"

"Oh we will," Miranda replied with a smile. "We'll use the Normandy's weapons for it. Cerberus foots the bill for ammunition supplies."

Jack chuckled devilishly. "Ha, make Cerberus pay to destroy their own facility. Sometimes you're not half bad, cheer- Miranda."

"Normandy," John called into his comm piece, "this is Shepard. We're moving back to the landing pad, be ready for pick-up. And tell Garrus to warm up the Thanix cannon he's been working on, it's time for a trial run."

Jack clapped him on the shoulder as she walked past. "Oh hell yes."

Jack stepped into the starboard Observation Deck, letting the doors slide quietly shut behind her. She'd relished the destruction of the facility, the giant plumes of flame from the Thanix cannon engulfing that hell-hole in justice. She wasn't the crying kind, but it had almost brought a tear to her eye. Garrus had watched her face the whole time, and nodded to her when it was done. He was lucky he was a turian, she had thought; if he'd have been human she might have fucked him on the spot. Afterward, she'd thanked Shepard and Miranda, then gone back down to her quarters on the Engineering deck, which seemed much larger after having been back to Pragia again. She'd tried to sleep, tried to watch movies on the extranet, tried anything to distract herself, but that nagging feeling remained. Eventually, she'd come here.

Samara sat where she always did, in front of the large viewport, wreathed in blue flame. Jack watched her for a long moment, so content, so at peace, yet so potentially destructive. She was like a bomb holding its own detonator switch, flipping it at its own moment of choosing. She envied the asari the control her many years gave her.

"I was hoping you would come," Samara said quietly after a moment. Her blue wreath winked out, and she turned to face Jack.

Hesitantly, Jack walked down the aisle and sat cross-legged beside Samara. "Look, I'm...not really good at this but...I bitched you out, and I know you were just trying to help."

"No, it is I who am at fault, Jack." She met the asari's purple eyes with shock. "I have lived a long time, seen revenge consume the hearts of many men and women. It is a binding thread between people of all species, the lust for revenge. Some feel it will lead to a sort of inner peace. Others, to a feeling of vindication, as though the deaths of those who have caused them pain is the only thing that can free them of that pain. It never helps, Jack. It never heals the wound. And if the person is weak enough, it will consume them for the rest of their days. But there is something very important I forgot when trying to dissuade you, Jack."

Jack shrugged, not sure what she could have forgotten. Samara smiled, one of the few times Jack had seen her do so.

"I forgot that in almost a thousand years of traveling this galaxy, you are the strongest being I have ever encountered."

"Wh-what?" she asked, completely taken aback. No one gave her compliments, well except maybe Shepard, but he was just a pussy. "No, not a thousand years. Come on..."

"It's true," she replied. "You have great potential inside of you, Jack. And a fierce passion to protect what you see as yours. And though I am not your parent, or your matriarch of any kind, my offer to help you focus it still stands, if you would like it."

Jack sat in silence, her mouth agape for a moment. At last she closed it, smiling to the older asari and allowing her own blue fire to engulf her as she closed her eyes, hearing the humming of the Normandy's drive core, and of all the stars in the universe, as she did. Slowly, surely, the nagging feeling faded, and a stillness came over her. The stillness of closure, and peace, a kind unlike any she'd felt in her life.

Miranda sat at her desk, staring at the Pragia mission report she had yet to file with the Illusive Man. She looked down to the steaming mug of coffee waiting to be sipped, watching the tendrils of steam reach skyward from its dark brown surface before trailing away into the atmosphere of her cabin. Cerberus was a black ops, paramilitary, outside the law organization. It had been a rogue, splinter-faction for years, for as long as she'd been on its roster. It was headed my a reclusive xenophobe who wished for human dominance above all else.

And none of that bothered her. People could have whatever personal opinions they wanted, but as long as humanity was safeguarded, especially from threats the Alliance and the Council wouldn't go after, she was proud to be part of it. But, she thought, staring at the blinking cursor on her screen, was that still Cerberus's goal? When you stop protecting your children or your soldiers and instead start experimenting on them, lying to them, reducing their lives and names to numbers and statistics...were you any better than your enemy? She shook her head, looking up when the doors to her quarters opened.

"I called for you more than ten minutes ago..." she said. "Everything alright?"

"I think I'm the one who should be asking you that, Miranda," Jacob replied, locking the door behind him and crossing to take a seat in front of her desk. "Got to talking with Tali about the Normandy's armor shielding, and how we can upgrade it before we hit the Collector base. Say what you will about 'em, but the quarians have got solid ideas on hull reinforcement. She'll be a beast after Shepard OK's it."

"Good news," she said, taking a sip of her coffee. She looked at him over the rim of the glass, and he sighed.

"Seriously? We're not going to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about, Jacob. Yes, I was lied to, about pretty much everything, it turns out. But this isn't about me. It's about...it's about that facility, and Cerberus in general." She paused, shaking her head before continuing. "I saw the experiments that facility was performing, I saw the cells they kept the children, human children, in. Hell, I saw what they did to Jack...But I didn't bring you here to talk about me, Jacob. I brought you here to talk about what it made me think."

"I'm not sure I follow, Miri."

"I think you were right, Jacob..." She looked away, out the viewport to the stars sliding by at faster than light speeds. After a moment, she met his concerned gaze once more. "I think we might be playing for the wrong team."