The trip to the briefing room had been astonishingly smooth. Shepard had not trulyexpected any real kind of trouble - she was there, after all, as were both Lawson and Taylor, though the latter was preoccupied with trying to repair the omni-tool that the pimply kid had apparently hacked as a final 'fuck you' after Taylor had escorted him away from the docking area - but she generally did not approach any situation without envisioning the worst case scenario and several of its closest competitors. In this particular instance, she wasn't sure if the worst case was the one in which the Alliance had Alenko bugged somehow, busted in to the Normandy, killed almost everyone, impounded the ship, threw Shepard in prison, and then sat around with their thumbs up their asses until the Reapers showed up... or if it was the one in which one of the many kids who wanted nothing more than to impress Miranda Lawson took out a gun and shot Kaidan Alenko point-blank. She was pretty sure that the former was technically worst case, what with the genocide and the destruction of all sapient, spacefaring life in the galaxy, but all that aside, the image of Alenko dying in her arms at all, let alone when she had assured him of his safety, was a little more compelling in terms of emotional investment.
And now that she thought about it, there was a very good chance that she would be significantly less interested in killing large numbers of Reapers if she knew Alenko was gone. She'd probably end up doing it anyway because, hell, it wasn't like she was qualified to be a financial advisor on Ilium or anything... but it wouldn't mean as much. It might not mean anything at all. She supposed that made her a really super special kind of selfish. She filed that away for later analysis.
Either way, though, things had gone smoothly - save for Taylor's omni-tool continuing to moan suggestively instead of beeping every time he tried to use it; the thing had even started crooning 'Eye on the prize' seductively every time he tried to access system config files - and though there had been a few double takes during the trek, most of those had more or less immediately morphed into an expression that Shepard saw quite often and found inherently reassuring: the classic, 'Well, this is new. I guess things weregetting a little boring around here' look. She liked that one.
What few interruptions there had been had been minor, fleeting. They were ones Shepard had made when she'd first boarded the Normandy SR-2 too.
She had been on the SR-2 long enough that it was no longer simply a bittersweet replacement for what she had lost in the SR-1, that it was no longer just a shadow, two-dimensional and cold, of something that had meant far more to her than just a bit of pressurized air. The SR-1 had been home. She had spent a lifetime on ships and never had one meant as much to her as that one. (She was sure part of it was the fact that it was her first command. She was sure part of it was the fact that the beauty had lead the charge against a Reaper and won. She was sure most of it was the fact that the SR-1 had been a bit of pressurized air that she had shared with people she actually wanted to share a bit of pressurized air with, people she actually missed when they'd gone on to breathe pressurized air elsewhere.) And when she had first seen the SR-2, it had been nothing but a shallow replacement for what she'd lost... beautiful and functional and real... but shallow, cold, missing the energy and history and realness that its predecessor had had.
But that had eventually changed. It hadn't changed entirely, of course. Every once in a while, Shepard looked up at the command center and instead of seeing the wider, brighter, higher-tech arc of the SR-2, she saw a room just a little bit darker, a little bit smaller, a little bit warmer. But it had changed enough. The SR-2 was her own beast, a puppy that could never replace its achingly loyal predecessor but with all the makings of a fine dog, maybe even a best friend, nonetheless.
Alenko was still stuck at the shadow phase. He might never make it past 'bitter' to 'bittersweet' where the Normandy was concerned and Shepard wouldn't blame him. She wasn't sure if there was anything past 'bittersweet' at all but if there was, she definitely doubted he'd ever make it there. She wasn't even sure she'd make it there. She was trying not to watch him - 1) she was making sure no one around him was drawing a weapon; 2) she didn't want to give the crew any impressions more suggestive than the rumors that had probably already reached them; 3) her nervous system and the new amp were still trying to figure out who was boss and as a result she was still a little dizzy; and 4) he out of them all, expect possibly for Shepard herself, had known and loved the SR-1 the most and he deserved his privacy with her daughter - but she could see it in his body language. His face was scrupulously blank and his biotics, resonating faintly in her bones as they walked side-by-side, were just as meticulously, carefully even... but she could see each realization in the tiny movements of his throat, the relative tightness of his jaw, even the tension in his limbs.
They had walked out of decon to the main boarding area. He looked at the precise area where, on the SR-1, they had first met. He'd been standing with the rest of the marine detail, all neatly at attention to greet the ship's new XO. He'd been the only one to notice the butterfly bandages on her knuckles and the look on his face... Well. She didn't need to go around remembering it again now. She'd done her time with the ghosts of the SR-1. The point was, he was facing the same.
He had glanced to the left toward the cockpit. It had taken Shepard a moment to realize that he wasn't actually looking at the cockpit at all but rather at the forward escape pods, the set safely ensconced in the ship's framework directly behind the cockpit in the - overly generous - hopes that they might never be needed. His expression had been inscrutable... but she had watched his dark eyes look at the the closed hatches of the escape pods before moving slowly, deliberately, inevitably to the perfect, shiny internal hull directly opposite them. He must have read the incident recreation reports. (She'd resisted the urge to laugh. Of course he had. He'd probably read nothing but for weeks.) Though there had been no real proof of exactly how she had died, between Joker's testimony (Shepard had forced him into a pod, the hull had been breached, the containment fields didn't come up, she'd been pulled along with the remaining air away from the pod, and she'd been clinging to what had rather suddenly become the 'outer' hull when she'd launched his pod) and what little information they'd been managed to find (that the primary forward power hub had blown three point one seconds after Joker's pod had launched), well... it had been pretty reasonable to assume that the Savior of the Citadel had either been killed in the explosion or had died a pretty god damned mortifying spacing death.
She was pretty sure he'd been picturing the entire thing... replacing the pristine deck with the heavy scorching they'd endured before they'd lost containment and deep scoring from the heavy remnants of the hull that had raked across it... replacing the closed escape hatches and the helpful safety warnings across them with a scorched pair of doors closing on Joker's horrified face... replacing the hull across from it splayed open like a wound, ragged and inevitable, hemorrhaging air and wayward commanders like lifeblood.
She wondered if she should reassure him that she had died quickly, that her O2 line had been breached, that it had all been rather quick and... well, certainly not painless, but at least quick. Had her suit been intact, she could have floated around for days pondering the inevitability of her circumstances until she'd exhausted her suit's reserves... or she could have died in atmo which, she was told, was an even worse way to go. Of course, she hadn't actually died that way yet so she couldn't say for certain. Maybe she shouldn't bring it up.
"Commander," Lawson had said before gesturing for him to follow. Her voice had been surprisingly gentle. Well... gentle for her anyway. Probably more like 'non-abrasive' for anyone else. Shepard had been impressed.
It was good that the communications room was so close. There wasn't that much to see en route.
Shepard had explored the ship in its entirety by herself, that first night she'd been on it... each deck, each section, each maintenance shaft, even the equivalent of the one she'd found Alenko in during the worst of a migraine. The lockers where she and Alenko had gone through Williams' personal effects... that had been hard. Not seeing Alenko's favorite workstation across from her locker... that had been hard. Seeing the Hammerhead and the Kodiak instead of the Mako... that had been... well, she'd never really liked the Mako short of its estimable ability to help her freak Alenko the hell out, but somehow, she'd still expected to see it there.
She half hoped that Alenko wouldn't ask for a tour. She was pretty sure he would - the tech nerd in him would get the better of him, even if he knew better, even if he knew how much it would hurt to see... and even if he managed to tap the nerd down, the Alliance officer in him would never pass up an opportunity to have that level of access to a Cerberus ship - but she half hoped he would not. It wasn't an easy tour. She knew firsthand.
"Status?" Lawson barked as the quartet entered the communications room.
The others were already assembled as ordered, each standing around the retractable table - save for EDI whose holographic projection was situated in the middle of said table - leaving conspicuous room for three along one side.
"Fucked," said Zaeed Massani.
To her credit, Lawson didn't shoot Massani. Shepard was pleasantly surprised. Between the sleep deprivation and chaos, she'd half expected it. "I mean currently, Zaeed," said Lawson with careful patience.
"We're clear, Miranda," said Tali helpfully. "Garrus and I finished the mods to the transmissions. EDI's got a baseline to work from and we should have no problems pinpointing and blocking anything unusual. Kasumi finished hiding Kaidan's tracks. Er." Her gloved fingers played uncertainly in front of her. "Commander Alenko's, that is."
"You can still call him 'Kaidan', Tali," Shepard said, coming to a stop at the head of the table, arms crossed comfortably in front of her. She was pretty sure the quarian's hesitation indicated some kind of concern for loyalty, a hesitation to take sides. She just wasn't sure if it was the Cerberus-Alliance thing or the Shepard-Alenko thing. Poor kid. She hoped it was the former. She'd have done Tali a disservice if it were the latter.
Lawson and Alenko fell in beside her, one on either side. Both, oddly enough, had their arms crossed in front of them as well. Shepard wondered vaguely if they were taking cues from her somehow. They'd have to start a dance troupe at this rate. Commander Shepard and the Batshits. One night only.
"Commander Alenko," she said, "this is everyone. Everyone, this is Commander Kaidan Alenko."
Of those assembled, only Grunt and Mordin Solus were really new to Alenko. He'd met all the others at least in virtual form. He'd heard Grunt and Solus's names over the comm but she didn't think that constituted a real, polite introduction... so she added succinctly and with a graceless but wonderfully efficient series of points around the room, "Grunt. Solus. Alenko."
Solus was easy. He probably already knew everything there was to know about Kaidan Alenko just by virtue of his seemingly endless ties to and within the salarian Special Tasks Group... and more importantly, probably didn't really care all that much. He was... well, Solus was Solus, and Shepard was pretty sure that after he gave her the nice lesson on human sexuality that he'd probably thoughtfully prepared for her, he'd go back to not really caring until he saw a connection that no one else did. Shepard liked that about him. She could of course do with fewer lectures on interspecies sex - she had helped Thane with a delicate family problem once (and oddly enough for a woman with titles like 'Hero of Elysium' and 'Savior of the Citadel', that had been one of the few times the Shepard had ever felt she'd truly and honestly made a real difference)... and Solus had gone out of his way to catch her later and caution her that licking a drell would be just the first step in tripping a fantastic amount of balls, leaving her just a touch uncomfortable with the idea that Solus thought she was prone to licking random crew members - but the man knew his shit. She could forgive a lot in exchange for pure, unbridled competence.
Grunt, on the other hand, was a bit more of a risk. Krogans could be an odd sort in general. Shepard wasn't sure if Grunt was odd because he was the essence of krogan and therefore contained some kind of distilled form of crazy... or if he was odd because he'd grown up in a tank with only the voices of his forebears for company. Maybe both. Probably both. Either way, Shepard was just glad that Alenko, uncharacteristic though it was, had not showered recently and was wearing yesterday's clothes. Wrex had taught her many things about krogans... and one of the most important ones, to her way of thinking at least, was that a krogan would never trust what he couldn't smell. Nothing made a krogan twitchier than a human who dared hide his or her scent under soap or, god forbid, perfume.
"So I got amped today," Shepard said conversationally.
A few of the assembled crew for whom this was new information immediately drew their guns. She liked their initiative.
She waved them down. "Miranda and Commander Alenko assure me that I'm probably not going to be blowing a hole in the hull anytime soon," she said. "I didn't before and apparently I'm screwed up enough that this thing" - she gestured to the back of her head - "doesn't make me stronger the way it does normal biotics. Apparently it just makes me dizzy and prone to puking in random garbage cans." They didn't seem particularly reassured. She let them keep their guns out. Hell, maybe she was wrong. Maybe they'd have to shoot her. Couldn't be too careful. "The point is... I had a Prothean flashback as soon as they socketed this baby. And that got me thinking.
"EDI, create holographic timeline over table," she said. EDI's self-projection immediately disappeared, replaced with a line that ran the width of the table, directly in front of Shepard. "Data point A: Year 2183, label 'Attack on Eden Prime'." A small circle appeared on the line with the label. "Data point G: Year 2185. Label: 'Shepard Resurrected'." Another small circle appeared. "Now zoom in to this two-year time span.
"Now." Shepard leaned forward, hands on the table, eyes narrowed on the timeline. "Now is where it starts getting interesting. EDI, add the following and assume 'x' just represents some period of time we don't necessarily know but don't really need to: 1) Point B, time A+x: Prometheus Cell Created. 2) Point D, time B+x: Heracles Foundation Created. 3) Point E, time D+x: Shepard Killed In Action. 4) Point F, time E+x: Lazarus Cell created."
EDI obliged and the zoomed-in holographic timeline started filling in.
"You forgot C," said Goto after a moment.
Lawson smirked and flicked a glance toward Alenko. "No, she didn't," she said.
"Point C," said Shepard, not acknowledging Lawson's comment or the heavy thrum she felt in Alenko's biotics as a result, "we don't actually know anything about except that it happened before D. It may actually have happened as a precursor to B." Alenko said nothing but she could feel his reaction in his biotics. She couldn't decide if she was just getting better attuned to him - could such a thing even happen? she had no idea - or the damned amp was making her more aware of the changes. "EDI, add Point C between B and D. Label: 'Delphi Group'."
She allowed the assembled team members to digest the timeline for a moment.
A: Attack on Eden Prime
B: Prometheus Cell Created
C: Delphi Group
D: Heracles Foundation Created
E: Shepard Killed In Action
F: Lazarus Cell Created
G: Shepard Resurrected
"So," she said cheerfully after a few moment of silence, "let's just walk through this step by step. I have no idea who knows what because we insist on playing our little games with and against each other so feel free to hop in with whatever you have. Starting with the major points here." She pointed. "Eden Prime. 2185. Geth attack the human colony on Eden Prime, initiating a year-long series of mostly isolated encounters we call the Eden Prime War. The Normandy SR-1 is dispatched to investigate. Commander Alenko and I are part of the primary landing team. We encounter geth, a rogue Spectre, and a Prothean beacon - the only working Prothean beacon known to exist at the time - and my brain gets forcibly rewritten with some Prothean mumbo-jumbo that no one, least of all me, can understand. Long story short, between A and E, we end up playing telepathic pattycake with a giant, homicidal plant and its asari spokesperson... exchange pleasantries with another Prothean beacon on Ilos... and eventually put enough together to save the Citadel from a Reaper invasion. A month after that, Point E, I end up on the wrong side of the SR-1's hull with a broken O2 line." Oops. She'd not wanted to mention that to Alenko. "Two years after that, Point G, I wake up on a slab with biotic capabilities I've never had before with Miranda yelling at me to shoot people and Jacob telling me that I'm cuter than the chunks of meat in N7 armor they brought in."
Taylor glanced at Alenko. "For the record, I didn't actually say 'cuter'," he said.
Lawson snorted. "Sometimes I prefer the chunks of meat."
Shepard ignored them. "So," she said. She drummed her fingertips on the table. "Major plot points aside... some background. Miranda, Kai-mmander, hop in as necessary." She pointed to the timeline again. "Heracles Foundation Created. From what I managed to gather, the Heracles Foundation is a primarily scientific venture dedicated to understanding and ultimately duplicating mass relay tech. It's a pretty common idea. All of us - humans, turians, asari, whatever - are capable of using existing relay technology. None of us are capable of reproducing it independently, let alone improving upon it. Holy Grail. Everyone wants to do it.
"What sets thisgroup apart though" - and she waved at Points B and C - "is that it's a joint venture consortium between Prometheus Cell and the Delphi Group. Prometheus Cell was a... what's the word, Miranda? Ill-fated?"
"Mismanaged," said Lawson.
"An ill-fated and mismanaged Cerberus cell. They were destroyed. I have no idea why we even know about them except that it involved Miranda being blond and Commander Alenko schmoozing rich old ladies."
"I was tasked with cleaning up a few of their loose ends," Lawson said just a touch testily, "after their original cell leader -"
"Candi Heavyn," supplied Alenko helpfully.
Lawson gave him a withering look. "Yes. Candi Heavyn. After she and the rest of the cell were destroyed, I -"
"Candi Heavyn?" interrupted Vakarian. He seemed unable to process it. "Her name was Candi Heavyn? As in... Candy? And heaven?" He glanced at Thane who was standing next to him at the table. "That is an odd combination, isn't it?"
Thane shrugged slightly.
"Was she a stripper in her non-terrorist time?" Goto asked curiously.
Lawson pinched the bridge of her nose. "I am not familiar with Ms. Heavyn's off-duty activities or any jobs she may have held in order to subsidize her income," she said. "The point is... Prometheus Cell was in the game as Palantix Solutions. Biotech company. Eezo stabilization techniques. Materials engineering."
Shepard noticed Massani open his mouth to say something - something that would be completely inappropriate, incredibly vulgar, and probably hilarious - and took pity on Lawson, jumping back into the conversation. "Okay. So Palantix Solutions. Whatever. It was a Cerberus cell operating under another name... and they created this joint venture, the Heracles Foundation, with the Delphi Group. The Delphi Group, for those of you not in the know, is a venture capital firm that specializes in promising high-tech companies. It's technically a private-sector player but a good portion of its revenue is generated by mediating deals between the Alliance military and private-sector scientific and technological agencies capable of producing military tech. Basically, it handles the Alliance military's non-military R&D arm. So at Point D here..." She pointed. "At Point D, we have the Alliance military and a Cerberus cell working together to do something. We don't really know what. Eezo stabilization. Materials engineering. Mass relay tech. And me. The Heracles Foundation files were filled with scans of my brain... from between Points A and E... and Points F and G."
She settled back, folding her arms over her chest once again. "And then I get spaced, Miranda gets a promotion, I get resurrected with biotics, and here we are." She glanced around the table. "Should I keep going or would someone like to jump in with something insightful?"
"You mean besides the fact that if all this is true, the Alliance wanted to put your brain in a petri dish as much as Cerberus did and was willing to work with them to do it?" Massani asked.
"And that there's no guarantee their interest dropped off when you died?" Taylor added.
"Yes," said Alenko. His voice sounded tight and Shepard could feel his biotics crackle. "Besides that."
There was a long pause.
"Maybe before we get to 'insightful' we can start with 'obvious'," said Kasumi Goto diplomatically. "Whatever Heracles Foundation is doing, they started doing it before you died. Ergo, whatever is interesting about you, whatever value you're bringing to this whole thing, isn't that you died and got brought back. It's something that you had before you died."
"The Prothean beacon then," said Alenko. He jerked a nod toward the timeline. "If this timeline is true, the interest started then... and at that time, she was the only known person aside from Saren Arterius to have accessed active Prothean technology. EDI, please access my personal files on my office terminal with this authorization" - he tapped into his omni-tool - "and get the scans of Shepard's brain. They're better than the ones we had this morning. Do a side-by-side with scans of Liara T'Soni and Shiala. They're in there too."
"He keeps pictures of her brain in his personal files," Goto whispered to Vakarian. She sighed blissfully. "Isn't that romantic?"
"Maybe he just likes brains," Vakarian replied in a similar whisper. "He has the asari ones too."
"Accessing," replied EDI. A moment later, the timeline was replaced with three sibling holographic brains.
Alenko gestured to the display. "Shepard's brain on the right," he said. "Characteristic neural activity pattern. Completely different from all her previous scans. Unchanged in the time since her exposure to the Eden Prime beacon. Even now it's the same. Dr. Liara T'Soni's in the middle. Shiala's on the right. Both T'Soni and Shiala are asari who are known to have melded nervous systems with Shepard. Both show similar neurological patterns... though you can see that the patterns are heavily degraded." He wrapped an arm around his waist then balanced the elbow of the other on top, rubbing his chin. "At the time, doctors were all over Shepard." He flicked a glance at Shepard, shaking his head slightly. "Chakwas fought them off for you. You didn't have to deal with them." He looked away. "The point is, Shepard was the only one with an original imprint. Isthe only one with an original imprint. There were significant concerns at the time that a frontline soldier with a habit of blowing things up was the only known person with an original imprint... but everyone was pretty sure that melding even with asari matriarchs would still result in significant deterioration of the underlying pattern and, by association, the underlying data."
"Like the deterioration of an analog signal," said Tali, "versus a digital. If a piece went missing, it could never be recreated."
"Exactly," said Alenko.
"So that's what Prometheus was after," Lawson said slowly. "They wanted something that Shepard got from that beacon." She paused. "Something important enough to resurrect her for?" She looked vaguely ill at the idea of having resurrected Shepard for someone else's cell.
Vakarian shook his head. "I don't think we can tell from the timeline alone whether or not Shepard was resurrected specifically for Prometheus."
"I think it's perfectly reasonable that Lazarus was created for precisely the reason we think it was: that Shepard is truly our only hope of combating the Reapers," Goto agreed. She tapped a finger speculatively on her painted lower lip. "No surprises there. But at the very least, I think Prometheus may have gotten the renaissance it was looking for when Lazarus got cleared."
"Wait," said Shepard.
They all turned to look at her.
"Maybe it wasn't important enough for the why of bringing me back," she said slowly. "But maybe it was important for the how." She stared at the brains rotating serenely in front of her. "Modifications to the nervous system. Risky. Very risky. You said so yourself. Synchronized nodes. Rare. Possibly unheard of. Chakwas herself was worried that the biotics would open up a can of neurological worms she - and I - wouldn't be prepared to deal with. Conscious control over the nervous system."
Alenko was the first one to realize what she was saying, as she had known he would be. He took a step back from the table and turned partially toward her, dark eyes wide. "They didn't make you a biotic for Lazarus," he breathed in realization.
She nodded at him matter-of-factly. "They made me a biotic for Prometheus."
