Shepard walked through the alleys of Illium looking for something. He still didn't quite know what, but he was sure that the under-streets of Illium would provide it. He rounded a corner and was quickly knocked off-balance by a twitchy, nervous Salarian.
"Hey! Are you okay?" Shepard asked, offering him a hand.
The Salarian quickly crawled away from him and jumped to his feat.
"I can't talk to you! Not you! Anybody but you! They are watching! They are everywhere… everywhere! Always watching. Always! But I'm fine. I don't talk. I'm fine! Safe! Secure! Salarian! Yes…" The strange Salarian sputtered as he tried to run away.
Shepard caught him by his shoulder and dragged him back to face him.
"Who are they?" Shepard inquired curiously.
"The Mysterious Beings. They tell Pip things. I tell others. Things happen, but no one listens. I listen! They don't! No. But They are always watching! They are always listening! Pip afraid for life… must go." Pip stuttered off.
"Hold on. Hold on. The Mysterious Beings? You mean the Reapers?" Shepard asked, at a loss.
"Reapers? What are Reapers? No. No. No. Dark always following you. Stuck to your feet. Never letting go…" Pip said, trying to pull away from Shepard.
"The Shadow Broker?" Shepard asked.
Pip's breathing quickened. "No one listens! No one sees! Call me crazy! Call Pip crazy! I'm not crazy! No. Just a rouse. A deterrent to protect the messenger." Pip said, quickly flipping his eyes around the surrounding buildings, waiting to die.
"What message were you given?" Shepard asked, noticing Pip's collapse of self confidence.
"Asari delicacies are of Turian delight. Turians find Humans Enjoyable, but Humans Object to the Salarian's Proposals. Interject! Turians and Asari are in Love!" Pip said, quickly.
In Shepard's confusion at the message, Pip managed to break free and run down the alley. He quickly vanished in the crowd of low-life bums blocking the next alley way.
"He's insane Shepard… I wouldn't listen to him…" Garrus said.
"The message…" Shepard said to himself.
"It doesn't make any sense!" Garrus said, almost angrily.
"Shh…" Shepard interrupted, lifting his finger.
" 'Asari delicacies are of Turian delight. Turians find Humans Enjoyable, but Humans Object to the Salarian's Proposals. Interject! Turians and Asari are in Love!'…" Shepard repeated to himself.
"Shepard…" Tali tried to say.
"Just let me think about it…" Shepard said.
"No… I think I have an idea…" Tali said.
"Both of you are crazy… you know that right? Is that why you two married each other?" Garrus teased.
"We should write it down…" Tali suggested.
"What's your idea?" Shepard asked.
"You'll see… If it works, that is…" Tali said, grabbing Shepard's hand.
Garrus shook his head and followed the crazy couple. They walked into a small pub and grabbed a napkin. Tali pulled a writing instrument from her pocket and looked at the napkin. She shrugged and gave the writing instrument to Shepard.
"You write it…" Tali said, embarrassedly.
Shepard grabbed the napkin away from her and wrote the message.
"Shepard… We are wasting time on this. You just stopped a crazy guy and he rattles off some crazy sentences and you instantly believe him… This isn't like you…" Garrus said.
"Drink sir?" the barmaid asked, a quite ravishing young Asari with a beautiful smile.
"No thank you… I'm busy…" Shepard said, staring at the scribbles on the napkin.
"I'll take a Turian Ale…" Garrus said, exasperated.
"I'll have one too." Tali said.
The bartender looked at her curiously. "Umm… Ma'am… we don't have any Quarian suit transfer units nor do we have any liquid purification stations…" The young Asari said sadly.
"Just get me a cup of Turian Ale then…" Tali said, sliding closer to Shepard to see the napkin.
She had never seen the human language written before. She found it quite beautiful, bordering on artistic. She thought about learning 'English', but the with the use of instant speech learning programs, it would be impossible to read English. She found the concept of instant translation data-pads to be a hindrance to other species. What if she wanted to learn the intricacies of the English letter 'G'. She wondered how her name would look written out in English. She wondered how artistic and unique it would look. She sighed and tried to focus on the task at hand first.
"Tali. Write the message down under mine." Shepard said.
"I can't write in English…" Tali said, sadly.
"Not in English, in Quarian." Shepard corrected.
She wrote the message down as best she could. It had been awhile since she had written anything manually before. Shepard watched as Tali completed the sloping curves the Quarian language. He found the language to be exceptionally beautiful. He could bet that it bordered the intricacies of the Japanese language back on Earth, be he couldn't be sure.
"Now Garrus. You write the message." Shepard commanded.
"I don't see the relevance of this…" Garrus said, as he scribbled the jagged language of turian on the napkin.
Shepard looked at the napkin and smiled.
"What did you find?" Tali asked.
"What do you see?" Shepard asked, turning the napkin around for all to see.
Tali stared at it for a few seconds, but she shrugged. Garrus looked briefly, but he still doubted the source of the information too much to take it seriously.
"Look." Shepard began to make circles around the letters and characters of the written work. "Now what do you see?" Shepard asked.
"A-T-T-H-E-H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L?" Tali asked.
"What does that spell?" Shepard asked.
"At the hospital? At the hospital!" Tali squealed.
"It's the same in all three languages…" Shepard said.
"What do they want at the…" Tali began to ask.
"Liara…" Shepard whispered to himself.
He quickly jumped up and ran out the door almost knocking over the barmaid.
Garrus grabbed his drink and downed it quickly. He passed his hand through his Omni-tool, paying the bill and giving a large tip. Tali too grabbed her drink. The barmaid looked at her as she grabbed the outside of her visor and downed the ale. The barmaid's mouth almost hit the floor as Tali threw her a generous smile and s small wave as she ran out the bar. The bar maid dropped the metal plate that was holding the cups.
"Neyti! What was that?" roared the bar owner.
"A quarian just took her mask off!" Neyti yelled.
"Make sure the cops don't see the body! I'm sick of people thinking that they can simply commit suicide in my bar and it won't hurt my business. Damn selfish people! Why can't they kill themselves at their own homes?" roared the bar owner.
Pip ran into the small dark room that the coordinates pointed to.
"Did he get the message?" the familiar voice asked.
"He sent me here. Why do you want message you gave me?" Pip asked.
"Did you give John H. Shepard the message?" The voice asked.
"I don't know who that is!" Pip yelled.
"The man you ran into in the alleyway… Did you give him the message?" the voice asked.
"I didn't mean to! He threatened me! He knows! He listened to me! No one listens to Pip! I-I-I'm sorry!" Pip cried.
"You have done your job Pip. You have done it perfectly. We will not be needing your services any longer." The voice said.
"Please… no…" Pip said, stepping back to the door.
The door closed before he could get out of the dark room.
Shepard ran back into the hospital. The secretary at the desk smiled at him and waved, but Shepard had already began to make his way down the hall to Liara's room. Tali and Garrus ran in later. The secretary behind the desk pointed them to the right where they found Shepard knock over a rack full of white clothes.
"Shepard!" Tali and Garrus yelled running at him.
Shepard ran into the room, which was dark. The door closed and everything became silent. Shepard flipped the small light on his suit and looked around the eerily dark room.
"Liara?" Shepard asked walking slowly in the room.
He pulled his pistol from its holster and scanned the room's corners and crevices. He saw Liara laying in her bed. He briskly took two steps forward to her, but he slowly became aware of the dark clocked figure standing over the bed. Shepard lifted his gun at the figure.
"Stay away from her!" Shepard yelled.
"What makes you think I'm after her?" a disembodied voice said.
"Then who are you…? Shepard started.
The figure turned to Shepard.
"You, John H. Shepard, Commander of the SS Normandy SR2, destroyer of Sovereign, destroyer of the Collectors, First Human Spectre. You who are married to the quarian Tali'Zorah nar Rayya vas Normandy, prominent member of the quarian people, best mechanic the galaxy will ever see, pregnant with a hybrid child…" the voice continued.
"Pregnant?" Shepard asked, at a loss for words.
"She has not told you yet, but her private message to the Migrant Fleet said she was. Nerves… they tend to make people… nervous." the voice answered.
"Are you the Shadow Broker?" Shepard asked, his gun still raised.
"You already know the answer to that Commander Shepard…" the voice answered.
"What do you want from me?" Shepard asked.
"I want information… I need an accomplice to get the data I need…" the Shadow Broker said with a voice that was neither male nor female; quarian nor turian. It was neither and all of them.
"What information do you need?" Shepard asked.
"Reapers… Protheans… History… Technology…" The shadow Broker said.
"I don't have that…" Shepard said.
"Yes you do… Its all in your head… All of it and I want it…" The Shadow Broker said.
"But how am I going to give you that?" Shepard asked.
"That is your challenge." It said.
And just like that the figure disappeared and the lights flickered back on. The door to the room opened to reveal Tali and Garrus running in the room.
"Shepard!" Tali yelled again.
"The Shadow Broker was here…" Shepard said to her.
Liara roused in her bed slightly, completely unharmed.
"We just missed him then?" Garrus asked.
" 'Just'? We were talking for almost five minutes! Where were you guys?" Shepard asked angrily.
"Shepard we were right behind you… The door just closed before we got in here, and we find you standing in here like you saw something. " Garrus explained.
Shepard thought about it. I guess the Shadow Broker is shadier than I thought.
"I can promise you that he was in here! He told me some interesting things." Shepard said, looking directly at Tali.
"It's impossible that you had a full conversation with him in that time zone…" Garrus started again.
"Tali… When were you going to tell me that you were pregnant?" Shepard asked.
Tali's body quickly tightened at the mention of that word.
"How do you know about that Shepard?" Tali asked in disbelief.
