Cenotaph II: The Monolith

by Rob Sears

The year is 2214. A weary galaxy festers. Military privatization has become the norm in a new economic depression. A malicious plan, decades in the making, has finally been set into motion. The only one who can stop it? Roahn'Shepard and a team of some of the most extraordinary individuals the galaxy has ever seen. Fear. Agony. Hatred. Roahn's lethal nightmare begins!

28. Chapter 28: The Precursor's Verse

"Mass Effect 3: Better With Mods"

The Mass Effect 3 Manual (2012)

---

Sangxo
Lgwanleig System

Sangxo's sky was the color of whisky, slashed by slatted iron clouds. Thin atmosphere, but still breathable. The air tasted like chalk and salt. A wild moon, deep in the throes of creation—steam vents miles long could be seen topping the nearby mountains, its expulsions looking remarkably like puffed cream. Its landscape was a creased canvas of obsidian sierras, mirror-smooth buttes, and deep valleys of sand and saltwater. Veins of pyrite and jade glittered from cracks in the very peaks, natural resources spilling from the insides of this heavenly body. The water that lined the base of the mountains, sandbars obtruding occasionally from the glass surface, had too high of a salinity count for life to flourish. No plant or animal had yet evolved to survive on Sangxo.

That would certainly explain the complete lack of noise here.

It was uncomfortable to consider the fact that the dull ringing Sam had in the base of his eardrums was perhaps an unconscious noise his brain was creating to counter for the complete absence of sound on this moon. There was no wind. No chirp or cry from birds. Barely even a clatter from stray pebbles tumbling off the side of the timeworn cliffs.

The man gave a shiver and adjusted his collar. Sangxo was a cold place, especially at this altitude. Sam hunkered down and crouch-walked to the edge of the bluff, at least a thousand feet above the valley floor in front of them. They had an unparalleled view for miles, deep into the basin. The vista was unobstructed, completely clear, unspoiled by smog or any other pollution. Garrus was already setting up shop at the edge, encased in his armor. Grunt hung behind, near the shuttle which had been parked at the other side of the accommodating mesa, heavy weapon cradled lovingly in both hands. A near-vertical drop beckoned to the group—it surrounded them on all sides of the protruding geological figure. Sam had to shut his eyes for a moment as a bout of vertigo threatened to pull him under.

Dizzy, stomach churning, Sam counted to twenty before opening his eyes, giving his head a shake for good measure. He dropped prone alongside Garrus and reached down to his belt, going past the holstered pistol he had taken from the Menhir, choosing to procure a set of binoculars instead. He was inches away from sheer death, knowing that if he was still standing, any major shift in his balance could cause him to topple off the edge. He tried not to think about it. Sam was not afraid of heights but he worried he could develop that phobia the longer he lingered up here.

"Did I tell you already that I think this was a bad idea?" Sam grimaced as he shuffled beside the turian, eyes already focused through the binoculars as he swept his vision from point to point.

"You know… you have?" Garrus sarcastically answered without looking from the sniper rifle he was patiently assembling out from its case. A jumble of various barrels, stocks, scopes, and capacitors in various materials had been set aside while the turian carefully selected which piece he felt was the most suitable for the job ahead. "You've been saying so the entire shuttle ride down."

Sam pulled a face. "Well, excuse me for being so cautious, princess. I just thought that your plan on coming here was to interject a little more of your involvement in this whole scheme. From my point of view, trying to snipe a pinpoint target at the bottom of that valley a couple of miles away doesn't seem like—"

"Would you please shut up!" Garrus hissed, already nearing his limit for the day. He used the ensuring lull in the conversation to take a deep breath before returning to assembling his rifle. He opened the chamber of the weapon and slotted in a few thermal clips, each one making thick clicks as they were inserted one after the other.

Returning to his role as recon, Sam brought the binoculars back to his face and spent several minutes scanning the slushy floor of the valley.

"Aleph's down there," he said after a bit. "Somewhere."

"Hopefully," Garrus said dryly as he kicked out the stand to his rifle, fitting the stock snugly against his shoulder before he leaned his head over to look through his scope.

"And Roahn's going to him."

The turian clicked a knob on his scope, adjusting the zoom. He looked like a sleek bird of prey hunkered down upon a branch, patiently searching for his next kill. Light seeped through the gashes in his fringe, slightly glinting off the lens of the sights.

"Worried for her safety?" he asked out loud.

"I just have no idea what to expect. No freakin' idea, man. I'd rather she brought someone down there with her."

"She was insistent that she go alone. That was the one stipulation she was going to hold her ground on."

The thought did not assuage Sam in the slightest. "I just hope that she knows what she's doing."

"I think…" Garrus considered, "…that in some small way, she does."

"That's just what you hope, I think you mean to say."

The men remained perched upon the lip of the clip, anxiously waiting, eyes through their devices. Their apprehension only continued to rise as the tarnished sun ripped its way through the ragged cloud cover, warming their heads.

---

Water-saturated sand ballooned around Roahn's ankles with every step. White salt deposits on the edge of the sandbar looked like enamel, encrusting the boundaries where the shallow water lapped. Thick footprints lay behind the quarian, molded to the shape of her boots.

She kept to the middle of the sandbar, trying to keep an even distance from the collected water patches that flanked her. It was drier here, easier to walk. The sun had been baking the sand that had not yet been waterlogged, making it slightly easier to traverse. Millions of little sprites—bits of reflective glass and cobbled stone—beamed up at her, a sun from the ground. She looked upward, momentarily lost in thought, mildly taking into account that it was a pleasant day.

At least there was going to be one upside if this was to be her last one.

The sharp mountains that ringed the valley were far away enough to look like dark crumpled paper. Roahn resisted the urge to look backwards towards a particular section, where she knew that Garrus and everyone else had set up a makeshift sniper's perch. She figured she was being monitored by nefarious forces as soon as she had reached the ground level—she did not want to make any motion that would give her friends away. Now was not the time to be flippant. Whether these theoretical people who were doing the monitoring encompassed the entirety of the being she was seeking out or if they simply happened to be anyone else affiliated with him… she'd rather not make the distinction right now. She couldn't. There was just too much on her mind.

"You are not to kill this one…"

Damn him. He was starting to get inside her head now. When he was so close…

The artifact weighed heavily in the pocket at her waist. On her opposite hip, a heavy pistol jostled against her thigh. An assault rifle and shotgun slotted upon her back provided a remarkable counterweight, keeping her situated from leaning forward too much. She plodded forward, nerves in her arms ablaze, ready to react at a moment's notice.

She was a lone point in the valley. A dark blot amongst the tides of dust and sand. The edges of Roahn's sehni trembled with each step she took. Tendrils of intoxicating heat curled from the sunbaked ground, salt crunching underneath the quarian's heels.

A parched path of hardened earth soon opened up in front of her, allowing her to knock the collected sand from her boots. She kept on, fists clenched at her sides.

"It is a journey that has already taken payment from you…"

A distant ache in her left arm kept itself waiting patiently in the distance. A hollow reminder of a most grievous wound, a scar in her mind. Was she truly ready for this? It had been months since her first encounter with the terrifying being she was now deliberately marching to meet. Every detail of that explosive encounter, whereupon it had been concluded from the gnashing of carbon alloy teeth, remained permanently etched in her head. She rubbed at the afflicted area unconsciously, fighting the urge to make a pained expression. Her fingers stretched of their own accord, desperate to drive away any sensations that would otherwise act as a distraction to her.

Each step forward became more and more of an effort. A hand felt like it was slowly constricting itself around her lungs, slowing her breathing. Roahn wondered if this was how a convict, sentenced to death, felt during their last walk. Their last voluntary act of dignity. Did she truly think she was going to come back from this? Was Aleph going to keep his word? Suspicions and obscurities flooded her head, never pointing her clearly to the right conclusion. It kept her on edge. It kept her afraid.

"There is much more dimensionality to our conflict than you realize…"

Luna. The abandoned colony. The Citadel. And now here. Every time she had come into contact with Aleph, he had always been several steps ahead. Undaunted. Never breaking focus. An unnatural prescience surrounded the man. What chance did she have to stand up to such a powerful foe?

Roahn pushed all morose thoughts from her mind with a grimace. No sense in succumbing to despair just yet. She had a friend she needed to save.

Another half an hour passed of Roahn trundling through the desert of the valley. The shattered and fragmented mountains slowly crept on by as she walked. But, the more she traveled, the better sense of her surroundings slowly came into focus. The valley was in the shape of a "V" and she was starting to approach the axis point. A labyrinth of jagged rocks, volcanic and rhyolite, several meters tall, and ebon to the point of lacking any definition other than its natural luster, formed a congregation near the swerve in the valley floor to her left. Roahn headed to it—the path naturally curved in its direction.

You've seen me maimed, she thought to assuage her own soul. You've seen me helpless. You've seen me in every pathetic state imaginable. Now it's different. Now you will see me defiant. You will see what my hatred to you will bring. I will be the nemesis you've always wanted. Before long, I will understand you… and you will regret leaving me alive.

The path softly sloped upward and Roahn followed the rise. It felt like she was ascending the stairs to her own judgment and damnation. Her breath felt like razors slashing at her throat—her heartbeat strongly surged in her chest, creating a void of white noise cascading in her ears.

Roahn stopped at the edge of the obsidian morass, several meters away from the first clutch of sharpened rocks.

She lowered her head, eyes fearsome and deadly.

"Here I am," she hissed, her voice cutting through the air with ease.

Five seconds later, a large figure stepped from the shadows of the rocks. They left deep footprints in their wake. The cloak they wore barely jostled in the thin atmosphere, oily black. The rippled sun blinked off of the side of their chrome helmet, a light that now turned blood red as it penetrated the tangle of long and curved points of igneous glass overhead. The giantlike figure seemed to tower over Roahn as they slowly descended the loping hill, their stride purposeful and deliberate. Thick hands of Silaris armor hung empty at his sides, no noise of breath discernable in the quietness of the moon.

For a moment, the two opponents stood without a word. Studying. Observing. Anticipating.

Then Aleph lifted a hand. Beckoning.

"I am glad you came, Roahn'Shepard."

---

Garrus held his breath behind the scope of his rifle. He could see Roahn standing completely still, stance slightly spread. Her back was partially to him, but it was clear that she was interacting with something—someone—right now.

Only problem was that there was a rock wall in the way, right where the quarian was facing. There was no way to get a visual confirmation.

"Shit," Sam said next to him, noticing the same thing.

"No visual," Garrus whispered. "I don't have a visual. I can't get a shot."

"Shit," Sam said again. "Roahn needs to draw him out! Should we relocate?"

"Too late for that," Garrus muttered, the crosshairs of his weapon gently interjecting itself in the direction where Roahn was looking. "It's all up to her to resolve this now."

---

The sky glowed a hellish color as the sun threatened to set upon the scene. Roahn's hands were nearly consumed by fitful twitches, desperate urges to reach her weapons and pull the trigger in a clean, crisp motion.

Aleph continued to proceed down the gradual hill, his rounded helmet tilting in the barest fashion. He looked prophetic in his calm and poised gait. "Do not be frightened," he said. "I come bearing no weapons. You will have no need for yours, either."

Roahn did not respond or find herself at all comforted by the man's words. As if she could trust anything that came out of his mouth—vocabulator—whatever! Her hands stayed in the same position.

"I wonder what you believe was the driving force that brought you here," Aleph wondered. "The memory of what you have sacrificed? The rage borne from your perceived frailties? Perhaps it does not matter. We all like to entertain the thought that we are driven by more intrepid inclinations. It is difficult for us to admit that our desires might run paradoxical to the path others might have set. Trapped between these choices, we inhabit our own private perdition. Is the pull to free yourself from that pit your motivation, Roahn'Shepard? To cast yourself from the specter of previous expectations?"

"Neither," Roahn spat. She dug in her pocket for the artifact and held it out in the open air, both it and her hand shining in the light of the waning sun. "I didn't come here to engage in speculation. I brought what you asked for. Now… it's your turn. Where is Korridon?"

To her surprise, Aleph shook his head as he politely lifted a hand. "Not yet," he said. "I will take possession of the fragment only after you hear what I have to say."

"I don't want to listen to anything that comes from your mouth! Where is he?! If you've hurt him further, I swear I'll—"

"Your friend has not had additional harm applied to him," Aleph assured. "And fear not. He is close by."

Aleph swept an arm, indicating a spot between the sharpened blades of rock, where a flash of nondescript steel—a shuttle—awaited. Roahn dashed forward a few steps, activating her visor's zoom function. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away, out in the middle of a flattened salt plain, a winged craft with its gullwing doors was patiently parked. No one was around the craft, but she could see someone inside it.

Roahn zoomed in closer and her entire body seemed to freeze in place as she beheld Korridon, still muzzled, hands bound in front of him, as he sat on one of the shuttle's benches, all alone. A bandage had been applied to his forehead, soaked in blood, from where the Cardinal had set to work on him. The turian was stirring in his seat, looking fraught with worry, but not in any way badly wounded. So far away… but he was at least right there!

He's alive, Roahn nearly gasped.

"I must admit that I am surprised that you were willing to risk all this for the safety of this man," Aleph said as he suddenly strode in front of Roahn, preventing her from dashing towards the turian and cutting him free from his bonds. "I took the time to examine his profile in the interim. I can imagine he has kept some secrets from you. Do you truly know the quality of the man you're exchanging the fragment for? I doubt he would have told you that he murdered his superior officer before he became associated with your group."

The look that Roahn gave Aleph could have melted a starship's hull with its full-blooded ferocity.

"He did, as a matter of fact. He trusted me enough to tell me that!"

"But did he tell you why… or how? Did he happen to mention that he immolated the officer with a flamethrower? In front of multiple witnesses?"

A painful lurch resonated within the quarian. Roahn was thrown for a critical moment, her head starting to spin. No… no! Korridon could never be capable of such… such brutality! But as much as her first instinct was to scream a passionate denial, something in the man's even tone told her that what he had said was not at all impossible. And she was left momentarily lost once more, wondering if she had ever known her friend to even begin with.

Then the image, of a maniacal Korridon wielding the instrument that belched hellfire and smoke, suddenly came to her mind. A whirlwind of dripping flames billowed over the landscape of her inner thoughts. The sheer horror of even imagining the look the turian had on his face, wild-eyed and… somehow… reveling in the madness of it all, was so distressing that it nearly caused her to succumb to nausea.

Aleph's shoulders slumped microscopically, as if he was somehow disappointed. "There are many things you do not understand, Roahn'Shepard. But I believe you have the capacity to realize better than anyone else. That… is one of the reasons why I wanted to have you here."

Clawing herself back from her dark fantasy, Roahn blinked a tear from her eye before her lips curled into a snarl.

"Say what you have to say, then!"

But Aleph took a gentle step forward as he raised a hand, a nearly imperceptible aura, like an intense vibration, surrounding his fingers.

"I believe it would be better if I show you."

A gentle throbbing, akin to the onset of a headache, began to pulsate in the corner of Roahn's skull. She was about to give a wince and clutch at the affected area when, all of a sudden, there was a distinct flexing in her mind and the entire landscape she saw before her disappeared in a swath of scintillating lights and a miasma of incalculable color. Her inner ear tilted, whirled, and ultimately gave up as she lost all sense of which way up was. She was floating in empty space, devoid and dark, for a brief few moments before a pulling sensation yanked on her entire body, sending her screaming through atomically thin barriers one at a time, crashing through each one like panes of glass. Collected voices erupted in screams all around her. The mountainous and sandy slopes of the moon had completely disappeared—something else was slowly filtering back, like from a long pull focus, to miraculously replace it. Replace, like she had somehow teleported from one place to another! Warm and dusty light soon seeped in, the color of burnt caramel. She felt her organs expand back to their original shape, as if they had previously been compressed into the size of a thermal clip's diameter. Energy and pain flowed from her heart to the tips of her fingers—if she had not been suited Roahn imagined that she would have seen her veins engorged in thrombosis.

Then, the entire process having taken less than ten seconds, Roahn's knees gave out just as the catastrophic wailing in her ears ceased to resound. She dropped to the floor, hands splayed out, expecting to feel soft dirt and sandy underneath, but instead she felt… a hard surface. Smooth and polished. Partially pliant. Wood. A wood floor. Impossible, she would have thought, but she was still confounded, her mind in the process of trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened to think of anything else.

Then she lifted her head and beheld a miracle.

Gone was the expanse of the carved and arenaceous surface of the moon. A distant compression fell upon her like a subtle thrumming against her eardrums—the sort of presence one felt when indoors or in an enclosed space. Sure enough, as soon as her focus returned, her sight was the next sense to align from what the other context clues had been indicating to her this whole time.

She was in a room with a low ceiling, soothing natural light filtering through large windows in thick pillars. A table shaped to a parallel slice of an onosho tree trunk was next to her—six chairs surrounding it. The railing of a deck out on a porch was behind her. A stone-studded kitchen, the masonry sheared and polished, with hanging copper appliances over a sink extended just past her to the right. And all the way forward, Roahn could see a homestead doorway, rimmed with primal glass, with a staircase protruding upward just before the foyer, also made of a thick hardwood. A wide planter, filled with a variety of native flora—turbulent vines, hardy shrubs, striking flowers—spilled green from the damp soil, acting as a barrier between the dining room and the entryway to the house.

Not just any house, she realized. Her house.

Somehow… she was back on Rannoch.

"How…" was all she could mumble. "How…"

Distant waves could now be discerned. The light outside was a breathy white, obscured by sea mist. Roahn stumbled to her feet and walked up to the glass door that led to the deck, gently planting a three-fingered hand upon the clear surface as she longingly looked out to the ocean. She tested the resilience of the door—there was definite sensation running through her fingertips. Not a dream. Not a hallucination.

"This is… impossible," she whispered as she took a tender step backwards.

"Not impossible," Aleph's voice resounded. Roahn spun around in a fury to observe the armored denizen now standing beside the planter, a few steps away from the table. "There are many ways to trick the nervous system, to reroute electrical signals in one's brain to elicit different reactions. Reroute enough pathways and a new 'reality' can be constructed—a mere filter that acts as a distraction for the senses. The technology to do so has its limitations, but you would not believe what I have to say had this not been demonstrated to you."

Roahn's confusion was mounting. She was barely paying attention as she turned her gaze to the side, not maintaining eye contact. Getting her breath back, she regained enough cognizance to begin sidestepping around the onosho table as Aleph approached, making sure that the table was constantly standing between them.

Her eyes flicked behind her, towards the kitchen. A wooden block filled with specialty knives was perched near the sink—mainly for cutting fish and stringy meats.

Aleph noticed her looking in that direction. "One of those limitations is that you cannot alter your surroundings too drastically. Attacking me in this place will not work. The most we can do here is talk. It would be in your benefit to listen."

He then pulled out one of the chairs, expressly taking care not to pick the chair at the head of the table. Softly, he lowered himself into the seat. Every action, despite the bulky frame of his armor, was carried out without noise! Aleph then perfunctorily folded his hands in front of him, placing them onto the table, as casually as if he was expecting a waiter to come by and take an order of food from him.

Roahn was obviously mistrustful of the man, but no longer was her arm throbbing. Her head had cleared completely, leaving her in a plane of near-enlightenment. Slowly, carefully, she treaded to the table and took the chair at the opposite of where Aleph sat. She placed her left arm deliberately in front of her, so that Aleph could clearly see it. Her reasoning for doing so was obvious—she had tilted her entire body to give that side of her a better view.

Aleph did not move his head to take a look at the appendage, but he did appear to emit a brief sigh. A tiny bob of the shoulders. A twitch of the head.

"How you must hate me. You've encapsulated the comprehensiveness of a singular emotion and folded it again and again to fit in the palm of that hand."

Roahn narrowed her eyes.

"Hate barely scratches the surface of what I feel for you."

"Perhaps it is justified. Losing a part of your body is not just a trauma, it is a violation. One that I know just as well as you."

"I doubt that," Roahn hissed, heart pounding in her chest. "You ordered your cronies to keep me restrained while one of them bit my arm off! You left me there… lying in my own blood… to be ruined by my weak immune system… and you could not have cared less. You never had to go through anything like that!"

"I offered you mercy. Whereas some of my more reactionary subordinates would have ended your life without a second thought on Luna, I prevented them from doing so. Or did you choose to conveniently forget such a fact?"

"You speak as if, this entire time, you've been doing me a favor," Roahn growled.

For the first time, a slight surge of breath escaped from Aleph's vocabulator. It sounded… almost like a chuckle, but Roahn could not be sure of it.

"This entire time, I have been cultivating the circumstances for this dialogue to take place," he said, helmet tipping down sinisterly. "I never intended to have you killed, Roahn'Shepard. You're too important to be ignominiously annihilated on some backwater planet. No, your purpose will continue to drive you long after we part ways today. Though you may assume my actions on that moon were of a benevolent sort, you may soon learn that my intentions rather reflect greatly on the value of foresight."

Something was very wrong, here. Obscured alarms were ringing in Roahn's head, too opaque and shrouded in layers and layers of interlacing questions for her to make sense of things. She had to fight to control her breathing.

"Then what makes me so important that you had to construct this elaborate scheme just so we can talk?" Roahn snarled, a bite encroaching onto her words. "Is it my name? Because I'm a 'Shepard'?"

Aleph let a courteous beat pass before responding.

"Your heritage admittedly plays a part, but its weight as a factor in my plan is smaller than you might think."

Roahn gave a sneer, not buying it. Once again, decisions were being rendered once more, without her consent, just because of the fact that she had been born under circumstances that were naturally out of her control at the onset. Genetics, destiny, heredity, whatever crap Aleph was using to make his ruminations a reality were all a farce at Roahn's expense! This galaxy saw her as a joke, an unworthy wielder of a namesake.

"Then…" Roahn nearly roared, "…how exactly do I fit into this plan of yours? This… Tranquil, or whatever it is?"

Aleph seemed to expand proudly at the mere suggestion to elaborate. "The Tranquility. My answer to the galaxy's fragmentation."

"It seems to me that you're the one who's fragmenting it."

"A civilization is dependent on balance. Dependent on the interplay between knowledge, hierarchies, and governments. A delicate system that is always in flux, but is always moving towards the centerpoint where all its characteristics merge and counter each other perfectly. And if one civilization topples, another rises to take its place. No one wants to break past the layers of sentimentality and fear of the unknown to risk damaging the social structures already in place, despite the level of decay that has set in. The Tranquility will help break those barriers for everyone, show the galaxy what a better civilization is capable of."

"Wax philosophical all you want," Roahn growled, a crazed smile borne from her incredulity coming to her face. "That tells me nothing, nor does it explain where you or I fit in here."

Aleph's hands broke apart, now laying upward. A silent plea.

"It takes a certain mind to accept unfortunate truths. I believe you have that sort of mind, that disposition. You have an independence, a confidence that seems to have been inherited from your family. It is… a welcoming combination. You can understand, Roahn'Shepard, as I have. You might find we share many more similarities."

Roahn recoiled backward. "We are nothing alike!"

Aleph then straightened, firelight from the sun slashing off his wrists in twin glints. "Then allow me to provide the beginnings of the proof to bolster my statement."

A small omni-tool icon appeared over the edge of Aleph's thumb, glowing a bright red. He depressed the singular button with the tiniest gesture. There was an unexpected metallic clunking noise, loud enough to cause Roahn to jump in her seat. Before her eyes, the quarian saw Aleph's domed helmet, glistening with its mirrored surface, break into segmented pieces as if it had shattered, yet it was still being held in its shape. Then the pieces started to retract, being held along an underlying framework. The shards of the covering passed down on a railed track, slotting below the armor's collar with a series of skeletal clicks, revealing a nightmare underneath the remains of the helmet.

Roahn could not stop herself from staring.

---

In the next few moments, time seemed to come to a complete standstill.

The first thing she noticed was Aleph's eyes. They were eerily dissimilar, not at all like any eye she had ever seen before. They did not seem to have pupils—what passed as his sclera was a clash of two vibrant colors, a dark bloodclay and a swelling bruise-like purple. The two colors each made up half of his "eyes" meeting together in the middle like two dollops of acrylic paint, but never merging. The colors gently swirled in a tragic dance, a parting at arm's length, very much like oil and water.

A dark gray faceplate had been permanently sealed over his features, sans the eyes. Heavy metal. The kind you could make precise military ordinance out of—it vaguely had a skull-like shape, all its features were rounded off. A clear TransMet (Transparent Metal) layer covered that. Multiple holographic icons, biorhythm readouts, conscious streams of data, and quantified equation functions cluttered the inside of the clear shield. Highways of glowing circuitry crept around the back of Aleph's head. Two speakers situated at his ears—his audio receivers. Tiny wires pumping blue liquid from the corners of his "jaw" down his neck. Filtered breathing apparatus vents at his chin—soft intakes could finally be discerned from the slotted openings. The structure of Aleph's head was of a vague and subtle complexity. Several different parts could be discerned, but the precise application and construction of it betrayed the level of thought and care that had gone into designing his head. His entire body, for that matter.

Aleph's eyes did not betray varied emotions. They lacked a clear point for Roahn to latch onto. If she peered closely, she could see a ring of reddened flesh—exposed muscle—beyond the gaps in Aleph's faceplate. His eyes contained a brimming furiosity, despite their lack of emoting. A self-contained and indigent anger that had only grown and grown after being locked away for so long.

As she stared at the cyborg, Roahn became dimly aware that she had gone agape.

"Who… are you?" she whispered, mesmerized.

Aleph's eyes slowly blinked. Raw, skinless muscle moistening damaged tissues.

"I am Aleph," he said matter-of-factly.

His voice startled Roahn—it lacked the throbbing bass modulation that had given every single one of his words a ruthless and unrelenting inflection. Now… it was a very light tone. Delicate and perhaps a little cunning in its delivery. Still an electronic resonance at the edge, but the shift in tonality completely threw off the quarian.

Roahn still had not recovered from the shock. "What are you?"

"The remains of something once human."

The quarian became agonizingly aware of her left hand, resting upon the table. She gave each digit a minute flex. Staring at Aleph's own appendages, she could easily envision the intricate imbroglio of metal, wires, and electrodes all connected in an artful marriage that coursed through the man's body, connecting what little flesh remained of his body, keeping him alive. Fearful, she wondered if Aleph's appearance was representative of a distant future or if it served as a warning.

Aleph then made a show of considering his hands in stout detail, circumspect reflection. "You are not the only one who fears what the outside world can do to you, Roahn'Shepard. It is an affliction made known to you from the very moment you are born. I was not as fortunate. This form… was never my choice. In the end, it became a necessity."

A tender sucking of air from Aleph's vocabulator protruded through the stillness of the interior space. Display icons blinked around his eyes before he continued.

"I could have never foreseen succumbing to an illness on the edge of an unfamiliar world, one that my race happens to be extremely susceptible to. Far away from medical attention, the virus festered in my body. Multiplied within me until I was near the brink of death. I was looked after by colonists to the best of their ability, but when it became clear they had neither the medicine or the expertise to treat me, they sent for the Alliance. But by then, it was too late. The virus had reached my nervous system. I lost the use of my limbs, of many of my organs. The Alliance managed to forestall the pathogen, but they could not reverse the damage. They declared me a biohazard and placed my remains in a suspended animation tube filled with liquid nutrients. For years I floated there, unable to sleep, unable to die. I wanted nothing more than for death to take me—I recall spending long hours screaming at the scientists past the liquid barrier, but they never listened. They simply deactivated my audio channel to let me flounder in my own misery. They could not bear to listen to one's hopeless wails."

It then occurred to Roahn that she was now looking upon Aleph in a vulnerable state. One that he had willingly revealed to her. Mask off, gaze averted, his recounting made him seem almost… sympathetic. Almost. In her heart she would always see him as the man who upended her entire life, yet she never expected to be exposed to his reasonings. The essence of the beast itself.

"Then…" Roahn rasped, "…you should already know the depths of how one can possibly abhor another. You've been exposed to that hate."

But Aleph surprised her by shaking his head.

"It was not hate. It was the purest expression of despondency. I had no one to blame for my affliction. No one to focus all my loathing on except myself." Aleph gave a distinct pause before his posture seemed to brighten. "But eventually, my anguish waned. I destroyed the barrier of grief that surrounded my existence. I decided to make the best of my situation—I needed to seek a use, a resolution within myself. For months on end, I had been monitored by Alliance Intelligence—under their care, I was technically classified as one of their assets. They had assured me during my treatment that, when I was ready, they could use my mind to help humanity under my own free will. To be an operative for the Alliance—a benefit for my race. I wanted to be productive. I wanted to help a cause."

Just like me, Roahn realized. From the Defenders to Umbra. A vagabond passing from banner to banner, desperate to lend our skills.

How it tore her apart to admit that Aleph had a point!

"I was put onto small tasks. Parsing information to decipher the locations of military installations our supposed 'allies'—the Council races—had tried to discretely install. Soon my responsibilities grew and others took notice. One man in particular, a person of extreme interest, saw the reports I was releasing and wanted to meet me. In his current station, no one could refuse such a demand. When he finally saw me in my ruined form, he took pity on me. He commissioned the top engineering corps the Alliance had to offer to build a body—a suit of armor—for me to use. He wanted to work together, to operate in a cooperative unit. I was touched at his generosity. How could I say no to such an offer?"

Aleph sucked in another breath. Clouded eyes looked everywhere and nowhere at once.

"That man's name… was David Anderson."

Mere mention of the name conjured up images Roahn had long assumed had been lost for eternity. Sitting upon her father's lap in his office, a young girl, an old picture frame clenched between her small hands. "Who's this, dad?" Her father somberly taking the photo from her, a distant smile on his face, but one whose emotions were too subtle for her to realize at that time. "An old friend, my dear Roahn. My commanding officer—"

"—Admiral David Anderson," Roahn spoke sluggishly, as if awakening from a deep dream. "The first human councilor? My… my father's old captain?"

"A great man," Aleph said as he now unexpectedly rose from his chair, politely pushing it out before setting it back underneath the table. Warily, Roahn followed his lead, copying him, but strangely feeling no danger. "He and I met shortly after your father was shot down by the Collectors," he said as he slowly proceeded to walk to the door of the deck. "Of course, the good commander and I have never met, though I have long been his shadow on the other side of the curtain. That was the mandate that David Anderson put me to task—to be Shepard's overarching support no matter the cost. He had me scour the galaxy for clues to the next big threat. The Reapers, yes, but there were rumors that a rogue paramilitary group called Cerberus was making strange movements—mobilization without reason. I deemed it prudent to investigate them first. In response, the two of us created our own little insurgency group within the Alliance. To use our black ops tradecraft for the explicit purpose of disrupting Cerberus operations. With that, the name for our group had to reflect the theme of sending one mythological beast out to fight another. So we called it Chimera."

More worms of tortured memories frantically burrowing from the gray matter of her brain. These were of a gigantic steel creature, rimmed with eight blazing oculi. The Legionnaire. His unearthly roars still lingered in her very head, a soulless monster hell-bent on torturing her family, chasing her from world to world, with a weary father the only barrier between her and certain death.

Larsen. The Legionnaire. He had been behind it all from the beginning?! Her father's exile, her mother's death, all those events that had been predetermined before her birth, he had been the catalyst for that fateful path?

Aleph now walked through the glass threshold. The wood of the deck creaked with every step he took. Roahn cautiously followed him out but he did not seem to be paying much attention to her anymore. He took a hand and slowly slid it along the railing, staring at endless points out beyond the ocean, out where the stars gleamed and where sky and sea met. The crux of the galaxy's clouds brimmed the expansive surface, deeply reflected in the purpled and drenched air. A burst of wind pulled at Aleph's cloak, giving it a brief flap.

"It is… a beautiful home," he stated admiringly. "A fitting place to raise a family. Your parents chose well."

"That your lackey wasted no time in destroying all those years ago," Roahn spat, yearning to test whether she could swing her arm, blade of energy surging past her wrist, to cleave at Aleph's back with a fatal crackle of electricity.

Deliberate taps of armored fingers across the delicately lacquered wood resounded. "Yet here it stands, rebuilt, the memories all intact. The actions of the Legionnaire were not of my direction, Roahn'Shepard, I hope you can at least believe that."

"Believe? He was Chimera!"

"When the war ended," Aleph explained, "the Alliance had to divest several of its projects to the private sector to make up liquid funds. Chimera was one of those projects—an action beyond my control. I still maintained an indirect influence, but its infrastructure was no longer solely under my command. Admiral Anderson had also perished during the war, leaving me as the last remaining creator."

"That you let spiral out of control as a terrorist group," Roahn accused as she also approached the railing, though her gaze was not out towards the sea, an otherwise familiar view that had been a lynchpin of her entire childhood.

"Perhaps I was foolish to provide Chimera's operations with additional independence after the Reapers had been defeated. It would have prevented the 'esteemed' Senator Larsen from utilizing its assets to persecute you and your family. But the organization was more important than you might have initially realized. It was from my intelligence that the Alliance was able to realize the existence of the Lazarus Project—the operation that brought your father back from the dead. I wonder if your father ever wondered why Councilor Anderson had such a subdued reaction when they reunited back on the Citadel after his untimely passing? He probably never told you that story. But I was there in an adjacent room when it had happened, watching from the shadows. Anderson had a pleased expression on his face, not at all surprised, when Shepard walked in through that door, returned from the grave. Shepard was none the wiser—he never asked any questions on it."

Aleph let that kernel of information sink in, satisfied that he was slowly absorbing Roahn's attention.

"Shepard has always felt my influence, but never bothered to question it. The data I had decoded during the war was vital to him carrying out his plan to end the Reapers once and for all. The location of the various Cerberus bases for him to destroy. The decoding of the Mars archives—the very data stores that led to the discovery of the Crucible. They all came from my decryption efforts. Even…" he took a breath, "…the nature behind the artifacts the Reapers left behind."

Now Aleph turned towards Roahn, melded eyes expectant. The young quarian unconsciously felt for the twisted and damaged lump of metal in her pocket, as if her hand would act as a shield, permanently spiriting away from the cyborg's brutal grip.

As if his own vision could pierce metal and flesh, Aleph raised a finger, pointing to directly where Roahn was keeping the artifact on her person. "You still haven't figured out why I have been so dedicated to the pursuit of these fragments, have you?"

Listless, Roahn shook her head.

"Very well. I promised you comprehension. I will help peel back a layer of the shrouded intricacy."

---

An explosion of stars. A deranged and savage flickering of light across the eons. Beyond the reach of the galaxy, cradled only by the birthing of energy and heat. Steadfast perspectives contemplated silently as the universe grew and molded itself into its splayed image. Molten rock and metal collided, cooled, solidified, and eventually crumbled into dust. Suns expanded, consuming their enormous reserves of fuel, until they tapered off, either leaving their dense cores behind or ripping apart space-time in wonderous detonations. Graveyards of dust blossomed into flowers of color—enormous nebulas. Discs of pure illumination were sent slinging across the endless black—the galaxies embarking upon their forever journey.

And for the lucky worlds that found themselves precariously perched in their own Zone of creation, veils of atmosphere rallied around the cooling surface. Volcanos soon rose from the crust, conduits to the unstable mantle below. Venting gasses formed the troposphere. Water vapor from these gases, as well as from passing comets, condensed and created oceans. Microscopic life resided deep in these waters, increasing in cell count after millions and millions of years. Soon these lifeforms were complex enough to take to the land, decay, and die, their bodies fertilizing the soil for new plants to feed and grow healthy upon.

A cycle within cycles. The micro within the macro. Each living being a miracle unto itself. Precious more than any gemstone.

Civilizations followed similar paths. Cities rose from nothing as the collective consciousness of a single people grew. Suns rose and set on their birth and eventual collapse. Sometimes new cities replaced the old. Sometimes they were left to decay. But each race continued to expand their knowledge, to grow as one. A process repeated across time, independent and separated by lightyears. The thinkers flourished, as did the optimists, and the dreamers. Invisible webs soon interconnected the stars, linked with the progress of invention, of daring.

A perfect ecosystem.

She—there was no Roahn anymore, just a presence—then heard a voice.

"Before the Reapers encroached, there were the Leviathans. The original caretakers of the galaxy. A true apex race. Desperate to solve the coming destruction of the other races they used as thralls, cycle after cycle, they were determined to create an Intelligence to prevent the needless devastation."

Deep underwater on a nameless world. Multi-eyed, as large as skyscrapers. Floating under intense pressure. Crustacean. Primordial.

The voice proceeded.

"That Intelligence served as the basis for the first Reaper. But the Leviathans needed materials. Raw materials in greater quantities that had ever been collected before. It was a long and arduous process—it took more than one cycle for the Leviathans to finally reach the threshold they set."

Men and women attacking sharp rock walls with crude tools by the thousands. Race had no bearing. Deep in holes within their own planets. Choking on dust. Killing their worlds. Stripping them bare. Collapsing one on top of the other, exhausted. Dying. Clothes rotting from their backs. Mindless masses of naked bodies. All for ore. Precious, precious ore. Massive shipping lanes, frigates full of resources, all destined to their masters for their dark work.

"The fanatics among the thralls were keen to show devotion to their masters. Believed they had been enlightened, they crafted monuments and trophies out of the materials they unearthed, to demonstrate the depths of their belief to themselves and other followers."

She spoke. "Artifacts." Her own voice sounded distant.

Instruments of diamond chipped away at globular spheres. Dark flakes dusted heavy stone benches. Carving intricate patterns. Polishing them to a bright sheen. Stacking them on top of obelisks whereupon words of languages lost flowed texts of love and sacrifice.

"The Leviathans knew the breadth of the material's capabilities while their slaves remained ignorant. Only the apogee of all life had determined the curious properties surrounding the substance that would soon become a Reaper."

Listless bolts of red electricity dribbled upon monstrous blocks of obsidian. Floating Leviathans wordlessly surrounded it, studying it closely. Stone took on water-like properties. Claws then began to protrude from the semi-liquid black block. Electricity and wires carved their way into the gelatinous mix, embedding into one leg… two legs… three legs… until the very image of a Leviathan had been replicated in a frightful and synthetic form.

"The material is malleable. Able to be manipulated. It shares a connection between everything else that is made from that material. And that connection is broader than you can imagine. The Reapers had purposefully manipulated this galaxy, upon overthrowing their creators, to ensure that civilizations would develop along their desired paths. They forced us to use their technology to achieve their own ends. Don't you see? The cultivation of our collective awareness was all based on this technology! The genesis for our modern galaxy. Unknowingly, we have been among the progenitor of how our scientific advancement came into being. Anything that is comprised of such technology shares a generic link, hidden in the atomic structure. And I have cracked that link."

Thick tendrils of the clouded and sable material flowed towards a central point, like arteries connecting to a heart. Flanked by columns of red light in beams along the ground. The point grew as it accumulated more mass, growing and growing into a tall and intimidating pillar. Whispers grew from it. It thrummed with an embedded energy. A magnetic aura, imperceptible at first but slowly growing at the edge of the mind. A tickle that could not be shaken.

"A device of my own creation. A Monolith. Both a conduit and an amplifier for the immense energy inherent in the material. It is made out of the artifacts; they were the lone objects remaining in the galaxy with the highest concentration of the substance, which is why I have been searching for them. I have been able to connect my tech with that of the Monolith, enabling me to tap into that endless well of energy that the Reapers had been feeding on. It is not finished yet—I am still missing one critical component: a conglomerate of organic material to expose it to all permutations of intelligent life. To make its reach all the more absolute. With the Monolith, I will be able to manipulate all technology that is based off the Reaper material. Upon its completion, I will have unlocked total control over every being in the galaxy."

The aura expands. It takes up a luminescence. A gleaming shield of cosmic brilliance. It pulsates with a powerful shockwave, striking through time and space in seconds.

"You don't believe me."

She speaks. "You think that all you can grasp is within your reach. All you could do with this Monolith is inconvenience us. It isn't the doomsday device you hope it is."

"Isn't it?"

Patient. Amused. Soft.

Her voice penetrates the void. "What could you possibly control?"

He waits. Prolonging the moment.

"Everything. Everyone."

She hisses. "Liar."

"It is too late. The connection is in you already, as it is in everyone else in this galaxy. It has been inside you all along. At no moment in your life could you have escaped the Monolith's sway."

Blinding arcs—a current—race along premade pathways. Surging across bone. Punching through muscle. Tangling through veins. Flowing with blood. Surges upon surges upon surges, all coalescing to one singular point. A fatal cataclysm. A self-imposed destruction. A tranquil pressure.

She is livid. "Stop with your lies!"

He is merciless in his tempo.

"The technology, Roahn'Shepard. The technology is inside you. People have willingly been putting such technology into their very bodies before you were even a thought. They are expansive. They run through every limb. Cradle every organ. They were meant to better ourselves but at no point did anyone ask if they had a weakness. I told you that all technology is based off the Reaper material. What do you think is in your body right at this moment?"

She wants to shut her eyes but she is lidless. "Tech? What tech are you talking about?! There is nothing inside me that can connect to the Monolith! Nothing except…"

She stops herself, remembering horribly. Recalling, almost in afterthought. The swell of her horror approaches painfully. Because she now realizes the truth.

She swallows. It hurts. "…except… my implants."

A tender intake of breath streams in a deathly slither.

"Implants. The very devices that were intended to better society. From as simple as promoting hormone growth in organs, to automatically providing quarians like you with skeletal/muscle boosters to combat gravitational atrophy, to allowing biotics to harness the power of dark energy at their fingertips. Everyone has been implanted in our collective civilization. Everyone. And where do you think that technology was based from? The Reapers. And by extension, the Leviathans. That is the connection. That is what binds me to everyone."

A realization. "The people at that colony. Admiral Vulkov. They died without marks on them but we never could figure out why. It was you. You killed them with your Monolith."

"An untraceable death. That is what I am able to provide with the Monolith. At my current level, I can only influence a local sector within my proximity but upon its completion I will be able to touch every single being anywhere in this galaxy with merely a thought! The power that the Monolith exudes is systemic. Unforgiving. It amplifies and redirects the current in one's implants, causing fatal buildups of energy in vulnerable areas—the brain especially. Their implants essentially overload, killing them instantly, but it leaves very little evidence in the process. It was how I took care of Senator Larsen all those years ago, for spearheading that little debacle which involved your family. For my part, you should be grateful."

She reels. Speechless. Anxious to look at her own body and to see the rot underneath the suit, underneath the flesh.

But the voice proceeds.

"There will be those that see the Monolith as a weapon of terror. But it is capable of so much more. It has the power to kill, yes, but also to transform. To present a new way of thinking about our reality. It can rip objects from one place and transmit them to another in seconds! White holes, Roahn'Shepard. Singularities where only light and matter can escape. You've seen that power in action before. Imagine what it could provide to a galaxy fully at peace with itself. When we become a singularity, only then will we be ready for what the Monolith holds."

She wants to respond, but something is tearing at her right this second. Ripping her from this state.

She opens her mouth to scream but cannot find the breath.

---

Roahn blinked, uncertain of what she just beheld. The clamor of waves filled her ears—she was back on Rannoch. The railing she was leaning against seemed real, felt real. Sprays of sea mist drenched her visor. Looking up, she saw Aleph standing just feet away, staring out towards the ocean, as if the previous few moments did not resonate upon him.

"Even now," Aleph said, "the Monolith's effects resonate upon you. How else could you imagine being in this place at this moment?" He spread his arms, gesticulating to the seemingly open vista of Rannoch all around them. "A cleverly crafted fiction, all made possible by the Monolith. The implants in your eyes have been receiving false signals, obscuring reality with an elaborate filter that your own mind helped create. Do you find it ironic to realize that the elaborate equipment that was applied to your body has had a fatal flaw this whole time—a backdoor towards the manipulation of reality itself? The synthetic fibers that are woven into your skin, the micro-weave that reinforces your skeleton, the input tolerances that read your neural patterns, all cybernetics are irreversibly linked. And you… being a quarian, have been joined to so many cybernetic upgrades to communicate with that enviro-suit of yours that you have a greater proportion of such implants compared to any other race in the galaxy."

Not counting the obvious. Roahn looked down to her left hand, to the elaborate contraption that remained melded against her arm. A fabrication of metal as an extension of flesh. The solution turned weakness. The so-called courteous gesture.

"I'll kill you," Roahn growled as she slowly drew her eyes back up, her fear evaporating as quickly as the droplets of sea air in the morning sun. "Give me the chance and I'll plunge my blade straight through that putrid heart of yours. I'll tear you apart, piece by piece, until you finally understand the power I've had at my disposal all along."

Aleph did not appear intimidated. Even without the helmet, his expression was steadfast. His body language conveyed almost a bemused intrigue. As if he regarded the quarian as a curiosity. An experiment to be observed behind clear partitions.

Then he slowly shook his head. "But you do not understand the power you have at your disposal. Strictly speaking, organics have not yet deciphered the riddle that leads to the uplift of all life. Human, turian, salarian, asari, batarian… and quarian. Quarians especially. They all have stubbornly limited themselves deliberately upon their supposed perception that they have met the threshold for their natural evolution. I believe they are wrong."

"You believe a lot of things," Roahn scowled, hands clenched into fists at her sides. "I'm not so easily swayed."

"You speak the truth, which is why I would be remiss if we did not part without a more significant demonstration of my conviction."

In a dramatic display, Aleph grandly lifted his hand, large fingertips splayed wide apart. Roahn stared at the rising limb, an ominous sensation beginning to overcome her. The cyborg's hand seemed prime to pluck the sun from its fateful perch, the edges around his fingers becoming blurry against the fierce light… or from a different type of energy.

"Consider this a gift," he then said.

His hand balled into a fist in the span of a second.

A high-pitched ringing in Roahn's ears turned into a full-bore scream, paralyzing and deafening, as something inside her head began to burn white-hot. The incinerating sensation boiled its way down Roahn's spine, spreading to her bones, to her extremities. It felt like she was cooking from the inside out.

Roahn immediately clasped her hands to her temples and let out a frantic scream, dropping to her knees. White burn spots clouded her vision as the deck of her Rannoch home flickered in and out from the scalding sands of the moon upon where her true "reality" resided. Dark wood… sand and water. Dark wood… sand and water. Two images overlaid, both fighting for supremacy. The dream, the filter, was tearing itself apart.

Help! Help! Help!

Charring and scorching, the combined heat seemed to flow and become Roahn. She could imagine her skin blistering, vein-like patterns turning black from where the highways of pain twisted and curled. It felt like something in her body was about to give out. The agony was too much to bear! She was blinded by her tears, by her own tragic wounds, that she could barely see past the brutal paroxysm to understand that whatever was currently aggrieving her was sourced from directly inside her body.

The connection. The weakness!

What is happening to me?!

---

"Something's wrong!" Garrus hissed, lightly jostling the rifle against his shoulder as his finger inched closer to the trigger. "Roahn's collapsed on the ground."

"Jesus," Sam breathed next to him, eyes glued to his omni-tool. "Her heartrate just went haywire!"

Garrus gave a quiet snarl as he leaned forward, eye against the scope, levelling the crosshairs towards the edge of one of the shunting towers of black rock, watching the shadows of fabric wisp just around the corner, out of reach.

"That does it. I have to take a shot. If that bastard's hurting her—"

The doctor suddenly grabbed for the turian's arm—tight grip that nearly caused the lanky alien to cry out.

"Wait! Just wait!"

"Wait?!" Garrus was incredulous, breaking from the scope to stare at the human in doubt. "I can't just lay up here and do nothing while we-!"

Sam stabbed a finger at the readouts on his omni-tool. "She's not being physically hurt. No breaches in her enviro-suit. No detected pathogens in her blood. Trauma sites are clear. Her vitals just took an intense spike."

"But—"

"You take that shot in panic and he'll end up hurting Roahn for real!" Sam chastised. "She's still alive. She may be in a state, but she's alive. We have to keep it that way, even if it means we wait."

---

Roahn blinked. With a feeble gasp, in rushed filtered air through the vents in her mask. Stale and chalky, her throat felt parched, a desert.

But the pain had stopped. Abruptly, like a switch had just been thrown.

Dazed, she heaved, trying to catch her breath back. She soon noticed that her hands had clawed into the sand right below her. Six wells of water each billowed up from the holes her fingers had made into the ground.

On weak knees, she rose. Trembling and tired. Every nerve felt raw and tender. Just moving served to dredge out fresh pain.

"What…" she mumbled thickly, "…what did you do to me?"

The vile voice of the damned and profane cut through the agony.

"In time, you will find that out."

Roahn looked up. As they were no longer in the implant-driven dream state, Aleph had returned to his original position, helmet back on his head. He stood with his hands behind his back, his frightful appearance hidden once more, replaced by the reflective and ever-seeing visage that had churned so much fear and hate in the quarian.

Clutching at herself, Roahn shook her head in confusion. "What do you want with me? Do you just want to see me suffer? Is that it? Do you enjoy seeing me like this? Torn to pieces and losing my mind? Why not kill me? Finish the job you started? If this torment is all you have in mind for me, then at least have the balls to admit such a thing to my face!"

Aleph tilted his head. A ray of sun speared off his helmet at an angle, momentarily blinding Roahn.

"I told you, your death would be meaningless to me, Roahn'Shepard."

"All evidence to the contrary," the quarian spat.

"No? I would have thought my actions would have sufficed as an answer. I am not looking for mindless slaughter. Yours would bring about more harm than good, even for me."

"And this?" Roahn savagely bit as she raised her left arm, sending a glint of light back towards the demon, shining from her prosthesis. "This is not perceived as mindless?"

"From your point of view, perhaps. From mine, it was a necessity."

"I fail to see how."

"The Monolith is only as potent as its creator allows it. The technology is dependent on accumulating organic tissue—to take such matter upon itself—and essentially absorb the DNA. Learn it, in a sense. The connection between me, the Monolith, and other organics increases in effectiveness the more DNA it is exposed to. The Monolith hosts a 'conglomerate' of combined genetics within itself, taking each race into account. For example, prior to our first meeting, I would not have been able to establish as strong of a hold over your implants, but once I added the tissue that I took from you on Luna to the Monolith, that gave me access to your entire genetic profile, as well as that of the quarian race. The Monolith is able to decipher and break down everything that a gene is comprised of. The genetic codes. The relationship between nature and nurture. The values of parentage. All the possible combinations of genotypes and phenotypes. Traits. Amino acids. Instinctual behavior. It absorbs it all. And the more I feed it, the greater the conglomerate moves towards its completion."

Aleph then slowly looked out to the right, slightly above the horizon, towards the raised line of mountains beyond the valley floor. Roahn dared not turn—Aleph appeared to be staring right where Garrus and the others were perched! Did he suspect something was amiss? Sweat clung to her forehead as the enormous being quietly returned his focus to her.

"The conglomerate's completion remains the final task to ensure the Monolith's true power. Fortunately, I have since realized the last missing link to bridge the gap in the shared codex of all genes. The remaining hurdle towards what shall be the galaxy's answer to the question they never bothered to poise."

A coldness came to Roahn. "You need to find the right people to add their genetic information to this thing. To make it… whole?"

"Precisely," Aleph hissed. "At its current level, completing the conglomerate would take me years and years of further work and study. But I soon realized something—upon adding your DNA to the Monolith, the readiness levels of what I had collected rose far beyond what my latest efforts had conjured. The gap closed far more rapidly than I had anticipated. It was the superiority of your nature, Roahn'Shepard. Your genes reflected an exposure to Reaper material—inherited from your mother, no doubt. The Monolith could sense that, recognize it, and quickly translate it. Proximity to the Reapers leaves a lasting effect—it damages tissue, memories, and genetic makeup down to the atomic level. It leaves scars—scars that can be passed down through genes. Our chemical structure carries quantified memories of past experiences… and the Reapers are indeed the key. It was the breakthrough I have been waiting… a long time for."

The dome of pure speculum then lifted, all of space reflected upon its front. Aleph stared serenely to the sky, peering through rings of rock and dust, swarms of fiery balls of gas, and a tiny little glimmer that timidly blinked in the open air from far, far away—a ship languidly hovering overhead. The Menhir.

"And you've brought all the pieces to me," he breathed.

Abruptly, savagely, Aleph then brough his head back down at the same time he clenched a fist, air distorting around it like a shimmer of heat. There was a ripping sound as the artifact in Roahn's pack tore a hole through it, pulled clean out by an invisible string. Roahn made an instinctive grab for it, but she was too slow, and the metallic lump quickly flew into Aleph's hand.

Not even looking at his prize, Aleph turned the artifact over in his fingers. "I find it despairing that the powers that govern the galaxy, despite being given a second chance with their victory over the Reapers, have continually proved to have squandered such an opportunity. This should have been the birth of a true renaissance—to take advantage of the gift that your father helped to bestow. But the governments—the Council—they have shown that all they are concerned about is resetting everything back to the status quo. Only now, with their influence irreparably withered, they have resorted to outside help to enforce their mandates. Corporations and private armies. Institutions that care more about a positive quarterly statement than they would for progressive reformation."

"Your doing!" Roahn accused with a trembling finger. "You were the one who's been manipulating these corporations into doing business with the Council from the very start!"

"And they accepted such business with open arms," Aleph said matter-of-factly. "The capital all came from me. The guidance came from me. I set the backbone for this supposed 'new era' for our entire civilization. It was foolishly accepted by everyone without question. Yet my work was only built on the foundations of what others had previously attempted. The galaxy was always going to follow this route of constant conflict, trivial border warfare, and tribalism, even without my guiding hand. They would have forgotten the Reaper War in time and become complacent, conveniently ignorant of how close to destruction they had come. I have… simply pushed them down that path a little quicker."

"You're wrong," a heated Roahn growled. "We—this galaxy—can show you otherwise. All of us are ready for our optimism to be rewarded! We are unable to forget that war."

Aleph spread his arms. "Yet the process has already begun. Your father was exiled by his own people, prevented from ever returning to his homeworld without the threat of consequences. Your mother stepped away from her position to be with her husband, depriving the galaxy of two of the most influential people when it needed them the most: for the restoration. History is simply doing its work by slowly eliminating the influence your parents had on the war. No, Roahn'Shepard, it is you who are mistaken. This civilization is so eager to forget the calamity that they are willing to regress in order to reach that point. To return to an eternal cold war—simmering and subdued warfare and a state of semi-isolation. I am unwilling to accept this devolution. As I believe one who came before me has said, 'Cooperation furthers mutual goals.' It is time that the people were reminded of that fact."

The faceless mask, a distorted reflection of the quarian's own, seemed to twist and rend itself in a smug delight. Roahn felt red sunlight warm the back of her sehni, gnawing teeth now churning in her stomach. She took a careful step forward.

"If you're so confident that this galaxy is destined for failure, why not try and resolve the problem without this elaborate scheme? All you're doing is making everything worse!"

But Aleph shook his head.

"There is no other way. Unfortunately, history has proved that, in order to bring about great change, an entire populace has to be motivated with the same goal. A cataclysmic event is usually the vector for such change. In the right hands, it can promote unity."

"Or chaos," Roahn breathed.

"Then that is where my involvement is most important. The severity of such a catastrophe has to be taken into account in order for the motivating factor to be amplified. The Monolith will help me bring out such a tectonic shift in the established order. It is all part of the Tranquility I have envisioned."

Aleph now seemed to ripple with power, a howling wind coursing through the metal of his body. Roahn felt herself shrink in the face of such atrocity, utterly convinced that the man in front of her was completely soulless, incapable of emotion.

"The Tranquility?"

"The culmination of my searching. The cataclysmic event in question. The Tranquility is the beginning that will usher in a new era of peace in the galaxy, a new mindset of cooperation. But first, there must be suffering. The years to follow will be filled with pain, too. But I will bring about a colossal change that no one would dare to forget for millennia. This is the beginning of our enlightenment. Our renaissance."

He is insane, Roahn thought, fears turning rigid and frozen in her system.

Aleph paused a beat before continuing.

"With the Monolith, I will perform a light and systemic extermination of life in the galaxy. A small amount in prospect, given the larger picture of the universe. Millions of lives would not even register as a statistic to consider in the history of our turbulent galaxy. If you informed the populace about the slow elimination of such a high number of lives over a long period of time, such a revelation would be met with callously numb reactions. But… if they found out that all those lives were to be extinguished all at once? That is an event that cannot be discounted, Roahn'Shepard. That brings about true fear. That is the power of what I will be able to accomplish. Such an instantaneous loss has the capability to instill others to combat the oppressive efforts that have wronged them. To disillusion those who have willingly pulled the wool over their eyes by refusing to believe the galaxy is safe in its obsequious ways. The Tranquility will bring about an end to the perceived veil of safety, but it will motivate others to make such a state a reality. To end this fiction and give rise to a time rife with possibilities!"

Words formed a mob around the battered mind of the quarian. Inwardly she reeled, feeling like she had been through hell and back. The concept… the scope… it was all madness, completely entangled in the bile and contempt of affairs that intimated a longing sense of disgust. Malice and cruelty disguised as mercy. To even comprehend that such a patient regard for dispensing pain was at all possible was nearly unthinkable.

The man's voice had never wavered this whole time. Roahn knew that Aleph was sure of his direction, unflappable in his beliefs. The destruction of innocents was the key to survival in his mind—the solution to the problem that she had ironically spent the last few years of her life searching for. If this was truly the key that unlocked the promise of peace, Roahn knew she would feel content at never being able to locate it. The very thought that she would have to sacrifice everything and everyone she cared about or loved—hell, she had already buried one friend in her mind just days earlier—was incomprehensible.

Her arm ached again, but so did her entire body. Was Aleph manipulating her implants again for sport? Thoughts of Garrus, her father, Korridon, Skye, and everyone else on the ship flashed through her head. And her mother… her mother. In that instant, she realized she had never felt a hate like this in her life before. She thought she had hated Aleph earlier. This putrid sensation that coursed through her body now was an indication that she had been very wrong.

"I won't let you kill millions of innocent people just to prove a point," Roahn said in defiance, her eyes narrowed in deadly slants. "I'll find out where you intend to strike and I will stop you. Wherever you go, I will stop you and I won't rest until you are dead at my feet."

A subtle emotion, something untranslatable, seemed to take a hold of Aleph. He stood there in quiet contemplation, head barely tilted, as if he was seeing Roahn in a different light.

"I believe your conviction," he simply said. "Your future efforts might not produce the intended results, but I am intrigued to find out what lengths you will go to in your attempt to stop the Tranquility."

"Greater than you could ever imagine," Roahn breathed.

"Then I look forward to seeing what you might conjure. You will fail at first, for the Tranquility will proceed as planned. There is no stopping it." Aleph then made a deliberate step to the side, no longer blocking the view of the shuttle that lay on the great salt plain, with Korridon still bound inside it. When Roahn did not make a move, he gestured out through the razor-sharp fields of piercing rocks that slightly obscured the way. "I did agree to let you depart with your crewmember. I would be remiss if I did not hold up my end of the bargain, after all."

Roahn dug her heels into the sand for a quick moment. She glanced back and forth, expecting there to be a trick of some sort. It felt too easy, too straightforward. She would not have been surprised if, in the next second, Dark Horizon troops would deactivate their cloaking devices and show themselves all surrounding her, or if a hidden sniper would take a sudden shot towards her head. Or Aleph could simply waggle a finger and she would fall over dead from a brain aneurysm, her implants having burned a hole in a vital artery.

But, heart in her throat, she suddenly took off towards the shuttle.

Clumps of wet sand were thrown behind her as she ran. Roahn nearly tripped down a small hill after vaulting over a set of boulders, making it to the flat plain. The shuttle was only a couple of hundred meters away. Cloudy water splashed around her legs as she stomped through the white steppe, salt encrusting her boots and staining the glass of her visor. Her heartbeat thumped faster and faster, eyes blindingly open, as she closed the distance to the shuttle.

Heat surged in fragile and billowing waves all around her, mirages playing tricks with her vision. Lakes of crystal, mountains of rubber. Everything seemed to take on a wobbling haze. Hallucinations from fatigue? Roahn tried to gulp it all down, but her throat was so parched that the act of doing so felt like she had swallowed a fistful of nails.

As she neared, she could finally behold the features upon Korridon's terrified face as he sat chained in his seat within the shuttle. His orange facepaint had been chipped severely. The blood from his wound had been cleaned away, though a gaping hole in his carapace lingered upon his forehead, covered by a bandage. His bulging eyes widened upon seeing her approach. He was shaking his head, shouting something unintelligible—he had a gag over his mouth.

"Korr!" Roahn cried as she got within several meters. She almost took a tumble again as she reached the edge of the shuttle's cabin, stumbling to her feet just in time to prevent herself from falling. She scrambled into the ship. "Korr! I'm here! I'm here to get you—"

But the turian was still screaming something, his gagged mouth completely incapable of pronouncing words. As Roahn's hands reached out to pry the muzzle from his mouth, she was in for a shock as her hands slipped through the man. Surges of static angrily buzzed at the intruding touch and the entire body of the turian flickered—an image locked in continuous reset.

"What the-?!" Roahn gaped.

The body of Korridon jittered, went rigid, and finally turned a pure white. The outline of the turian blazed in an intense light for three seconds before it abruptly vanished.

A holographic emitter—spherical and layered with orange and black glass—tumbled onto the now-empty seat which the image of Korridon had just occupied, its anti-grav capabilities inactive as a result of its dead battery.

"No… no!" Roahn roared as she whirled around, hands locked in fierce claws.

Enraged at the deceit, she leapt from the shuttle and moved towards Aleph, who had seemingly walked from thin air to be back within a few yards from her.

"You lied to me!" she screamed. "You said you would give him back!"

From the cyborg's vocabulator rushed a thin stream of noise that Roahn only belatedly interpreted as laughter. She stopped in her tracks instantly. She had never heard Aleph laugh before. Now that she did, she wanted to drown the noise out however possible. It sounded like broken teeth gnashing on rough stones.

"You were the one to default on the deal before we had even faced each other here," Aleph pointed out after his little string of merriment. "I did tell you to come alone."

So he had known all along. Known… and had said nothing. Right away, Roahn knew that her contingency had failed. Had she just doomed three more of her friends?

Garrus. Oh no…

"They'll receive their judgment for your impatience," Aleph sighed as he tipped his head upward again, gaze locked onto a singular gleaming object in the sky, a speck so small but so precious that he could just reach out and pluck it from the vast reaches of space. "As for the missing piece that I need to complete my Monolith…"

Aleph tilted his head back down and cocked his head. Roahn wondered if that was the cyborg's version of a smile.

"…your friend was very helpful on that front."

Aleph gave another slight gesture of his hand. Streams of light like liquid began to flow down across his front. Melting his outlines. Fading them into nothingness. Before Roahn's eyes, Aleph had gone from physically standing in front of her to disappearing in the span of seconds. No trace except footprints remained after the watery film of luminescence had dissipated, leaving the quarian all alone.

Roahn made helpless noises of panic as she staggered around, whirling in all directions. Questions began to pile up in her head, a tender stack with a poor base.

Korridon… helpful? What does that… what did he tell Aleph?!

She used a few more precious moments to mull over the cryptic nature of the man's sentence before a frantic thought impacted square in her head.

"Garrus!" she lifted her omni-tool and screamed, "get out of there!"

---

"Do you hear a rushing sound?" Sam asked after lifting the macro goggles from his face, tiredly rubbing at his eyes while keeping an ear perked.

Garrus had to look away from his scope once more in order to bow his head for a moment in agitation.

"Sam, I swear if you keep on blurting—"

But the turian did cease in his speaking once he indeed picked up a noise quickly encroaching into his audible range. A savage whistling. A screaming, almost. Garrus whirled his head around to search for the source until he finally spotted something in the sky behind him.

His eyes widened, mandibles tightening.

"Move!" he bellowed as he grabbed the edges of Sam's jacket and yanked as hard as he could.

The short-range missile slammed into the ground in the space that Garrus and Sam had just occupied. Dirt and stone erupted in a brown geyser—charred and smoking bits of clay-like loam tumbled around the two, who were lying prostrate. Ears ringing, both blearily sat back up, vision graying in and out as they blinked dust out of their eyes.

"Arrrgh!" Sam yowled out loud. "What… what the fuck was that?!"

Then there was the growling sound of rockets.

"Fangs out. Bogeys padlocked," a voice intoned from a short distance, tinny and in a light drawl. "Alpha-Two is on station."

A figure gently floated down from up above, propelled by twin plumes of sunburst flame upon the ends of a contraption's skeletal wings. The Aeronaut, twin submachine guns in hand, pushed through the column of smoke that he had just created seconds earlier, lenses of his helmet fixated upon his prey on the ground.

"I had hoped we would see each other again, Vakarian," the winged mercenary rasped, bobbing to and fro in the air, supported by his jetpack's brute force, a howling emitting from the engines. He spun his weapons on his fingers tauntingly. "This time, we're not getting in a knife fight in a commode. You've kicked the hornet's nest, my friend. A regular Charlie Foxtrot."

Garrus said nothing as he slowly got to his feet. He was about to reach for his sniper rifle but did not go through with the action once he took a look at it—the barrel had been dented from the last explosion; the weapon was now useless. Sam too was also stumbling back up, but with an assault rifle now in hand.

"That the guy that messed your leg up?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Garrus grimaced, his eyes narrowing. "But I don't plan on being taken down so easily this time."

Having been listening to the entire exchange, the Aeronaut cackled.

"You're in over your head, Vakarian. Last time was a fluke—now I have no distractions to get in my way. Don't worry, I'll be sure to give your head prominent placement on my wall." The Aeronaut then made a punching motion with his fist. "Alpha-Two. Fox two. Alpha-Mike-Foxtrot."

Instantly, another rocket spat from the wings of the Aeronaut's jetpack and embarked upon an abbreviated expedition to blow Garrus and Sam to pieces. The two had to dive in opposite directions to get clear of the ensuing detonation, but both were thrown head over heels once again with the spray of cracked earth and vaporized detritus. Sam's rifle was torn from his grip and tumbled off the edge of the cliff before he could even move to grab it back.

"You've got to be kidding me!" the doctor shouted in frustration before he booked it, seeking cover.

"Bandits engaged," the Aeronaut's voice now hijacked their comms. His own unique way of taunting. "Pressing at angels one point two. Increasing to zone one."

The Aeronaut went parallel as the afterburners in his jetpack roared on. Sapphire flames bursting from his back, the mercenary sped through the sky just over everyone's heads, submachine guns heavily chattering from both hands. Garrus had to roll on the ground to get out of the way of the assault, but his shields sparked madly as several high-velocity rounds slammed into them. His shield bar drained to nearly half in an instant.

What kind of weapons are those?! the turian thought miserably.

"Garrus!" a low roar cut through the air. "Have an angle on this guy?!"

The turian looked up to see Grunt heading his way—the krogan had been previously too far for the Aeronaut to even consider as a target. Garrus was particularly dismayed to see that Grunt was still holding his grenade launcher in his hands. What kind of good is that going to do against a high-speed enemy?

"Grunt, I need a re-arm!"

"Got you covered!" The krogan reached behind him and tossed a the turian a battered Chakram Launcher. Garrus caught the weapon with both hands and took a moment for his face to continue falling.

"Would it kill you to ever bring along a weapon with a little more finesse to it?" he asked, begrudgingly fitting his fingers into the trigger guard anyway. What he would give for a Mattock… or hell, even a Vindicator.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Thought not," the turian sighed.

Contrails in the distance marked the presence of a supersonic presence. The Aeronaut was banking for another attack. Garrus and Grunt held their weapons aloft, trying to steel themselves for the coming assault.

"You break right when he makes it over the range," Garrus told Grunt. "Ready?"

"Ready," the krogan rumbled.

As expected, the grim voice seeped through their speakers. It sounded like the Aeronaut was having fun.

"I've got you all in my sights. Bearing green to reengage. Feeling the heat at your back yet, Vakarian?"

Zooming at speeds suicidal to any other person, the Aeronaut seemed to shatter the air around him as he swiped past Garrus and Grunt, his weapons scarily accurate as he timed each trigger pull at the exact moment of passage, getting a few hits on his targets. The sonic boom of the mercenary's rapid approach slammed into the two seconds later, nearly deafening the both of them and throwing off their aim. Useless streaks from their own weapons spattered the air, shooting into nothingness. The Aeronaut was just too fast—he could be there and gone in less than the span of time it takes to blink.

Garrus had to drop to a knee, his shields near failing. He ejected a spent heat sink as he scrambled behind a sharp rise of rocks, trying to spot the tell-tale glint of the airborne enemy in the distance, but it was no use. The Aeronaut could cover hundreds of miles in less than a minute—he was effectively invisible to the naked eye at his speeds and at his size.

Too exposed and ill-equipped, Garrus thought sourly. We're easy pickings for this lunatic.

To make that point clear, Garrus ducked by as the Aeronaut screamed by once again overhead, the man's jetpack pushing him to faster and faster speeds. Bullets chipped away at the boulder that hid the turian's head, though several of the stone shards were dislodged fast enough for them to become deadly flechettes. The mercenary could not be touched from the ground. The Aeronaut's advantage was woefully skewed in his favor. Garrus was staring to come to the glum realization that this was going to be a hopeless encounter.

The Aeronaut then gleefully crowed some more over the comm.

"Tapped bogey two. I'm a dot. Conning at four mark six, half-envelope. You're out of options, Vakarian. I'm Foxtrot-Mike."

"This asshole and his pilot lingo!" Garrus snarled as he peeked his head out for another look. If the Aeronaut thought his dense verbiage would put the fear of the spirits in him…

Garrus then blinked as he saw Grunt venture out into the open by himself, still hefting the grenade launcher as if he expected to hit anything with it at such long range and at such poor odds. Sam was nowhere to be found—a wise decision, admittedly, considering the man's limited combat expertise. The turian looked over as a low rumbling began to slice its way in a shuddering of sound, echoing from all around the mountains. One more time for the mercenary with wings.

"Grunt!" Garrus yelled. "Get behind something. He'll shred you out there!"

Grunt did not even bother to look at his captain. "He needs a target! I know he's getting impatient. He won't be able to resist this opportunity."

"Grunt!" he shouted again, but the Aeronaut's next statement flitted into his ears at the same time.

"Alpha-two. Fox three."

A flash of silver could be beheld for a split-second right before the rocket slammed just a few feet in front of Grunt. Garrus saw a tall lick of fire, a raging tower of smoke, and Grunt sailing through the air as the force of the explosion threw him backwards. The krogan hit the ground and rolled once, twice, until there was no more ground to cover and he simply left the edge of the cliff, leaving it empty.

No.

Presiding over his handiwork, the Aeronaut abruptly slowed to a halt over the plateau, bits of dirt still showering him as he serenely floated through the thin atmosphere of smoke. The Aeronaut was still about a dozen meters of the ground but the heat flaring from his jets was still hot enough to blacken the top of the earth directly underneath.

"Scratch one grape," the Aeronaut chuckled. "Now for the others. You still there, Vakarian? Come on, at least make me work for this!"

The mercenary's back was to Garrus' position. He saw his chance and quickly leaned out from behind the small hill, the Chakram Launcher in hand. The Aeronaut tilted his head, as though he heard a noise, and his jets pitched, spinning him around in a brilliant whirl, his body language somehow surprised to see the turian already having a weapon out and aimed right at him.

"Obliged," Garrus grunted right as he pulled the trigger.

The ammunition disc, spat from the launcher's barrel, embarked in a brilliant blaze of pyrotechnics as it smashed into the corner of the Aeronaut's left wing and blew it to pieces. Holographic tracers erupted in a firework of white phosphorous, setting the apparatus on fire. The Aeronaut let out a howl as he spun through the air for a quick moment, abandoning his submachine guns in a panic, before he abruptly dived uncontrollably toward the earth. Before the moment of impact, he was able to regain control with his remaining jet just in time for him to make a light landing on his feet, though his jetpack was completely ruined.

Garrus had embarked on a brazen charge towards the Aeronaut's position at this time. He had discarded the launcher—its finnicky circuitry having developed one of its well-known faults after expending that last shot—now running forward with both hands empty. The turian snarled as he prepared to pounce, but the Aeronaut still had some tricks up his sleeve.

"Activate Tiger Protocol!" he roared into his internal speakers right as he unclipped the jetpack straps from his shoulders.

All of a sudden, the jetpack's remaining engine erupted in a savage thunderclap in response to the verbal command, its afterburner immediately set to full power. It shot right off the Aeronaut's back, the flaps of the jetpack erratically swinging this way and that, causing the winged device to travel in a deadly spin. A whirlwind of metal, a shining saw blade.

Not wanting to get cut in half by the wayward pack, Garrus had to cut his charge short as he dropped to the ground to avoid the oncoming device. Sharp metal wings sliced by just a foot over his head, causing his fringe to ripple in its wake.

The projectile still on his mind, Garrus began to look back towards the direction he had been running in only to see a black combat boot rush towards his face.

There was a sickening crack and soon Garrus found himself on his back. Blood poured from his mouth—it felt like a tooth had just been knocked from his jaw. Burn marks in his vision made colorful scars. The sky overhead washed through half a dozen hues in two seconds. It felt like he had just been concussed.

Now the Aeronaut soon intruded upon the vista as he stood over the turian. He rudely nudged the stunned alien with his foot.

"Tried to cherrypick me, eh? That's not very sporting!"

He punctuated this last word by driving a kick into Garrus' ribs. The turian immediately shot up halfway as he uttered a hoarse cry, his chin stained blue, while a fiery pain poked at him inside his body. Broken rib, maybe… definitely cracked.

"Did you think there was going to be any other outcome?!" the Aeronaut shouted as he now brutally kicked Garrus' other side, driving a shout from his victim. Garrus curled into a ball on instinct to stop the painful blows.

The Aeronaut was now panting as he paced around Garrus' body. He then brought his hand to his right wrist and extracted a length of razor-wire from a compartment there. He made a loop of the wire around his left hand and gave it a few yanks to test its tensile strength. Satisfied, he then kicked Garrus over so that the turian was now lying on his stomach. The mercenary stepped over him, practically straddling Garrus, and knelt down so that he could bring his hands in front of the turian's neck, pressing the loop of wire to the middle of his throat.

"Second try, second disappointment," the Aeronaut sighed as he began to drive his arms backwards, digging the wire into the flesh of Garrus' neck. "I had honestly hoped for better."

With a vicious wrench, the Aeronaut began to pull his arms backward, cutting the wire deeper and deeper into the turian's throat. Garrus, at the last minute, raised his armored wrist and held it near his neck, easing the tension on the deadly device and preventing it from wrapping completely around his neck. But the Aeronaut was unbelievably strong—he was pulling on the razor-wire so hard that it was cutting into the skin at Garrus' wrist. Dark blue blood beaded from the wounds at both sites—the turian was breathing heavily in a panic as more and more of his precious life stained the ground just below him. Garrus gagged from the savage pain. It felt like the Aeronaut was going to bend his arm backwards, breaking it clean in half. And when that happened… there would be nothing left to stop the mercenary from sawing his head off.

His pulse thumped at his temples, a strained and desperate struggle. He was starting to black out. His fingers were already starting to lose their feeling…

But there was a resounding bellow and something slammed into the Aeronaut from above, ripping him away from Garrus. The wire left his throat. The turian collapsed upon the ground, momentarily paralytic from coughing as his hand went to the injury at his neck. As soon as he regained his vision, he looked over with searching eyes.

He locked his gaze with Sam's, who was also on the ground, having tripped after his heroic tackle, having bodily ripped the Aeronaut away from his brutal assault on the turian. Garrus could not help but gape. Sam. Sam?

The doctor seemed clueless, as if just woken from a trance. He looked at his own hands, perhaps trying to wonder how he had mustered such bravery to save a friend. From having cowered out of sight to pulling an armed-to-the-teeth madman off of Garrus…

The Aeronaut sat up from the ground a few feet away in a daze, wondering what the hell had just happened. One moment he had been about to saw through Garrus' artery and the next he had been tackled to the ground by a particularly broad and bearded human. He cursed himself for forgetting about this person's existence and was about to get back to his feet to correct his mistake, but his left leg was not working. He looked down in confusion to spot a combat knife, buried to the hilt in his calf. He blinked stupidly, finding it interesting that there was very little pain involved with such a wound. He then turned to the doctor, who was still on the filthy ground, and realized that the man had indeed been armed when he had charged into him.

His incredulity quickly evaporating and leaving nothing but blinding rage behind, the Aeronaut soon realized what had happened. He would never be the same again! All those years, all those campaigns without so much as a scratch! And this… this civilian lands a critical blow on him during a mad minute? The fact that it was not even a well-aimed blow just made it so much worse. A professional would have ended the job then and there. This amateur could not have even managed that!

Practically spitting venom, the Aeronaut stumbled to his feet before anyone else. Fueled completely by adrenaline, nerves dulled by the addictive chemical, he reached down and proceeded to wrench the knife out from his leg, ignoring the sudden gush of blood that proceeded to heavily spurt from the deep wound as he did so. Thick liquid ran dark against his body armor, completely turning his leg a different color. The Aeronaut then tossed the stained knife away after pulling it from his body, his wound now hammering hot fire into every nerve within a few inches of his wound.

The mercenary quickly limped over to Sam before the other man could rise. As Sam turned at the Aeronaut's approach, he blankly froze in place just in time for the armored denizen to kick him at full power upon his cheekbone, smashing it and nearly cracking Sam's orbital socket. As Sam cried out in pain, the Aeronaut was there to deliver his most deadly series of blows yet. He proceeded to stomp on the man, the heel of his boot driving fateful impacts upon Sam's face. One such blow landed on Sam's nose—there was a crunch and a gush of blood. A high scream pierced the day.

"Fucker!" the Aeronaut bellowed as he continued to lash out with powerful kicks, a frightening and surprising outburst from the merc. "Do you know what you just did?! I'll rip your guts out for this, you hear me?!" His hands then fumbled for a weapon at his belt—a pistol. His hands were shaking as he wracked the slide a few times until a clip was properly in the correct chamber. He then levelled the weapon at Sam's head before pointing it lower and lower on his body. "But not before I deprive you of that little—"

A flash of steel split the air in two. Words turned to gentle frost in the newfound silence.

The pistol bounced to the ground. A hand, cut off at the wrist, still clenched it.

The Aeronaut numbly looked down at the stump of his right hand, which was now continuously spurting blood. The ground turned red and black with a lengthy splatter pattern in front of him. Sheared bone and tattered capillaries dripped fluids, wet muscle oozing along with them. He clutched at the affected area, just below the stump, already starting to be overcome with the onrushing agony.

A battered Garrus then stepped into view, having plucked up the discarded knife from where the Aeronaut had deposited it on the ground, its wide blade refreshed with the mercenary's blood. Blue was still encrusted around his mouth. Tender drops beaded on the combat knife's serrated edge, flattened metal weave shining alongside the bright flashes of the red that colored it.

As the merc shuffled backwards in a stunted manner, lethargic, Garrus slowly followed as he kept the knife tightly grasped in a tired fist. Still holding onto his wounded limb, the Aeronaut's helmet continued to remain fixated at Garrus' face. Nearly silent pants emitted from the man's vocabulator, his already breathy voice sounding even more ragged. But the turian soon realized that they were not pants at all—the Aeronaut was laughing.

"You think today will mean anything for you, Vakarian? Huh?" he coughed out, in a half-crazed state. "So you beat me. Think that'll earn you a fuckin' medal? I'm just the insignificant muscle for a plan that is beyond your understanding! You haven't changed a thing, so go ahead and get on with it!"

Garrus stopped in place, still breathing hard. His eyes now carried a delicate softness. The sort of grim fatigue that arises in those who have been exposed to war in the past only to remember in the present how much they despise it.

"I know you," the mercenary continued to taunt. "You can't resist ending this sort of thing without a final quip out of that stupid mouth of yours! I don't have all day, so quit your stalling, you goddamn turian! If you're not going to give me the satisfaction—"

An arm as thick as bridge cabling then snaked its way around the Aeronaut's chest. The mercenary then felt a circular protuberance stick itself into the small of his back.

"I'll just have to suffice," Grunt then growled into his ear, right before he yanked on the trigger to his grenade launcher.

At point blank range, the grenade round had no chance of arming itself to its complete explosive capability. However, the enormous projectile had been propelled through the barrel of the weapon at its highest possible velocity, fire and gas surging it along the bored path to its immediate destination.

There was a muffled thump. The Aeronaut let out a strangled cry.

Grunt, sporting a few superficial cuts from the previous rocket attack, released his hold on the man. The mercenary crumpled at his feet. The grenade round, still active but unexploded, rolled from the spot on the Aeronaut's back where it had hit to nudge carefully at Grunt's boots. The krogan picked it up and casually tossed it off the cliff.

Garrus limped over, nearly having to lean against Grunt for support. He looked at the felled Aeronaut. "Is… is he?"

"Still alive," the krogan rumbled. "But I think I broke his back."

The Aeronaut feebly stirred, eliciting a pathetic moan, bolstering Grunt's statement.

"A pity," Garrus grimaced. "But I'm not one to leave things half-finished."

With that, he bent over and grabbed at the Aeronaut's chest plate. With some difficulty—and a lot of discomfort—he began to drag the damaged mercenary closer and closer to the cliff. When Garrus had finally reached the edge, he bodily lifted the man's upper torso off the ground and brought his head low, looking at the man's optics from mere inches away. The helmet was nothing but a blank expression, Garrus noted sourly. No anger. No joy. Just a faceless mask.

"You said you wanted a quip out of my mouth," Garrus snarled. "But guess what? I don't have to do anything you say. You're just an entitled asshole playing dress-up. Nothing but a terrorist who fantasizes about the idea of war when in reality you have no idea what it takes to survive during a real time of hardship and sacrifice. You think you look pretty slick with your fancy moves and your expensive armor, but all you are to me is pathetic."

Garrus released his hold on the man, creating a thump on the ground as the Aeronaut's body flopped down. The turian stood back up with a pained groan.

"And in the end," he continued, his voice now somber, "it will be easy to forget who you ever were."

The bleeding and bruised turian then stepped up, lifted a scratched boot, and gave a vicious shove to the Aeronaut's midsection. The mercenary had time to utter one short cry before his was bodily kicked over the side of the cliff. Garrus watched the Aeronaut bounce down the steep embankment, head over heels, the human's body being broken again and again with each frightful impact before vanishing out of sight.

Once the final echo of meat against rock died did Garrus finally turn back.

The groaning from Sam made the turian hustle over to the fallen man. He had to kneel to get close to the doc, who was lying on his back. Sam's face was a mess. It was coated in blood from his nostrils down. A bruise below his left eye was making his cheek swell up something fierce.

"How're you hanging in there, soldier?" Garrus asked, grabbing for Sam's hand.

The man gave a grumpy cough, squinting in the light of the waning day. "Nose is broke again. Of all the fucking luck." He gave a tender wince. "You pay the bastard back?"

"He tried to fly with clipped wings," Garrus said sardonically.

Sam smiled, showing blood-stained teeth. "Knew I was a bad influence on you."

"Be quiet. Anything I can do for that nose? Looks pretty bad."

The man closed his eyes as he dimly waved a hand about. "Cartilage is bent out of shape. I'll have to reset it back on the ship."

An idea came to the turian and he resisted uttering a devilish chuckle. "Why wait? I'll help with that now."

Sam's eyes snapped open in horror. "I'd really think that I should do it myself—"

"Nonsense! How hard can it be?" Garrus then tried to bring his hand over to the doctor's face. "Just a twist back into place and you're all good."

"No, no, that's fine—" Sam quickly stammered as he feebly beat at Garrus' wrist, but the turian soon locked two fingers upon his bent nose.

"Shall I give you a three second countdown?"

"Garrus, I swear to fucking Christ if you—"

But Garrus quickly gave his wrist a rotation, his fingers gripping Sam's nose during the entire motion. With a click, the damaged protrusion locked back into place, but not without the human letting out an ear-splitting bellow, his hands clawing at the ground so hard he was leaving individual finger marks.

"You… didn't… even… start… the countdown!" Sam roared as the pain caused him to sit back up, his hands gently orbiting his nose, not daring to touch it.

"You always did say that it's best to act when the patient is least expecting it," Garrus shrugged.

Sam glared at him while he dug into his pocket for a tube of medi-gel. He applied a few dollops to his cheek and to his nose, generating hisses as he smeared the salve into the skin.

"I officially hate you, I hope you know that," he grimaced, though it was not without the slight tinge of amusement buried deeply within the statement.

"I figured," Garrus smirked. He held out his arm for Sam to take. "Come on."

The turian helped the shaky human back to his feet. While Sam was sagging against him, nearly deadweight, Garrus activated his omni-tool and cycled through the list of channels.

"Got a lot of interference on all bands. We must have been experiencing jamming during that little fight. Let's see if Roahn is still around…"

As his fingers flicked to the appropriate channel, a voice burst from his interior speaker. They were screaming.

"—arrus! Garrus! Pick up! If you can hear me on your comms, acknowledge!"

"Roahn!" Garrus spoke quickly, "I'm here! Don't worry, I'm here. Things got a little dicey up here but we're fine now. How are you holding—"

"No time!" the quarian sounded completely distraught. "It's… it's the Menhir! We need to get back to the ship right away!"

What is she talking about? the turian wondered, but he was simultaneously pulling up the frequency for the Menhir, still safely overhead in orbit. "Roahn, what is going on? Where's Aleph?"

"There!" she cried over the comm. "He's on the ship!"

On the Menhir? Impossible. But Garrus already had a dreadful feeling settle into the pit of his stomach. Even Sam was finding strength in his own two feet, his bloody face lined with worry, the browning layer now crackling along the edges of his mouth as he looked to his captain. But… he was just here. How could Aleph go from one spot to the next so quickly?

Yet, when his tool finally did connect to the proper channel, he did not receive the usual intonation from an ops tech. Nor did he hear anyone else over the comm that he recognized.

What he did hear was a layer of titillation that crackled over the usual coating of solar flare-laden noise. It was not an earthly tone of welcoming, nor was it the cold artificiality of emptiness being projected into his ears.

It was the sound of gunfire.

---

A/N: I did promise that this chapter would be particularly important to the story at large. Despite being the longest chapter of the story so far (I believe we're now up to 400k words now. Wow!) I found the writing process to be more enjoyable than usual. I'm quite interested to see what you all think.

One more snag after another for poor Roahn, though. Did you think her trials and tribulations would get easier over time?

Playlist:

The Road to Aleph
"Mars Red Planet"
Graeme Revell
Red Planet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The Foes Converse (Aleph Theme v1)
"Gramr"
David Garcia
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Original Video Game Soundtrack)

The Monolith's Story
"Virus"
Sean Murray
Call of Duty: Black Ops (Original Video Game Soundtrack)

Aleph's Revelation/The Tranquility's Purpose
"Revival"
Neil Davidge
Halo 4 (Original Video Game Soundtrack)

Roahn's Run/Aleph's Trick
"Nitroglycerin"
David Buckley
Batman: Arkham Knight (Original Video Game Soundtrack)

The Aerial Fight
"Logan vs. X-24 [Pt.2] [Unreleased Track]"
Marco Beltrami
Logan (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)