Thank you for reading! A bit of a departure from canon here, and through the rest of the story.
At last they reached the final door. The information they needed, along with possibly the Illusive Man, Kai Leng, and who knew what else, lay beyond. Shepard glanced at EDI and Garrus. "Stay sharp. This is it."
Inside, the room was—galactic. Walls, floor, ceiling, all of glass, showing them the stars outside, the ongoing battle between Alliance support troops and Cerberus fighters. And in the center of the empty room, a chair and a bank of monitors … and a circle. Where the Illusive Man had stood to project his hologram, Garrus imagined. But nothing else. No one else. The room was empty.
"They're gone!" Shepard looked around her. "Does that mean they have the Catalyst? Have we lost?"
"There is only one way to be certain." EDI made her way across the room to a console near the bank of monitors. Shepard followed her, treading lightly across the glass floor, and taking the Illusive Man's seat in front of the monitors.
"We need to locate the Prothean VI," she said, tapping the screens to life.
Garrus hung back, watching the door and the walls. Who knew what secrets this room might hold, what—or who—might be about to jump out at them. But even he was startled when the hologram appeared in the circle and spoke Shepard's name. She was out of her seat almost immediately, pistol leveled at the image of the Illusive Man's chest, for whatever good that did.
"That is my chair," the Illusive Man pointed out.
"Come on back and sit in it, then. It's about the only damn thing you have left. Cerberus is finished."
"On the contrary. We have achieved everything I ever imagined." He looked past Shepard to EDI. "Almost everything."
"Yeah, we all saw what you accomplished on Sanctuary," Garrus muttered.
"Not the same as controlling a Reaper, is it?" Shepard asked.
"A significant hurdle."
"Have you overcome it? With the Catalyst?"
The Illusive Man was silent, calmly puffing on his cigarette.
"What is it? How do you use it to control the Reapers?"
"You'll have to ask the VI yourself. I'm done helping you."
Shepard snorted. "When did you start?"
Something was off. Garrus could see even via hologram the tension in the Illusive Man's jaw, the tightness in the fingers holdiing the cigarette. Could it be? "You don't know," he said. "Do you? You stole the Prothean VI, but without Shepard, you couldn't make it talk to you. So you lured her here so she could get the answers for you."
Shepard's eyes widened, and she looked from Garrus to the Illusive Man. It had clearly never occurred to her that the Illusive Man wouldn't get what he wanted—any more than it had to him, it appeared. "Help us, then. Let us work together to defeat the Reapers."
"It's not that simple …"
"It is exactly that simple! We're fighting each other while Reapers occupy Earth. It's time to stop!"
They looked at each other, two indomitable wills in opposition. Shepard wouldn't yield. Would the Illusive Man?
"Your idealism is admirable," he conceded. "But in the end, our goals are simply too disparate. I believe destroying the Reapers would be the worst mistake we could ever make. And nothing you can say will ever convince me otherwise."
Shepard sighed. "I was afraid of that."
To Garrus's surprise, the Illusive Man looked at EDI, calling her by name as she worked at the console. "I'm surprised at you, working so hard to bring about the Reapers' destruction. After all, you could have destroyed Eva's body, but you chose instead to control it."
"It was necessary."
"Exactly." The Illusive Man looked awfully smug for a man who didn't have the answers he had sought.
Ignoring him, EDI turned to Shepard. "I've got it."
The Prothean VI shimmered into being. "Online."
Garrus wondered uneasily if perhaps they shouldn't be speaking to the VI with the Illusive Man still holographically present, but he didn't see an easy way to get the hologram to disappear.
The VI looked at Shepard. "You are attempting to recover me from indoctrinated forces?"
"Yes."
"But why? I told you when we last met that you knew everything you needed to know."
"I don't understand! I don't know what you think I should know."
The Illusive Man watched this back-and-forth with fascination, trying to jump ahead of the conversation and figure out what Shepard knew before she did.
"There is not much time," the VI said. "Already the Reapers are gathering in what you in this cycle refer to as the Sol system."
Garrus looked at Shepard with alarm. Earth. The final battle would take place for her home planet. Because of course it would—because out of all this cycle, the person the Reapers most wanted to eliminate was her.
"We have to get there. Please help me!" she said to the VI.
"Calm yourself. Look inward. Listen."
With an obvious effort, she did so. The Illusive Man's hologram was wavering, as if he was too anxious to hold still. Listen? Garrus wondered. To what? What—
And then it came to him. The song. The one she had been humming when they left Thessia, and on and off ever since. Whatever the Catalyst was, it had to do with that song.
Shepard's eyes had closed with the effort of listening, and now they snapped open, looking straight at the VI.
"Ah. You understand."
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"You know that the odds of completing the Crucible in time to stop the harvest are remote."
"Don't count us out yet," Shepard told the VI. "We've come this far, and we'll finish this."
"I hope you find success."
And the VI shimmered into nothingness.
"What is it?" the Illusive Man demanded. "Shepard, you have to tell me. What is it?"
"Sorry. This is for me to do." She began to walk past him, and the Illusive Man nearly howled in frustration, calling out, "Kai Leng!"
And the assassin was there, appearing as if out of nowhere, and a whole lot of Cerberus troops besides.
"We can't let them stop us!" Shepard shouted. "We're too close to let it end here!"
It was a hard-fought battle. Kai Leng was fast, and tough, and damn near invincible, and his people were clearly hand-picked, better than the usual. By the time they were all down, EDI was sparking from several cracks in her plating, and Garrus and Shepard had gone through more medi-gel than was probably good for them healing various wounds. They would still need some attention from Dr. Chakwas before they arrived on Earth. But they were alive, and Shepard had the secret to the Catalyst.
"EDI, get me Hackett," she said urgently as soon as Kai Leng's body hit the floor. "I need to—"
"Shepard!" Garrus called desperately. Kai Leng was up almost before he could get the word out, his gleaming sword raised high, and Garrus's gun wasn't going to be fast enough.
Whirling around, Shepard caught the flat of the sword with one upraised arm, and the metal, weakened by all the work Kai Leng had put it to, broke against the hardsuit. With the blade of her omni-tool, Shepard stabbed Kai Leng through the heart. "That was for Thane, you son-of-a-bitch," she told him as he fell for the last time.
She stepped contemptuously over him. "EDI, get me Hackett on the line. I want the Catalyst secured immediately."
"Shepard. What is it?"
"An organic quantum entanglement communicator." She smiled. "Able to transmit signals telepathically. As songs. To create harmonies."
That sounded familiar, like something he had heard a long time ago, but he was still in the dark.
Shepard's smile widened. "I think, when this is all over, I'm going to have to tell you I told you so … because you were so certain I shouldn't save the rachni queen, and now she may very well save us all."
