The Mass Effect spinoff game "Mass Effect: Infiltrator" (ME:I) follows a Cerberus infiltrator, Randall Ezno. The game opens with a mission to an ice planet. Randall's first line to his handler Inali Renata is, "Inali, I'm pretty wide of the drop zone. Where's the rest of my team?"

Randall goes rogue after Inali is arrested and tortured by Cerberus.

Randall's team – who were they? You don't see them in the ME:I game. Did they obey Cerberus blindly and try to kill Randall? Or did his team have doubts and were they loyal to their friends?

In my headcanon, Randall Ezno wasn't the only Cerberus infiltrator who went rogue that day. This story follow a member of Randall's team, Matt Gerrard, during and after the events of the ME:I game. Other members of the team, including Randall and Inali and others, will show up too. You won't find most of these characters on the Mass Effect wiki. I made almost all of them up.

By the way, the ME:I game does have an opening for fans to write a story like this one. If you finish the ME:I game, you receive a War Asset for "Cerberus Escapees" for the Mass Effect game. Escapees. Plural. Which means that Randall Ezno was not the only person who escaped Cerberus during the events of ME:I. There might have been other soldiers who defected. Or prisoners who escaped…who knows? ;-)

Thanks for reading!

…

While the Barn Burned

I saw the enemy's rifle flash just before the rifle round lanced straight through my hip. The impact pushed me backward against a stack of crates and I grimaced in pain, shaking away the stars from my eyes as I returned fire and and shouted to the soldier behind me, "Jordan, contact front!"

My name's Matt Ulric Gerrard, I'm part of a spec ops team for Cerberus, and all of sudden everyone in Cerberus wants us dead.

"I'm a little busy back here!" cried my squadmate, Jordan Jensen, as she fired at someone I couldn't see. Jordan was guarding my six.

I've been with Cerberus for a few years now, and I can't believe what's happening. I'm shooting at mech soldiers made by Cerberus, the same Cerberus that I've pledged my sorry ass to defend. I switched my rifle to full auto, aimed and fired a dozen rounds at four Orcus mechs that were guarding a corridor. The mechs flailed and dropped to the deck with sparks flying. I smiled big inside my helmet and then I groaned when my rifle's recoil punched the weapon straight back against my wounded hip. I looked down at my hip and saw entrance and exit holes in my armor plating. The rifle round a moment before had gone straight through me, but I didn't see any blood. Maybe the heat had cauterized the wound. At least I wouldn't bleed to death. I guess there's a bright side to everything.

"Jordan, we've gotta get out of this hallway."

We were on Cerberus' Ares station, and the whole place was in chaos. Cerberus' own troops and its own mechs were trying to kill me and the rest of his squadmates, and we had no idea why. Except for Jordan, I didn't know where anybody else was. I heard Jordan's voice in my headset.

"Okay, our six is clear."

"Good. Let's get inside somewhere and tend to this wound of mine."

We ducked into an empty storeroom. I growled under my breath and tripped over a destroyed mech's head as we stepped into the room. I kicked the thing, sending bolts, wiring and other mechanical junk flying. There was a rumble of a distant explosion, followed by another. The intermittent cracks of gunfire were almost like background noise. I pulled off my helmet and dropped it to the floor with a hollow clunk, ran a gloved hand through my high-and-tight dark-brown buzzcut, and wiped the sweat from his brow. I noticed a dark spray of someone's blood staining the wall alongside me. I looked around. No body.

"Jordan, you watch the door while I put some medigel on this thing." I pulled off my armor plating and applied it to the wound. It stung for a moment like a son of a bitch and my vision swam. I tried to focus through the pain. As I glanced toward the door, I figured that I'd shoot any uninvited visitors first and ask questions later. Or use my biotics. What a day. On top of it all, I had a splitting headache and now I had an aching back. I wanted to relieve the stress right now. I chuckled. "You know what, J? I wish I had my flail right now. Or a morning star. Or a throwing star. That'd be fun."

Jordan gave Matt a perplexed look. "Seriously? You're joking right now?"

"I'm half serious, J. You haven't lived until you've swung a morning star at a target dummy." My dad gave me my middle name, Ulric, out of respect for medieval warriors, and wolves. The name meant "Wolf Ruler." I'd had a thing for medieval weapons ever since I was a teenager, and it'd been a downhill slide from there. Unbelievably, the Ares rec center allowed me to practice with things like flails, medieval maces, nunchucks, and swords. Before long, other guys in Cerberus had started trying it. It probably gave the doctors peptic ulcers.

Impatiently, my strawberry-blond haired teammate looked away from the door and hissed, "You need another hobby. I keep telling you to try yoga before you snap. All right you psycho, is your wound bad?"

"I'll live." Then I snapped back, "Just be a pal and keep your eyes on the door so we don't get killed, all right?"

"I'm doing it, you moron." She almost yelled. I could imagine her eyes burn at me behind her helmet. Which was strange, because it wasn't like her to lose her cool. Everything was messed up. I remembered almost feeling giddy a minute ago when I saw the mechs fall. I didn't like the mechs – you couldn't trust them – but that wasn't like me.

I steadied my breathing. "Give me a second. I'll try to raise the rest of the team." I toggled my com. "Can anyone from Viking squad hear me? This is Matt. Does anybody copy? Randall, do you copy? Evan, Samantha, are you out there? I'm with Jordan. We're knee deep in bad guys right now. Can anyone hear me? Anybody at all? Over."

I'd been shot at before. I was even used to it by now. It came with the territory when you were with Cerberus. But today, except for my teammates, everyone wearing a Cerberus uniform was shooting at us. Every clanky mech too. It just didn't seem real. Nothing did. This morning, everything was business as usual. We had a mission, and for a while it was the same old, same old. And now? Now I feel like I'm being swept down some rapids toward the falls and I need to grab something. Anything.

We were on Ares station. It's one of Cerberus' newest stations, or so the Director of the place liked to brag. Everyone calls it the "Barn." It's great, if you like the inside of metal tin cans, metal girders, propaganda 24/7, and antiseptic smell. Maybe the Director and The Illusive Man like that sort of thing. Me? I was happier this morning when we had our mission on an ice planet like the one from The Empire Strikes Back. At least the atmosphere wasn't canned recycled air.

Ares had turned into a madhouse over the last few hours. We'd seen escaped krogan and asari prisoners prowling the corridors. Some of them shot at us with assault rifles like the kind our troops used. They must've taken them from dead guards. It was like every room had dead Cerberus scientists, troops, and staff littering the place like garbage. Blood and torn flesh smeared floors and splattered across walls. I'd seen dead soldiers whose chests and heads were beaten flat. Other bodies had limbs torn off, and still others were mangled so badly I couldn't tell if they were human.

At one point, Jordan and I fought our way through a research lab and we saw about a dozen tables with autopsied bodies of krogan, asari...and humans. I felt like a ball of ice had dropped into my stomach when I saw that. Who were they? What were they doing to them? Then I'd stepped in the shredded remains of a specimen that had fallen from a shattered saline tank. It was bad enough that I'd had no idea what I'd stepped on, but the smell was a hundred times worse. I almost retched.

I blinked and my eyes focused on reality again. My hip felt warm as the medigel took hold. I waited, then flexed my knuckles white as I made a fist. I gritted my teeth and groaned again as I stretched his arms and rotated my hips until they fully extended without pain. Good sign.

"I think I'll be all right, J. I've got watch. You take a breather."

Jordan removed her own helmet and drank some water. She toggled her com this time. "Calling Viking squad. Encrypted channel. Is anyone there? Randall, Evan, Samantha, is anybody out there? It's Jordan. I'm with Matt. We're holed up in a storeroom on deck six, brown sector. If you tell us where you're at, we'll try to link up. Just say something. Anything at all. Over."

Cracks of distant gunfire sounded again. I thought I smelled smoke permeating the air through the vents. Maybe there was an out-of-control fire somewhere.

Jordan's voice was calm, but her eyes betrayed fear. "Do you think anyone's left?"

I took a breath. "I don't know. I'm sure Randall's okay. I just know it. Somewhere on Ares, the Sarge is blowing something up and fighting through everything in his path. He's a one-man wrecking crew. The rest of our team…I don't know. We've gotta worry about us. That's all we can do."

I didn't like saying it, but it was true. This morning, Cerberus Sergeant Randall Ezno had led me and the others on our team on a mission to capture a high value turian target on an ice planet. Randall and our handler, Inali Renata, had been training us for a few months. Randall and Inali had hooked up after about three weeks. We captured the turian, and we'd barely landed in the Ares hangar and turned over the unconscious turian when we got a message about Inali being in custody. Somebody said she might be a turncoat. We wanted to go straight down to the prisoner wing and hear it from Inali. No, Randall said. Stay in the hangar, he said. He'd take care of it, he said. He'd kick the Director's ass himself, he said.

Then we heard the gunfire. And a second later, I saw a guard's eyes bug out and he grabbed his earpiece, then all the mechs turned and fired at us. The guards in the hangar did too. And now, we were here. I swear, if I ever got my hands on Randall or Inali, I didn't know if I'd hug them or strangle them.

As if on cue, I heard a feminine mechanical voice in my earpiece: "INALI…J. …RENATA" it said. Then I heard static.

I toggled my com. "Inali, is that you? Are you okay? It's Matt. It's Matt Gerrard. Come on, talk to me."

Jordan glanced anxiously at me. "Is Inali okay?" She held her canteen against her forehead. "Jesus, my head's killing me. Sorry I snapped at you. I don't know what came over me."

I waved her off. My head felt like someone was hitting a hammer against it. "Don't worry about it, J. I heard Inali's name. I know I did. Let me put my helmet back on. I'll check my HUD. It might be a VI trying to contact us." If only the entire team had gone with Randall, what would have happened? Would the whole station be on fire, like it was now?

The words INALI J. RENATA flickered onto my holo display. This time, the words ACCESSING VIRTUAL INTELLIGENCE appeared beneath them. A small image of Inali's face materialized in the display and began to speak with her voice.

"Matthew Gerrard. This virtual intelligence was created by Inali Renata for Viking squad fifteen hours and thirty-six minutes ago. Playing message."

I switched on my holo display so that both Jordan and I could see the message. The stoic calm image of Inali's virtual intelligence faded away to static, and was replaced by Inali's real face. She sat at a console. In fact, I recognized the room. It was Inali's work console on Ares. Inali's face glanced over her shoulder for a moment at some unseen object. Her green eyes, which were normally vibrant, were drawn with worry. Most of her curled auburn hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. The rest lay unkempt. She looked like she hadn't been sleeping.

"Okay team. This is Inali. I hope you never see this VI or play this message. I found out some bad stuff about your new implants and your recent tests. Really bad. I can't say more than that, because you never know who's listening. I don't know if the powers-that-be know what the hell the Director and his scientists are trying to do to you guys here on Ares, but I don't…." Inali closed her eyes and swallowed.

My blood ran cold and I glanced at Jordan. Inali was talking about biotic implants in our brains and central nervous systems. My skin crawled at whatever Inali might say next.

Inali's image took a breath as her gaze returned forward, and she was all business. "Hell with it. Listen, guys. I think these implants might be a first-level mind control tech. I saw things with your neuro scans that I don't like. I am not kidding. If you get headaches, backaches, or if you feel like you might go off the handle, don't blow that off. Stop and think. If your gut suddenly tells you to do something weird, then stop and think. Take a breath and think twice before you do anything. Breathe. Like you guys do with that yoga from the PTSD prevention training."

I glared at Jordan. "Don't say you told me so about the yoga."

Inali continued. "I swear, this tech scares me. It might really be that bad. I want to tell you more in person. But if you're seeing this message, then somebody got to me first and things have gone to hell. This VI will help you guys get off the station. It knows a few things and has keys to a bunch of the doors on the station. I hope this message is all for nothing, and we'll be laughing about this over a few beers in no time. Until then, you guys mean the world to me. Stay strong and stay safe. Inali out." Inali glanced over her shoulder again, and then reached for an unseen switch. The VI image of Inali's face returned.

The floor vibrated from an explosion rumbling from a lower deck.

"Oh, hell," I whispered and turned at Jordan, and her jaw hung open. I tried to keep my breathing steady.

Jordan's eyes widened and her brow was taut. It was fear. "Matt, I'm sorry I snapped at you. For real. But it's like Inali said. Remember when we saw Randall's face on those monitors, and found out that the Director ordered everyone to kill him on sight? And when the Director ordered our team to surrender, or he'd kill us too? Ever since the shooting started, I've had awful headaches. It feels like somebody's grinding a drill inside my head. Worse than that, I've got this creepy feeling I can't shake. I'm telling myself to do things over and over again, and they don't make sense. I mean, I just can't shake it."

I shook my head. "No. We all get the shakes. It's normal. Don't worry about that. And don't worry about snapping at me, it's okay."

Jordan swallowed before speaking. "But it's like I'm telling myself to do crazy stuff. I haven't had the shakes in a long time. This doesn't feel like it. It doesn't make sense."

"Look. Whatever it is, forget about it. We'll figure a way out of here. If we stick together, we're going to make it."

"Matt…Matt…listen, I don't know how to say this. I feel like I'm trying to convince myself that maybe Randall and Inali really did betray us. But I don't believe that, I swear. It's messed up. Ever since we got a spare moment after that first firefight, I've had this crazy idea. I feel like I need to go back and find Randall. I have to find him. And then maybe…"

My eyes narrowed. "Maybe what?"

"Kill him. But what's crazy is, I know that I don't even believe Inali and Randall betrayed us. And I'm not crazy enough to want to hunt down Randall Ezno and bring him in myself. My head knows that I can't. My gut's telling me that I should kill him with my bare hands. It doesn't make sense. I don't know why I can't just focus on helping us get out of here. What the hell's happening to me?"

I almost chuckled at the thought of Jordan trying to strangle Randall Ezno. Randall was twice her size. I doubted that she'd be able to get both of her hands all the way around Randall's neck.

"All right Jordan, listen to me…I've had that feeling too. Exactly the same. I was wondering about the headaches and body aches, but I wrote it off. But the weird thoughts…and right now Inali's message just scared the daylights out of me. Too many coincidences. I don't know what's happening to us, but the Barn has gone over to the crazy train. Right now, I've got a splitting headache, and the rest is like you said. It started for me after we heard the gunfire from the prisoner wing. I thought it'd go away, but it hasn't. This doesn't feel like doubt. This feels like I've got a creepy little devil on my shoulder whispering what to do. We both know Randall Ezno. He's proud to be with Cerberus. Always has been. Serving humanity and all that stuff. And Inali's the only handler I've seen who'd go into the field, pick up a rifle and put her life on the line. I trust her. But now this voice in my head, and the Director, they say that Randall and Inali are traitors? Like hell."

My shoulders tensed. I thought of the team's biotic implants, doing things crawling around inside my brain and the rest of my body. I settled my palm on the back of my head and closed my eyes. I wondered if Jordan was trying to read my mind.

"J, remember about a month ago, when we were on the training range? Remember that? The Director stopped by and watched us go through our paces. He bragged about how Cerberus was building a better breed of soldier, and how Cerberus was going to engineer away problems that we wouldn't believe. Remember?"

"Yeah, I do. I've never liked him. He's always creeped me out."

"Me too."

Jordan's eyes widened just a little. "I thought he was just blowing smoke, though. He went on and on about how his guys were going to remove our fear and improve our focus. He said that his guys were going to remove all of our doubt, too. We'd be the most dedicated and loyal troops that Cerberus had ever seen."

A moment passed, and I decided to say the words that already hung in the air. "And Inali found out how the Director planned to do that. He was planning to turn us into robots like those mechs."

"They couldn't. They wouldn't. Not to us. No way in hell."

I took a breath. "Look. I don't know what the hell's happening, but I know this much. Yesterday, we were the best infiltrator team on this station. The Director sent us on a mission, and Inali stayed here on the station while she tracked how our new implants performed in combat. Today? The Director says Inali's a traitor, he says Randall's a traitor, he decides he wants to bring us in dead or alive and I'm not sure 'alive' would be better. Nobody here on Ares seems to have a problem with that, and the two of us feel like we're drugged or possessed or something."

"What if we're wrong? Suppose the Director didn't find out they were traitors until we were on our way back from the mission?" Jordan's words sounded mechanical.

"You don't believe that any more than I do. If that were true, those guys would've arrested Randall right there in the hangar when we got back."

Jordan added, "And you know what? He offered the rest of us a chance to surrender, but that's probably a lie."

"Seriously. He knows Randall won't surrender, so he's already given up on that. For us, he knows we're more badass than any of the guys who he'd send to take us into custody. He's got a huge prisoner breakout already, and he knows he'll lose even more people if he tries to bring us in the hard way. We can't stay around here and hope this gets sorted out. We can't try to join up with escaped prisoners that want to shoot us first and ask questions later. We need to get the hell out of here and get as far away as we can. And we are going to get out of here."

Jordan's bearing straightened. "All right. Let's get out of here. What's the plan?"

I glanced around the room until my eyes settled on a computer panel. "I'll tell you what we're going to do. First, we're going to put our electronic warfare training to good use. Inali trained the hell out of us. It'd be a shame to waste it."

I strode over to the panel and drove my boot straight through its processing unit, sending out sparks and billowing smoke from the wall. I pushed pieces of the computer aside and reached my gloved hands inside, pulling out black and red signal cables. "Let's hope that doesn't set off a fire alarm. Give me your electronic warfare pack and keep an eye on that door."

Jordan handed me the pack and I started to hack into the Ares station computer network. My hands moved on the keys as fluidly as if I was a concert pianist. It was a good thing Cerberus taught me to do more than just shoot things. Whatever. Within a minute, a schematic diagram of Ares station appeared on the electronics pack.

"Okay, Jordan. We're in business. Look at this." I toggled his holo projector and a shimmering three-dimensional image of the station appeared between us. The display illuminated some rooms in green, others flashing in red, and the rest appeared in yellow.

"Matty, the station's a mess."

"You're not kidding." I pointed to the image. "Okay. We're here, on deck six. The hangar's over here, on deck three. We're going to make our way to the hangar and steal a shuttle. The green rooms are controlled by Cerberus, the red ones are controlled by the prisoners, and the yellow ones have status unknown."

"Can we map a way down to the hangar?"

"That's the plan." I adjusted the image and pointed. "We'll use these utility tunnels. They make up the guts of the station, and they crisscross it muscle and veins. All of the maintenance guys are helping the troops defend against the prisoner breakout, so those utility tunnels are deserted now. They're big enough to work in, so they should be big enough for us to crawl through. We'll go as far as the tunnels take us, and then we'll use our torches to cut through decks and walls where we need to. If we go into a room with bad guys in it, we'll use our cloaks and stay out of sight. We don't fight unless we absolutely have to. Got it?

Jordan nodded to me. Her eyes looked calmer now. "Got it."

I hefted my gear into my pack. "There's a maintenance tunnel a couple of rooms away. We'll cut our way in. And, one last thing…" I pressed some buttons on his omni-tool, and a small image of the Inali VI appeared in Jordan's heads-up display and mine. "Let's do a test. Inali, seal the door to the troop barracks on deck six."

After a few seconds there was a a hard clicking sound and mechanical beep from the entrance door a few feet away. The access panel on the door turned from green to red, and the VI spoke in our helmet earpieces: "Locked."

I nodded toward Jordan. "Inali, unlock that same door." Seconds later, the door's access panel turned green. The VI spoke again. "Unlocked."

"So Inali gave us the keys to get out of this dungeon. How's your kinetic shield?"

"Fully charged now."

"Mine too. All right, Jordan, let's engage our cloaks." I picked up my assault rifle. "Let's move out."

…

Beads of sweat rolled off my face as I wriggled my way around the bundles of cables and pipes that ran through the utility tunnel. The tunnel was only a few feet across and its outer wall was thin like a common air vent. Still, it was strong enough to support our weight. Jordan crawled her way just behind me. I'd expected the utility tunnels to be big enough to crawl through. Sometimes, though, the space tightened down so far I thought we might get stuck. How the hell did the maintenance guys work in here? If it got much tighter, they'd need to stop using the tunnel, reach for their torches and cut their way out.

I whispered, "This is like spelunking in a cave. I wonder if Gollum ever felt like this in Lord of the Rings. Myyy Precious…where is my Precious…."

Jordan chuckled, then hissed toward me. "Matt, shut the hell up, will you?" I imagined her smiling inside her helmet. We were marked for death but at least we still had our sense of humor.

The confined space of the tunnel carried signal wires and insulated pipes for Ares station's water, chemical wastes, and who knew what else. The whoosing sound of flowing liquids inside the pipes helped cover the sound of their movements. After a few minutes, voices could be heard from the rooms below them.

"Evan, what's this I'm hearing about a damn turian infiltrator on the loose?"

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. After a moment's pause, we heard a familiar voice respond. Evan Craig was another member of our squad. "The Director ordered my team to go to an ice planet and capture a high value turian target, sir. We brought him in yesterday."

"Well, rookie, you guys were too good at your job. You should've killed him. He broke out of the prisoner wing a couple of hours after the shooting started this morning. He might even be joined up with one of those traitors from your squad."

"If I see that turian or those traitors, I'll finish that job."

We froze in place. Evan was not only alive, but he had joined up with the Cerberus loyalists who fought to control the station. I toggled my com and spoke softly. "Did you hear that?"

"Yes. I heard them. Evan's alive. He's joined the bad guys."

I remained still. "Jordan, if we're right about the implants, then Evan hasn't 'chosen' anything. He's our teammate. He might know what happened to Samantha." I flexed my jaw. I couldn't stand not knowing if Evan was on our side or not. But I didn't want to get myself or Jordan killed trying to find out. The subtle unwanted thought of killing our squad leader Randall Ezno faded to the front of my mind again like a tap on the shoulder. I shook the thought away and focused my mind.

Jordan whispered, "Matt, what if Evan tries to fight us? We might get hurt. Or captured."

I whispered back, "All right, all right. We don't know how many bad guys are down there. For now, let's keep moving."

After a few minutes, all was quiet again. I addressed the VI image in my helmet. "Inali, can you access the security cameras for the room below us?"

"Accessing," said the VI. Static appeared in their helmets, followed by a grainy black-and-white image of a two-story cargo bay. Groups of gas and liquid cylinders stood double-chained and bolted to storage racks. Tall stacks of crates neatly arranged by rows stood alongside debris and shattered crates whose contents lay strewn about the floor. A group of five asari and three krogan - escaped prisoners from the breakout - sifted through their contents. Again, I heard voices from below. The first voice was an asari.

"Have you found any weapons? Food?"

The second voice was a krogan. "Cerberus left us a gift. We have rifles and grenades in this crate!"

I toggled my com and whispered. "Keep quiet. Let's leave these guys alone."

A pair of unseen booming explosions from below shook the tunnel and my HUD showing the cargo bay went black. Fire alarms sounded and gunfire erupted in the cargo bay below us as the tunnel shook again. "Jordan, grab something!"

I saw Jordan wrap her arms around the cables above her to steady herself. I struggled to move between stretches of pipes. Dozens of stray rifle rounds zipped through the tunnel and pierced the pipes near me, spraying fluids all over me. Krogan roars mixed with the sound of gunfire echoing off the walls. Then I felt something kick me in the middle of my back and I heard a crackling sound all around me.

"I'm hit. My shield's holding -"

High pitched ricochets and the shrieking whistle of escaping gas reached our ears as another explosion made the tunnel lurch. The whole space made a heavy groaning sound as the tunnel started to crumple at the midpoint between me and Jordan.

Jordan shouted, "Matt, move!" She reached out her hand and I tried to grab it. I clambered through shredded cables and sprayed fluids, but the sound of ripping metal filled my ears as the tunnel tore apart. I shouted as I lunged my arm toward Jordan's, too late, and I plunged twenty feet down to the deck. I tumbled out of the tunnel and landed in the middle of a crossfire.