Chapter 36

The climb down to my father's little dungeon took longer than expected; thanks to both the distance of travel and the number of security measures we had to bypass to avoid triggering any alarms during our descent. Squinting to see in the low light, Nalar managed to deactivate these systems one by one, with the help of the occasional advice called out by the rest of us from time to time. Our various careers had managed to give all of us a number of insights regarding hacking security.

Once at the bottom, it was almost too dark to see but as my eyes adjusted to the light I realized we were probably in a small auxiliary control room. We had just come in via a maintenance shaft I realized and used that info to start building a mental map of the facility.

The first two rooms we came across were nondescript corridors, lacking any kind of features other than a couple of Cerberus logos on the walls (as if we needed further confirmation). The next room we found was a small surgical theater, crude tools and implements lining the walls, a half dozen operating tables clustered in the center of the room, only one of which was occupied.

"Is he...? Were they turning him into one of their soldiers?" Melnar asked anxiously, looking at the bloodied mess lying on the bench.

I shook my head emphatically.

"No. According to these notes, there was a fault with one of his implants. They brought him to this small surgical bay to investigate the fault."

"Small?"

"I imagine the real conversion room looks more like a production line," Kallen muttered.

"You think-"

He fell silent at the sound from the next room and we all vanished into cover without another word. A few moments later the guard, a Cerberus centurion, appeared at the door. As he methodically made a sweep of the room we were forced to stay on the move, staying low and ducking behind the surgical tables to keep him from spotting us. That is until Kolvar crept up behind him, lifted his faceplate, and pushed a scalpel inside. The Centurion dropped to the floor like a bag of bricks.

"Are you out of your mind?" I hissed at him.

"He was in the way," he shrugged. "I don't know what you're so upset about Lawson, it's not like he was even human anymore."

"And if his disappearance creates further suspicion? Rule one, you never take direct action if you can avoid it."

"I'm not your student anymore, Lawson," Kolvar sneered.

"And this isn't a training exercise. If you do anything else to jeopardize the mission, I'll kill you myself. I'm going to check the next room, Nalar keep an eye on him."

The way ahead was clear so we pressed on, only occasionally encountering a guard that we had to avoid or a new macabre clue to ponder. The tidbits of intel we were picking up were concerning. Just as I feared they pointed toward something more than just a factory for new Cerberus soldiers (a bad enough concept in itself). There was talk in the log entries we found of a grand experiment, something that required thousands of repetitions to make progress.

Then we heard a strange rattling noise coming from a darkened room at the end of the hallway we were in. As we moved to investigate we found ourselves in a large spacious room, with strange metal and glass containers affixed at standard intervals around the walls. The sound was coming from within these containers but it wasn't until we drew close that the beams from our flashlights could pierce through the small windows well enough to reveal the creature within.

There were cables embedded in its chest, and a metal plate welded over its face. Its eyes were fixed cameras, blank, staring, and emotionless but the way it threw itself against its prison still managed to convey anger nonetheless.

"Husk," I whispered.

"What?" Asked Nalar who was staring into the capsule with a mixture of horror and disgust.

"It's a Reaper footsoldier. We've been lucky not to encounter them 'till now but I've seen them before. The Reapers make them out of captured humans to serve as cannon fodder."

"I've seen the images on the news but it doesn't quite prepare you does it?" Kallen muttered.

"No..." I murmured, memories of the Reaper corpse and the Collector base coming back to me. After all this time spent skirting the edges of the war I'd almost forgotten who the real enemy was. Almost.

"Why would they do this?" Nalar asked.

"Power," I snorted with derision.

"Cerberus has always been obsessed with anything it sees as powerful. That's why they tried to breed Rachni, tame Thorian creepers, and perform experiments with Thresher Maws. It was never a good idea, they just can't help themselves. They see something strange and dangerous and they just have to try and control it. It's probably why they decided to try and convert me instead of just shooting on sight."

I glanced briefly at Kolvar.

"Would've made his job a lot easier."

"There was more to it than that, at least so I heard. Something to do with Shepard, I think."

"Really? Well, this should be interesting. Do tell."

"Well, I'm sure you heard the rumor that the Illusive Man was always counting on Kai Lang to take Shepard down if he ever became a problem for us."

"Half of Cerberus knows that rumor. Was never entirely convinced of it myself. Lang's a vicious bastard to be sure, I don't think I'd even want to tangle with him myself, but against the Commander...?"

"Yeah well, I heard the Illusive Man started to have doubts too. Had this big project set up to create a partner for him."

"Me?"

"No, not at first. Rumor has it the original never made it back from the Sol system after the Reapers rolled in. That's about when our orders for you switched from kill to capture.

"So the Illusive Man wanted me and Lang to take down Shepard? Hmm, that's actually not a bad plan-"

"And what an impressive champion for Humanity you might have made. Not that it could ever have compared to your original intended purpose."

/"Father," I replied, turning around.

He was flanked by six Cerberus troopers, two on his right, left, and behind. More exits to the sides opened to reveal additional troops that closed on us from all sides. I flared my biotics, the rest of the team settled for raising their weapons and taking up a defensive position to cover all sides.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice when my own creation just walked into the base? I'm disappointed in you Miranda, it took you much longer to get here than I anticipated."

"Oh, I knew you'd realise I was coming. Counted on it actually. I knew your arrogance would lead you to confront me in person. And with only a handful of guards to back you up. I'm disappointed in you father, I thought you'd have a healthier respect for my abilities. Now tell me where Oriana is or I promise to kill you before anyone manages to take me down."

For a moment a brief look of concern crossed but it died within seconds as I felt the butt of a pistol pressed into the small of my back.

"I suppose that's more like the Miranda I remember, daring, capable, and as always coming up short at the last moment. And now you've gotten all of your friends killed as well. Did you even warn them what you had in mind when you dragged them into this?"

"Yes, she did. She trusted all of us with the plan before we left," called out Nalar.

"And that's why we were able to suggest a few improvements. Marie? Jackson?"

The two Cerberus guards standing behind Henry Lawson pressed the butts of their rifles into his back and he instantly went pale.

"Did you miss us?" Jackson called out, raising his faceplate.

"You two? Again? I told you to let me check every new arrival!" Kolvar hissed angrily as he turned on me father.

"You think I'd trust you with that? If you haven't promised me Miranda I would have had you converted as ordered. Still... it's a stalemate then," my father replied, struggling hard to maintain a facade of calm.

"Hardly. We both know only one of us is willing to risk our lives for Oriana. I'll give you thirty seconds to dismiss your guard and have her brought here or we'll take our chances with gunfire."

He held out for about thirteen seconds, longer than I had expected to be honest. Kolvar was the only holdout but a quick biotic strike knocked him to the floor and the others restrained him (while he was shouting wild threats of retaliation). Once the rest of the guards had been removed to a safe distance (Kolvar was kept where he was so we could keep an eye on him) Oriana was brought out.

She was a sight for sore eyes to be sure. A little thinner than I recalled but in every other way exactly the young woman I had gotten to know over the past year (for years I had been her silent protector, it was Shepard that had urged me to become a part of her life). I rushed forward and wrapped my arms around her but she couldn't reciprocate because of the manacles around her wrists.

"Miri? What's going on?"

"It's alright. I'm taking you ho- I'm going to get you out of here, Ori."

God only knows what's become of her home by now but that much I could promise at least. Over her shoulder, I demanded my father explain why she was restrained.

"It became regrettably necessary after a recent incident. She got hold of a gun from one of the guards and nearly managed to kill me. Your influence over her was obviously stronger than I realised."

"I'm only sorry I didn't give her target practice," I replied.

Ori's shackles were released and we had the reunion I'd spent most of the last three months imagining. There were hugs and more than a few tears but it couldn't last long. Pretty soon Ori was pulled away to face our father.

"So what happens now?" She asked. "Are you going to kill him?"

I could have sworn my father went even paler at that suggestion if that were at all possible. But I shook my head firmly.

"No, we have everything we came for. Getting you out safely is worth more than his life."

"He'll come after us."

"He's been trying for years. And Cerberus is on the ropes against the Alliance now, they won't waste resources trying to help him again."

"So what happens now?" She asked again.

"Nalar and Jackson are arranging transportation and setting up a secure route to it for us. It won't be long before we get out of here but first you-" I nudged Father with my boot.

"- are going to show me what you were doing here. Beyond running your own private hell."

Part of me didn't really care what they had been up to but if the data was valuable enough it might just buy us amnesty with the Council and the Alliance. After everything I had been through, it would be nice to stop running for a while.

And so with Kallen, Melnar, and Marie on hand to give us backup we frogmarched my father off to show us the nightmare he had created. Under considerable duress (Marie can be scary when she wants to be) he showed us the data. Records of test subjects in the hundreds of thousands, repetition driven statistics about indoctrination rates under different conditions, conversion to subservient Cerberus troopers, conversion to Husks and other Reaper footsoldiers.

"You turned thousands of people into those, things, those Reaper troops, why?"

"We were learning how to subvert the Reaper control signal. If we could override it, if we could maintain a stable control of these creatures imagine what we could accomplish."

"Oh just what I've always wanted, a few Husks running around for me like sock puppets."

"Don't be a child. If we could take control of Reaper ground forces on the battlefield it would be a major victory for everyone. Think how many lives could be saved if we-"

"And can you?" Kallen asked, his voice strangely high-pitched.

"I'm sorry?"

"Can you maintain control of Reaper ground forces? Even when they are being actively directed by a Reaper?"

"In theory, yes there's no reason why it shouldn't work. Although the signal may have to be somewhat stronger than the one we can generate here."

"So that's a 'no' then."

"It will work. We just need more time to-"

"You're out of time," the Colonel replied flatly. He pointed up at a monitor above us that was displaying a proximity alert. He was right, time was up. A Reaper had just come through the Relay.

The war was here.