Chapter 7
When I regained consciousness I found myself securely tied to a chair, in what looked to be some sort of Cerberus laboratory. There was medical and scientific equipment strewn all over the place, all emblazoned with that same bright orange logo. As I took in my surroundings I almost allowed my shoulders to slump in defeat. The only thing that stopped me, was the fact that I wasn't prepared to give them the satisfaction of knowing they'd beaten me.
Privately however I had to admit it did look that way. I tried to shift my weight, to see if I could tip over the chair, but I was tied to it so tightly that I couldn't move an inch, and in any case, it was bolted to the floor. I tested my biotics but as expected my amplifying implant (amp for short) had been surgically removed. Like most biotics, without it, my abilities were such that I could barely throw a book across the room, much less send even one soldier flying.
And I would definitely need to be able to take out a hell of a lot more than just one trooper to escape this time. From the crowding around me, it seemed as if Alex had assigned almost every man he had available to guard me. If I had still been his superior I would have reprimanded him for that. Sending so many to watch a single prisoner was not only sloppy and inefficient but worse than that it compromised their overall effectiveness. I supposed that this over the top display was just his way of covering himself in case anything did go wrong. At the very least, no one would be able to say he hadn't assigned enough men to guard me.
Obviously critiquing my former student wasn't exactly a priority given the circumstances, but I really would have felt better about my capture if it had at least been executed by someone worthy of respect. If I had to be captured, I'd hoped to at least make my captor work for their prize, but the reality had been very different. Reduced to squatting with a band of criminals and betrayed by everyone around me, my capture had not only been inevitable; it had also been hilariously easy for them.
Was I surprised that Kroll had betrayed me? It shocked me to realize that the answer to that question was yes. Just like Niket, just like Justaro, he was just the latest in a long line of reasons not to trust anyone other than myself. Worse yet I had known that from the beginning, had understood what he was from the moment we met, and still I fell for it in the end. I like to think of myself as cautious and reserved, as someone who avoids placing undue trust into anyone if I can avoid it. But all too often practicality demands you put at least some trust in others and somehow whenever I am forced to choose someone to rely on, it's always the wrong man.
But I had to put this all to one side as my hosts started to realize I'd woken up. The man that approached me was one I didn't recognize, though judging by his uniform he was a naval officer. He was flanked on one side by Alex and on the other by a woman I vaguely remembered as Marie Hodgeson, an analyst that had briefed me on one or two missions in the past.
"Ah good morning, Miss Lawson. Welcome aboard the Hades, I'm Captain Lentz."
The Hades, I hadn't heard of it before but it was typical of the organization to select names from ancient mythology. Now that I come to think of it, the names match the Illusive Man's sense of grandeur quite nicely.
I sized up the officer in front of me. Not a name or a ship I had heard of within Cerberus and even a single glance quickly offered a plausible explanation for that. From the look of him, the man was all about appearances, right down to the fussy little mustache on his upper lip. Not fat, but softer round the edges than you'd expect if he'd been proper military. It could have all been a front of course (letting your colleagues underestimate you is often safest within Cerberus) but I wondered if he hadn't bought his way up to a captaincy rather than making a name for himself to do it. A useful thought but I would need more time than I suspected I had left to make use of it.
"How did you find me?"
"Ah straight to the point! It seems what I've been told about you is true, always focused on the bottom line," the Captain said with some enthusiasm.
"But as to your question... You must know we received information from Elim Justaro regarding your whereabouts."
"He just volunteered it?"
"He wasn't keen but yes. His son had gotten himself into a spot of bother with the locals and we were his last hope for relocation. Once he told us where to find your little hiding spot of course."
I nodded, trying to keep things civil with the captain while he was happy to give out answers.
"The only thing I still don't understand is how you were able to locate the others at the warehouse-"
"Enough of this talk," announced the charmless Kolvar as he stepped to the front.
"The Volus is dead and how we captured you isn't very important compared to what happens next."
"You shoot me?" I asked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. My mind was racing like mad trying to think of a way out of this, but I was helpless.
"Oh we aren't planning on shooting you Miranda, we are going to show you what happens to-"
Kolvar began saying before I interrupted him.
"I'd call that your first mistake Alex if it wasn't for the mess you've made of this entire operation thus far."
To my disappointment, the jibe didn't anger him the way it used to, in fact, he smiled as I said it.
"Oh how I'd forgotten the classic scathing wit of the Ice Queen," he sneered back at me.
"I remember all your pedantic little lessons all too well and, well... to be completely honest it does make this just that much more satisfying."
"Last time I spoke to the Illusive Man he wanted me shot on sight. What changed?"
"We found a way to make you useful to us again," Kolvar explained.
"A way of accessing your unique abilities without having to deal with the bad attitude. Tell me Miranda, do you see anyone you recognize in this room?"
I glanced at Marie but she was doing everything she could to avoid looking me in the eye. I decided not to bring her into this.
"Should I?" I asked, trying to sound bored and unimpressed though the horrible grin on his face was getting to me. I could already tell he had some horrible surprise in store for me and his excitement was palpable.
"Well I have to admit the helmets do make it difficult for you but this," he said clapping his hands on the shoulders of one of my guards.
"This here is Stephen Dalhson, he was one of your top students, I believe?"
"He was certainly better than you were," I replied, not liking where this was going.
"And over here we have Chris Tenson, who I've been told is an old friend of yours?"
"What's the point of all this, Alex?"
Why would Chris be working as a guard? The guy was a fantastic administrator but he aimed a gun like he was wearing a blindfold.
"Show her," Kolvar commanded, the smirk on his face now unbearable.
As one man all of my guards raised one hand to their heads and lifted their faceplates.
"Chris. Oh god, what have you done to them?"
His skin was discolored, faded to papery whites and greys. Around the eyes, you could see the metal sticking out of his flesh. I couldn't tell you what these implants were for but I knew that they extended throughout his entire body, corrupting and disfiguring him. I knew that because I had seen it before, had fought against the thing he was being turned into. He looked halfway toward becoming a Reaper Husk. I could scarcely believe that even Cerberus could resort to this, what on earth were they trying to do here?
"Was it really necessary to bring these... things down here?" Asked Captain Lentz with some distaste. Beside him, Marie looked like she wanted to be sick.
"Illusive Man gave the order, think he wanted her to know all her allies in the organization were gone."
All? Now I forced myself to look at each of the ruined faces on display. With some effort, I was able to see past the grotesque transformations and recognize the features of the people I used to know. People that I had condemned to death when I chose to leave Cerberus.
I looked into the faces of Sally Lavine and Paul Travis and in my mind's eye, I could still see the people they had once been. I recalled the way she used to bite her lip when she was working on a difficult problem in the lab. I remembered when he turned to me for support after his wife left him because she'd discovered who he worked for. I should have told him to get the hell out and try and win her back. All of these people had, had strange, complicated, beautiful, messy lives, and Cerberus had torn that away. Sheering their souls from their bodies but leaving their lives intact.
As I searched every face I felt a small guilty relief that Jacob Taylor wasn't among them. I haven't heard from him for months, not since we both left the Normandy. Wherever he is, he's now the only friend I have left from my years in Cerberus. But even that last piece of solace seemed under threat as Kolvar's next words froze the blood in my veins.
"And now we have just one more old friend for you to meet."
He retrieved a device from his pocket, it's design strange and unfamiliar to me. It floated up through the air without assistance and when it stopped it projected the image of a man, but not the one I'd been expecting. No, he was referring to my former employer, the Illusive Man himself.
"Miranda, I want you to know I'm sorry it had to come to this. You were always one of my best operatives."
"Oh, it had to come to this?" I echoed. "Please spare me the rhetoric. We both know the only reason you're doing this is because I bruised your precious ego by leaving. Turns out you're no different from my father."
"On the contrary, the necessity of your capture is as a direct result of your own selfishness. Your father created you to be the ultimate weapon, a tool that could help ensure our very survival. But when you left, you denied us access to that resource and in so doing you betrayed not only me and Cerberus, but all of humanity. Thanks to your decision I was forced to step in to contain the situation, and mitigate our losses"
"Mind if I ask how having me shot changes that? You've lost my skills forever no matter what you do."
He frowned slightly at that and turned in Alex's direction.
"I distinctly recall ordering operative Kolvar to make it clear that's not what I have in mind. Think about it for a moment, if I wanted you dead I could have ordered Captain Lentz to fire on your compound from orbit the moment we discovered where you were hiding. I fully intend to keep you as an asset Miss Lawson and as you can see, I now possess the means to ensure your loyalty."
"You can't be serious!" I cried out, shock and anger leaving me too incensed to think.
"You've let the Reapers turn your own people into Husks."
"Don't be absurd. We've merely extracted certain beneficial technologies from the Reaper design and incorporated them into our own self enhancement programs. The implants may improve speed, strength, and loyalty but unlike the Husks, as you call them, the subjects remain very much alive."
"Is this what you call living? Are these things even still aware any more?"
"I call it a step in the right direction. They've been improved, a goal that Cerberus has always been committed to. Not to mention a goal that you yourself have always supported us in. Even this latest breakthrough was only possible thanks to advances you made in our implant technology while working on Project Lazarus."
"That project was meant to be about saving lives, not destroying them," I said recalling the years I spent trying to bring Shepard back from the dead.
"An objective in which it had unprecedented success as I recall. You succeeded in saving hundreds of thousands of colonists from the Collectors, but that victory will mean little if we allow them to fall into the hands of the Reapers. If we refuse to use the full potential of this weapon out of some blighted sense of morality then-"
"Enough! Short as my remaining time is, I've no desire to extend it by listening to your justifications any longer."
He blinked slowly, looking, for the first time I could remember, surprised at being cut short.
"I had hoped to part ways with a former colleague on amicable terms, but it appears you're too far gone to remember the importance of our work. Much as I enjoyed working with you all these years the time has come to contain the situation. Goodbye Miss Lawson."
For a moment he just stood there still smoking that damn cigarette. I could have mistaken the look on his face for one of genuine sadness and regret but I knew him too well for that. If he had any regrets at all it was at losing one of 'his' best people. I always knew that he had seen Cerberus leadership as a team, almost as a family even. But that notion had always been poisoned from the start, despite our devotion to him we couldn't stand each other and it was only his ego that made our group into something it was not. Still, I could play on that to get the information I most desperately needed.
"Wait before you-" I began, intentionally showing weakness to play on any last sympathy he might still be capable of.
"Before it happens, can you tell me what you've done with Oriana?"
He looked straight into my eyes, his cybernetics glowing clear as day through his irises, the legacy of some incident in his past that he refused to talk about, then turned away.
"As far as Cerberus is concerned your... 'sister' is of little interest to us. If she's gone missing it's more than likely she's been caught up in the Reaper invasion. If not then she's most likely somewhere safe with her family," he said without looking back at me.
"Operative Kolvar you may begin the procedure when ready."
As his image disappeared it was replaced by Kolvar's grinning mug, I can't say it was much of an improvement. He picked up a plastic face mask off the table that had a tube connecting it to the gas cylinder nearby. I knew that when he pressed it against my face I would fall unconscious and Miranda Lawson would never wake up again.
But I wasn't afraid because I could see something he could not. A smile broke out on my face, the first one I could remember giving since before I landed on the godforsaken planet below.
"Alex, behind you," I called out in a singsong voice, slightly giddy with relief at the notion of a stay of execution.
He paused briefly, caught off guard despite himself by my uncharacteristic attitude but shrugged it off, and kept coming until a voice called out to him from behind.
"Agent Kolvar, stand down."
The voice belonged to Captain Lentz and as he turned round he saw what I had seen. As focused as he, the captain, the guards, and even the Illusive Man had been on me, the real threat lay elsewhere. And now there stood Marie, pure disgust on her face and scalpel in hand; pressed against the Captain's throat.
His face was completely pale now, almost as colorless as his pristine white uniform. One look in his eyes was all it took to tell me he wasn't going to be brave. Maybe he'd imagined his position as captain of a powerful warship would insulate him from personal risk, maybe he had a family he couldn't risk leaving behind. Whatever the reason, the important thing was that right now we held the upper hand.
But how long would we be able to hold onto it? Pleased as I was at this sudden turn of events, I wasn't quite sure what Marie had planned here. She looked half mad, just as pale as the captain himself, though in her case I hoped it was from rage, not fear. Pressing the blade even closer to his throat she hissed some words into Lentz's ear. I couldn't hear what she said but obviously whatever she'd asked him to do scared him even more than he already was. I saw his eyes visibly widen as he understood what she had in mind and then watched as his pupils darted around the room, searching for a way out.
I held my breath knowing that we stood a hair's breadth away from everything going sideways. Marie seemed to sense this too because she started whispering in his ear again, more fiercely and urgently than before. There was a long tense moment before the captain's eyelids dropped again and the tension drained out of his face, replaced by resignation.
"Guards, release Miranda Lawson and eliminate Agent Kolvar."
At that moment I understood just how strong our hand was, the Illusive Man had boasted of his new soldier's increased loyalty but that loyalty was directed towards the highest ranking Cerberus operative in the room. By bringing a direct threat down on the captain Marie now had control of all of the augmented soldiers aboard the ship.
As for Alex, as soon as he heard those words he snarled like a wounded animal, his anger at Lentz's betrayal flashing dangerously in his eyes. The tables had been turned against him but he wasted no time in taking revenge. Before I could blink he had jumped back and loosed a shot directly at my head. He moved faster than I could ever have believed but his determination to kill me wasn't a surprise. It was the only way he had left to salvage his reputation with the Illusive Man after this debacle.
I survived only because one of my guards had stepped forward to carry out Marie's orders by freeing me. Paul Travis didn't make a sound as he was shot in the back and collapsed on top of me. Frustrated Kolvar tried to move round to find a clear shot at me only to run into Stephen Dalhson trying to hit him with a debilitating electric shock. Again I was shocked by Alex's quick reflexes as he ducked out of the way at the last second and then blew his attacker's brains out.
Even with his enhanced speed things were getting pretty dicey for him now as the troopers started crowding round him. He managed to force those nearest to him back but even he could see that he wouldn't have a chance of reaching me before they swamped him. As they surrounded him, I wasn't sure what I would do if he gave himself up but ultimately the question never arose. Raising a hand he unleashed a shockwave that knocked aside everyone standing between him and the exit.
The guards had already been freeing me but now I impatiently knocked their clumsy hands aside so that I could attack the remaining restraints myself. Once free I jumped off the chair and took off after Kolvar. Having just seen the corpses of just about everyone I ever cared about in my old life I was in the mood for some payback. Marie called out to me to wait, but I ignored her, snatching up an assault rifle from one of the fallen guards.
I chased him down the corridors at full speed, barely thinking about the dangers I was putting myself in. To my surprise he ignored some obvious routes of escape, choosing instead to bolt down a flight of stairs to what was marked as the detention level. I followed him down regardless, confused by his actions but mainly just focused on revenge.
There were just two guards on duty at the holding cells (presumably the rest had been reassigned to guard me at the lab). When Kolvar entered the room they both saluted him and so, badly outnumbered as I was, I slowed my approach and hid in the shadows further along the corridor. With any luck, Alex would imagine that he had managed to lose me and I could wait for an opportunity to strike.
Moments later, to my frank astonishment, the cell doors unlocked and Vorlak, and the rest of his crew all marched out. Vorlak seemed confidently sure of himself but some of the others seemed badly confused as to what was going on. As for a matter of fact was I, why would Alex want to release the prisoners? And why wasn't Kroll there in pride of place next to his master, still gloating about how he had deceived me. I would find out soon enough as Kolvar addressed the Elcor directly.
"We have a problem. Miranda, that is to say the woman you knew as 'Jack', has managed to kidnap the Captain."
"With derision: Is this the best we can expect from Cerberus?"
"This hardly the time for jokes. Many of our guards are... Loyal to the Captain. If we can't rescue him then our control of the ship is in jeopardy."
"That is your concern. I have given you the human, but you have yet to deliver on your promises."
"Cerberus won't be able to give you a thing if that woman gains control of the ship! Look we can still turn this thing around again but I need your men to assault the labs where they're holding him right now."
"Wait... You made a deal, with Cerberus?" John asked.
Kolvar glanced up from unlocking the cells.
"You didn't tell them?"
Vorlak didn't seem to have an answer for that so I emerged from my hiding place to speak for him.
"I guess he didn't mention trying to have me killed either."
"What?" the accusation in John's voice could have fueled a dozen mutinies.
"He ordered Kroll to take me out in the middle of the raid on our compound. Not to mention he's also responsible for getting us all caught."
I paused and turned to look the Elcor squarely in the eye.
"You informed Cerberus which ship we were leaving on. And then you deliberately knocked out the Salarian so that the ship would shut down and leave us powerless to escape. The only thing I don't understand is why. What did they offer you?"
"You wouldn't understand human-" Vorlak rumbled before Kolvar cut him off.
"Why are we even still discussing this? Vorlak, order your men to kill her and take back the ship!"
Not one of them moved, even Vorlak did not choose to respond, likely unhappy with the way the request had been made. Whatever the reason for the hesitation Alex's patience snapped.
"Fine I'll do it myself," he said as I saw his biotics flare. Acting on instinct I lashed out with my own and for a moment our combined efforts collided and clashed. But the deadlock broke quickly in a flash of blue light that hurled me backwards. Without my amp, I was simply no match for him.
"Such impressive gifts," Alex muttered, surprised that I was still able to resist him at all given my present condition.
"Such a pity they were given to the wrong person."
He aimed his weapon down towards the spot where I lay defenseless. But today really wasn't working out to be his day when he was knocked flat on his back by a charging Krogan. To give him his due he rolled with it and was back on his feet before long but chaos had erupted around him.
Vorlak's crew had erupted into infighting between those that were still loyal to him and those that couldn't stomach his betrayal. The Cerberus guards in the room were getting drawn into it too. Badly outnumbered by the aliens they had brought on board they held their only thanks to the fact that they were the only ones in possession of any weapons.
Still even this wasn't enough when the Krogan turned on them. With John leading the charge they ignored the shots fired at them and he headbutted the first guard to the ground within seconds of getting in range. John laughed as his target went down, enjoying the thrill of battle as only a Krogan can. Capitalizing on his success he grabbed the gun of the second guard and dragged it off target while using his free hand to punch him in the gut. The guard doubled up in pain and John laughed again as Alex shot him.
Two pistols, fired simultaneously to put a hole in both hearts at the same time. Not even a Krogan could survive such a wound but as I ran to him and held him in my arms I caught myself waiting for that famous Krogan healing to kick in. There was nothing, except for the blood gushing from his chest.
Around me, the battle was going badly for Cerberus and Vorlak. Marie had sent a contingent of troopers after me and together with my friends they were taking down the enemy. It wasn't long before Vorlak ordered a retreat, virtually forcing a reluctant Alex to go with him. I didn't take in any of this until afterwards, at that moment I had eyes only for John. He smiled up at me as he died, not with the battle laughter of a few moments ago but with the innocent little smile he'd given me when he caught that first fish back on Korlus.