Chapter 18
The sky was completely clear and the sun was shining down clearly on the planet's surface as fiercely as it ever did. If this were any other planet than Noveria it might even have been warm. As it was we could only be grateful that Port Hanshan wasn't suffering one of its usual blizzards.
It wasn't much better inside (heating the entire dome seemed to be an expense the corporations were unwilling to pay) but at least the icy wind was off our faces now.
"Jeez, if you'd mentioned how cold it was gonna be I wouldn't have volunteered to join this little road trip," Vega complained.
"Sorry, I guess it must have slipped my mind," replied Garrus with a smirk on his face.
"Still if you need something to take your mind off it, we could always try to arrange the full Noveria experience for you. Y'know, let a madman drive you through a snowstorm while a couple hundred Geth try to use you for target practice," he added, referring to one of the Normandy's past missions.
"Nah, I'm good scars. Anyway, you had Shepard with you back then."
"Exactly my point," Garrus murmured.
"Who do you think was doing the driving?"
"I can't believe we're back here," whispered Liara, almost to herself.
"Let's just try to find who we came here for and leave as soon as we can."
We all moved on in silence after that comment. Of course, this would be harder for T'Soni; her mother was killed later on that mission.
We walked through the freezing corridors, every so often passing an opening that declared itself to be the corporate offices of a major tech or research company. There were some serious businesses investing in this frozen ball of ice and pretty much anyone who was anyone needed to be seen to have a presence here at the capitol almost as much as at the Citadel (and sometimes more).
"There, right where she said he'd be."
And so he was, a Turian sitting at the bar, apparently engaged in trying to close a deal with two ExoGeni representatives.
"Can we have a moment of your time, Director?"
The Director stood up and looked at our group, his eyes swiftly widening in recognition.
"Oh spirits, what do you lot want from me this time?"
- 2 days earlier-
Garrus gathered everyone in the War Room to discuss the Colonel's findings now that days of trying to draw information out of Cordanoy had finally paid off.
Like many of the crew, it was my first time in that particular area of the ship. Originally the Normandy SR-2 hadn't needed any such room while it was flying Cerberus colors (we weren't fighting a war at the time) and since rejoining the crew I'd found that my access was far more limited now that this was an Alliance vessel. I understood obviously, but it occasionally makes me want to remind the obtuse guards that I had once been the first officer of this ship.
Still, the room wasn't all that much to look at really. A single central dais that we could all gather round, and walls plastered with consoles that had all been carefully switched off for the occasion. Again, I tried not to take offense, I wasn't the only non-Alliance crew member present after all.
"Thank you all for coming," Garrus said once the last of those invited had filed into the room.
"We've called this meeting to discuss everything we've learned from our Cerberus guest in the last few days."
A few pairs of eyes, mostly Javik's, turned towards me.
"I was referring to our other Cerberus guest. Colonel, would you like to take it from here?"
The Colonel nodded and stepped forward to the forefront of the crowd.
"The Director has not been an easy man to interrogate-" he began saying.
"Especially given the lack of screaming I have been hearing from his cell. If he had been given to me I would have made this primitive talk within the hour."
"As Special Adviser Vakarian and myself have both told you on multiple occasions, we will not be permitting torture aboard this vessel. It has never been proven to give reliable intel in any case," the Colonel answered fiercely, looking thoroughly annoyed at having been interrupted.
"Then your primitive interrogators clearly lacked the stomach to inflict sufficient pain," Javik muttered, but this time sufficiently quietly that the Colonel evidently decided he could ignore it.
"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, the interrogation has not been easy. Cordanoy is a loyal, high-level Cerberus officer who has thus far seemed entirely resigned to his fate as an Alliance prisoner, with no desire to try and improve his situation. However, we have managed to convince him to give up some intelligence that he did not feel would help us attack Cerberus but improve our collective odds against the Reapers."
Liara took over the briefing.
"Most of that intel revolved around the purpose of his last project as Director. Fascinatingly, it appears the Illusive Man wanted to study the alien device because he believed it to bear certain similarities to the blueprints we discovered on Mars. Having compared what we know of the two weapons it almost seems that while they are designed to work in very different ways, the way they generate energy is remarkably similar, if reduced in scale and sophistication in the alien device. We've already forwarded everything we've learned on to Project-"
"That project is classified, Liara," frowned Garrus, disapprovingly.
"I'm sorry, I just can't help but be fascinated that such an ancient piece of technology could have survived for so long."
"Is any of this relevant?" I asked cuttingly. Courtesy aside, none of this had anything to do with why I had brought them this prisoner.
"It's still useful intel to the Alliance," Garrus rumbled.
"But I guess you've been patient long enough, we should move on to the matter of your sister."
Wow, somehow it hadn't occurred to me that he would just mention her so casually, right in front of everyone. I was so used to keeping her existence a secret (for her own safety) that I had simply come to expect the same level of discretion from those I trusted.
"...Cordanoy was not willing to reveal anything about the location of your sister directly," the Colonel was saying when I tuned back into the conversation.
"But our careful background checks eventually yielded some interesting connections to the issue at hand. Our first discovery was a link between Cordanoy and your father."
"What?" I asked genuinely surprised.
"According to our records, they may have worked together, back when Cordanoy was a real executive director, working as a consultant for some of the largest corporations in the galaxy."
"Yes he and my father had some shared interests in Synthetic Insights and Binary Helix, but my father dealt with hundreds, maybe thousands of different executives over the years. It's not much of a link, particularly as the Director didn't join the ranks of Cerberus until many years after my father had stopped making donations to them."
"Actually, we're no longer convinced that that is the case," answered Liara with a soft smile.
"How did you arrive at that conclusion?" I asked, unsure if I should trust this tenuous lead.
"Well, the first clue came from you actually."
"Me?"
"When you reported your observations aboard the alien space station, you commented on the unusual displays that Cordanoy had set up in his own office."
"He claimed they were 'trophies' of particular victories over enemies of Cerberus."
"Indeed. Which is why we were particularly intrigued to hear that one of the displays was of the former rogue Spectre, Saren Arterius."
"Yes, it was strange. Thinking about it afterwards, I always assumed that he made some small contribution to the hunt for Saren, or resisting his Geth army in some way."
"That was our first thought as well," Liara agreed. "But having expended my own intelligence resources looking into it, we couldn't find any evidence to support that theory."
Well OK, if even the Shadow Broker couldn't turn up any evidence to confirm a theory then there was a pretty good chance that the theory was wrong.
"So when did Cordanoy 'defeat' Saren?" I asked, slamming the inverted commas into place to make it clear that I didn't think he'd ever really beaten the ex-Spectre except in some strange technicality that he wanted to claim.
"Well we struggled with that question for some time, until Garrus here had an idea-"
"You had the idea," Garrus interrupted the Colonel gently.
"Well alright, I had the idea, but it wouldn't have gone anywhere without your knowledge-"
"Let's hold off on handing out credit until Oriana is safe. What was this idea?" I asked sharply, to get them back on task.
"Right, so the idea was to look back at Saren's earlier career and see if he had ever crossed paths with Cerberus before."
"Obviously no one knew them as Cerberus until after they assassinated Admiral Kahoku in 2186, but they've existed for much longer than that. And well... After we took down Saren, a large number of his missions reports were declassified, and I couldn't help but start reading through them from time to time."
I smiled. Knowing Garrus he probably spent hours pouring through those reports at every opportunity he got. Once a detective, always a detective it seemed.
"And when the Colonel brought up his idea it got me thinking about an old case in which Saren was sent to track down reports of human supremacists thought to be active on Noveria."
"Where Cordanoy used to work for several of the companies as a consultant manager," I reasoned, beginning to see the connections.
"But that doesn't mean anything, they almost certainly never met."
"Ah, but they did. It's all recorded in Saren's official reports."
"I don't recall ever hearing anything about that," I replied with a hint of suspicion.
"That's probably because Saren never directly names him in his reports. He's just referred to as a representative sent by Synthetic Insights at the request of the Spectre office. I had to check the company records to find out exactly who they sent."
"And then, what Cordanoy lied to him?"
"We think that's exactly what happened. Saren wouldn't have been aware of it at the time but his witness pointed him in the direction of several 'reliable sources' that we have later learned to be Cerberus agents. The whole investigation went nowhere, because Saren was being led on a wild goose chase from the start. His reports don't exactly indicate why the investigation was stopped, only that he grew increasingly frustrated, until a 'diplomatic incident' occurred that lead to Noverian officials petitioning the Council to reassign Saren to another case."
"So Cerberus fed Saren false leads until he finally snapped and killed some people and then the Citadel covered it up?"
"Sounds about right. It wouldn't be the first time they hid the fact that a Spectre had gone too far."
"Well this is all well and good, but what's our next step?"
"I think we should head back to Noveria, see what our contacts can dig up about an old Cerberus base that was connected to Cordanoy, and your father. It could still be active," Garrus answered before turning to Dr. T'Soni and adding.
"Sorry, Liara."
"I appreciate the thought Garrus, but I'll be fine. Let's just get this over with as quickly as possible."
So we set course for Noveria, the corporate capital of Citadel space. The title was earned very simply when the Noveria Development Corporation acquired a private charter over the small colony they immediately began leasing out space for research labs to every major company they could. The message was simple: Come to Noveria, conduct your research, and if any of your experiments beach containment, the icy environment, remote location, and wall of silence around the colony will protect you from any negative consequences, legal or otherwise.
Rumors abound as to exactly what kind of work takes place there, ranging from illegal AI development to cloning and bio-warfare research. As with most places that are so heavily entrenched in corporate or bureaucratic secrecy it is difficult to separate the legitimate concerns from the insane conspiracy theories.
Fortunately, it is exactly the kind of place where the Shadow Broker has agents (particularly as it has thus far been largely untouched by the war) so even before we arrived Liara was able to set some of her people to work, scouting for leads for us to chase up. Which led us (as so many investigations on Noveria do in my experience) to loitering in a dark alley, waiting for our contact to show up.
When he did put in an appearance it was the usual song and dance of theatrics. A long dark cloak that hid the shape of his body and a hood to cover the features of his face. He stood on a nearby balcony, a light shining behind him to ensure we couldn't see him as anything more than a silhouette. It was quite professionally done I had to admit but honestly, there are less dramatic ways of concealing your identity.
"How was the flight from Illium?" Our contact called out the challenge code, a vocal scrambler being used to hide even this aspect of his identity. At the same time, he trained a gun on our representative.
"Late and lost as usual," came the counter from EDI, who we had agreed would be the one left out in the open, as the least likely of all of us to be recognized. The rest of us (just myself and Garrus on this mission) watched from the rooftops with a pair of sniper rifles.
The figure paused for a moment as they ran the words back to themselves to ensure the phrase was exactly right before nodding to himself and lowering his weapon.
"You'll have to forgive the dramatic precautions, these are dangerous times. Everyone is on edge at the moment, especially when you come asking about Cerberus."
"We want to know if they have ever had a presence here on Noveria."
"The galaxy has known that to be true ever since Shepard raided the outpost he discovered on this planet."
Smartass. It was perfectly true that the Alliance had discovered and attacked a small research base here but, he knew full well that wasn't what we were interested in. As he was saying this Garrus, nudged me and silently indicated he wanted to circle round to get a better look at our contact. In response, I simply sighted down my scope to let him know I'd be watching his six.
"We have reason to suspect that their activity on the planet goes back far longer than the that facility has been in operation."
"An interesting theory. Would you care to share the information that has led you to that conclusion?"
The figure let the pause after this question linger, clearly hoping that EDI would eventually feel obliged to fill it. I smiled approvingly as she let him stand there in silence. Good girl. Eventually, he gave up with this tactic.
"Regardless of your reasons, I believe you may be correct. However if you are unwilling to share your intel with me, I see no reason to tell you how to pro-"
"Parasini?" Garrus' voice rang out across the darkened street, and our contact immediately went for their weapon again.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"How the hell do you know my- Wait, is that you Garrus? Mind if I ask you the same question?"
"I think we've made it clear by this point that we're looking for Cerberus," he replied, sounding amused.
"Right. So you and I are after the same thing. Well, it will be nice to get a chance to work with a real C-Sec detective for once, not to mention a Spectre."
"Sorry to have to disappoint you but I'm retired, and Shepard's away on another campaign right now."
"No kidding, huh? Well, I guess I'll have to take what I can get, especially as I've had no one to back me up on this case until now."
"Your employers aren't supporting you on this one?"
"My former employers don't even know I've taken the job. Last case they gave me was about tracking down rumors of new discoveries about dark energy. After Earth was invaded I didn't really see the point in that anymore so I decided to come here to try and do my part. I'm not even sure if my employers are still alive to tell you the truth."
"So what can you tell us about Cerberus on Noveria?"
"Only so much really. I mean there's always been lots of rumors about it if you're walking in the right circles. Which obviously when I'm tracking down white-collar crimes pretty much means always for me. I mean some of it's just crazy conspiracy theory stuff, but when you've been in my line of work for as long as I have, you start to realize just how powerful some of these CEOs really are. They've got deep pockets, they've had to be ruthless to get where they are and some of them have some pretty nasty private agendas."
'It sounds like she's writing my father's next biography' I thought to myself, and she was right, I was living proof of just how disgusting some of the galaxy's leading businessmen could be. Unfortunately, there was just one small downside to the story she was giving us.
"So just to recap, you don't actually have any useful leads for us," I called out from the shadows.
"And who the hell are you lady?" She asked apparently taking exception to both the interruption and the Cerberus uniform I was wearing.
"Miranda Lawson. Ex Cerberus," I replied by way of an explanation.
"But if you'd been paying attention you'd recall that we already met when you bumped into Shepard for a second time on Illium."
"I guess you're not as memorable as you think then. More to the point I actually do have a lead. I just need your help to try and make use of it."
"What you're looking for is a man who would be aware of a group that established themselves here possibly over two decades ago. Someone in a position of power at the time, but the kind of official that could be trusted to keep that kind of infiltration a secret, for the right price."
"Wait, you're talking about ex Administrator Anoleis," said Garrus after a brief pause for thought.
"I thought he was still in prison?"
For the first time in the conversation, Parasini smiled.
"And I know just who can get us access."