Clone Shenanigans

Author's Note: This is a story revolving around the premise of the "Identity Theft" portion of Mass Effect 3's Citadel add on, except with a twist. While it won't go much into the weeds of what was actually in the game, it will create a bit of extra lore for before and after it. Stay tuned to see where it goes.


She was a shadow. A figment. Never truly there, but always lurking. Always behind the scenes. She had many names; Captain Channing, Tabitha Rasa, Maya Brooks. No one knew her true name. But one stuck longer than others; Hope Lilium.

Hope was a Cerberus background operative that strongly believed in the organization's stance on human dominance. No one save The Illusive Man himself ever knew what her assignments were. Very few within the whole of Cerberus even knew she existed, much less what she looked like. A pair of facts that she wholeheartedly embraced. Being so thoroughly entrenched behind the scenes meant that she was free to go about accomplishing whatever her given primary task and purpose were in any manner she saw fit, so long as she got results. And indeed results was what she got.

While going about the business of gathering the dossiers of Commander Winter Shepard's crew for her campaign against the Collectors whilst the Commander was still being rebuilt, Hope happened upon some very interesting information buried beneath mounds of encryption and junk data. With a good amount of further skillful digging, she struck pay dirt. Hope uncovered files containing a cache of information about a clone of Commander Shepard. The files indicated that this clone was originally made to be a live organ bank in case Operative Miranda Lawson's Lazarus team ran into issues rebuilding the Commander. Upon seeing this, the gears in Hope's head immediately began to crank. Her imagination began dreaming up all the possible scenarios of things she could do with Commander Shepard in her back pocket.

Hope began to plot and scheme all the details of how she would go about getting her hands on this clone and what she was going to do when (not if) she did. Since she was aware that clones were birthed as blank slates and not the same person as their original, her idea was to raise the clone in secret, teach her what it meant to actually BE Commander Shepard, put her through intense training, help her eliminate the original, then install the clone as a replacement. Hope reveled in the thought of having direct access to an agent with the privileges and authority of a Council Spectre. That kind of political muscle attached to the most powerful Biotic in Council Space backing her goal of furthering mankind's place in the galaxy through force was a very enticing thought.

After weeks of skulking in the shadows whilst continuing to dig for info, Hope was finally able to discern the location of the facility the clone was being held in; a secret section of the cold storage wing in a civilian genetics lab. Since the lab received funding from Cerberus, Hope's high level of clearance gave her access to be able to easily craft herself authentic access credentials. Too easy, she thought to herself, almost disappointed that she wouldn't need to exercise her master level manipulative and infiltration abilities to gain access. Though she was able to find the location of her target, she was unable to get anything on the building itself. No layouts or floor plans. A bureaucratic mess attributed to the building having gone through recent renovation, ownership of the building changing hands, and the lab's funding switching a few times. She was able to get some staffing info though. She was resourceful and could make due.


Sneaking in disguised as a fresh faced lab intern straight out of school, Hope made her way through the facility. Her cover was perfect as having people think she was new on site meant no one would really question why she might be roaming about lost. She made a specific point of not making eye contact with any of the staff. While she certainly had no qualms killing anyone that got in the way of her goals, she was not particularly fond of the idea of potentially killing a fellow member of Cerberus. They had sleeper agents planted throughout many facilities among the civilian crews, and she did not want to harm any of her own. With that in mind, she only brought weapons that would incapacitate someone, should the need arise to protect her identity.

All seemed to be going well as she plodded through the facility toward the cold storage section. That is, of course, until… Fabian. No sooner after Hope had entered a corridor had she run into her first obstacle. As she rounded a blind corner, Hope had the misfortune to accidentally bump into the director of the intern program, Professor Fabian Del Sol.

"Oh! Excuse me, miss. I didn't see…" Dr. Del Sol's words halted as his eyes caught Hope in full view. Liking what he saw, he said "Well, hello. What do we have here?"

Hope nearly gasped out loud. She had caught sight of Fabian's credential badge with his title on it. Realizing that her cover could very well have been blown, she decided to play off however the professor responded to her presence and react accordingly.

The professor smiled and said, "One of my wayward sheep, I see" referencing her intern badge. The facility used color coded badges for quickly identifying who worked in what department. "I am Dr. Del Sol."

Having read his body language and picking up immediately on the change in his tone of voice, Hope's quick wit was able to craft her response on the fly. "Del Sol?" she said in mock surprise. Instantly, she fell fully into her character as a bright eyed intern, eager to get her feet wet in her new field. Excitedly, she put on her best Iranian Farsi accent and continued. "Ooooh! You're the one they sent me here to see! I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it in person for the initial interview last month,". With an ear to ear smile and faux giddyness exuding off her in waves, she held out her hand in greeting. "Yasmina Rajavi. Genetics mapping major, Neo London University on Bekenstein."

Taking her hand for a polite shake, Dr. Del Sol responded with, "The interviews are pretty much a formality anyway. Once a student gets to that point, they are basically in the door already." After taking a quick moment to take her all in, the professor, a shameless flirt and playboy, instinctively dialed up the charm. "Its so refreshing to get a new student with so much pep in their step. Are all women from Bekenstein so perky? And dare I say, pretty?"

Jackpot! Hope had her "in". She figured all she had to do was a bit of flirting, maybe apply a bit of sodium pentathol to loosen his tongue for information on the site, then put him to sleep. Just your average Thursday at the office for a deep cover operative.

Dialing up the flirty playfulness, Hope responded to Dr. Del Sol with, "Whoa there, big guy. Its only day one. No need to rush." She purposely altered her tone to make it sound like she was being receptive to his overt flirting. Hope felt like she had struck pay dirt. Having dealt with with his type before, she knew how to properly apply or dial back the charm whenever necessary to get what she wanted out of him.

The professor took Hope on a walk around the facility to familiarize her with her new work environment. As they walked, she had planned to have to playfully flirt and tease to get as much out of him about the labs as she could. Fortunately for her, Hope didn't really have to actually do much at all. She quickly discovered that Dr. Del Sol had quite a chatty demeanor and was very forthright with information on the lab. She figured it was a combination of him being in charge of interns and being used to giving info on the site, as well him purposely trying to appear as helpful as possible to put himself in her good graces. Though she could easily sense his ulterior motive, Fabian was making this infiltration even easier than she could have anticipated.

About twenty or so minutes into their tour, Dr. Del Sol came to a stop in front of a lab space that looked like any other throughout the building. "And here we have cold storage," he said, presenting the area with arms spread wide. "Most experiments will begin and end here, as this is where the majority of our samples are housed." Bingo! Hope took a mental note of the location. This was where her ultimate goal lay, though for the time, she would have to keep up the eager student act to keep Dr. Del Sol and anyone else she encountered at bay.

"Begin and end?" she said in plucky tone. Dr. Del Sol nodded. "Do you mind if we have a quick peek?"

"Absolutely!" Dr. Del Sol replied. "You're going to need to get familiar with this space anyway, so no time like the present." They both stepped toward the door to the cold storage area. Fabian said, "Since everyone here needs access to these assets, this space is considered part of 'general access'. Your badge will open it."

The words "general access" were music to Hope's ears. Hidden in plain sight, she thought to herself, referring to her end goal being in such an easily accessible place. She did as instructed and pressed the badge to the key plate next to the door. Upon entering, Hope instinctively began casing the layout of the room. She instantly took notice of the camera in the corner, while also taking note of the angle it was mounted, the arc of its sweeping pan, and the blind spot created as it panned. The gears were already turning to formulate her plan.

Her train of thought was derailed by Dr. Del Sol continuing his duty as her mentor. "As you can see," he began as he approached from her left, "No expense was spared in equipment." He motioned toward various high dollar tools and storage cabinets. "These cold storage labs are essentially the heart of all our research and operations."

Hope's face shone with giddy anticipation. And she didn't feel the need to hide it from Dr. Del Sol. While she was a clandestine operative happy to have eyes on her target, he saw an eager student salivating over the opportunity to get her hands dirty.

Considering she now had her way forward partially mapped out, Hope saw fit to continue with the intern act. She went about the rest of the day with Dr. Del Sol getting acclimated to the research facility. Upon leaving for the day, she got onto her secured Cerberus network connection and did a little more research. She looked up Professor Fabian Del Sol's full background to make sure he wasn't a Cerberus plant. She also did the same for the research assistants and other workers around her assigned work area. Hope wanted to make absolutely sure she wouldn't cross paths with anyone from her organization just in case she did end up having to take anyone out. She discovered that while there were indeed some operatives at the site, there were none in her research unit or near the cold storage labs. That revelation gave her some small comfort. Armed with this new info, she turned in for the night, anxious to put her plans into motion.


A week had passed and Hope had settled in to her role as a plucky genetics intern. She was in no hurry to make it happen, so she was content with slowly gathering further recon of the building. She figured that since the particular internship she put herself on was set to last three months, she would just ride it out and make off with her prize at the end. Failing that, she would ride the internship into a full time research position. She saw it as a bit of a vacation from her duties with Cerberus.

The day to day minutiae may have driven others off, but Hope was already a very intelligent woman. And though genetics was certainly not within her own personal purview, her intellect and adaptability were strong enough to allow her to "fake it 'til you make it" so to speak. Plus, she was driven by the end state of her mission. Little by little, she learned more and more about the site, the people around her, and of genetics and cloning.


A little over two months in, Hope finally got the opportunity she waiting for. Up until then, she had never gotten the chance to fully snoop around the cold storage lab, as there was almost always someone else there. With the lab to herself, she was able to maneuver around the camera and go beyond where she was normally able to go. And just days before, she was finally able to get a hold of an exploded schematic of that section of the building. She discovered that part of the reason it wasn't easy to find was because of recent renovation to the section of the building next to cold storage. With further knowledge of the building, she went in farther and located the hidden area. She couldn't help but admire the lengths Cerberus went to keep that section of the building under wraps. After a bit more snooping around, Hope discovered a very well covered seam in the wall. Her omni-tool was equipped with an electromagnetic scrambler that was capable of disrupting holographic projections. A quick application of this function uncovered a cleverly disguised key panel. Her access to the Cerberus network meant that getting the pass code for the panel was a breeze.

Eureka!

Hope stood before the cryogenic stasis chamber, victorious. With her prize located and sitting right there in front of her, she was left only with the chore of getting it out. She had already formulated her moves for that. When first getting acquainted with her new surroundings, Hope planted a series of small devices on the building's incoming power supplies and on the back up generator cluster. The devices were designed to cause an overload that would black out out the facility, block the generator from firing up, then destroy themselves without a trace. She brought up her omni-tool and sent out a command to them. The ensuing short killed all power to the labs. Having come prepared with a man portable anti-grav transport cart, night vision, and two stealth camouflage rigs, Hope went about using the chaos of the completely dark facility to sneak out.

Back at her safe house, Hope beamed with giddy joy at having accomplished her goal. And so flawlessly at that. She had made it all happen with such precision that she even decided to continue with the last few weeks of the internship. She actually found the info she was taking in to be interesting and engrossing. Plus, doing so would leave no loose ends with anyone at the labs regarding "Yasmina Rajavi". After securing and cloaking the safe house, Hope made her way back to her to the labs to play out the rest of her little ruse. In a few short weeks' time, she would be on track to getting the wheels of her grand endeavor turning.