Raphael: The archangel most often traditionally associated with healing. He also is occasionally presented as a teacher. In John Milton's Paradise Lost, it is Raphael whom God sends to Adam and Eve in the Garden to warn them again of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and instruct them about the war in heaven.
II
Raphael
Garrus woke, panicked. The sickly sweet, sleepy haze of drugs filled his brain. He couldn't remember how to move, and the whole right side of his head, neck, and the top of his right shoulder were numb. Heavy. Paralyzed. They felt stuffed with fabric or plastic.
The smell of blood was gone, replaced with infirmary antiseptic. The grit of Omega was gone, replaced with the sterile, artificial gravity that meant he was on a starship.
And someone was gripping his arm.
Somehow, Garrus managed to tilt his head to look and see the gloved human hand wrapped around his wrist. Slowly, laboriously, he turned his head to follow it up to the face it went with. The sheer difficulty of it was terrifying on its own.
Then he saw the woman holding his wrist, and Garrus relaxed as the memories of the last hour before he'd been injured came flooding back. Shepard. It was Shepard. Wherever he was, he was safe, and it was going to be all right.
She was sleeping in a chair next to his cot. She looked like she'd used to look, off duty on the Normandy, out of armor with her hair down in the long plait she wore it in when she wasn't on assignment. But under her eyes, dark shadows like bruises told him she probably hadn't slept in a while, and he'd been right, before. Her uniform definitely wasn't Alliance. He looked for a logo or insignia on the black and white shirt, but there wasn't one that was clearly recognizable—just the stitched roman characters SR-2.
He knew he should be more concerned with how she was back, how she had found him, who her associates were, what they'd wanted from Archangel, but now he knew he wasn't in any immediate danger, all he really wanted was to go back to sleep.
His mind floated away, a soup of drugged contentment, anesthetized bliss.
His eyes fell away from Shepard's face and drifted back down to her fingers, wrapped around his arm. Even in her sleep, she held on tight, as if afraid he'd slip away.
I said 'just like old times,' but it's not, is it? I never saw her like this in the old days—wasn't sure she even liked me all that much until later on—she was never one to let her guard down, Shepard. Makes two of us. Of course, she hadn't been spaced then. I hadn't been almost taken out by a rocket.
Wonder how close it was? Probably better not to know.
Been a long road since Ilos, Shepard. I guess we're both pretty tough to kill. Just not as tough as we thought back then. We're neither of us invincible. I don't know what monsters led you to wade into hell to pull my ass out of the fire, Shepard—though I could probably take a pretty good guess. But my number was up. I was out of time, and you snatched me back.
. . . You're the commander. Now we know I'm no good at that. Who am I to argue with you? If you need me, if you want me, and if when the painkillers wear off I'm any good to you at all after what happened on Omega—I'm there.
Her breathing was gentle and rhythmic beside him. Her fingers around his wrist were warm, solid, alive, and real. It was unbelievable. After Archangel, after Sidonis, after his own stupidity and every demon on Omega had come together to take everything away from Garrus, for some mad, inconceivable reason, the universe had decided to give Shepard back.
In the last moments before the pain pills dragged him back down into sweet oblivion, Garrus kicked into gear all the brain cells he could muster and concentrated.
Slowly, haltingly, his arm rotated in Shepard's grasp, so when Garrus closed his fingers, he could hold her wrist, too.
He closed his eyes.
When Garrus woke up, Shepard was gone. So were the drugs. He could move. The downside of this was, of course, that his old friend excruciating pain seemed to be back. The entire right side of his head and neck, as well as the top of his shoulder, burned and ached and were generally calling him ten kinds of idiotic bastard.
Well. I'm not dead. That's something.
Garrus poked his tongue at the right side of his mandible, and hissed as his tongue ran over hide that seemed to be mostly raw, burned, and pitted.
Garrus sat up, groaning, feeling the pull of heavy bandaging over his injuries. "Careful. A centimeter or two to the left and that rocket would have taken your head off. You're lucky to be alive."
The voice of the human doctor was unexpectedly familiar, and Garrus turned his head, wincing, to look into the concerned green eyes of Karin Chakwas. "Doctor Chakwas," he said. "Are you a sight for sore eyes."
She brought her hand down to the levers under his cot, pushing it up into a sitting position. "There now," she said. "Sit back. You should take things slowly."
He did as she asked. She regarded him a moment, then pulled over the chair Shepard had vacated—which he supposed now was actually her chair. She sat. "It's good to see you. For a while there, I wasn't certain that I could pull you through."
"How bad was it?" Garrus asked. He started to bring his hand up to his face, but Doctor Chakwas shook her head, and he stopped.
"Bad enough," she admitted. "I wouldn't touch if I were you. I doubt you're fully recovered from the surgery, and certainly the flesh is still very tender. You don't walk away from a rocket to the face without a scratch. Your burns were severe, and you lost all hearing in your right ear."
Now Garrus couldn't help it. His hand went to the side of his head, but he only felt the bandage over it. He frowned, then decided that had been a worse idea than touching his wounds.
Neutral expressions, Garrus. Neutral expressions. At least for now.
"I don't understand. I can hear you fine."
Karin nodded. "I was able to correct the damage with cybernetics," she explained. "Still, it was a complicated surgery. I'd like to monitor your recovery over the next several weeks—provided you stay with us, of course. All in all, things weren't nearly as bad as they could have been, Garrus. Shepard got you here in good time, and I was able to save all mental function and most of the surface flesh. I'm fairly confident you'll have full functionality." Her face fell then, and her eyes were sympathetic. "Unfortunately, until the tissue heals and I'm equally confident you're fully recovered from your surgery, I'm afraid I won't be able to do anything about the scarring."
Garrus took this in. His talon hovered over his right ear. It was hard to imagine that the natural ear was just gone. For the rest of his life, half of what he heard would be supplied by a synthetic implant.
But there one minute, gone the next, isn't that how it works? One second Garrus is a more-or-less-intact adult male turian, the next, he gets hit by a rocket and loses his ear and half his face. So much for handsome devil.
Stop it. You're feeling sorry for yourself. All of them died for Archangel and you what? Lose an ear Karin Chakwas replaces so you can't even tell the difference and a face she can't replace just yet. Shut up. You got off so easy it's an insult to their memories.
Still he found himself swallowing, his stomach sinking a little. "It's fine, doctor. I—thank you. I'm glad you were here."
Karin's eyes were shining. She pressed her lips together, and was silent for several seconds. Then she gripped his good shoulder tightly for a moment, and released. "Don't do it again," she ordered him. "As fond as I am of you, Garrus, I'd rather not see you stretched out on my operating table."
"I'll do my best," Garrus told her. "I promise, it was unintentional."
Karin peered at him, and Garrus shifted. She gave a noncommittal hum, and Garrus was the first to drop his gaze. That woman sees more than most psychiatrists.
Doctor Chakwas stood, and walked over to her desk. Garrus followed her progress. Before, he'd been too out of it, but now, even though the pain gnawed at the edges of his brain, it was impossible not to notice just how much the infirmary on this ship looked like the Normandy.
The tech's been updated. It's more extensive. The room's almost twice as large, but otherwise . . .
Karin picked up a report and began typing. "Your surgery went well," she told him. "You're cleared for light duty immediately, though I'd like to have you in here for observation for the next couple nights. However, I'd rather you didn't go storming any armies with Shepard just yet, if you please. At least for the next week or so, until we're certain how your body is responding to the cybernetic implants." She hesitated. "I can give you medication for the pain, if you like. I remember you never—"
"No, you were right," Garrus confirmed, even as his body screamed at him to take the pills. "Only when it's absolutely necessary. I can handle it, doc. But thank you."
"Are you sure?" Doctor Chakwas asked.
He smiled at her, damning the pain. "Absolutely." Then he stood, groaning. "Where are we? It looks like the Normandy."
Karin looked around. "In a way it is. This is the Normandy SR-2, a frigate based on the specifications of the original Normandy."
Garrus hummed, and took a step, trying it out. It was fine. Of course it's fine. It's not your legs that were hurt, you idiot. "Except the original Normandy was an Alliance ship, and this isn't," he said. It wasn't a question.
Doctor Chakwas looked up at him. "Commander Shepard is in charge of this mission," she insisted, oddly defensive. "I feel it's important that you know that, Garrus. I know Shepard didn't have the chance to brief you completely back on Omega—"
"—We got a little tied up, yes."
"—But the Council has refused to help, and our mission could potentially save many thousands of human lives—"
"Doctor," Garrus interrupted. Chakwas stopped talking. "Who are you working for? Why is it important that I know Shepard's in charge?"
She wrung her hands, but she told him. She told him everything. How Shepard had died over Alchera, but Cerberus had recovered her body and spent billions of credits to bring her back. How they'd somehow rebuilt the Normandy and given it to her for this mission—to stop the attacks on human colonies in the Terminus systems, attacks they'd traced to the Collectors. How Cerberus believed the Collectors were working for the Reapers, but so far they'd found no proof of anything except that the Collectors were behind the attacks on the human colonies. How they were assembling a team to follow the Collectors to their homeworld beyond the Omega-4 relay—from which no one else had ever returned alive—save the colonists if they could, and stop the attacks.
Garrus had sat down again by the time she was done. "How many others with her from the old days—the mission to track down Saren?" he asked.
Karin shook her head. "Almost no one. It was all Anderson could do to get the Council to even acknowledge she's back and reinstate her Spectre status, and she's still basically been banished from Council space until such time as she terminates her relationship with Cerberus, but they refuse to help the humans disappearing, so what could she do? She's tried to reach out to the Alliance—with no response. Everyone on board is Cerberus, or hired by Cerberus. Everyone but Shepard, Jeff, and myself—and you, if you decide to stay."
"Joker's here, too?"
"Yes. After the first Normandy crashed, the Alliance grounded him, like they tried to assign me to a colony outpost. It's one thing to be saviors of the Citadel, but I don't think they approved that we mutinied to do it. Cerberus reached out to us when they were sure the Lazarus Project was working. I had my reservations. To be honest, I still do, but—"she trailed off.
"I get it, doc," Garrus said, his head buzzing, and not just from the shooting pain.
Cerberus. They'd started as a black ops Alliance organization, but they'd quickly gone rogue. Now they were on the Council's list of terrorist concerns, with differing reports as to how far their prohuman agenda had gone toward a xenophobic one. That was bad enough, but Garrus had dealt with Cerberus before. He'd seen what they were capable of. They'd messed with rachni, thorian creepers, geth husks—and they'd used human colonists as their test subjects. And when the Alliance had dug too deeply into their operations, they'd had the rear admiral in charge of the investigation murdered, and lured his soldiers into the nest of a thresher maw.
It hadn't been the first time Cerberus had done experiments with thresher maws and Alliance soldiers. The first time had been eight years ago at the human colony of Akuze. Shepard had lost her entire unit. Fifty comrades. Fifty friends. Everyone had heard about it, and he knew Shepard still thought about that day. She'd said she still heard the screams of the people she lost.
She'd spared one of the murderers years ago so he could go to trial, and he knew it had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done. Now she was walking among them every day. If their intel was good, the Reapers were behind the Collector attacks on human colonies, and the Council was refusing to help—none of which would surprise him—then part of Shepard's willingness to work with Cerberus would be explained.
More of it would be explained by their having resurrected her, and by Doctor Chakwas's and Joker's presence on the ship.
Doctor Chakwas peered at him. "I imagine you have reservations as well."
That's an understatement if I've ever heard one. "Ha. A few." Cerberus rebuilt Shepard. She's her, but if she's her, they've got to know she's a liability. What else might they have done to her? "Don't worry, doctor," Garrus told her. "Shepard saved my life on Omega. We have to stop the Reapers, but even if they aren't involved in this, I want to help your colonists any way I can. I'm in." And if it turns out Shepard doesn't want to be here, I'll see what I can do about that too.
Doctor Chakwas smiled in obvious relief. "I'm glad to hear it. It'll be good to work with you again, Garrus. I'm certain Shepard will think so. You were always her first call, you know, back on the original Normandy. She liked you—as far as she ever let herself like anyone." Doctor Chakwas's face fell. She looked earnestly at Garrus, as if she were willing him to understand something she wasn't quite saying. "I think you just about gave her a heart attack on Omega. With everything we're dealing with now, I think she could use a friend."
"Where is she?" Garrus asked. "With your permission, I'd like to go tell her I'm cleared for duty."
"Light duty," Doctor Chakwas reminded him sternly. "I don't want you in action for at least another week, Garrus, and I expect you back here tonight and tomorrow night so I can continue to observe your recovery. Understand?"
"Understood. Thank you."
"Shepard should be near the CIC," she told him, picking up a report off her desk. "Perhaps in the briefing room. They're both on Deck Two. You shouldn't have any difficulties finding them. The ship's layout is almost identical to the original Normandy, just on a larger scale. When you've spoken to her, you might consider looking over our battery," Doctor Chakwas suggested. "The ship's crew is almost complete, but I believe Miranda intended for one of Shepard's new recruits to serve as gunnery officer. The position isn't exactly in Zaeed or Kasumi's skill sets, but I imagine calibrating and firing gigantic guns is right up your alley."
Miranda and Zaeed he'd met on Omega. Garrus made a note to meet this Kasumi. "I've been known to do that kind of work," he admitted.
"Your armor is in the locker at the back of the room," Doctor Chakwas continued. "You'll want to replace it eventually—it's about as damaged as you are. Shepard might be able to help with that. I believe Cerberus is willing to compensate you for your assistance on this mission. You'll be able to purchase new armor as well as civilian clothes for when you're off duty, though I don't recall you ever wearing street clothes around the ship."
"I didn't," Garrus called. He'd found his armor where she'd said it would be, and was already strapping it to his bodysuit. The doctor wasn't kidding—like him, his breastplate had definitely come off the worse in the fight with the rocket. There was black carbon scoring all the way down to the shoulder, not to mention a gap as big as his palm in the neck. The rest of it wasn't that bad, though. His omni-tool verified that most of the tech in the suit was still functioning, though the medi-gel dispensers needed to be replenished. For sure it was better than walking around the decks in his underwear.
When Garrus had fastened his armor on again, his hand hovered over the Archangel symbol Sensat had painted on it months ago. Then he saw the last item in the footlocker. Under his sniper rifle and assault rifle, recovered from the base, was his visor. Remarkably, it was still intact. The rocket had hit the right side of his face. The left had been untouched—and Sensat built it to last. He had to, after everything I put the others through.
Garrus picked it up carefully. On the rim, he read the inscription Sensat had set there, just hours before the attack that had ended his life—all of their lives.
ARCHANGELUS SUMUS—SIDONIS—ERASH—MELENIS—SENSAT—BUTLER—WEAVER—MONTEAGUE—RIPPER—GRUNDAN KRUL—MIERIN—VORTASH
Garrus's hands shook. He brought up his omni-tool and set it to burn. Extending his forefinger, he burned away the inscription of the one other man who hadn't died on Omega. The one who had betrayed them all. He watched the letters disintegrate and didn't even care about Doctor Chakwas's curious gaze behind him.
One day it will be you, Lantar. I'll find you, and you'll feel every blow they took.
Garrus donned his visor and stood up straight. "See you later, Doctor Chakwas."
He left the med bay.
The crew stared at him as he crossed the deck. Not sure if it's that I'm the only turian on the ship again or that I'm missing half my face. Probably both. He grinned at the people staring, ignoring the agonizing pain that shot through what was left of his face as he did so. One or two of them visibly flinched. Garrus sighed internally. Back to this song and dance again. Well. At least I haven't lost my edge. Hell, they're Cerberus. Between that and . . . everything else . . . odds are the big, bad turian's even scarier than he used to be. Back on the SR-1, it had taken some of the crew awhile to come around to the idea of working with a turian. Still caught up in the bad feeling of thirty years ago. They'd eventually gotten used to the fact that he wasn't their enemy.
Garrus catalogued reactions as he made his way toward where the stairs had been on the SR-1, checking for micro-expressions that might indicate he'd have trouble later on, but strangely enough, he didn't see any. A crewwoman reviewing reports in the mess gave him a small, wary nod of acknowledgment. Another man actually came up and introduced himself. Garrus shook the man—Vadir Rolston's—proffered hand and accepted his welcome. He showed Garrus to the elevator and moved on, and Garrus entered, thinking hard. By the time he'd encountered the very friendly, peppy redheaded woman on the crew deck who called herself Kelly and introduced herself as Shepard's yeoman, it had become clear that Cerberus or not, he wasn't starting over again from square one with these humans.
There was more overt hostility on the original Normandy. For members of a xenophobic terrorist organization, this crew's downright friendly. They're scared, sure. Wary. But there's not the suspicion there was back then.
Guess there are a few advantages to saving the galaxy after all, even with Cerberus. Seems to have earned me a couple points at least.
Kelly pointed him toward the comm and briefing room. The doors swished open, virtually silent. It was unnerving. Doctor Chakwas hadn't been kidding. This ship was very like the original Normandy. Too much like it. It was a virtual duplicate, only better. Bigger, brighter, cleaner, more expensive. Everything on the ship whispered 'power' to anyone paying attention.
And the Normandy was a top-secret Hierarchy-Alliance collaboration. A prototype. How did Cerberus get the blueprints? How'd they get the funds to replicate it?
Maybe the crew wasn't as hostile as he might have expected, but Garrus was still unnerved by the time he finally walked into the briefing room and found Shepard in conversation with a human male—youngish, tall, and strong looking, with a bearing that said 'officer' to Garrus. Garrus considered the man. Chakwas said there's not a gunnery officer, and everything I've heard suggests Miranda's XO. This guy's either navigation or in charge of the armory. But in that kind of physical condition—probably the armory. And I'll just bet he serves in the ground team too. If he doesn't, it's a waste.
Shepard was focused on the man, though she looked impatient—arms folded, one eyebrow cocked. The man had his back to Garrus.
Garrus stepped into the room. "Shepard."
The man turned, and Garrus got the distinct impression he had just been talking about him. "Tough son of a bitch," he remarked, sounding impressed. "Didn't think he'd be up yet."
Shepard took a half step forward. Her eyes were riveted on his face, and under her searching gaze, Garrus felt self-conscious in a way he hadn't under the eyes of Doctor Chakwas and half of the crew. Without his leave, his fingers wandered up to run over his scars. The bumps were strange and new under his touch, and the raw skin protested loudly. "Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"
He realized the opening he'd given her right as he said it, and sure enough, her eyes crinkled up and danced. "Hell, Garrus, you were always ugly. Slap some face paint on there, and no one will even notice."
Garrus couldn't help laughing out loud, but the laugh sent a new throb through his face and neck, and he groaned. "Oh, don't make me laugh, damn it. My face is barely holding together as it is. Some women find facial scars attractive," he mused. "Mind you, most of those women are krogan."
Shepard's joke was a promise: that nothing would change between them, that she wasn't going to pity him. His own was more of a confession of the very real identity crisis he'd been trying to quash since he'd woken up in the med bay. Because wounded vanity and damaged dating prospects are really the worst things you have to worry about right now. At any rate, the combined effect seemed to be to make Shepard's officer finally realize he wasn't wanted or needed in the room. He saluted Shepard and left, presumably to return to his duties, and Garrus stepped closer to Shepard. "Frankly, I'm more worried about you," he said at once. "Cerberus, Shepard? You remember those sick experiments they were doing?"
Shepard smiled with less humor and more teeth than he'd ever seen. "Checking to see if I'm me?" she asked drily. "I know what they are, Garrus. I'm hardly likely to forget, seeing as now I'm one of their sick experiments."
She was different. He hadn't taken the time to fully take inventory before. Well, I was a little preoccupied. But it wasn't just the physical changes that came along, presumably, with being brought back from the dead. It wasn't just the Cerberus uniform, or even the fact that she seemed happier to see him than he would have ever dreamed she'd be when he'd first started on the SR-1. That all played into it, but there was more. Shepard was harder than she'd been back then. Angrier. And she was scared. Commander Shepard was afraid.
Garrus opened his mouth to apologize, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand and looked him dead in the eye. "That's why I'm glad you're here. I don't trust them, and right now I don't trust me either. But I trust you. If I'm walking into hell, I want you at my side."
The short, simple declaration hit him right in the gut, so, naturally, Garrus responded with humor. "You realize this plan has me walking into hell, too? Hah. Just like old times." She smirked, but the shadow stayed behind her eyes. "I'm fit for duty whenever you need me, Shepard."
He neglected to mention Chakwas had qualified light duty for the next week. The doctor could chew him out later. If this little meeting had shown him one thing, it was that she'd been right: Shepard needed a friend. Whether or not you can be a friend to anyone right now remains to be seen.
. . .
Maybe I can't. But for her, I'll sure as hell try. Shepard's got bigger problems than my identity crisis and the Archangel fallout put together.
"Doctor Chakwas briefed you?"
Garrus hummed. "More or less. Could use more details—the research data on the Collectors, what we know about the Omega-4 relay."
Shepard nodded. "I'll forward the information to you."
"I'll settle in and see what I can do at the forward batteries."
The Normandy's battery was impressive, but as Garrus began the work of calibrating the guns, he thought Cerberus could really do better. The cannons were basically what the SR-1 had come equipped with two years ago, and technology had marched on since then. Garrus typed up a firing algorithm and thought about how the ship could do better.
Since we're going through the Omega-4 relay, it might be a good idea to upgrade the guns. If Cerberus has the kind of resources they seem to, they can certainly afford it. Might see if any of Pallin's old contacts is interested in helping out the humans. The Hierarchy just adapted that cannon based off Sovereign's weaponry—can't do much better than that.
At one point, he was taken aback when the ship's AI offered to help him run the numbers. Naturally, he refused her help, and added on to the reasons Shepard was in it up to her neck with Cerberus.
When the test cycle had started running, and the machinery in the battery was clicking and humming through it, Garrus had to find another distraction, push the pain and restlessness to the back of his mind. He pulled up a blank file on his omni-tool, and ran an extranet image search for 'Zaeed.' He was sure he'd heard the man's name before. He downloaded a couple of links to read later, and started coding an encryption for the blank file.
An alert came up on his visor.
Local interference detected. Monitoring signal active in the radius.
-Continue?
-Trace?
Garrus reflected that the spark of interest that ignited in him contemplating this new problem probably wasn't very healthy. Ah, well.
Garrus dismissed both options, and instead of tracing the bug picking up on his encryption, he ran a blanket scan through the room. His omni-tool linked with his visor to outline all the spyware in the room in blue. A camera over the door. Listening devices behind the right gun, over the workbench in the battery, and in the baseboard on the left wall. And a short-range signal bug beneath the battery terminal that wouldn't just transmit everything he did on that console, but every signal broadcast and extranet site visited in a four-meter radius.
Garrus found and removed every bit of spyware in the room. He held them in his palm—small, sleek, unobtrusive. Pathetic. Butler could get so much more—without the physical evidence. He swallowed, and clenched his fist, careful not to crush them. Not yet. Instead, he brought up his omni-tool and ran a quick program he'd learned in C-Sec long ago to route the signal back to its source.
Damn. The AI servers. That AI is processing the raw data. I can't take her out yet; I don't know what all she does. Wait—someone else is streaming the data. Someone local.
Garrus left the battery. He went down the corridor, past the mess station, took a right, and stopped. XO's office. Looks like Miranda's taking her orders from someone else.
Garrus hesitated for a split second. He had just woken up a couple hours ago. He certainly wasn't in any condition for a fight, and one thing he did remember from Omega was just how far Miranda had pushed herself to help get him out of there. It probably isn't the best idea to open hostilities just yet . . .
. . . Always was something of an idiot.
Garrus hit the access panel for Miranda's office. The door swished open.
Miranda looked up from her desk. "Garrus. Nice to see you up and about. I hear Doctor Chakwas has cleared you for duty."
"Do you?" Garrus asked pleasantly. He leaned up against the doorjamb, and let the camera slip out of his palm to rest in between his finger and thumb. He held it up so Miranda could see it. "Bad policy to spy on your own team," he remarked. "Destroys camaraderie and trust in the ranks."
Miranda paled, then raised her chin. "Someone's been busy," she said coolly. "The battery camera, I presume? Cerberus has no reason to trust Shepard and her associates, and you know it."
Garrus shrugged. "I'm told you spent a fortune bringing her back. You had to believe she would do something for you."
Miranda's eyes narrowed, and Garrus swore he heard something in her snap. "Commander Shepard is the only one that can stop the Collector attacks on human colonies. She's the only one that can stop the Reapers. So yes, we brought her back, but I have to say, since the beginning of this operations she's shown little sign that she is willing or capable of returning on that investment. The second she received command of this ship she flew away from Omega—away from the one person in the galaxy that can possibly neutralize Collector technology, and I needn't tell you that's not you—and straight to the Alliance and the Council." Miranda scoffed. "They helped about as much as anyone could have expected.
"Since, she's detoured to complete a nonessential mission for mercenary personnel, and on the one occasion she had to establish trust with Cerberus, she instead turned over sensitive Cerberus information to the Alliance." Garrus listened, keeping his expression neutral, careful not to give away exactly how glad he was to hear Shepard clearly wasn't as trapped as she felt.
And someone's frustrated about that, isn't she? You've been wanting to say this for a while, Lawson. Sometimes the perp's under enough pressure already that the slightest nudge makes them sing like a bird. "Are we spying on Shepard?" Miranda asked rhetorically. "Yes. As you so aptly pointed out, Cerberus spent a fortune to bring back the one woman in the galaxy that can stop the Reapers. I put two years of my life into Shepard—and so far it seems Shepard is more interested in stabbing us in the back than in doing the job we brought her back from the dead to do." She sniffed. "Maybe now we're letting her keep you, she'll realize we're not the enemy here."
That got him. Garrus stood up straight. "If you think you're letting Shepard do anything, you're wrong," he warned. "She hates Cerberus, and she has good reason. Since she hasn't shot or arrested anyone in your operation just yet, I figure she's still thinking about working with you, but if you come at her that way, I guarantee you she'll take the Collectors and the Reapers down, but she'll take Cerberus down with them. And I'll help."
Miranda's chair slammed back against the wall as she stood, biotics flaring. Garrus tensed, but neither of them attacked. After a moment, the biotic field around Miranda subsided, and the electricity in the air died down.
Garrus let another second pass, then spoke again. "I'm not leaving her alone in the middle of all this," he promised Lawson. "That can work for you or against you. Which way it goes down depends on you." He activated his overload program then, and all the monitoring devices in his palm sizzled. The charge stung slightly. Garrus turned over his hand and opened it, offering Miranda the sparking devices. "Just so you know where we stand."
She got it alright. Miranda took the devices, chalk white in her fury, with a jaw like granite. Garrus smiled at her. "Have a nice day."
He walked out of her office. Nothing like a new enemy to add a little sparkle to an otherwise mundane day. Still, he thought, he'd probably better tell Shepard that Miranda had monitoring devices in place. He headed toward the CIC.
She wasn't there or in the comm room, and when he went down to engineering, he noticed the shuttle was gone. Shepard had gone groundside.
Garrus didn't know how he felt about that. Truth told, he'd had enough of Omega for a lifetime. He hadn't been cleared for field duty for another week, but he didn't like the idea of Shepard down there without him either. We eliminated the gang leadership on Omega, but there's no way we took out all the mercs that belonged to them. I'm not the only one that's made new enemies lately. Someone could've got away. If they know her face . . .
Garrus headed back up to Deck Two. This time, he made his way to the cockpit. Joker was there. Two years older, in a Cerberus uniform instead of an Alliance one, but he looked exactly the same. He'd always been a bit of a dick, but Garrus couldn't deny it was good to see him.
He spun his chair around when Garrus came in. "You know, I was wondering when you'd get around to saying hi," he said.
"Hi," Garrus answered.
"Ha ha, very funny." The pilot openly stared at Garrus's face. "Wow, they weren't kidding. They really shot half your face off down there, huh? How're you feeling?"
"About like they shot half my face off. Thanks for asking. Where's Shepard?"
"You just missed her," Joker said. "About an hour ago she went groundside with Jacob and Kasumi to pick up this salarian professor on Omega. The Collectors have these little robots, right? They find humans and shoot 'em up with some sort of paralytic. They're hoping this Solus guy can work out something to disable the robots or neutralize the agent or something. Should be almost as hard to get to him as it was to get to you, though—some kind of plague or whatever."
Gozu District. No wonder she didn't wait. "For the past few weeks, yeah. People have been dropping like flies in the Gozu district—affects everyone that isn't human or vorcha."
Joker frowned. "That's weird, isn't it? You serious? Dextros and levos? Everyone that isn't human or vorcha?"
"Yeah. Probably lab-created—some psycho trying to get rid of all the aliens. We—I . . . was going to look into it . . . but I got caught up." He took a breath.
"Archangel, right." Joker paused. "You want to tell me what happened? Back after Alchera, you just disappeared on us, and then . . ."he held out his hands.
For a while after Saren, Garrus had kept in touch with the others. He'd been on the Citadel. Easy to get a hold of. But after Alchera and the memorial service—Garrus shifted. "Yeah. Well. Now I'm back." He leaned up against the wall. "You want to tell me about the team here?"
"Sure," Joker agreed. "I mean, Shepard probably covered most of it—"
"Could always use a fresh perspective."
Joker made a face. "Well, I'm hardly what you'd call a people person, but I'll tell you what I can. What do you want to know?"
"Jacob. He's the armory officer?"
"Yeah. You've probably met him—he's a nice guy. Big, impossibly good looking. Kinda hard not to hate him a little, really. I mean, how many push-ups do you think he does a day? It's insane!" Right. So Jacob had been the man in the comm room with Shepard, though Garrus hadn't noticed he was good looking before. He'd take Joker's word for it. "Anyway," Joker continued, "He and Miranda are pretty much the only really Cerberus agents on the Normandy. I don't think Shepard likes them much."
Garrus focused. "I thought the whole crew was Cerberus."
"Yeah, in a manner of speaking, but it's like for everyone else, this is their first mission," Joker complained. "You'd think if the Illusive Man wanted this mission to succeed as much as he says he does, he'd spring for some more experienced recruits. I don't know." His eyes lit up then. "Hey, have you met Kelly?"
"Yes, I had the pleasure earlier." His flat tone did all the talking for him.
Joker snickered. "Yeah, sorry about that. She has a thing for aliens. And psychology. She probably thinks that stick up your ass makes you 'damaged' and 'fascinating.'"
Garrus laughed and immediately regretted it. He thought wistfully of the pain meds Doctor Chakwas had offered back in the med bay, but immediately dismissed the idea. Pain meds, stims—you only use those things when you absolutely need to. Anyway, after a while, they don't even work.
"What about the non-Cerberus crewmembers?" he asked. "I heard something about Shepard detouring to give a mercenary some help?"
"Yeah, that was Kasumi," Joker told him. "She had some business on Bekenstein or something. I don't know what went down there, but Shepard went groundside with her in a cocktail dress and came up with her armor smoking, and since, Kasumi's like the only person she talks to."
"Shepard wore a cocktail dress?" Garrus repeated, frankly skeptical.
Joker laughed. "Yeah, you should've seen it! It was totally bizarre. Like watching one of those crappy vids they sometimes make of her, except it was really her, not some asari romance star."
Garrus tried to imagine Shepard in a dress. It felt wrong, somehow. Every time he thought of her, he pictured her in armor, dodging fire on Feros to get in close and save the lives of people that were trying to kill her. Lowering the gun on Ontarom with white, trembling fingers. Firing a rifle that looked like it should break her in half to shoot Saren down on Virmire. Vaulting over his burning couch on Omega. Flipping over Garm's head to send a dozen bullets into the base of his skull. That was Shepard.
He cleared his throat. "Anyway. Kasumi?"
"She's cool," Joker assured him. "I mean, sure, she's a kleptomaniac, and the way she sneaks cloaked around the ship is creepy as hell, but I guess everyone's a little crazy on the Normandy. Anyway, she's got a bar in her cabin in the port-side observatory, and she doesn't mind sharing."
"What about the other one? Zaeed? He was with Shepard when she found me on Omega. Seems like bad news."
Joker's face fell. "Yeah, I think Shepard thinks so too. Zaeed's not like Kasumi. She's like a cat burglar or something. Zaeed's more your everyday, garden-variety killer for hire. Well. I say that. His market value is supposed to be through the roof. It's not like we've got anything to worry about, though, right? He's working for us. Shepard's . . . Shepard, and you're the freaking Archangel now. You two can pretty much out-badass Zaeed any day of the week." Joker shrugged, bored now. "Hey, you were down on Omega. Do you know the guy Shepard's gone to recruit? Professor Mordin Solus?"
Garrus turned away. "I've run into him once or twice. A couple of men on my team—my defensive biotic and my explosives expert—were old colleagues of his in the salarian Special Tasks Group. We went to his clinic once or twice before the plague hit."
"What happened to those guys?" Joker asked, completely oblivious.
Garrus didn't answer for a long moment, and even Joker seemed to realize he'd stepped in it. "They're dead," Garrus said finally.
"Oh, man, I didn't mean—"
"I'm going to go," Garrus said. "It was nice talking to you."
"Yeah, I guess. See you later, Garrus." But Garrus was already gone, lost in his own thoughts.
What the hell will I tell Solus when Shepard brings him up here? At least he ought to know if I should write anyone back on Sur'Kesh. Spirits, I have to write Nalah . . .
When he made his way back to the battery, the testing cycle had finished. The readout told him he'd improved the accuracy by 7 percent, but he decided he could still get better numbers on the power and the fire rate. He fiddled with the controls again, allocating power draw, resequencing the firing procedure, and tried to work out what he wanted to say to Nalah.
By the time he'd drafted the letter and sent it, he could hear voices outside in the mess. One of them was the Cerberus officer's—Jacob's. Shepard was back.
He found Taylor in the line, getting his food from an older human man in a dirty apron. The man smiled at him when he saw him.
"Garrus Vakarian. You were on Commander Shepard's team when she took out those geth bastards and saved the Citadel. Mess Sergeant Rupert Gardiner. I'd shake your hand, but . . ." he gestured at his hands in their plastic, food-stained gloves, and shrugged.
"It's fine, sergeant. Nice to meet you."
"Shepard radioed up here from Omega a few days back when she realized you were coming. Requisitioned turian foodstuffs for you." He scratched behind his ear, inadvertently leaving a vestige of something that looked like mashed potatoes there. "Uh . . . it'll take me a while to fix some grub up for you, though."
Garrus was at once very grateful he didn't have the levo allergy and aware that he actually was getting hungry. "It's no trouble. I can wait."
"I'll get right on that, then," Gardiner assured him.
Taylor was leaving the line and heading off toward the tables. "Taylor!" Garrus called.
Jacob looked over. "Vakarian." He jerked his head, indicating Garrus should join him. Garrus did so, crossing the floor to sit across from Taylor at the table. Several crew members already eating saw him. He saw their heads come up, their eyes shift. Some of them moved a couple centimeters farther away. Garrus ignored them and focused on Taylor. He looked tired, but satisfied.
"Mission went well?" Garrus asked.
Taylor swallowed his mouthful and nodded. "Recruited the professor and cured the plague in the bargain. It's an experience, working with Shepard. Never seen anything like her."
In his voice Garrus heard the same awe he'd felt when he'd first signed on with Shepard, as he watched her root through the Citadel's underworld searching for leads, pounding the streets to save Tali, bust organized crime rings C-Sec had been trying to bring down for months in just days, incidentally, just going about her business.
"It wasn't just the plague, either," Taylor said, shaking his head. "She saved one of the professor's aides from a hostage situation. I thought, there's no way everyone's getting out of this alive, but the kid and the guys who wanted to shoot him all walked away without a scratch. No hard feelings, either, once the misunderstanding was cleared up. She sent doctors back to a dying batarian that tried to shoot her the first time he saw her. Saved his life too. She's something else."
"She is at that, and you never really get used to it," Garrus agreed. "I'm looking forward to working with her again."
Jacob swallowed another mouthful and lifted his fork, pointing it for emphasis. "If you haven't gotten used to it, I guess the rest of us don't have a shot. She told me about you, you know. Said you were the one person she'd want most with her in this mess, and after the stories I've heard about Omega, can't say I'm surprised."
Garrus watched Taylor across the table. It was about the best compliment Taylor could've given him, and he wouldn't be surprised if Shepard had actually said it. Still, in C-Sec you learn when someone's trying to butter you up. He hadn't forgotten that Joker had said Taylor was the only other long-term Cerberus agent on the Normandy.
Pretty sure Cerberus deliberately made sure everyone else onboard was a new recruit, either to relax Shepard or to limit the information she can gather about the organization, but Taylor knows what he's about.
"Actually, I'm fairly certain Shepard wouldn't have approved of almost anything I did on Omega," he answered.
Jacob smiled ruefully. "Yeah, she might have said something about that too," he admitted, and reluctantly, Garrus had to respect his honesty.
He stared past Jacob at the SR-2 logo on the wall. "Shepard doesn't generally approve of people taking the law into their own hands. She says the laws are usually there for good reason." He paused. "She's usually right," he muttered.
Jacob shrugged. "Sure, but sometimes the law works too slowly to help anyone, and on a place like Omega, there isn't a law to follow anyway. Never mind that the place could use one. Or several. I understand wanting to make a real difference, however you can. That's why I left the Alliance. Joined Cerberus."
He readdressed himself to his food, and Garrus looked down. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Taylor wanted to make a difference, and he joined a terrorist organization. How many people did you kill trying to make a difference? Drug dealers, murderers, arms traders, sure. How many of them stuck in that hellhole, just doing whatever they could to get by?
It's not the same. They had a choice. Everyone has a choice!
You had a choice, too.
"Hey, Vakarian!" Gardiner called. Garrus looked at Jacob.
Jacob's mouth was full of food, and he waved him off amiably. He ate enough for a biotic, Garrus noticed, and wondered if he had abilities similar to Miranda's.
Garrus rose and walked back over to the line. Gardiner handed him a tray, white plastic in contrast to the metal trays of the rest of the crew. "Sorry if it ain't what you're used to," Gardiner said apologetically. "I never learned to cook turian, see." He turned around and opened the top cabinet, and pointed at the top shelf, which was now tagged with a piece of blue tape. "If you ever want to make yourself something, Garrus, Shepard told me to keep the dextro rations up here. Got some turian fruit juice and some perishables in the fridge, too, tagged blue just like this."
"It's how we did it on the SR-1," Garrus confirmed. "Thanks, sergeant." He looked down at the mess on his plate. It looked like it might have been suisa in some alternate, very depressing universe. Gardiner watched him avidly, and Garrus reluctantly loaded his fork and put some in his mouth.
Garrus avoided wincing only because he knew it would just hurt his face. He swallowed quickly, eager to get the taste out of his mouth as soon as possible. "It's actually better than the first drek Tucks served up, back in the day," he told the waiting mess sergeant. It was true, but it was the absolute best thing he could say about it.
Gardiner beamed. "Well. It's nice to have someone onboard who finally appreciates my cooking!"
"I didn't say it was good," Garrus corrected. He laughed, and choked another bite down. One thing I didn't miss about living on the Normandy. No way the humans can cook food that they never eat. "It's fine. You'll get the hang of it," he assured Gardiner.
"You bet I will," Gardiner said, with determination that actually boded well, Garrus thought. At least he takes pride in his job.
Garrus tipped Gardiner a wave, and headed back to the table. Jacob was gone, already taking his tray to the wash, so Garrus sat alone.
At least, he did for half a second. Then he saw someone outlined in red near the top of his field of vision. He looked up, and sighed, thinking back on what Joker had told him in the cockpit.
"Might as well come down," he called. "I can't see you, but my visor's thermal sensor knows you're there. That can't be too comfortable."
A crewwoman nearby looked at him like he was losing his mind, but the air shimmered. Garrus heard the gentle plop of cloth boots hitting the deck as Shepard's cat burglar swung down from the rafters. Then she shut off the tech, and the crewwoman down the table jumped almost half a meter into the air. "Fuck!" She reddened, and stared down at her food, muttering to herself, and Garrus turned away from her to smile at Kasumi.
Even uncloaked, she was dressed to avoid detection, in dark, drab colors with a full hood that was designed to make it difficult to ID her face. The only things Garrus could tell about her were that she was youngish, probably descended from peoples that had come from Earth's Asian continent, and sporting a lot of tech, some of which was illegal in Council space. His visor flagged several potential threats, but Kasumi just smiled back at him. She walked over to Gardiner's station, snagged a tray, and sat down across the table. "Cheater," she accused him in a light, playful voice.
"I could say the same thing about you," Garrus said. "Before Shepard found me on Omega I'd never seen cloaking tech that made the user almost completely undetectable to organics, but even Shepard's can only keep her hidden for a few seconds."
Kasumi laughed. "Cerberus's tech is cute, but they have a ways to go before they catch up to me," she boasted. "Now Shepard—give her a few months to adapt hers, and I don't think I could say the same." She extended her hand. "Kasumi Goto. You're Garrus, aren't you?"
"What gave it away?" Garrus drawled, shaking hands.
Kasumi smirked. "Well, it wasn't that you're the only turian onboard, if that's what you're thinking," she said. Garrus decided he liked her. "There's something in your aura that just stands up and says, 'badass.' Like Shepard's, but in a more vigilante-y kind of way."
"My reputation precedes me, I see."
"On this ship? You bet. But in my line of work, I'd heard about you a while ago, Archangel."
"And what line of work would that be?" Garrus challenged her, wanting to see if she'd own it.
She didn't. Instead, she shook her finger. "Ah, ah, ah. Now that would be telling. I just wanted to welcome you to the Normandy. I heard about your little confrontation with Miranda earlier. Not everyone here is Cerberus—or former Alliance. Some of us are like you."
Granted, her statement meant she'd been spying on him, too, but somehow, it was different when Kasumi said she'd been spying. For one, she admitted it without my having to bring it up. Though I didn't see her before. Where was she? Anyway, she's outright saying she's not Cerberus in a room full of Cerberus operatives. That takes some guts.
"Like me," Garrus repeated, choking down another mouthful of Gardiner's dismal suisa. "And what am I?"
"You're here to take out the Collectors," Kasumi said. "But more than that, you're here to watch out for Shepard. Like Doctor Chakwas and Joker, only I'm guessing you're a little deadlier than a pilot and a doctor."
"Just a little," Garrus said. She was right, and it was something he'd recognized right away: protecting Shepard, working with her again, had to be one of the only reasons Joker and Doctor Chakwas had agreed to work for Cerberus, too. The only trouble was, now they were two more reasons Shepard had to stay. If Shepard turned hostile, Jeff Moreau and Karin Chakwas were two ready-made hostages, and he'd be damned if Cerberus didn't know it. Shepard would do a lot of things and put up with a lot of crap to keep them safe. He'd always been under the impression that Shepard regarded Joker as a little brother of sorts, and she actually called the doctor 'Mom,' more often than not.
"A little or a lot, I'm with you," Kasumi promised. "If you need me to, I can disable any surveillance devices in the battery for you."
So even though she's heard about your showdown with Miranda, she wasn't actually in the room. Good to know she doesn't have tech that can dampen her thermal signature she just wasn't using just now. "Thanks, but I took care of it."
He saw Kasumi's face move, like she'd raised her eyebrows beneath her hood. "I'm impressed," she said, and actually sounded like she was. "Shepard took care of the devices in her cabin too. But she needed my help to stop Miranda from censoring her mail. Practically the first thing she asked me to do for her."
"You realize now you've said that, the devices in here will mean Miranda will find whatever you did and undo it by tomorrow," Garrus pointed out.
"Oh, I'm scrambling them," Kasumi assured him. "And I don't care if anyone else hears. They won't tell her, you know. No one really likes her."
Garrus accepted this easily enough. "Has it really been that bad?" he asked. He could see now why Shepard had detoured to Bekenstein. Whatever she and Kasumi had done there, she'd gotten Goto completely on her side, and the first thing she had asked for was for Kasumi to help her run counterintelligence efforts.
He saw Kasumi's cheerful face grow serious in the shadows of her hood. "I don't mind so much," she admitted. "In my world, everyone spies on everyone else. I've learned ways to get around it. It's kind of fun. But Shepard's different. She's been really on edge. I think she misses the Alliance, and all of you—all the people that helped her take down Saren, I mean. I hear Shepard ran into your old friend Tali'Zorah on Freedom's Progress when she was just starting out. She asked for her help, but Tali doesn't trust her now she's with Cerberus. She hasn't said so, but everyone can tell she feels really alone."
Garrus remembered Shepard in the comm room. Their briefing hadn't been long, but what she had said had definitely made an impact. "I don't trust them, and right now I don't trust me, either. But I trust you."
He tapped his fork against his plate.
"It's good you're here," Kasumi concluded.
Garrus regarded her. "I think it's good we're both here," he told her. She smiled at him, and Garrus took his last bite just as Shepard walked into the mess with Mordin Solus.
She caught sight of him and waved. Then Mordin saw him. Just like that, the warm fuzzies are gone. Garrus stiffened as Mordin walked over with Shepard.
The professor frowned. His eyes did the flick and hover over Garrus's new scars. It was already becoming familiar. Garrus shifted. "Good doctor," Mordin remarked. "Reconstruction almost seamless. Should heal nicely. Could have done a better job myself, of course. Improve upon sutures, synthesize graft tissue. Minimize scarring. Would you like my help?"
Garrus forced a smile. "That's not necessary, professor. You'll need to focus all your efforts on figuring out how to stop the Collectors."
Mordin spread his hands. "True. Nevertheless, if problems, know where to find me. Setting up in laboratory opposite armory on Deck Two." He paused, sucked in a breath. Blinked. "Did good job covering up intel on Omega. Never guessed Archangel's Garrus was Garrus Vakarian, C-Sec officer to help Shepard take down Saren Arterius. Oversight. Underestimation. Should have known Erash and Mierin would not get involved with amateur. Won't happen again."
Garrus closed his eyes.
"Strange to end up in same place now," Mordin remarked. "Good to have you here. Know Erash held you in high regard—Mierin and Krul as well."
Garrus couldn't hold it in any longer. "I'm sorry, professor. They're gone. I failed them."
Mordin looked hard at him. "Not your fault. Cleaning up Omega, dangerous prospect." He shook his head. "Archangel knew. Each man's choice, find meaning in elimination of crime on Omega. Impossible, but noble goal. Their responsibility. Still. Mercs killed them, Garrus. Not you."
For all the clinical quality of his analysis, there was a shade of sympathy and sorrow in Mordin's expression. Kasumi, watching, had her mouth open slightly, and as for Shepard, for all her jokes about his face in the comm room earlier, now her face was twisted into an expression of such helpless anguish Garrus couldn't take it. She held out her hand, and Garrus pushed his chair back abruptly, seized his empty tray in both hands, and stood.
"Thanks, professor."
He left.
A/N: The beginning of this chapter is concurrent with the end of Chapter Two in Resurrection, "Trust."
