Pandora: In Greek mythology, when Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humankind, the gods punished him, but they needed a way to put humans in their place. Hephaestus created the first human woman, Pandora, who was given gifts of beauty and craft by all the gods and married to the Titan Epimetheus, and as a wedding gift, she was given a special jar. When she opened the jar, a whole bunch of chaos, evil, and disease was released into the world to torment humankind. Horrified, Pandora closed the jar, saving just one entity: hope, which has remained with mortals ever since.


XXV

Light-Bringer: Pandora

"Don't suppose there's a way to tell who this poor bastard was." Shepard said in a voice that gave nothing away. She'd taken off her helmet again, but her face was just as unexpressive.

Mordin shook his head. "No tattoos or ID. Maybe slave or prisoner. Maybe merc or pirate. Irrelevant now. Clearly part of krogan tests to cure genophage."

The genophage. Now Garrus understood why Shepard had classified the run. The professor and the friend he wanted rescued had done work on the genophage for the STG. Probably with Erash and Mierin too; they all knew one another from some top-secret STG project. Could be research, or even maintenance or modification, considering Mordin's qualifications. It's been a thousand years since the implementation of the genophage. That's time enough for the krogan to have started adapting to it. Mordin's friend wasn't just a salarian on Tuchanka, he was a salarian that had actively worked against the krogan. If Garrus was right about what this was and the krogan learned what that salarian had done, he didn't even want to think about what would happen to the man. Might have happened already.

The professor was still talking about the human victim. "Humans useful as test subjects. Genetically diverse. Enables exploration of treatment modalities."

Garrus wasn't any scientist, but it sounded like the research here had gotten pretty far. He frowned.

"Experimenting on humans is just sick," Shepard remarked.

Mordin shook his head. "Never used humans myself. Disgusting! Unethical! Sloppy. Used by brute-force researchers, not thinkers. No place in proper science." He took a deep breath. "Krogan use of humans unsurprising."

Shepard shot the professor a sharp look. "You're telling me you never did live-subject testing while developing the new genophage?"

That's confirmation on the modification of the disease then. Garrus looked at Mordin, gauging the professor's reaction to him hearing about this, but Mordin didn't even flinch. "No. Unnecessary. Limited tests to simulations, corpses, clone tissue samples. High-level tests on varren. No tests on species with members capable of calculus. Simple rule. Never broke it."

"Why use humans at all, though?" Shepard asked, looking back at the victim. "Wouldn't the testing work better if they'd used varren, too?"

"Yes," Mordin agreed. "Human experiments strictly high-level concept testing. Native Tuchanka fauna likely used later in development stages. Wise to delay use of varren until necessary. Powerful bite."

"And humans are helpful because . . .?" Shepard persisted.

The professor sighed, as if explaining to an idiot. "More variable. Peaks and valleys. Mutations. Adaptations. Far beyond other life. Makes humans useful test subjects. Larger reactions to smaller stimuli."

Garrus looked back at Shepard. He'd heard in xenostudies about variations in human culture, of course. They hadn't been a spacefaring society long enough to have really homogenized. The Alliance was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to human politics, but they never talked long about human genetics in xenostudies aside from the obvious physical and social indicators. Warm-blooded, omnivorous bipeds descended from Earthen primates, similar in appearance to the asari but sexually dimorphic, and they give birth to live young and tend to live in family groups. Highly adaptive to a wide range of carbon-based, oxygen-rich worlds. 120-year lifespan, give or take 30 years. As a species, they're considered intelligent and dangerous, aggressive and ambitious, and they earned their place on the Citadel Council barely three decades after they came onto the scene. That was all anyone ever got. Did salarians often experiment on humans?

"I know we can look much different from each other, but asari have a wide range of skin tones," Shepard was saying.

Mordin shook his head again. "No. Ignore superficial appearance. Down to genetic code. Biotic abilities, intelligence levels. Can look at random asari, krogan, make reasonable guess. Humans too variable to judge. Outliers in all species, of course. Geniuses. Idiots. But human probability curve offers greater overall variety."

Shepard caught Garrus staring. She made a face at him, and Garrus felt his neck heat up. He knew better than to judge an entire species by a single specimen. "Well. Now that you've taught us all that humans are genetic abnormalities." Shepard nodded at the body. "What can you tell about the experiments these guys have done from looking at the body?"

Mordin looked at the corpse for another few moments. "Position of tumors suggest deliberate mutation of adrenal, pineal glands. Modifying hormone levels. Counterattack on glands hit by genophage." He almost smiled. "Clever."

A gleam of interest lit up in Shepard's eye. "Do you think they're getting close to curing the genophage?"

Mordin shrugged. "Can't say. Need more data. Conceptually sound, though. Genophage alters hormone levels, could repair damage with hormonal counterattack."

He stood, dusting his hands off on his lab coat, and Garrus and Shepard stood with him. "Good science or not," Shepard said decisively. "If they're doing experiments like this, we've got two reasons to shut this place down."

Mordin looked sharply at her. "Focus on Maelon," he told her. "Too late to help the dead."

The three of them stood and continued on into the hospital. The hallway curved around to the left. Once again, there was a slight downward grade—a lot of species built up. These days, krogan with any sense built down. Clan Weyrloc had kept the walls in good condition, but Garrus spotted drainage leaks in the corners that had left water stains, and some of the flooring had rusted. Garrus got the sense they weren't alone, but there weren't a lot of people here either. Clan Weyrloc definitely wasn't doing as well as Clan Urdnot.

Garrus's feelings were only confirmed when he saw the group in the next room. They all wore Blood Pack colors, but they were half vorcha, and none of them were firing. Still, Garrus's nerves sang as he evaluated the position. Maybe there aren't a lot of them, but they picked their ground well. They were surrounded on three sides. A ramp curved around the room, climbing up to another level of the hospital, and there were vorcha and krogan on the ground and on the high ground. He saw flamethrowers and shotguns. But still, nobody shot.

Instead, a belligerent-looking krogan stepped forward and raised his hands over his head. He's going to make a speech. Tell me he's not going to make a speech.

"I am the speaker for Clan Weyrloc, offworlders!" he bellowed. His voice reverberated off the metal and concrete of the room, and Garrus winced. "You have shed our blood! By rights, you should be dead already! But Weyrloc Guld, the chief of chiefs, has ordered that you be given leave to flee and spread the message of our coming."

Shepard tilted her head. "Sorry we're not dead already," she said politely. "Why are we getting the pass to leave? What does Clan Weyrloc have planned?"

There were excited murmurs all around the room. "If you walk away now, you can tell your children that you saw Clan Weyrloc before our Blood Pack conquered the stars," the speaker told them. "You think the Urdnot impressive? They are pitiful! Weyrloc Guld will destroy them! The salarian will cure the genophage, and Clan Weyrloc will spread across the galaxy in a sea of blood!"

Garrus took a moment to note that there was nothing like a graphic analogy to sell cultish ambition. Mordin zeroed in on the real problem. "Appears they discovered Maelon's work. Unfortunate," he said in an undertone.

Shepard stepped forward. "It doesn't have to happen like this," she told the speaker. "I can understand wanting to cure the genophage—"

The speaker cut her off furiously. "No, human, you understand nothing! You have not seen the piles of children that never lived! The krogan were wronged! We will make it right, and then we will have our revenge!"

"Half the galaxy sees the krogan as victims," Shepard snapped. "If you start a war, you'll lose their support."

Garrus wasn't sure she was right about that—but then again, he'd spent his life around the half that probably wouldn't see things that way. Shepard wasn't the first human he'd met to sympathize with the krogan, and he'd seen enough asari that supported the krogan to know it wasn't just a human perspective, either.

But the krogan sneered at Shepard. "We have the Blood Pack, and we have the salarian. When our clan numbers in the millions, we will not need support. When we cure the genophage, Weyrloc Guld will rule all krogan. The Krogan Rebellions will become the Krogan Empire! The surviving races will frighten their children with tales of what the Blood Pack did to the turians! The asari will scream as their Citadel plunges into the sun! We will keep salarians as slaves and eat their eggs—"

Mordin flinched, and Shepard sighed and raised her pistol. "You talk too much," she said, and fired.

Her shot hit a gas pipe right under the walkway where the speaker stood. Garrus grasped Shepard's strategy instantly. At his side, he signaled Solus to break for an exposed section of piping that would provide minimal cover, and without looking at him directly, the professor signaled an acknowledgment.

The krogan speaker had tensed, but as he realized he hadn't been shot, he guffawed and spread his arms out toward the other members of the Blood Pack around the room. "See? The human cannot hit a simple target!"

Garrus watched the grim twist of Shepard's mouth as she fired again into the gas leak, and the speaker and the two vorcha closest to him went up in a conflagration.

It was just the kind of advantage they needed in this room. As the vorcha least affected by the blast flung himself to the ground and rolled to extinguish the flames, and the two other krogan and the four remaining vorcha shouted in dismay, Mordin sprinted into cover. Shepard blinked out under her tactical cloak. And Garrus charged up the ramp toward two of the vorcha.

He reached the first one a second after his first three-bullet pulse. The bleeding, screaming vorcha was already panicked. He'd just seen the squad leader and one of his friends die in a fiery inferno out of nowhere. The other guy caught in the blast was moaning, trying to stagger to his feet. Garrus's target, blood streaming into his eyes and nose, tried to raise his flamethrower. Garrus reached out and seized the hose to turn the stream onto the unwounded vorcha coming up on the flank of the first. Filthy claws scrabbled at his armor weakly. Garrus released the hose and swung his left elbow around hard into the vorcha's torso.

The vorcha tumbled over the ramp railing as a high-powered rifle cracked on Garrus's flank. Shepard and her Widow were less than three meters away from her target: the vorcha clutching at the blackened, blistered face Garrus had just blasted with a flamethrower. At three meters, Shepard's bullet took the vorcha's hands as well as his head, vaporizing blood, brains, and bone on impact, spattering the wall behind. Up the ramp, the vorcha that had survived Shepard's first attack had stopped moaning, silenced by two well-aimed shots from Mordin's Carnifex.

But the krogan and the vorcha at the top of the ramp were regrouping now. The vorcha were now focusing their fire on the professor, huddled down below. And the krogan had started to charge down the ramp toward Garrus and Shepard. In response to a decade and a half of combat training, Garrus fell back. Turian, salarian, or human, if you weren't a biotic, you didn't meet a krogan charge.

Garrus heard Solus firing back at the vorcha, but even as he did, tech arced out from his omni-tool and slammed the first krogan coming with a cryo blast. He didn't freeze solid, but he tripped and tumbled down the ramp, obstructing the krogan behind him. When Shepard lit him up with an incendiary, he became an excellent, flaming obstacle. Garrus grinned and pulsed the Mattock twice. The first burst hit the screaming krogan on the ground; the second hit the swearing one behind him. Garrus zig-zagged, avoiding two predictable shotgun blasts, and fired again, Shepard's Widow punctuating his shots with a massive exclamation point. The krogan on the ground went still. The krogan still charging fell down.

One of Solus's vorcha was down now, and the professor ran out of cover to come up on their rear. Garrus, Shepard, and Solus advanced up the ramp. Garrus fired one more burst at the krogan, the last vorcha's head exploded, and the hospital was silent once more, except for the hissing out the gas pipe where Shepard had shot the leak. As they passed over the pipe at the top of the ramp, Mordin leaned out over the railing and froze a patch over the break with his omni-tool. No sense in letting the gas build up.

The new corridor was clear, but Garrus kept his weapon drawn. From the look of this new section of the hospital, he didn't think they'd find any more Weyrloc or Blood Pack in the vicinity. These were hospital rooms, tight and closed off. It'd be smarter to force them into close quarters here, but even though it was better to keep sick krogan confined, healthy krogan didn't like it much.

Mordin nodded at the hallway ahead. "Labs likely through there," he told them. "Can smell antiseptic. Hint of dead flesh."

Sure enough, the rough concrete cells with their heavy, metal security doors slid open looked like workrooms. Garrus saw equally durable-looking hospital beds and consoles on either side of the hallway. Mordin stopped at one. "Active console," he noted. "May contain useful data. One moment."

His fingers flew over the interface, and for about a minute, he didn't say anything. Symbols and readouts passed over the screen too quickly for Garrus to make any sense of them, but Mordin took it all in. "Genetic sequences, hormone mutagens—still steady, protein chains, live tissue, clone tissue." He paused. "Very thorough. Standard treatment vectors. Avoiding scorched-earth amino suppressants to alter hormone levels. Good. Hate to see that."

Shepard had folded her arms. Her mouth was set. "You're pretty casual about the sterility plague you helped develop," she noted.

Mordin glanced at her, then back at the console. "Not developing. Modifying. Much more difficult. Working within confines of existing genophage. A hundred times the complexity. Errors unacceptable. Could cause total sterility, malignant tumors, could even reduce effectiveness. Worse than doing nothing. Had to keep krogan population stable: one in one thousand, perfect target, optimal growth. Like gardening."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "You're saying you were working just as hard to keep their population from falling?"

The professor looked back at her then, frowning. "Yes!" he insisted. "Could have eradicated krogan. Not difficult. Increase mutation to degrade genetic structure further. Chose not to! Rachni extinction tragic! Didn't want to repeat! All life precious. Universe demands diversity."

Shepard seemed to accept this. "What was it like working on the genophage modification project?" she asked.

The professor's eyes went out of focus, as if he were seeing things the way they had been so long ago. Salarians didn't experience solipsis the way drell could, but most of them had perfect recall anyway. Maybe in a way he was. "Best years of my life," he told them. "Wake up with ideas, talk over breakfast, experiments all morning. Statistical analysis in afternoon. Run new simulations during dinner. Set data runs to cook overnight. Laughter, ego, argument, passion. Galaxy's biggest problem. Massive resources thrown at us. Got anything we wanted."

"Do you keep in touch with your old team members?" Shepard asked.

"No," Garrus murmured, without thinking.

Shepard looked at him, surprised. "Garrus?"

The professor's eyes filled with something like regret. Garrus looked at him when he answered the implicit question. "People with questions end up on Omega. The professor did. He ran a clinic. Two of his teammates found me instead."

Shepard's gaze cleared. "I remember that." Her eyes moved between Garrus and Mordin, assessing. For once, it wasn't Garrus she was evaluating. Strangely, that didn't seem to make it any better. "You knew your old teammates were working with Garrus, and they knew where you were, but you didn't talk?" she asked Mordin.

The professor's shoulders sagged. "All changed with deployment," he tried to explain. "Made test drop on isolated krogan clan, hit rest of Tuchanka when results were positive. End of project. Separate ways. Watching it end, watching birth rates drop—personal. Private. Not appropriate for team. Even Mierin and Erash—could not reunite for years—even with Garrus."

On Omega, all three of them had tried to make up for what they'd done here. Solus with the clinic, and Erash and Mierin with Garrus, because they'd actually believed Archangel would make Omega a better place. But Omega was the same as it always was, and Erash and Mierin were dead. Well. At least I can get the bastard that sold them out. Any day now.

Garrus was pulled out of his ruminations by the brief press of a shoulder against his arm. Shepard had stepped forward, ostensibly to get a better view of the readouts on the console. She very carefully didn't look at him, but Garrus saw Mordin watching her. The professor doesn't miss much. Those measurements and reports probably make about as much sense to Shepard as they do to me. Sometimes Garrus wondered, between him and Shepard, who was really watching whose back?

And Shepard kept the conversation focused on Mordin, too. "So they joined up with Archangel and you started a clinic. Ever wonder why three of you went to the worst part of the galaxy and tried to make things right after your project?"

Mordin sighed. It was hard to tell with salarians sometimes, but suddenly Garrus remembered the professor was old, probably in the last few years of his life. "Something easy," he answered. "No ethical concerns. Understand rationale for modifying genophage. Right choice. Still . . . hard to sleep some nights," he admitted.

Shepard lifted her chin and forced eye contact with Mordin. "You saw Urdnot, Mordin, and they're doing well," she said bluntly. "How can you agree with using the genophage after seeing that?"

Mordin was irritated by now. "State of Tuchanka not due to genophage," he protested. "Nuclear winter caused by krogan before salarians made first contact. Krogan choices. Refused truce during Krogan Rebellions. Expand after Rachni Wars. Splinter after genophage. Genophage medical, not nuclear. No craters from virus. Damage caused by krogan, not salarians. Not me."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "So say Wrex succeeds in his mission and the krogan band together and form a united government. You'd welcome that?"

Solus was adamant. "Yes! United krogan saved galaxy! Destroyed rachni. Genophage not punishment. Simply . . . alters fertility to correct for removal from hostile environment." He waved his hand, as if searching for a rationale.

Shepard looked around at the crumbling, abandoned hospital. "The effects it did have on Tuchanka are still your responsibility. You upgraded the virus that keeps them in barbarism."

Mordin's gestures got more animated by the moment. "Krogan committed war crimes," he stressed. "Refused to negotiate. Turian defeat not complete. Krogan could have recovered, attacked again. Conventional war too risky. Krogan forces too strong. Genophage was only option. Krogan forced genophage. Us or them. No apologies for winning. Wouldn't have minded peaceful solution."

It was the same thing Garrus had heard all his life, but when he looked at Shepard's expression of disgust, the explanation rang a little hollow. "God," Shepard said. "It sounds like something you memorized from a book. Come on. We're not going to find Maelon staring at consoles."

She led the way out of the room, and Garrus followed her with the professor. Garrus tried to imagine what might be going on in Solus's head and gave it up. He was thrown enough on his own. I wonder what would happen if you let her at a room full of genophage apologists, scholars, and philosophers for a day or so. Sometimes it was unbelievable, all the stuff they got up to. Saving sapient species that were supposed to be extinct. Discovering what had happened to the Protheans. Investigating a quarian admiral's death at what could be the beginning of a new war between organics and synthetics. And now—stuck in an old krogan hospital where someone was trying to cure the genophage with probably one of the handful of people in the galaxy that could actually make it work, and Shepard coming at him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

For all Garrus knew, Shepard was right. He'd seen enough desperate krogan mercenaries, and all the hope and community in Urdnot's camp didn't take away from the fact that they were barely hanging on, living in a pile of rubble. The krogan had lived a thousand years under the genophage. Maybe it was time it ended, or at least time for the krogan to start to heal. But it felt dangerous for an out-of-favor human Spectre, a dropout turian, and one or maybe two salarian scientists to decide that.

Mordin stopped in another laboratory, not too far down the hall. There was a corpse on one of the tables. Big. The professor's eyes widened, and his gloved hand came up to touch the body. "Dead krogan," he said very softly. "Female." He gestured at growths on her head and neck, similar to the ones they had seen on the human in the entryway. "Tumors indicate experimentation. No restraint marks. Volunteer. Sterile Weyrloc female willing to risk procedures. Hoped for cure. Pointless. Pointless waste of life."

Garrus looked away from the dead krogan. The helpless anger and grief in Mordin's voice was clear even without subharmonics. He's an interesting case, the professor. Cool enough to forgive the Illusive Man for sending us into a situation we could all be killed. So logical and pragmatic that after implementing the new genophage he ran off to run a free clinic for all the prostitutes, gangbangers, killers, and debt-dodgers on Omega. A salarian standing here mourning a krogan he didn't even know, who died because of the service he did for his people.

He didn't remark on it, but Shepard did. "I didn't expect you to be disturbed by the sight of a dead krogan."

Garrus didn't know if that was true or not, but it damn sure had the effect she wanted. Mordin actually jumped to round on her. "What? Why?" he demanded. "Because of genophage work? Irrelevant! No! Causative!" His eyes seemed to be dragged back to the krogan on the table. "Never experimented on live krogan, never killed with medicine!" he protested. "Her death not my work . . . only . . . reaction to it!" He waved his hand. "Goal was to stabilize population. Never wanted this. Can see it logically, but still unnecessary, foolish waste of life. Hate to see it!"

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "You've seen things like this before? Did you come to Tuchanka after the project ended?"

Mordin sighed. "Yearly recon missions," he admitted. "Water, tissue samples. Ensure no mistakes. Superiors offered to carry it on. Refused. Need to see it in person. Need to look, need to see, accept it as necessary. See small picture. Remind myself why I run a clinic on Omega." He raised his hand in something like a benediction. "Rest, young mother. Find your gods. Find someplace better."

Shepard blinked, and Garrus realized that as hard as she'd been pushing the professor, one of a handful of people in the galaxy that might actually be able to change things for the krogan, she hadn't known he might be ready to hear her. She'd seen Solus's struggle as well as he did—everyone that wound up on Omega had problems—and seen the opportunity there. But she'd thought she'd have to work a lot harder to get to him.

But most doctors got into the field to save lives, not take them. And even if Solus hadn't already been doubting everything he'd done against the krogan and hating what had happened because of it, Garrus had seen Shepard talk Saren, an indoctrinated, antihuman mass-murderer into listening to her in the middle of a battle, turning on the Reapers, and taking himself out of the equation. She had to know she could talk anyone into just about anything.

"Mordin, are you religious?" Shepard asked in a tone completely different from the confrontational, accusative one she'd been taking throughout their little tour of the labs.

Mordin shrugged. "Genophage modification project altered millions of lives. Then saw results. Ego. Humility. Juxtaposition—frailty of life, size of universe. Explored religions after work completed. Different races. No answers. Many questions."

And sometimes, questions are all you get. No answer for how a small group of aliens should get to decide the fate of another species, now or then. No answer for how a perfectly healthy, happy woman with half her life in front of her could contract a disease that leaves her a shadow of herself and ruins the lives of everyone around her, too. No answer to what could drive a man to betray all his friends, good men, to people that came when they weren't ready and slaughtered them. No answer for why you get a second chance—or third, or fourth—when when none of them did.

Looking across at Shepard, Garrus knew he wasn't the only one that could relate to Mordin's problem. The lonely, yearning expression there was enough to make him immediately glance away. He hadn't ever liked seeing mirrors like that even before the Blue Suns shot off his face.

There're no answers for her, either. No answer for why a kid's parents would abandon her to be beaten and neglected, bullied and alone, and scrape by the best she can, or how that kid could grow up to be the kind of person that saves the galaxy. No answer to how she could just get spaced or why she would be allowed to come back. No answers at all.

"I know what you mean," Shepard said after a long moment. "How do you deal with your guilty conscience?" she asked Mordin. "The doctor who killed millions." Her words were as hard as they had been before, but the tone and the expression had changed enough that Garrus figured Solus had to know as well as he did now that that Shepard's real goal here wasn't judging so much as it was to offer a challenge.

"Modified genophage project great in scope," Solus explained. "Scientifically brilliant. But . . . ethically difficult. Krogan reaction visceral, tragic. Not guilty, but responsible. Trained as doctor. Genophage affects fertility, doesn't kill!" He didn't take his eyes off the krogan corpse, and he admitted, "Still . . . caused this. Hard to see big picture behind pile of corpses."

Shepard stepped around the table. The professor had to see her too now. "Put away the textbook and the memorized justifications for a moment here, Mordin. Can you really just rationalize it all away? How do you justify it?"

Solus took a deep breath and spread his hands. "Wheel of life. Popular salarian concept. Similar to human Hinduism in focus on reincarnation. Appealing to see life as endless. Fix mistakes in next life. Learn, adapt, improve. Refuse to believe life ends here." He shook his head. "Too wasteful. Have more to offer, mistakes to fix. Cannot end here! Could do so much more!"

Shepard leaned forward over the table. "If you need this much soul-searching to get over it, maybe the genophage was wrong," she said pointedly.

Mordin answered immediately. "Had to be done. Rachni War, Krogan Rebellions, all pointed to krogan aggression. So many simulations, effects of krogan population increase, all pointed to war, extinction. Genophage or genocide. Saved galaxy from krogan. Saved krogan from galaxy." He sounded much less sure of that than he had before, Garrus noted.

"But what if you'd cured the genophage instead?" Shepard challenged him. "Brought hope to the krogan? They'd have rejoiced!"

Mordin's lip curled. "Assumes human reaction," he lectured her. "Krogan response stimulus different. Harsh environment. Take chance to fight, flee! Would have caused chaos on Tuchanka. Victor would have war economy, bloodthirsty army. Galactic expansion only logical outcome. More war. Genophage saved lives war would have ended!"

Shepard folded her arms, unconvinced. "This is the real world, Mordin! You were willing to sterilize a species based on the evidence of a few simulations? You can't possibly have accounted for everything!"

Mordin was looking at her now, caught up in the argument. "Millions of data points! Years of arguments! Countless scenarios! All noted krogan fragmentation as dangerous, no unified culture to support repopulation! Would have been war! Turians and humans destroying krogan utterly! Genophage was better! Saved lives!"

Shepard put her hands on either side of the female krogan's limp arm. "Like hers?" she said quietly.

Garrus regarded the krogan on the table. While it sounded like Mordin's team had considered a possibility a lot of humans and turians wouldn't—that in the event of renewed krogan aggression, the Alliance and the Hierarchy would ally to fight them—he could tell right now they'd missed something. They hadn't counted on Urdnot. They hadn't counted on Wrex. If what Wrex was planning worked, the krogan would end up uniting. The population would grow with or without a cure—more slowly without one, but safety and pride and an organized breeding program would go a long way. All the simulations in the galaxy couldn't account for the difference one individual could make. One krogan leader committed to peace and growth instead of self-destruction. One opinionated human Spectre in the right place, at the right time, with the right person to make a change. One dead research volunteer on a table to be seen.

Mordin turned away. "Worked with available data," he murmured. "Only option. No other possible . . . doesn't matter."

Shepard nodded, and led the way out of the room. Garrus skipped a step to catch up with her. "You're pushing him pretty hard, Shepard," he murmured.

"I know," Shepard said in the same low tone. "But he's brilliant. He can do something about this. But only if he stops trying to feel better about himself on Omega and on suicide missions and starts trying to fix his mistakes in this life. He knows it was a mistake; you know he does. But he's got to admit it first."

That was an angle Garrus hadn't thought of—that the professor was here like Krios was here, a little bit like he was here, because he had to balance the scale, make up for what he'd done. Thinking about it, though, it made a lot of sense. "Was it a mistake, though?" he wondered. "Or did Mordin and the salarians make the hard call for the good of the galaxy?"

Shepard looked him right in the eye. You want to excuse them like he wants to excuse them, that look said. Because you didn't modify the genophage like Mordin did, but the Hierarchy dropped it in the first place, and you're afraid to step up and say they were wrong. "You knew two others. You tell me."

Erash and Mierin had both left the STG. Garrus had never asked, but he knew they'd left on bad terms. Because of what they'd done on Tuchanka? "I don't know, Shepard," Garrus sighed. "I don't know."

They'd come to the end of the corridor. On the left, there was a door to another section. Could lead to whatever Weyrloc and Blood Pack that was left. But on the right, there was a locked door. A cell? Garrus glanced at Mordin, wondering if they'd found Maelon or another experiment victim. Shepard just started hacking the door. Garrus took up position facing the other door, just in case anyone still in the hospital decided to attack. We haven't seen Weyrloc Guld yet. He might be smarter than the rest.

The door behind Garrus opened to reveal a bare cell. Garrus winced. Bare except for a none-too-fresh latrine pit in the corner. He wondered how bad it was for the krogan prisoner.

He saw him out of the corner of his right eye—krogan, male, smaller than most. He blinked up at them from where he sat back on his knees. "You killed the Blood Pack guards," he observed. He sounded drugged.

"Not Blood Pack," Mordin noted, gesturing at the yellow and gray armor on the prisoner. "Not member of Clan Weyrloc. Wrong clan markings."

"I'm an Urdnot scout," the krogan told them. "Weyrloc guards got me. Brought me here."

Garrus remembered the chief scout had said a scout had gone missing over here. Shepard told the prisoner as much. "We've taken out the guards," she said. "Get back to Urdnot."

The krogan shook his head. "I can't," he said heavily. "The Weyrloc did things to me. Drugs. Injections. Said I was sacrificing for the good of all krogan. Experiments to cure the genophage. Everything's blurry. Hard to think. Have to stay."

Shepard sighed. "Mordin, can you get him back on his feet?" she asked. "Stims, maybe? Something to bolster his immune system?"

Mordin's omni-tool came up. The fabrication centers started working, but the scout raised his hands. "You don't understand," he stressed. "I'm not too sick to leave. I have to stay. They're curing the genophage. They're gonna make it all better. They have to keep doing the tests."

Mordin's omni-tool stopped whirring. "Caution, Shepard," he warned. "Patient unstable. Susceptible. Brainwashed."

Garrus tilted his head at Mordin. Honestly, the krogan looked too weak to attack, and he hadn't shown any signs of violence so far. He looked more dizzy and depressed than anything. Shepard squatted down on the concrete and looked the scout in the eye. "Why do you want them to keep doing the tests?" she asked, speaking slowly and clearly.

The scout spread his hands. "This is my fault. I got caught," he explained. "Wasn't strong enough. Not good enough. This is the best I can do. This is all I can do. I'm not big enough to have a real shot with the females. I'll never have kids of my own. But if I help undo the genophage, then I mattered."

It was hard to tell if the scout was repeating what Weyrloc had told him or something he actually believed, Garrus thought. Self-pity or a genuine sacrifice? If it was the latter, it was an almost turian thing for the scout to do, to give his life for the betterment of his people in the best way he could think of. The problem is he's deluded.

Shepard seemed less impressed by the scout. "Millions of children will be born," she said, keeping her tone even with some effort, it sounded like. "Weyrloc children. They're going to destroy the other clans."

The scout blinked again, and slow, horrified comprehension came over his drugged face as his knowledge of clan politics caught up to the haze to inform him that yes, that was probably exactly what Clan Weyrloc would do if they cured the genophage. "But . . . no. No! They said I was helping Urdnot."

Shepard stood. "If you want to help Urdnot, you need to get back there," she told him. "But it would take a real badass to make it back to camp while injured." The disdainful note in her voice was exactly right, Garrus thought.

The scout clambered to his feet, eyes alight. "I can do it!" he protested.

Even standing, this krogan was shorter than he was, Garrus noted. Shorter than the professor, too. Only a little taller than Shepard, really, but she still seemed to dwarf him. "You?" she sniffed. "I said a badass, not some scout whining like a quarian with a tummy ache."

"I can do it," the scout insisted, balling his fists. Garrus wondered how old he was. "I'm up! And I'm going to the female camp!"

Shepard smiled and nodded, once. "Damn right, you are! Get back there and show them what you're worth! Go! Go!" She waved her hand down the corridor they'd come from, indicating the direction, and like Garrus, she blocked off the room beyond with her body.

The krogan roared in her face, clouded eyes blazing. His legs and arms shook, but there was a determination in him as he stalked out of the cell and down the hall. When he passed Mordin, the professor held out his hand, and a fabricated needle from his omni-tool penetrated down into the krogan's hump behind his back. He didn't seem to feel it and kept moving, and as he moved, his limbs began to steady. He'd make it.

"There's no pep talk like a military pep talk," Garrus observed.

Shepard smirked. "I do my best." The smirk slid off her face as quickly as it had come, and she raised her Locust. "Let's go."

She palmed open the opposite door, and all three of them dodged to the side. Garrus heard them moving on the other side of the room. Paws and claws and armored boots, echoing in a space larger than any they'd seen before.

The hospital opened up here. A rectangular catwalk circled the room. Doors off to the side seemed to lead to storage areas; the real path forward was down, across the room and down a flight of stairs to a lower level.

EDI's voice over the radio broke in suddenly, and Garrus tensed, surprised. "Shepard, I'm detecting crates ahead that are holding unstable materials," the AI informed them. "A misplaced shot could cause a significant explosion."

"'Significant explosion,'" Garrus repeated. "Those have to be some of my favorite words, no matter what language they're in."

Mordin sounded amused. "Indeed. Explosions useful. Blow through krogan armor."

"Sometimes I worry I'm a horrible example," Shepard mused.

"Don't get a big head," Garrus advised. "My love for fiery devastation definitely predated our association."

Then the first shot rang out, along with a vorcha snarl of defiance. "We've been spotted," Shepard warned.

There was a bridge over the drop to the lower level they had to take in order to get to the stairwell. Perfect kill zone, if the Blood Pack had been set up to take advantage. But they'd been either too stupid or too scared to set up a proper ambush in cover on both sides of the bridge. Instead, they were charging in a straight line from the right and across the bridge—right through the middle of the crates EDI had told them were explosive.

Sometimes, people really are just too stupid to live.

Garrus fired at the same time Shepard and Solus did.

They hadn't been lucky enough to pick three different targets, but two massive explosions went off like fireworks across the bridge. Vorcha and varren fell, torched, and the smell of burnt fur and flesh filled the air. The krogan kept coming, even as their armor melted and they roared with the pain. There were four of them, carrying shotguns. But in this room, they were still outside of their best range. Garrus, Shepard, and Solus, on the other hand, were right at home, and the trap that should have worked for the Blood Pack became their doom.

Garrus took point through the burning wreckage of the explosive crates, stepping around the outstretched Blood Pack corpses. Behind him, Shepard and Solus checked the storage rooms, looking for holdouts. He heard more feet pounding the corroded steel floors on the level below. He looked down and saw six more heat signatures—two varren, three krogan, and a vorcha, from the shapes.

"Ready to die?" a krogan called up.

I don't know. Are you? Garrus wondered. He took the stairs, Shepard on his flank, Mordin in the rear.

The varren came first, charging at them, teeth snapping, eyes wild with animal fear and rage. He took one with three shots to the chest and heard Shepard taking out the other. They'd lost valuable moments descending the stairs and shooting the varren, however. Garrus felt two bullets impact on his shields, didn't see any cover ahead.

Then Solus's incendiary rocketed into a crate over a second bridge, and the vorcha shooting at Garrus shrieked as he fell, flaming, down to still a lower level, already minus an arm.

The krogan farthest back roared, lighting up in a nimbus of biotic rage. Great. "Tremble and die, offworld scum!" came the furious challenge. "I am Weyrloc Guld, chief of chiefs!"

And why should offworld scum respect his authority? Garrus wondered. Ah, well. Logic isn't the strong suit of most gang leaders under devastating attack. Especially krogan gang leaders. He ducked a biotic throw and extended the movement to fire a concussive blast at the krogan farthest forward, knocking him back. Shepard and the professor followed up with five quick shots to down him, then tech rocketed out from both their omni-tools toward Guld and his last defender, respectively.

The electric, unnatural scent of live biotics mingled with the smell blood and smoke in the air, burning the inside of Garrus's nose. He fired rapid pulses at the krogan charging at the professor, trying to kill the salarian that would stop what Weyrloc's cure for the genophage, hide it where the salarians hid everything they didn't want to get out. Guld fired at Garrus, and there still wasn't any real cover.

Garrus ignored his visor's flashing. 65%. 30%. Orange blood was congealing over the wounds of the last charging Blood Pack soldier, but not fast enough. As Garrus fired four more bullets into his skull, the light faded from his eyes. His momentum carried him three more steps before he fell at Mordin's feet.

Another shot hit Garrus's shields, and they flickered and died, but Shepard and the professor had been busy. Guld was shouting through a mask of blood, his armor smoking in several places. His biotics were unstable, blooming and firing around him without pattern or purpose. He'd lost control of them in his blood rage. He couldn't reload his weapon. He brandished his shotgun like a club and hurtled across the bridge. Three bullets from an assault rifle, six from an SMG, and two from a pistol hit him at once, and he collapsed on the bridge, dead.

Gazing down at the body of Weyrloc Guld, Garrus didn't fool himself that this would kill the Blood Pack any more than killing Garm on Omega had killed it. These organizations were just too damn massive. But it was another blow. In the larger scheme of things, the death of a major Blood Pack leader was probably inconsequential compared to the genophage work going on here, but it still felt good. He took a moment to enjoy it, then followed Shepard and Solus across the bridge Guld had been guarding, through a door, and down another stairwell.

The cellar of the hospital seemed cleaner. The air didn't smell as much like blood and antiseptic, and Garrus saw more working consoles with every step they took. The experiments may have been conducted upstairs, but here was where Clan Weyrloc had been doing their research. He saw Shepard's fingers twitching around her gun, but she kept her eyes on Mordin and didn't move to take any of the data they saw around them. For a second, Garrus wondered why. The salarians were the best scientists in the galaxy, but they weren't the only ones worth anything. If Shepard wanted something done with the research Clan Weyrloc had done here, she could take it and make it happen. Give it to a private lab, or Clan Urdnot. The genophage cure could move forward more ethically. Shepard's actually going to try to get the salarians to endorse it—at least this one, Garrus realized, with a growing sense of awe. Getting even some of the salarians to back a genophage cure would be more of a coup than the cure itself; it could go a long way toward reconciling the krogan to the rest of the galaxy. Is it even possible? He had no idea.

Eventually, they found Maelon. He was in an airy workroom in front of a concept board. Garrus saw a holo of a krogan DNA strand floating over it, along with several complex equations with characters his translator program couldn't handle. Salarian science they haven't shared with the Council.

Garrus guessed the salarian was Maelon from Mordin's reaction. The professor tensed. His jaw dropped open and his gun arm lowered. There was no one else in this room, and a quick scan showed there wasn't anyone else anywhere. They'd cleared the hospital.

From the clearer skin, Maelon was some years younger than the professor. He was thinner than Mordin, too, with dark brown skin, but he wore a labcoat and certainly looked at home down here, and when he saw them, he tensed all over, his eyes narrowed, and his heart rate increased. His whole posture changed to one of guilty defiance, and Garrus knew what had happened before Mordin did.

"Maelon," Mordin murmured. "Alive. Unharmed. No signs of restraint, no evidence of torture. Don't understand."

Solus had lowered his gun, but Shepard kept hers up, and Garrus took his cue from her. There was something about Maelon's eyes he didn't like. "For such a smart man, professor, you always had trouble seeing evidence that disagreed with your preconceptions," Maelon sneered. "How long will it take for you to admit that I'm here because I wish to be here?"

"He wasn't kidnapped," Shepard stated. It was a fact. They all knew it. "He came here voluntarily to cure the genophage."

But Solus exploded. "Impossible!" he cried, arms gesticulating wildly. "Whole team agreed! Project necessary!"

"How was I supposed to disagree with the great Dr. Solus?" Maelon demanded. "I was your student! I looked up to you!"

Solus pointed an accusing finger at the younger salarian. "Experiments performed here. Live subjects, prisoners, torture and executions! Your doing?!"

Maelon spread his arms. "We've already got the blood of millions on our hands, doctor. If it takes a bit more to put things right, I can deal with that."

Shepard stepped forward. "You honestly think the experiments you did here are justified?" she challenged him.

Maelon wouldn't meet her eyes. His gaze kept sliding back to Mordin. "We committed cultural genocide! Nothing I do will ever be justified! The experiments are monstrous, because I was taught to be a monster!"

"Not by Dr. Solus, you weren't," Shepard said at once, so firmly Garrus saw Mordin's eyes soften with gratitude.

"No," Solus agreed. "Never taught you this, Maelon."

Maelon made a hideous face. "So your hands are clean! What does it matter if the ground is stained with the blood of millions? You taught me that the end justified the means. I will undo what we did, professor, the only way I know how!" He gestured at the board, at test tubes on a table. "The krogan would be thriving in a cultural renaissance now had we not decided that this was what they deserved!"

"Inaccurate!" Mordin spat back. "Krogan population resulted in war! Simulations were clear!"

Shepard kept her eyes on Maelon. "What will you think if they were right?" she asked him. "If the genophage is cured and the krogan expand, are you willing to have that on your head?"

Maelon shook his head. "We justified this atrocity by saying the krogan would cause havoc and war if their population recovered. But look at the galaxy! Batarian attacks in the Traverse, geth attacks in the Citadel. Is this a more peaceful universe? The assault on your Eden Prime might never have happened if we had let the krogan recover. We'll never know."

"You're crazy," Garrus said flatly. "You've been sitting on this for years, and you aren't thinking straight." Batarian aggression and the geth alliance with the Reapers had nothing to do with the genophage.

Shepard agreed. "How would a krogan population explosion have done anything to stop Saren and the geth?"

Maelon rolled his eyes at them. "An increased krogan population would have forced the Council to take steps, likely involving colony rights in the Traverse. The turian fleets would be vigilant for any military activity in the area. They might have stopped the geth at Eden Prime!"

"Supposition," Mordin retorted. "Impossible to be certain."

"Don't you see?" Maelon pleaded. "We tried to play God, and we failed! We only made things worse! And I'm going to fix it!"

Shepard flicked the safety back on her pistol and folded her arms. "With Clan Weyrloc?" she asked, sarcasm heavy in her voice. "There's a way to ensure a more peaceful galaxy. And how did you access the genophage data?"

Maelon sighed. "The data was easy to obtain," he told her. "We all still had clearance; we were heroes. All I had to do was ask. As for the Weyrloc, they were the only clan with both the resources and the commitment."

Shepard raised her eyebrows. "Not Urdnot?"

"Urdnot Wrex is too soft," Maelon scoffed. "He wasn't willing to do the experiments I needed."

Garrus was surprised and impressed to hear Wrex hadn't been desperate enough to take this crazy salarian up on his plans to cure the genophage if it meant hurting his people and innocent humans. "I knew we liked him for a reason," he remarked.

"It's Urdnot's loss and Weyrloc's gain," Maelon shot back, puffing his chest out. "Their clan will be the first to recover from the crime we committed."

Shepard turned to face Mordin. "Maelon clearly doesn't need rescuing," she said in a disgusted tone. "What do you want to do?"

Garrus had never seen anything like the expression on the professor's face as he looked at the insane scientist, the former student and friend he'd hoped to save. Another traitor. Maelon took secrets the Union trusted him with, that Mordin trusted him with, and used them to betray everything they did all those years ago in the most unethical way possible. The trouble is, in a way, the professor's wondering if Maelon was right. But he still can't forgive how Maelon did this.

"Have to end this," Mordin murmured.

Maelon's wild eyes suddenly ignited. He snatched a gun up from the table behind him, waving it loosely toward Mordin. "You can't face the truth, can you?" he shouted. "You can't admit that your brilliant mind led you to commit an atrocity!"

Mordin was already in motion. In one brutal, efficient movement, he punched Maelon's weapon away. It fell to the floor and skidded away. Garrus walked around, flipped the weapon up onto his foot and into his off hand. And the professor had pinned Maelon up against his concept board, his arm over Maelon's chest and under his chin. The other hand had a gun to the younger scientist's temple. "Unacceptable experiments!" he summarized. "Unacceptable goals! Won't change. No choice: Have to kill you."

He closed his eyes, Shepard's face contorted, and she stepped forward. "No!" she cried. "You don't!" She took a deep breath. "Mordin, you're not a murderer."

Mordin gasped and fell away from Maelon. The younger scientist, terrified out of his wits, fell sprawling on the ground. "No!" Mordin said. "Not a murderer." He was quiet for a moment that seemed to stretch into infinity. Then he nodded and straightened. "Thank you, Shepard. Finished, Maelon," he told his former pupil. "No Weyrloc left. Project over."

Garrus eyed Maelon. He got it. He knew why Shepard didn't want the professor taking the shot, but politically, it was a big risk letting the salarian go. "What if he talks to more krogan?" he asked. "Tells the public about the modified genophage project?"

Mordin shrugged. "Special Tasks Group good at covering tracks. No proof. Weyrloc willingness to work with salarian unusual. Other krogan will kill him."

"And what if he starts his research back up again?" Shepard asked.

Mordin had moved to the concept board. Maelon staggered to his feet and edged away, keeping his eyes on Garrus. There was a terminal at the base of the concept board that Garrus guessed linked to all the research in the hospital. The professor's hands spread out over the keyboard. "Locking this unit," he said. "Special Tasks Group can cut access to old data. Could start from scratch. Decades of work, though." He looked back over his shoulder at Maelon. "Didn't teach you everything I knew."

Shepard looked across at Garrus and nodded. He lowered his weapon with hers, and she spoke to Maelon. "You heard the professor. Get out before he changes his mind."

Maelon looked furious, lost, and relieved all at once, but Garrus knew he wasn't out of the woods yet. This was still Tuchanka, and Garrus guessed from Shepard and Mordin's tones here that they weren't shooting the guy, but they sure as hell weren't giving him a ride off-world. "Where am I supposed to go, professor?" Maelon asked.

Mordin didn't look at him again but kept shutting down the research. Around the room, terminals were going dead. Out in the hallways, Garrus saw lights going down in the hospital as Solus cut the power. "Don't care," he said. "Try Omega. Can always use another clinic."

Maelon took three steps toward the door. "The krogan didn't deserve what we did to them, professor," he said. "The genophage needs to end!"

Mordin went still. "Not like this," he replied. Maelon's face set, but he turned on his heel and fled. Mordin kept at the terminal. "Apologies, Commander. Misunderstood mission parameters. No kidnapping. My mistake. Thank you."

"It's not a problem, Mordin," Shepard said quietly. "How are you doing?"

Mordin's face twitched. "Should have killed him. Wanted to. Easier than listening. Easier for him, too; experiments indicate how far he's fallen." He bowed his head. "Expected it from krogan. Not one of mine."

Shepard made a face. "Maybe you'll remember that the next time you're discussing the ethics of the genophage."

Mordin's omni-tool came up as the concept board shut down. Garrus saw a single data file hovering there, represented by a glowing string of text running circles around the professor's wrist. Solus watched it, pensive. "Yes. So many variables. Stress responses. Impossible to truly predict. Something to think about. Maelon's research. Only loose end. Could destroy it. Closure. Security." He took a deep breath in through his nose and glanced at Shepard and Garrus. "Still . . . valuable, though."

Garrus's mandibles tightened. There it was: a single, floating file that could change the course of the galaxy. Maelon hadn't been any Mordin Solus. If the professor kept his research, Garrus knew what it could mean. Participating in that genophage modification project hadn't made him crazy, but Garrus guessed everyone who'd been involved had had their regrets. He wondered what Erash and Mierin would think if they were here, what they'd recommend. The truth was, he had no idea. I never knew a salarian as close with a krogan as Mierin was to Krul. And as much as Erash loved his explosions, and as much as he'd hate to admit it, he was one of the ones that was in it to save as many as he could. But the two of them knew about 'whatever it takes.'

He knew what Shepard would recommend. He knew what Mordin wanted. But was it right?

'Right.' When it comes to the genophage, what does that even mean?

"If you think it could be useful, why not hang on to it?" Shepard said.

Mordin's fingers twitched inside his omni-tool. "Worked for years to create modified genophage," he mused. "Should destroy this. Maelon's work could cure genophage. I don't know. Effects on krogan, effects on galaxy. Too many variables. Too many variables!"

Shepard stepped close to the scientist. "You regret what the krogan have become," she said quietly. "You see the horror of what they did here, but you see the loss, too."

"Wasted potential," Mordin agreed.

Shepard lifted her chin, forcing the professor to meet her eyes. "They don't deserve this Mordin," she said. "Save the data."

Mordin nodded, flexed his hand, and it was done. "Point taken, Shepard. Capturing data. Wiping local copy. Still years away from cure, but closer than starting from scratch." Garrus saw another string of data leave his omni-tool, a virus that would wipe everything on the local terminals as clean as an eggshell. "Done. Ready to go. Ready to be off Tuchanka. Anywhere else. Maybe somewhere sunny," he mused.

Shepard looked at Garrus. "Think the next stop's the Citadel, actually," she said, her face and voice carefully inexpressive. "But we'll be here a couple more days." She shrugged and slugged Mordin lightly in the arm. "Still—no reason for you to hang around. Let's get out of here."

They turned around to start climbing their way back toward the Urdnot truck.


Unlike Shepard, Garrus didn't often visit the professor's lab. It wasn't just that every time Mordin looked at him he thought of Erash and Mierin. At least, that's what he told himself. He barely understood a tenth of what Mordin got up to. It was another rule from basic: stick to what you're good at, and when you can't help, just stay the hell out of the way.

But you didn't go through something like what they'd faced down in the Weyrloc camp without taking some time to decompress afterward. Upstairs, Garrus guessed Shepard was taking whatever time she needed. She did her best to hide it, but he knew she probably had doubts about what they'd done today. Anyone would, and he hadn't forgotten how it'd been for him on Omega. She'd be up there wondering if leaving Maelon alive would just leave him free to duplicate his sick experiments sometime after the STG surveillance died down. Analyzing all the different ways her decision to spare Maelon's data could go to crap. And she wouldn't breathe a word of that to anyone, because she believed she'd made the best decision she could down there, and when it came out—and it would—she would have to make everyone else believe it too.

She'd talk to Solus later, make sure he had a chance to get whatever he needed to off of his chest. But Mordin deserved a chance to say whatever he needed to say to Garrus, too. Garrus wasn't sure he'd have been allowed along today if Mordin had known the mission parameters going in. He'd told Shepard about his STG work; it was relevant to his qualifications and to why Maelon had been in danger. Garrus hadn't ever needed to know, and the fact he did was a security breach.

It looked like Mordin was researching some armor tech today. A holo of Shepard's breastplate hovered in front of him, and as Garrus watched, Mordin threw out a section to examine the underlay. Behind him, angry seekers bumped against the reinforced glass jar they were trapped in, and beside the jar, Garrus saw a monitor with quad-strand DNA scrolling across the screen.

"Mordin."

"Garrus," Mordin said, without looking up. "How can I help?"

"What happened down there. Are you going to be alright?"

Mordin blinked. "Of course," he said, as if it was obvious. "Maelon safe from attack. Unethical experiments stopped. We do good work."

"I hope so," Garrus said.

Mordin looked up, and his eyes narrowed. "Genophage has not been cured, Garrus. Data merely saved. Leaves possibility open, provides avenues for further research. Doubts?"

Garrus braced himself on the lab table. "I want Shepard to be right," he admitted. "I hope she is. If she pushes this . . ." he took a breath. "I'll back her up. But it's a long shot, Mordin."

Mordin's expression clouded. "Many variables," he repeated. "Some unaccounted for in previous project simulations. Leadership of Urdnot Wrex, beginning of diplomatic union of krogan clans. Saw research station in Urdnot camp? Resurgence of nonmartial science. Agriculture. Support of powerful galactic figures. Shepard may only be first. Needs further study. Possible there is a peaceful path to curing genophage." He shook his head. "Massive shift in galactic paradigm."

Garrus nodded. "About that—what happened down there won't leave the Normandy until you're ready. At least not through my transmitter."

Mordin's eyes warmed, and he smiled. "Would not have thought otherwise. History, mindfulness of security, psychological profile, personal observation—all suggest familiarity with confidential operations, possibly prior to work with Shepard or on Omega. Not in C-Sec. During military career?" He tilted his head at Garrus. Garrus just tilted it back, and Mordin's smile widened. "Tapped for Spectre training," he concluded, as if that settled it. In a way, it did. "Besides," he added. "Shepard would not encourage it."

"She's got your back, professor," Garrus told him. "I know it may not seem like it—"

"On the contrary," Mordin corrected him. "Took time away from mission to rescue nonessential personnel, personal peace of mind only objective. Attitude in Weyrloc base entirely consistent with military background—pushing subordinate to realization of moral, mental, logical weakness. Meant to build up, strengthen, improve! Tough love. Uncomfortable," Mordin remarked, with a wry face, "But appreciated. Offered alternate perspective."

"She does that a lot."

Mordin hummed agreement, typed a correction, and set the fabricator on the table to begin weaving the prospective underlay. "Commander Shepard well known for moral convictions. Respect for life. Diplomacy. Altruism. Spared last rachni queen, despite aggression of insane rachni soldiers and warlike history. Saved Council at cost of much of Third and Fifth Alliance Fleets. Good woman. Good officer, if sometimes illogical." He turned away to examine the Prothean DNA. "Something else on your mind?" he asked.

There hadn't been, but now that he was here, Garrus took a look around. Mordin was a doctor, one of the most brilliant biologists and geneticists in the galaxy. He tapped his fingers on the table, then decided. Screw professionalism. "Professor, do you know anything about Corpalis Syndrome?"

Mordin stopped his work at once. His omni-tool came up, and Garrus saw a variant of Doc Chakwas's diagnostic app float up around the professor's wrist. "Ugly disease," he said. "Turian. Similar to but faster acting than human Alzheimer's. Neural degeneration, cognitive degredation, memory loss. Fatal two to three years after appearance of diagnosable symptoms. No known cure." He frowned. "Well outside earliest reported age of onset, Garrus. Have not demonstrated any symptoms. Appear to be in perfect physical health. Cybernetic aural implant functioning properly, scarring healing well. Blood work on file free of disease. Have already forwarded recommendations to Dr. Chakwas for supplements to reduce risks of multiple diseases later in life—" he stopped then. Comprehension dawned on his face, and he shut the diagnostic program off.

"Forgive me," he said. "Not personal complaint. Loved one. Unlikely significant other. Family member. Midlife or later. Turians rarely close to extended family. Parent."

"My mother," Garrus confirmed, ignoring the remark about his nonexistent partner. The last thing he needed to do was get involved in a discussion about why Mordin thought he didn't have a girlfriend. "Auralie Vakarian. She was diagnosed two years ago." He swallowed. "They—they don't think she has a lot of time. I didn't think of it until just now, but—your specialty's xenobiology. Do you know something her doctors don't?"

Mordin's face fell. "No," he said in a low voice. Suddenly, his face brightened. He lifted a finger, then snapped. "But in contact with researchers conducting studies. Experimental, but promising." Up came the omni-tool again, and this time, Garrus saw a contact list flying by. Then Mordin stopped. "Cannot guarantee results," he warned. "Two years after diagnosis, unfamiliar with patient—"

"I understand," Garrus rushed to say, trying to wrap his head around the balloon of hope expanding in his chest. There are researchers, studies, salarian scientists working to beat this thing. "Can you get her in?"

"Will write recommendation, make introductions, encourage selection for study." He met Garrus's eyes. "If subject and family are amenable to participation."

"I'll call them right away," Garrus promised. "If your friends can help her, we'll do whatever we can to get her to them."

"'Help' subjective with advanced Corpalis," Mordin stressed. "Can perhaps recommend medications, treatments to improve function, modestly increase longevity. Can study progression of disease to add to research for cure. Might be cost-prohibitive." He shrugged. "Vakarian family economic status unknown. Costs of travel, participation unknown."

"Forward me the information," Garrus said. "I'll see my parents and sister get it. Mordin—thank you."

"Happy to help," Mordin told him, already sending files over his omni-tool. "As I said: ugly disease. Glad to promote research to find treatment options. Mutually beneficial. Good for patient, good for researchers. Also personally invested." He stopped typing, and Garrus's omni-tool buzzed. His visor notified him he had a new email with a large attachment, along with contact information. "Assistance appreciated this afternoon, Garrus. Concern afterward as well."

Garrus paused. "You're part of the team, Professor. I hope you don't think I was pumping you for help. It's just—something I've been thinking about. And I was here."

Mordin looked at him in genuine incomprehension. "Mother gravely ill. Natural to consult doctor. Salarian science widely acknowledged to be best in galaxy. Would be more surprised—insulted—if you did not make use of all resources. Shortsighted. Foolish."

Salarians. Always working all the angles. Garrus sighed and thanked Mordin again and turned around to leave. He had to make a call.

"Garrus," Mordin called, a note of concern in his voice. Garrus paused in the doorway. "Krogan Rite of Passage tomorrow likely to be extremely dangerous. Urdnot Wrex powerful ally, but other krogan will judge Grunt and alien krannt more harshly. Take care."

"No worries, professor," Garrus told him. "I've got no intention of dying tomorrow. I've got an appointment on the Citadel to keep."


A/N: Leave a review if you've got something to say!

Best Always,

LMS