LV

Taming Cerberus: Play Dead


How soon?

S


The day EDI, Tali, and the Engineering team pronounced Normandy good to go, Shepard tagged him to head into the city with her. It was time to look up T'Soni.

Garrus wasn't sure how he felt about seeing T'Soni again. The last time he'd been face to face with Liara T'Soni, she'd confronted him with a murder—a deserved murder, but murder nonetheless—then proceeded to cover up for him and give him instructions to Lantar Sidonis. She'd then comped the information, saying his looking out for Shepard was worth it to her, while making it perfectly clear she was still in love with Beth and more than a little upset with him because Shepard hadn't reacted as badly to his being Archangel as she had to Liara bringing her back from the dead. He wasn't sure information broker T'Soni had any kind of moral high ground, but she had a way of assuming it anyway that made him feel every one of the seventy-odd years she had on him.

No matter what Shepard thought, Garrus could never thank Liara enough for bringing Shepard back from the dead. That said, he could understand why Shepard was angry. As welcome as her resurrection was to Garrus and every other poor SOB looking to Commander Shepard to save the galaxy, bringing someone back from the dead just to keep fighting in an almost hopeless war was a bit of an ethical and scientific gray area. When that meant basically selling Shepard's body to Cerberus—well. Beth hated Cerberus almost as much as Jack did, and she had since Ontarom. She had good reasons, and Garrus wasn't about to tell her she should forget them, any spiritual problems she might have with being resurrected, and any emotional ones she had with being pulled back into a war against the Reapers just for T'Soni's sake.

Neither one of the women involved had really tried to put him in the middle of their disagreement. That didn't mean he had to relish being a third to any standoff that went down in T'Soni's office or while they helped Liara go after the Shadow Broker. Not with everything else going on. Still. If Shepard wanted a buffer, it was probably a good idea to be one, and going after the Shadow Broker was definitely a dangerous proposition.

But when they got to her office, Liara wasn't expecting them. Her eyes lit up. Her lips lifted. But her body tensed. "Shepard. Garrus. I—wasn't sure if I would see you again."

Beth's expression was shuttered. She leaned against the doorway to Liara's office, as if she couldn't even bring herself to walk all the way inside. Garrus looked at her, then moved past her to walk to Liara's desk. She rose and shook his hand when he offered it.

"T'Soni. How've you been?"

"Middling," she answered. "Spreading misinformation about your trail to the mercenary groups in the Terminus has taken some doing. Your insistence on firefights with them over krogan, prison ships, and pirate depots every other week hasn't helped. But the cost has been offset by a renewed interest in colonial prospects now that the Collectors are . . . otherwise occupied."

"Destroyed, actually."

"Destroyed?" Liara repeated, eyes widening.

Garrus smiled. "You can have that one for free. The Collectors won't be attacking colonies any time soon. They're out one Reaper-building space station at the heart of the galaxy past the Omega-4 Relay, a bunch of resources, and a few hundred people. Be surprised if we didn't make them extinct. And there's more you might be even more interested in."

"I'm sure," Liara said, fingers twitching toward a data pad.

"We can talk about it later," Shepard broke in. "We're not out to sell you information, Liara, and though we appreciate the favors, we're not here to repay those either. It appears that right now we might have some compatible goals." She walked into the office, letting the door shut behind her, brought up her omni-tool, and started running a scrambler. Liara's eyes went even wider, and she sat again, watching Shepard. "Look," Beth said. "Right before we blew up the Collector base, I told Cerberus and the Illusive Man to go to hell. But before we set out on the mission, they passed on some information about the Shadow Broker's whereabouts and activities. Thought you might be interested."

"Shepard . . . what . . .?"

Shepard copied a file to Liara's terminal. "The intelligence on my ship's no longer conveying intel to Mr. Illusive," she said, "but that doesn't mean he can't get it somewhere else. You're looking for the Broker. I need them to go dark. I think we can help each other."

Liara had paled. She trembled, tripping over herself to open the file. "I had no idea. Let me see what you've got." Her eyes scanned a page on her monitor, data Garrus couldn't see. "It looks like a leaked transmission between Shadow Broker operatives," she said, without taking her eyes from the screen. "Some hints as to location and . . ." Her mouth shut tight, and her eyes snapped back to Shepard's, then flitted over to Garrus. Her fists clenched, and she looked ready to jump up and run right out the door. "It's about Feron. He's still alive!"

Shepard frowned. "That debt you owe. Someone you lost recovering my body?"

"The same," Liara confirmed, standing. She started to pace across her office. "He sacrificed himself to save me. I never found anything suggesting he was alive. After two years . . . I hadn't even dreamed."

Garrus imagined hearing that after everything, one of his men on Omega had survived the gangs' hit on Archangel, that they were held prisoner by a gang boss. What would he do to get them back?

I have a bad feeling about this.

He saw a similar discomfort etched across Shepard's face. Her arms were folded across her chest. "If he's been the Shadow Broker's prisoner that long, he may not be in good shape," she warned.

Liara's freckles looked darker than usual against her light blue skin. "I know, but yesterday, all I wanted was the chance to avenge his death. Today, he's alive. I'll do whatever I have to do to get him back."

Shepard's mouth twisted. "So much for asari philosophy," she commented. "You're really not too good at letting go, are you?"

"Shepard," Garrus murmured. Beth looked at him, her eyes dark and unreadable. "He's not dead."

Liara shot Garrus a grateful look. "And it's my fault he got captured," she said. "Everything he's suffered for two years is my responsibility. He betrayed me more than once—double-dealing for Cerberus and the Shadow Broker—but in the end, he sacrificed himself for me. I owe him for that, Shepard."

Shepard looked from Liara to Garrus, and she seemed to relent. "If we can help him, we will," she agreed finally. "Can this data get us to him? To the Broker?"

Liara raised her hand to her head, looked back at the screen. Shook her head. "I . . . I don't know. I need to prepare, to think." She lifted her hands and walked toward the door. "I'm going home," she said. "Use my terminal if you need any local intel."

Shepard stopped her, reaching out and catching T'Soni's shoulder. "Liara," she said. Liara looked back at her. "Don't do anything stupid."

"I've spent two years plotting revenge, Shepard," T'Soni told her. "Now I have the chance to make it a rescue. I can . . ."

"Liara," Beth interrupted. "Don't do anything stupid. Can we come by your apartment later? What's your address?"

Even in the middle of a crisis, T'Soni still recognized sense when she heard it. She activated her omni-tool, transferred her contact information over. "All right. Here. Just . . . I'll come up with a plan. Thank you." She detached herself from Shepard and walked away.

Shepard watched her go for a moment. "How much bullshit do you guess we just walked into?"

"Hunt for the most ruthless, secretive information broker in the galaxy, and we're partnering up with a half-juvenile asari academic on a guilt trip," Garrus answered. "We're probably in about as much trouble as usual."

"That much, huh?" Shepard shook her head and closed her eyes. "God. Let's get back to the ship and organize some backup."

Sometimes, I really hate being right, Garrus thought, before they ever got out of the rental cab to Liara's. There were about three police vehicles out front, and he could see flashlights moving in an upstairs window. One of them caught on a jagged edge in the middle of the pane. Bullet holes.

"Damn it," Shepard swore, leaping out of the rental cab. "No chance that's anyone else's place, is there?"

"Doubtful," Tali said. "Keelah, do you think she's okay?"

Shepard didn't answer. "Come on," she said, striding toward the front door. She opened up a channel to Normandy. "Moreau, come in," she reported. "We're five seconds on the ground, and things are already FUBAR. We've got shots fired at Liara's apartment and police onsite. Get Jack and Grunt prepped, and have Niels lock on to my location. Think we're gonna need that backup."

"Aye-aye, Commander," Joker said, voice taut with worry. "Keep me posted."

Liara's entire apartment had been cordoned off. The police team consisted of two asari and a turian forensicist. When Garrus, Shepard, and Tali walked up to the line, one of the asari was talking to the others.

"Seal up those trace samples and get them back to the lab."

"We've got multiple shots fired," the other was reporting into a radio. "Yeah . . . techs are going over the place now."

The turian saw them first. "Spectre, we got an open carrier on this end," he reported. "Switching to a coded relay."

Spectre? Garrus thought. Then he saw a third asari in blue armor unlike the uniforms the Nos Astra police were wearing. She'd been standing back in the shadows, out of the natural light coming in from T'Soni's window.

"What's going on?" Shepard demanded.

The asari cop who seemed to be in charge raised her hand. "This area is sealed off. Please step back, ma'am."

"I won't. I was supposed to meet the resident of this apartment this afternoon. I need someone to tell me what happened. Now."

The third asari—the armored one—stepped forward. It was hard to tell how old or young she was, but she had elaborate purple tattoos on her face and crest, and the shotgun on her back tallied with the turian officer calling her a Spectre. It looked like next-gen Spectre gear. She had dark eyes, and they flicked over Shepard and the others. "Someone tried to kill your friend, Commander Shepard," she said, in an even mezzo. "Thank you, Officer, your people are dismissed."

The asari cop was offended. "You can't do that!"

The Spectre shot her a cool, dangerous look. "Already done."

For a second, it looked like the cop might argue. Spectres didn't have any jurisdiction out here, and Liara T'Soni was presumably a legal resident of Nos Astra. Then, the asari cop seemed to think twice about challenging a Spectre. She made a small, disgusted noise, and gestured to her people, and within a minute, all the Illium cops had cleared the apartment.

Shepard stepped over the cordon and into the apartment. The asari Spectre extended her hand, and Shepard took it, looking wary.

"Tela Vasir. Special Tactics and Recon," the asari said.

"Little far from Citadel space, aren't you?" Shepard asked.

"Crap comes up," the asari answered. "I've heard your status was reinstated. Good. You're one of our most famous operatives. Might even get you to sign my chestplate."

She flashed a grin that didn't reach her eyes, and Shepard folded her arms.

"You said you had business with your friend this evening, Commander?" Vasir prompted.

Shepard pressed her lips together, then answered. "Liara was following a lead on the Shadow Broker."

Vasir raised her brows. "The Shadow Broker," she repeated. "Dangerous enemy to have."

Shepard sat back on one leg. "Where's Liara?" she demanded.

Vasir waved her hand. "If I knew that, I wouldn't be sifting through her crap," she said. "There's no blood, no body. It looks like T'Soni got away. The sniper didn't plan on her kinetic barrier. Clever girl. Paranoid, but clever."

"You're only paranoid if you're wrong," Garrus said, stepping forward. "What are the facts so far?"

Vasir looked him up and down. "Right. Vakarian," she said. "Former C-Sec turned merc. You always show up in her reports. You were almost one of us there for a little bit. About twenty-five minutes ago, someone took a shot at T'Soni." She jerked her chin at the window. "Note the bullet holes. She stuck around for almost four minutes before leaving the building. Whatever she was doing was important."

"Did the cops find anything when they arrived?" Garrus asked.

"Just the mess and the bullet holes," Vasir replied. "I gave them a gold star for finding the bullet holes."

Shepard looked over at him. "Bet anything Liara left a message for us here before she left."

Garrus hummed. "Probably. She doesn't like talking in her office. Not about her work, anyway."

"I'm not surprised," Vasir said. "Illium is just Omega with expensive shoes. I haven't found anything useful for tracking her down yet. You knew T'Soni better than I do. Where would she have hidden her backups?"

Shepard peered at the asari. "Let me take a look around," she said finally.

Vasir stepped aside and let them into the apartment proper—a studio loft, but a luxurious one, with floor-to-ceiling windows on an entire wall of the living space and a good view of downtown. The décor wasn't exactly cozy. You could tell T'Soni didn't spend a lot of time here, and what personal touches she had added seemed to fit better in a museum than in somebody's home.

Shepard was immediately drawn to a blasted half-breastplate under glass up on a pedestal. The back half of one of the first-gen hardsuits the Alliance had come out with after the geth attack on the Citadel. The precursor to the equipment Shepard wore now. Shepard raised her hand as if to touch the glass. Her expression was disturbed. "It's part of my old armor," she said.

The paint and style did match the helmet she still kept in her quarters—and the field repair still making up the front of Legion's platform. "Looks like someone didn't like you much either," Vasir remarked.

"Everyone's building a collection," Garrus said. He lowered his voice. "Shepard. I don't like this. Why is another Spectre looking for Liara?"

Shepard tore her gaze away from the pedestal—and her mind away from why Liara had it—and her eyes met his. "She's out of her jurisdiction," she agreed in a murmur. "But I don't know what Liara got into these past two years. Get the feeling it was a lot. Think we should show her the door?"

"There's no point in opening hostilities now," Tali volunteered. "If someone is trying to kill Liara and another Spectre is looking for her, she might be useful."

Garrus glanced back over his shoulder toward the asari Spectre. "Maybe." He had a bad feeling about Vasir, though. Her presence was too convenient.

The three of them walked across the living area to the chips in one of the enormous windows. Bad security, but it sounded like Liara had planned for it. "The rifle used to do that wasn't standard issue," Vasir told them. "The kinetic barrier deflected the shots, but they still managed to penetrate the glass."

The asari was back in the area of the apartment that had served as Liara's office. It had probably originally been intended as a breakfast nook, but T'Soni had installed a bunch of shelving instead. There were wall-to-wall books, mostly academic, and an oversized console mounted over a crowded desk. Vasir was examining the papers and datapads on the desk, frowning. When she sensed him watching, she looked up, raising her eyebrows. Garrus glanced over at T'Soni's mounted diploma, on the opposite wall. Vasir followed his gaze.

"A doctorate from the University of Serrice back on Thessia. She's getting good use out of all that education."

They weren't going to find anything in Liara's office. It was too cluttered. Too easy to miss something. Whatever she had left for them would be hidden someplace obvious. So Garrus drifted across the apartment to the kitchen, where Shepard and Tali were examining the sole painting on the wall, running their fingers around the edges of the frame.

Vasir stood up, interested. "That's not the asari homeworld," she said. "I'm not sure what planet that is."

Garrus knew. He had no idea that T'Soni had had it painted, but the scene was one his visor had filmed—a long tunnel filled with the amber light of an aging sun, with pods sticking out of the walls. A Prothean mausoleum, where a desperate VI had cut power to thousands of stasis pods as it waited for the Reapers to withdraw.

"It's Ilos," he said.

"Nothing here," Shepard told him.

The three of them walked upstairs to the loft that served as T'Soni's bedroom. She had a fishtank behind her bed, like the one Shepard had in her cabin on Normandy. And on her bedside table was—a photo of Normandy. The SR-1.

Garrus shifted. For how impersonal the overall apartment was, too many of the personal touches T'Soni did have were centered on her time on Normandy. On Shepard. Asari could live for over a thousand years. T'Soni was more than a hundred, and she'd known Shepard for a few months.

I guess I can't judge someone else Shepard changed for life. But I wonder how she could stand all the reminders these past two years.

Probably because she was one of the only people in the galaxy who knew Shepard wasn't really dead. Or wouldn't be, in the end.

But Shepard was tense, jaw and shoulders tight. She never asked T'Soni to care so much. And she doesn't like it. She reached out and took the photo, and the picture changed.

"The picture changed when you touched it," Vasir said. Garrus looked back. The Spectre had followed them upstairs. "It must be keyed to your ID. What does it show now?"

Shepard looked down at the semicircular, green stone towers. "It's a Prothean dig site," she said. "Liara did leave a message."

Vasir glanced over at another pedestal, another one of the museum-esque exhibits T'Soni had around the apartment. "There are a few Prothean-looking objects around the apartment," she said. "Let's see what we can find."

It took them another thirty seconds to find it. A hidden OSD slotted into the Prothean relic nearest T'Soni's office.

"Backup disc," Vasir said, reaching out and taking the disc from Shepard. "Let's try it on her terminal." She walked over to T'Soni's console and inserted the disc. "Looks like she recorded a call."

Vid of a salarian came up on the screen, and T'Soni's voice came over the recording. "What have you got for me, Sekat?"

"It was tricky," the salarian said, "but you paid for the best. I can narrow it down to a cluster, maybe even a system."

"How soon can you have it?"

"Shouldn't take long," the salarian replied. "Come by my office: Baria Frontiers in the Drakon Trade Center. Gotta say though, T'Soni—you're making me a little nervous. How big is the trouble that could come out of this?"

"Relax, Sekat," T'Soni's voice said in what was probably supposed to be an off-handed tone. "I'll see you in a few hours."

The vid stopped. Shepard pursed her lips together. "This must be important. I'm betting whoever fired on her was working for the Shadow Broker," she said.

"It sounded like she almost has him," Garrus said.

Vasir's face was unreadable. "I know where the Drakon Trade Center is," she told them. "My car's outside."

"Shepard," Garrus murmured.

Shepard signaled behind her back. Not now. "Let's go," she said.

She led Garrus and Tali after Vasir, bringing up her omni-tool as she went. Seconds later, a message popped through to Garrus's tool. Rather have her where I can see her, it read. Niels is in the air with Jack and Grunt. They're locked onto our signal.

The Drakon Trade Center was a high-class, multilevel business building in downtown Nos Astra. Vasir and Shepard didn't make small talk up front as they flew over. Instead, they listened in to a police scanner channel Vasir had patched in through her scanner. Garrus sat with Tali in the back, tight with nerves.

Snipers after T'Soni, an unknown Spectre working the case. Everything about this is off.

And T'Soni so close to the Shadow Broker we're within a cluster or a system of them.

"The Baria Frontiers offices are located on the third floor," Vasir told them all as they came in for a landing in the building VIP lot. "I don't hear police chatter. Maybe your friend's alright."

The skycar doors went up, and Vasir and Shepard piled out. Garrus and Tali followed them, just in time to see the flash from the Drakon Trade Center windows.

BOOM!

Glass blew out. People screamed. Columns of flame rushed out from the windows of the trade center. The shockwave hit, and Garrus staggered to keep his balance.

"Liara's in there!" Shepard cried, drawing her gun and rushing forward.

Garrus reached out and caught her arm. "Let it settle!" There were two or three crashes inside to prove his point—beams still falling, walls still crashing down.

Shepard tore out of his grip, shooting him a furious, terrified glare. Her jaw was so tight a tic was jumping just southwest of her mouth. But she stayed put.

"Make way for the shuttle," Tali told them, pointing overhead to where the Kodiak was hovering—Niels with the others, just in time.

Or too late, as the case might be.

That explosion was massive! How many people inside could survive?

Four booted feet hit the ground beside them, airdropped from the shuttle. Jack and Grunt stared at the fire, the shattered glass shining in the late-afternoon Nos Astra light. "What the hell?!" Jack breathed.

But Grunt actually chuckled. "There! Now it's getting fun."

Tali faced him, outraged. "Our friend is in there!"

Vasir forced her way past Garrus and the others. "And they just took out three floors to make sure she's dead." Something orange flashed on her wrist—her omni-tool, patching into their radio channel. "I'll grab the skycar and seal off the building from the top," she said.

"We'll start down here and work our way up," Shepard agreed.

"Just leave some for me!" Vasir's voice came over his hardsuit radio.

Garrus hardly noticed her going. Like it'd been dragged by a supermagnet, his eyes just moved went back to the Drakon Trade Center, with flames licking out of the windows. Spirits. He wasn't counting T'Soni out just yet, but—

Spirits.

Shepard shot him a challenging look, he nodded, and she signaled all of them to fall into formation. "Jack," she said. "Be ready with a barrier. We're going in."

"Got it," Jack agreed. "Nothing like the Collector base, though, right?"

Shepard shook her head. "Just in case a ceiling caves in or we need to asphyxiate a localized fire. And I want helmets on for everybody until we're sure the sprinkler systems inside have done their jobs. Looks like we just started another war."

Everyone obeyed and fell into formation—with Jack on point, Tali and Grunt to either side of her, and Garrus and Shepard bringing up the rear. They moved through the crowd in front of the building. Garrus saw workers lying around in various states of injury and confusion. One woman had blood running down her cheeks from ruptured eardrums. Another man bent over a fainted asari.

"This isn't war," Tali said. Her voice shook. "The Shadow Broker just fired on civilians! Do you think—do you think Liara could be alright?"

Shepard's voice, when she answered, was as tight as her jaw had been earlier. "Yeah. I don't know, Tali. We need to get in there. See what's what."

"The Shadow Broker is a dangerous enemy," Grunt observed. "Wise, to attack where his foe least suspects."

"Yeah, you don't worry about civilian casualties if the target's important enough," Garrus agreed. "The hit at her apartment would have been cleaner, but since Liara survived . . ."

"This is monstrous," Tali argued. "You're talking like it could be just anyone in there! And all these innocents . . ."

They passed through the front doors of the trade center. The inside was dim. Main power was out. All the lighting was coming from broken windows; dim, red emergency strips in the corners of the ceiling; and the light of the dying fires. The sprinkler system was operational. Not a whole lot of smoke. The light coming in from the windows, shining on the water on the floor, just made the carbon scoring over the entire room look worse.

On the positive side—open floor plan. Clean path out for the blast. Not a lot of structural damage.

There were corpses in the middle of some of the fires, though—bodies burning black. Others lay blasted around the first level—killed by the shockwave or impact into other objects, not by the blast itself.

A VI asari voice spoke over the building intercom. "Emergency power engaged. Please exit the building in an orderly fashion."

Shepard looked around, then signaled to Jack that she was taking the lead again, and the biotic fell back with Grunt and Tali. Shepard crossed the room to the building elevator on the far-left side of the floor. She punched the access button.

Nothing happened.

"Vasir," she reported, "the elevators are out, and building security is down."

"No alarms, no police," Vasir commented over their radios. "Very professional."

With the elevator out, the only way up to the Baria Frontiers office was the stairs on the other side of the floor. Garrus looked left and right at the twisted remains of business cubicles and the wreckage of what had probably been a snack bar.

"The Shadow Broker needs to go down," Shepard said, and her voice sounded like it had the night they'd visited Dantius Towers. "If we didn't already know they'd worked with the Collectors. As for the tactics, Tali, yeah. Terrorism to the citizens of Nos Astra, but the Shadow Broker thinks they're fighting a war; that their security is worth all these lives."

She was worried sick over Liara, trying to distract herself.

"When you've got the firepower and you're desperate enough, you do whatever you have to to get the job done. But on Earth, when it goes down like this, we plop 'em in an international tribunal and charge 'em with war crimes."

Jack snorted. "Doesn't stop people committing 'em. When you're in rough, your fancy wartime ethics stop mattering. Anything for an advantage. Dead civilians? No sweat. One thing we can take from this: you and T'Soni have got the Shadow Broker nervous."

Shepard paused ahead, and a light flashed on Garrus's visor signaling she was transmitting over the radio. "Baria Frontiers employee," she said, and Garrus saw the corpse in front of her, in a yellow uniform with a still-visible company monogram on the breast. "Looks like he got caught in the explosion."

"Human. He's not T'Soni's contact," Garrus said.

"I wouldn't take any bets on her informant surviving that blast, though," Vasir said.

They started up the stairs. Garrus tried to keep the conversation going, keep everyone's minds on ethics and history instead of the nightmare around them, on whether or not T'Soni had made it out alive. "I don't understand the way your people act in war, Shepard. Like Jack says, your Alliance can be as brutal as the Turian Hierarchy. You've gone beyond total war and even got into disproportionate responses once or twice. Look at Torfan. The difference is, instead of owning your victories, whatever the cost, you humans brush them all under the rug and apologize. You pay reparations to your enemies and stick whatever generals haven't already gone insane in prison."

"Stupid," Grunt opined. "Human warlords should be free to pass on their knowledge and ancestry. That's how a species gets strong."

"No," Shepard said. "That's how a species bombs itself into a nuclear winter." She paused. "Sorry. Humans—we don't always make a lot of sense, Garrus. But I've seen enough of the turians and quarians to know they don't either. Your General Septimus Oraka, a year or two back. He's old enough to have helped out in the bombardment of Shanxi, but he was as messed up as any human vet I've seen. And he wasn't exactly an exemplar of turian honor. And your Admiral Gerrel, Tali. I don't think he'd be completely averse to a little civilian warfare, or at least to bringing your civilians along when he goes to war."

"That's completely different!" Tali objected. "We have no place for them to hide! Our civilian fleets need to stay close to our military ships, or else they're vulnerable. That doesn't mean we're willing to kill unarmed people just to satisfy some military objective, no matter how desperate we might be!"

But Garrus couldn't let that stand. "Really. And just sapient and how helpless were those geth at the beginning of Rael'Zorah's experiments on the Raaya?"

"That's over the line!" Shepard snapped.

Garrus came to attention at once at her tone and looked over at Tali guiltily. "Sorry." He'd been caught up in the debate, and Tali's stance was a bit too naïve for him to stomach right now, when he was checking every corpse in the corner for signs of the outfit Liara had been wearing this morning. Especially given what they'd already seen. But that didn't mean Tali was ready to hear him argue the point using her father.

Shepard stopped, looking at another corpse, and for one horrible second, Garrus thought she'd found Liara. Then he drew up close enough to see. The corpse was human, male. Holding one hand over his midsection. The emergency lighting shone off the blood still oozing out from underneath. "Casualty here," Shepard reported to Vasir. "Looks like he's got bullet wounds. Watch yourself, Vasir. They used military-grade hardware."

"Bullet wounds," Vasir repeated. "Guess this was more than just an explosion."

"Paramilitary operatives," Garrus guessed. "The Broker sent in a force to do this. They're done with infiltration."

"Think you're right," Shepard said. "Be ready for anything."

"If he can bring himself to avenge these civilians killed 'in pursuit of an objective,'" Tali muttered, obviously still angry about his comment on her father. Garrus grimaced. He'd have to make it up to her later. "Turian bosh'tet. Wasn't helping the helpless what your Archangel thing was all about?"

Garrus decided he'd forget the extra apology to Tali later. "And look how that worked out." But as Shepard started to turn around, to reprimand Tali this time, he cut her off. "It's fine, Shepard. Being angry with me doesn't change what happened here, Tali, or how war works, whether you're turian, human, krogan, or quarian. You ask me, Jack's the one with her finger on the pulse here: the Shadow Broker's attack on these people shows we've got him on the defensive."

"Right. So, let's drop it," Jack suggested. "I'm bored anyway, and if there are mercs in here, you guys are broadcasting our position all over the building."

"Just one last point," Garrus said. "You might observe that turian civilians are a lot rarer than human or quarian civilians. They might not need as much protecting if your peoples trained them to fight. Just saying."

"Have to have the last word, don't you, Garrus?" Shepard asked. "You might want to be careful what you wish for. Now. That's enough."

"Aye aye," Garrus and Tali said, though Tali shot him another glare through her face mask.

Well. At least if she's mad at me, she's not obsessing over the dead civilians.

An advertisement played over the building speakers. "Life isn't about arriving; it's about the ride along the way. At Eezo, every vehicle is an island of style and an engine for freedom. Eezo Transportation: Enjoy the ride."

Shepard led them up a second flight of stairs in silence, toward a sign that cycled through the Council race translations for "Baria Frontiers."

She paused by the door to the defunct elevator, and this time, Garrus saw at once what had caught her attention—a bomb. Probably the twin of the one that had set off the explosion.

"Vasir, I found a military-grade explosive device," Shepard told the other Spectre. "It hasn't been armed."

"Sloppy work," Vasir remarked. "You use that kind of hardware when you don't have time to plan."

Garrus's mandibles tightened as the Spectre signed off their frequency. "Remind me: why didn't we take the shuttle and start at the top? If we knew Liara had gone there."

Shepard missed a beat in her stride toward the open door of the Baria Frontiers office. "I didn't think," she admitted.

"Neither did I," Garrus confessed. "Maybe she planned on that."

"You think Vasir had something to do with the explosion?" Shepard asked.

"I don't know. I just get a bad vibe off of her. The Shadow Broker tried to use you once, right?"

"After we took down the Cerberus cell responsible for Admiral Kohoku," Shepard confirmed. "They wanted the data we recovered from the base. As they'd already tried a hit on Tali, I didn't trust them. Wrex notwithstanding."

"Thanks for that," Tali said drily.

"Just about all the major players in the galaxy do business with the Shadow Broker every now and then," Shepard said. "Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the Spectres did."

"And if the Broker sometimes asked one to return a little favor?"

Shepard hesitated. "It's plausible," she admitted. "But you're jumping ahead of the evidence, Detective. And we were with her from the apartment all the way here."

"You got a message out," Jack pointed out. "Your Vasir lady could've too."

"Mm," Shepard said. She held up a hand, gesturing at the door to the Baria Frontiers suite. "This was where Liara was headed. Let's see if the registry's still live."

She went to a terminal on the left-hand side of the lobby. She worked over it with her omni-tool for a few seconds. "Here," she said. "Liara signed in just a few minutes ago."

"Welcome to Baria Frontiers," an automated voice said brightly over the speakers. "Let us be your guide to limitless possibilities."

Shepard turned toward the open suite. Then Garrus saw a metal object glinting in the light, rolling toward her. "Incoming!" he shouted.

They all dived for cover just as gunfire broke out. There was a pop. Garrus shut his eyes against the flash.

Jack broke out into loud and angry swearing. Grunt laughed. And as the light from the flashbang faded, Garrus saw the bodies on his visor—six to seven armored men, with some serious guns.

"Vasir! We're pinned down!" Shepard shouted into their radio. "Mercs, and they're well-armed!"

There was no response over the channel.

"Right," Tali muttered from her position three meters down the wall. She rotated her wrist, and her combat drone emerged for duty. "This should soften them up!"

"Don't think we're getting help from your Spectre buddy," Jack observed, sighting down with her pistol on a salarian engineer.

"Just take them down!" Shepard ordered. "We'll deal with her if we need to in a minute."

She faded from sight, Widow in her arms.

"Ghost in play!" one of the mercs shouted down the hall. Garrus lined up the shot and took it.

"And stay down."

The Widow cracked, and Grunt charged the two mercs unengaged with Tali's drone on his own. But Garrus's visor showed more inbound.

It seemed like overkill for one asari. But these were the same guys who had just blown up a building. As they fought their way through the shell of the Baria Frontiers office, Garrus and the others ran into nearly half a platoon of mercenaries—special forces, in black armor without stripe or insignia, with plenty of asari vanguards and salarian engineers.

The close quarters helped them out. It limited the mercenaries' approach, kept them from bringing their full force to bear. And in fives or sixes, their team was more than a match for the mercs. Especially after the Collector base. But with every guy they gunned down, Garrus wondered—just how much power does the Shadow Broker have, anyway?

Truth was, he hadn't really thought much about the galaxy's best-known—or worst-known, I suppose, depending on how you look at it—information broker since the hunt for Saren. The Broker was a fact of interstellar politics. The Shadow Broker saw everything, heard it all. Contracted with mercs like Wrex had been, financiers on the Citadel, councilors, and crime lords. He or she, they or it wasn't good or bad—at least in the popular imagination. Except instead of paying Tali for the information she'd had on Saren back in the day—in credits or protection—they'd tried to have her killed as much as Saren himself. And then, apparently, tried to sell Shepard's body to the Collectors. Whether their strike here was justified under the rules of combat or not, given Liara's pursuit of them, that meant they might have contracted with the Reapers too. And that's over the line.

Jack and Tali took out the last two mercs near the stairs to the second floor of the Baria Frontiers office. As the biotic energy from Jack's shockwave died down and Garrus passed the smoking corpses of an engineer and a human soldier, Shepard looked ahead to the stair.

"Weird," she remarked, pointing at flaming pipes in their path. "Why the sprinklers down below and nothing up here?"

"Probably switched off manually," Garrus answered. "Which means what's up there might be important."

"Sekat?" Shepard asked. She didn't wait for an answer but found a manual switch for the sprinkler system and activated it. "Let's go."

They moved up the stairwell, only to see another grenade coming down the hall.

"Hell!" Shepard swore, ducking behind a column. "I thought we were done with these guys!"

Garrus sighed, plotted a firing trajectory on his visor based on IF readings, and leaned out of cover to take out the three guards' shields. He'd been improving his program over the course of the tour, and the three of them were standing close enough together.

"Grunt? You want these guys?" he asked.

Grunt chuckled. "Sure." He let out a roar and barreled round the corner, shotgun raised. Garrus and the other three stood back and watched as the humans were hit with the force of an eight-hundred-pound, enthusiastic krogan adolescent. Garrus could hear the bones breaking from here.

"When they're all grouped at the end of a hallway like that, we can really just watch the show," Tali commented.

"And it makes him so happy, too," Shepard agreed. "Come on. They weren't guarding this level for nothing. Look—no carbon scoring."

Garrus looked around. She was right. "They used the bomb to cut this floor off. They weren't trying to kill Liara. They were trying to make sure she stayed put."

"Her and whatever data her contact found," Shepard confirmed. "And if it was just the mercs up here, there's a chance he and Liara are both alive. Liara can handle herself."

"Thought she was some kind of doctor or fancy scientist," Jack said.

"She's an archaeologist and information broker," Tali answered. "But her mother was a notable politician on Thessia before she died. Liara grew up around dozens of asari commandos and huntresses."

"And she had some military experience on our hunt for Saren," Shepard finished.

She nodded at Grunt, covered in the blood of their enemies and grinning, with that satisfied gleam in his eyes he only ever got after a fight. Their baby krogan and one of the biggest heroes of the Collector base fell in step behind them.

As they crossed into another burnt-out block of offices, they did find an asari standing on the other side of the floor. It wasn't the one they were looking for.

"Damn it!" Vasir said, looking down. "If I'd've been a few seconds faster, I could have stopped them."

She was staring down at a salarian in the Baria Frontiers uniform. His corpse was unburned, preserved by biotic barriers or whatever technology the saboteurs had used to keep themselves safe from the bomb blast. He'd been executed with a bullet to the back of the skull.

"Is this Sekat?" Shepard asked. She signaled the rest of them behind her back. Be ready.

"Must have been," Vasir answered.

Tali, gripping her shotgun in her hand, knelt down by the salarian's body and ran a quick scan with her omni-tool. "No sign of the data Liara talked about. Looks like a dead end."

Vasir hummed. "Speaking of which, did you find your friend's body?" she asked in an offhanded voice.

"You mean this body?" Liara asked, stepping out of the shadows of a hidden closet, barrier receding, and a pistol already leveled at the Spectre.

Garrus grinned, relieved to see her alive. Shepard was right—she could take care of herself. But still. He raised his own gun to point at the Spectre, along with all the others.

"Garrus," Shepard said casually. "Think that makes you two for two for identifying Spectres gone rogue." She jerked her head at Vasir. "You're with the Broker. How'd you get a transmission out?"

Vasir hummed again. "Wouldn't you like to know? How about you put those guns down?"

Shepard snorted. "How 'bout 'no'? You used me to track Liara here. You ordered the hit that killed all these people."

"Thanks for the help," Vasir said coolly.

"Shepard, she killed Sekat," Liara told them. "I'm guessing she still has his data on her."

Vasir was backed against a glass pane looking out over a balcony, cracked in fifteen places but not actually shattered from the force of the explosion below. She held up a flashing OSD in her left hand. "Good guess. Not that you'll ever see it, you pureblood bitch!"

At pureblood bitch, she flexed and lit up blue, and the weakened glass behind her shattered. In a biotic wave, she hurled the shards at them—a thousand and one projectiles with the force and edge to rip them all to shreds, moving just slow enough to shred right through their armor shields.

Jack and Liara moved in identical gestures, throwing wide their arms and sending out a biotic barrier to cover the entire group.

But Shepard ran forward. Arms outstretched over her head, as much to put an extra layer of protection between the glass and her helmet as to extend her reach, she bounded forward in three steps and tackled the asari, who had just leapt off the balcony toward the ground, four floors down.

"Fuck!"

"Get her!"

"Shepard!"

Garrus was a split second after Shepard, moving with Jack and Liara. Shepard and Vasir were locked together, blooming with biotics as the asari tried to slow their momentum and throw Shepard at the same time.

Liara went over the edge.

Jack's fist ignited blue. Vasir and Shepard slowed still more, and as they broke apart and Shepard began to hurtle toward a pillar on the ground floor, she was caught up in the human's field, raised, and lowered to the ground.

Vasir scrambled to her feet and ran. Then Liara hit and pelted after her.

"Enemies down below!" Tali shouted.

"We have to get down there!" Garrus said, already moving back toward the door that led out to the stairwell.

Jack was raging. "God! Thought this asari was supposed to be your friend! If those fuckers get Shepard, I'll gut her myself!"

"Shepard—you alright?" Garrus was saying into the radio.

His chest tightened when Shepard's voice came back, a winded whisper. "I'm alive. Using the cloak to get from cover to cover. Fritzing out their drones to keep my shields up. Taken out one or two. But the sooner you guys get here, the better."

"We're on our way," Tali promised.

A new voice broke in over their channel—Liara, sounding desperate. "She's getting away!"

"Asari must've had backup coming the whole time," Grunt said.

"That's obvious," Shepard breathed into the comm. "Going radio silent."

"What the hell was she thinking?" Jack demanded. "If she hadn't jumped, I could've caught the bitch instead of her. Damn it!"

"She'll be fine, Jack," Garrus said. "She's an Alliance N7. They eat mercs like these for breakfast."

"Fucking idiot," Jack fumed as they rounded the hall toward the stairwell down to the second floor.

"Liara or Commander Shepard?" Tali asked.

"Both! Hang on," Jack said. She was flaring, biotics curling around her every limb. She started jogging down the length of the floor, heading for the stairs down to the ground level.

"Slow it down!" Garrus ordered. "If we charge in there, guns blazing, we could wind up in a crossfire! Let me find her position, then we'll go!"

"Ugh! Fine!" Jack snarled, slowing her jog to fall behind Garrus.

"T'Soni probably knew who you were as soon as she saw you, you know," Garrus pointed out. "She probably knew you could handle Shepard. Took the advantage to go after Vasir."

"She couldn't know I'd catch Shepard," Jack retorted. "And I don't care what gripe she has against the Shadow Broker, the commander's not expendable!"

"You know, she can hear you," Tali said, tapping her helmet, as the crack of the Widow rang out ahead. "Keep talking like this, and Shepard might think you care."

"Bite me!" Jack snapped viciously.

Garrus held up his fist for a halt. They were at the base of the ground floor stairs. He used his visor IF to scan the room beyond. Four mercs—an asari on the far wall near the elevator. A salarian and two human males clustered closer together, blocking the exit. And a human female, slim, with a Widow clutched to her chest, crouching inside a broken-down cubicle on the right-side wall.

"Alright," he said. "Tali, use your drone to box up the asari. The two of us will take her down. I want Grunt and Jack on the cluster by the door. Shepard, move positions to their left flank and switch to the Locust to catch them by surprise."

Tali's drone flew out from her omni-tool, and through his visor IF, Garrus saw Shepard's signature, folding up the Widow to obey orders.

Grunt and Jack broke out of cover, rushing the group by the door in a full frontal assault, screaming their war cries.

In another four seconds, they were clear. Shepard met Jack in front of the exit. She'd taken off her helmet again, and she was smirking. "Thanks for the save," she said. "Had to slow her down somehow, though. Liara's in a shootout with Vasir out front. Maybe we should join her?"

"Screw her," Jack panted. She still looked angry. "She would've screwed you over."

Shepard sighed and shook her head, already moving toward the door. "She's not exactly thinking clearly at the moment."

They came out to see T'Soni, crouched behind a rental taxi firing at Vasir, who had position behind a decorative wall around the plaza. But even as they exited the building, Vasir's car flew down on auto from a higher lot up in the trade center and circled around. The driver-side door opened, and the asari leapt in.

"Damn it!" Liara cursed, throwing open the door of the rental taxi. She jerked her head at Shepard.

"Tali, Garrus, in the car," Shepard demanded. "Jack, radio Niels. You and Grunt secure the building and report to the cops and paramedics we've gone ahead."

"Shit," Jack cursed.

Shepard slid into the driver's seat of the taxi as T'Soni slid over to the front-side passenger seat. "I'm fine, by the way. Thanks for asking."

Garrus folded himself in half and piled in the backseat with Tali.

"Vakarian!" Jack called after him, and he looked back to see her, covered in sweat and still furious, standing with her fists balled beside Grunt. "Watch her back." She jerked her chin at Liara. "That asari is an idiot."