Manifesto – Kai Leng

–

For these, we have said, are the heights to which humanity must aspire, and these are the costs for which we should prepare ourselves to freely pay. But it is a fool's aspiration, for what we have seen as a great expansion in the scope of the human story has only been the opening of a dimension – not new but only newly recognized.

The bar shook as yet another ship landed, and instantly, Kai Leng knew it was the one. His senses were too sharp to miss it, even amongst the dozens of ships which made port at Canary-9 every hour, even amongst the clinking glasses and dull chatter of off-shift miners in the station's least presentable bar.

In his earpiece the intercepted voice of the station's port control VI crackled. "Unregistered freighter 231-1, your approach is logged. Please proceed to INVALID BERTH. This message brought to you by Cord-Hislop Interstellar Mining. Have a lovely day!"

There was a dull rumble and a faint shift in gravity as one of the station's cluster of private hangars opened to admit the incoming vessel.

Kai Leng centered himself. Their mission had finally begun. Solheim's omni-tool gave a ping from his place two booths over, and he drained his drink and rose from his seat. He stopped at the bar to settle his bill and flash a discreet hand gesture at Candace and the others. Dressed – as they all were – in the stained orange jumpsuits, Solheim could easily pass for a miner. He was a natural at seeming ordinary.

Less so Leng, who was no ordinary man. As Solheim and the others had set about drinking and playing cards and carousing with the bar patrons, Leng had placed himself in the bar's darkest corner and watched and waited, ignoring the nervous glances his presence invited. He had not slept in forty-eight hours, keeping himself awake with a cocktail of stimulants and performance enhancers that left his skin humming and made every flicker of movement in view seem to drip by in slow motion. It was his ritual before every mission, now. Once, when he was a lesser man – the sort of man to drink and play cards and carouse – he would have been too exhausted to stand. When normal men stood on the precipice of death, their brains would steel them with adrenaline in a last ditch effort to save them. They would gain strengths their bodies were too lazy or blind to be trusted with conscious control of.

Kai Leng was no normal man. He demanded all his body had at all moments. Adrenaline coursed through his veins with every frantic beat of his heart, hour upon hour, day upon day.

In his mind, he read through the Manifesto like a mantra. He knew every word of it – not mere memorization but a deep and profound sense that the words inhabited him down to his core.

The new dimension lies stretched out before us, the author had written, the year Kai Leng had turned four. His manifesto had appeared on nearly every computer in the Sol system, from the cheapest burner omni-tool to the targeting computers in every Alliance base and ship. Leng's father and mother had no doubt read it, and his preschool teachers, and his pediatrician, and the men and women who worked at his father's factory. Everyone in Shanghai. Everyone on Earth. No doubt even the skullfaces. But we shall stay, the Alliance says, where we have always been, and trust that the galaxy's dangers will be content to stay unaware of us if we pretend to be unaware of them.

Leng would not pretend to be unaware. The drugs and sleep deprivation kept his body convinced of the dark truth his mind had long ago recognized.

He was at the precipice of death. All men were.

Across the bar, Candace was still doing his best to impress the mewling woman he had been hovering around for the past hour, plying her with drinks and exaggerated tales of his escapades in the Blue Suns. He was a pitiful thug, hardly a man at all. Virden and the cyborg Lowell were only marginally better – they were at least Cerberus – but that only gave their pitiful thuggery the veneer of integrity. The two of them had joined the gamblers at their table – Virden had lost hand after hand at cards, and though Lowell had refused to partake at first, now he was grimly staring at the cards arrayed in the mechanical grip of his cybernetic left hand.

The dog Cerberus which guarded the ancient Greeks' underworld had three heads, and so too does humanity. Conviction, invention, and the written word have brought us across every threshold, have held back every danger, have been the constant companion of the man who would stand up and control his fate rather than be controlled.

Virden, Lowell – even Candace – would serve their purpose, but they were no paragons of conviction, invention, or the written word. They didn't know history or philosophy, they had no appreciation for their destinies or humanity's. Leng loathed all three of them.

He rose from his corner and strode out of the bar without a word. Almost immediately, his erstwhile squadmates discarded their games and hurried to catch up.

"Two at a time," Solheim said into his communicator as the five of them marched down the metal corridor. His voice buzzed in Leng's ears. "Candace and Lowell get off at the third floor, wait a few minutes, and then take the next empty lift. Don't suit up until you're in the hangar. Virden, you're with me." Wisely, Solheim did not presume to command Leng. Solheim was Earthborn, like Leng was, and certainly had his uses. Mercs and thugs and private security like the other three belonged beneath him. Normal men, the rank and file. But not Leng.

Leng loathed him too.

Ten years ago, Solheim had been the one to spring Leng from prison. He'd showed up under an assumed identity, an uncle Kai Leng had never had and who looked nothing at all like him, who just happened to have enough pull with the Alliance to warrant a face to face visit with one of their highest security prisoners. He'd dismissed Leng's guards and sat across from him and calmly grilled him about his past in the N7 program, his relationship with his former squad and officers, his feelings for the Alliance that had stripped him of rank and locked him up. Worm that he had been, Leng might have feigned contrition and groveled about how sincerely he regretted his rash actions, and how desperately he hoped for a chance to atone, but something in his visitor's manner had compelled honesty and he'd told the truth. He'd spelled out every grisly moment of the revenge he wished on everyone who had crossed him – his officers, his peers, his trainees, and above all that xenophilic bitch Goyle who had gone so far to make an example of him. Solheim had listened to all of it.

At the time, Leng had been as pitiful as any man. Only a shell, untried, incomplete, only looking inward. All raw anger and potential but no ideals, eager to grasp onto whatever cause could help him each moment, only to shed them the next. He had seen Solheim's idealism and felt humbled and envious and frightened all at once.

Oh, but now he knew better. Solheim claimed to be a true believer, but he wasn't, not really. Not like Leng.

The xenophile is not our enemy but nor is he our brother. He is a piece of mankind that has already accepted its death as inevitable, acceptable, even preferable.

Leng ignored the others' scuttling about and proceeded directly to the hangar they'd arranged. He entered the lift alone and waved the security fob he'd had pressed into his hand by one of the Cerberus agents permanently assigned to the station at the VI console. The lift gave an agreeable beep and began to sink. Leng breathed deeply, drowning out the sound of metal scraping on the shaft's rails and the steady lessening of gravity as the lift descended through the station's levels.

The lift came to a stop without a sound. The air had gone ice cold, and every breath Leng took burned his lungs going in and left plumes of condensed vapor going out. Silent alerts on the VI console warned of the dangers of uncirculated air. Leng affixed his rebreather mask to his face and pried the doors open until he could slip between them. Almost as soon as they'd shut behind him, the lift started back up, leaving him alone in the near dark.

The batarian ship Candace's Blue Suns had procured for their mission loomed in the murk. It was an ugly, rough-hewn thing, asymmetrical and jagged like it had been cobbled together from junkyard equipment. The hangar was no more impressive – small and dingy and so full of shipping containers that the batarian ship nearly scraped both sides. Half of the light filaments that had once illuminated the hangar had been allowed to go dark.

Leng did not board the ship immediately, but rather worked his way between two of the huge shipping containers standing sentinel at the hangar's far end. Behind them was a third, equally worn and ancient, its sides glued to the hangar floor and walls by decades of accumulating ice and dust. Fingerprints in the hoarfrost betrayed that it had been opened recently. The security fob opened it with a belch of steam.

Inside, a layer of rust-colored palladium ore had been spread overtop the cargo to conceal it. Leng brushed it aside until he found the cases that had been left for them, the newest gear from Hephaestus cell. The cases' mass effect fields kept the ore dust repulsed from their interiors, so inside the suits were as pristine as the moment they had come off the fabricators.

Leng dressed in silence, folding the starchy CH jumpsuit he had worn as disguise and placing it in the case. His guns were next – a Harrier assault rifle (newly modded, he judged by the barrel, which was rather longer than the last version he'd used) and a Talon sidearm. His mono-edged ninjato was last, slotting into a groove in the hardsuit's left gauntlet the engineers had placed there at his insistence. Leng assembled his kit piece by piece by rote.

He squeezed out back into the hangar in full gear, the case with his discarded clothes and the security fob under one arm. This he tossed into space. The hangar's environment field warbled as the package burst through it and went careening off into nothingness.

Solheim and Virden had arrived, and disappeared between the crates to don their own gear. Leng did not return the nod Solheim gave him. He waited in the gloom, breathing deeply to center himself.

The open ocean, the sky, the moon, Mars, the Oort Cloud – each has been our boundary, a line which learned men declared would never be crossed. Now the line is the Citadel, and an ossified alien quorum to which the Alliance says it must defer. But this line is no realer than the others. The lines have never been in space, only in our heads and our souls and our wills. On this unshakable basis we must understand that the universe's dangers will not stop at our lines either, for our lines are only imagined.

–

The inside of the ship was even more cramped than it had appeared on the outside, and almost as cold. Steel grating squeaked underfoot as the men slid down the corridor single file to get to the crew quarters. Air exchangers rattled at their futile task to rid the air of the smells of mud and mildew and wet dog.

The rest of the team waited on the bridge, already armed and armored for battle. Candace had promised them solid men, trained killers with wetworks experience, men who would follow orders and hold their tongues. One, helmetless, stood as they entered. "About time," he growled. He was an old, weathered man, his face a tangle of scars. "You boys done screwing around so we can take off and do this goddamn thing?"

"Which one of you is Charles Thorngren?" Solheim asked, setting down the heavy black case with which the Illusive Man had entrusted him.

The old man grinned. "He's gone, I'm afraid."

Leng's hackles rose. In half a second, he had pulled his ninjato from its hidden place in his left gauntlet. The blade flashed in the dim light of the ship's consoles, stopping a hair's breadth from the old man's throat.

The old man stared death in the face, no doubt too paralyzed by the suddenness of Leng's attack to even flinch.

"There were supposed to be five of you," Leng said, staring past the man. "Who are you, and where are the men we hired?"

"The men you hired ain't coming," the old man said. "Seems they tried to conduct an operation out of Omega without T'loak's say-so. She doesn't care for that kind of thing. They aren't in a position to go anywhere anymore. We're what the Suns scraped up to replace them. This is Solomon Gunn, and the fellow at the controls is Terrance Glancing."

"I recognize you…" Candace said. "You're the bounty hunter. Zamuel something."

"Zaeed," the man corrected.

Zaeed Massani? Leng flicked his eyes to scan the man's scarred face. A long gash of puckered flesh wound up the side of Massani's cheek to bisect a mismatched eye before disappearing behind a retreating line of gray hair.

This old man was Zaeed Massani?

"You're the one that killed Elmer and Domingo, and fouled up that job on Caradoc for us," Candace accused, face reddening. Candace was Petrovsky's pet, and Cerberus' foremost supporter within the ranks of the Blue Suns, but he had never made secret that his allegiance was to the merc group first.

"Probably," Zaeed allowed. "You'll have to refresh my memory – were Elmer and Domingo barely-trained thug dipshits who hardly knew which end of the gun to hold?"

"Fuck you."

Zaeed chuckled. "I've offed so many of you assholes the jobs start to blur together. But your money came through, so today, I'm on your side." He frowned and met Leng's eyes. "Do me a favor and put that goddamn knife away, Junior, or I'll ram it so far up your ass you'll gag on it."

Leng felt a flash of rage, and briefly considered driving the blade right through the old man's neck. But he had a job to do. He calmed the fury, driving it into the back of his mind, where he would keep it until he needed to harness it again. Later, Massani would regret that comment. Later.

He moved, lighting quick, and the blade was back in his gauntlet. "Three or five," he said. "It won't matter."

Solheim did not look amused by Massani's sass either, but after a moment, he shook his head. "We don't have time for this," he agreed. "We'll make do. Take off, pilot."

The man sitting at the console grunted and set his hands to the controls. Underneath them, the ship awoke with an ugly rattle. The hangar slid away from the viewports, bathing them in the darkness of the station's shadow.

"The rest of you, rest until we make planetfall. It's fifteen hours to Khar'shan."

"Should we brief first, sir?" one of the men – Solomon Gunn – asked, and Leng felt an unbidden flash of anger that he had addressed Solheim and not himself. He visualized the anger, caught it in one hand, pushed it aside. For later, for later.

Solheim looked to Massani. "Your men haven't been briefed?"

Massani frowned. "Shut the fuck up, Gunn," he commanded, shaking his head. "They know enough. They'll do their jobs," he promised Solheim. "Gunn talks too much and the other doesn't talk much at all, but they can both listen. Can't they, Gunn?"

"Yes sir. Sorry sir."

"Now close your mouth like the man said."

"Of course sir."

Leng took a position in an out of the way corner of the crew quarters, where he had an uninterrupted view of the others and of the ship's meager windows. Over the cloying scent of the cabin, he could practically smell the team's unease as they divided up the bunks between them for the journey. The ship was not as comfortable as even the humblest human freighter, and for those who had not mastered themselves enough to banish discomfort under sheer will, sleep would make the time aboard pass quicker.

Leng, of course, did not sleep. He breathed and thought and watched his companions with a suspicious eye.

They were useless, all of them. Even Solheim and Massani, who probably cost Cerberus as much as outfitting the ship had. Leng could do this mission himself. Khar'shan was deep within enemy territory, but batarians were slow, dim, shuffling foes who could not see death until it had split their fat throats wide open. Leng would sneak onto their world and take the Illusive Man's prize, and no amount of beady-eyed vermin would slow him down. Hiring a whole squad for him to carry there – and a squad half made up of mercenaries hired from outside Cerberus, no less – would slow him far more.

Leng had explained all this days ago, but once the Illusive Man had decided something, he could not be swayed by reason, even at the word of his closest agents. Only Lawson could ever have been said to have his ear.

And she had turned traitor. The Illusive Man had never brought her up – would never bring her up again – but Leng had heard the rumors. The Man's little fucktoy had turned on them all for John Shepard.

Leng thought they were well rid of her. He had seen the treachery in her from the start. Who knew what damage had been done when he hadn't killed her at first sight? Who knew what poisonous pillowtalk she had been trying to infect the Illusive Man with all along?

Leng would show the Illusive Man real loyalty, even if it meant carrying a squad along with him.

The decision has been made, long before us, and we have only now to execute it.

And of course, the Illusive Man had said nothing about bringing the squad back.

–

Codex entry: The Manifesto and the First Years of Cerberus – excerpt from An Asari's Abridged History of Humanity by Dr. Ioris T'tsaedi, Director of Humanities at Amila University, Thessia.

Officially, [Cerberus] was first represented in the public sphere in 2160 in the form of an anonymous manifesto widely distributed through Alliance space by means of a sophisticated computer virus. The virus – dubbed the 'BOBIT' worm by human media – is now known to have been first deployed in the Earth city Chicago in early 2159. Disguised as an accidental 2-second video call, the virus ultimately spread to hundreds of millions of systems, from personal omni-tools to satellite communications equipment to Alliance military spacecraft. Though economic damage would eventually be estimated to reach nearly a hundred billion credits, cybersecurity efforts had largely curtailed the spread of the virus by the end of the year.

The mystery of the BOBIT worm gained a new dimension a few months later when, on May 30, 2160, previously infected systems' data drives suddenly filled themselves to capacity with copies of what would later become known as the Cerberus manifesto. The original author of the BOBIT worm is still unknown, but it is now believed that the distribution of the manifesto had been the virus' purpose from the beginning, and the economic disruption the preceding year part of an elaborate misdirection.

Part digital protest, part performance art, the immense scale and theatricality of the manifesto's presentation garnered it considerable interest, even well outside the human territories in which the BOBIT worm had spread. In one standard day, the manifesto had been accessed at least 1.4 billion times, more than 200 million of which occurred on planets without significant human populations.

The manifesto's staying power proved less remarkable, and indeed its language was widely criticized by human and non-human groups as rhetorically bombastic but fallacious. The manifesto addresses the human species at large, criticizing the Systems Alliance's diplomatic efforts with the Citadel Council, encouraging Earth-based and colonial governments to resign their membership with the Alliance, and calling for the creation of a permanent military presence – 'a Cerberus' – to be established around the Charon relay to prevent nonhuman travel into the Sol system. The full text can be readily accessed on the extranet (though the cautious reader will be aware that the text has been continually modified by various groups in the years since its initial distribution). Later analysts would find that key portions of the manifesto had themselves been adapted from a forgotten work that had appeared on Earth's internet in 2157, immediately after cessation of hostilities between turian and human military forces, though efforts to link the original author of this earlier document proved no more fruitful.

Whether Cerberus existed as a centrally-organized group prior to 2160 remains a matter of historical debate, though the sophistication of the virus used to distribute it has generally been taken to imply that its architects had been backed by significant financial resources. Sandra Coulomb, then Director of the Department of Cybersecurity for UNAS, famously concluded "[the virus] was not done by three assholes in a basement."

In the following years, rumors of Cerberus activity – often more fanciful than plausible – usually depicted the group as representing a cabal within Alliance leadership, secretly using resources donated by Earth's multinational organizations to effect a situation from which a new war with the Turian Hierarchy could be initiated and brought to a more satisfactory conclusion. Pro-human extremists associated with the Eternal Earth group – most famously involved in the 2164 assassination attempt on volus ambassador Venta Tox – have been speculated to have represented a direct ancestor to Cerberus, but despite superficially similar goals and rhetoric, a direct connection between the two groups has never been proven.

The first unambiguous evidence of the organization now called Cerberus came in 2165 during the attempted hijacking of the Alliance cruiser SSV Geneva by a well-armed team of human saboteurs. Though the hijacking was thwarted, the perpetrators are believed to have acted with inside assistance. Most of the perpetrators were never conclusively identified nor apprehended, owing in large part to the humans' inherent distrust of the full penetration surveillance networks common on most developed words (see Chapter 31), but they are believed to have originated from one of Earth's noncompliant (that is, non-Alliance) regions, and radicalized as part of the same xenophobic counterculture movement that had motivated the authors of the manifesto. Before he died of his injuries, the sole perpetrator apprehended claimed to have concocted the scheme to rob the cruiser on his own, but to have been provided with financial and strategic resources by sympathizers within the hacker group "Red Cerberus". Following this much publicized incident, multiple major cybercrimes were committed by individuals claiming to represent Red Cerberus, though it is unclear if these actions represented anything more than isolated incidents by unaffiliated copycats.

Cerberus grew thereafter, and a mere six years later, in 2171, representatives of Cerberus operating from the New Babylon settlement on Terra Nova persuasively claimed responsibility for the assassination of the human Pope (a key figure in one of Earth's primary religions – see Chapters 6 and 7). While Alliance peacekeeping forces had soon apprehended the assassins, revoked New Babylon's charter, and evicted its approximately three thousand residents, Cerberus had become an undeniable – if clandestine – player in human galactic politics.

Here again we run into our thesis – if nothing else, human history is fast. Whether the authors of the manifesto had any later involvement with Cerberus, nor even any conception of what it would become, is almost academic – in less than two decades, Cerberus had become a reality.

–

A/N: If you've read Interstitium, you probably already know my fondness for Zaeed and Donnelly.

By contrast, Kai Leng is handily the worst character in the series. Honestly I considered the merits of cutting him completely.

Back when I was writing Interstitium, I was accused lots of times of bashing Miranda due to the various misfortunes I admittedly heaped upon her throughout much of the story. This was never the intended interpretation. I have come to quite like Miranda – I just felt like she needed to be an antagonist for most of ME2, as the snooty voice of reason against Shepard's constant objectively poor and yet inevitably successful decisions.

In case it is ever unclear: I do not love Kai Leng. I am bashing him.