Barely had she stepped out of her vault, than her crew was clustered around in various states of 'pissed off. ' Thank goodness riled feelings were all they had suffered.
Del didn't slow a step as she headed for a console not too far away. According to Glyph, the clone had accessed it for several minutes. Whatever was in that console was what the clone had come into the Archives for in the first place.
Unfortunately, it had a biometric access, and Shepard's biometrics were no longer working- as they discovered when she put her hand on the panel.
Tali and Edi immediately went to work as Del had a quick huddle with the rest of them.
"What's our plan?" Garrus asked.
"She wants to step into my life," Del said. "And we have the advantage at the moment, in that she and her pretty boy pet think the lot of us are locked up in these vaults. Thoughts?"
"One of her first moves is going to be to try and take the Normandy," Liara said. "However she is still undergoing repairs. Even the real you would not get clearance to take off until at least the engine updates are completed, and that would be in an emergency."
"What's our schedule on that?"
"Tali would know for sure," Vega said, "But if I remember correctly, about twenty hours. That's if you marched in right now and told them to pin her up to go."
"Right, and the other repairs that are half done on needed systems would take at least four hours to get the bird back in the sky on an emergency order," Garrus said. "And I do mean emergency order; Hackett or Anderson or the Council themselves would have to put the order in, they wouldn't take it from you. They practically had to order you out of the saddle, remember? They're not going to let you back into it unless they had no other choice."
"She does have at least one decent hacker on her team," Ashley said. "That's how they were able to get into your accounts to begin with."
"That's how they were able to get into her personal accounts," Brooks said. "Which triggered my desk. Personal accounts, even those of a Spectre, are far easier to get into than what they'd have to do to fake clearance and launch orders from Hackett and Anderson. That's why they did that first- to get you into a situation where they could intercept your Spectre codes. With those, they got into the Archives, where I'm betting they got everything else, like the command codes to the Normandy, and altering your biometrics to match her instead of you."
"She's a clone," Del said. "Don't we already have the same biometrics?"
"Not exactly," Liara said. "You have the same DNA and voice print, however the veins of the retina and the folds of skin on your hands and fingers, even the pattern of taste buds on your tongue- these come in the womb as the fetus develops. She would have updated your profile, made the retinal and handprint scans her own."
"And my tongue print?" Del asked with amusement. Liara gave her a look.
"I am not even going to dignify that."
"Yeah, you'd know all about Shepard's tongue print," Vega grinned, and then at the look on both Del and Liara's faces he colored and turned his head. "Uh, who said that? I think I heard my Mom calling..."
"Uh…the point is," Brooks said, also coloring darkly. "While they could probably fake orders from Hackett or Anderson to release the Normandy, it would be discovered pretty quickly. Quick enough to fully lock down the Normandy and trigger a serious investigation. I mean a 'we're going to handcuff everyone and look at you and your entire crew down to their toenails' kind of serious investigation. The moment that investigation started and they couldn't find, well, everyone here besides Shepard-"
"They'd be hung," Del nodded. "They haven't had a chance to fake their little Reaper attack."
"Right. To try and leave with the Normandy now would put the noose around their necks. And they don't have a reason to do it. As far as they're concerned, we're all dead. They can just wait until the repairs are done and leave with the Normandy as usual and on schedule."
Shepard started to grin a little, and looked at Liara. "Is there a way that you can get a roundabout message to someone? Or Tali? Let them know what's going on while our bitchy little 'problem' is none the wiser?"
"I am certain it can be done," Liara said. "Whom did you have in mind?"
"She thinks she's pretty much got everyone on the crew that wouldn't be fooled by her for a second out of the way. But what about the others? I'm most concerned about Riot. I'm not sure they know about her or not but she's been helping the repair crews with the maintenance work on the plates and in some of the crawlspaces. She won't be fooled either- even if the other me doesn't smell different, the moment Riot touches her she'll know it's not me. They might risk shooting her when she's out of sight of the crews, spin a story that she attacked them or something."
"She does not carry an omni-tool," Liara said. "However, if I can get one of the other crew informed, they could warn her. She would be of immense use in trying to take over the ship again. Let me see…Westmoreland, Cox, Jefferson and the others- they've only been on the crew since Earth. I don't doubt some of them the clone is planning to quietly transfer away and replace them with her own Cat6 mercs but that would have to come piecemeal or it will draw suspicion. Or she is seriously considering taking out the entire crew except a few of her own in this fake Reaper attack of hers. Regardless, they are not really a threat to her at the moment."
"If you can, get messages to them as well but I was thinking specifically about Haley. He can-"
"Shepard, we have a problem!" Tali's worried voice broke through Del's words and immediately drew everyone's attention.
"Tali? What's wrong?" Shepard headed over to her. EDI was still bent, working on the console.
"We've been able to pull the information from the console," Tali said. "Mostly she got the Normandy's command codes as we suspected, and altered your biometrics, nothing too surprising- but there's also clearance in here for the penthouse suite of Tiberius Towers, signed by Admiral Anderson so that you would have access to it while on leave. He's even got the deed to the place set up to transfer over to you, it's just waiting for your signature."
Del felt herself grow cold. If they knew about the apartment…
Helen and Nan.
"Shepard, I should be able to send a warning message to Dr. Chakwas and Mrs. Salgado's omni-tools," EDI said, looking at her. "However if they scan them they will see the message, and our small advantage would be lost."
Del covered her eyes a moment, her jaw clenching, before she slowly lowered her hand again. "Shit. Shit! We've gotta get back. Right now, people!"
Del knew the instant she stepped into the apartment again that they were gone. There was a feel to spaces when they were occupied, and this space felt empty.
They came rushing in with weapon's drawn although no vehicle had been parked on the penthouse pad. Del lowered hers as she came slowly down the stairs into the main area, her eyes distant as she looked around the room.
No bodies. No blood. Everything in its place, no sign of any kind of a struggle.
"No one's here, Skipper," Ashley said, as she finished clearing the ground floor with Vega, Garrus and Wrex clearing the top.
"Same, no sign," the krogan said.
"So it's a clone? Really? Of Shepard?" Joker said as he was the last one to limp in. He hadn't seemed to entirely believe them on the entire ride back to the penthouse. If it hadn't been for the worried looks on Liara and Del's faces, he'd probably have been certain this was an elaborate prank.
Everyone ignored him as EDI looked at the Captain.
"Shepard, if they did not take care of them immediately and leave them here, where it is very likely they would not be discovered for some time, then it is my belief they will have taken them back to the Normandy."
"I agree," Garrus nodded. "Likely they fed them some story about what happened and where the rest of us were, some excuse they had to be evacuated back somewhere safe. The Normandy is the most secure place to keep them until they can get rid of them, and they'll want to occupy the ship even if they can't leave in her yet."
"They could feed them any story they liked, Nan would know in a minute it wasn't really me," Del said slowly, thoughtfully. "Helen as well, at least pretty darn quick. If I know anything about either of them though, they'll play dumb, act like they accept it's me no question, until they're free to act. We need to get that message to Haley, or find him in person and let him know what's happening."
"What about me?" Joker said, and now drew eyes. "I mean, I wasn't down there in the Archives with you, right? She doesn't know that I know she's a clone. I can get on the ship too, make some excuse that I want to make sure they're not messing up my baby. Meet up with Haley, and-"
"Shepard, your clone has reached the Normandy," EDI said quickly.
Realization suddenly dawned for Del as she turned toward the AI. She'd been so fucking stupid! Of course the first thing they'd do when they got on the ship would be to-
"Whoashit!" Vega gasped, suddenly lunging forward and catching EDI as the lights shut off in her eyes and she slumped, lifeless, into his arms.
"EDI!" Joker hurried down the last of the steps from the second floor as quickly as his bones would allow, and crouched awkwardly over the synthetic as Vega lowered the heavy chassis to the ground. The pilot's eyes were as hard as steel as he looked over at Del. "Shepard!"
"Jeff, it'll be ok," Tali said, before Shepard could speak. "If they tried to remove her from the ship's systems completely or destroy her AI systems the Normandy would be as useless as a rock until they got a new computer system installed, and that would trigger nasty questions too. They've just shut off her access to the chassis and shackled her helm and communications access, so she can't tip anyone off before they can get the Normandy to their fake Reaper battle."
"Tali, are you sure that's what they did?" Del asked, crouching down beside her helmsman.
"I'm positive. Taking EDI out completely would be no small task. They were probably going to use a massive EMP to wipe her systems, say it was from that Reaper battle, to take her out completely, but they can't do that in dock. Honestly, it's kind of stupid. I'm sorry Jie Jie, but the clone you and this Tal Salinos aren't very bright."
"Aren't they?" Ashley asked.
"No. I mean, look at this whole mess. They couldn't really have expected it to work, could they? The moment they saw that we had EDI with us down in the Archive they should have known the jig was up, if they really knew anything about her. They think we're all dead by now, locked in those iridium vaults, right? But EDI hardly suffocates. She doesn't need air. She also has an integrated plasma cutter in one of her fingers. It would have taken her about an hour, but she could have cut her way out with that. She might have even done it fast enough that the ones who were locked up with her would have gotten air and survived."
Something occurred then to Del. "Tali, wait. Are you telling me that EDI could have reported to the repair crews on the Normandy at any moment that we were facing that clone? I mean, from the moment we saw she was actually a clone and knew what she was going to do?"
"Not while we were down there. The communications scrambling they had in that place was pretty sophisticated. It was taking a lot of her runtime just to maintain contact and control of the chassis. The repair crews probably noticed the ship systems were barely functioning as her runtimes were taken up but as we're in dry dock that doesn't matter. They probably also assumed that some other crew was updating the VI systems or the navigation systems and had taken her mostly offline to do the work, if they noticed at all. The moment we left she was able to interface again, but she kept her runtimes down on the Normandy anyway, so that Not-Del wouldn't suspect that she was out of the vault the instant they got aboard the ship."
"As far as I'm concerned then, they have four members of my family hostage on that ship. The sooner we get them out and wipe the floor with that mu gao and her pretty boy, the better. Can you still get that message to Haley?"
"It'll take me a short while but yes, absolutely."
"Get on that. Joker-"
"I'm not staying here while some clone gets her fingerprints all over my ship, or EDI," Joker said tersely.
"I wouldn't dream of making you, Jeff," she said gently. "We're getting our ladies back. All of them, and you are going to help. Now here's the plan…"
