He offered the hamster a bit of a vegetable, then looked up when someone gave a small cough. "Kelly." Michael nodded to her.

"I was just coming to check on the fish." She smiled.

Admittedly, the small colorful creatures in the tank were starting to grow on him a bit. "Appreciate it." He stroked the hamster with one finger before putting it back in it's cage. "Anything I should know about?"

She hesitated a moment. "I think you did the right thing." When he raised an eyebrow, she shrugged. "Helping David." She closed the fishtank back up. Then she exhaled. "So does the crew, even if it isn't..." She shifted her weight a bit awkwardly. "I just wanted to make sure you know the crew is with you, Commander."

"Glad to have you, Yeoman." He nodded to her.

#

"It seems statistically improbable that..."

"That's the point, Legion." Michael rolled his eyes. "It's supposed to be completely ridiculous."

"Still think I could take one." Grunt punched his fist into his palm.

"Grunt, I'm pretty sure you could take ten." He patted the krogan on the back. He glanced at where Jack was sitting with her head tilted, a curious and amused expression on her face. "Jack?"

"I bet I could make one." She nodded to herself.

"Make one?" He blinked.

"A tornado full of sharks." She waved a hand. "With a singularity."

"That..." He closed his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose before tilted his head and looking back at her. "I've got fifty credits that agree with you."

"A singularity is not the optimum for using carnivorous creatures as weapons." Samara shook her head. "Projecting them into a shockwave is much more effective." When they all turned to look at her, she just smiled. "A light stasis field can then allow them to continue to swarm, if you use smaller varieties."

"Samara..." Michael just shook his head. "Have I ever told you that you're my hero?"

#

"We have completed our analysis of the Reaper's data core."

He nodded to Legion. "Did you find anything useful?"

"We were sent to the Old Machine to preserve the geth's future. We are prepared to reveal how." Ah. Answers. Answers were always good. Except when they weren't. "The heretics have developed a weapon to use against geth. You would call it a 'virus'. It is stored on a data core provided by Sovereign. Over time, the virus will change us. Make us conclude that worshiping the Old Machines is correct."

Sounded like brain washing. Not okay. "So why did you need to go to the Reaper corpse?"

"The heretics store the code in quantum storage device Sovereign provided. To find and destroy the virus, we needed to understand its code and data storage structures."

"Makes sense." Michael nodded. "You know where this thing is?"

"The heretic's headquarters station, on the edge of the Terminus. We will provide coordinates. Normandy's stealth systems are necessary to safely approach." Legions light was disconcerting to make eye contact with.

"I won't let them brainwash your race, especially not to worship Reapers." Especially not with Legion having fought by their side. He was weird, but part of the crew. "You have my word on that."

Legion's head jerked in a semblance of a nod. "We will begin preparations."

#

"We're going to rescue..." Garrus clicked his mandibles. "Geth?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to break the news to Tali." Shepard sighed. "She seems alright with EDI and Legion."

"That's because both are in range of our weaponry." Garrus folded his arms. "And since it may be pertinent to the conversation, so are you."

"Are you suggesting that if Tali asked..." Shepard stared up at him. "You'd shoot me?"

"Uh..." He scratched his head, then clicked his mandibles again. "Yes."

"Yeah." Shepard shrugged. "That's fair." He rubbed his hand against the scars on his jaw. "And it will kill some time while they get that IFF figured out."

"I talked to Liara about making an indestructible data recording module to take with us." When Shepard lifted an eyebrow, Garrus smiled. "I'm not going to let a little thing like horrible death stop posterity from knowing I'm a better shot than you."

"It's cute how dedicated you are to self-delusion, Vakarian."

#

"You know it's just our heat emissions that are hidden, right?" Joker gestured. "They can look out a window and see us coming."

"Windows are a structural weakness." Legion shrugged. He had a geth in his cockpit. Ah, how times did change. "Geth do not use them. Approach the hull at these coordinates." Michael glared at Joker's robot imitation as Legion typed something into a console. "Access achieved. We may proceed."

#

"Alert. This facility has little air or gravity. Geth require neither."

"As long as we don't set off any alarms, we should be alright." Michael rolled his neck in his armor. Tali had her shotgun ready to go. Garrus was a step behind her. He'd left the biotics on board, along with Mordin. It would be interesting to see if Kasumi's was good enough to avoid all geth detection. Then again, getting through entirely undetected would probably disappoint Grunt.

They started in, then Legion spoke again. "Shepard-Commander. We concluded that destruction of this station was the only resolution to the heretic question. There is now a second option." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tali adjust her shotgun. Legion had better make this good. "Their virus can be repurposed. If released into the station's network, the heretics will be rewritten to accept our truth."

"That sounds dangerously close to indoctrination." Garrus was shaking his head. "Unless there's something I'm missing. Maybe this is how AIs settle religious disputes." It made a certain amount of sense, but the idea rankled at him. "The geth are already a threat to organics, though. If we give them back their heretics, they'll get even stronger." Grunt needed to wipe the grin off his face, it wasn't anywhere near as much fun as the krogan was thinking.

"Why didn't you mention this before we came aboard?"

"We did not know the virus was complete. It is. It can be used against the true geth at any time. Our arrival was timely."

He took a deep breath and didn't look at Tali. "They're your people, Legion. You must have an opinion."

"This is new data. We have not yet reached consensus."

Yeah. He could say that again.

#

Taking philosophy with an AI was interesting. He wondered what Kaidan would make of Legion. Michael dodged a shot, then some debris as Tali detonated the local mainframe. Then he glanced down at his omni-tool and smirked. "Oh Vakarian..." Garrus clicked his mandibles and narrowed his eyes. "Legion is beating you by two points."

"And how many are we beating you by?" Garrus glared.

"I'm in the lead by three."

"We do not understand the purpose of these points." Legion poked his head around the next corner.

"Incentive to improve your skills, plus a handy metric to measure said improvement." He checked his omni-tool. "Tali is currently in the lead."

"Naturally." The quarian girl strode forward.

#

"This is it?" Michael stopped in front of the console, then looked at Legion.

"Yes. We will upload a copy of our runtime into the core. It will delete all copies of the virus. When complete, it will notify us." It almost was starting to sound like a plan. "The indexing operation will take time. The heretics will respond with force to our upload. We must hold this room."

Michael began directing his forces. He, Legion, and Garrus could keep the incoming heretics funneled for Tali to take out, with Grunt backing her up and Kasumi picking off stragglers. "Alright, Legion. Get it started."

His first shot took a platform right in the headlight. With three snipers, the platforms had to huddle together behind cover, making them easy targets for Tali's grenades or for Grunt just to rush in like a battering ram. The krogan seemed to take a strange glee in fighting the big cloaked hunters hand to hand, even laughing manically as one succeeded in tossing him halfway across the room. Kids today.

#

"Datamine and analysis complete." Legion turned back toward the console.

Time to make a decision then. Take the chance or... Why did deleting a bunch of programs feel like ending lives? Tali glanced back at him. He nodded. "Destroy it, and let's get out of here."

#

"Commander, Tali just went to have a 'chat' with Legion. You better get down to the AI core."

Hopefully, this went better than the chat between Miranda and Jack. They really didn't have time to head back to go furniture shopping. "I'm on it, Joker."

And Tali had Legion at gunpoint. He'd really been a bad influence on her. "Shepard. I'm glad you're here. I caught Legion scanning my omni-tool. It was going to send data about the flotilla back to the geth."

"Creators performed weapons testing on geth hardware. We believed it necessary to warn our people of possible aggression."

"We weakened the geth by destroying that base, Shepard, but they're still a threat. I won't let Legion endanger the Fleet."

"Creator-Tali'Zorah acts out of loyalty to her people. She was willing to be exiled to protect them. We must also protect our people from the Creator threat."

"You can't let this happen, Shepard." Tali shook her head. "I trusted you, and I worked with a geth on the team, but this is too much."

Oh, good. They were going to let him talk now. "Look at you. Both of you." He glared. "This is exactly what the Reapers want." They both looked at him. "Tali, of course the geth are worried about your people. You want to destroy them."

"It's not that simple!"

"And Legion, what the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to undermine this entire operation?"

"We did not intend to decrease operational efficiency."

"We're on a mission. You can either fight by my side or get crushed under my heel." He narrowed his eyes. "But you will not stand in my way."

#

"You've heard from Oriana?" Michael raised an eyebrow.

"Just a letter." Miranda ducked her head a little. "I'm trying to compose a response but..." She laughed softly. "I don't know how to advise someone on how to live a normal life."

"Can't help you there."

"I'd been meaning to speak with you." She stood up from her desk and moved over to her couch. He sat down opposite her, but it was several moments before she spoke. "I..." She took a deep breath. "I wanted to apologize. I didn't fully believe you'd be up to the task. And it seems I was wrong." She shrugged. "Frankly, based on what I've seen, I wish Cerberus had recruited you earlier."

"I don't trust Cerberus. Its experiments cross the line." He shook his head.

"All the time, yes. But I recall a Spectre who crossed a few lines while hunting down Saren and the geth." She waved a hand. "And we'd be lucky to have you. Too many join us out of simple xenophobia. We need more people here for the right reasons."

"What was Cerberus trying to prove by experimenting on children like Jack?" He raised an eyebrow.

"A mistake. No question." She shook her head. "Not mine. And one that was corrected once we discovered the extent of the experiments being performed."

"Seems a common story for Cerberus." He leaned back. "I saw your bases years ago. You were using rachni, Thorian creepers, even husks to make your own army."

"The husks were already dead, the Thorian creatures were mindless, and the rachni were abandoned once we understood their intelligence." She exhaled. "We weren't breeding an army. We were breeding expendable shock troops for high-risk scenarios. How many soldiers died in Saren's attack on Eden Prime? How many would have lived if we'd had just a dozen rachni soldiers on our side?"

"I was at Eden Prime. And I've fought rachni. Sure this is an argument you want to have with me?" He gave her a pointed look. "Especially when one of the few survivors of Eden Prime died stopping a facility that was breeding expendable shock troops?" She shrank a little under his glare. "With your intelligence, you could have landed any job you wanted. Why choose this?"

Miranda sighed. "Because I still envy the time Mordin spent with the Special Tasks Group, working with people as smart as he was. Cerberus never tells me that something is impossible. They give me my resources and say 'do it'." What could she had been, if she'd had a Hackett instead of an Illusive Man? "And they've given you even more. A new life, a new ship, the Illusive Man's personal attention..."

"Frankly the most useful thing he's done is put you on my squad."

A tiny bit of a smile played at her mouth. "You'd have done fine without me. I may not have believed it before, but..." She looked down. "I don't have what you do. That fire that makes someone willing to follow you into hell itself." She rose and paced the room. "My father got me the best genes money could buy. Guess it wasn't enough."

"If genes alone made you who you are..." He shook his head. "Your genetic tailoring really bothers you, doesn't it?"

"This is what I am, Shepard. I can't hide it. The intelligence, the looks, even the biotics..." She stared out into space. "He paid for all of that. Every one of your accomplishments is due to your skill. The only things I can take credit for are my mistakes."

"He gave you some very good tools." Michael walked over to stand next to her. "But he doesn't get to decide what you build with them. That's on you." He shrugged. "You can be proud of what you do with them."

"Oh." She gave him a startled smile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He started for the door. "And Miranda..."

"Yes, yes, I know." She rolled her eyes. "Wear armor before you shoot me in my fantastic ass."

#

"Wanted to talk. Medical matters." Mordin came around the desk to speak with him. "Aware that mission is dangerous. Different species react differently to stress. Aware that you and Jack are sexually active." Michael blinked. "Or planning to be. Suggest caution. Emotionally unstable biotics dangerous during intercourse."

"Uh..." He started to take a deep breath.

"Can give biotic inhibitor to dampen neural receptors, weaken unintentional biotic effects. No guarantees. Suggest padding walls. Biotic ability also gives benefit. Forwarding booklet to your quarters. Includes diagrams, exercises, inventive uses of mass effect fields. Can supply oils or ointments to reduce discomfort. Gave EDI electronic relationship aid demonstration vids to use as necessary."

Creative uses of... He shook his head, then snorted. "Wait a minute, Mordin. You're just yanking me around, aren't you?"

Mordin took a step backward, hand on his chest. "Shocking suggestion. Doctor-patient confidentiality a sacred trust. Would never dream of mockery." Mordin smiled. "Enjoy yourself while possible, Shepard. Will be here, studying cell reproduction. Much simpler. Less alcohol and mood music required."

Could he even write a crewmember up for insubordination under current circumstances?"

#

"You don't have to hide in here, you know." He looked over at Thane.

"I will refrain from pointing out that you are currently hiding in here with me." Thane gave him a pointed look.

"I appreciate that, Thane."