No matter how many times Val told herself she couldn't expect quick results, she couldn't stop herself from fidgeting. Between training sessions, she fired off a quick, casual note to Alex.
How's it going?
She burned off some energy by flinging herself across the training room until a reply flashed up on her omni-tool.
It's been two fucking days.
She winced and sent: Sorry.
At that point, half a dozen beginner-to-middling biotics showed up for practice, and Val couldn't check her messages for an hour. Once she'd sent them back out the door, tired and chattering with each other, she found a string of new messages on her 'tool:
If you want to see progress so badly, you can come over at the end of the day
There's not much to see though
Val breathed out, reminding herself to be patient. Still, she answered: Sure, I'll stop by.
Within a few minutes, Alex sent back: Cool, see you then.
So instead of making her usual walk out to the bar for drinks after locking up, Val made her way to Alex's makeshift lab at the other end of the camp, weaving her way through the assortment of other people also finishing up their work shifts and moving around the camp. The thickest crowds were near the mess hall; the lab space had been set up far enough out that people thinned out considerably. As the lab prefab came into sight, Val spotted only one human figure, a woman, headed her way. Val nodded absent-mindedly in greeting, most of her attention fixed on the lab ahead of her — she'd just check in with Alex, then they could head out for drinks or dinner together — and she stiffened, almost missing a step, as Samantha Traynor nodded back at her.
Val's eyes widened, but she missed the opportunity to speak. Traynor smiled at her blandly, without recognition, and continued on her way without missing a step. Stunned, Val stopped in her tracks and looked over her shoulder to stare at Traynor's retreating form. It took a moment to shake herself out of the numb, shocked feeling. She'd known the Normandy crew was back, Val reminded herself. Of course she'd see the Alliance personnel around camp from time to time. Of course they wouldn't know her. It was nothing to get agitated about.
Seeing Garrus and James had become normal, as if they were part of a little bubble that included her now. The sudden appearance of another crew member was a shock to her system, reminding her that there was a whole crew of people she was missing out there.
Val heaved a deep breath, trying to exhale some of her tension, but the unsettled feeling lingered. She continued toward the lab more slowly.
The building was dim when she entered. One light shone over the orb and the workstation, casting the rest of the oblong room into shadow. Val thought that the storage crates might have been rearranged to make more space around the work area, but she couldn't be sure. Alex was nowhere to be seen.
"Hey," she called. "Alex? Are you here?"
"Yeah," came a muffled voice from the back room. "Just cleaning up, I'll be out in a minute."
"I passed someone as I came over," Val said, turning to look at the orb. It lay there, simple, smooth, and utterly innocuous, but she didn't trust it: her hands curled into fists at her side.
"Yeah, they assigned me an assistant, Samantha. She just left," Alex called back, still muffled. "She's probably overqualified, but she's just coming off medical leave, so she's available."
Val nodded, even though Alex couldn't see her. Overqualified sounded about right. Samantha Traynor was one of the most adaptable and versatile professionals she'd ever had the pleasure of working with. She opened her mouth to answer, and the lights went out.
In the sudden, disorienting dark, Val started to turn toward the doorway where she'd heard Alex's voice. But only a split second passed before she felt a shock from behind, a quick spark that jolted her forward a step and seemed to run up and down her spine. Val flinched, though it was more surprising than painful, and faded quickly.
She spread out her hands, trying to steady herself. Something was wrong, besides the dark. After the shock, she felt... strangely numb. Disoriented, almost, her sense of herself and her surroundings disrupted. She had a nagging sense of absence, and couldn't place the sensation at all for a moment.
Then she recognized it, and her stomach lurched. Her biotics. She'd lost all sense of them. Her head felt numb, her amp a useless piece of metal jammed into her skull.
Trap, she thought. Reapers or Cerberus or —
The lights came on, and she winced, throwing up a hand to shield herself from the sudden glare. "Alex?" she called out, turning around. Her free hand clenched. She wasn't armed, her biotics were damped, but if anyone had come for her or Alex, she'd make them pay.
She squinted into the light. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Alex standing in the doorway to the short end of the L. He was aiming a heavy pistol at her.
Her gut clenched. No. Wrong trap. It had to be the orb. She'd warned Alex — she'd told him to shield it. He couldn't possibly have been arrogant enough to work with it unshielded and let himself get controlled. Could he?
Looking at his face, she hesitated, uncertain. His eyes were cold, but calculating. Not vacant, or unaware.
Maybe he'd been Cerberus all along. A cold, sick queasiness oozed down her throat at the thought. Maybe he'd lied to her the whole time. It wasn't as if she could really say she knew him, brother or not.
It took only a moment for that jumble of thoughts to flash through Val's mind, while adrenalin shot through her system. Her hands curled into fists, but the dark energy she'd usually summon remained out of her reach. "Alex," she said with as much authority as she could muster. "You don't want to do this." Even unarmed, she could probably disable him if she had to. She was taller and better trained. A quick strike to get the gun out of his hand, wrench his arm around — but better, much better if she could talk him out of it.
He snorted without any humor at all. "Don't I? I think I'll be the judge of that."
She wouldn't let herself think her little brother was a Cerberus loyalist. It had to be the orb, or even indoctrination. Val tried to swallow down her sense of betrayal, but it filled her throat like tar, bitter and salty. She tried again. "Sasha."
His face contorted suddenly, and he snarled, "Don't. You don't get to call me that. I don't know who the hell you are, but you are not my sister. Who are you and where did you come from?"
Val's head spun. She stared at Alex while her ears buzzed, realizing she had it entirely backwards. There wasn't anything wrong with him.
He'd realized there was something wrong with her.
She rocked back on her feet. Her hands went slack, and the burning rage in her throat turned to nausea.
"Was it Cerberus?" Alex demanded. "Some kind of clone? But why her? Why my sister?"
"It's not what you think," she said. Her lips felt stiff, as if she were operating them remotely.
"Then what is it?" Alex snapped. The pistol in his hand didn't waver. "Start talking, whoever you are."
Val raised her hands slowly, watching his eyes narrow. Her mind frantically sought for some kind of reasonable explanation, and came up empty. "I promise, I'm your sister. Nobody sent me. I'm just... me."
"You're lying."
"I'm not, I promise," Val said desperately. "Ask me anything you want."
"What did you get me for my twenty-first birthday?"
Shit. She'd been hoping he would go for early childhood. Val bit her lip, racking her mind for something plausible. "A... a book."
"Wrong." His lip curled. "We haven't exchanged birthday presents since I was seventeen."
Fuck. "It was a long time ago," she protested, knowing it sounded weak. "I forgot which birthday."
"Just stop trying to lie and tell me who you really are," he said, implacable.
Val shook her head, her heart thudding. "I'm really Val Shepard."
"Stop it." His hand twitched.
"You used to help me with all my math and science homework," Val blurted out, her eyes on the gun. "I begged you to help me cram precalc."
Alex froze, eyes sharp with suspicion. "It wouldn't be hard to find that out," he said after a moment.
"We stayed up all night," she went on. "You complained the whole time, and I offered to write your social studies essay for you, and you said you'd do better on your own. You made me do your chores for a week instead." That had included cleaning out the boys' room at the end of the week, which was a huge pain — Misha tended to carry in bits of plants or muddy rocks or birds' nests he was interested in, and Ivan never put anything away (all right, he'd been six at the time, to be fair), so there were toys everywhere.
He stared at her. "How did you know that?"
The back of Val's skull tingled. Her biotics were coming back, as whatever damping field he'd activated wore off. She kept talking, trying to buy time... for what, exactly, she hadn't figured out yet. She didn't want to hurt him. He was at least half right, after all, and she didn't want to hurt him. Maybe a quick charge would knock him over, or maybe she could biotically yank the gun away and then run. "I told you, I really am your sister. I remember when you were six, you had a crush on Liliana Sandoval and you made me promise not to tell Mama. You pitched a fit when Misha was born and cried because you weren't the only little brother any more."
A muscle in his cheek twitched. "I don't even remember that," he said coldly. "Where did you get that one? Have you been pumping Mama for information?"
Val shook her head frantically. "No. No, I swear. It's really me."
"When did you stop calling me Sasha?" he asked abruptly.
She stared back at him. This had to be a trick question. "Never. I've always called you Sasha, no matter what you say."
His mouth tightened. "You didn't remember Talitha."
"I just forgot for a moment," she said. Her hands were shaking. Her biotics were live again, she was sure of it; she could probably charge into him, grab the gun —
"Do you remember Misha's girlfriend Zoe?"
"Of course," Val said without blinking.
"Wrong answer," Alex snapped. "Misha's gay, he's never had a girlfriend. None of this makes any sense."
Misha's gay? some tiny, absurd part of her mind thought. She pushed it aside. Priorities. One last chance to persuade him. "Come on, Alex," she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Put the damned gun down."
"Like hell," he said.
She'd been gathering herself to move, but before she could do anything, another shock hit her. Numbness spread from her amp port down her spine. Val stumbled forward a step in surprise. "What—"
Alex hadn't moved. A thin smile spread across his lips as he watched her. "Did you really think I was dumb enough to take on a biotic without backup?"
Val froze. The space between her shoulder blades prickled. Alex's smile widened. It wasn't a pleasant one. "You can turn around, if you like," he said.
She swallowed and took a deep breath. Keeping her hands up, she turned slowly, planting each foot deliberately.
Garrus stood behind her, by the entrance to the lab. He looked dark and imposing in his full armor, his omni-tool active. He said, "You know a lot of details that you shouldn't have access to."
"And you don't know a good number of things that you ought to know," Alex added, behind her.
The floor might have fallen out from under Val's feet. Her breath was coming too quickly, leaving her shaky and lightheaded. Her shoulders slumped as she realized: "You've been comparing notes."
"Stop wasting time and start explaining," Alex said.
It figured, didn't it, that two of the people she'd loved best in the world would see through her. Alex had always understood her. So had Garrus. She couldn't fight her way out of this, not now. If it were Alex alone, she might have been able to disable him, though she had no real idea what he was capable of. But she wasn't a match for both of them, not together. Not without one or more of them getting seriously hurt. And even if she did manage to overcome them both, then what? Run away? Try to claim to the Alliance — and the Hierarchy — that they were the ones who'd lost their minds? Why would anyone believe her?
She was out of options, except for one.
Val took a breath and dropped her arms. All the will to fight had drained out of her; it was an effort to stay on her feet. "You're going to think I'm crazy."
"Try us," Alex said.
She laughed, pressing a hand to her head. "Hell, maybe I am crazy. Maybe someone should lock me up or put me down. I don't know. Can I sit down?"
Garrus glanced past her to catch Alex's eye.
They let her sit in an office chair. It was a little too short for her, forcing her knees to bend sharply, but Val didn't complain. She let them bind her hands behind the back of the chair. It was better than the shock of the damping field that disabled her biotics, a lot better than feeling that shock over and over.
"Start talking," Alex told her.
She rolled her shoulders, trying to find a tolerably comfortable position, and settled for keeping her shoulders back and her chin up. "I'm Commander Shepard," she said. Something inside her unfolded as she said it, almost relaxed. At least she could tell her truth now, as she knew it. They could do whatever they wanted with that.
"We're aware of your claimed rank and name," Garrus said dryly.
"No, I mean I'm..." Val took a breath. "I woke up in that hospital. They said I'd been evac'ed after London. But I remember everything differently. As far as I remember, I was the commander of the Normandy. I led the charge on Earth. Through the whole war, really." It wasn't exactly a good memory, but the recollection stretched her lips out in a smile anyway. "The point of the spear, Hackett said."
Garrus's mandibles twitched. Alex just stared at her.
Val kept talking, increasingly relieved as she let it all out. "I'm humanity's first Spectre. I found the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime. My crew tracked down Saren, we found the Mu relay, we chased him to the Citadel and killed him. I..." She still didn't like saying it, even after all this time. "... died, and Cerberus brought me back to chase the Collectors. We went through the Omega-Four relay and came back." She kept her eyes on Garrus. Part of her, deep down inside, half-hoped he'd chuckle and say she was right, that this was all a test or a game. A really bad game, but that was still better than the alternative. "I made a mistake, going solo on Aratoht, and blew up the Alpha Relay. That's what I remember, anyway. My memories—" She took a breath and tried her best to stretch her arms behind her back. "They don't match up with what everyone else remembers. I don't know why. Maybe I'm delusional, but I don't see how that could be." Her gaze flicked to Alex. "You're smarter than I am, maybe you can figure it out."
The two men blinked at her in silence. Then Garrus said, in flat tones, "So you say you commanded the Normandy. And you know me? We worked closely together?"
His words felt like a blow. Closely, yes. Always at her side, at her back, or in her bed. She nodded, licking her lips. "Yeah."
Garrus glanced at his omni-tool. Val could just see the glimmer of data scrolling across her visor. "Then I have some questions."
They interrogated her for a long time. She lost track of how long. Her mouth grew dry with talking. Her throat thickened and turned scratchy, until she coughed and had to swallow. She didn't ask for water, and they didn't offer.
Garrus asked most of the questions: details on her career, missions, crew members, places they'd gone, her interactions with Saren and the Council and the Illusive Man. He was precise, neutral, giving nothing away. She felt as if she'd been hauled in by C-Sec. Alex mostly watched, eyes cold and flinty, though he threw in some questions about Mordin and his research and the Collector ship.
Once she'd gone over the Normandy's missions, from start to finish, silence fell. Garrus and Alex looked at each other. Without a word, Alex turned and disappeared into the back room. Val leaned back in the chair as best she could, stretching her legs out in front of her to ease the ache in her knees, and watched Garrus. He looked back at her, face still, mandibles held close to his jaw.
Alex returned with a glass of water and held it to her lips. He tipped it a little too far; water dribbled out of the corners of her mouth. Val drank gratefully anyway, swallowing as much as she could. The water was cool and a little flat. It might be drugged, she realized suddenly, but she was thirsty enough that she wasn't sure she cared.
Alex said, "So where were we during all of this? You haven't mentioned our family once."
In spite of the water she'd just drunk, Val's mouth felt dry again. She swallowed and pressed her lips together, conscious of Alex's waiting gaze. "My family died," she said at last.
Alex's eyebrows went up. "What?"
"That's... the way I remember it, anyway." She glanced to the side, not wanting to see the look on his face. "Slavers attacked Mindoir when I was sixteen. The whole colony was massacred."
"But you survived," Alex said in disbelief.
"Yes." Her eyes flicked to meet his for a second. "I'd been out for a run, out in the fields. I came back when I saw smoke, but it was too late. I couldn't help anyone. The Alliance showed up to relieve the colony and picked me up. I spent the next two years in foster care, before I started at the Alliance Academy." She licked her lips again, trying in vain to make her mouth wetter. "That's when my biotics manifested. During the attack."
Alex said, still staring, "Your biotics manifested when you pushed Ivan out of the way of a runaway grain transport. You were seventeen. The Alliance wouldn't fucking stop calling after that."
Val blinked. Her tongue pressed against her cheek while she tried to think of something to say. Finally, she said, "That's not how I remember it."
Alex sneered at her. "So either you're a liar, some kind of clone or plant who knows way too much, or you're so delusional that you wrote us out of your world altogether. How nice of you."
"It's not like that," she protested, but guilt wormed its way into her mind anyway. It was like that if she were delusional, wasn't it? At least a little bit.
"That aside," Garrus said, "she knows too much. A lot of the details are wrong, but the broad outlines of the missions are right. The Collector mission, Alex, you know most of that never made the press."
"What details?" Val asked before she could stop herself. She'd already heard different versions of some events from Garrus and James. What else was wrong about her memories?
Neither of them answered her. Alex's mouth twisted up. "Yeah," he said grudgingly.
"Hell, I'm not sure Shepard included all of that in his report to the Alliance."
"She could have gotten it from other crew members," Alex said.
"Who, exactly?" Garrus asked. "And that theory assumes she went and tracked down crew in the middle of a war, and hacked into classified Alliance records to build this story."
They both looked at her. Val shrugged as best she could and put on a smile. "I'm a shit hacker. Ask anyone. You and Tali do most of the hacking."
Garrus's mandibles flexed. Not looking away from her, he said, "Are you going to test that?"
"Might as well, I suppose," Alex said, walking away with the glass in his hand.
"Oh," Val said. "DNA sample. Smart."
"Fuck off," Alex called back.
Garrus sighed. "You realize none of this adds up."
She tried for another shrug. Her shoulders hurt. "Yeah. I know." It was ridiculous, considering she was sitting here tied to a chair, but it still felt like a weight off her back to have told someone what she remembered.
Garrus regarded her with his head tilted. "You're different like this."
"Different how?" She looked up into his pale, searching eyes. She hadn't said anything about their relationship. It was too incongruous, to look at him and see so little recognition in his eyes. She couldn't bear to tell him that truth and see him surprised, or worse, repulsed.
His head tilted further to the side, as he sized her up. "You're almost relaxed."
She laughed, an unexpected burst. "I'm not hiding now."
"No." He drew back a step, gaze still fixed on her. "What do you make of all this?"
"I don't know." She tried to adjust her shoulders. "I wondered if it had something to do with the Catalyst, but I don't know." She was tired enough that the whole event was starting to seem dream-like.
Garrus's gaze sharpened. "What catalyst?"
She moistened her lips. They hadn't asked any questions about this before. "When I got to the Citadel, I... okay, a bunch of stuff happened, but I ended up talking to this thing that called itself the Catalyst. Some kind of AI. It presented itself as the hologram of a child."
"What child?"
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Some kid I'd seen back on Earth, right before the Reaper attack. But whatever it was, it told me I had choices. I could try to control the Reapers, or destroy them, or merge organics and synthetics somehow."
"So that's what you meant, about making a choice," Garrus said softly.
She nodded. "Yeah. I guess I slipped then, huh?" Stupid. She'd known it was a mistake at the time. She'd just hoped that Garrus would forget. There was her real mistake. Garrus didn't forget things like that, details out of place. Looking back, it was no wonder they'd caught her.
"What did you choose?" he asked.
Val took a breath. It hurt to remember that night; her lungs felt compressed and her skin itched with the memory of fire. "I thought I was going to destroy them."
"Do you think Shepard —" His mandibles flickered. "— our Shepard — made the wrong choice?"
The question hung in the air between them while Val hesitated.
Alex stalked back across the room toward them. "The DNA checks out."
"Huh." Garrus crossed his arms over his chest. "If she's telling the truth..."
"She could still be delusional." Alex shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at her.
"I don't see how," Garrus said. "A clone, maybe?"
Alex shook his head sharply. "Implanted memories aren't that advanced, even with tank-imprinting processes."
"Cerberus cloned Shepard," Garrus said.
"I figured," Alex said. "Still. They would have started with a memory scan from a cryogenically preserved brain. That's a much better starting point. This level of invention and manipulation of stored memories, I don't think even Cerberus is capable of that."
"Are you going to leave me tied up much longer?" Val asked. It was worth a shot; she'd cooperated so far, and it seemed like Garrus might be starting to believe her.
"Do you think an asari could do it?" Garrus asked Alex.
Alex made a face. "The asari tend to be a little close-mouthed about the extent of their biotic abilities when it comes to the neurological matters. We know they can scramble their own DNA as part of their reproductive process, but it's not clear whether they can manipulate neurons or memory. And no, we can't very well leave you tied up. Someone will notice you're missing. I already had to tell Mama you and I were having dinner somewhere else."
"But if she's telling the truth," Garrus went on, "the memories she describes will be in there. And in particular, if she's telling the truth about Feros, she's got the Cipher. No one but Shepard has that."
"The Cipher?" Alex asked.
"The Prothean Cipher. It lets Shepard interpret Prothean data."
"Huh," Alex said. "Right." They both looked at her speculatively, almost clinically. Val felt pinned under their gazes.
"Well, A skilled asari could check for that," Alex said.
"We could ask Liara," Garrus said.
Val drew in a sharp breath, remembering Liara storming toward John Shepard's room in a cloud of fury. With whatever Liara had with John, with Liara and Val's own past, she wasn't sure that was a good idea. "What about Javik?" she suggested.
"Who?" Garrus said.
Val flinched. "You don't know Javik?"
Garrus shook his head. "I'd prefer Samara," he said to Alex, "but she's gone now. Liara already knows all the relevant details."
Alex shrugged. "You trust T'soni, that's fine."
"Don't you think she's too close to Sh... to John?" Val asked hastily, as Garrus stepped behind her to unlock the cuffs.
Garrus paused, and he and Alex exchanged glances. "That could be an issue," Garrus allowed. "Got any alternatives?"
"I don't have any other asari friends," Alex said.
"Liara it is," Garrus said.
With a click, the cuffs opened. Garrus took hold of Val's upper arm and pulled her upright. She winced as her knees unfolded and her shoulders stretched. When Garrus nudged her, she took a step forward. Her eyes widened as she realized their intent. "You want to go see Liara now?"
"No time like the present," Alex said darkly.
Author's Note: Just a quick note to say that I don't expect to update for two weeks or so. I have a bit of travel coming up, and a lot of writing to do in the next chunk of the story!