Val said, "All I'm saying is, there are other alternatives."
Garrus's mandible flicked. "In a hurry, Shepard?"
She made a face, drumming her fingers on the battered table. Her eyes drifted around the room, to the other groups of people talking or laughing. "I don't like waiting," she admitted. "We don't know how long it's going to take Alex to get information from his contacts, or even... what?"
"Nothing," Garrus said, but he kept grinning at her, mandibles flared and eyes bright with amusement.
She let out a deep breath. Around them, the clamor of the bar covered their conversation, but they needed to keep things light. If she pressed Garrus, he was just going to offer more observations about how she was or wasn't like John Shepard, and she didn't want to hear it. Every comparison heated her irritation. Probably John didn't try to hash out their options the way she was doing. Once upon a time, Val might have chosen a course of action more easily, but in this new environment, she still felt out of step. Probably John didn't fidget as much as she did, either. Deliberately, Val settled her shoulders and put her hands in her lap, lacing her fingers together to still them.
"Fine," Garrus said, relenting at her stony look. "You're right, it might take a while to track down that Cerberus facility Alex was talking about. But what do you suggest we do? You and I both have duties here. You've already asked Traynor to keep an eye out for this Dr. Bryson. What else?"
Underneath the table, Val's hands tightened together. "Liara. She has an orb, I'm sure of it. Or it has her."
Garrus leaned back, his mandibles drawing in tight to his jaw. "Maybe she does, and maybe it was Shepard's. How do you propose to go about getting it?"
Val shrugged. "Break in and have a look around. Isn't that one of your specialties?"
His brow plates twitched. "Interesting that you would think that." His eyes shifted to the side, taking in the bar around them. "You do know who she is, right?"
"You don't think we can crack her security, is that it?"
"I'm not sure what kind of security she has." Garrus's mandibles twitched. "Besides, she considers me a friend. I could just go see her."
"You think that would still work after our last visit?"
Garrus tilted his head down, mandibles flexing. "Point. Maybe, maybe not. Liara can be unpredictable."
"Unpredictable how? Val asked. Thinking about Liara's cold eyes and pointed intrusion into her mind made her feel off balance. Garrus and James and even Traynor didn't seem so different in this universe; why was Liara so different?
"Maybe Alex has come up with something that can detect the orbs," Garrus said thoughtfully, as if he hadn't heard her.
"That would be nice," Val muttered, frowning. She'd hardly seen Alex in the last two days. He surfaced for breakfast and dinners, gulping down huge quantities of coffee at each meal, but he didn't say much about what he was working on. Mama had been too delighted with Talitha's presence to prod him for details. She was so delighted, in fact, that Talitha herself hardly got a word in edgewise, even to answer Mama's questions, so Val hadn't gotten any update on their work from Talitha, either. She'd replaced Traynor as Alex's research assistant, since the new surge in communications traffic kept Traynor busy at her primary job. Val wasn't sure whether Talitha had volunteered, or whether Alex had conscripted her. Either way, the two of them spent most of their time hunkered down in the lab.
Traynor had apologized profusely about not being able to work on the project, but her darting eyes and fidgeting made Val think Traynor wanted to keep her distance from the lab, and the orb in it. Honestly, Val couldn't blame her.
"Yo, Scars, Blondie, what's shaking?"
Val started guiltily as James strolled up, looming over Garrus's shoulder. She fumbled for something to say.
Garrus recovered first. "Jimmy," he said genially. "You know the drill, we're all drowning in paperwork."
"I hear that." James plunked his glass down on the table and took a seat. "Whole mass relay thing is pretty loco, huh? Who knew the Reapers were gonna give us that big a hand, huh?"
"It's hard to believe," Val said. "And I told you to lay off the hair nicknames."
"Sure thing, boss," he replied, too easily. He took a drink and propped one elbow on the table. "So, nothing going on you wanna tell me about, huh?"
Shit. Val thought back quickly over the last few days. She and Garrus had been hanging out with James most evenings, and then there'd been the night at the lab. From his point of view, they must have disappeared.
James could play the meathead musclebound marine all he liked, but beneath the casual exterior lay sharper eyes than most people gave him credit for. Val couldn't let herself forget that. Conscious of the glint in his eyes, Val shrugged and did her best to slouch in her seat like she didn't have a care in the world. "Not much to tell. Lot of new people around, lots of work keeping track of them." Please, please buy it, she begged him silently.
"Uh-huh." He leaned back, taking a long swig from his glass. "I see how it is. Don't do me any favors. You don't gotta tell me nothing. Thought we made a pretty good team, that's all."
"We do," she said wholeheartedly, because it was true. All bluster and bravado and shitty nicknames aside, James Vega was a good marine: solid as a rock, and far cannier than he looked. Which was, of course, the whole reason they were having this conversation. Val grasped for something that might make sense. "Listen, I know I haven't been around as much the last couple days. Besides the work, between my brother arriving and my other brother's girlfriend getting here, I've been kind of tied up with family." Literally, for a few hours.
James's posture relaxed a little. "Yeah, family stuff. I get that," he allowed.
"Next time I get an assignment, you're first on my list," Val promised.
"Better be," James said, but his good humor seemed revived. "Where is your brother, anyway?"
Val sighed. "Probably in his lab. If he's not with us, he's working." Which also gave him a convenient excuse to avoid her.
James chuckled. "Right, one of those obsessive egghead types. Kinda like Scars, huh?" He smirked at Garrus.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Garrus replied dryly.
"C'mon, Scars, how much time did you spend in the battery workin' on those guns?"
"Some of us like our weapons to be in top condition," Garrus said.
James grinned and flexed his arm. "Only one weapon I need to be in top condition."
Garrus heaved an exaggerated sigh, while Val laughed out loud. "You gave him that opening," she told him.
The two men launched into their usual game of banter and showing off, as if nothing had changed. Val smiled and settled back into her seat, letting the conversation wash over her.
The longer they went on, though, the more she felt tension creep back into her muscles. Keeping her casual posture became more of an effort, and her foot started tapping restlessly under the table. It all felt like an act, a bad imitation of the easy camaraderie the three of them had had a few days earlier. She could put on a smile and laugh at James's stories, but her face felt stretched tight, and her unfinished conversation with Garrus pressed in on the back of her mind. Telling her story to Alex and Garrus had lifted the burden of pretending she fit in, but only for a while. It hadn't clarified what her goal was now. Val was right back to waiting, this time, waiting for Alex to come up with a solution to her problem.
She hated it. She hated waiting, and more than that, she hated feeling dependent on Alex's contacts and mercurial temper. The waiting stifled her, made her want to run somewhere or hit something, and her daily training sessions didn't take the edge off.
Garrus's caution made her want to punch something, too. They had to go after Liara's orb, didn't they? If the Leviathan had control of Liara, they had access to all her contacts, and who knew what kind of information they'd gotten from her, or how they might use it? Get Liara free of the Leviathan's influence, and she could help them.
Assuming she was willing, at least.
If either James or Garrus thought that their conversation seemed strained, or that Val seemed unusually quiet, neither showed it. They said their farewells after a couple of hours, Garrus returning to the turian camp and Val setting out for the Alliance camp, with James sauntering alongside.
James seemed content to walk without talking, humming something under his breath. Not inclined to chat herself, Val found her mind drifting back to the problem of Liara. Besides the practical considerations that Liara could be a dangerous enemy and a valuable ally... the truth was, Val hated the idea of Liara under Leviathan control. The harsher, colder Liara she'd met, the one who'd ruthlessly rooted through Val's mind — that couldn't be the real Liara. If there was any chance they could free her and get the real Liara back, that alone would be worth the effort.
The more pragmatic reasons might better persuade Garrus, though, and Val didn't stand a chance of getting through Liara's security on her own.
Still lost in thought, she waved at the gate guard as she and James entered, flashing their IDs.
"How're all those biotic classes going?" James asked.
"Fine." Val shrugged and put on a cheerful tone. "Not something I have a lot of experience with, but I'll whip 'em into shape yet."
James chuckled. "I believe it, seein' you in action. Can't say I know much about biotics, but what you did to those geth... damn."
Val chuckled, getting a certain smug enjoyment out of James's admiration. Thinking back to that fight almost made her feel wistful. In spite of the hour, clusters of people lined the paths of the camp, standing or lounging around in groups. So many newcomers had arrived that the barracks were full, and the weather was mild enough that people gathered outside for their social time, surrounding them with the low murmur of conversation. Here and there Val glimpsed the dull orange light of an omni-tool interface, or the tiny glow of a cigarette.
She half turned toward James, about to reply. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dark shape moving toward her from behind, and the quick flare of an omni-tool lighting.
Maybe it was because they were talking about biotics; maybe it was Traynor's attack, only two days earlier, that had her reflexes on a hair trigger.
Either way, her eyes registered the omni-blade and she acted on instinct before her brain registered the thought: knife. Val's corona flared around her, garishly blue in the dim light. James jerked back in surprise. In the same moment, Val pivoted toward the person who'd been coming up behind her: a young man with a arm raised to attack.
She gathered up the dark energy coalescing around her in both hands and shoved it at him. He flew back four meters or so, slamming into the ground on his back, but somehow bounced back onto his feet and dashed toward her, zigging. Around them, people called out and jumped up, but Val stayed focused on the man in front of her, sprinting toward her with teeth bared. She dodged right as he aimed the knife at her left. He collided with her, his hard weight slamming into her shoulder, but she didn't feel the sting of the blade.
Then James got a hand on the man, twisting his arms behind his back and pulling him away from Val. "You okay, Commander?"
She took a breath, trying to settle her nerves. Her heart still pounded hard and her blood sang in her ears. "I'm fine. He's got a knife."
James twisted his arm. The man yelped as his omni-tool fell to the ground with a soft thud. "Not any more, he don't. What the hell is going on?"
Val stooped to pick up the 'tool — a totally ordinary, average model, as far as she could tell. The omni-blade had dissolved as the tool shut down, flash-fabricated for the moment. She'd heard Garrus complaining about the difficulty of tracing omni-blades used in crimes before. Her heart still thumping, she took a closer look at the man struggling ineffectually in James's grip. Pale and dark-haired, he was thin, no match for James at all; his eyes rolled away from Val as she approached, then shifted toward her sidelong while his lips pulled back from his teeth.
"Who sent you?" she asked urgently, conscious of the crowd gathering around them.
The man's eyes flicked toward her again, and his face twisted. "You'll ruin everything," he hissed.
Her stomach dropped, adrenalin still buzzing through her system. Another Leviathan thrall. "How?" she demanded, knowing she didn't have much time. James was already frowning at he over his captive's head.
The man's lip curled, and he turned his face away, still squirming uselessly. Sure enough, a couple of MPs pushed their way through the murmuring people, the lead one calling out, "What's going on here?"
"Asshole tried to stab the commander here," James called back before Val could say anything.
Val stepped back and took a swift look around. She couldn't see an orb anywhere, but that didn't mean anything. Plenty of the people around her carried packs big enough to hide an orb in. No telling what was in the windowless buildings around them. A Leviathan artifact could be hidden anywhere.
"Is that true, Commander?"
She focused on the MP's earnest, frowning face and said, reluctantly, "Yes, it is."
"What do you have to say for yourself?" the other MP asked the would-be assassin, pulling out a pair of magnetic cuffs.
"She doesn't belong here," the man snarled. "She shouldn't be here."
The MPs exchanged glances. James let them take charge of his prisoner. As one of the MPs cuffed the prisoner, the other activated his omni-tool and started a routine series of questions. When had she noticed the attacker, how had he attacked, what was he armed with. Val handed over the omni-tool and answered mechanically. As the adrenalin left her system, she felt blank, almost detached from the situation. No, she didn't recognize the man; she'd never seen him before. No, she didn't know why he might want to hurt her. Sure, she had people with grudges against her; most officers did. The attacker didn't look like anyone she'd had under her command. Part of her wondered how she looked on the omni-tool's recording; part of her wondered which of the people milling around them might be carrying the Leviathan orb. She stepped back and stood silent as James answered the same set of questions. His version had a lot more detail and gesturing, as he mimed the action.
"Loco," James murmured once the questions were done, as they watched the MPs haul the struggling man away.
"Yeah," Val said absently. Liara, she thought, with a renewed surge of fury. She had to be connected to this. The orb in Alex's lab was secured — Val could trust that much — but there had to be one in Liara's quarters. She could be doing anything with it.
It could be doing anything to her.
"Hey! Earth to Commander Shepard!"
Val blinked as James waved a hand in her face. "Sorry, what?"
"I said, why would some crazy guy have it in for you?"
"How should I know, if he's crazy?" Val asked. "Sorry, I should go." No matter what Garrus thought, she could at least duck out to Liara's place and have a quick look around. Assuming she could find a vehicle at this hour. Maybe she could pull rank and get a night-duty guard to sign one out to her. She turned and started toward the vehicle pool.
"Go where?" James kept pace with her. "What the hell, it's too late for this shit."
"Yeah, it is," Val said, preoccupied. "Go on and go to bed, James, don't worry about it."
"Like fuck." James took one long step to angle in front of Val, blocking her path with all his height and breadth. "What's going on?"
Val hesitated, brought up short. For a moment she weighed the merits of telling the truth against manufacturing another story.
But she remembered James's face earlier in the evening — suspicious, and genuinely hurt to be left out — and besides, she was tired of inventing lies. She gave up and told the truth. "I want to see if Liara's home."
"T'soni?" James frowned. "Why, you wanna talk to her or something?"
Talking to Liara was one of the things Val wanted to do. "Not really." Val sidestepped to move around him.
James fell in beside her once again. "Then why you wanna go all the way out there? At this hour?"
Telling the truth was one thing; telling the whole truth was another, and would take too long anyway. "It's a long story."
"You're gonna need a car," James pointed out.
"Good observation," Val said dryly.
"So happens I've got a key," he said with a smirk.
Val stopped in her tracks and smiled back at him. "Want to go for a ride, Vega?"
James grinned, and together they set off in long, ground-eating strides. With a plan, a direction, and an ally at her side, Val felt freed to move, all the frustration and anxiety of the last days and weeks propelling her forward. James matched her pace easily, in such accord that they needed no more words. James made for the driver's side as soon as they reached the ground car, flashing Val a challenging look over the car. She gave in, fidgeting at the passenger's side for a second while he unlocked the vehicle and slid into the seat.
James took the main road out of camp, back toward the city. Strapped into the seat, Val found herself tapping her fingers against the door and jiggling her knee up and down, her desire to move coming out in fidgety vibration. For lack of anything better to do, she broke the silence. "Do you know Liara well?"
"Hell no," James replied. "I mean, sure, we fought side by side, but she wasn't exactly chatty, y'know?"
Val hesitated, trying to square that judgment with her memories of Liara, who'd always seemed forthcoming. With her, at least. "I'm sure she had a lot on her mind."
"Oh, no shit. I mean, she was one of the Normandy's worst-kept secrets. Everyone on board knew she's the Shadow Broker, right? She's got reasons to keep her mouth shut. Still. Vakarian, you could talk to. T'soni, not so much."
"Really?" This didn't fit with Val's memories at all. Liara could be quiet, but she liked talking to people. She liked listening, drawing people out, and she had a sly, gentle sense of humor once you got to know her.
"Oh yeah," James said readily. "She was almost always with Shepard or in that creepy office of hers. Hardly smiled. Not that much to smile about, I guess, but damn."
"Huh." Val settled into her seat, frowning. How could Liara be so different? Was it John Shepard's influence? Had it been the Leviathan, during the whole war? She couldn't even imagine what the Leviathan could do with long-term access to the Shadow Broker's secrets, and the thought made her feel cold.
"Saw her just execute some Cerberus goons once, too." James shook his head. "Asked 'em one question, then bam, shot to the head, cool as anything."
"What was the question?" Val asked, her heart rate ticking up.
"Couldn't hear."
Val chewed on her lower lip, wishing she hadn't asked. James seemed content to let the conversation end there, so she lapsed into silence for the rest of the drive, except to point him in the right direction.
"This the place?" James asked, slowing the car.
"Yeah, I think so." Val peered out the window, frowning as she tried to match the place to her memories. It had only been a couple nights earlier, but it felt longer.
Besides, she'd been a little preoccupied at the time.
The building looked right, but no lights were visible. It wasn't that late, and Liara tended to be a night owl. Or at least, Val thought she did. It might be dangerous to make that assumption. Uncertainty crept into her mind as she stared out into the darkness.
James shifted in his seat. "You wanna go in or something?"
"No." Garrus was going to be annoyed she'd come out here at all. Val rubbed the back of her neck nervously. Back in camp, she'd been so certain Liara had sent the assassin, and that certainty and anger had pushed her into movement. Now that she was here, the anger had faded, leaving her hollowed-out and tired, with a crawling sensation crept its way down her spine. The place was too quiet, and too dark. She couldn't see anyone, but she couldn't shake the sense that eyes might be watching out of the surrounding darkness.
"You want me to go knock?" James asked after a few minutes.
Val almost said no again. But Liara shouldn't see James as a threat, should she? As far as Liara knew, James was a fellow crew member with no connection to Val Shepard at all. "Do it," she said, shrinking down further and hoping she couldn't be seen through the window.
James opened the door and left the car, sauntering up to the front walk like he hadn't a care in the world. Val envied him. Once he got to the door, he put a hand out and seemed to start. Unable to make out what he was doing, Val tensed.
He turned around almost immediately, though, and came back to the car. "You sure this is the right place? No one's home."
A chill shook Val to the core. "What? Are you sure?"
"Door's not even locked."
Shit. Val climbed out of the car and ran toward the door. James was right, of course; the door opened easily to a nearly empty room. Val stalked in, wondering for a heart-stopping moment if she was in the wrong place, after all.
But a couple of those narrow, hard chairs remained. Slowly, Val pushed one into the center of the room, glancing at the corners of the room to gauge her placement.
As soon as she sat down, she was sure she had it right. She remembered the hard feel of seat under her; she remembered sitting right there, with Liara's eyes boring into hers, Liara's mind pressing in on hers. A phantom headache rippled through her skull. She shook her head and jumped out of the chair, unable to get away from the remembered pain fast enough.
James watched her with a furrowed brow. Val walked away before he could ask any questions, striding into the back rooms. There was a small bedroom, empty of everything except a bed stripped bare, and another room where a couple of power cables lay abandoned on the floor in forlorn coils. Val pivoted, imagining Liara's office, surrounded by screens, data storage, extranet connections. Had she kept the orb here? Or in her bedroom, within reach as she fell asleep? Val shuddered at the thought.
Wherever it had been, whatever Liara had done here, these rooms held nothing now.
"Guess Doc moved on?" James said from the doorway.
"I guess so." Val took a last look around in the light of her omni-tool. With the relays operational, Liara could have gone anywhere. She, of all people, would have the contacts and resources to go wherever she pleased. "All right, let's go back. We're not learning anything more here."
"Didn't learn anything in the first place," James muttered, as Val slid past him into the hallway.
She chose not to answer.
#
"You went to Liara's?" Garrus demanded. His mandibles flexed.
"I just told you she wasn't there," Val pointed out.
"And you're absolutely certain she didn't have surveillance on the site?"
Val took a deep breath, thinking back. She'd thought that sense of being watched was pure paranoia. Neither she or James had seen any signs of surveillance equipment, but they might have missed something. She hesitated, cold uncertainty weighing her down.
"That's what I thought." Garrus sat back, lifting his jaw. He looked positively smug, for a turian. Val gritted her teeth.
"It doesn't make much difference if she's sending goons after me, anyway."
Garrus made a noise in his throat. His mandibles twitched again. "I'm not sure it's safe for you on this planet."
Val shrugged, deliberately pushing the uncertainty away. If another assassin showed up, at this point she'd be grateful for the fight, and the chance at information. "I've been fine so far."
Garrus made a low noise again, almost a growl.
"I can handle it," Val said, her voice rising. Her fists tightened. She was perfectly capable of handling herself. They barely knew each other; he didn't have a right to go protective over her like that.
Garrus glared across the table at her and opened his mouth to reply, but Alex appeared at his elbow before he got any words out. "Hey," he said, planting a chipped mug on the table and pulling back a chair.
Val let out a breath, trying to shed her defensive frustration. Alex's hair was rumpled, his eyes ringed with purple, but at least he'd voluntarily showed up to talk to her. "Look who's surfaced from the lab," she said, keeping her tone light. "Find out anything?"
"Yeah." Alex perched in his seat with his elbows planted on the table and his shoulders hunched, eyes bright with an almost manic enthusiasm. "I've been reviewing the readings with what happened to Traynor. I think the orb works on a quantum principle."
"What, like a QEC?" Garrus asked.
Alex nodded rapidly. "Exactly. Which doesn't exactly help, since we can't trace the location of the other half of the quantum-entangled pair. But it gives me some insight into how communication might occur through the object, and that should be a first step to figuring out how they're doing it."
"That's great," Val said, sincerely, but added pointedly, "I was more wondering if you'd gotten a lead on that facility, though."
"Oh. Yeah." Alex took a drink and leaned back in his chair. His excitement faded, his expression falling into blandness. "I got a message from Brynn earlier today. She talked to some people, they talked to some people, our best guess is it's on Luna. I've got coordinates."
After all this time, Cerberus' capabilities shouldn't surprise her any more, but Val couldn't escape a kind of weary, irritated wonder. "Luna? How did Cerberus hide a facility under the Alliance's nose?"
"You do realize the Illusive Man pays a lot of people off, right?" Alex said. "Or paid. Whatever." He took another drink.
Garrus snorted.
Val shook her head, her irritation rising again. So like Alex, to get hung up on his project and forget the more important mission. "If you heard something earlier today, why didn't you say anything?"
Alex scowled at her. "I was doing actual work. Does it make a difference?"
She glared back, seething. A few hours' delay didn't make a real difference, she supposed, but the fact that Alex had sat on the information, distracted with his experiments, grated. They needed that information to go forward.
Arguing with him about it wasn't likely to get her anywhere, though. "All right," she said, trying to put her irritation aside and form a plan. "We could go check it out—"
"We?" Alex murmured over his mug.
"Except that we all have duties here," Garrus said.
"Right, and we're also going to need a ship," Val said. Those were the two major obstacles she could see, and she hadn't quite solved either of them. If she could contrive a legitimate reason to go to Luna, the Alliance might authorize her travel, even assign her a ship... but she hadn't managed to contrive a plausible-sounding reason yet. Going AWOL and stealing a vessel would definitely cut her ties to the Alliance, something she'd rather not do if she could avoid it.
"What did you use to get here?" Garrus asked Alex.
Alex took another drink. "One of those little two-man shuttles. I liberated it from Cerberus."
"I suppose two of us could go," Val said, a little doubtfully. Even with the relays active, it would be a long trip in tight quarters.
"Not a great plan, tactically speaking. Though that seems to be a specialty of yours," Garrus said.
Annoyed, Val narrowed her eyes at him from across the table. Garrus returned her stare with a flick of his left mandible.
"Oookay," Alex said, glancing from one of them to the other. "Doesn't matter anyway, the Alliance impounded the thing after I got here."
Val exhaled, contemplating the prospect of stealing the ship. Maybe the time had come? But... if she did that, and then managed to get back to her own dimension, she'd leave her other self facing major charges. That idea didn't sit right with her; she didn't want to create problems that the other Val Shepard would have to solve.
"As it happens," Garrus said, looking annoyingly pleased with himself again. "I think I have an idea."