Chapter 55

"Kids are cruel. All people are, by nature — they just lose touch with it as they get older. Start thinking they know right and wrong. 'That's immoral!' War crime-this, Code of Conduct-that... Kids you can mold, manipulate into performing all kinds of atrocities — and there's nothing like a good atrocity to keep a war going."

— Sundowner, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Miss Lawson, we were told to call this number if anything happened to her. Please, pick up! They killed Patrick and took Oriana! Where are you?!

She tried to move, to crawl her way towards the desk upon which the smartwatch was making its desperate cries for help. She felt a harsh, stinging pain in her back, as if something were lodged within it and impeding her ability to move her legs.

Miranda. I'm outnumbered. Goodbye.

She cried out in pain, trying to reach the desk, but as she grew closer, it crawled away at a greater pace. She made reaches, she tried dragging herself across the ground faster, she tried using voice commands to send responses to the smartwatch, but it all fell on deaf ears, nothing she said ever made it past her throat.

Nah, fuck that. I want my foo-… Oh. Oh shit.

Something grabbed at her torso and harshly spun her around. It was a figure garbed in oily black shadows, and accompanying it was an ear-splitting baritone blast, as it raised its pistol, pointing it right at her face. How had she lost control, so quickly? How had she been so unable to do what she had been all but built to do, from the womb?

First to register in her brain was the flash of light, and a burning heat, before everything went dark.

Miranda awoke with a grunt, and a brief start. Her hand shot down towards her hip, but found only bundled blankets. Her head instantly revolved, taking in the sterile white surroundings of what was rapidly turning out to be a hospital room. On the farthest wall she could see a window, and she could see McGraw finishing up a conversation with a titan so tall his head was over the window's top, leaving him only visual from the chest down. She recognized the titan's armor, McGraw had practically starved himself, he'd had so much fun designing it.

She couldn't see the man's ID number, however, leaving her to wonder who it could have been, and if it was one of the eighty-odd she knew.

She watched silently as McGraw handed him a thin silver truncheon. McGraw deftly ran his fingers over it and showed the SIGMA many of its functions, and briefly made Miranda doubt if she was awake when it melted into a gray goop in his hands, quickly covering his organic one like a glove, and then radiating a violet fire, like biotics, before quickly taking on its original form.

When the SIGMA took it, McGraw briefly glanced inside, and she instantly recognized the smug grin that stretched across his face when he made eye-contact with her. No more doubt remained in her mind - the SIGMA in question was John.

No doubt McGraw made sure he still faced the window when he spoke, so she would read his lips. "Oh look." He silently pantomimed, "the sleeping beauty's awake. Go say hi!"

He turned to look at John, whom Miranda couldn't initially even tell was speaking. His chest hardly moved as he exhaled the breath required to make sound. He appeared so machine-like now, a far cry from the stoic child and later, conditioned teenager she knew.

McGraw stuffed a hand in his coat, leaning on his cane as he grinned up at the SIGMA. "Well… You know, she's been waiting on you, after all. Came all the way from the Moose to follow me."

Miranda would have frowned, had she not had an ironclad control over her features. Of course McGraw would lie - she had not come just to see John. The enigmatic engineer had practically dragged her here for his post-Saltor meeting with them.

She saw John shift, and then turn away from the window. It took her a moment to realize he was looking at another one of the SIGMAs, briefly making her wonder if she was speaking to George, or Justin. The trio had been inseparable, on Sparta. After a moment, she watched as John attached the truncheon to the magnetic clamp on his hip, and turned now to the door leading inside.

Miranda felt her heart slow down as the door slid open, and the seven and a half foot tall, not-even-twenty year old man ducked under the doorway and entered the room. He strode towards her with confident, measured steps, not a single movement wasted, every one with purpose. He briefly paused when he made it to her bed, before looking to its side. He located a chair, and pulled it up. Miranda didn't have the time to say it wouldn't support two thousand pounds of SIGMA before John sat down, but remarkably it held up. She wondered for a moment how, and if she really was still dreaming, until she saw the nearly imperceptible tightening of his legs, and she realized it was his suit locking itself up - the chair was simply there so he didn't look as if he were squatting in the middle of the room.

"My mother shot you." Said John.

Miranda blinked, "she's alive?" She asked, only partially surprised at how ready she had been for his laconic, bold method of speaking, and briefly wondered if it was McGraw's influence on him, or the military's.

"Yes." Said John. "Are you okay?"

Miranda lifted herself in her bed, "John, I'm fine - but you just said your mother was alive. Are you?"

"Yes." He said, "I do not think it was an assassination attempt." A pause, "on you."

Miranda nodded, her expression steeled. It only took a moment's thought to realize that she couldn't have been Missus Shepard's target. If John knew about her, it wasn't a stretch to think she could have known about him, and then finding McGraw's connection was child's play. Thinking on it further, she had been eying McGraw the moment she came outside, and he'd recognized her instantly. Miranda had just been a casualty.

But… "How is he alive, then?" She asked.

"He is McGraw." Was John's answer, which Miranda realized was far more than apt enough. Of course McGraw had some kind of contingency for a public assassination attempt. He was McGraw.

Miranda cleared her throat, "I'm glad to see you survived augmentation, John." She pushed out, not really knowing how to make a conversation with him, and wondering if she ever really had known. The way they two thought were completely opposite eachother.

"So am I!" Spoke a new, strikingly female voice.

Miranda actually recoiled at the new speaker, but John answered her unspoken question. "Mute. My AI implant. Cassidy."

"I didn't realize those were even on the augment list." She remembered reading it in the weeks leading up to the bio-mech amps, and AI implants hadn't been on the table.

"Experimental. Volunteered." Said John. "Is your sister okay?"

Miranda nodded, "she's with a human family on Illium. My father's influence doesn't reach that far."

"Good." John nodded once, in his robotic way.

Miranda slowly concluded that John was making ready to leave, despite only just now getting here. Some small part of her didn't want this, so she asked, "are you going to Khar'Shan?"

"No." Said John. "I'm going to Sparta."

Miranda frowned, "more training?"

"No." Said John, his voice unwavering. "War." A pause, "against the Ones." He said, predicting Miranda's next question.

Of course… Thought the young Lawson. If he just figured out his mother's alive… That means they've been lying to him, and the Twos wouldn't let him do this alone, not when they could have been lying to them, too. But… "do you really think that's a good idea?"

"Yes." John said, "we win regardless. Do you still have my comm-channel?"

Miranda nodded, "of course." It was perhaps one of the few files she ever kept between smartwatches, that and Oriana's information. "Why?"

"I sent SIGMAs to the Citadel. If they do not hear from a Two in one year, they will assassinate the Council." He said, "you're a Two. When the war starts, all outbound communications will be blocked. If we win, we will contact you, to contact them. They will believe you."

If Miranda had been prepared earlier for how candidly John spoke, now she realized she'd been dead wrong. "The Council?" She repeated. "That will start a war."

"Yes." Said John, revealing to her that that was his intention.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" She asked the SIGMA.

"Yes." John said, slowly straightening up to his feet, now towering over Miranda's bed. "I am glad you are okay. The Twos are, too." He said with a nod, before turning on his heel, and making for the door.

"John." Miranda called after him, causing him to briefly pause and look at her over his shoulder. "You… You once told me that the Twos would consider me family… But that runs both ways. I know it's selfish and… Idiotic to ask for, but please. Please stay safe."

John regarded her silently, his face masked by his armored gas mask, his eyes hidden by the angular, soulless red plates. "We may not win. Goodbye, Two-One Oh Six." Was his answer, before he finished his trek and exited the room.

She felt an ice grip her heart at those words, and felt its grip tighten when she saw John and the rest of the twos file out of the hallway. McGraw watched them all leave from his position outside her room, and it was once they were all gone, that he let out a silent, deep sigh, and he entered Miranda's room.

She couldn't help a small frown, as McGraw sat down in the chair formerly occupied by her friend. "He'll be fine." The enigmatic engineer said, his light voice a far cry from John's rumbly baritone.

"There are six hundred of them, versus twelve-odd hundred of the others." Miranda responded, the icy edge returning to her voice, as she matched wits with an equal, instead of trading words with a friend. "Even if he wins he won't be fine. His mother's alive, McGraw. You know that hurt him."

McGraw chuckled, "well, once he heard she shot you, I'm pretty sure she ceased to be his mother." Said McGraw, as he rubbed at the purple bruises forming around his neck.

"Is that from her?"

"Nah. He broke my clavicle. It hurts like hell." Said McGraw, "I'll be fine."

Somehow, she wasn't surprised. John was probably having a massive crisis of faith at the moment. Attacking McGraw wouldn't be too far separated from the things he would do, as a result. "He wants to start a bigger war, if he doesn't win this one."

"He's a SIGMA. He doesn't like to lose." Said McGraw, "how're you holding up, though? Took a few nasty hits, there."

Miranda sighed, knowing that conversation was done, now. "I'll be fine." She said, turning her gaze to him. "How bad was it?"

"Took a few hours to get you out of critical condition. Pretty sure Kavor will be floored you're already up." McGraw petered out, as a conflicted look entered his eyes. "I'm not going to beat around the bush, though." He said, with a sigh. "She destroyed your uterus, and they couldn't fix it."

Miranda felt the ice vanish, replaced with an empty, sinking feeling in her chest. She blinked once, but steeled her features quickly enough, hiding the momentary lapse. "Hm…" She hummed, nodding once. "I…" She cleared her throat to hide the tremble in her voice. "I see." She lowered her gaze, pressing her lips into a thin line. "Well… That will make infiltration missions easier." She drawled, nodding slowly. "I won't have to worry about any unintended pregnancies, if they go that far."

McGraw's face was far more stoney than hers, only a slight frown creasing it. "I'm sorry, Miranda." He said. Miranda shut her eyes, simply letting a nod be her answer. "I took care of it." He said.

This caused her to frown, a confused glint entering her blue eyes as she met his. "What?"

"I took care of it." He repeated. "I'm…" A pause, "back in college… I had an idea." He said, "I thought that death, itself, only existed if one would let it. I thought, at the time, that it could be undone with AI synthesis, basing my theory on that some AI, with Nikola being the most notable example, would base themselves on historical figures and would take on their mannerisms with a remarkable accuracy. But, wary of my thesis on AI-Senility, I ventured to make a third generation, immune to the possibility. My end goal was to use my memories of her, and the stories my father had told me, to try and bring my mother back to life." He said, "of everyone I had known up until then, she was probably the only one who either didn't know or didn't care about all that 'untapped potential' dear old dad loved to harp on about. I remember it vividly… It was nice.

"But…" He intoned, "I fucked up. My theory… Well, wasn't wrong, but it also wasn't right. I succeeded in creating an AI, reflecting her, but… You ever read Frankenstein? Pretty much the same thing, but I didn't die at the end. It did… And after I wiped her, Gladys was what was left. I kept her around as a reminder… There exists a threshold that, once passed, cannot be retread. My theory went on to say that there existed only a select few ways to actually cheat death… And they required either an intact corpse to… Functionally reanimate, like the story… Or a still-living brain to upload, in a process mirroring brain-scanning for second-gen AI Synthesis. I didn't have either of those things and… I can't accurately describe what happened in those weeks before I wiped her, but simply, she was in pain, and didn't even know what she was. It wasn't regular AI self-actualization, but an identity crisis the likes of which have never… Ever been seen."

Miranda knew McGraw, she knew he never spoke without a point, but that didn't stop her from wondering, where the hell did this come from?"McGraw -"

"Then, enter Edward Spokane." He said, silencing her. "Ed was… Is my friend." He said, catching her attention, as she straightened up. "His family was killed in the Second Contact War. He had a wife and two kids. She and his oldest died from eezo exposure. The youngest didn't make it that far… They were in New York." He explained. "But he… He hasn't really gotten over it. He was there, when I wiped Gladys. He helped me ensure she would never really know what happened before her second first birthday…But he never forgot. He never forgot that death really only existed if you let it, he thought, like I, that the reason I failed was because I was trying to finish a puzzle with no corner or straight-edge pieces. Impossible… Only existed if you wanted it to. He was the one who helped get my mind off of what I had done. The revisions and extensions to my thesis on death were, in part, written by him.

"So when his wife and children died… A week later I went to their graves, and found them unearthed, the bodies missing. I grabbed Jack and tried to head things off at the pass… Since their apartment in New York was trashed, I only had his place on Mars to look for, and that was where I'd found what had happened to him during the war. What he'd done to himself… And I realized what he was doing. He'd proven things right, in his own way. He'd killed himself, and a week later, just barely losing out to Jesus' respawn time, he came back. Had technology undo death, and that, and my idiocy in college, proved the catalyst for his decision that he could bring them back.

"After we dealt with his house on Mars, I was able to predict what he would do. First he would try to reanimate the bodies… But I knew the brains would be too damaged and decomposed by the time he got to them, it wouldn't work. So when that failed, he would try to instead build new bodies entirely, cloning new tissue and building the bodies from scratch, before mapping what was left of their brains, supplanting their missing memories with whatever he had himself, and uploading them all to a positronic brain, housed within the organic ones in the newly built bodies.

"But again… I knew he would fail." Said McGraw, with a sigh, as he lifted his organic hand and rubbed at his eyes. "They had been dead too long, and I'd already proven that supplanting memories was a recipe for disaster. I don't know exactly what happened… But I'm certain that it wasn't pretty. I pray he didn't try more than once, but I've seen the guards that he walks around with.

"What happened here was his response to me." McGraw finally said, lowering his hand and meeting Miranda's eyes with his own. She blinked, when she saw the dead, dull look in his blue orbs. "I've tried at every opportunity to convince him to quit while he's ahead… Because I know him. I know that all roads will lead to Rome, and I know that, once his every available option fails, he'll then turn to his last remaining one. Explaining the whole thing to you would take more time than I have, at the moment, but the basic gist is that it would put literally everything at risk. His goal would take… On a low estimate, the amount of energy every star in the milky way produces in an hour, focus it all into a space the size of an atom, and shunt it all into the Warp, with the end result being either exactly what he wants… Or universal destruction on a multiversal scale.

"Now, if it were just this universe?" McGraw shook his head, "fuck, I'd help him. I'd be able to ride the wave, I know how. But we're not just risking this universe, we are literally risking all of them. And even I can't let that fly… But what I'm subsequently doing is getting in the way of him getting his family back, and suffice to say, there is nothing a parent wouldn't do for their children. Even if it was just a one percent chance, to have them back… To give them a future again, he'd take it, and I know it would. Fuck, if there was a list of four people in the universe that could literally do anything they put their minds to, the only ones that aren't working for Cerberus would be him, and he'd be above me on this list. That's what I'm worried about. He may either get exactly what he wants, or fail spectacularly." He clapped his hands and popped his knuckles. "And I'm telling you all of this… Because both of us kind of fucked up, in this situation.

"Shepard - John's mother - was meant to just shoot me. Ed knew that it wouldn't do anything and that I'd be fine. He knew her shooting me would be equivalent to punching a SIGMA. You get your point across with no real risk involved, except to the one doing the punching. Her hitting you was an accident, and he apologized for it. I met up with him a few hours ago, when you were getting prepped for surgery. We've got something of an understanding, now… But I've got a few things I have to do to make sure he holds up his end of the bargain.

"Now, I'm telling you all of this, both because I think you deserve to know, after being dragged into it like this… And because , pretty soon, I'll be leaving Cerberus to focus solely on him."

"Director Udina… It's good to hear from you." Spoke Tyson, to the computer screen in front of him.

After passing the time delay, the balding Director for Foreign Affairs nodded, from his end of the galaxy. "As am I, Director Tyson. It's good to get off of the Citadel every so-often. I only wish I could see Saltor with my own eyes. From orbit it appears rather quaint." He drawled.

The Director for Affairs hummed his agreement. "So, I assume integration is going well. Your message said they'd accepted, but also that they'd had contributions for the Khar'Shan campaign?"

"Indeed, Director. Jun Mun'Sid requested that, since it was his people who started this war, it should be his who end it, with as little loss of human life as possible." He raised a hand, "I already attempted to assure him we did not see him and his to be at fault for this war, but he would not see it. This religion of theirs… It is more thorough than a Justicar's code." He drawled, "and his suggestion… I felt it prudent to speak to you directly about it, considering the implications." He didn't bother to wait for the time delay, and instead continued. "To put it shortly, Director, this was not their first contact. Not technically.

"The saltorians were met before, north of two thousand years ago, by a species I've come to identify as the rachni. The very same species that led to the Council law that led to the Krogan Rebellions and started our war with the turians. They too came to war with the saltorians, only they, through liberal usage of nuclear weapons, managed to push them back and actually tame them." He explained.

"Wait, tame the rachni?" Tyson asked, after recognizing the pause as Udina allowing him time to process the information.

Udina nodded again, and ran his hand over his tan, balding head. "Yes. They've trapped a small population of rachni queens and forced them to breed. They keep the bred insects away from the queens to ensure a lack of a functional hive mind, and keep them half-starved and subservient, such that they can deploy them in combat situations as living weapons of mass destruction. I'm certain you heard of the nuclear detonation, just recently, on Saltor? Serios confirmed the order, and it was to contain an intentional rachni outbreak, that they had begun to fight the batarians.

"To put it simply, Tyson, they wish to drop rachni on Khar'Shan's capitol city, to expedite an unconditional surrender." Said Udina, "and in my opinion, I say we let them. Bringing the saltorians into the Alliance, with a tamed rachni horde at their disposal… It would speak wonders of our subsequent power, and theirs. To say nothing of what would occur should we discover a way to communicate with, and thusly rehabilitate them as we've done the Hegemony's former slaves."

Tyson leaned back in his chair, frowning as he thought to himself, and the Director continued.

"Even if they prove not to be unable to communicate with us, and simply a primal race, the fact that the saltorians were able to do what an entire galaxy could not speaks wonders for what they are capable of, should they put their minds to it. In any event, the Alliance would only benefit from bringing them in, and deploying a horde."

The Director leaned forward, frowning as he rested his elbows on his desk, and interlaced his fingers, thinking.

Hannah Shepard awoke with a severe pain in the back of her head, her uniform stripped from her body, a gag stuffed firmly in her mouth, and her arms and legs bound to the ground. She was a prisoner in a cube-shaped, completely uniform room, with no creases between the metal plates that made the floor, walls, or ceiling. There wasn't even any light, reminding her of descriptions of solitary confinement in prisons. True to point, she had lost track of time, not knowing if hours had passed, or minutes. There was no method of tracking time, and with how securely she was bound, she couldn't even try to escape,

The muscles in her back were already tight and cramped, as she was bound and left to lay on the hard metal floor. Unfortunately for her, the alcohol was beginning to drain from her system, making whatever pain she felt worse, and -

The door opened, flooding the previously pitch-black room with light. There was a shrill whistling noise, and from behind her squinted eyelids, she saw a short, lanky figure drag in a metal folding chair and sit down. She didn't even need to see its features - she could tell from the unkempt hair, the skeletal, cybernetic arm, and its general stance, who it was. She now began to actively struggle and convulse against her bonds, as the object of a hatred so pure she didn't even know she could experience, sat down mere feet away from her.

"I mean…" Said Christopher McGraw, "what the fuck did you expect?" He asked, as Shepard blinked rapidly, trying to force her eyes to adjust to the blinding light that wreathed the enigmatic engineer. "I made a particle beam that shoots antimatter. Do you really think you can just walk up and shoot me? C'mon." He shook his head.

She screamed at him from behind her gag.

McGraw hummed, "I'm sensing some hostility here." He said, leaning back in his chair, adopting a casual stance. "Let me try to clear some of the air here. First of all - this, this all here? It's not personal, I assure you." He said, indicating the room with his arm. "But, like I said, you fucked up. Not by shooting me, but by shooting my rent-a-kid. That shit won't fly." She tried yelling at him again, he waited for her to be finished. "Yeah, yeah, I know." He raised the tone of his voice in a false mockery of a woman's, " 'But you took mah son! I'll fuckin' kill you!'... Blah blah blah." He shook his head. "Would you believe me if I said it was his choice? Or if I said that I specifically didn't take him?" There was a muffled shout that sounded suspiciously like 'fuck you'. "I know, I wouldn't buy it either if our roles were reversed… But then again, if our roles were reversed - sweet Jesus would I have done things differently." He chuckled, "I mean, for starters, I probably would have named him Tank… Or Frank. Something nice and tough. Chris, John, all that shit - it's too normal, too bland. But you walk into highschool and say - My name's TANK! - that'll get some folks' attention, let me tell you." Shepard began screaming again, but was silenced by his next words. "Almost as much as killing your niece."

She swore she saw McGraw take on a sinister sneer when he saw her still. "Did you know… Part of the SIGMA selection process is a vigorous psychological exam?" He asked, "like, moreso than what you get when you join the Alliance military. Well, no - of course you know. You were considered, if I recall… But finding out you had augment rejection after just two years in hell? Ouch. But it got you your hubby, anyways - psych eval. The SIGMAs want that pinpoint perfect balance between high functioning sociopath, and normalcy. The statistic is, even with military conditioning, six out of every ten rifleman will hesitate before pulling the trigger. The SIGMAs want those four out of the ten. They want the people who are sociopathic enough that they won't even hesitate to pull the trigger when they get a shot, but also sane and normal enough to not crack and just go on augmented killing sprees. The seven years in hell are all meant to nurture this balance and make it even finer, while, of course, training them so damn much that few save the best N7 can match up before they get augmented."

McGraw leaned forward, giving a slight incline to his head. "Do you want to know where you landed on that psych eval?"

Shepard was now seething, and physically shaking with rage, but not able to bring herself to speak, for fear that she hadn't misheard him moments ago.

"Seems you already know. I'll give you a fun little fact - Johnny boy actually landed on the saner side of the psych eval. They had to force that balance on him, but still, he's still got it bubbling way down in there. If Mossman hadn't seen him beat the hell out of those kids with his biotics, and if the Alliance hadn't figured out who his father was, he may have been passed over entirely." He waved his hand, "I mean, he's definitely a SIGMA now, but he's still just on the saner end of their spectrum. Maybe with some work someone could push him over either edge, but I digress.

"Not like his momma." He leaned forward, "you know, it actually took me and mine a year to dig up everything on you? There were files there on Sparta that were under lock and key. I had to spend a lot of time there, ostensibly training with the Twos, so my AI could get at it. Seriously - it took an AI's full, undivided attention, a fucking year to get it! It helped me in the end - built that relationship with the kids… And I got your personnel file. The shit even Alliance Intelligence doesn't know about…" He pulled up his smartwatch, "tell me… Who is little Carol Shocas?" She saw his eyes, now illuminated from the front by his smart watch, flick upwards to Shepard, as he pulled up a picture, and various accompanying documents. "Or… Was, I guess. See, that's the thing with confessing to your priests - when they prefer to spread the word of god over little boys' backs, they'll tell you pretty much anything you want to know to get out of some jailtime.

"So imagine our surprise when your SIGMA file mentioned an illuminating visit to a Father Oscarhan. Apparently he was the deciding vote as to whether or not you were psychologically able to continue your training." He lowered his hand, the watch still aglow. "So we decided to pay this guy a visit… And oh boy, the stories that priest could preach. I gotta hand it to you - that had to be some of the most fucked up stuff I've ever heard, and I helped create a program that recruited and trained child soldiers." Shepard was now absolutely still, her green eyes wide and locked onto McGraw's blue orbs.

She didn't notice the shadows dancing across the floor of the hall until they stopped moving, right next to the door leading inside.

"I'm still wondering how a thirteen year old comes up with all of this, though. You, alone at home, cuddling with your baby niece, fall asleep, wake up figure out you tossed and turned over onto her and now she's dead… So your first choice isn't to freak the high holy fuck out or do something even remotely approaching what any other teenager would do… No, yours is to ransack your house, go out and pitch your valuables, come back and put a heavy weight on the kid to make it seem like that's how she died, shove…" He frowned, and looked at his watch again. "Priest couldn't remember if you said a hairbrush or a broomstick… But the point is you tear open your hymen to mimic a sexual assault, and then give yourself a ton of bruises." He lowered his watch. "I mean… Sweet Mother Theresa on the hood of a mercedes benz - now I understand all the alcohol!" He said, with a grin and a laugh.

"And that's not even the end of it! Your genius little ass then knocks yourself out, waits until your folks and the baby's parents get home and see the shitstorm, they call the police and you manage to play the trauma card, so you don't have to come up with a face to remember! That takes balls, lady!" He said, either not noticing or not caring for the tears streaming down her eyes. "The end result being people still don't know who killed the baby, robbed your house, and raped you." He raised a finger, "until, a few years later, you decided you absolutely fucking had to get this off your chest… And decided to go abuse the catholic church's confession system and tell your local priest.

"See, all the time you spent there, trying to reconcile with and find God, that's what tipped off the SIGMAs to ask your priest about your mental state. Now, he played the good boy - answered their questions without telling them what happened. If he had, they probably would have kept you anyways, because they would have wanted that kind of creativity. There is actualy a precedent for that. But, well, unlike the SIGMAs, if it isn't already clear, my friends and I don't have the same rules to play by. We got the story out of him." He lowered his hand, "and, we got ahold of your late husband's personal logs."

Hannah watched as McGraw manipulated his watch, and now a voice she hadn't heard in nearly two decades came back to her. "Personal log… David Shepard, November first, twenty-two oh one. I just got word from Hannah." The gravelly voice became distant, as the speaker no-doubt leaned away from his microphone. "She's pregnant. If I had to guess… Shore leave at the London Spaceport.

"Going to have to fill out the paperwork for the kid. Make sure he's on the one-point-five registry. But what I'm worried about isn't the baby, the SIGMAs… Hell, even the Alliance, or the quarians… I'm worried about Hannah, here. I know she's got some demons - no woman can drink that much alcohol and not pass out, otherwise - but I find myself worrying about how she may turn out as a mother. She's told me she's already dropped the bottle, now that she knows about this… But I wouldn't put it past her to take it up again after the kid's born.

"Then take into consideration that it will not be long now until the Alliance tries making contact with this Council the quarians have told us about, try and make sure second contact goes as well as the first… I don't think I'll be getting off of the Blade anytime soon, and that means she'll be transferred to a desk job, probably on Eden, to raise the kid." The gravelly voice now spoke with an aged edge to it, as if it had seen and done a great deal, and that experience was weighing down upon it. "I want to give her that chance… But she's an alcoholic, and she passed the SIGMA psych-evals. That's not a good combination, she could very well go right over the wrong edge, and then the baby's at risk.

"I love her, and I don't want to not trust her like this… But now I have to start thinking not as an Admiral, not as a SIGMA, but as a father, and…" He let out a mixed groan and a sigh. "I don't know if I can trust her with the baby. I'll talk to her about this next week, when we're both on leave again. But… But until then, I'm going to fill out the registry paperwork, and get it worked out so they'll desk her near Rhode Island, so at least the retired SIGMAs can keep an eye on her when I can't.

"God, I hope I'm not making the wrong choice here." And the log cut off.

"And that's just one of them." Said McGraw, "there are hours, and they're all equally revealing, in their own way. Now, once again, for good measure." McGraw leaned forward. "You fucked up." He leaned back again, "you don't know it, but you're just a pawn in this game. You are not, and never were, equipped to play on this level. You trying to kill me was like a caveman trying to kill a SIGMA. You shooting my rent-a-kid… Well, I guess that was like me taking Johnny-boy, wasn't it?" He straightened his posture. "Not many things get made personal, for me, but I'll go ahead and it's pretty cool having a protege. So, I'm going to leave you in here. I'm going to ensure your needs are taken care of, and that you don't die. I'm going to make sure you live the rest of your life knowing two things. One: Your own husband didn't trust you with his son. And two… Considering you lost him at what was basically the first available opportunity… He was right." But before McGraw could continue, a new figure swung around the door frame, into the room, and with a single, swift punch, McGraw slumped forward, unconscious.

Shepard blinked, and hardly a second later the magnetic locks on her handcuffs failed, allowing her to spring to her feet. Before she even tore her gag out of her mouth, she was lunging for McGraw, intent upon strangling him, but the figure caught her hands and hauled her to her feet.

"We don't have time for that, we need to go now!" The figure shouted, his voice muffled by the dome-shaped helmet he wore over his head. "Come on!" He pulled Shepard after him, out into the hallways, which she now found to be covered with blood and perforated bodies.

Shepard ripped the gag out of her mouth, "who the hell are you?!" She demanded in a hoarse voice.

"Twenty eight." Said the man, "there's a car outside. It will take you to a ship which will take you to the Citadel, you need to -"

"Wait, what?!" Shepard demanded, wrenching her arm out of the armored man's. "What the hell is going -" But the man whirled around and slapped her, the impact so great that she stumbled, almost falling to her knees and hitting her head on the wall.

"I am literally disobeying the people that created me, Hannah Shepard! The second they figure this out, this armor -" He indicated it, "will burn me alive from the inside out, and you will have to escape alone! What is happening now is wrong, and the only way it can be fixed is if you defect, and you cannot trust anyone on Earth or in the UN - our connections are too great for that! The Citadel is your only chance!"

Shepard gritted her teeth, and lunged at the man, her patience and tolerance for bullshit long having been blown out the window. The man, however, caught her sloppy attempt at tackling him, grabbed ahold of her shoulders, and swung her around, throwing her deeper down the hallway. She landed on her back and tumbled across the ground, before hitting another dead, bloody corpse and coming to a halt.

"You don't have time for this, Captain Shepard!" The soldier shouted, sprinting over, hauling her to her feet, and now physically dragging her down the hall and through the building. "Now when you get to the Citadel, your ship will broadcast emergency codes they will recognize. You have to blow the whistle on this, or everything will be for nothing, do you understand?"

"You want me to defect?!" Shepard demanded, now running for herself.

"Do you really want to stay here and serve the Alliance?! They took your son!" The clone retorted. "Here!" He skidded to a halt, and threw open a door, revealing the parking lot to an apartment complex, and a car parked less than a meter away from the door. "All of your things and all of the data you need is in a bag in the passenger's seat!" The man junged forward and pulled open the car's door. "Just get in!"

Shepard looked at the man, then to the car, and then back to the man. "How can I trust you?"

"God damn it lady just -" And as the man spoke, he began to openly smoulder, and before he could continue, he began screaming in pain as his entire body burst into flames, and he collapsed to his knees. "GO!" He screamed.

Hannah went.

After a few minutes of silence, out walked Christopher McGraw, rubbing at the welt on his head, as he watched the car roar down the road and out of sight. "Good to know the programming works." McGraw yawned, and opened up his smart-watch. He dialed a number, and was soon sent to voicemail. "Hey Ed-oh, had my fun. Been a while since I've let loose like that. She'll be in warp in a quarter of an hour. To the Citadel by next week, most likely. Managed to give her a little extra nudge in the motivation department, more deadly than the male, and all that, so I guarantee she'll end up doing what we want her to." He yawned, "pretty sure I even managed to plant suicide in there, somewhere. So, you know, if she offs herself after she gives the Citadel what it wants, you totally owe me." He chuckled, "anyways, I'll take you up on that game next time I see you, 'till then, tell me if you get the joke - king's pawn to E-four. I'll be white." He hung up.

A truncheon, made up of trillions of what was described to him as 'some of the most advanced nanites in the known universe'. Every single one of the nanites that made up The Stick, as it had been so named, was somehow a combination hardlight generator, and element zero engine, and since it was made up of nanites and not regular material like, say, a solid block of steel, not only could it create any shape he needed with its hardlight, but so too could it function as programmable matter.

As John Shepard S2-15 held The Stick in his hands, he sent a brief mental command to it, and watched as it practically melted away, forming a gray goo that washed over his hand like water, and conformed to its shape. In the second it needed to do so, it had completely covered and conformed to his hand, turning it from the black and red armor plated limb to a silver gauntlet of sorts. Another mental command turned it back to its original, truncheon state. Another elongated it and thinned it out, going from a truncheon to a stave. Another command, it widened out and became a haft. Another, it shortened out. Another, it became a truncheon once more.

"Hatchet." Shepard spoke.

"Done." Said Cassidy, the hardlight springing to life with the sound of ringing glass, and conforming to the shape of a tomahawk.

"Axe."

The light vanished, and the truncheon widened out and lengthened, becoming a haft, the end of which instantly sprouted hardlight, and became a battle axe, almost straight out of a medieval armory.

"Warhammer."

The hardlight wavered, before thickening and flattening out, turning the battle axe to a warhammer. Shepard then called on his biotics, and watched as the entire haft responded to it, and he felt the hardlight, previously weightless, gain a heavy feel to it. Its mass increased, and as such its ability to do damage was as well. He cut the flow of biotic energy to the hammer, and the entire thing immediately lost its weight.

All around him, the six-odd hundred SIGMA Twos were performing similar experiments with their own Sticks. Shepard saw swords, he saw pikes, hammers, flails, maces, all manner of melee weaponry. He saw biotic Twos swinging their own weapons, to get a handle for the feeling of the weapon in their hands. He saw non-biotics sending commands to the micro-mass effect generators in their Sticks, and doing the same as their biotic brothers, just with markedly less of an effect. Others, he noticed, divided their Sticks in half and were able to wield one half each in a hand, allowing themselves two weapons to work with. Others still coated both hands in the gray goop and practiced using them as unarmed instruments. He saw claws, spiked knuckles, and biotic auras.

They'd had The Stick fewer than four hours, and already many were well on their way to mastering them like they had done all weapons previously. Shepard had demanded an adaptable weapon, and McGraw had delivered.

"How sharp of a cutting edge can you make this, Cassidy?" He heard Craig ask.

"Photons are subatomic particles, Craig." Cassidy said, as John turned over to the sniper. "The edge can subsequently be so small."

Craig raised his soulless red plates to meet Shepard's own. "These can cut through CNT reinforced bones." He surmised, as, with hardly but a twitch of his hand, an axe appeared, likely of such a sharp edge as he'd requested of their squad's AI.

Shepard nodded, a light grunt being his only response. "Cassidy, are these nanites capable of self replication?" He asked, turning his gaze to George, and watching as the big man swung his warhammer, alternating behind one and two-handed swings.

"Yes." Said Cassidy, "provided proper mass to…" A pause, "yes."

"She's learning." George commented, as his hardlight vanished with a ripple of light, and his Stick conformed itself to his vambrace.

"She is." Shepard nodded, "inject a small colony of these nanites to our bloodstream." That way, he didn't say, if they ever lost, or otherwise damaged their Sticks, they could get new ones, after a time.

Shepard watched as Craig, George and, after the bulletin was sent to the other Twos, everyone else, took a small portion of their sticks - less than a thousand nanites, which itself hardly even covered the endmost didget of their pinky fingers, length-wise - and pressed them to the ports on their skin-suits meant for rapid cell-fluid administration. John did the same, and watched his HUD acknowledge the change, before a new bulletin was posted.

The ship they were in had been cleared of civilian and non-SIGMA military personnel. It, and its twin, were now solely populated by the Alliance's augmented elite, and in less than five minutes, it would depart for Sparta.

Shepard stood to his feet, quickly attracting the gazes of all of the SIGMA Twos in the belly of their frigate. "War is no longer coming. It is here." He said, his voice broadcast to all of their suits. "There is nothing else to be said. Less than one year, we've all been awake. Our first goal was to acclimate to our bodies, on Saltor. Our first test is to kill as many Ones as it takes to get that right given back to us.

"We may die, but we will not lose. No matter the outcome, we will win." Either they survived, killed the Ones, and got their rights to their own lives back, or they died, Rabbit Squad burned the Citadel, and the subsequent war destroyed the Alliance. In either scenario, they won. "We leave for Sparta in five minutes. Will be there in less than a week. They have raised us. The SIGMA Ones have completed their mission.

"Ours has just begun."

A/N:

Whoa, two in one month!

Yeah, who remembers when I said I quit and unquit my job?
I did that because they were trying to stop honoring my school schedule. I thought I had everything I needed all worked out - but then at the first available opportunity, they turned right around and tried going back in without any lube.
So then I really did quit, and now I have only to juggle school and these stories, and not school, stories, and work.

I haven't slept so good (or so much!) since December.

Anyways, end of the story's coming up. Reeeeally wicked fast.
I'll outline the whole post-TNFW plan once the need for it is relevant... Likely by doing a rough outline here and a more detailed one on the on-life-support blog. (I swear I've been trying to revive it...), and then there's always the little micro-updates I do on Twitter.

'Till next time!

-PFB