After their impromptu wedding dance Jo took Joker on a little tour across the complex. She showed him the hall with three walls covered in mirrors where she and Rashid Mohameddi had learned to dance. There was a room with a gigantic holo-desk where recruits learned battle strategy and tactics. A gym, a pool, a shooting range - all as Joker expected. The majority of the rooms, however, were simple conference rooms with about a dozen chairs in each.

"Most physical training facilities are located elsewhere," Jo explained. "Recruits came here mainly for the leadership courses. Those involved a lot of reading, thinking and talking. We sat in groups here for months, discussing morals, decisions, choices, ethics or human nature. We trained our minds here, not our bodies."

It was sad to see all these rooms empty. There was even an echo.

Some time later Matt found them in one of the Observation rooms - a cave like his own, stuffed with consoles, screens and other tech. It was where one of Matt's Intelligence teams used to work before even they went out to fight in the war.

"Dex got EDI's mech from the ship," Matt said. "He's getting a Red Box ready."

"What's a Red Box?" Joker got curious.

"A server. Experimental technology, really. Dex's programming is stored on eleven Red Boxes, and the entire rest of the ICA archive from day one until today is stored on one hundred and seventy six others. My computers currently use eight boxes for temporary storage as I work. Dex and I need a lot of space to filter the information we get. I wanted to ask you: is there a chance to move all the servers to Chrysalis?" He looked at Jo with a plea. "I'll be sorry to lose any of the Academy's files. It's our history, our legacy, our mistakes and victories. And while Dex is functional at 34%, I'd prefer him complete."

"You don't have to sell me," Jo nodded. "I'm already sold. Cutting off his programming would be like wiping a person's memories. It's just not done. Does the cargo bay have enough space for all the stuff?"

"It should," Matt beamed. "Each box is the size of a standard footlocker, and there are four hundred of them. If we stack them properly, there should be enough space, even though Garrus reduced the storage capacity of your cargo bay by half."

"How the fuck do you know that? And why do you talk about Garrus, Tali, Gabby and Ken like you know then?" Joker knew he sounded snippy, but it was unnerving to hear this complete stranger talk about people in Joker's life as if he was part of the crew.

He regretted his words immediately when a hurt look hurried across Matt's face.

"Sorry," Joker said before Matt even opened his mouth. "You watch, I get it. You've been stuck in this building for seven years with a bomb in your chest, and had no human contact for the last few months. I understand. You like Jo and keep tabs on her, so it's only logical that you know us intimately. I just wish I'd known about you, too."

Matt nodded with a touch of vulnerability to his features that surprised Joker a little. Weren't N7s supposed to be hardcore in every way? But then again, Joker was a part of the ICA now. Perhaps Matt didn't feel like he had to be guarded around him.

Jo leaned into Joker and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder in gratitude for accepting and understanding someone she considered a brother. It was no hardship, Joker realised. He could see a kindred spirit in Matt and was already starting to like the guy.

"We'll take everything we can, all the servers and other equipment that we can fit into the ship." Jo said. Then, as if she remembered something, her spine grew tense: "Is David still in his dungeon?"

"Yes, he is, and he's getting really itchy," Matt suddenly sounded spooked.

"Who's David?" Joker had to ask.

"A psychopath. A serial killer," Jo said. "Some nine or ten years ago he killed and dissected twenty nine people in the New York area. He was caught by our agents and Mr. Z saw an opportunity. He offered David a similar deal Matt got, only without membership and with a lot more restrictions. David was facing extermination without trial at our agents' hands, so Mr. Z offered him the chance to become a part of our training if he wanted his life spared. He would get his own rooms, food, whatever he needed, but he would be restricted to his quarters, never to see the outside world again. Now and then he would get a chance to use his skills on N5 recruits who chose the Leadership specialization. I was one of them. We would be snatched off the street at some busy place and brought to a dungeon, and the key was not to know that it was a part of training. As far as we knew, we'd been taken by a real serial killer. David would use his skills on us for a few days, trying to break us mentally or physically. If we succeeded to stay sane for a couple of days, we'd pass the initiation test for N6."

"That's a beautified version," Matt said to Joker quietly.

"Yeah, I kinda got that. What really happened there, Jo?"

She took a breath and said quickly:

"I was supposed to get scared by the blackness of his soul, but I didn't. I looked into his eyes and saw something familiar. Wasn't scared when he was pulling the skin off my arms. Wasn't scared when he talked to me for hours about the pleasure of his work. Wasn't scared when he took a chainsaw and removed my left leg below the knee. I wasn't scared by the unknown, by the hopelessness, by my own helplessness, It just... didn't bother me. I sure screamed and cried and went into shock eventually, but I was never really scared. Was pulled out of there when he was done with my leg, and the doctors restored my body completely without any lingering marks. They said to me later that I lasted by far longer than most others did."

"How long?"

"Twenty three days."

Joker nodded. A lot about his Jo was starting to make sense. He always said that she had uncanny nerves of steel. Now he knew how right he was.

"What are you going to do with him, Jo?" Matt asked.

"I can't risk transporting him to the new location, and I'm not sure I want that course embedded into my new program in the first place. He has to die."

"Do you want me to activate those gas tanks?"

"I'll do it myself."

Dex and Matt started unplugging the Red Boxes and preparing them for transport, while Joker went to the Normandy and moved her right on top of the elevator door to shorten their walk. When he was back, Jo said that she was about to go deal with David. Joker asked if he could join her. He was curious about this pet of the Academy. A serial killer turned into a training course? He needed to know more.

"He has a way of creeping under your skin and I don't want him to know about you. He can not be a part of your life, my love." She stressed the word while activating a console. "You can be in the room, but you have to promise me to always stay out of his line of sight and not to make any noises."

Joker kept his promise to stay out of the camera's range, but he could hear the man's voice. David sounded… Jo was right, even the sound of his voice crept under his skin, causing shivers.

"My little butterfly," the man said with what sounded like a wolfish grin. "Have you been dreaming of me?"

"Not really," Jo shrugged with a relaxed smile. "Do you know what's been happening outside, David?"

"Of course not. You people keep me here in isolation. Do you know what isolation is, my butterfly? It means isolation!" He suddenly screeched and the full force of his fury rattled Joker's teeth.

"I saved the world from the Reapers," Jo said nonchalantly and Joker suddenly wondered if she wasn't getting under the psychopath's skin just the way he was getting under hers. "There was a war. Most of us have been killed. I'm the new leader of the ICA, David. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. We're relocating to another solar system."

There was silence for a while.

"So," the wolfish grin was back. "I outlived my usefulness to you."

"I like you, you know that. You're good at what you do. But because you're so good, I can't risk relocating you with me. I'm really sorry."

"So, my little butterfly, how long do I have to live?"

"Thirty seconds at most. I've already activated the gas tanks. Sorry, David."

Horror was crawling up and down Joker's spine. This man would have made a perfect Hannibal Lecter.

"I'm sorry, too," the man said and coughed. "Will you stay?"

"Of course, precious. I couldn't let you die alone. I'm here."

"I'm really sorry," David coughed harder. "Sorry I didn't get to pluck your wings, my beautiful little butterfly. I'm sorry I didn't get to add your sweet voice to the choir. I always missed you."

"I'm sorry I have to use the gas tanks, David. I would have loved to meet you again and find out who's better at plucking wings."

"Dream a little dream of me, my beautiful little butterf…" The sound of a falling body interrupted the words.

"Rest in peace," Jo said with a heavy trace of sadness in her voice. "Dex, give me statistics."

"He's dead," Dex declared with certainty.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"Positive."

"Seal the location."

"Yes, Commander."

"Where is his location?" Joker asked, finally joining her again.

"Dungeons made just for him deep under some mountains. The entrances are being sealed with cement as we speak and no one will find that place ever again. It's on a different continent, that's all I can tell you, my love. Trust me, you don't want to know anything more."

For once Joker was inclined to agree with her and stay away from that secret.

"Any other assets to the training?" He asked.

"No, not really. Just the usual. Alligator moats, varren kennels, killer bees and an occasional yagh."

"Excuse me?!"

"I'm kidding. No animals of any kind, and no yagh. Just tech."

"I'm more relieved than you'll ever know," he said, placing a kiss on her hair.

Joker helped with the move as much as he could, but he couldn't do any heavy lifting. Those servers were heavy as fuck, even Jo couldn't lift more than one at a time, as they stacked them on Steve's loaders to move upstairs.

Instead Joker made dinner and made sure the others stopped working to eat properly. It took them a whole day to move the Red Boxes alone. Then there were other things they wanted to take: the pretty console Jo had used to give her oath, some weapons, armour, upgrades, implants and drugs from the armory, various scanners and simulators used in training, as Jo explained, and lots of Matt's personal tech. One of his private projects turned out to be an unfinished synthetic body for Dex. It was nowhere near completion, merely a skeleton for now. It would take Matt at least another year of working solo to get it ready for testing. He wanted to take it with them anyway, since Dex was not supposed to occupy EDI's body permanently.

Jo and Matt stood over the vaguely human shape of metal and wires and Joker stopped at the door, quietly eavesdropping.

"Why don't you use a real human body, Matt?" Jo asked.

"You'd let me do that?" Matt was skeptical, yet hopeful.

"Matty, you made yourself the perfect boyfriend, gave him free will and a chance to leave you if he wanted to. He could upload himself to any server on or off this planet. But he stayed. My EDI was primarily meant to be a Defense Intelligence, she learned how to act around humans from scratch. But your Dex was meant for human interaction from the start. He is a person. Don't think that I don't know what's going on here. You've changed for him," she pointed at something behind Matt's ear and Joker noticed for the first time a small implant embedded in the man's skin. "A part of the geth interface, right? So that you can connect without the pod. Dex would change for you in a heartbeat. Have you seen how happy he is in EDI's mech? He's practically skipping and tap-dancing. You deserve to be happy, Matt. I knew that from the day I met you in that prison. If Dex is the one for you, then it's my sacred duty to make it possible. Not a compromise with a metal mech, even. I mean, really possible." Jo chuckled gently, pointing at DEX in the next room. "He wants this as much as you do. Why don't you look for a human body of someone who's recently died and download Dex into the brain? A few implants here and there would probably do the trick. After all, I've carried a geth inside my brain for a while and interacted with it. We'd be starting a new species, you know. I'm an organic-synthetic hybrid. You're one, too. Dex could be one as well and no one would ever complain."

"I ask again, Jo. Would you actually let me do it?" Matt sounded shaken.

"As long as you don't deliberately get some sexy hunk killed for his body, I'm on your side."

"I would never."

"I know. Think about it."

Joker took a deep breath and held it for a while. When he released it slowly, his heart was still hammering. Oh, the things these people talked about among themselves! The moral aspects, the questions of personal rights, of free will and responsibility of their decisions revolved on a whole different plane of existence to what Joker was used to. Sure, he'd seen a lot during his work with Jo. She was the one who eagerly let the geth suck her mind into their consensus. She was the one to make decisions beyond anything considered humanly comprehensible. But Joker kind of assumed those were the exceptions.

Her conversation with Matt, a fellow N7, someone she wasn't butting heads with like Hackett, and someone she wasn't disappointed in like Anderson, was different. Matt seemed to have been her protégé from the moment of his initiation and his progress had been her responsibility. Joker could tell that she genuinely liked the guy. Their conversation showed what it was supposed to be like between two N7s. And it was… amazing.

He wondered if he would ever truly belong to this family.

While the men were busy moving the last of the stuff late next morning, Jo went to one of those secret, locked wings of the compound. It was rumored to be the place where the Invisible Leader had had his or her office. All the instructors had had access to that place, but none of the recruits or agents. Well, maybe Matt did. There was no system out there and especially in here that he couldn't hack, mostly because he'd written nearly all of that programming.

She was a little surprised when the door simply opened when she approached. No codes, no authorization needed.

"Hello, Johanna," a screen came to life and a familiar face of a salt-and-pepper haired man appeared, smiling. "Don't worry, I'm not psychic, nor am I still alive somewhere. I just set up a protocol that would play this vid upon your entry to my office if you were the one who took over as my successor. Please, sit, let's have a chat."

Jo sat in his chair, knowing the vid wouldn't continue unless she did so.

"It's no chance that you're sitting here, my dear. I've been grooming you for this position from the day I saw your profile and sent you an invitation. You always had the one quality that is crucial for the ICA leader. You care." He smiled warmly. "While I'm recording this, the war is still going on and you're out there, getting the whole galaxy to work together. You got the krogans, the turians and the salarians to play nice. I've never been more proud. Well, maybe I could be, if the news about you ending the war between the quarians and the geth is true. I'm inclined to believe that, too. If you're watching this, then we have won, I'm dead and you've survived. No one deserves it more than you do. Now you're sitting in my chair, ready to take over as the new leader for our family. I suspect not many are left, but it could be a good thing, too. Old agents like me have outlived our usefulness. I led my Academy to a certain state of fame and glory, but I did it the only way I knew how. You, my dear, always had a vision that would lead us into the future. I knew that from the moment I saw you. I believe your vision is not only good for this school, it's good for the galaxy. I wish you love and happiness beyond the walls of our school. If anyone deserves to be truly happy, it's you, my dear Johanna. Goodbye."

Jo sat alone for a while after the vid ended. As one of her instructors, Mr. Z had never shown any bias toward any of the agents or recruits. He'd worked Jo hard, maybe even harder than most other trainees, but many instructors had done the same. Jo had always liked the man because he was everything she'd wanted to be at the time. He was in complete control of his body, his emotions, his career, private life and thoughts of people around him. Looking back now, Jo realised that she surpassed her mentor when she fell in love and allowed some humanity into her perfectly trained heart. He was right: she did have a vision, and it didn't include training a private army of perfect killing machines. It was about spreading peace, understanding and acceptance across the galaxy.

The console at the desk was perhaps the most dangerous piece of tech in the galaxy because it had unrestricted access to everything: even stuff Matt had no clearance for. She activated it and looked up her friend's profile. There it was, clear as day: the access code to deactivating the bomb in Matt's chest. She did that as her very first action as the sworn in ICA leader.

Then curiosity got the better of her. She remembered the day Vega started training under her. The ICA had sent her a crate full of scanners and tests to perform on him, including a test on potential. Vega turned out to be a potential Admiral of the whole human fleet. Jo never had access to that part of her own profile, and now she wanted to know.

Like she hoped it would, the console gave her unrestricted access. Jo was a little surprised and disappointed when the stats didn't show anything extraordinary, nothing off the charts. Her willpower scored very high, her adaptability almost as high, but other stats told her that she was arrogant bordering on a God complex. Her disregard for authority and rules made her a potential weak link if she were to serve under someone stronger than her. Her poor behavioral control, impulsivity and lack of remorse and guilt made her completely unable to take responsibility for her actions. Which, in turn, made her manipulative and selectively cruel.

To sum up several pages of text and numbers, Jo was a cold bitch who only took care of those she liked. Everyone else was not safe from her, or rather they were in direct danger if Jo as much as disliked the colour of their hair. Those were several crucial points describing a psychopath like David. What was it that Mr. Z and other instructors saw in her, then? What redeeming quality could have possibly gotten her to where she was right now?

Potential for deep compassion, the text said. All her bitchiness, hypocrisy and lack of fear of consequences was more or less balanced out by readiness to love deeply. The test said so, even though Jo hadn't tapped into that potential while she was a recruit. It came later in her life.

Joker would have a field day if he ever found out that she was almost as much a psychopath as David. He would have her head for resurrecting her twin sister, because something like that was likely a part of her DNA.

She would tell him, of course. Eventually.

"Matty," Jo called when she returned to the server room. "Go outside now and cross the perimeter line. I deactivated that bomb in your chest, but we need to make sure it's really off before we take you away in the Normandy."

Matt, Dex and Joker stopped their activities and exchanged looks. Matt grew a little pale, torn between rushing towards the exit and fearfully staying right where he was.

"Come on, I'll go with you," Joker nudged the other man's shoulder. That finally got Matt to move.

"Why are you interested in this?" Matt asked Joker once the two of them exited the elevator above ground and headed to the edge of the perimeter.

"This moment is monumental. You're free from the shackles that you were prepared to wear all your life. Trust me, I understand shackles and restrictions better than anyone. The moment should be given its due and you shouldn't be alone."

"I suppose you do understand," Matt nodded. They walked for a little while until Matt stopped. Joker could see no particular landmark, but Matt obviously knew where they were.

"One more step and I'm outside my designated perimeter."

"What's supposed to happen?"

"If the bomb is still active, it'll start vibrating inside me and I'll have thirty seconds to return inside the border. What I'm hoping for is that it does nothing at all."

"All right, then. Whenever you're ready."

Matt remained still, staring at his feet.

"I've dreamed of this moment ever since Jo promised to introduce me to the ICA instructors. Now that I'm here, I'm afraid to accept this gift. I've been imprisoned for a reason. A lot of people died because of me."

"You've never forgiven yourself, have you?"

"No."

"And you never tried to escape from here, to hack the bomb's transmitter, to disable it. Something tells me you could, if you really wanted to."

"Maybe," Matt shrugged. "You're right, I've never tried."

"Maybe it's time to stop punishing yourself. Grow a pair and deal with your own shit. That's what Jo does. No time to play the martyr. Are you an N7 or a wimp?"

Matt narrowed his eyes at Joker in annoyed defiance and took the final step. Then five more. They stood in silence for several long seconds, waiting for something to happen.

"And?"

"Nothing. It's really deactivated." Matt turned around to face Joker. "I'm free." He shuddered. "I'm free!" He whopped. "You dish out some tough love," he accused Joker.

"And doesn't it work wonders with you N7 types?" Joker let some smugness seep into his voice.

"No wonder Jo's in love with you," Matter muttered, turning to head back to the base. "You're an evil, manipulative bastard."

"You flatter me," Joker waved him off.

When they came back and reported the results, there was nothing left to do but activate the self-destruct and head to Rome, where the rest of the crew was waiting for the Normandy.