Oh, wow! It took me this long to churn out this chapter, yet it's still rushed! Blame it on the Arrival DLC, 'cause that's what I do. I hated that DLC, but it was important to the plot, and I wanted to include some bonding between Harry and Shepard. In any case, I hope you enjoy this brief recap and complete change of the Fuck-This-Shit-We-Don't-Care-About-Plot-Or-Logic DLC!

Enjoy, and leave a review on your way out!

–

"This is annoying..."

Harry was sitting in Shepard's cabin. He had arrived uninvited, of course, but Shepard hadn't turned him away, and now he sat on Shepard's couch, slouched against the backrest with an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. If it wasn't for the fact that he was breathing, Shepard would have thought he was dead. His whole body was completely relaxed, not a single muscle tensed up in the slightest, and he wasn't even blinking.

"Don't you have work to do?" Shepard asked, sitting on her bed.

"I sure do, but I won't have time to finish it before we arrive," Harry answered, sounding incredibly bored. "That's what I hate about traveling through hyperspace. It takes too long to get there quickly, and too quickly to get any work done during the wait. At least when you go between near-lying systems."

"Guess we have a moment to talk, then," Shepard said, and Harry's head slowly turned to look at her. When he saw that she was leaning forward, resting her elbows against her knees, he gave a small frown.

"Ah, hell, that's never good... Or so I've heard."

"I got curious when we helped Mordin," Shepard said, her brow furrowing. "I put it in the back of my mind since I thought we had more important things to do, but since you're here... Whenever the consequences of the genophage were mentioned, you gave Mordin this look, and I know empathy when I see it. It was like you've done something similar."

"Noticed that, did you?" Harry asked as he straighened up, lighting the cigarette in his mouth. "Well, yeah, I guess you could call it 'something similar.'"

"Care to elaborate?"

Harry hummed and leaned back again, his unblinking eyes staring up at the smoke rising from the cigarette. It was like he needed some time to think about whether to elaborate or not.

"Well, I suppose that's a story I should start by asking you if you're aware of the Multiverse Theory."

"You mean that theory about parallel universes?" Shepard asked, to which Harry nodded.

"Basically. It's the idea that for every decision we make, a new universe is created. And that all reaches down to a molecular level. Take Earth, for instance. There might be one Earth out there where humanity is still in the Dark Ages, an earth where your parents never met, so you were never born, an Earth where the world ended in nuclear war... There's even an Earth where no fish was brave enough to crawl up on land and humans never evolved. And so on, ad infinitum."

"That sounds ridiculous."

"It gets even more so. Anything you can imagine, odds are there's a universe where that is a truth. There's probably even millions of universes where you're a guy, where you have a different facial structure, where you have different hair. Some differences are so slight that you can spends thousands of years looking for them. Like a universe where I had coffee this morning instead of tea."

Shepard frowned at those implications. The sheer amount of universes where such a small decision can create a new one... No wonder why he said 'infinite'. If that theory was correct, then there would just be more and more with every second...

"Alright, now I know the theory. What does that have to do with what you were saying?"

"You ever wonder how I have managed to get so far ahead of the entire galaxy in technological progress?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. She could practically feel him nudging her in the ribs trying to get her to get the hint.

"Are you telling me you've visited parallel universes and gotten their technology?"

"You're half-right. The truth is, I'm from a parallel universe," Harry explained. "Where I'm from, humanity reached other galaxies in the early twenty-first century. And we did it all without Mass Effect physics. I was the descendant of a long-dead race that humans called the Ancients, sort of like Protheans in this galaxy, which made my brain naturally more evolved than a normal human.

"In any case, a lot of things happened in my early years, and when I went to another galaxy where the last functioning ship of my people was stashed, we discovered that it had been overrun by an alian race, called the Wraith. I was happy to have something new to study and did so with gusto."

Harry paused his story and took a long drag on his cigarette, a look of nostalgia washing over him.

"It was a good time in my life. Back before I even proposed to Tonks. Ah well, in any case, the Wraith were dangerous. They were a vampiric hive-based species who survived by sucking the 'life-force,'" Harry said, using air-quotes, "of other beings for nourishment. They had enslaved pretty much the whole galaxy, culling their human 'herd' every few hundred years, eating, and then going to sleep for another couple of centuries. It was a process that had gone on for ages."

"It's a fascinating story, for sure," Shepard said, no longer surprised by anything Harry said. Given how much he knew and what he could do, it didn't really come as a surprise that he hadn't invented all that in this universe. It showed how jaded Shepard had become to surprises when the only thing that disturbed her with this whole this was that there was a universe out there where Commander Shepard was a man. "I guess these Wraith have something to do with what you told Mordin?"

"I share Mordin's opinion. All life is... hm... I shouldn't say precious, but it should be preserved. I enjoy seeing evolution at work. But the Wraith were a threat, and they saw no need to stop what they were doing. In fact, they were desperate to get to Earth, where there were billions of humans to feed on.

"I designed a virus that was released on all the planets in the galaxy. It was harmless to humans, but if a Wraith got infected, their entire system would start shutting down, starting with their ability to feed. It was also highly contagious. If one was infected and went back to his ship, then game over for that ship."

Harry leaned forward now, resting his elbows against his knees much like Shepard, and heaved a great sigh.

"Within weeks, the Wraith threat was gone. Corpse-filled hive ships floated around in space with nowhere to go. It was only then that I realized how... quiet everything was. And it struck me how eager I had been. Running the simulations, synthesizing the virus, it was all so much fun for a guy like me. There was no need to release it. In fact, I could have had a lot more fun simply leaving the virus once it was done and moving on to a new project, such as, say, altering the Wraith physiology to the point where they could live on normal food.

"Because that's all the Wraith were really trying to do," Harry said, giving Shepard a serious look that seemed sort of sad. "They wanted to eat and survive, same as us. Their food just so happened to be humans, and so they treated us like we do our own cattle. If I had just brought their diet down one step on the food chain, we could have become allies, and the Wraith could have continued existing and evolving, something interesting for me to observe."

"But if the Wraith were eating humans, then didn't that make them your enemy?" Shepard asked, which caused Harry to give her a disappointed look.

"Turians were once humanity's enemies. And look at them now. Don't get me wrong, Shepard, I am more than happy to fight enemies, especially the Collectors and Reapers, but I can't help but wonder every now and then what the Wraith could have evolved into. They had already existed for a hundred thousand years. The next evolutionary step was close, no doubt. And then, in just a few weeks, they were gone." He sighed and shook his head. "Ah well, I guess there's really no point dwelling on it."

Shepard just sat there, watching Harry. Once again there was a new side of him that she hadn't expected. Remorse wasn't something Harry would ever show. Even empathy had been a stretch, but remorse? Didn't seem to be in Harry's character.

"So, if you're from a parallel Earth, why did you come here?" she wanted to know. She didn't expect much of a reason, considering this was Harry she was talking to, but one could always hope. She wouldn't be surprised to hear him claim that he simply got bored.

"I came here at the request of a friend. He had a sight that could reach farther than anything else, even able to see other universes. He warned me of the Reapers, and wanted me to come here to stop them. I guess I failed pretty badly, huh?"

There was a humorless smile on Harry's face as he scoffed, shaking his head mostly to himself, while Shepard sat there wide-eyed.

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah. When I came to Earth, I wanted to guide the people along, stick in a little invention here, another there, to make them advanced enough to combat the Reapers when they come, but... Well, humanity has always managed to find some way to disappoint me, no matter the universe. So many greedy politicians, warmongering soldiers who think they're Attila the Hun, religious nutjobs, everything... So I withheld most of my technology, and simply decided to work with what was around me. That's when we found the Prothean ruins on Mars. I jumped on it. This was natural in this world, and something to use. I guess I had been hoping that this sure sign of other races, races that might be stronger than humans, would mellow them out."

Harry scoffed again.

"But no, they decided we needed to go further, to go through the relay when we found it. And, of course, the First Contact War broke out soon after. And when I discovered the Citadel and the Council Races, I thought, now there are technologically advanced races who seem to be capable of working together in peace!" Harry continued, but he wasn't smiling, so clearly his opinion had been shattered. "Sure they were, but they all had the same crap among their people as humanity did."

"So, what did you do?" Shepard asked.

"Lost faith. Lost sight of what I came here to accomplish. I figured, well, if they're gonna squabble amongst themselves and can't live together properly, then they don't deserve to be helped. So, I went to the Traverse, found myself a cozy little asteroid belt, and I made my base."

"Was that why you left?" Shepard asked. "Rumors say that you left after a heated argument with Alliance brass in Twenty-One Sixty-Three."

"That was the last straw, yeah," Harry said with a nod. "Humanity had started doing AI research. Now, I didn't care if it was illegal, but they weren't doing a very good job. Those knock-off AI were aware, but... there were so many errors in their designs, and the researchers didn't even notice. They were torturing them without even knowing. When I brought this up to the brass, they told me there were no problems, because they weren't even living beings. That was it for me. That's when I lost faith. They didn't even have love for their own creations. So, I left."

"You know, repeating what you said in my head," Shepard said with a hum, rubbing her chin and thinking back, "you've never really struck me as the type to have faith in anything other than yourself, or your AI."

"It used to be that way. But eventually, I got a bit infected with that particular disease," Harry muttered, frowning. Clearly, things had been a lot easier for him before he started having faith. Eventually, he shrugged. "Blame my wives. That's what I do."

"I admit, I didn't expect you to open up like this so suddenly. I thought I'd have to pry it out of you."

"It's not like we're strangers anymore," Harry commented. "I-" He was interrupted by a beep from his PAD, and he pushed a button on it to reveal a holographic model of Aceso's head. "What is it?"

"I apologize for disturbing you, father, but I have report on Project Overkill," she said, and Harry nodded, urging her to continue. "Construction is now seventy percent completed. Five-"

"Ah!" Harry interrupted, holding up his hand. "Send me a detailed report so I can read through it later."

"Understood father," Aceso said, then faded away.

Lowering his arm, Harry looked up to see Shepard staring at him expectantly, a slender eyebrow raised.

"Secret project?"

"Yeah," Harry said as he covered his PAD with his sleeve again. "Just a little thing I saw in a vid back in my own universe. Thought it would be fun to build it."

"Care to share?"

Harry gave Shepard a small grin. "Nope. But I do have something for you."

He reached into his coat pocket and fished out what looked like a slimmer copy of a PAD, which he tossed to Shepard.

"What's this?" she asked curiously, looking it over.

"A cloaking device, the same kind that's installed in my PAD," Harry explained. "Since this is supposed to be covert, I think you might need it. Just push the button clearly labeled 'Cloak.'"

Shepard studied the four buttons on the device, two of which had arrows on them, one up and one down, the third said 'Cloak,' and the last one...

"Harry, why does this button say 'Boom'?"

"Well, that's the self-destruct, to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands if you're captured," Harry said. "Just twist it clockwise, press the button and, you know, boom."

Unlike Daniel Jackson, Shepard seemed to just naturally believe that there was a timer. She clearly didn't know Harry well enough to be suspicious about that. Ah well, at least he didn't have to explain to her why he didn't set a timer.

"In any case, I'm going to need to make some changes to your helmet visor," Harry continued. "I'm going to install a couple of vision modes so that you can actually see what you're doing when you're cloaked. That's what those arrow buttons are for."

–

Plant life and rocks was most of what could be seen when Harry and Shepard beamed into view outside a rather large, low-tech-looking steel and concrete building. As soon as they materialized, both activated their cloaking devices. Shepard sifted through the various vision mode until she landed on what she would forever call 'Green Mode.' It was much like nightvision, turning everything green, but she could also see the invisible Harry clear as day, his form almost blindingly white. The same could be said for the rain. As soon as the drops hit the ground, it was like they were sending off shimmering, white ripples, like when you drop a stone in water.

They headed for the closest door, only to find it locked. Thankfully there was a panel on the side which Shepard quickly hacked to unlock the door using her omnitool. They entered the building, to find it looking almost abandoned. The concrete floor was cracked, and debris from the ceiling was scattered all over the floor, pipes leaking everywhere.

"This is supposed to be a prison outpost," Harry muttered in disgust. "Shouldn't they take better care of it, you think?"

"So, if we can beam up and down, why didn't we just pluck Kenson from her cell?" Shepard asked as they made their way through the corridor, only to come to a stop at a giant hole in the floor.

"I'm actually going to look into that," Harry said as they jumped over the hole, something Shepard could now do with her enhanced leg strength. "There's something in these walls that are blocking the scanner. Maybe a compound in the metal, or something... I'll have to do some research later. Can't beam someone out if you don't know where they are. Hence why we never got any schematics for the place, either."

"Hold," Shepard whispered as they reached a doorway in the corridor, going left into another corridor. She peered around the corner and saw a varren wandering slowly toward them. It had clearly heard and smelled them, but couldn't see them, so it was sniffing around like crazy trying to locate its new prey. Shepard made a gesture, and Harry took this as his cue, darting around the corner and making a beeline for the varren, who looked up just in time for Harry's arm to loop around its neck, squeezing tight until the snapping of its neck was heard, after which Harry let it drop to the ground.

"Why are there varren down here?" he wondered, scratching his head. "The door was locked."

"This must be where batarians take their prisoners to die," Shepard muttered in disgust.

As they continued on their way and reached a doorway that was blocked by high-powered lasers, they heard a deep batarian voice through the ceiling.

"Take the human into questioning."

"Get your hands off me!" a female voice barked, which made Harry and Shepard share a look.

"Well, she's alive," Harry said, shrugging. "It's something."

They switched to X-ray and looked up through the ceiling, seeing three skeletons right above them in what appeared to be a very small cell. One skeleton, a batarian, was standing by the doorway holding a rifle, while another was draging a human skeleton out of the cell.

The lasers were moving up and down, and when they switched back to Green Mode, both crouched and waited for the bottom laser to move up, before quickly rolling under and past it.

"Imagine if that was a set grid," Harry quipped as they continued on their way, which made Shepard scoff.

"Or imagine if we hadn't thought of rolling under. We may have had to take a ridiculously convuluted detour to get where we need to go."

"There are probably universes where you did," Harry mused, then grinned at her. "Your male counterpart, I mean."

Shepard once more shuddered at the thought of a male Shepard. She smacked Harry on the arm for good measure. "I thought I told you not to mention Bizarro Shepard around me..."

"I know, that's why I did it."

"You're an ass sometimes."

They headed through a door and came out into a courtyard of some sort, which was filled with containers, along with a large gate in front of which a truck stood parked. Probably some kind of loading area. They took cover behind a container, because this place was open, so the Normandy could actually scan the place. Harry may have been invisible, but the holographic image of the courtyard that materialized over his PAD wasn't.

"Four of them," Harry muttered, studying the four guards patrolling the courtyard. "We may be invisible, but we're still solid. Anyone with sharp eyes would see the rain smattering against our forms..."

"So we stick to the walls with overhangs to avoid the rain," Shepard said, gesturing for a nearby loading ramp. A quick dash, and they'd be there. "Hope the door's open and just dart in."

"Sounds like a plan," Harry said as the hologram disappeared.

They dashed off, jumping up on the loading ramp and skidding to a halt under the roof sticking out of the wall. Thankfully, they were in luck, as the large doors where supplies would be loaded into were open, and they quickly made their way inside, but noticed that the water was still sticking to their forms, making their invisibility practically useless.

"Hold on," Harry whispered, and Shepard watched as he waved his hands toward himself and Shepard, and the Commander was greatly surprised to see the water just disappear. She was about to ask, but Harry just hushed her, pointing toward the door where a batarian guard was just walking past it.

While there wasn't any debris now, the inside of this place still looked in poor shape. The walls were covered in rusted metal, and the doors weren't much better. This truly didn't seem like a good place for a prison. Shepard was sure that with time, it would be disturbingly easy to break through the walls.

She also couldn't help but feel that it would have taken a lot longer to get here if they hadn't bypassed the lasers.

Still, this was why she preferred full-frontal assaults over stealth. Sneaking around and avoiding guards wasn't really fun. It would have been easier to have Harry carving the way in front with his scythe, while she picked off enemies at long distance. But no, couldn't cause an intergalactic incident.

It wasn't long until they found the interrogation room, and upon entering they found a gray-haired older woman dressed in settler clothing strapped to a table, which had been raised into an almost upright position, a mechanical arm suspended in front of her with two long grippers around her head. Between the grippers, electricity was sparking angrily, and there was no doubt in Shepard's mind that this was a torture device.

In front of the woman stood a helmeted batarian working on his omnitool, probably preparing to use the torture device, but before he even registered that the door had opened, Shepard clocked him with a vicious haymaker that sent him flying into a wall, his helmet split in two.

"Who... Who are you?" the captured woman asked as Shepard and Harry dropped their cloaks. "What are you doing here?"

"Dr. Kenson?" Shepard assumed, walking up and behind the table and bringing out her omnitool to hack the arm and restraints. "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is Dr. Potter. We're here to get you out."

"Commander Shepard?" Kenson asked, apparently having never heard of Harry, or maybe thinking he was some other Dr. Potter. "I'd heard you were alive. Hackett must have received my message."

"We're not safe here," Shepard said, finishing her hack and watching the arm pull back from Kenson's head. "Can you walk?"

With the restraints now unlocked, Kenson pulled herself free and took a few steps away from the table, rubbing her wrists.

"I'm fine. Just give me a moment..."

"A moment isn't something we have," Harry said, poking his head out the door. "Someone will notice you're-"

He cut himself off as an alarm began blaring throughout the prison. Clearly, the batarians were one step ahead of him this time. How nice of them to rob the team of the need for stealth.

"If we can get to an open area, I can have Aceso beam us out," Harry said as Kenson picked up a pistol that had once belonged to the now unconscious batarian. "Now, I can handle being shot once or twice, but I don't know about you lot, so we should make it quick."

Just as he said that, a batarian made his way into the room, but Harry quickly lashed out and grabbed him on either side of the head and gave it a violent twist, snapping his neck immediately.

"He's right about that," Shepard told Kenson. "Let's go!"

"If we can find a console, I can hack security!" Kenson told them as they rushed out of the room and down the corridor they came from. "Make us an escape path!"

"No time for that!" Harry said as they approached a locked door, which, by the looks of things, was the quickest way to get back to the courtyard. He stuck his fingers inbetween the doors and pried them open with brute force. Not the most artistic way to open a door, but there wasn't time for anything else.

On the other side of the door, he saw a good fifteen batarians readying their weapons and training them and the intruders. Harry, Shepard, and Kenson immediately ducked behind cover as a hail of gunfire blasted at them.

"Well," Harry said as he reached into his coat and took out his scythe, pushing a button on it to make it extend and ignite, "guess we're doing this the fun way."

"I was never one for stealth, anyway," Shepard said as she readied her assault rifle.

Harry gave her a grin, and then hopped out from behind the cover, charging at the batarians.

As could be expected, he went through them like a hot knife through butter, with Shepard providing backup by picking off those out of Harry's range.

Once the last batarian had lost his head, Harry looked at Shepard and Kenson and pointed to a nearby door.

"Courtyard's this way," he told them, before slicing the door to pieces, revealing yet another long corridor with another door at the end.

"Who do you know that?" Shepard asked, running alongside him.

"I mapped this place out as we went," Harry said simply. "We've circled around from the courtyard."

They reached the door, which was also cut to ribbons by Harry's scythe and charged through into, indeed, the rainy courtyard, which was now empty as the soldiers outside had probably rushed toward the interrogation room. Now that they were outside, Harry raised his PAD to his mouth.

"Aceso, get us out of here!"

With that, the three of them disappeared in a flash of white light.

When they reappeared outside the cockpit, Harry immediately looked toward Joker in the pilot seat.

"Cloak us and take us out of here."

"Amen to that," Joker said, punching in the commands on his holographic console.

"Now, Doctor, I think we should have a little talk," Shepard said, turning to Kenson. "Mind telling me just why we're fleeing from that prison?"

"I assume it's because batarians don't take kindly to humans trying to destroy their mass relays," Kenson said, making Harry raise a curious eyebrow.

"So, they were actually holding you on legitimate charges?"

"Well, to be fair, that's about half the story," Kenson told them. "My people and I were here investigating rumors of Reaper technology out in the fringes of this system."

"I guess you found something," Shepard concluded, to which Kenson nodded.

"We found proof that the Reapers will be arriving in this system. When they get here, they'll use its mass relay to travel throughout the galaxy," she told them, turning to the cockpit to look out the window at the mass relay visible in the distance. "We call it the 'Alpha Relay.' From here, the Reapers can invade anywhere in the galaxy."

"So you decided to destroy it."

"Exactly. Doing that would stop the Reapers' invasion. Even at FTL speeds, it'd be months or years before they got to the next relay. We came up with what we just called 'the Project': a plan to launch a nearby asteroid into the relay and destroy it before the Reapers could arrive."

Harry frowned at hearing that, before giving a scoff.

"How typical of humans. The first solution, no matter how crude, is always the best one, is that it? Did you ever consider the consequences of destroying a mass relay?"

"Consequences?" Shepard asked, looking to the resident mass effect expert. "Aren't mass relays indestructible, anyway?"

"Nothing's indestructible," Harry said, waving her off. "It's mostly that no one wants to see what happens if it does get destroyed. To break it down into simple terms, imagine that a supernova is packed into that relay," he said, giving her a serious look. "Destroying the 'casing,' so to speak, would unleash it, destroying the whole system. Fun in theory, maybe, but nothing that should be put to practice."

"Would you rather the Reapers invade?" Kenson asked in surprise, which got her a glare from Harry.

"No, I'd rather find a better way to stop them. How long do you estimate until they get here?"

"It should be two days now."

"Do you have a plan?" Shepard asked him, and he raised his hand to his chin, his brain already going through hundreds of ideas.

"I suppose we could... No, that would completely disable it, and we'd get flak from the batarians for that... But maybe if we... No, too difficult in such a short time-frame... Perhaps... Hm..."

Shepard was looking at Harry with something akin to amusement, watching as his brow furrowed in thought. As though trying to help his brain along, the screws in his head were turning again and again.

"I... think I have an idea," he told her, nodding more to himself than to her. "This ship has enough power to do it, that's for sure. I always go over the top for a reason, after all. Yes, it could work."

"Care to clue me in?" Shepard asked, but Harry shook his head.

"Not with an indoctrinated on board."

Shepard blanched in surprise, then looked to Kenson, whose eyes had widened. It wasn't a look of shock on her face. It was more the look one could see on a child with their hand caught in the cookie jar. But before she could even do anything, Harry's hand had already closed around Kenson's head, and there was a burst of what looked like yellow-colored electricity around his fingers that charged straight into her skull, and without a sound, Kenson's body went slack, allowing Harry to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder.

"How..." Shepard was in a bit of shock, not sure yet if Harry's judgement could be trusted. "How do you know she's indoctrinated?"

Harry smirked at her and reached up, tapping the device over his right eye.

"The upgrades I gave your visor aren't the only things I have packed in here. I read her brain patterns, and they're all over the place. I guess you could call it a black spot on the frontal lobe, affecting her executive processes, voluntary motor control, et cetera. Well, I guess we'll first get her awake and questioned on this Project of hers, then we'll get to work on my plan."

Shepard could only gape at Harry as he spun around and headed off toward his lab with Kenson over his shoulder. Somehow, she had the feeling that Harry had just saved her plenty of trouble in the future.

–

"Well now," Harry said, lighting a cigarette as he sat in his lab. In front of him, restrained to a specially designed chair constructed from nanobots, sat Dr. Kenson, whose gaze was completely blank, as though she was stuck in a particularly pleasant daydream. Harry was sitting in his chair, backrest forward, with Mordin standing on his right, and Shepard on his left.

"What have you done to her?" Shepard asked, waving a hand in front of Kenson's face. She didn't react in the slightest.

"I gave her a truth serum," Harry said, puffing on his cigarette. "It's a little recipe I picked up from back home. Puts the subject into a sort of dream state, open to answering any and all questions with the truth. Observe. Kenson, when did you lose your virginity?"

"In the Alliance Academy when I was eighteen," Kenson said, not even blushing at answering such an embarrassing question.

"See? Now, Kenson, if you're indoctrinated, why did you tell us about the Project to stop the Reapers?"

"Shepard is special. She has been touched by them, yet they cannot pierce her mind," Kenson spoke in a monotone voice. "She interests them. They want her alive for study."

"Fancy that," Harry said, giving Shepard a look of interest.

"Did you have any plans on actually activating the Project?" Shepard asked, ignoring Harry's look.

"No. It was all a show. We had to make it real for Admiral Hackett to avoid suspicion. We were supposed to be just a few seconds to late. My capture and subsequent rescue was just a happy accident."

"And how did you become indoctrinated? How did you find out about the invasion?"

"We call it Object Rho, a Reaper artifact we discovered among the asteroids near the relay itself," Kenson said. "I touched it, and it showed me a vision. After that, the path was clear to me."

"Where is this Object Rho?" Harry cut in.

"It is in Project Base, an installation built on the asteroid 157-Golgotha in the Bahak system."

"That's closeby," Shepard said, glancing at Harry. "Do we have time?"

"Yeah, my plan isn't too hard to put into action," the scientist said, nodding. "We can stop by for a quick visit on the asteroid."

"Is everyone at the Project Base indoctrinated?" Shepard asked Kenson, who nodded.

"Yes."

"Will they turn violent if we show up?"

"If you show any intention of interfering with the invasion, then yes, they will be hostile."

Harry took out a syringe from a case on his desk and stuck it into Kenson's neck, pushing the plunger and injecting her with the contents. Seconds later, Kenson's eyes closed and her head dropped, fast asleep.

"That should keep her unconscious until we can hand her over to the Alliance."

"So, plan is...?" Mordin asked, glancing at Harry.

"I'm thinking we can connect the Normandy's stealth drive to the mass relay and activate it just before the Reapers plan to invade. It will hide its energy signature and make it look as though it isn't there," Harry said, puffing on his cigarette. "It will neither send nor receive signals. It will be completely hidden for as long as we remain in stealth mode."

"Fascinating idea. Very simple, minimal risk. Have the power," Mordin mused, rubbing his chin. "Recommend allowing for an hour before and after invasion deadline. No need to take unnecessary risks."

"Agreed," Harry said, nodding in agreement. "So, we're setting a course for the asteroid?"

"I'll go tell Joker," Shepard said, but stopped when EDI's voice sounded through the lab.

"I apologize, but I couldn't help but listen in. I have already informed Mr. Moreau of our destination. He has already plotted the course. Estimated time of arrival is ten minutes."

"Oh," Shepard spoke, blinking. Usually she had to issue orders from the cockpit or galaxy map, so this was a strange feeling. "Thank you, EDI."

"You're welcome, Shepard."

It was approximately twelve minutes later that Harry, Shepard, and Frank were beamed into a hangar bay inside a research station built on an asteroid in the Bahak system. The interior looked like something Cerberus would build, sleek and clean, the polar opposite of the prison they had visited earlier, only instead of Cerberus' preferred color scheme of white, black, and orange, this base stuck with mostly white, with blue horizontal lines painted on the walls.

Above the doorway leading into the rest of the base, there was a timer that was constantly counting down. It was currently showing '02:03:25:26.' Two days, three hours, twenty-five minutes, and twenty-six seconds.

"I guess we have plenty of time," Harry mused as he looked to Frank. "Watch our backs. Anyone so much as reached for a gun..."

"Termination with extreme prejudice," Frank finished for him, sounding gleeful as always at the thought of violence.

"Right, I guess we're gonna follow your eye?" Shepard asked Harry, who nodded as he closed his left eye and took a good look at the base with his scanner, his hand raising to point at the floor to their left.

"Yeah, there are some incredible energy readings coming from that direction, all concentrated in one spot. I see the same indoctrination signals originating from... seventy-eight people in here. All the people on the base, like Kenson said."

"You can really see that?" Shepard asked as they walked through the doorway.

"Yeah, like I said, it leaves a specific energy signature on the frontal lobe. If you know what to look for, it's not hard to find. I'll give EDI the signature later so she'll know what to scan for."

Strangely enough, the corridors were ominously empty as the trio walked through the base. Harry's scanner picked up the signals actively moving away from them as they approached, as though they wanted them to come...

"I don't like this..." Shepard muttered, her assault rifle at the ready.

"Yeah, it's like the artifact wants us to come," Harry agreed, lighting a cigarette. He maintained a calm look, but he was a bit unnerved. There was this feeling in the air, the artifact's energy, that made his skin crawl. Like it was trying to drill its way into his brain or something.

"Master, I am... feeling strange," Frank said from behind them. "Perhaps this is the infamous indoctrination we have heard so much about? It is trying to rewrite my primary functions."

"Are you alright, Frank?" Harry asked, looking over his shoulder at his AI with a look of concern on his face, something Shepard was incredibly surprised to see.

"I am perfectly capable of defending myself against it. After all, this is not the first time someone has tried to reprogram me, master, but I must admit, it is a refreshing challenge."

Leave it to Frank to be happy about someone attempting to brainwash him...

"I'm feeling a bit wonky..." Shepard muttered, which made Harry give an impressed smile as his ears twitched.

"Huh... Infrasound," he said to himself, but which Shepard heard and made her look at him as they stepped into an elevator.

"What?"

"It seems to be one of the ways this thing is broadcasting. Infrasound, and... Hm, that's odd..."

When Harry seemed puzzled, that was a bad sign. Shepard had only known him for a short while, but well enough to know that he was very knowledgeable in these matters, so when he furrowed his brow and rubbed his chin, it couldn't mean anything good.

"What's odd?" Shepard asked, not really knowing if she wanted an answer to the question.

"It's... broadcasting a signal... I can't recognize it. It's on a completely different spectrum than I'm used to. Frank, your thoughts?"

"I agree, master, I haven't seen anything like it," Frank said, tilting his head to the side slightly. "Though if I were to guess, it is very similar to a quantum entanglement communicator, only... There is no set point? I require a moment to process this data."

"Yeah, this is more advanced than a QEC," Harry agreed, nodding. "I can only guess it's a signal that reaches into Reaper territory in dark space."

"That's bad, right?" Shepard asked, but Harry shook his head.

"No, it's a good thing, actually. If it's sentient, then we can convince it that we intend to destroy the mass relay. It will make it easier for the Reapers to buy our ruse."

The elevator came to a stop, and they stepped out, continuing to follow the energy signature.

Eventually, the trio stepped into a large room with a ceiling like a dome. In the very center of the room was what could only be Object Rho. It was a large artifact made of the same purple metal as a Reaper, and it was shaped sort of like an open tulip, only with many more, slimmer petals. In the center of the artifact, an ice-blue energy was being emitted.

Shepard felt strangely drawn to it. She made to take a step forward, but was stopped when Harry put a hand on her shoulder, an unusually serious expression on his face.

"It's trying to indoctrinate you," he told her. "Don't give in. Let's just destroy it, and then get to work blowing up the relay."

Any proof they needed that Rho was sentient was given when it seemed to respond to Harry's statement. The energy in its center started glowing brightly, and then it expelled a massive amount of energy in a radius that knocked both Harry and Shepard off their feet. There was a chain reaction to this. Frank gave off a garbled sound upon being hit by the energy, and his current body exploded into tiny pieces, while Harry's scanner, along with his right eye, exploded as well, making him cry out in pain.

Meanwhile, Shepard's mind was assaulted with hundreds of images. Reapers in dark space heading for the Milky Way galaxy, hundreds of planets on fire, destruction everywhere... So much suffering would be brought by a Reaper invasion...

"...pard? Shepard!"

Shepard was brought back to the land of the living by the voice, and someone was shaking her. Her eyes opened to see Harry, the right side of his face bloodied and torn, his right eye gone, staring down at her in concern.

"Shepard, can you hear me?" he asked, and Shepard had to admit that she felt flattered at the emotion she heard in his voice. She didn't think he was even capable of it. Naturally, Shepard responded to his question in her own unique way, raising her hand to press it against her forehead.

"Ooh, that's not a headache that'll go away anytime soon..." she muttered, which made Harry give a small laugh as he helped her to her feet. There was no mistaking it. There was relief hidden somewhere in that laugh.

"Had me worried there for a second," he told her. "That energy output was intense. This is our chance, now that it's charging back up. I'll be planting an explosive. You cover the door, alright? People will probably come swarming in to protect it."

"Right..." Shepard said, picking up her assault rifle and shaking her head to clear it.

That vision had been intense. Like, really intense. She could almost still feel the pain every person she saw in there experienced, and it was almost tearing her up inside. But the mission came first. She could contemplate this and brood in private once this was all over.

Harry's PAD had thankfully not exploded from the energy overload, so while Shepard covered the door, which soon hissed opened and revealed several armed people trying to take them down, Harry removed several keron blocks attached to it, putting them together to make a bomb powerful enough to take out at least the base. Though since Harry was such a fan of overkill, the destruction of the asteroid was guaranteed.

"Are you done yet?!" Shepard yelled from behind cover as she took down three more enemies.

"Just about," Harry informed her, standing up from behind his own cover to throw the bomb at the artifact. The bomb attached to it like a magnet, and Harry immediately raised his PAD to his mouth. "Aceso, take us out."

With that, the two disappeared in a flash of white light.

Shepard had to admit that watching that asteroid explode with a massive ring of blue energy expanding from it, as though it had cleaved the rock in half, from the cockpit of the Normandy was quite the sight to behold. She glanced at Harry, who was grunting now and then as the skin around his eye healed.

"I'm sorry about Frank," she told him sincerely, but he waved her off.

"Frank always makes backups of himself before he goes on missions. It was just a body that was destroyed, not the mind." He paused for a second, then gave her a small smile. "But thanks for the sympathy. It's appreciated. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go right ahead and make myself another eyeball."

With that, Harry stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked away, as though it was just another day on the job.

–

Right, chapter end! Thankfully I could squeeze the DLC into a single chapter. I won't apologize for rushing it, since I hate that part of the game, but I'd like to apologize to you if it felt like I skipped some important points in it. However you felt about it, please tell me in a review to keep my inspiration flowing. Praise or criticism, I don't care, as long as it's honest!

Peace!