Chapter 55: The Game Turned on its Ear
Don't panic.
Shepard willed herself to take slow deep breaths. She forcefully ordered her mind to take control over her hurried emotions.
The Game may have been turned on its ear completely disorienting the Commander for a bit making her feel as if she had been spaced - spinning around and around trying to gain a sense of control. Thing is when you are in null gravity directions are whatever you conceive them to be.
Find your centre...Shepard. Come on get with it. Don't arm them any more than they are already. Her hand went to the back of her neck and rubbed the knots growing and twisting into her shoulders like rebar through concrete.
To an outside eye it appeared as if humanity's first Spectre had just had a trying meeting with their Councilor. A typical reaction in any warrior after having to converse with governmental officials. Inside Shepard was a storm of riotous emotions.
Why hadn't Anderson told her?
Hell why hadn't Hackett? Surely he knew what was happening. Circles upon circles her mind raced endlessly like a serpent eating its own tail. How could Udina-who made playing a son-of-a-bitch a point of pride, be called back into service? How could his betrayals be swept under the rug? How could his crimes be so ignored? Shepard closed her eyes forcing sense to reassert itself.
Find your centre.
Her centre...since Sam had Liara in her life; her beloved had become her centre of calm. Liara! In her rage it had been Liara's voice she had heard filtering into her mind, stilling the firestorm. Over the great black void of the galaxy her wife's voice had carried on the shoals of stardust until it touched her soul. Had it been real or imagined? Did it really matter? The effects were the same.
The rage stilled. Rage was something she could not afford. Hell it was one of the five qualities Sun Tzu warned were dangerous to the character of a general.
If reckless, he can be killed.
If cowardly, captured.
If quick-tempered you can make a fool of him.
If he has too delicate a sense of honour you can calumniate him.
If he is of a compassionate nature you can harass him.
These five traits of character were serious faults in a general and in military operations proved calamitous. If allowed to wash over her, they would become the ruin of Shepard's crew and her inevitable death whether it be figurative or literal, TIMmy would have his Lazarus Project.
Not going to happen.
If there was one thing Shepard knew how to do it was to think her way out of a corner. Okay so Anderson was gone, Udina was back in play. And several key players were removed from the board. Seemingly important pieces...yet still pawns... Executor Pallin but why? Bailey was as much of a pawn as the old turian had been. It wasn't career ambition that drove Bailey to take control over C-Sec. It was something else. Udina needed Bailey here he was, no...not Udina. TIMmy.
And of course one of the very key pieces on the board.
Huerta President of the North American States had been removed from office and thus the Great Game, after suffering a major stroke. Another piece gone. Huerta was legally brain dead and kept in cryocool for an hour and a half, his brain functions had been transferred to a computer. The amount of memory degradation was never fully revealed.
The line of succession should have been transferred to Vice President and Speaker of the House Lisa Ford as soon as Huerta had been declared in critical condition. She now held the office after a heated battle in the Supreme Court. Of course the Systems Alliance was led by Prime Minister Amul Shastri; it was he who accepted Shepard's endorsement for Anderson taking the office of Councilor as had President Huerta. The former President's body now controlled by an AI was deemed unfit to hold office. Not that Shepard disagreed but the timing was so very strange. A stroke, brain death just after he had reinstated Donnel Udina to the office of Ambassador. That was no coincidence. It couldn't be.
Shepard couldn't help but repress a shudder. Huerta hadn't been the only one to be decreed dead whilst on the table. The only difference was Shepard hadn't been exactly brain dead—her mind preserved by the tether of Liara's mind via the Joining, her body kept alive not by computers but by her beloved's own nervous systems.
Shepard still possessed her own mind, even if there were some doubts on that account held not only by some of the Alliance Military Brass but by the very man now sitting in the Councillor's office.
But how had a disgraced diplomat climbed back from the gutter to be reinstated Ambassador and then Councillor? It would take a hell of a lot of spin-doctoring. And who else to spin the tale then ANN's own Khalisah Al-Jilani (After the incident surrounding the assassination attempt on Dr. T'Soni, Al-Jilani left her former employer for better prospects.) and Robin Lasky of Westerland News – give them the story and let them run with it. The latter being an advocate for Cerberus. It was Lasky not Al-Jilani who spoke out on the ousting of one dirty cop (or allegedly): Executor Pallin. The media was all over it like flies. Al-Jilani ran with how marvelous that the Citadel Security were finally accepting humans as equals.
Shepard's feet carried her into the Spectre's office; she needed answers not speculations and supposition. Pallin and Anderson both removed from office just after coordinating a task force to go after Cerberus. TIMmy had his fingers in deep on this one. Right now however all that wasn't the pressing issue despite how prominent it had taken siege in the young Spectre's mind. She decided to download the relevant files from the database concerning both cases to read at length when she returned to the Normandy.
The scanners took her biometric readings which allowed her access to the Council files. Here she not only acquired the files on Anderson / Udina and Bailey / Pallin but as well as data files on Ambassador Oriana. Anderson couldn't trust the humans within the Alliance Consulate anymore than he could trust anyone in the top Brass with the mission parameters. Of course he had turned to the turians.
After all they had been the ones who co-developed the Normandy SR1. They had an invested interest. They were also soldiers Anderson believed he knew or at least their code of contact. It was not simply because the newly minted Admiral fought against the turians in the First Contact War but because the turians' ardent adherence to protocol and regulations. The avianoids also had a serious grudge against Cerberus. Not to say the other alien species within Council Space didn't. The STG and the Asari Republics were not his type of military action who relied on subtlety, covert action and assassinations to get things done.
And to be completely honest Anderson was happier in the dress blues or even a grubby muck covered BDU or a scratched up hardsuit then he was in designer suits. Anderson was a frontlines kind of leader, one who commanded within the trenches and charged forth with his people, Shepard understood that completely. And yes more likely the Alliance was better served by a politician that thoroughly understood the Great Game and more than that enjoyed playing it. That wasn't Anderson. Ask him to hold the line on any battlefield, to take that hill or to neutralize the enemy camp and he'd do it without reserve or fail.
But Udina? Obviously he was placed with a purpose, TIMmy needed Udina, needed him here, he needed Pallin out of the way because he was so much by the rules sort of guy the old turian might as well be an AI. Bailey was clean but not too clean. Like the old copper said there was a difference between a dirty cop and a cop willing to get his hands dirty.
Bailey was a controllable element, because of something the old beat cop would do or would not to or more probably both. TIMmy knew how to play people, get under their skin. Make them react….
He certainly knew how to push the Spectre's buttons. Shepard reacted exactly how The Illusive Man knew she would. Violently. And it was now on digital record: Shepard pointing a gun and the Councilor, threatening him with biotics. With those images Udina or TIMmy could manipulate them to show anything they wanted, fabricate a whole new narrative.
After downloading copies of transcripts, CCTV footage and data-logs Shepard turned her focus on the more immediate issues, one that was now going to be far more problematic
She had a hot dirty bomb to deal with on account of Maelon and the shit he pulled down on Tuchanka. Convincing the Council to not to intercede in Wrex's plans to unify Tuchanka just went from mildly improbable to fucking impossible. Good thing Shepard didn't believe in that word.
But it sure as hell made things far more difficult. Time to regroup, reassess and revaluate then...plan accordingly. Slender fingers raked through jet black hair. Once more Sun Tzu's words came back to her; the voice that quoted them belonged to Samara.
When you have reached the end of the road, then you can decide whether to go to the left or to the right, to fire or to water. If you make those decisions before you have even set foot upon the road, it will take you no where... except to a bad end.
She radioed both Mordin and Samara and gave them a report on the situation thus far, then asked for them to meet her at the Diplomat's Lounge within the Embassies. There she would answer their questions as best as she was able with what intelligence she held and a revitalized initiative.
After the call to them Shepard radioed another. She had to. She wouldn't test Miranda's loyalties so soon but there questions that needed answers. Perhaps going to the source might yield a few of them. Of course they would be distorted with half-truths and out right lies and hyperbole. Things always were coming from The Man. Even still it was worth making the attempt to ferret out any information.
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"This will complicate many things." Samara said noting the obvious as the three of them took seats in one of the back booths of the lounge. "If we progress with the original plan of confronting Councilor Velarn with what the STG did on Tuchanka, Udina will not support any of our allegations, despite the hard proof within our possession."
"On the surface he'll put on a show of backing us. He'll have to if he wants to save face. He'll have too. And he'll use this to his full advantage however he can." Shepard agreed. "Thing is, I didn't actually tell him about what happened on Tuchanka so he'll be as blindsided as the others. Once we present the case he'll have a political shit-storm to contend with." An evil smile graced the Spectre's lips. "And we all know how well he copes with those. His favorite pet peeve, especially coming from me or Anderson."
"You intend to distract him with putting out these fires." Mordin concluded. "Good move. Will not see it coming. Almost worthy of STG."
Shepard smiled at the almost complement. "While he's chewing on that we go as planned. The Council needs to give Wrex time. But we lay it all out. We make a case for Wrex's plans by telling the Council the truth, that Ol' Wrexy denied the chance to cure the genophage, due to the moral grounds. We have to play that card hard, keep at it. If Anderson was still there I could use the strategic point of krogan allies when the Reaper War comes." Shepard shook her head." But that option is off the table."
Samara frowned a little. "That would not have been advisable course of action regardless, Commander. I know my people's Councilor well enough to know that would not persuade her. Tevos would have stated that the asari have gone down that road before and therefore she would not ally to our cause. Unlike other races the asari strive to make a very clear point of not repeating the mistakes of the past. As a long lived species this is a paramount philosophy of the asari. In this case press ganging the krogan warriors into battle against insurmountable odds on the pretence of an alliance with them."
"The Rachni Wars that lead to the Krogan Rebellions." Shepard said. "That cloud will color everything. Seems that all available choices are going to be bad." It wasn't fatalism that caused her to admit those words but realism.
Samara appraised the young human not so much as a friend but as a young huntress under her teachings. It had been four centuries since she had taken to teach another young mind. The last time had been when...she still had all thee of her daughters with her and her bondmate had been amongst the living.
Shepard was caught in the grip of circumstances beyond her control. Yet she'd have to do something, whatever she did would be wrong, and she would have to live with the consequences. Sometimes the problem is not choosing bad alternatives, but that there is really no choice: the passage is not a passage through but a passage down into hell and you are sucked into it, with no other way out.
Samara knew at this moment Shepard felt paralyzed, frozen as she faced an abyss. Impossible choices. No choice. And sometimes profound choices she didn't know she had made. With Udina in office, Shepard felt beaten, oppressed, struck and she didn't see that she brought the state on herself, that she actually chose it. Only when she finally recognized that she had made a choice, and took responsibility for that, she'd feel free.
Samara knew this all too well, she had not been free until she had put an end to the monster Morinth was and gave her daughter Mirala to the stars. For four hundred years Samara had taken responsibility acted upon herself to answer for Morinth and hunted her down. It hadn't been easy for her, just as it wasn't easy for Shepard now. Enemies flanking on all sides and they were not even the Collectors or their masters the Reapers.
Their passion for justice served both women well in one way: it made them fierce and unrelenting in the service of duty. But it also worn them out, discouraged them sometimes, and often given rise to strong anger that badly affected their physical and psychological well-being.
Samara found peace in her meditations, her mind became focused, sharper—centred. Even without reading the younger woman's aura Samara knew at a glance that Shepard's mind was anything but centred. Then again how could it be?
"It will do yes." Samara said agreeing with Shepard's comment about the tainted history with the krogan. "Perhaps it is best that it do so, one cannot fight the flood. It is relentless and unbinding the only thing to do is to take to higher ground."
"Proceed with your argument." Mordin agreed. "Logic and calculation will be their arguments. Must use the same weapon if you wish to divert this flood. Councillor Valern is a reasonable man. Wouldn't be sitting on the Council if he weren't. Point out the viability of a unified krogan nation. Also might point out if the krogan are distracted with strictly internal restructuring and politicking, they are not causing trouble for everyone else."
"Only I think that should come from you. Valern will listen and I suspect Sparatus will take it into concentration if the man actually responsible for coming up with the altered genophage spoke in favour of the unification of Tuchanka and what Wrex and the female clan chiefs are attempting to do.
"Perhaps show them some of the ..." the Spectre paused she almost said some of the humanity he had found whilst in the hospital but she stopped short and used another turn of phrase, "some of the enlightenment you found in that hospital, might bring Tevos around. At least enough to agree to a non-interference policy. That's the best we can hope for."
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Back on the Normandy Miranda made a call using the ship's Quantum Entanglement Communications' hub. She had after-all a part to play.
It didn't take long before she had a response from The Illusive Man. Even looking at the hologram of the man she once idolized made her skin itch. She suppressed the urge to itch her collarbone.
"So how far are you planning to take this?" Miranda spoke without salutation or preamble. She had to confront both the conditioning and The Illusive Man's machinations.
"Will I take what?" TIM drawled. He took a drag from his almost constantly lit cigarette.
"Don't play the innocent card with me sir. It insults us both. But you want me to spell it out, regardless don't you. Very well. Aggravate the situation. Udina? And now this thing with Bailey in command of C-Sec. He isn't even one of ours." Miranda's voice became accusatory. "I want to understand what you can gain from her fall? She won't be a martyr, I told you they won't trust us, follow us, we need her but we need them to trust and follow her!"
Another puff on the cigarette and a deep sip from the brandy conveyed an air of nonchalance. It was the same drawn out tactic The Man used on Shepard. A psychological play misdirection meant to exasperate the opponent causing them to act with emotion rather than a more level calculative mind.
"Then you already know the necessity of continuing the escalation of the situation," he said placing the sweating glass down on the small indent on his chair.
Miranda practically snarled "Shepard saving Horizon definitely helped spread our cause, I'll give you that. But now whose hero is Shepard? Whose heroes are we? The Citizens of Council Space? I don't think so.
"At best we gave humanity a boost but with Messner being outed at Fehl Prime, named for allying himself and Cerberus with the Collector attacks made us into the terrorists the rest of the galaxy thinks we are. Any credibility Shepard had she is losing." Miranda stared at the projected hologram hard as if to burrow her gaze into the non-existent soul of the man before her.
"It's why Williams said we were responsible for the Collector attack during that confrontation on Horizon. You set us up in that Collector ship! Any sacrifice, any good Shepard has done for non-humans is already being forgotten." She continued.
"The important thing isn't her legacy, but rather to bring about what is happening now, wouldn't one be compelled to agree is an extraordinary and clever objective?" came The Illusive Man's response.
"I can't deny that. But that doesn't make it right. The ideology of Cerberus is losing its matrix. From the outside sir, it has the appearance of being dominated by an individualist who is controlled by the desire to break free from his severe inferiority complex. You'll never convince anyone by forcing your personal beliefs onto others. It doesn't matter if your intentions are good or not. Unless you've got some firm unshakable conviction, you'll never be worthy of being called a genius or a hero."
"Those are Shepard's words." The Man growled before mocking his protégée. "You parrot them well."
"Maybe. But there's another factor."
"Oh? And what is that?"
"Luck." Miranda said. Then cursed herself inwardly realizing that she found her hand absentmindedly scratching that spot on her shoulder.
"You can't be serious!"
Miranda had to play the esoteric card rather than philosophy if she were to gain any headway with her mentor. In many ways he was still her 'master.' Which meant there was a certain amount of control he still possessed over her, but it also meant that Miranda knew which of his buttons to push to make him reactionary.
Using Zen or further still quasi-asari philosophical debates and bold psychological profiling was one of them. She almost smiled when she proclaimed,
"When you come down to it, geniuses and heroes are basically dependent on a third party's opinion, on their point of view. To convince people that someone is truly a hero, firstly you need a response from onlookers. And it is the substance of that response that will either raise the hero to great heights or cast her down to the ground. It depends entirely on luck." She watched. Waited.
"Interesting hypothesis you've got there. Is it yours or is it still Shepard's?" he took a long sip of his brandy to feign disinterest but Miranda knew he was anything but.
"Yours." and there was a smirk to her lips this time. "The motive behind Project Caesar. There is one other thing; it's a part of this situation. It's about the X-factor that's involved in all of this"
The cold silent glower was all the response she gained on the other end of the holographic communiqué. And so Miranda pushed on.
"Shepard has not truly followed any of your percepts. She took the SR2 as you said she would, took me and Chambers yes, rushed to Horizon and infiltrated a few of our ground based operations all as I am sure you predicted. But then she seized bodies and capsules from Horizon and handed them over to the science team she amassed when she was Captain of the Victory not directly to the Alliance. Those the Alliance has now came from Williams.
"But even that leaves questions. Was it just a fluke or something that was planned from the very beginning for the Council to give and take the Victory away from Shepard after she assembled her chosen crew to find and develop the means to stop the Reapers? Of course no one could have predicted that she'd make a successful First Contact with the Beings of Light, a species long thought as ancient alien fairytales. Another x-factor."
The Illusive Man seemed to take a pause. After inhaling a near meditative drag of his nearly finished cigarette he said, "There is an x-factor at work here, I'll admit. But one can't help but see Shepard's actions as having the effect of contributing to the cause of her expulsion from the Spectres and any Alliance allies.
"For a moment let's consider the situation at hand. The actions taken by the Council and the Alliance may have differed from the Caesar Operation but the result is the same. Or maybe I actually foresaw the possibility for the chain of events and created this little x-factor."
Miranda shook her head. "The national networks carried the story that she wanted her Normandy back so fiercely she demanded the change of the Victory's IDC, though I know this not be true. It was the furthest thing she desired. Then she flies in with a stolen Cerberus ship the SR2 and christened it the true Normandy and the wavecrest retain its former name.
"She had lost great popularity with such actions even if the first name change was forced upon her by the Council. I'd almost swear you and the Council came up with desecrating her reputation and standing together. More than that I'd say are you two now mimicking each other's actions- imitating each other."
"What do you mean by that?" once more a microscopic sneer flashed on The Illusive Man's face before it disappeared.
Miranda tilted her had forgetting for a moment to monitor her tell of emotional discord. "Shepard is dedicated, loyal to her beliefs and oaths she's sworn. Yet despite all that she's besieged on two fronts by those who want to see her power falter and sway under their control or yours. She is not obedient to you, not subservient. I'd say she is even openly defiant. When she heeds your words and goes with your information you almost punish her for doing so. She shows deference to the Council, to the Alliance and yet in her sublimation to their orders, she is again almost penalized for it.
"Both you and the Council it seems want her to rebel, to be seen as the outcast—not to rebuild her in their image but to leave her broken. Both of you rely on her prowess; her abilities to complete the mission before her.
"Yet she's laying low with the public with the media trying to find something that will let her turn the tables. Or on the contrary by keeping quiet isn't it actually Shepard who's drawn the trump card that she can control the situation? She started out as nothing more than an unknown variable, so if it turns out she's the real genius not just a hero, isn't it possible that the Council and even you actually became a mere copycat of Shepard somewhere along the line? That obsession could be their undoing or yours?"
Miranda watched. Waited. She knew she hit to the marrow of her mentor's carefully erected mental defenses with the esoteric gambit. She had learned after all at the feet of one of the best manipulators and players of the Great Game for some time. Perhaps it was time for the pupil to turn on the master.
"My what a fascinating tale. Sounds like you've been drinking Shepard's Kool-aid." The Illusive Man scoffed.
"No. I'm opening my eyes." Miranda countered. "I know what we need to save all us from the Reapers is Shepard's leadership. She's a true prodigy of leadership. I once said we couldn't lose her. You ordered me to ensure we didn't. Next to her, Project Caesar doesn't seem all that impressive. Creating a means to manipulate public opinion to turn her into one of us…isn't genius. It isn't brilliant. And it's backfiring."
"Are you implying you had no part in this?" The Illusive Man baited the woman before him.
"I'm not saying that at all" The hologram blinked as Miranda shook her head.
"Then what are you saying?"
"The fabrication of a mediator who will give rise to copycats. That topic is part of your first manifesto, sir or have you forgotten? Society naturally has the tendency to create situations like this. Makes it easy for them to be triggered. After all, history was written for the most part by those with power, they are the ones that programmed things like folktales, myths and legends. Things Shepard has now become.
"So much so there are now cartoons of her exploits real and fictional, graphic novels, toys even costumes for cos-play both for children and adults. Posters and holos and hell even tea-cups. On top of that illegal VIs with her image in their matrix. She's become a modern day super-hero.
"Yes perhaps a great deal of that is because of the Project Caesar. But Project Lazarus will not play out your way, sir. Not because of her greatness, but because of yours."
The once unflappable Loyalist drew in a breath before she spoke as if to steady her resolve to say what she had been thinking over quite some time. Since Horizon. When she did speak her voice was filled with more than mere belief. It was filled with unshakable conviction. She had to continue to push.
"In that world of heroic fantasy oblivious to anyone, there is a megalomaniac whose been feeding his obsessions. Eventually, he wanted to create a hero who was greater than himself. You need her to be your enemy so you can rise to greatness. You need her to challenge you on every front, because you thrive on that challenge, the challenge to direct her path,-to set the board. If she falls so do you. You can't let that happen."
Ice surrounded the holographic image of The Illusive Man. "I almost could say I am proud of what you've become, Miranda. You may have seen much but even if all you say is true, you will surely see that the Lazarus Project will be successful. As much as you think I need Shepard, she needs me.
"As a resource and as a nemesis. Super heroes can not be legends if there is not great force to oppose them. And people are very fickle. They need their legends to be near flawless, to rise to higher standards than they themselves live, when they do not the mob rises and becomes angry. When she fails the ideal she will burn. But not before her usefulness is finished.
"Continue to drink her Kool-aid Miranda if it pleases you. Just make sure she reaches the Omega Four Relay that she destroys the Collectors. And will you kindly remember this…" he smirked as he took a drag on the last remnants of his cigarette, "the tech the Collectors posses will be the only means by which we win this war with the Reapers. It must be preserved."
There was no sighing off, no other words were spoken; the holographic projection suddenly went dark. The Illusive Man had said all that needed to be said.