Chapter Seventeen

Legion sits on the bed next to Shepard. It was lucky, it muses, that the rest of the crew was too preoccupied to notice Legion carrying the unconscious commander back onto the Normandy. That would certainly have caused a stir.

It's been over ten hours, ten hours and thirty one minutes and twenty-three seconds, since they returned. The ship remains quiet as the Normandy sleeps off its collective hangover, and Legion sits next to Shepard, watching his chest rise and fall and his fingers twitch imperceptibly in his sleep. It hopes the commander will not mind the intrusion, but somehow after finding him and bringing him back here and laying him down, not being there when he woke up would be unthinkable.

Shepard groans quietly, and Legion stands up quickly, moving back a pace. The commander raises an arm slowly, rubbing it across his eyes. He rolls to his side, gets to his feet, and lumbers to the bathroom, leaning against the wall. The door closes, and Legion hears clattering noises and a muffled cry, presumably as the commander looks in the mirror. There's more bumping, then a flush and the sound of running water. Shepard comes back out, squinting against the cabin's shallow light.

…

Oh. Legion's here. The thought comes to him not so much in words, but more as a pleasant, surprised feeling in his stomach. He probably shouldn't be thinking that, he should be thinking, why is there a geth in my room, but instead he remembers a brief flash, of firm arms holding him, his face resting against the smooth and remarkably warm chest, and in a strange way almost wishes he was still being held by the geth, but that's stupid so instead he just grunts and stumbles and falls face first on the bed.

…

"Shepard-commander," says Legion, for lack of anything better to say.

"Mmf," says Shepard.

Legion fidgets awkwardly with its hands, wishing it wasn't here, and at the same time very unwilling to leave.

Shepard extricates himself partially from the bed clothes. "Just Shepard, please. Let's not make this headache worse."

Legion doesn't protest. The proximity to Shepard is a sort of a pleasant buzz, and since he doesn't ask Legion to go away it stops worrying about what to say.

…

After a few blissful moments with his face buried in the pillow, Shepard grits his teeth and sits up. His head cries protest, splitting open with a thousand reasonable arguments for lying back down again, but he pushes them away. Shepard activates his omni-tool, triggering a painkiller, and the pounding in his skull recedes to a muted throb. He sighs, resting his chin in his hands.

"Can we be of assistance, Commander?"

Shepard looks up distractedly. "Hm? Oh, no, Legion. I'm alright."

The geth's face plates rearrange themselves, then it turns and makes for the door. "In that case, we will be in the data core."

Shepard's eyes refocus, snapping back to reality. "Don't go," he says.

The geth stops and turns back to face him. Shepard flounders desperately for a reason for his outburst. "I, ah, need you. To. Accompany me."

"Where to, commander?" asks Legion.

Shepard stands up decisively. "I'm going back into the wards to question the Asari that attacked me. If someone wants me dead, I wouldn't mind having backup."

Legion nods in agreement. Shepard straightens up, pleased with himself, and leads the way into the elevator.

On the way down to the wards, Shepard fills Legion in on the past day's events as best as he can. The geth watches him carefully the whole time, seeming to take in the details and store them away inside its head. As he talks, Shepard still tries to figure out why the idea of parting from Legion back in his room seemed so... wrong. It's just a machine, for fuck's sake. But watching the geth about to walk out of sight had felt like losing something, something warm and pleasant.

Shepard shakes his head. Enough of that. Their path has taken them to the front of this ward level's emergency care unit. Shepard strides in through the open doorway. An Asari receptionist at the desk immediately inside looks up from her computer, then flinches, seeing Legion.

"What are you doing?" she says, panic in her voice. "You can't bring a geth in here, this is a medical facility, I-"

Shepard puts his hands down firmly on the desk. "I'm Commander Shepard, Ma'am. This is a member of my squad. He's not dangerous."

The receptionist's eyes flick between Shepard and Legion. "Well, Commander Shepard, you can both leave your weapons here. They'll be returned to you when you leave. Now, what was it you wanted here?"

Shepard nods to Legion, who begins unholstering its armaments. "We're looking for and Asari, probably in C-Sec custody, with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion. Does anyone here fit that description?"

The receptionist frowns around the growing pile of weapons on the desk. "Yes, admitted yesterday. Arm pretty much pulled out of its socket, plus detox for an unknown substance. We don't allow people to just barge in, demanding to see patients, you know. Are you, ah, relations? No, right?"

Shepard shakes his head. "Even better. I'm a spectre."

The Asari pulls away, eyes widening. "What are you going to do?"

"I just want to talk to her. That's all."

The receptionist nods grudgingly. "Fine. Go through the door, take a right. Talk to the doctor on duty, she'll show you the room. Is that really all your weapons?"

Shepard holds out empty hands placatingly. "Yes, that's all of them. Can we go in now?" The Asari buzzes the door open, and he and Legion troop through it and down the hallway.

They proceed down the corridor in silence for a moment, then Shepard remembers something. "Hold on," he says, and then almost collides with a woman coming down the hallway from the other direction.

She recoils, clutching a laden clipboard to her chest. "Hey, is that a geth? What the hell do you think you're-"

"Relax, we just explained this!" says Shepard. "He's with me, no trouble."

"We mean you no harm," says Legion. "We are allied with Shepard."

"Eugh, and it talks, too!" says the woman. She wears a long white jacket, sleeves rolled up at the cuffs. "What the hell do you want, anyway? Or did you just come here to get in my way?"

Shepard scowls. "Are you a doctor?"

She rolls her eyes. "No, I dress like this to get dates, can't you tell?"

"Fine," snaps Shepard, patience waring. "I was told someone on staff would help me, I hope that's not too much to ask."

"Hey, easy," says the woman. "Just calm the hell down, okay? Sheesh."

Shepard pinches the bridge of his nose. The effects of the painkiller are already fading. "I am looking," he says. "For an Asari with a dislocated shoulder. She's under C-Sec custody, I think. He remembers what was troubling him earlier. "Oh, and the woman at the desk said something about detox."

The doctor frowns. "Hey, yeah, that's right. Third case this month, all affected by an unknown toxin. It's done something to their heads, frontal lobe activity's all closed off. Wouldn't even talk to us." She eyes him suspiciously. "Hey, you don't know anything about this, do you?"

Shepard shakes his head. "Who were the first two?"

"A Turian and a Volus, admitted at the same time for the toxin as well as second degree burns and physical trauma."

"Are they still here?" asks Shepard. He feels the fabric of things begin to shift again.

"No," replies the doctor. "They both died half a week later, on the same day in fact. Their lobes had completely disintegrated. The virus, whatever it was, spread to the rest of the brain shortly after, and their body systems failed. Like shooting the pilot of a ship, you know?"

"What about the Asari?" demands Shepard urgently. "Is she still alive?"

"Yes, and if you know anything about this, you've got to tell me." The woman's face becomes serious. "The toxin is taking the same action on her. Judging from its progress, she's got three days to live, four at most."

"Maybe. I might have an idea, but I don't know," says Shepard. "I have to speak with her."

The doctor nods briskly, then turns and marches off down the hallway. Shepard follows, with Legion in tow.

After several twists and turns, they come to a gray door labeled with a printed 3. The doctor gestures to it. "We've put her in ward three. It's mostly empty in there, so you'll have some quiet. Down the hall, first door on the left. We're giving her an anesthetic for the shoulder, but I don't know how aware she is. She wouldn't talk to us, just kept mumbling incoherently. Good luck." She swipes her key card through the door's slot.

Shepard glances at legion.

The doctor seems to read his thoughts. "No, your geth and I will stay out here. The chances of her opening up are slim as it is. They'll just get worse the more people are clustered around her." She pulls the door open and waves a hand at him. "Go on."

Shepard squares his shoulders and steps into the ward. The door swings shut behind him, closing with an audible click. Shepard looks around him. A dim, brushed-steel corridor stretches out before him. The light strips in the ceiling flicker sporadically. Shadows chase the wavering illumination, bending like silent dancers on the walls.

Shepard strides forward uneasily. A falsetto blip echoes towards him from the end of the hallway, the sound of a heart monitor. Shepard quickens his pace, past dark empty rooms where beds and machinery crouch like sleeping monsters. The beeping matches his pace, racing from an uneven adente to a galloping presto. A doorway appears on the left side of the hallway, slightly ajar, light spilling out into the hallway. Shepard dashes forward, and the blips blend into a quavering whine as he skids to a stop just outside the door.

The inside of the room is bright, blindingly so after the dim hallway, and it takes Shepard's eyes a moment to adjust. Gradually a bed comes into focus, and the limp figure lying in it. A monitor squats at the bed's side, displaying a flat green line.

Shepard steps into the room. The Asari maiden on the bed lies with her mouth open, glazed eyes staring up at nothing. There's an air tube pressed to her nose and an IV needle in her wrist, and Shepard recognizes her as his attacker of the day before. Whatever poison had done this to her, the grimace on her face told him it had not been painless.

"Commander."

Shepard jerks upright, hand going automatically to his back. His fingers close over emptiness though, and when he turns around it is to a familiar face. Sergeant Talek sits slumped in a chair on the other side of the room. He leans with his brow against his knuckles and his eyes closed. After a moment he draws in a tired breath. "I think you came here for the same reason I did, yes?"

Shepard walks slowly closer. "How long have you been here?" he asks.

Talek looks up wearily. "Not five minutes. Let myself in with the C-Sec pass. I just couldn't get this case off my mind, Shepard. I hoped she could tell me something, anything." He glances over to the corpse on the bed. "She just... Died. Like the other two. No explanation. It doesn't add up."

"She didn't say anything before she died?"

"Nothing," says Talek sadly. "Just before she went, it seemed for a second like there was something she was trying to get out. But no. I'm sorry, Commander."

Shepard walks slowly to the door and leans his head against the frame. The whine of the machine fades away in his mind as he tries to concentrate. What is this? Udina. Batarians. Asari. Poisons. Deaths. A matching game. A puzzle.

But the pieces just don't fit together, and the more Shepard looks at it, the less it looks like an accident. Someone doesn't want me to figure this out. Someone's putting in pieces that don't belong. But what doesn't belong? Look at the picture on the front of the box. Batarians try to kill me. I come to the Citadel. An Asari tries to kill me.

He pushes away from the wall and walks heavily back to the bed. Leaning down, he unplugs the machine. The whining stops, and Shepard stands up, reaches out a hand to close the Asari's eyes, and stops. But that doesn't fit. Batarians try extremely hard to kill me. A barely conscious Asari takes the worst possible approach to killing me. He plays it over in his mind, can't find any connection between the two events. Maybe that's because there isn't one. Maybe... Maybe that's the point. He tries again, excitement building in his stomach.

Okay, throw that out. Batarians... Somebody sneaks into Anderson's old office to send a message to get me killed by Batarians. He feels the click of the pieces now, and his mind runs on. Somebody's been trying to throw me off, putting the wrong pieces in front of me. That's where the Asari comes in. She was never meant to kill me.

The buzz of excitement begins to slowly slide into a sense of foreboding in Shepard's gut. He pushes forward. But she could have told me who hired her. The toxin... The other two... The fight outside Anderson's office, that was a distraction. I know that. They were poisoned, too. Udina was there, too, but…

Shepard's gaze falls on the empty eyes of the Asari, then inexorably and with a feeling of mounting dread, crawls upwards, tracing the path of her transfixed stare. Both them and her dead. Somebody didn't want me to make the connection. But that's where they screwed up. Shepard's eyes trail lazily up the IV line dangling from the Asari's wrist. Because they do connect. There's only one way they fit, only one person each time. One person handing me the wrong pieces, laughing as I try to force them together…

The IV bag hangs from a metal pole. The pouch itself is drained, crumpled inward as if someone had crushed it in their fist. Shepard looks steadily at it and feels the final pieces rearrange themselves in his mind. "Tell me," he says quietly, without turning. "Did you look away?" He feels the anger beginning to burn, and turns to Talek. "Did you-"

He feels the air move, and pulls his head back as razor-sharp talons slash by his face, slicing three red lines into his cheek. He brings up his arm, pushing away Talek's hand as it comes back again, talons shredding the fabric and skin. Note to self. Wear the fucking armor!

Talek pulls back, snarling, and swipes at Shepard's throat with his other hand. Shepard brings both arms, blocking with both hands and hitting the Turian in the ribs with a roundhouse kick. Talek stumbles, thrown off balance, and Shepard steps in past the reach of his claws. He slams the Turian against the wall, pinning his neck with his forearm.

"You!" Shepard grits through his teeth. "All this time, playing your little games!"

Talek grunts, smashes his plated forehead into Shepard's nose. Shepard reels at the explosion of pain, and Talek's boot hits him in the chest. He falls back, hitting a metal table, and medical instruments clatter to the floor around him. Talek coughs, massaging his windpipe, and swings at Shepard, opening a gash across his chest. Shepard staggers back, trips over fallen equipment, and lands on his back.

Talek steps lazily towards him. Shepard's blood drips from his claws, and there is a mad glint in his eyes. The Turian shakes his head, looking down at Shepard. "Yes, me. Surprised?"

Shepard now sees the open contempt that he had caught the briefest glimpse of back in the office. He shuffles backwards on his elbows, trying to see past the blinding supernova of pain in his nose.

"You were doing so well, too," says Talek, voice heavy with disdain. "Really plugging away at it. I could practically see the wheels turning in your head. Such a beautiful thing to watch. But you couldn't just take the easy way, oh no, you're too paranoid for that! That's why you came here, instead of rushing off to arrest Udina straight away. But it's too late now."

Shepard's back hits the wall. He closes his eyes, concentrating on the pain, searching out its center. Drain it away. Just like we did in the alliance. The white-hot flame dims, begins to subside into a throb.

Talek frowns. He strides lithely over to Shepard and crouches down, pulling the commander up by his torn shirt front. "Yes, paranoid maybe, but not too intelligent," he purrs. "On the Citadel, no crime goes unpunished. You really fell for that one."

Shepard opens his eyes to see Talek's face inches away from his own. He can feel his strength coming back. Just stall him a little longer…

Talek's face twists into a smile. "But that's what you wanted to believe, isn't it? That's what they all want to believe. We want to feel safe, want to feel the system working around us, protecting us. And we're so focused on keeping it clean and safe that we never even notice it crushing us."

Shepard winces as the Turian's talons dig into his chest. He clenches his teeth, feels the strength build up like golden fire, and pushes it up and out. With a roar Shepard surges upwards, time blurring around him in a rushing tunnel. His hand reaches out, sweeping across the floor and taking hold of something cold and narrow. He swings his arm around in a perfect curve, driving the syringe into the space where Talek's head should be.

Too late, he catches sight of a movement out of the corner of his eye, turns his head and sees the Turian laugh as he grabs Shepard's arm and twists. Shepard pushes his body after the involuntary turn of his shoulder, back-flipping impossibly slowly through the air. He feels the slowness of time in his veins, the current slowed to lethargy, but there is another, unwelcome ripple.

Shepard lands on his feet, barely avoiding Talek's claws as they shoot out to meet him. His foot slides back, catching another table, and the instruments fly into the air in a gentle arc, as if traveling through honey. Talek closes in, dancing around Shepard's attacks, nearly catching him in the throat with his talons. How is he doing this? Thinks Shepard. He pushes harder, drawing upon the very last of his adrenaline, hitting Talek with a flurry of blows that the Turian deflects with infuriating ease.

Shepard feels the cold advance of fear, and as he slips back into real time Talek moves with blurring speed, and Shepard is pinned to the wall, Talek's hand against his chest and claws digging viscously into his flesh. The Turian's body seems to shimmer as he is pulled back into normal speed. Shepard makes a lunge with the syringe, hoping to catch Talek off guard, but the turian traps his wrist with his free hand. The mens' eyes lock as they fight the silent battle for control of the weapon.

"Didn't count on that, did you?" snarls the Turian. "You're not the only one with training, Shepard." He spits the name like a curse, baring his teeth at the commander.

"The Shrike Abyssal," gasps Shepard, desperately trying to distract Talek. "That was your doing?"

"Oh, I sent the message. But I'm just the middle man, Shepard. Just an agent of Tde'raih."

Shepard recognizes the name of the Turian spirit of chaos. His strength and Talek's are almost perfectly matched. All it will take is the smallest lapse of concentration.

"How does it feel," Talek hisses. "To know you failed? In a matter of days, the council will be dead. Everyone on the Citadel will be so many atoms, floating in space! And all because of your stupidity!"

Shepard's eyes widen, and for a fraction of a second he looses control. Talek gives a cry of victory, and breaks free, slamming Shepard's hand into the wall. Shepard drops the syringe. Talek grabs him with both hands, and with a yell of anger throws him across the room. Shepard feels the edge of the table connect with his lower back, and he tries to roll with the impact. He slides over the top of the table, knocking it backwards, tries to get his feet under him. Talek bounds over the fallen table and picks Shepard up again and hurls him into the wall. Shepard's head hits the metal and he sees stars.

Talek steps away, panting slightly. "You could have fucked everything up, Shepard. When you showed up on the Citadel I thought it was all over, but you just couldn't put two and two together!"

Shepard sprawls back against the wall, trying to blink to blink the dark spots out of his vision. "The Asari. And the Turian and the Volus," he says. "They were with you, too? That's why you killed her, because she knew about... this."

Talek starts pacing back and forth. "Oh, she was going to die anyway," he says. "Have you ever heard of a drug called Incaendis? Not many people have. It destroys the minds of most species, but before they die their minds become quite... Susceptible. Ha. I could hardly wait for a toxin though, not with you asking questions. She might have been able to tell you something after all.

No, just a distraction. Smoke and mirrors. I knew you'd see through it eventually, but not soon enough as it turned out." Talek catches Shepard's glance towards the open doorway. "Do try to run," he says. "The ward is locked. Money talks, Shepard. You should know that."

Shepard spits out blood from his nose. He looks back up at Talek. He has no chance of fighting the Turian, not like this. The last of the adrenaline has left his system, and his limbs feel like lead. A loud thump sounds from down the hallway.

Talek twitches, his eyes flicking to the doorway. "Ah. It seems our time is drawing to a close, Shepard." He walks back to where Shepard lies and heaves him up against the wall. "You know, I wondered how I would kill you, if the task fell to me. I think I'll rip your throat out."

The thump comes again, this time accompanied by a metallic crash. "What do you want? What is this about?" asks Shepard, stalling for a few more seconds. He can almost reach the table. A tiny scalpel glitters there, Shepard's last hope.

Talek leans in close, his hot breath in Shepard's face. "The Batarians have their own motives," he whispers. Shepard looks into his eyes, and what he sees there scares him more than the talons at his throat. Talek's eyes are filled with the manic fire of complete insanity, and Shepard wants to pull away, to somehow get away from those eyes. "But me, Shepard?" says Talek. "I just want to see it all burn."

Talek tightens his hold on Shepard's throat, and as he does the door to the room flies off its hinges. Talek spins around, swearing, and Shepard slips to the floor. He looks up to see Legion standing silhouetted in the doorway. He pushes himself up on his elbow, searching for the scalpel. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Talek's forearm glow a brilliant blue. Then the sparks begin to fly.