The day after Hackett's call, Shepard was on board the Kodiak shuttle heading for Illium. Ashley was sitting next to him. They were in the middle of a call with Liara T'Soni. An asari and former archeologist, she was a former squad mate of Shepard's and one of his closest friends. Unknown to all but a few, Shepard among the few, she worked as the Shadow Broker. The Shadow Broker was the name given to an enigmatic and powerful information broker. Shepard had helped Liara take down the previous Shadow Broker after the broker was revealed to be working with the Collectors. Liara took over the position to use the broker's resources in the fight against the Reapers. She now served as Shepard's most trusted source of information for his Spectre missions.
"What are we looking for here Liara?" Shepard asked.
"A turian merchant named Illo Corin," Liara replied, "I've been tracking Balak's finances from the last few days and have found that he made a purchase from Corin's shop on Illium. I haven't been able to find out what Balak purchased specifically because the transaction records only show the money. I'm guessing the merchandise is something illegal and Corin wants to keep it hidden. If we're going to have any chance of figuring out what Balak is planning, we need to find out what Corin sold him."
"I doubt we can just walk up to him and ask what kind of stuff he carries," Ashley said.
"Exactly. You don't have to worry though. I went ahead and recruited an expert who can help you."
"What kind of expert?" Shepard asked.
Before Liara could answer, Lieutenant Steve Cortez, Shepard's shuttle pilot, called out from his seat at the front of the shuttle.
"Captain," he said, "we are about to touch down on Illium."
"Copy that Lieutenant," Shepard responded.
"The expert will meet you once you're on the ground," Liara continued, "she will go over the plan with you then."
"She?"
"Liara out."
Before Shepard could stop her, Liara cut the communication. Ashley sighed.
"Has she always been this vague whenever she gives you information?" she asked.
"Not always," Shepard replied.
After Cortez landed the shuttle, Shepard and Ashley stepped out onto the bustling world of Illium. It had been more than a year since the last time Shepard was on Illium. During his mission against the Collectors, he had to put together a strong team to go on what was more than likely going to be a suicide mission. He came to Illium to recruit two potential squad members. Later he would return to help his XO on that mission, Miranda Lawson. Miranda's father had hired Eclipse mercenaries to abduct her sister who was living on Illium. With Shepard's help, Miranda rescued her sister before that could happen. It was hard to believe what could change in a year.
Illium was one of the elite financial planets. All kinds of deals went down on the planet. Unfortunately not all of them were legal. To some, Illium was like Omega in terms of how laws were regulated. The only difference between the two was Illium at least looked respectable. Now that wasn't the case.
The Reapers didn't spare Illium the destruction it delivered every other planet. It still had an upscale look to it but now was covered with rubble. In spite of this, business seemed to be booming. It reminded Shepard of how people tried to go about their business like there wasn't a war going on. Now people go about their business to forget the war happened.
Shepard and Ashley scanned the crowd looking for the expert but it was no use. Liara only told them the expert was a woman. She didn't give them a name or a description. There were plenty of women in the crowd making it that much difficult. They began to walk around to search the area when suddenly they heard a voice.
"Captain Shepard," the voice said, "enter the password and receive a free gift."
Shepard turned to the source of the voice. It was coming from a galactic news vid screen. There was no face on the screen but Shepard didn't need to see a face to know who it was. He heard that same exact phrase when he recruited master thief Kasumi Goto for the Collector mission. Add that to him recognizing her voice, there was no doubt that it was Kasumi.
"Silence is golden," he said.
"There's an observation deck at your nine o'clock. I'm sitting on one of the benches there," Kasumi replied.
Ashley turned to face towards the observation deck benches. A look of confusion appeared on her face.
"Skipper," she said, "there's no one there."
"She's there," Shepard replied, "she's just using her tactical cloak."
"You know me so well Shep," Kasumi said as she turned off her cloak making her appear to materialize out of thin air. She rose up from the bench she was sitting on and started walking toward Shepard and Ashley.
"Good to see you again Kasumi," Shepard said shaking Kasumi's hand, "you remember Ashley from my party."
"Yes and I believe congratulations are in order. I heard that you two got engaged after the war ended."
"Thank you," Ashley said, "you know I wanted to send you an invitation to the wedding but you're a hard person to locate."
"Sorry about that but I wouldn't last long as a thief if I was easy to find."
"True. Well you can consider yourself invited."
Shepard rolled his eyes. As happy as he was for Kasumi to finally be officially invited to the wedding, he wasn't thrilled with talking about it. He promised Ashley that he would help as much as possible with the wedding planning. A promise he later regretted after the first few weeks. If he had known how much planning was going to be involved, he would never have made the promise. It was obvious to Ashley that Shepard was getting bored with the planning but she never let on. Secretly she enjoyed torturing him. Shepard knew he was going to have to head off this discussion fast otherwise they were never going to get to the mission.
"Okay ladies," interrupted Shepard, "let's save the wedding talk until after the mission is over. If you're our expert Kasumi I'm guessing that this mission is going to require either infiltration, theft or both."
"In this case it's both," Kasumi replied, "but let's go to my hotel before we talk about it more. There are too many eyes and ears around here."
Kasumi led Shepard and Ashley into her room. The hotel was a high class one but the room Kasumi rented was one of their smaller ones. It featured two bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room. She said that to rent a larger room is like sending an open invitation for a thief to come and rob it. Given that Kasumi was a thief she would know what looked inviting to one.
The first thing Shepard noticed when they entered the room was Kasumi's graybox sitting on a desk. The graybox originally belonged to Kasumi's former partner-in-crime and lover Keiji Okuda. After crime lord Donovan Hock killed Keiji, the graybox was all that Kasumi had to remember him by. Shepard was glad the graybox could help Kasumi relive memories of her time with Keiji but secretly he was worried that she might be spending too much time plugged into it. There had been some rumors that the reason grayboxes were illegal in most places was because overusing them could lead to a user losing the ability to discern what was real and what wasn't.
Once everyone was settled, Kasumi pulled out a datapad from a desk drawer. She tapped a few buttons and suddenly a holographic image of warehouse appeared.
"I already did some preliminary casing on Corin," Kasumi began, "I've determined that all of his goods come from his warehouse that he owns on the other side of town. The warehouse is three stories high. The first two stories contain multiple rooms where he keeps his goods. The third story has some office rooms. That is where our target is located. One of those offices is Corin's and he more than likely keeps the records of his transactions on his terminal. Unfortunately the building has all the basic security measures. The building is wired with cameras, tripwires and there are several dozen guards patrolling the building."
Shepard chuckled, "Here I was thinking that you were going to tell us that this was going to be a challenge. Getting the graybox from Hock's mansion was more dangerous than this. Hock had the basic security measures as well as security mechs and a gunship. If anything those were the most difficult things to deal with."
"True," Kasumi continued, "but our problem is not what happens if something goes wrong. Our problem is in this case, there is no room for something to go wrong. Corin's terminal is linked to the warehouse's security system. If any alarm is triggered, a program is launched that will wipe any and all data he has stored on it. This has to be a 100% stealth mission."
"And there's the catch," Shepard sighed.
"Yeah," Ashley said, "we're not exactly known for being discreet."
"That's why Liara asked for my help," Kasumi said, "I am an expert on avoiding detection. However my skills can only cover so many bases. I can take out all the security measures but the guards can trigger the alarm too. That's where you two come in. While I take out the security measures, you will make sure guards don't get a chance to call an alarm."
"Okay," Shepard said, "we know what we have to do. Let's begin our preparations. We hit the warehouse tonight."
As the sun set outside the window, Shepard and Ashley were in one of the bedrooms packing the rest of their combat gear. Kasumi was in the other bedroom gathering up the last of her hacking equipment. Once she was done she headed for Shepard and Ashley's room. Suddenly a voice called out to her.
"Kasumi."
Kasumi froze in her place. She knew that voice anywhere. But how was she hearing it? The person it belonged to was dead. Then it called her again.
"Kasumi."
This time Kasumi turned towards where she thought she heard the voice. Her mouth dropped open. Standing in front of her was Keiji. She quickly reached to her head and found that her graybox display was not up. This was not a graybox image of Keiji she was seeing. Could it actually be Keiji? She started walking towards him.
"Kasumi?"
A different voice called Kasumi's name. She turned and saw that Shepard was standing in the doorway of his room. Quickly glancing back to where she saw Keiji, she saw that he wasn't there anymore.
"Is everything okay?" Shepard asked.
Kasumi didn't answer right away. She was unsure of what to say. Finally she decided that what had just happened was not worth mentioning. She gave a simple nod to indicate she was okay.
"I was just coming to say that I'm ready to go when you are," she said.
"Okay," Shepard replied, "I'll go tell Williams. We move in five."
Shepard went back into the bedroom leaving Kasumi to her thoughts. Keiji was dead. Yet he just appeared in her room. Was she losing her mind? She couldn't be. She knew what she saw. Her eyes have never lied to her before. And yet, she just didn't know.