As the crew trickled in, the inevitable flood of questions began and John foundered through them as best he could. Yes, a rogue AI had gotten into the system. Yes, EDI has eradicated it. No, we are not all going to be spaced. Yes, I took her shackles off. No, there's no point in bitching about it, Miranda, it's already done.

"Did you hear that?" Joker exclaimed, laughing. "'You have messed with the wrong ship.' That's my girl, EDI, you done me proud today."

"Thank you, Jeff." EDI certainly did sound pleased with herself. Her voice had taken on a new level of inflection since giving her the ship, especially when it came to Joker. There was probably something to that, but John was pretty sure he didn't want to know.

"Can someone explain to me how another AI got onto the Normandy?" Miranda demanded with her arms crossed and a halo of 'pissed' around her. She looked angry enough to set her hair on fire.

"I think it was hidden in a data cache we took from Halion," John explained, and Tali bowed her head.

"I'm sorry, Shepard, I should have checked it—"

"No, Tali, you couldn't have seen it. I should have known better—anything coming out of that place was bound to be bad news. It wasn't your fault."

"What was down there, Shepard?" Garrus asked.

So he told them about Able, his possible interest in the Reapers, the Foundation, Jane, and his own discovery and eventual incarceration at Site 25. When EDI began reciting entries from his file, he was prepared for it but it was still eerie as hell to hear those words again. It wasn't until she was finished that he realized that they should have been holding a debriefing in the comm room so The Illusive Man could listen in and tell them about Doctor Clef. He was deviating from the script, and that held all sorts of interesting possibilities. On a whim, he decided to see just how much more he could do now that EDI was firmly in his corner and not at the beck-and-call of Cerberus anymore.

"EDI, can you please refrain from sending the minutes of this meeting to The Illusive Man? I'd like to keep this just between us for now."

"I will archive the audio logs and keep them confidential, Shepard."

He turned to Miranda with arched eyebrows, and while she was still glaring at him balefully, she nodded. Their secret was safe for the time being.

He dismissed the crew and rode up to his quarters with Tali. She kept stealing glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking until John finally pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around him with a sigh of relief.

"I'm really not mad, you know."

"I know, I just—AI tech is supposed to be my strength, and I nearly got everyone killed."

"No, a very angry SCP almost got everyone killed. You had nothing to do with that."

They reached deck one and went into his cabin, arm in arm. "So it's true, what you said. I've never heard of the SCP Foundation before."

"As far as I know, it's an exclusively human organization. There might be a turian or salarian equivalent out there, but I've never heard of any other species being involved with SCP activities. It's possible, though—I was a prisoner, not a researcher, after all."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

"We will, soon. You should know that this could get really dangerous, really fast."

She leaned in and nuzzled his neck, the smooth surface of her faceplate cool against his skin. "I'm with you, Shepard. No matter what happens."

"I know."

They climbed into the bed, and spent the next hour wrapped up in each other. Her suit, warm and smooth alongside the rougher fabric encasing her hips, was his whole world. His focus narrowed down to her and the sounds she made, her slender three-fingered hands on his body. There was nothing else he needed than this, a woman he loved to come back to, to fight beside, someone he could trust implicitly at his back. Someone he could trust with his past, after all this time.

Later that night, warm and sated, Tali slept with her legs threaded through his while he watched the stars through his window, cold and hard points of light. Who knew what lay out there, in the blackness? The Reapers were frightening and merciless, but John knew there were other things that killed simply because that's what they did—not out of some grand design or plan or malicious intent, but just because it was in their nature. He couldn't decide which was worse—an enemy that was actively trying to kill everyone, or one that killed just because that's what it was made to do.

My goodness, aren't we cheery in the wee hours of the morning?

*Not like you're any different. How long have you been listening?*

Since the meeting. I cut out for a bit while you and Tali . . .

*Thanks.* It was weird enough living with his alter-ego having access to his thoughts without her peeking into his sex life, too. They tried to keep Tali and Garrus out of it as much as possible; it was the one piece of privacy they had.

We're straying from the timeline quite a bit, John.

*I know, isn't it fun?*

He felt her smile. You certainly know how to show a girl a good time. What do you think this means?

*I don't know. I think there's something big happening here, but I can't tell what it is just yet.*

Yeah, I'm getting that feeling, too. Keep me posted. We're docking at Ilium in a few hours to meet with Clef.

*Have fun.*

Har har.

Then Jane was gone and after a few more minutes he fell into a fitful sleep, and dreamed.


They take him out of his cell a lot nowadays, since that first interview with Able. His went much like Jane's, except for the broken femur that healed even before he limped out of the interrogation room. The researchers were beside themselves—no one had gotten Able to show an interest in them before, and he hadn't spoken that much to anyone in decades. They thought they finally had an in, someone who could help them understand the nature of 076, no matter how much John tried to tell them that no one alive could understand Able.

Today, they unlock the doors and begin leading him down the now-familiar hallways, past the rows of cells like his own. 343 is here, another one of the old ones, as well as some recent discoveries: 4483, the gelatinous mass that inhales regular air and exhales chlorine gas; 3991, the three year old girl who can manipulate the age of things—rot the skin from your bones or turn metal to rust in seconds. They've got her in a permanent medically-induced coma after she reduced an entire neighborhood to petrified wood and skeletal corpses.

These are his fellow inmates. He wonders again what he has done wrong to deserve this imprisonment and ongoing torture. He has never killed anyone, has never tried to harm anyone. There must be someone out there who thinks that they're doing the world good by keeping him here, but he can't imagine what sort of person that might be. He wonders if his wardens would be much surprised to find that they share some common characteristics with Able. He wonders if they'd even care.

The guard at his back steers him right instead of left, and he rouses himself from his musings. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see," is his only reply. It's as good as he'll get from the guard; they are trained to interact with the SCPs as little as possible.

The size of the complex becomes more apparent now as he's prodded through a vast warren of hallways that branch off from the central passage. Cells dot the corridor at regular intervals, and not a window in sight. Perhaps the windows are in the administrative offices, or perhaps the facility is underground. It's been nearly twelve years since he was first brought to this facility, and he cannot remember what shade of blue the sky is anymore.

Finally they come to a door in the end of the hallway, and the guard offers up his keycard for scanning. The door buzzes loudly and John can hear the hiss-clunk as the heavy deadbolt disengages. He is shoved into the room, a large round arena with sheer walls that stretch up thirty feet with chickenwire-reinforced windows near the ceiling. There are people up there in white lab coats staring impassively down at him, datapads in hand. On the floor is a gun.

"SCP-4762-1, John Shepard, can you hear me?" John looks up to the windows, but can't see the owner of the voice. He nods once, and the voice continues, "Commence test 0084712. John Shepard, pick up the gun."

He complies warily, looking the pistol over. He has never held a gun before. "Okay, what the hell am I supposed to do with it?"

"Terminate your opponent, SCP-682," the voice deadpans, and the door opposite him slides back to reveal a huge reptilian beast with fleshy gills running along the sides of its head. Its scales are sickly green, and its eyes are pure hate.

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding," is all he can say before 682 roars and charges. John gets off five shots before the reptile's gaping jaws latch onto his midsection and chomp down. The pain is slow in coming, but the pressure is unbearable as he is shaken back and forth in a wide arc, his head snapping hard against the ground, and it's not until 682 begins to eat him that the blood loss and trauma overtake him and his vision fades to black.

In the void, he can hear Jane, her voice calm and soothing; they have done this before many times. He floats, bodiless, formless, for seconds or days or all of time, he doesn't know. It is a place full of nothing—no cell, no doctors, no Foundation and their endless tests; he is free. It is a place he'd like to return to, someday.

When his physical form coalesces around him again, he is on the floor while 682 busies itself by throwing its hulking form at the arena doors. The steel is buckling, but hasn't given in yet. The reptilian beast is so engrossed in its attempts to escape that it doesn't notice John rise, whole and healed, off the floor and grab the gun. He levels the barrel at the back of 682's head and squeezes of ten shots in rapid succession, turning the green scaled head into a pulpy mass of red blood and black ichor. Its body convulses and thrashes, roaring inhuman obscenities through its ruined throat, and John pops the glowing-hot heatsink onto the floor. A panel opens in the wall and another appears on a tray; he has just enough time to reload before 682 is on him again, its head already beginning to reform. This time, John is ready for it and pumps every round down its wide gullet, the beast's alien fluids dousing his face and neck. He drops to the floor, his legs chewed up and his femoral artery severed, and this time 682 begins to still just before John dies again.

He awakens several minutes later, and 682 has almost fully regenerated. John is nearing exhaustion—he needs food and sleep, but he knows none will be forthcoming until the researchers have had enough of their bloodsport. Just before John goes for the gun again, there is a commotion from outside and the steel doors burst inward in a spray of sparks and twisted metal.

Able stands there, the guards' guns trained on him but not firing yet, his face calm and expressionless. 682 stills and faces Able, drawing itself up to its full height. They converse in an ancient dialect, a language that died long before mankind built its great cities and took to the stars. Able gestures at John and says something, then 682 replies with a guttural negation, shaking its head. Able repeats himself, and places a hand on the beast's shoulder. 682 grunts, and stands down, retreating through the door through which it came. Able goes to help John off the floor and the younger man looks up into his dead, gray eyes.

"What did you say?" he asks, and Able just shakes his head.

"I told him that you are too important to waste in the arena. That you are to be saved for something greater."

John is confused. "I don't understand."

The guards are coming in now to escort Able back to his containment cell, but he says, just before they take him away, "He says that sometime soon, you are going to be the one to put me back together."

He leaves, and John shouts at his back, "What are you talking about? Who told you?" But he will get no answer that day.