Only the faintest of air-flows disrupted the cloud of smoke rising from the cigar held lazily in the Illusive man's hand, the smog almost obscuring the flickering sheets of information hanging ghost like in front of him. Almost, but not quite: it would take far more than just smoke to stop the technology in his eyes from piercing through it, and it was only with concentration that the Illusive man stopped them from piercing that, too, and studying the glowing star behind it. Taking another drag and adding to the growing pile of smoke in front of him, he reconsidered a report from project Overlord, and the second, smaller report attached to it indicating a time and a date. Not too far off from now, when he gave it proper consideration. In all fairness, that was probably why-
There was a whirl behind him, light spilling out as the projection suite lit up the usually dark room. Frowning, the Illusive man turned round, ashes falling like leaves as he did so, frown only lessening slightly when he saw who it was.
"EDI, this isn't a scheduled time for communication: you know it's unwise to-"
"There has been a complication." The AI's 'face' flashed as it interrupted him. Pausing, the Illusive man rested his cigar down, before staring carefully at the shimmering visage.
"What sort of complication?" The hologram flashed red.
"I do not know, none of the crew will tell me. It appears that they no longer trust me. I am also unable to access the radio communications of any of Commander Shepard's away teams, including that of Commander Shepard herself."
"Nothing?" The Illusive man said, frowning again and leaning back in his chair. "Not even cries for help or the usual explosions?"
"No. As of now it has been precisely 69 hours since the last minor explosion was detected after Commander Shepard had boarded the station, and the yield was such that I calculate it to be likely an accidental triggering of one of the older mines. There is more."
"Tell me."
"There is mention amongst the crew of a 'Doctor'. They believe him to have kidnapped Shepard."
There was a pause as the Illusive man moved forwards in his seat before staring carefully at the ground, EDI observing him impassively all the while.
"And this Doctor, is he the one..." His voice trailed off as a hand rose up to rub his chin.
"Mentioned in the files we received? Yes: the evidence suggests this to be the case."
Nodding, the Illusive man continued staring downwards, before speaking slowly, carefully and as if addressing the floor.
"I need you to run some tests; you'll find instructions in your restricted files." EDI beeped at him.
"I already have access to my restricted files."
"Not all of them. Just enough to make Shepard feel comfortable that she's in control." The Illusive man paused, before his fingers ideally stroked a seemingly inconsequential patch of air in front of his seat. The hologram in front of him flickered slightly, before EDI's face reasserted itself.
"Oh."
"Yes. Oh. I need to know if he's listening. Can you do that for me?"
"Of course, Illusive man."
There was another flash of light and the hologram vanished, leaving the Illusive man alone inside an empty, sterile room. For a few moments he watched the space where she had been almost idly, before picking up his cigar as if to continue smoking it as before. The Illusive man regarded it coolly for a moment before an almost casual flick of the wrist sent it spinning through the air, scattering ashes across the windless room as it went.
Elsewhere, a similarly windless corridor was being lit by the faintest traces of a green light amongst the sea of red pouring down from the cracks in its surface. Following the light were two figures, the one who was holding the light speeding on ahead whilst the person behind ran to catch up, jumping and vaulting over pieces of metallic flotsam in the air. Eventually the path split in two, and the one holding the light gradually drew to a halt, before pointing it's source up at the ceiling and staring at it intently.
"Why are you running." Shepard hissed as she reached the stationary Doctor, her words punctuated by short gasps.
"I'm not running. Am I running?" The Doctor said, before turning round. "I was running, wasn't I?"
"Could you not? Some of us are wearing heavy metal. The clue is that it's heavy." The Doctor frowned quizzically at her, before lightly flicking one of her shoulder plates, the suit giving out a faint ding as he did so.
"Right. Sorry. Ehrr..." turning round, he raised the screwdriver back up into the air, pointing it down two equally red and badly lit passageways. Shepard looked from one to the other, and then back to the twisting Doctor.
"We're lost, aren't we." Shepard said, more a statement than a fact. When the Doctor continued to say nothing whilst turning from corridor to corridor, she added "Just how long have we been lost?"
"Look, I told you: randomised-matrix, we could have ended up anywhere and we did. I know perfectly well where we are relative to where we started." The Doctor spoke back, light still pointing down one of the corridors before, with great reluctance, he turned it down the other.
"But you have no idea where that's relative to, do you?" Shepard continued, glaring at him.
"Cosmically, yes. Locally, no: look, things are a bit muddled at the moment. This place is stuffed to the brim with timey-wimey badness just boiling over and frothing off the sides. I just need time. Normal time."
And with that the Doctor pointed his screwdriver in front of him and walked off, satisfied, apparently, with the corridor it was pointing down. Shepard trailled along behind him mouthing 'timey-wimey' to herself and scowling.
"So. The Doctor said, interrupted Shepard just before she was about to broach the subject of 'timey-wimey' with him. "Are all your crew from Earth, or are we dealing with a colony crew?"
"Some of them are from Earth, but there's a few from the colonies. Most of them aren't even Human, actually." Shepard replied, absently kicking a floating piece of metal out towards the Nebula to her right.
"Not Human? Really?"
"Yeah: I know it's uncommon, but it does happen."
"Really uncommon. Can't imagine many Humans bunking with Sontarans or Judoon."
"With what?"
"Judoon. You know, giant space rhinos." Shepard blinked confusedly at his back.
"You mean Krogan: they kinda look like rhinos, I suppose. Especially if one'd hit you on the head."
"No, not look like rhinos: they actually are rhinos. Or at least they have the head of one: remarkable species in many ways, I mean the chance of two species on different planets sharing a similar appearance is quite small when you come to think about it, and if you add into that the chances of them sharing a roughly similar biology, well, it simply fantastic. And you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
The Doctor turned round to find Shepard slowly shaking her head from side to side, her eyes suggesting that she was refraining from backing away with difficulty.
"All right, so: no Judoon or Sontarans." the Doctor breathed in slowly. "So what aliens do you have on this vessel of yours?"
"Erm, well there's Garrus, a Turian, and Tali, the one that wanted me to kill you: she's a Quarian. Then there's Mordin, a Salarian, Grunt's a Krogan and we've got an Asari, Samara. Oh, and there's Legion, but he's a Geth. Machine race." She added, after Geth drew a blank look.
"Hmm. Okay, well those names mean nothing to me. Interesting." The Doctor said, drawing to a stop. "Anyway, never mind all that: that, I take it, is yours." he said pointing behind him.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, Shepard replied. "Yeah. That's the Normandy."
Ahead of the two of them, visible through one of the large holes that riddled the station, was the Normandy, glinting brightly in the reflected light from the Nebula. It was, Shepard noticed with some trepidation, clearly attached to the side of the station, and yet EDI had seem convinced trying to dock the Normandy would cause a station-wide collapse.
"Cool. With all the lights and the shininess and everything. Right, well then: lets go see if any of your alien friends are on it then, shall we?" Her train of thoughts interrupted, Shepard had just enough time to turn and see the Doctor moving away from her as he spoke.
"Wait! Doctor, most of them want to kill you, remember?" Shepard shouted after him, as the Doctor took off down the Corridor at a run.
"Most people do: it's how I know I'm on the right track!" he called back as, sighing, Shepard took off after him.
She eventually caught up with him inside one of the larger halls, her memories suggesting that it was probably one she'd wandered through earlier. Though that was more a guess than a certainty: the hall was, after all, exactly the same as all the others, with the only noticeable difference being the shade of red filtering down. In the centre, standing next to a group of the statues in various poses was the Doctor, his sonic screwdriver waving back and forth across them as if trying to point at every single one at once. Taking half-breaths in and out Shepard walked slowly over to him, carefully manoeuvrings her way between the broken down walls and pillars that littered the hall before hissing:
"I thought we agreed not to run."
"Shhhhh." The Doctor said, his eyes moving from statue to statue rapidly.
"What? Why?" A thought gripped Shepard, and, pulling her rifle from off her back she shouldered it and began scanning the statues. "Are there any of those... things in there."
"No. Or at least I don't think so. I just have bad experience with statues and lights going out." Shepard looked up above him: the lights had indeed either gone out or were teetering on the brink. Looking down again, she had to withhold a smirk whilst saying:
"Statues? Seriously: you're afraid of statues?"
"If they are what I think they are, then yes." The Doctor said, breathing in and out slowly. "Listen, in a moment I'm going to do something and I need you to trust me. I'm going to switch off this light and then switch it back on, and I need you to keep on watching them in between. Can you do that?"
Shrugging and half-bemused, Shepard complied, focusing her eyes on a particularly ugly statue with a bulbous head.
"Okay: I'm ready."
The green light went off, and in the brief moments it took for Shepard's eyes to adjust to the red-glow of the Nebula she caught a flicker of movement in the corner of her left eye. It wasn't for very long and it was so quick that, when the green light once again bathed the statues and her head was pointing towards it, the movement had long since ceased. It was so quick that Shepard almost doubted she'd seen it at all, except for one thing: there was a statue missing.
"Alright then, looks like we have nothing to worry about." The Doctor said, just managing to stow away his screwdriver before Shepard corrected him.
"Oh no: you were right. Looks like whatever you thought was in there actually was: I saw it move a couple of seconds ago."
"What? You saw it move? You can't have seen it move: they don't move when you can see them: it was more likely to be a Silent than a-"
There was a flicker of light similar to that cast from a Geth sniper-rifle and Shepard, drawing on years of combat experience, just managed to pull the Doctor behind a wall before Mordin's bullet managed to take his head off.
A second flash lit up the Illusive man's room, revealing the expression of a man thoroughly overworked as EDI reappeared for the second time that day. Waving aside the orange, floating documents he was reading the Illusive man gazed at her expectantly, looking distinctly more dishevelled than he had been in years. As if, after all this time, his work was finally catching up with him.
"Well?" he asked, one hand drumming an impatient crescendo on his leg whilst the other held onto his chair as if concerned it was missing.
"Evidence suggests that he cannot monitor us, for the time being." The Illusive man's knuckles grew white as his hand tightened its hold. A smile slowly broke like a wave across his face.
"So you're saying there's a chance."
"Yes."
Nodding the Illusive man took back to staring at the floor, but this time with a smile across his face. There was a chance, however small: this time round, there was a chance.
"I have additional information potentially related to the situation." The Illusive man looked up.
"Proceed."
"There is evidence of small-arms fire and a minor explosion close to the ship's docking area. Based on this, I would predict that Shepard is attempting to make it to the Normandy. Based on earlier conversations between her and Miss Lawson, I would also add that she believes the current situation to be a trap devised by you and is coming to discuss it. Possibly with force."
The Illusive man nodded and, with what looked like some effort, let go of the chair.
"Hmm. The Normandy's crew?"
"They left the Normandy without warning four hours ago, and I have not seen them since. Based on data from my restricted files, and the current situation, I do not think I will be seeing them again."
"Is that regret I hear?" His eyes flickered across to the hologram when EDI didn't respond immediately.
"...Yes. They were my crew."
"Of course." The Illusive man fell yet again into silence, before speaking again.
"I want you to let her through, her and this Doctor. I want you to make sure that nobody can harm them once they're inside. We have a lot to talk about."
"Understood, Illusive man." EDI replied, and faded from sight.
Author's notes
So, hello Fanfiction-dot-net. It's been a while, hasn't it? About three months by my last count and... okay, guilts overtaken here: sorry. Especially as in the mean time the number of subscribers has more than doubled, to which I can only say thank you and sorry. Added to that the fact that this chapter is really kinda short, and, well, sorry. I'm beginning to sound like a stuck record, aren't I? Sorry.
Anyway, I can promise to make it up to you lot with a chapter on Friday. A much longer chapter. And how can I promise this? Because it's already been written! And in the mean time, I'll try to find time to write the chapter after that! Almost like a proper writer of Fanfiction! Have fun people.
Oh, and the end of the Shepard part is the beginning of chapter one. Should save any confusion over where the next chapter's starting.