The world swirled dimly around Shepard's head, sending throbbing surges of pain towards her forehead on each pass. Eyes closed and lying on the floor, she was just beginning to recollect her thoughts when the crackle of the radio interrupted them.
"Shepard? Hello, Shepard can you hear me? Oh wait a minute, I haven't checked if it's on, or if I'm even using the right end. Err..." There was a faint sound of scuffling, before the Doctor's voice re-interrupted the ringing in Shepard's ears, sounding slightly fainter this time. "Hello? Shepard? Shepard, can you-"
"Yes, I can hear you!" She snapped, a hand going to her head as she pushed herself of the floor, pieces of metal bumping off and floating away from her as she rose. "What the hell happened? I can just remember leaving the Normandy before-"
"-It exploded, yes." The Doctor finished for her. "You weren't inside but you were close enough to get hit. I had to pull you and the two following you out using the Transmat, though I may have had to move part of the explosion with-" Shepard ignored the rest of it, her eyes already snapping open when he'd mentioned the two others: Miranda and Jacob.
She was inside one of the corridors from before; the corridor that had led up to the Normandy's air lock, if she was any judge, with only a single difference between the two. This one had a rather large hole in it's centre, effectively cutting the corridor into two halves and a red light-bathed middle: the door that had led to the Normandy on one side and the one through which they'd escaped from Mordin on the other. Shepard was lying on the Normandy's side, bits and pieces of flaming metal floating around her. Miranda and Jacob were on the other, Jacob bent over the door and apparently trying to hack it with his omni-tool whilst Miranda was stood next to the divide, arms crossed and watching Shepard coolly.
A grim smile formed on her face. "Wakie wakie, commander." She gave a slight wave. Pushing herself to her feet, Shepard half groaned as she looked across before running a quick check across her body. All her weapons were still in place, except for her grenades, which seemed to have been shaken loose in the transport and were floating around the corridor with the metal shards. Damn. She had been looking forwards to using those.
"Miranda? What... wait, listen: I'm not kidnapped, the Doctor isn't our enemy and there's these things called the Silents, and-"
"Yeah." Miranda replied, throwing a smile back at the still working Jacob. "We know."
"You... you wha?" Shepard said, flabbergasted. They- they knew? "Did the Doctor tell you while I was out, or something?"
"No, but speaking of telling, just how much did the Illusive man tell you?" A trace of doubt entered Miranda's eye, before becoming engulfed in humour. "He did tell you about us, didn't he? No? Well now: that's ironic."
Shepard stared at Miranda for a few seconds, before turning around, trying to move off then spinning back round and pointing an accusing finger at her. "What!"
Miranda shrugged. "You didn't think they'd brainwash you and a whole bunch of aliens and then let you loose without any guidance at all? Congratulations, Shepard: we're your handlers."
"I'll deal with you in a moment." Shepard rebuttted sharply, before turning round and walking closer to her exit. "Doctor, I need to speak to you."
"Alrighty, I'm here. Always here."
"How did you get out, hell: how did you move me?"
"I'm back at Transmat central, but don't get any ideas. I can move you about the station easily: moving you here means having to clear the buffer, and that'll unleash all your squad again, and, well, I'm kinda busy at the moment."
"The what?"
"Buffer: lets me hold things in sort of halfway house for Transmatting. Very complicated and really rather dangerous. Not that you should worry, that is. They'll be fine. Hopefully. But the really important thing is you need to keep those two in you sight: soon as you leave, it's all fair game and the God can just Transmat them out again. Far as I can make out, we're like some sort of 'blind spot' he can't touch, but as soon as we move-"
"You... you know about the Twenty Second God?" Shepard butted in, cutting the Doctor off mid-lecture.
"Sure. EDI told me. Explains quite a few things, actually."
"Like what." Shepard grunted.
"Everything." Miranda replied, her voice carrying the same levels of smugness it had when they'd first met. Spinning round, Shepard gave her a look of shock that quickly tightened into a glare. "Don't give me that look, Shepard: you want a private conversation, do it behind a half-way decent firewall."
"Will do." The Doctor muttered in Shepard's ear.
"You too, huh?" Shepard muttered as Miranda shrugged.
"Sure. It never hurts to know you're employer, after all. Especially when he's the most powerful being in the universe."
"The most powerful being in the- seriously? Are you trying to make me laugh or something, Miri?"
"Judging from your extranet records, that isn't very hard, Shepard. And believe me, he is." Miranda's eyes took on the faint glow of a preacher at his pulpit. "The Twenty Second God controls everything, even fate. Especially fate. He cannot lose."
"Well what do you call this, huh? Me knowing and fighting back: what do you call that but losing?" Again, that slight smirk in response.
"You really think this is the first time you've figured it out? Or at least, had the good sense to listen to Tali or Mordin before we could get to them in time? You've rebelled before, Shepard, and we've always managed to catch you in the end. Hell, you even took your own life once, and even that wasn't enough. We just simply brought you back."
"Well then, why use me at all, huh? Why didn't this... god thing just pick one of you ass-holes?" Shepard shouted across the gap, the idea having struck her halfway through Miranda's tirade. "Where's the catch: what makes me so important that it'd risk using me and not telling me shit about what's really happening?" Miranda gave a funny kind of laugh as behind her Jacob continued to fail to show even the slightest interest.
"You think I know? Or better yet, that if I could understand it you'd be able to?" Miranda took a step forwards, and leant out over the gap conspiratorially, red light washing completely over her face. "This is a god we're talking about, Shepard, and not a fake prop like the Reapers. The Twenty Second God can't be killed, can't be second guessed and can't be beaten. It's older than the universe and it's been planning this for just as long."
"Bullshit." Shepard said as another flurry of sparks showed that Jacob had met another dead end. "You've always got some idea of what's going on, even if it's just a guess. I know you, Miri: why me."
"Know me? After all this, you still think you know me?" Miranda said, throwing her arms out wide. Shepard kept up the stare. "Fine, but it's a guess. Far as I know even a God has to obey some rules and you're important somehow: you've got something we don't, like some kind of pre-destiny or fate. What you do is meant to be important, but what kind of important is open to interpretation."
"Not a bad guess, actually." The Doctor said through Shepard's radio, talking at the same time Miranda was speaking so that Shepard had to listen to them both. "Time has a way of latching on to certain individuals like it does to places: if you're subtle enough to change the time-line but keep it stable, it's possible for them to still be influential. But to know how to make them do what you want... she can't be guessing this, Shepard: it's too right. She's had her memory wiped."
"Speaking to him? What's he saying: something about how this doesn't make sense? He's no God, after all." Miranda said, noticing the silence Shepard had fallen into since she'd finished speaking, the Doctor speech having carried on for longer than her.
Shepard looked up, her eyes reflecting the light of the nebula and throwing a fiery red back.
"There's parts you don't remember, aren't there." Her voice carrying a quiet conviction that bellied all ideas of lying before they'd begun. The two on the other side went quiet, Jacob finally pulling himself away from the panel and standing up to face her, his skin seeming to glow under the nebula's light.
"Of course." He said quietly, his arms hanging down loosely by his side. His presence at her side seemed to put Miranda at some kind of ease: her arms unfolded and she fell into the same stance. "There was a time that we doubted: doubted the mission, doubted that we should be lying to you."
"It wasn't long before we attacked the collector's base, actually." Miranda continued. "You remember how you'd wanted to go through immediately, and then seemed to change your mind and go raiding against those pirates on Daratar? That was because of us: we asked to see the Twenty Second God, and we were granted that honour."
"And how lucky we were." Jacob said, his words drenched with not sarcasm but rapture. Nodding as he finished off her words, Miranda gave off a smile which shook Shepard more than anything else had on the station so far.
"We doubted, and our doubts were taken from us. We feared and our fears were removed. We were purified of our inhumanity." Jacob said, his gaze resting strangely on Shepard for the last part.
"But you can't remember meeting him, can you? You can't remember why you're thinking like this: for God's sake, you two: you're indoctrinated." Shepard practically yelled across the room, her words echoing slightly as they reached the other side. Jacob snorted softly behind it, before stepping forwards as Miranda fell back, looking at him with something approaching fear.
"Indoctrinated? Like reapers? C'mon, Shepard: who the hell gave you that idea, huh? Just who exactly planted it in your head? Oh yeah: we did. You still don't get it, do you: everything about your past is a lie. Every-thing. Look at you, you haven't even figured half of this stuff out yet, have you?"
"And neither have you." The Doctor replied, his voice speaking through all of their radios. Jacob raised an eyebrow at his intrusion, before snorting again and shaking his head.
"Go on then, Doctor. Make my day."
"What you've done, what the Twenty Second God has done is incredibly dangerous. This could mess with everything, it could-"
"Let me guess." Jacob interrupted. "'Put out the Sun.' 'Cause the end of the Universe'... again. Damn, Doctor you must think we decided to do this without having done our research. About ninety percent of the times you say something like that, you know shit-all is what would really happen, save that the outcome's something you don't like. So what, exactly, isn't really going to happen if we carry on?"
"The nebula outside. It isn't a nebula." The Doctor said, his voice a lot calmer than Shepard had expected it to be. Shepard and Miranda turned to look at the glistening clouds of red outside. Jacob did not move.
"We know: it's Temporal-discharge caused by our actions. And we both know that it should be racing off at twice light-speed to decimate the Universe, and yet look at it just sitting there. You think we didn't know this: that we'd set out to alter the universe after having destroyed it?"
"No, but now I know that you know a lot more than you should. Miranda was never the one in charge, was she?" The Doctor continued. Jacob laughed as Shepard stood there dumbstruck.
"Oh, you're good. I can see why the God approves of you now." Jacob caught the look of disbelief on Shepard's face, and his smile grew, if anything, wider.
"What, you didn't realise? Man, how can you be so slow, so thick. You really thought that Miranda: Miranda the cold hearted, Miranda the Cerberus lover, Miranda the perfect-in-all-things: Miranda the so obviously a spy actually was? As opposed to me, the Guy who hated Cerberus and yet happened to be on one of their most important projects. Who was the first person you met and gave you a worthless piece of information so that you'd trust me almost instantly. The guy who everyone, including Mr Cranky at the helm, thought was 'too nice a guy to work for Cerberus' after having talked to me for only ten seconds. The Guy who the Big Boss himself pointed out to you as one of the few people you could depend on." Jacob smugly laughed, before leaning forwards with a grin etched onto his face. Almost unconsciously, Shepard took a step back.
"You were manipulated from the get-go to trust me, Shepard, even if you refused to trust the rest of our crew. And lets face it, it worked like a charm. Hell, you could have even fallen in love with me if... circumstances hadn't gotten in the way. Hey" he looked over his shoulder at Miranda, whose expression seemed almost blank compared to his. "Think the God might set it up so that happens anyway." he turned back, the grin turned into a leer as his eyes ran over Shepard's body. "Damn, I could do with some of that ass, even if it's attached to one dumb-ass bitch."
"We even had a cake ready for when you figured it out, but it went off." Miranda added helpfully. For the first time Shepard noticed how like a doll she was, her smile seeming almost painted on.
"Well, that was a big speech. I guess that's been building up for a while. Getting tired of being in the shadows, were we?" The Doctor interupted.
"Huh." Jacob said, moving away from the side and turning round to look out through one of the many holes into space. "You have no idea. We tried everything and she still wouldn't bite: cleared the field, had Kasumi fall in love with me to try and get some possessive jealousy going, but nothing. Zilch."
"Jacob." Miranda said, her hand darting to his shoulder. Jacob shrugged her off.
"So, what was this all about, then? Letting me rattle on whilst you figured out a way to space us? No, no wait: I get it. You were waiting for the air to run out, weren't you?" Jacob laughed, brushing off Miranda's hand as it tapped him again.
"Oh no, nothing like that. I wasn't waiting for you to run out of air, and I've known how to 'space you' since you went in there. Getting you talking was for something entirely-"
"Jacob!" Miranda said, interrupting the Doctor who fell into silence as she spoke. Jacob felt his anger grow to the point where he could take it no longer, twisting round whilst barking "Miranda, shut the hell up y-" and then he saw what she was talking about. Breaking the silence, the Doctor continued:
"You see, you may not have noticed, but right now you're surrounded by a miniature minefield of grenades in a corridor with only one working exit, and guess which side you're on? You see, you were right Jacob: Shepard's still not thinking this through properly: she hasn't figured it all out yet because she's tired and confused and completely alone. She doesn't trust me yet, and why should she? We only just met and my presence has already caused all her friends to go mad and want to kill us. And there was only ever one thing, one tiny, insignificant little thing that was preventing her from letting you all go: her friendship. And you just tore that to pieces."
Shepard stood in the exit she'd used previously to get to the Normandy, another corridor having mysteriously sprung up behind it, as her entire body seemingly shook with rage. The red light washed over her as her hand rose up, as if she was bathed in blood, her finger swimming gently over the explosive trigger, circling and circling and getting closer and closer to pressing it.
"I hope you burn in hell." Shepard said, her voice as cold and impersonal as the day she'd met them.
"Oh, I've finished by the way." The Doctor interrupted. Miranda gave a brief jump as the tension dissipated, her eyes flashing between the deadlocked gaze of Jacob and Shepard. "So, any time you're ready, just go for it."
"Well then." Shepard said sweetly, smiling with a kind of victorious malice she always did when she finally got to blow something up. "Geronimo." She pressed the button.
There was a silent roar that Shepard saw rather than heard, all sound now being blocked from the room in front of her so that the only clue that the grenades had detonated came from the sudden light show inside. After a few seconds, this faded from sight, leaving behind a now far more tattered corridor, most of it drifting about and floating into space and, surprisingly, miraculously, both Miranda and Jacob. Somehow, some-way, they'd both managed to survive the blast, and were hanging upside-down onto the floor as if off a cliff, the artificial gravity having apparently failed. Jacob looked up, a smile forming on his lips before he mouthed out
"I'll be back."
He let go of the side, Miranda following quickly afterwards. Shepard watched the two of them rocket out into space, Miranda twisting and tumbling as if underwater whilst Jacob's eyes never left her face. Turning away from them, and thus denying Jacob the chance to spook her as he died, Shepard called up the Doctor through her radio.
"He said he'd be back." Shepard said, trying her hardest to not let her voice shake. "What did he mean?"
There was a pause as the Doctor seemed to consider her answer. The voice that responded was so different from all the tones he'd used with her so far that it took a moment for her to figure it out: the Doctor sounded sorry.
"It means that he won't die: what you did hasn't killed him, just... inconvenienced whoever this Twenty Second God is. You see, I think this blind-spot only works within the station-"
"But outside they can use the same Transmat technology we used before." Shepard finished, turning round. There was no sign of either Jacob or Miranda out the window, and Shepard quietly cursed to herself. He'd be back.
With a sudden clank, the doors in front of her slammed shut. Blinking in surprise, Shepard took an involuntary step back before they slammed open again, revealing another corridor, complete with holes, flickering lights and red-nebula glow. Shepard pushed this latest curiosity to the back of her head as the Doctor started talking again.
"Yes, but they won't be able to place them back inside the station because I'm here, and whatever it is I'm doing that's stopping them. My best guess is that they'll probably put them inside the Normandy, which means they could land anywhere. I'm bringing you back here. Oh, and Shepard. I'm sorry, really, I am. I know they meant a lot to you."
"Yeah, they did." Shepard sighed, dropping the detonator on the floor and kicking it away from her. "But you were right: I did need to start thinking differently. You were right." Shepard sighed, and partially collapsed backwards, allowing a wall to take the strain off her legs. "It's funny. The people I used to trust the most are the ones I can't trust at all. I can only trust people like you, complete and utter strangers."
"I wouldn't trust me. It never ends well, trusting me." The Doctor said, his melancholy seeping through the radio's speakers. Shepard rolled her eyes slightly, kicking a floating piece of the station away from her.
"I'm sorry to be kind of insensitive, but did most of them die?" She could hear the Doctor's breaths coming through the radio, and for a second she wondered if she'd pushed him too far.
"Some of them did, yes."
"Good, 'cos I think I'm going to end up killing everyone who's ever trusted me, so I'll need your advice."
Author's notes:
Alright, first off: I'm sorry this took so long, but I had exams. Exams! Horrible, horrible Exams! Yeah, I think it's a terrible excuse too. Anyway, before I get on with the rest of the notes, I'd like to respond to a few reviews I didn't manage to earlier. Fell free to skip to the next paragraph if you're not interested. Guardoflight; thanks, and I think this goes over what's happening with some of the crew. What's happening to the rest will come up a bit later. Ford B: thanks, and here is more! And Rifty: someone finally noticed one of the sneaky things! In fact, you noticed one of the chief hidden things: the lack of Thane is pretty much only explained through subtext, but is quite central to why the whole story's happening in the first place. Kinda.
So, before I get any Team Jacob hate mail, I'd like to say I'm sorry but I have no regrets, somehow.
Joking aside, I can't be the only one who saw through Kelly and Miranda's obvious-spy is obvious ploy to see Jacob for what he really was, can I? Because I haven't actually seen it anywhere, and that's just makes me worry that I'm over-thinking things. Not that that's a bad trait in a fanfic writer: over-thinking things is what we're here for, after all, but still: maybe this is just a little off the wall crazy? Please reassure me it's not just my imagination. Or tell me to burn in hell, I suppose.