Michael Garibaldi had ended up in the water reclamation unit purely by accident. Somehow, the tube had let him off on the wrong level. Of course, he had already exited and the tube had quickly moved on before he realized the mistake, forcing him to call for another one. He barely restrained himself from hitting the panel in frustration as he remembered the last time the tube system had pulled something like this.
Jeff had told him how Talia had noticed he always seemed to be in the tube she was in. He should have told her the truth about that, but somehow he doubted she would believe that some sort of glitch in the system kept sending him in her direction, even when he had been heading in the complete opposite way when he had stepped inside.
Talia, Bester was going to pay some day, some how, for what the Corps had done to her. Talia had been a true innocent, and Bester and company had destroyed her without a thought. They probably even had her body still on ice somewhere for experimenting instead of letting her rest in peace. Once more he regretted what he hadn't done when the alternate personality had taken over, that he hadn't ended things for Talia. A broken neck would have been too obvious, but there were undetectable poisons out there, easier to find than he wanted to think of most of the time. He could have slipped her something without any trouble. But no, he had been too much of a coward to do that one last thing for Talia, and instead of a merciful death at the hands of a friend, she had died on some dissection table. As bad as Bester was, he wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't bothered to knock her out before they started cutting.
After a moment, he made himself force the thought of Talia and her fate aside. Maybe he would call maintenance when he got to his quarters and report the tube glitch to them. The last thing he needed was to deal with a glitchy transport when he wasn't going to have at least the pleasure of Talia's company for rides half the station out of his way.
He had just reached out to call for the tube again when he heard the scream. The voice sounded so familiar, but it couldn't be. He couldn't be hearing a dead woman. It was just because he had been thinking of Talia, had remembered how the tube always seemed to bring him to her, but still… He headed into the reclamation unit automatically. He knew he was wrong about who the voice was but there still was a person in there that sounded like they needed help.
He stopped when he saw someone kneeling by one of the water tanks, fishing around in the water for something. "What do you think you're doing?" he called as he moved forward with his PPG drawn. That scream and someone down where no one but maintenance should be, something was seriously off. He hadn't taken more than a few steps when he suddenly felt a wave of something wash over him, like a voice was silently calling out 'DANGER.' The man jumped to his feet, spinning around at the sound of Garibaldi's voice. A psi-cop. How had one of them got onto the station without anyone knowing? His weapon was out but that silent warning had given Garibaldi the edge. He fired before the telepath could get off a shot, sending the man crashing to the ground with a shot to the heart. Too bad it wasn't Bester.
Michael hurried over to the tank, shoving the psi-cop's body aside so that he could see what the man had been looking for in the water. He had a bad feeling what he was going to find, and he silently cursed the psi-cop and Bester as he searched the water. A moment later, he saw the body, floating face down just below the surface of the water. It was a woman, he noticed, as he reached out and tried to grab her, with blonde hair drifting loosely around her almost like a mermaid's. He could just touch the body, but he couldn't get enough leverage to pull her out of the water. No choice but to go in. How deep were those tanks, anyway? He quickly slid into the water and reached out, turning the woman as he grabbed hold of her pillowing her head against his shoulder so her head was out of the water. In the darkness of the tank, he couldn't really get a good look at her face and every movement of her body pushed him down and send water splashing up blurring his vision. She was quiet, though, way, way too quiet, no noise, not even something like the telepathic shout that he couldn't believe he had somehow heard. Not good. Psi-Corp wasn't going to kill another woman on his watch. He wouldn't let them win this time. Get her out, get her tended fast, they weren't going to win this time.
He paddled to the edge and lifted the woman up, getting her body over the side of the tank and rolled her onto the the ground, dunking himself in the process before pulling himself up and out. He knelt by the woman, reaching out to grasp her shoulders and roll her over. As soon as he moved her, he was shocked to see that he had been right about the voice that he heard. Talia, somehow it was Talia laying there at his feet unnaturally still and silent, her body empty of any signs of life.