'You're not the one.' That was what Bernard shouted. That was what beat against the inside of Garrus' skull as he crouched beside the trembling human. Bernard looked at him with questions that Garrus had few answers for. He was too angry to even try.
He may not be 'the one,' but he had a sneaking suspicion who was.
"Ow," Bernard whimpered. "Let go, man!"
Garrus felt the human wrest his shoulder from his increasingly tight grip. Liara placed a gentle hand on the back of his cowl, which meant she was drawing similar conclusions. But Garrus wanted none of it.
"What year was it?" Even Garrus didn't recognize his own tone, frozen over by ice as it was.
"W-what?"
"When you came down here, what year was it?"
"Was?"
Garrus didn't have time for this. For all Bernard's talk and bravado, he was irritatingly silent now. Garrus wanted to seize him by the front of his shirt and shake the answers out of him because he was too angry to have a conversation with him. Still, he had to rein in his frustration. Bernard was terrified and Garrus knew that unleashing his anger on him would hardly help matters.
Garrus' nose twitched as he drew a deep breath and exhaled through it. Crouched on the floor as he was, he had no choice but to revert back to his old C-Sec persona, sat at a table across from a suspect. If he wanted answers, an interrogation was in order. He currently lacked his 'good cop' in Shepard, so he would have to make due playing both roles.
"The current year is 2189," he revealed to the one in thrall. "Two years after the fall of the Reapers, seven months since Adrien Victus abdicated his title as Primarch and assumed the one of Councilor. Seven again since Commander Shepard was recovered alive."
Bernard looked at him, stunned into silence, but Garrus could see the gears working behind his eyes.
"I need an answer, Bernard," Garrus prompted.
"2188," he replied feebly.
"I thought so." Garrus nodded. "You traveled here when the relays opened, right?"
"Yeah..." Bernard trailed off to allow himself a deep breath and slowly sat up.
"Think." Garrus leaned forward and pinned Bernard with the kind of look that had earned him more than a few confessions in the past. "Try to remember."
"I... I hacked into LCMF accounts while off world and found some things that sounded a lot like what I read in the Alliance's account. I came here for proof. Then I got inside and found all the staff- well, you saw them." A dark grimace shadowed Bernard's face. "I freaked, man. I tried to get out, but I couldn't. Thankfully the cafeteria here is fully stocked. I..." Bernard stopped again to massage his temples. Garrus waited. "I locked myself into the office next to the one I found you in. That's where I spent most of my time, trying to get messages out for help and learning all that I could of what was going on here. I was sitting at that desk when I heard your voices coming from the office next door."
"That's when you woke up," Liara informed him, her tone as gentle and sympathetic as ever.
"That's when they allowed you to wake up," Garrus corrected.
"But I never saw the artifacts until now!" Bernard defended. "I never came down here. I was... I was too scared to."
"It doesn't matter." Garrus dropped his tone to the most comforting octave he could manage, given his stormy mood. "From what we know already, you don't necessarily have to come into contact with the artifacts to succumb to them. Simply being nearby is all it takes. You were upstairs so it took a few weeks- three from what I'm gathering, and if we don't get out of here soon, it'll happen to us, too."
"I don't get it. If it had control over me, how am I alive? Why haven't I starved to death like that doctor?"
"The Leviathans are parasites and parasites gain nothing by killing their hosts too quickly. They had a job for you. It was to lure us down here and trap us."
'You're not the one.' Garrus closed his hand into a fist.
"No, I didn't!" Bernard panicked. "I-I wouldn't. I just want to get out of here, man. I..." Bernard looked away from him, his eyes fixing on the ground between his knees, frowning. Garrus pretended not to hear the sound of a covert sniffle. "I just want to go home."
"Then tell us where the other artifact is." He said it like an order, pulling from every thread of authority he could and laced it into his tone. Garrus then raised the outline of the subterranean tunnels on his resurrected omni-tool. "The sooner we destroy it, the sooner we can all go home."
Bernard remained huddled with his eyes on the floor. He wiped at his nose briskly before he met Garrus with a reproachful gaze. They shined, Garrus noticed, the way human eyes do when tears are present. "Y-you promise not to leave me here if I tell you?"
Bernard was infuriatingly annoying, but Garrus couldn't fault him too much, especially in that moment. He wasn't a fighter. He was scared and feeble, but came here anyway in search of answers. He wanted to help people and clearly didn't care what others thought of him or his methods in doing so. He came here because he thought it was the right thing to do. No one else was going to. No one else cared. And he paid a high price for it.
Spirits, did that sound familiar.
Suppressing his dislike for the human, Garrus extended a hand. "You have my word."
Bernard glanced warily at the three-finger hand. Then, hesitantly, he grabbed it and gave it a firm shake. Well, as firm as Garrus was sure he could muster.
"Yeah. Okay." He reached for the holo-map above Garrus' wrist and selected a room located on the outskirts of the subterranean tunnel. "Here. According to numerous files I found, the second artifact should be here. They dug it up shortly before the Reapers attacked so Dr. Saitō never had the chance to move it to her office."
"Good. We'll head there after we get you back on the elevator."
"What?" Bernard shot him an alarmed look. "No. This is my case. This is what I've been looking into for years. I'm not just going to walk away."
"Yes," Garrus snapped. "You are going to walk away because you're a liability now. Leviathan can take control of you whenever it wants and I don't want you anywhere near me if and when that happens again."
"But-"
"Bernard, they can watch us through your eyes at any time," Liara explained, stepping in the way of Garrus' harsh voice with her considerate one.
"They obviously know you're here!"
"True," Miranda interjected from the other end of the room, arms crossed as she quietly observed them. "But as long as we remain subtle, we haven't completely lost our element of surprise."
Bernard looked like he wanted to protest further, but as he met the triple stares of his opposition, his resolve ebbed. "Fine."
The trip back to the elevator was a surprisingly silent one, especially in contrast to their previous trip leaving it. Bernard was so quiet that Garrus constantly felt the need to glance behind him to make sure he was still himself.
"You can quit checking up on me, birdy," Bernard eventually snapped, annoyed by the furtive glances that were constantly shot his way. "I'm fine."
Garrus sincerely doubted that. How could anyone be 'fine' after learning they'd missed a whole year of their life? That their mind wasn't their own anymore? That their consciousness and free will was only allowed by another and that, at any moment, it could be ripped away. If the queen of the hive called, the workers would respond and Bernard was one of them now.
"Oh no."
Liara's voice tugged Garrus' attention away from Bernard. He scanned over the heads of both Liara and Miranda to spot the source of her alarm. The elevator stood with the doors wide open, revealing that the control panel against the back was damaged, shooting sparks into the air like blood from an injured animal.
Garrus slowed to a stop. It had been tampered with.
"Spread out and find a repair drone," he instructed as he drew his sidearm and began to look for their saboteur. He knew that no facility like this would go without several of those on hand. After all, it was far cheaper to have machines readily available than pay a mechanic to keep up with the absurd amount of day-to-day maintenance a place like this would require.
As he patrolled the perimeter, he could hear Liara and Miranda moving around him. Even Bernard seized the opportunity to help where he could by joining in their search. Garrus could tell because his clumsy footfalls stood out obnoxiously from Miranda and Liara's. Flashes of orange from their omni-tools would ignite in his peripheral vision as they scanned every panel, crate, and container they could find. Thankfully, their movements were the only sounds he could hear.
'For now.' He was ever the optimist.
"Aha." Garrus turned toward Miranda's triumphant voice. From all his past experience with humans, he'd long since learned that good news typically followed 'aha.' "Over here."
Behind a panel, built into the stone wall, lay what appeared to be a fully functioning repair drone. Garrus ran a quick scan with his omni and flicked his mandibles into a pleased grin. Maybe their luck was beginning to turn for the better. After tapping a few commands into his 'tool, he raised his sidearm and turned to stare out into the darkness while the drone internally ran its factory-set diagnostics after sitting idle for so long. Miranda and Liara followed his lead by readying their biotics.
Bernard, on the other hand, stood dumbfounded. It seemed like he couldn't decide on who to direct his quizzical look to. "What's up? I didn't hear anything."
"Neither did I," Garrus told him. The drone whirred to life, a blue light appearing to pierce the darkness, and floated away from its place of slumber.
"So what gives?" Bernard's eyes flickered between Garrus and the darkness ahead of them.
"We have to stay near the drone for it to complete its repair," Liara told him simply.
"And?" He countered.
"And," Garrus spared him sideways glance. "Nothing good ever follows after that. You might want to get behind us."
"Don't you think that's a little..."
Bernard trailed off as a loud echoing sound, like a large platoon rising to greet the day, met their ears. Boots thundered and the metal of guns scraped against armor-plated gloves.
The hive had awakened.
"Get in the elevator," Garrus ordered and raised his omni-tool to quickly put a call in to Zaeed. "Send in the krogan. And if he's feeling generous, send my rifle with him."
He heard what must have been the beginnings of a celebratory crow from the krogan in question before he cut the line and readied himself. That's when it dawned on him that Bernard had not moved to follow his order or respond in any way.
Garrus didn't have to look to know the reason. Bernard was a part of the awakened hive, after all. His suspicions were quickly confirmed when the human mindlessly launched at him, hands raised to claw at Garrus' eyes and mandibles, but the turian was quicker. He sent a swift kick into the human's squishy stomach, hearing the resultant sharp exhale as his strike knocked the air clean from Bernard before sending him toppling backwards to the ground. But, like the meat shield he'd become, he was not deterred as he rose to his feet and attacked him again.
Footfalls echoed louder all around them now.
Biotics enveloped Bernard -Garrus couldn't be bothered to check from whom- and sent him flying sideways, slamming his back into the far wall of the lift. A stasis field ignited around him, pinning him to the spot, but it didn't stop him from emitting a murderous scream.
Garrus quickly checked the repair percentage on his omni-tool. They were sitting at seventy percent complete.
'C'mon, c'mon,' he chanted internally. The sooner the lift was finished, the sooner they could get Bernard out of danger and they could leave this place and continue on to find the other artifact. And, of course, kill a few mercs along the way.
"YOU'RE NOT THE ONE!" The inhuman voice boomed from inside the elevator. It rung in Garrus' head and sparked his anger like flint to tinder.
Soft fingers dancing along his keel, gold and copper strands clinging to his mandible, and eyes shining with laughter. No one would use her again. Of that, Garrus vowed to make sure of.
"Yeah?" He kept his eyes trained on the darkness. "Well I'm the one you're dealing with."
Movement. He squeezed the trigger and heard the sound of a body hitting the ground. A gun clattered against the duracrete floor.
"Repair. Complete," said a robotic voice from behind. "Lift. Is. Fully. Functional." The drone zipped into Garrus' sight to hover in place as it asked, "Can. This. Unit. Assist. Further?"
He suddenly wished for Tali's presence. If she were there, she could probably re-wire the drone and turn it into a damn missile launcher.
"No." Garrus ignored Bernard's enraged howl when he hastily reached inside the elevator and slammed his hand against the button for the top floor. The elevator quickly cycled shut, but not fast enough to obscure the sight of Bernard rushing for Garrus the instant the stasis field fell. He only managed to crash his body into the metal and Garrus could hear his fists pound away as he was taken up and away from them.
More footsteps. As much as Garrus wanted to stay and wait for Grunt, they had to move. Their position made them sitting targets and Grunt should have little problem getting past the unarmed civilians upstairs. Even if Bernard came back down, and Garrus was certain he would, they'd be long gone into the tunnels. That was another reason why they needed to distance themselves from the lift, the further they were from Bernard, the further he'd be from the violence. It was his only chance if Garrus was going to be successful at getting him out of this place alive.
A pained wail echoed from the tunnel when its advancing source was torn asunder by a biotic attack.
"We need to move," Garrus said, already in motion, knowing his team would follow him. "We'll rendezvous with Grunt later."
Footsteps boomed above and below them like thunder rolling over an open plain. The hive was in a frenzy and they were in the middle of it. By the way the feet sounded like they were closing in, Garrus knew that stealth was no longer a viable option. They were all coming right for them.
It wasn't long until they encountered their first group of mercs. Five batarians, clad in the cobalt and white hardsuits of the Blue Suns, came hurtling around a far corner. Garrus noted that, like Bernard, they paid no mind to their own safety as they barreled towards them. The Leviathan had no need to preserve its meat shields when it had so many at its disposal.
Neon flashes from the lit points of their armor bounced in the dark in time with the batarians' hurried steps. The faulty, flickering lights that lined the ceiling provided sporadic illumination to the ten sets of black eyes as they zeroed in on Garrus and his team. Pointed teeth gleamed like pearls as they were bared in a savage snarl.
Three of the batarians- the ones that were armed, halted their charge to raise their weapons and take aim. However, before they could get a single shot off, they were promptly warped and sent flying by Garrus' two biotic partners. In the same instant, the two without guns mindlessly rushed Garrus with no thought to their own safety even as their companions were ripped in two behind them.
In such close quarters, using his pistol would be a waste of bullets. It looked like he was going to have to get his hands dirty. Garrus smiled just before he swiftly dodged the first hand to swipe at him and then used his considerable reach to seize the merc by the back of his neck and slam his face into the stone wall. The merc's shields flared up on the first impact, but fizzled by the second.
Garrus barely had time to release the broken batarian before he felt the weight of the Blue Sun's partner upon him, climbing up his back to claw at his fringe and face. One sickening crunch later found Garrus with his back pressed against the wall behind him, crushing the merc between himself and the unforgiving stone. He then reached over his shoulder, grabbed the merc by his armor- ignoring the bites he received to his wrists- and dragged the batarian over his shoulder, throwing him bodily to the ground. Garrus' omni-blade flared to life and he sent it between the middle of all four eyes. The merc fell still.
They continued on, but only managed a few minutes before they met their next assault. The group -more Blue Sun members- were soundly dispatched much the same as the first. Liara and Miranda would target any armed assailants from afar, tearing them apart before they could fire a single shot while Garrus handled the melee fighters.
His attackers were mindless. They likely had no idea what they were doing. If they did, they would at least utilize some form of basic combat tactics. Garrus had fought more than enough Blue Suns to know that. With every neck snapped and skull cracked, it was like putting down rabid animals. A part of his mind told him that he should feel remorse. At the very least, some shred of pity for the poor bastards. He felt nothing.
Fighting mercs, particularly those who bore the emblems of Blue Suns, Blood Pack, and Eclipse, had a funny way of stirring unpleasant memories for him. Every turian fringe he'd snapped against the wall wore Warden Kuril's ruthless face. Every set of batarian eyes he jammed his fingers into reminded him of Tarak and the rest of his ilk. Every human skull that cracked after suffering a collision with his hard crest wore the same obnoxious sneer as Jedore. He reveled in their screams of terror as he bestowed upon them the very same mercy they had demonstrated to his lost men.
Garrus could still picture the grotesque rainbow their blood had painted all over Archangel's hideout. The smell-
"Garrus." He was in the middle of crushing the windpipe of a human Sun, holding her suspended above the ground when Liara's voice dragged him to the present. The woman's face had turned almost as blue as the asari that was currently leveling him with a worried look.
Wounds scarred, but some of the worst ones remained eternally raw.
"Sorry," he muttered and released the human's neck. Her body slipped to the ground with a heavy thud where she remained as Garrus turned and continued his way down the corridor.
Later, while he was standing on the throat of one flailing batarian while his omni-blade was firmly planted in the eye of another, his omni-tool buzzed. The vibration disturbed the pooled eye fluid and sent it trickling rapidly down his wrist like congealed gravy. With disgust, Garrus yanked his blade from his assailant's head and glanced at the multi-colored, bloodstained interface. It was Shepard.
He quickly snapped the neck of the quarry beneath him before he took the call. Unfortunately, a large turian Sun took the opportunity to launch himself at his back. The weight of the other male sent Garrus staggering into the wall with a vicious crack as his keel harshly met the stone.
"Little busy here, Shepard," he grunted, ignoring the feeling of talons ripping at his cowl and neck. "Hold on."
Garrus stomped his foot down on the other turian's spur, which gave him the opportunity to step away from the wall, but the other male continued to hold fast to his back. Then, just as quickly, he was gone, torn from Garrus with the help of a well-placed biotic throw.
"Ok," he breathed into his omni, but he would discover that he spoke too soon. Another Sun- a human this time- took the place of his turian companion, throwing himself at Garrus' back. Thankfully, Garrus now had enough space between himself and the wall to flip forward and pin the human between himself and the floor, effectively trapping him between a rock and a hard place. He almost laughed at the thought, a part of him longing for Shepard. She'd have gotten a kick out of that. Instead, Garrus utilized a kip-up, which disentangled him from the human's limbs before stomping hard on the Sun's head. It split not unlike the melons he and Shepard occasionally enjoyed shooting together.
"Sorry," he panted.
"Sounds like I caught you at a bad time."
"You? Never. Just business as usual."
"You found the mercs, huh?" She asked rhetorically.
"Actually, they found us. They came out of the woodwork as soon as I fired up a repair drone."
"Every time." Upon hearing the humor in her tone Garrus couldn't help but flick a mandible into a grin. It was a defense mechanism, he knew. She had her own nerves she was trying to quell, but it was still nice to hear. He already felt himself calming at her voice. It was a strange power she had over him. "Anyway, I found something else in those files."
"Do tell."
"Well, contrary to what was written in Dr. Saitō's file, LCMF was definitely working on AI research."
"Shocker," Garrus replied dryly. Another turian Sun took that moment to run at him, snarling like a rabid beast. Garrus dodged his swiping talons, dipped to the floor and kicked his legs out from underneath him.
Shepard waited until she heard the gunshot leave Garrus' sidearm before continuing. "I know. It was all encrypted, but I was able to work it out."
"I see Tali taught you a few things."
"Hey, I know some coding," she retorted defensively. "You don't get far as an infiltrator in N school without learning a thing or two." Then, sheepishly, she added, "And, yeah, she did. Anyway, LCMF was really careful."
"How careful?"
"Careful enough to not store any incriminating evidence on any of their systems, lest they get audited. All the information is stored on a chip. Every time it's used, the computer is wiped clean, but the information is stored on a physical copy."
"I'd hate to be the employee that loses that."
He could almost hear Shepard's smile when she said, "Yeah. They thought of that. There's a code for it, Garrus. I missed it at first because it just looks like corrupted data, but it's not. If you find a computer, you can run the cipher through a program, then upload the program to your omni-tool. You should be able to find the chip."
'And, hopefully, restore EDI.' Garrus knew those were Shepard's unsaid words.
"Assuming it's still in the building," Garrus pointed.
"It should be and if it's not, it's a pretty advanced program. The code will allow them to track it even outside. No way were they going to let something that valuable- not to mention, illegal- get stolen from them."
"Noted." Garrus glanced at his ground team and found them looking just as tired and weary as he felt. It had been a long night and it was about to get longer. "We could use a break anyway. I'll find an office and radio Grunt. He can meet us there. I think we've cleared enough of a pathway for him."
Shepard made a disapproving tsk sound. "He'll be so disappointed to hear that."
"Don't worry, Shepard. There's plenty more to go around." Garrus peered down the corridor that he and his team had fought through, now smeared, floor to ceiling, in blood. "He should have no problem finding us. All he has to do is follow the corpses."
"Standard procedure, then."
Deciding that they had put enough distance between themselves and the lift, and by proxy, Bernard, Garrus ducked into the nearest empty office to wait for Grunt.
The room was almost identical to that of Dr. Saitō's, with the exceptions of some old photos of a long-forgotten family placed lovingly on a dusty desk and a rather disturbing-looking stuffed animal -some kind of cartoonish Earth creature- that watched all who entered from the corner it had been hung in. Predictably, Liara made her way to the lone desk in the room and sat down in front of the terminal. Miranda sunk onto an unkept couch and began to rub the base of her neck, wincing as her fingers massaged the amp implanted there.
Shepard had forwarded the code to him and he, in turn, sent it to Liara. Positioned in front of the terminal with secrets laying in wait, the Shadow Broker got to work on what she did best. Garrus left her to it and took up post at the door, remaining out of sight to anyone who might glance down the hallways, but he made sure he could watch all directions.
He was tempted to sit down and rest as well, but keeping watch provided a welcome distraction from the pain caused by not only his most recent injuries- mercs that got some lucky shots in, but from the old one he'd sustained on his leg years ago.
It was a reminder of what he'd almost lost. Again. Normally, it didn't bother him too much. Really, he hesitated to call it a hindrance. But every now and again, after he ran too hard on it- over-strained the muscle, the old pain would flare up and his limp would return. The last time it had happened was after the night he got Shepard out of that hospital on Earth. The time before that was after he had gone on those hunting trips with his father and, before him, Victus.
Garrus inconspicuously shifted his weight onto his good leg, hoping his companions wouldn't noticed. It wasn't something he wanted to draw attention to.
The quiet of the room was only interrupted by the sound of Liara's fingers as they tapped against the terminal interface. After several minutes of silence, Garrus' nerves fired up when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps lumbering down the corridor. Sure enough, it was only Grunt. Garrus waved him into the office and was surprised when Grunt took position across from him to help him guard the door.
"I brought your rifle." Grunt reached behind his back to extract the coveted Widow from its holster and handed it to Garrus.
"I hope she wasn't any trouble," Garrus quipped as he took the offered rifle with a certain level of reverence even he couldn't deny.
"It worked!" Liara declared from her seat.
Garrus nodded at Grunt, a silent order to hold his post while he investigated Liara's find.
"The code?" He asked, peering over her shoulder to get a look at the screen.
"Yes." She pointed at a flickering neon-green square. Her finger tracked it across the screen as it moved, quickly, through the map of the subterranean tunnels.
"Whoever has it is in quite the hurry," Garrus observed. "Let's go."
It was likely a merc who had stolen it while he or she still had possession of his mind and actions. If they didn't waste any time, they could catch the thief, find the remaining artifact, smash it, and be back on the Normandy before breakfast. Garrus downloaded the program from the computer to his omni-tool and, after he a ran quick test to make sure it worked, stepped away from the desk and made for the exit. He heard Liara roll the chair back and then, all at once, went motionless. He didn't have to turn around to know that something had gone horribly wrong.
"Garrus-" She began, but was interrupted by the overly cheerful asari V.I's voice as it reverberated from speakers mounted in the walls.
"Attention LCMF staff," the bubbly voice echoed around them, through the office door and down the hallways. "Self-destruct protocol has been enacted. Please vacate the premises. For your safety, we at LCMF provide fifteen minutes to evacuate. Thank you for your continued cooperation and have a nice day! Repeating."
'Shit.'
Liara looked up at him with wide eyes. "Garrus, I swear I didn't-"
"I know you didn't. It did."
Garrus couldn't say he was even surprised that this hellhole of a facility even had a self-destruct protocol. Let alone the fact that, as a mine, it undoubtedly harbored explosives for clearing tunnels, but it was also located right on the exterior of the Terminus Systems. Businesses outside Council Space were notorious for operating with less than ethical procedures. If they had secrets to hide- and they all did- they needed a way to cover them up and quickly.
"It's the chip or the artifact," stated Miranda. She rose from the couch, pistol in hand, and hurried to join Grunt at the door.
Of course it was and they didn't have time to sit there and debate. Remembering the old datapads on Mahavid, he knew the enthralled would rush to protect the final artifact just as they did when one of their crew tried to throw one over the marooned ship. As he recalled, the culprit was beaten to death. They would stop at nothing to get it out before the facility came down on top of it. Garrus couldn't allow that. Destroying the artifact was integral to the mission. Not the chip. Not EDI. And still-
"Miranda, Grunt, you two track the artifact down, smash it, and get out. Expect a lot of resistance to get to it. Kill any merc that gets in your way. Liara," he whirled on his most powerful biotic. Unbidden, an old memory of words exchanged in the SR-1 cargo bay flitted through his mind. 'If the people I'm sworn to protect can't trust me, then I don't deserve to be the one protecting them.' "I need you on the top floor to safeguard the civilians. When the artifact is destroyed, they'll be confused, but try to get them outside and away. If you can't, I need you there to shield as many as you can from the blast."
"Wait, what about you?" He heard Liara call out to him, but he was already bolting for the door and he didn't stop to answer. His vision blurred at the edges and his impaired leg burned as he pushed himself to catch the blinking green square. With any luck, it wouldn't be a turian that had it. He could run down anything else.
Blue Suns rushed around the corner, but they were swiftly lifted and swept aside by a biotic pull from somewhere behind. Probably Miranda's doing, but he couldn't stop to check. She and Grunt likely chose the same corridor he did in order to reach the office the second artifact was held in. They would split off soon.
Garrus did his best to hurry past any opposition he encountered. Of course, he couldn't avoid all of them and eventually he stopped receiving biotic help as Miranda and Grunt were forced to go a different direction. It didn't matter. As long as he was fast enough, he should be able to make it. It helped not being weighed down by his armor. Of course, a little luck wouldn't hurt either.
Garrus glanced at his omni, relieved to see that he was rapidly closing in on the blinking dot that indicated his foe. So definitely not a turian. Maybe his fortune was finally starting to take an upward turn.
Thirteen minutes left.
He sped down corridor after corridor until one spat him out into a large, open room that was damn-near pitch-black. It was then he realized how accustomed he had become to the presence of the walls pressing in on him because an immediate agoraphobic feeling seized his heart. He was right out in the open, which only served to push him harder toward his goal. After all, it was far more difficult to hit a moving target.
White lights flickered around him as they had done throughout his trek through the tunnels. During one sporadic flash, a shock of green caught his eye ahead of him and it was almost enough to bring him to a stop.
'No.'
Garrus checked his omni. The flashing dot was racing just ahead of him, perpendicular from where he was moving. He quickly glanced up at the metal walkway suspended above and ahead of him, his eyes tracking where the representation of the neon dot should show up. The lights flashed again and he saw a green-topped head.
It was Bernard. Bernard had the chip. He probably had it the whole damn time and either didn't remember or didn't know. A suspicious part of Garrus wondered if he did know, but didn't trust him enough to tell him.
Eleven minutes.
'I have to stop him,' Garrus told himself as he extracted his Widow from his back. 'I don't have time to climb up there and keep chasing him.'
He loaded one concussive round into the chamber and took aim where he predicted Bernard to be, based on how fast he was running. Garrus didn't have his visor to help him target. It was a shot in the dark that he had to take, relying on his ability alone. He was certain he could make it.
Yet, when the light flashed and Garrus saw the human in his sights, his finger hesitated on the trigger, not because he thought he would miss. It was because Bernard had stopped running all together. He was motionless and facing him, staring down the Widow's scope. Through the magnification, Garrus saw tears streaking down the human's cheeks and his eyes were wide with both horror and betrayal. Bernard had no idea what was going on and he was utterly terrified. It was enough to make Garrus' heart ache when he resolved himself to squeeze the trigger, hoping the round wouldn't kill him.
He was already moving by the time Bernard's body hit the ground.
'Scoped and dropped,' he thought wryly.
He bolted for the ladder that would take him to the top of the catwalk, scaling the rungs as quickly as he could, and hurried for the prone body sprawled out on the floor. On his omni, the neon dot had stopped moving. He had his target.
Utilizing his old C-Sec training, not to mention all the times he had pressed his mouth to Shepard's throat, he easily located the pulse found in a human's neck and was pleased to feel it flutter against the pad of his finger. A nasty, purple bruise would already be blossoming all across Bernard's chest, but he'd live.
"I promised to get you out of here, didn't I?" Garrus told the unconscious body as he crouched down to scoop him up. He felt the weight of Bernard's head lull back as he was lifted from the floor. Then, as Garrus turned to hurry back for the ladder, his eyes fixed firmly on his destination, Garrus suddenly felt like he was being watched. Glancing down at his burden, he found Bernard staring hard at him, his face a blank slate.
The human's eyes welled red- not with tears. Blood. More came trickling out of Bernard's nose, trailing down to his mouth and that's when Garrus knew he'd wandered right into a trap. Again.
"YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME. YOU'RE NOT THE ONE!"
Blood gushed harder from Bernard's eyes and mouth before Garrus found himself blown off his feet, flying backwards in the air. He had enough presence of mind to feel the absence of the human's weight in his arms before his head met the stone wall and all went dark.
"Gar... s. Ga...s," was the sound he heard when the world came spinning back into focus. "Garr...s, wa... up! Garr... out of... er!"
"What?" He mumbled, not knowing entirely who the question was for.
"Garrus!" His name echoed through his skull. It felt like a steel-toed boot kicking his brain. He winced at the sound. "Get up!"
It was Shepard.
"Shep..." He murmured. His tongue was like lead in his mouth. Was that blood he tasted?
"Damn it, Vakarian." There was a definite sense of urgency to her tone that immediately put him on edge despite his dizziness. "Get up and get moving now!"
"What happened, Shepard?"
"You have six minutes. Go!" A beat and then. "Please!"
It all flooded back to Garrus then. He had been knocked out, thankfully not for long, but long enough to lose precious minutes on the clock. His instincts screamed at him to stand and walk. To run. To return to the safety of his mate's arms. He staggered to his feet, swaying as he did so, and began to hurry for the ladder. It wasn't until he reached it that another bit of memory tore through his mind and caused him to look around. His eyes landed on the motionless body of a male human.
"Vakarian, go!"
"The chip," he slurred. He was already hurrying back to Bernard as fast as his wobbly legs could carry him.
"You found it?" Shepard gasped. Then, despite herself, Shepard breathed, "Leave it. Get out of there."
"No."
"Vakarian!"
He didn't know what to say. He pictured EDI's mechanical smile when she would turn to look at her co-pilot. He remembered Joker, his face drawn and ashen the one time he requested to be left alone when they were marooned on that planet. He saw the guilt in Shepard's eyes after he had informed her of EDI's fate.
"The chip," he repeated. He was so close. "EDI. Joker. You." Bernard stared up unseeingly at the stone ceiling above. Blood trickled down the side of his head from his ears. Red streaked his cheeks like shed tears. Garrus had failed him. "I'm sorry," he lamented to the corpse before he began rifling through his pockets.
"No, Garrus. Don't apologize." Shepard must have misunderstood him. "You did all you could. Please, just get yourself out!"
Garrus couldn't find the words to correct her so he didn't bother to answer. He simply continued to loot the human, allowing the sound of his breath to assuage Shepard's nerves that he was still there. After a few seconds, his fingers closed around a small piece of metal. Withdrawing it from Bernard's pants pocket, Garrus held it up to inspect it. He wasn't quite sure what it would look like, but he'd venture a guess that a metal piece with a bunch of circuitry webbing the sides was a close enough approximation. He pocketed the piece, cast one last regretful look down at Bernard's lifeless body, and turned to hurry for the ladder.
"Easy does it, Big Guy," Shepard soothed in his ear as he scaled the rungs. "Don't fall."
When he reached the bottom, he quickly checked the remaining time on his omni again. The action would prove unnecessary because the asari V.I spoke cheerily over the comms again.
"Attention LCMF staff. Self-destruct protocol has been enacted. Please vacate the premises. For your safety, we at LCMF provide fifteen minutes to evacuate. You now have five minutes. Thank you for your continued cooperation and have a nice day! Repeating."
Garrus was running again. It was around the time he'd reached the center of the large room that the lights flashed again and stayed on for a few seconds longer. Despite himself, Garrus' feet slammed to a halt as the scenery around him was bathed in light for the first time. His heart hammered against the wall of his chest as his eyes fell on lettering that covered the stone walls from floor to ceiling. All around him, the same word, written in several different languages.
'You're not the one,' the monster had frequently told him. The whole time, Garrus' hand had been fisted with anger, thinking-no, knowing the beast was referring to his mate. And yet, as the word 'Kaisar' filled every inch of his field of vision like a laser in a labyrinth of mirrors, Garrus knew he had been wrong.
Shepard wasn't the one.
"Vakarian!" The aforementioned human scolded him. "GO!"
He went. With renewed energy he fled from the room, ignoring the pain that shot up his leg. Whether or not he survived, Miranda and Liara heard the Leviathan's message, too. Surely, they would relay it to Shepard, also assuming it was referring to her. She, in turn, would likely do the same because who else could the Leviathans be talking about than the human they had spoken with.
No one but him had seen the writing on the wall. No one but him would know what it meant. No one but him would know that Shepard wasn't the person that needed the warning.
It was Adrien Victus.
With three minutes on the clock -helpfully reported by the stupid V.I- the elevator finally came into sight.
'Please don't be broken. Please don't be broken.' He chanted internally to himself.
"It shouldn't be," Shepard informed him, indicating that he had actually voiced his thoughts aloud. "Miranda and Grunt took it with no problem."
It occurred to him: "The artifact?" He hurried through the door and slammed the button for the top floor, hating that his survival was now at the mercy of an exceedingly slow elevator.
Two minutes left. Garrus resigned to stop checking and slumped to the floor, panting.
"They got it," Shepard told him, obviously trying to sound encouraging, but he knew better. He chose to ignore the choked strain he heard in her voice. It almost made him keen at the sound of it. "They got it and you got the chip. Job well done, Big Guy. It's time to come home now."
Home. Bernard wanted to go home. Garrus didn't feel like it was a job well done, but he lacked the energy to argue. Instead he told her: "My leg hurts."
"You got a hitch in your giddy-up, huh?" Garrus smiled, despite the tightness he heard in Shepard's tone. If he was going to die, he was all right listening to her voice as he did so. "Don't tell me you're getting old."
"Easy now," he replied, watching the numbers that indicated the floors reducing as if they were counting down his seconds to live. "Falling Makos have a way of 'putting a hitch in your giddy-up' when they use your leg as a landing pad. At least, that's been my experience over the years."
"And there's the excuse train rolling into the station, right on time," Shepard sallied.
Garrus purred in response, lowering his voice to an octave he knew Shepard could never resist. "When I get out of here, I'll show you who's getting old."
"You'll have to get back here first," she countered breathily.
The temptation to tell her how he felt flared up again. He knew the words were unnecessary and he had even told her once before, 'I love you,' just before she left him behind. Yet, as much as he wanted to, he suspected that she wouldn't want to hear it right now. She would likely say something akin to all the bad romance vids like, 'Stop it. Don't talk like that.'
The door chimed with less than a minute left on the clock and Garrus was on his feet and squeezing through the steel doors before they could even cycle all the way open. He hurtled down the hallways and through the -thankfully- empty lobby. It would seem that Liara was successful in getting the people out.
Mercifully, the front doors were wide open.
"C'mon, Vakarian," Shepard whispered in his ear. "You can move faster than that. Go!"
Dry, desert air filled his senses the instant he threw himself through the open exit, out into the open. Sand absorbed the impact of his frenzied steps, making his leg scream its protest as he hurried away from the ill-fated facility. He didn't stop until he caught sight of Zaeed. The old merc was jogging towards him, away from a throng of puzzled-looking employees along with his ground team. They had all made it.
"And how went your 'covert operation'?" Zaeed had just enough time to ask, his voice dripping with sarcasm, before a loud explosion violently shook the ground they stood on. Garrus turned to watch the facility he had just fled from collapse into the sand as all the tunnels beneath it imploded in on themselves. When the last of the tremors reverberated through the purple sand, Garrus turned back to Zaeed and was met with likely the closest thing to a smug grin the old merc was able to muster.
Garrus glared at him.