Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.
Chapter 3: Waking Dream
"Commander Shepard, think I can get a hand here?"
Well he knew her name and wasn't pointing his gun at her. A quick peek out of cover confirmed that it was security mechs who were trying to kill him from an overlook about fifty meters away on the other side of the chasm. While he was still an unknown to her he looked to be in a similar situation to her. Reaching around the side of the column she laid her targeting reticule over the nearest mech and started to snap off bursts.
Seemingly buoyed by her aid the dark skinned man popped up from behind cover and started firing with his pistol and in short order they had cleared the mechs out.
"Thanks Commander," he said with a smile as he jogged over towards her and she walked towards her. He hostlered his pistol but Alyssa kept her submachine gun firmly in her hand even if it was at her side.
"Do I know you?" she asked cautiously.
"No, of course not," he said as he stopped in front of her and came to attention. His right hand stiffly shot up to his brow in a salute. "Jacob Taylor, Ma'am, head of security for this facility."
Lacking any visible military insignia or using any rank Alyssa just nodded in lieu of returning his salute. "What is this facility?"
"It's a hospital ma'am, more or less."
"More or less? If this is a hospital where are the patients, why has nothing been used? And why the hell is someone attacking it?" Her eyes flicked around the giant room they were in trying to come up with some reason such a place would exist on a space station.
"There was only one patient ma'am," he said as she pointed to her. "You."
"What are you talking about? Who builds a hospital for one soldier?" Alyssa asked aggressively.
"All I know is that we were to bring you back Commander. That was the only goal of this facility. So I'm guessing whoever turned our own security mechs against us didn't want you to come back."
"Back from what?" Alyssa snapped. "Spit it out."
"You don't remember do you?"
"Do I sound like someone who remembers? All I remember is being on the Normandy, then waking up here covered in medi-gel patches with a voice telling me to get moving."
"A voice?" Taylor asked.
Shepard nodded, ignoring the tightness in her neck. "Told me to get up and moving, opened an emergency equipment locker and I think has been unlocking doors for me before she faded out."
Jacob turned his head. "Miranda. You said she faded out?"
"Her signal was jammed or ran out of juice. She seemed like she was in a hurry."
"She oughta be," he said uncomfortably. "This place is coming apart, I don't think there's anyone left."
"Where would any survivors head?"
"Shuttle bay."
"What about escape pods?" Alyssa asked.
Jacob shook his head. "All jettisoned when the attack started."
"Someone wants everyone on this station dead."
"I doubt it," Jacob said as he turned towards the door across the bridge. "You're the only reason this place exists. Without you this entire thing is pointless."
Alyssa grabbed his arm, stopping him from moving. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Shepard... I don't know what to tell you."
"Well start with the truth and work backwards," she snapped as her grip tightened on his arm.
Jacob winced and tried to pull away from her. "Alright, when the Normandy was attacked, you died."
Alyssa jerked away from him like she'd been shocked. "What the hell are you talking about?'
Jacob rubbed his arm where she'd held him. "The collectors hit your ship, caught you unawares while you were cleaning up the geth incursion. The Normandy was destroyed, you died while saving your pilot."
"You're lying," she hissed.
"What year do you think it is?"
"Twenty one eighty three," she snapped.
"Check your omni-tool, it's twenty one eighty six."
He wasn't lying. "For all I know you could have reprogrammed it. Where the hell am I and where is my crew, where is my ship?" Her grip tightened around her submachine gun.
Jacob holstered his pistol and slowly raised his hands. "I know this is all gotta be odd for you but its the truth, today is March seventh, twenty one eighty six. Two years and four months ago you died when the Normandy was attacked and destroyed. I don't know what happened to your crew, but Miranda will. Come on Shepard, this is a hospital, you're wounded and covered in medigel patches. If I was on the side that wanted to kill you we could have done it on the operating table." He turned and pointed towards the door on the far side of the catwalk. "I don't know what's going on and I can't answer any more of your questions that I already have. You want answers, lets find Miranda and get the hell out of here."
"Where are we going?"
"Shuttlebay, only chance we've got to get off the station and where Miranda will head."
"You take point," Alyssa said curtly.
"Alright, if that'll make you happy." Jacob turned and jogged for the door, drawing his pistol as he went.
Just like before their course was dictated to them by locked doors but Jacob didn't think anything of it. "This has gotta be Miranda," he commented as they squeezed through a partially opened door. "We're headed for the shuttlebay but she's keeping us out of the main corridors."
Thankfully he was a better combatant the few times they ran into security mechs, proving to be a rather able soldier even by Alyssa's ridiculously high standards.
"Shepa... randa... can yo... d me?"
"Miranda? What's your situation?"
"Bein... pursue by... can't hel... huttleba...," the static was hissing and popping over the top of her words. Alyssa's trained ear it was obviously jamming. "Wilson!" came through loud and clear before the radio fell silent again.
"Shit," Alyssa growled.
"Sounds like she found doc Wilson and they're heading for the shuttlebay, just like I said. We need to hurry. Miranda is tough but she can't last forever," Jacob said with concern.
"Especially since the shuttlebay is a tad bit obvious."
"And that," Jacob agreed. "For a security job this is intense."
"If I wasn't pumped full of drugs this wouldn't even be a busy day for me," Alyssa said offhand as she found and open door and headed through it at a trot. She was about to turn down along hallway when she heard static from a console and a familiar voice.
"We've received Commander Shepard's remains. They're badly damaged, far more than anticipated. The doctors assigned to the project assure me that we can proceed but we will need to make use of alternative technologies we've been researching. We're looking at a potential full scale biologic/synthetic symbiosis. Regardless, project Lazarus will proceed as planned."
As the recording began to loop Alyssa took a slow step back and shook her head. It had to be a fake, or a plant. If you die that's it, you're dead. There's no coming back unless you were born in Bethlehem.
"Shepard?" Jacob asked quizzically before hearing the recording. He turned it off and looked at her. "I told you."
"It doesn't prove anything," Alyssa said defiantly as she marched off down the corridor.
"Shepard!" Jacob yelled at the retreating woman but she paid him no mind.
Alyssa forced the swirling questions that threatened to overwhelm her mind away. She had no answers for them and letting them distract her would just get her killed. Her training kicked in and helped her to compartmentalize the issue, squirrel it away for later. She'd deal with it, just not now.
The corridors blended together as she moved. Jacob confirmed that the open doorways were still leading them in the right direction and the few mechs they ran into were quickly dispatched between Jacob's biotics and her guns. Eventually they found their way to a smaller medbay. The difference being that this one looked untouched.
"Who is it, who's there?" A panicked voice asked from behind a bank of machinery. When Alyssa turned the corner she came face to face with a pistol. Her old training took over and lighting quick... ish, her hand snapped out and slapped the gun away. Only it didn't go clattering away in the dark recesses of the room like it should have it just swung away from her. It was long enough though for her to shove her submachine gun in the face of a fifty or so year old balding man in a black and white utility jumpsuit. "Whoa, I'm not with them!" he yelped. The voice reminiscent of someone she'd just listened complain about his money issues.
"That's Wilson Shepard! He's with us," Jacob said as he followed her around.
"And I was shot!" Wilson added drawing her attention to the way he was clutching his side and blood soaked the uniform there.
"It's not going to be fatal," Alyssa said. There was nothing vital where he'd been shot, that much was obvious to someone who'd spent her life being shot at and shot.
"Well it hurts!"
"There's some medi-gel in the dispenser over here," Jacob said as he retrieved it and applied it to the wound.
"You got lucky," Alyssa observed as she looked around the pristine room. The only blood she saw was under where Wilson had been sitting. "How did you make it in here again?"
"The mechs chased me in here. I managed to dodge them but one of them tagged me. I was trying to get to the shuttlebay," Wilson complained as the medi-gel took hold, the patch sealing the wound while painkillers and antibiotics took effect.
"Right," Alyssa said.
"We're headed the same way," Jacob offered. "We've gotta get out of here."
"Alright," Wilson said as he clutched his side. "Let's go. I think the mechs moved off."
Alyssa nodded slowly, letting Wilson open the door and he and Jacob lead the way. She followed after them, carefully watching their backs, and her accomplices. Oddly enough Wilson was right and there were no more mechs before the shuttlebay.
Which all changed drastically when the large double doors opened up.
An entire chorus of "Target acquired"'s greeted them as a solid dozen security droids turned towards them in unison and opened fire. Wilson and Jacob dove for cover and started to open fire as Alyssa brought her gun up and did likewise. The mechs were searching for something and strung out across the entirety of the shuttlebay. She began to quickly make her way through them, advancing from cover to cover, her submachine gun spitting out a hail of mass driver slugs at each mech in turn. Her skills were still rusty, her aim still sucked, but her mind at least seemed to know exactly what to do and guided her clumsy actions. Sand grain sized chunks of iron accelerated to a good fraction of the speed of light peppered her barriers but the security mechs lacked the tactical cognition to focus their fire or fall back and regroup. The few stray shots that made it through her barriers were handled by the armor which was more than up to the task of stopping a few light submachine gun rounds.
"Clear!" Alyssa shouted as the last mech fell lifelessly at her feet.
"We have to hurry, more will be here any second," Wilson said as he shouldered past her towards the door to one of the docking bays.
"We need to find Miranda first," Alyssa insisted as she reached for his shoulder.
"She's the only reason we're here," Jacob agreed.
"There's no time," he insisted. "We've gotta..." The door interface turned green and startled Wilson. "uh.. g..."
Behind the door was a tall woman with raven black hair. The instant her eyes connected with Wilson's her pretty face screwed up into a grimace. With admirable swiftness her submachine gun came out and let loose a burst into his face at point blank range.
Alyssa sighed as Wilson's functionally decapitated corpse slumped to the deck. "You know you can't interrogate him now right?"
"I don't need to," the woman said with a familiar voice as she lowered her weapon.
"Miranda! What the hell?" Jacob asked in shock as he looked down at the ruins of Wilson's face.
"He was the traitor," Alyssa said while keeping one eye on Miranda. "That wasn't blindingly obvious?"
"It was to me," Miranda said. "Glad you made it Shepard."
Alyssa just nodded. "Thanks for the assist, but we need to clear the station. Check for any more survivors."
Miranda turned towards the shuttle in the docking bay behind her. "There aren't any, we're it and we won't be in a minute if we waste time."
"We need to check."
"I did Shepard. Most everyone was dead before you ever woke up. If they're not here they didn't make it."
Jacob put his hand on Shepard's shoulder. "She's right Commander. This started an hour ago and you're the only people I've seen alive in almost as long. We need to go."
Alyssa's eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them and entrance door to the shuttle bay. The faint metallic clangs of metal feet on metal floors could be heard echoing from it.
"Alright, let's go," she said and followed them both into a shuttle, sitting to one side but making sure Miranda sat on the other. Jacob smoothly piloted the shuttle out of the bay and into space giving Alyssa her first look at the exterior of the station. The damage didn't look as bad from out in space and to her trained eye it was all internal, so hopefully there were no warships waiting out here for them.
"Auto pilot set," Jacob said as he joined them in the rear cabin taking a seat by Miranda. "We'll make the jump in fifteen and it's three hours onto the station."
"Good, time to conduct some tests," Miranda said.
Jacob shook his head, "Really Miranda? I've seen the Commander in action, is this necessary?"
"Of course, her awakening would have been a three month long process."
"And not happen during a firefight I assume?" Alyssa added.
"No." Miranda said without humor. "We have to confirm that the process hasn't adversely affected the Commander."
"Before I answer anything you're going to tell me what the hell is going on," Alyssa demanded. She pointed towards the orange symbol on both of her companion's uniforms. "And you're going to start with what the hell that is."
Jacob sighed and leaned forward, "Shepard..."
"No, Jacob. Not now," Miranda interrupted.
"How is she going to trust us if we don't level with her?"
"No promises even if you do," Alyssa said as she crossed her arms.
Miranda huffed and slouched back against her seat as she waved at Jacob.
"Shepard, we're with Cerberus..."
Adrenaline is an impressive anesthetic. While her body still ached Alyssa was able to shoot to her feet and free her shotgun between breathes. The barrel wavered back and forth between her two companions as if unsure who to kill first.
"...congratulations Jacob, excellent call," Miranda snarked.
"I should have known," Alyssa said. "I've seen those symbols before."
"Shepard, it's not what you think," Jacob tried to explain as he held his hands up.
Alyssa's shotgun centered on Jacob's face. "Oh really? Chasca, Adrmiral Kohaku, Rachni drones, Thorian creepers? Just what the fuck am I supposed to think?"
"Well her long term memory appears to be intact," Miranda said as Jacob tried to melt back into his seat.
"Intact enough," Alyssa said as she turned her shotgun on Miranda.
"Shepard, please. Let us explain."
"You're Cerberus, that's enough explanation for me."
"Shepard, think about it," Miranda said as she stood up. "If we wanted you dead all I had to do was leave you sleeping on that operating table until the mechs found you."
"That's the problem with ya'll. I'm less worried about you wanting me dead than I am about why you'd want me alive."
Miranda's eyes remained on Alyssa's instead of on the barrel of the shotgun pointed at her. "We need your help Shepard. That's why we brought you back."
"Brought me back from what?" Alyssa demanded.
Miranda's gaze shot to Jacob, "You didn't tell her?"
"She didn't exactly believe me," he explained as his eyes stayed affixed the Alyssa and her shotgun.
Miranda sighed and looked back to Alyssa. "Shepard, you died."
"Bullshit."
"Do you remember what happened to you before you woke up in the operating room?" Miranda asked as she kept her eyes on Shepard's.
Alyssa paused and really concentrated on the question. Truth was she hadn't had time to consider it. Her training was good on survival but short on contemplation. "We were out hunting the geth, there was a fire, ...floating... that's all I can remember."
"That's because those engrams had the least amount of time to imprint on your mind. I suspect that as time wears on you'll be able to remember more."
"Or maybe I was knocked out in whatever you did to get your hands on me. Some drugs have nasty side effects."
"How would we get to you on the Normandy?" Miranda demanded.
"All I can remember is the Normandy, nothing proves I was on it when it happened."
Jacob nudged his partner. "Just show her Miranda. She's not going to believe it otherwise."
"Fine, but if it she goes catatonic you're carrying her," Miranda said. She looked back at Shepard. "Can I show you something? From my omni-tool?"
"So long as you remember at this range this," she nudged her shotgun, "will go right through any barriers you've got and into your face."
"Duly noted," Miranda said dryly as she brought her arm up and slowly tapped a few controls. She scrolled through her files a bit until she selected one and a scene from an operating theater opened up. It was the same one Alyssa recalled waking up in, or at least she thought it was. On the slab where she'd been was some... thing. A mass of twisted and melted plastics, charred beef, and broken bits that was totally unrecognizable.
"My god Miranda," a still living Wilson said as he looked over the thing on the table. "What are we supposed to do with this?"
"Your job," Miranda in the recording said as she looked over a data pad.
"I was brought in to resuscitate a dead person. I was under the impression I'd have an actual body to work with."
"You do," Miranda said as she pointed at the thing. In the background a few nurses and what Alyssa assumed were doctors buzzed around. One brought up a cart with powered cutting tools on it.
"This isn't a body. It's cooked meat. I don't know what the Illusive Man expects but it's not going to happen," Wilson protested.
"He expects results. He expects you to do your job. You can do it or you can be replaced," Miranda said in a tone that left no question that the first step in replacing Wilson would be disposing of his body.
"Maybe there's something left," he said quietly. "Maybe this charred husk managed to protect a little living bit." He sighed and looked at the cart of cutting tools. "Be careful," he ordered the other doctor who was preparing to make use of them. "Take your time and avoid the... tissue. If you remove any with the armor save it, we might need it. Commander Shepard is going to need every chance she can get."
The recording winked out and Alyssa blinked. "You could have faked that. There's no way that, whatever it was, was me."
"It was Shepard," Miranda said. "The Normandy was destroyed and you were aboard when it went. You were in orbit of Alchera and reentered it's atmosphere with only your hard suit. It was... not easy on your body. You were killed. What you saw was what was left after reentry, a hard landing, and several weeks spent on the oxygenless freezing planet."
"There's nothing there that proves that was me," she said as she shook her head. Something made her let go of her shotgun with the left hand and touch the neck seals of her suit.
Miranda shook her head and brought up another log, this time it was only her in the frame and her office was dark, likely after normal work hours. "Reconstruction is proceeding. The Commander's body is taking well to the fusion with the synthetics. However that's shortened the time frame to get everything else right. Her tattoos were relatively easy to replicate. Our contacts were able to provide body scans from the Spectre Requisitions office the last time Shepard got new armor and had it fitted. It was done just prior to her mission to Illos so it should be up to date. I can't discount that she might have had other tattoo's done between Illos and Alchera but there are no body scans to corroborate it and the only other person who could tell us isn't interested in talking to us. Hopefully it won't cause problems but I'm doing all I can. I have to admit it was amusing to watch Wilson's face when I brought in the auto-tat. I think he thought I was defacing his great work. He has no attention for detail," she said with a dejected sigh. "I had to stop him from initiating the hair regrowth process. He insisted on just going with regular black. My insistence that it wasn't just black went right over his head. The commander's hair had this odd... undertone to it that I'm having trouble getting just right. Regrowth should only take a week to get it back to it's proper length but I don't have a lot of time left to get it right. Maybe something to do with her genetic alterations, I'll have to check into it. The only reason Wilson even worried about getting the Commander's hair color right was after he had just not even bothered thinking about her eyes. The man really didn't see the problem with her having glowing red eyes." Video Miranda shook her head and buried it in her palm. "I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have just given him that raise and maybe he'd actually give a damn. I'll have to keep an eye on him, at this point he's trending towards becoming a liability."
"Well you were right about that," Alyssa said as the log ended.
"A little too late on picking it up though."
Jacob leaned in, "Do you believe us now Shepard?"
"No, a video and a log entry can be faked, easily."
Miranda lowered her omni-tool. "Then ignore it for now," she said. "Shepard we need you, humanity needs you."
"What for?" Alyssa asked as she backed across the cabin to the benches on the other side.
"Human colonies are disappearing," Jacob answered. "We've lost five colonies in the Terminus this year alone. Three the year before that and it's accelerating."
"At least eight hundred thousand people have gone missing in the last two years," Miranda said. "And the Alliance isn't doing anything about it."
Alyssa's ears perked up. "In the Terminus? They can't the colonies are too many and too far apart."
"They aren't even investigating Shepard," Jacob declared. "They just push out a report saying they don't know why the colonies are missing, probably slavers, and keep the whole thing as quiet as they can."
"But it's not slavers," Alyssa led.
"No, it's not," Miranda confirmed. "You've faced them straight up. Are the clean, surgical?"
"No."
"Well these colonies are just gone Shepard. No distress call, no signs of struggle, not even evidence of weapon's fire or anything being disturbed. Just every living human in the colony gone over night."
"That's not slavers," she confirmed. "They never take everyone, everyone isn't worth something as a slave. Who is it?" Jacob and Miranda looked at each other as if looking for assurance. Alyssa's shotgun dipped away from the two of them. "Who? Don't give me this shit, you either know or think you know. Spit it out."
"It's the Collectors," Miranda said when Jacob shook his head.
"Who?"
"The same people who blew up your ship with you still in it," Jacob said.
"The Illusive Man will want to fill you in on the rest," Miranda said. Alyssa's shotgun drifted back towards them. "You can shoot us if you like but this shuttle is locked on course and that emergency suit omni-tool couldn't hack the lock outs if it had a month to do it in. Like it or not you're going with us, at least to Minuteman Station."
"Shepard, please, hear us out on this," Jacob implored her. "People are disappearing and there is no one else to help. Whatever you think of Cerberus we are about protection humanity first. All we're asking for right now is to just listen to us. Let the Illusive Man talk to you, hear him out."
"And if I don't like what I hear?"
"You'll be free to go," Miranda said.
"Just like that?"
"Just like that," she said coolly. Alyssa said nothing but sat down on the bench opposite from them and laid the shotgun across her legs. "For now we obviously want you alive Shepard and there's nothing you can do to change where we're going. At the moment all we want to do is talk."
"Trust due to lack of options," Alyssa sneered.
Miranda cocked her head to the side with the faintest hint of a smile. "More or less."
"Lovely," she said as she leaned back and kept her eyes on the pair, her shotgun in her lap.
"It's gonna be a long flight," Jacob observed.
Minuteman Station was pretty nondescript as far as space stations went in Alyssa's eyes. Since mass effect fields had started to provide artificial gravity for space ships designers of space craft hadn't been nearly as restrained in their designs as evidenced by Minuteman Station's graceful docking arch. She could see the pin pricks of light that were other shuttles buzzing about as well as a few freighters moving to or away from the station. In other words it looked like any other space station she'd seen.
Jacob and Miranda never left their bench as the shuttle got nearer to the station and eventually a voice came from the speakers announcing that remote control had been transferred to station docking.
"Smart," Alyssa observed when the announcement ended.
"Thinking of grabbing control when we the autopilot ended?" Miranda asked.
"Maybe."
Miranda just smiled as the shuttle made it's way to a docking bay and settled in for a landing. The engines were spooling down when the shuttle door opened up with the light whoosh of equalizing pressures.
Jacob gestured to the open hatch. "Shall we?"
"You two first," Alyssa said. Her shotgun didn't come up but it never left her grip. Both of her companions edged carefully past her and out into the docking bay, Miranda heading for the door in while Alyssa looked around quickly. The bay had been sealed by a physical door and the shuttle they'd come in had no visible weaponry which meant the tables were quickly turning on her. She might have been in control in the shuttle but now, all someone had to do was just not open the door until she dropped her weapons or worse, open the space door and blow her out into vacuum. That was the real problem with space stations, those who controlled them controlled everything about them. Pump in a nerve agent, vent a section to vacuum, triple the gravity, if they wanted to subdue her they could and she'd never get a shot off at anything that really mattered. She kept her shotgun at her side, unholstered and ready but not obviously threatening anyone.
"Operatives Lawson and Taylor, reporting. With guest," Miranda said after activating the door's controls. The door beeped and opened up revealing a small waiting area, like a small version of a commercial space hub. To one side was a large picture window out into space with rows of seats and a few computers next to it. On the other was a control room with several people working in it. They wore similar white and black uniforms to the people who'd been at the hospital station where Alyssa had woken up.
"Well?" Alyssa asked as they stepped in.
"Well what?" Miranda asked snippishly.
"Well, what now?" she expounded.
"Now, you meet the Illusive man," Miranda answered as she went to one of the computer consoles and started working on it. "He's ready for you," she announced after checking something and she gestured towards a small staircase with a door at the bottom. "Right in there."
"Sure," Alyssa said as she started to walk towards the door. Three hours of sitting had taken it's toll on her but as she started towards the door a new surge of adrenaline washed over her system and battered down the worst of it. She wasn't sure what she'd find but she doubted she'd like it. "Come with me," she said quickly looking back at Miranda.
"I've got work to do," she replied icily.
Alyssa flicked off the safety of her shotgun and let it's capacitor's whine sound off in the small space getting both Miranda and Jacob's attention. "I insist."
"Then I guess I'm coming," Miranda said as she strode over towards the door with Alyssa. She just walked down the steps and activated the door as Alyssa came up behind her. "If we were going to gas you me being here won't stop it."
"No, but it does mean you'll use something a bit less nasty," Alyssa said as Miranda stepped into the dark room beyond. Alyssa took a few steps herself before the door slid shut behind them and a ring lit up around her feet.
"Shepard, the Illusive Man," Miranda said with a self satisfied air as a holographic representation of somewhere else coalesced around her.
"Figures," Alyssa said under her breath.
"Shepard," a middle aged man in a business suit said as he stood up from his chair. "I wasn't expecting to see you up and about this early but I've read Operative Lawson's report on what happened to the Lazarus Project."
"Subtle," Alyssa sneered.
"You don't need to hold Miranda hostage Shepard, we've brought you back to ask for your help, nothing more."
"All the same I think she'll stay in here with me."
"Have it your way Shepard, Miranda already knows what's going on." The closer he got to her avatar the more details Alyssa could make out, perfectly coiffed steel gray hair, blue eyes, the thin cigarette he kept between his fingers.
"The Collectors."
"Correct, the Collectors. Did Miranda tell you anything else?"
"No."
"They're snatching hundreds of thousand of colonists, Shepard, human colonists. They disappear and nothing is heard of them again. The Alliance is writing them off, ignoring the problem."
"But you're not?"
"I know what you think of us and our methods Shepard but our goal is the protection of the human race, it always has been. If the Alliance isn't going to do something to stop this, we will."
"Wonderful, but why me? I'm not a detective. I'm a soldier."
The Illusive Man stabbed at her with his cigarette. "That's where you're wrong Shepard. You're more than a soldier, you're a symbol."
"A symbol? You could have raised a small army for what you spent on me. What can I possibly do?"
"Shepard, because of you humanity went from a second rate power with no say in galactic affairs to holding a council seat. Turian and Asari ships failed to protect the Citadel, but Shepard and the human fifth Fleet did," he said with vigor as he began to pace his office. "You stopped Saren, our navy stopped Sovereign. The Council couldn't deny us our rightful place on the council any longer. Now, we're in a place to exercise influence over galactic politics. In less than a hundred years we've gone from learning about eezo tech to having a seat on the Citadel Council, that's unprecedented and you're the reason we made the final push."
"I wasn't trying to elevate humanity, I was trying to stop Saren and the Reapers."
"Precisely," The Illusive Man said. "That's why we want you. The Alliance will never take us seriously, anything we do is tainted. If you're involved though..."
"You can use my reputation to add respectability to your findings."
"Not our findings, your findings. I'm not asking you to rubber stamp something or be in a recruitment vid Shepard. I'm offering you a job."
"No thanks, I've already got one with the Alliance and the Citadel."
"Both of whom consider you dead," he countered.
"Then I'll get reinstated," Alyssa snarled.
"Neither the Citadel or the Alliance is concerned with the Collectors right now Shepard, they won't give you the authority or support to go after them. I will."
"And why should I care about the Collectors when the Rea..."
"...when the Reapers are still out there?"
"Something like that," Alyssa said.
The Illusive Man sat back down in his chair. "Because the Collectors are working for the Reapers."
That gave Alyssa pause. "How do you know that?"
"Because of what we know of the Collectors Shepard. They've been known of for quite some time. The asari have records of seeing a Collector ship over forty five hundred years ago. In all that time the Collectors have never attacked first, typically ignoring any ships the encounter and only fighting back if attacked. They collect things, odd thing. Fifteen sets of batarian twin boys, ten asari with a rare genetic birth defect, twenty eight turians of a certain clan, and on. They usually work through intermediaries, never directly. At least until two years ago when the Normandy was intercepted by the Collector ship and destroyed, killing you."
"So you claim."
The Illusive Man just waved her comment off and stubbed out his cigarette. "For the first time in recorded history the Collectors were aggressors. Who did they target, the person who had been instrumental in killing Sovereign. They made no attempt to collect your body, they just destroyed the Normandy, killed you, and left. After that the Collectors ceased all contact with their usual channels and they began to raid our colonies directly."
"To what end?"
"We don't know," he replied as he lit another cigarette. "That's what you're here for. Investigate what's happening, determine what they're doing, and stop them."
"And why should I trust you?"
"Because I'm going to show you what's going on Shepard. While you were on your way here threatening Miranda and Jacob with a shotgun we received word that another colony has gone dark. Freedom's Progress in the Hapes cluster of the Terminus Systems. Freedom's Progress has nearly a million inhabitants Shepard. Its as big as the Collector's entire take so far. This is the closest we've ever been to one of their operations and a chance for us to be the first boots on the ground. I want you to go there and confirm what I'm saying is true and see what you can find out. After that, what you do is up to you Shepard."
With that the connection went dark and the door opened behind them.
"Shall we go?" Miranda asked as she moved into the door silhouetting herself.
Alyssa stared into the blackness and weighed her options. Staying would yield little, they weren't going to give her the run of the station and hijacking a shuttle would mean fighting most of the residents of the station most likely. Who knew if they had frigates or fighters nearby, she'd never get out of sight of Minuteman before being destroyed. However going to Freedom's Progress meant trusting Cerberus for another shuttle ride. Still, she had a better chance on the shuttle or wherever they landed than here. If they really did take her to Freedom's Progress it would be child's play to ditch these two and hold out until someone came to investigate who wasn't with a murderous bunch of terrorists.
"Alright, lead the way."
Author's Notes
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