Matt woke to the steady, rhythmic beep of medical equipment. His skull felt like someone had carved out the inside with a rusty knife, and there was a sharp ache in his chest. He inhaled experimentally, and the pain exploded like shrapnel. Wherever he was, he was absolutely freezing. Matt shivered.
"He's waking up," said a-lightly-accented French voice. Dr. Michel. But why was Dr. Michel here? Chakwas was chief medical officer. Where was he? Matt forced his eyes open.
The medical bay was just like all the others he had ever been in. He was surrounded by gleaming white walls and gleaming white machines that did God-knew-what. The smell of antiseptic lingered heavily in the air. He could just see a redhaired figure bent over a console. "I adjusted the dosage like you asked. He should have been unconscious for a few more hours, at least."
Another figure came into view. Miranda. Matt's breaths came in short, shallow gasps for another reason now. He was hallucinating. Miranda was on the Citadel or some distant Cerberus base. This was some half-remembered echo of Lazarus Station, mixed with fragments of Michel's clinic. The imaginary Miranda had pulled her hair back and wore a labcoat devoid of any insignia. "It's the implants. It makes him almost impossible to sedate. I'm starting to think it simply can't be done for long no matter what the dosage."
"Miranda," Matt said. Or, rather, tried to say. The words came out as a hoarse sputtering,
She approached him slowly. Exhaustion clung to her like smoke, and worry lined her face. Her movements were measured, restrained. "Don't try to talk. I'm here. We're safe for now." She smoothed his hair with one hand. There was none of the brusque coldness he remembered from Lazarus. Her eyes were dark and clouded with grief and pain. She was still beautiful, but the way very old paintings were beautiful. She was a masterwork, but time and circumstance were waging a war with her. The part of his mind that was still addled by painkillers told him he ought to paint her like this: the perfect representation of a dying galaxy.
"I'm going to give you something for the pain and help you sleep. I promise, I'll explain everything when I can."
Matt didn't even have time to protest before he slipped into fitful unconsciousness. His dreams were a patchwork of horror. A Cerberus vessel appearing out of nowhere. Gunfire. An explosion. Chakwas slumping over her desk. A man with dark hair standing over her. Wires twining around him. His eyes were gone, replaced by goggles that glowed with pale light. He sneered. Finally got you.
The next time he came to, the pain had receded to a dull ache. Michel was gone, but Miranda stood sentinel over a nearby console. "You're awake. Good."
"I sort of wish I wasn't." At least his voice sounded human this time. "What are you doing here? What am I doing here? This isn't the Normandy."
Miranda frowned. "What do you remember?"
"Code Red…Cerberus has boarded."
These weren't anything like the troops he fought on Binthu. The strike team moved through the ship as if controlled by a single will.
Matt sent a biotic blast reverberating through the armory. One soldier went flying through the air and hit the ground with a crunch. The others didn't flinch, didn't even notice.
The assassin fired. Matt heard his own voice scream Chakwas' name. The assassin smiled. "Another Lazarus traitor down. Killing you off one by one."
"I had a nightmare about the Normandy being attacked. It wasn't a nightmare, was it?"
Miranda shook her head and went to his bedside. "Cerberus tracked you. I don't know how yet. They sent Kai Leng after you."
"The one that killed Kelly?"
"The very same." Her voice was cold, but Matt knew the subtle variations in Miranda's ice now. This was rage that cut all the more for not being explosive. It was the rage she reserved for people who harmed those under her command. "Damage to the ship was minimal, but I'm afraid she will be in drydock for several days. There was only one casualty, but…" She bowed her head.
Matt didn't need her to finish. "Chakwas."
"I'm sorry."
"Damn." He and Chakwas had never been truly close—occasional shared drink aside—but she had been something better. She had been familiar, one of the few constants in his life as his allegiance had shifted from the Alliance to Cerberus and back again. She had believed and trusted in him in a way that even Kaidan hadn't. She'd survived so much that he assumed she would make it to the end. "I'm so sick of losing people."
"And he nearly got you, too." Her voice cracked. "That's why Liara called me. I'm the only person who isn't dead or indoctrinated that even remotely understands the technology you have inside you. It's nothing that won't heal with time now, but you had us all worried there for a while." She smiled weakly. "Then again giving the rest the galaxy a mild heart attack is what you do best."
"The only person I want to give a heart attack right now is Leng. Preferably if it involves ripping it from his chest." He winced. "Of course, first I'm going to have to figure out how not to get my ass handed to me."
Miranda's face was suddenly grave. Not just older. Serious, like some goddess who held the secrets of the universe and wished she didn't. "That's why I stayed after you were stabilized. You remember that I wanted to implant you with a control chip?"
Matt nodded. Learning that Miranda had wanted to mind control him had been one of his more unpleasant shocks upon returning to the land of the living.
"I wasn't sure what you'd be when you woke up. You might have gone insane and murdered us all. At least that's what I told myself. The Illusive Man was determined to bring you back exactly as you were, but I thought it was too dangerous. He wouldn't let me alter you directly, but you're almost as much machine as man. Any machine can be hacked."
Dread spiraled through him, slow and certain. "What did you do?"
"A virus. All I had to do was press a button on my omni-tool, and your implants would be under my control. I never got very far in developing it—had to do it on my own, and you proved very quickly that you were still the stubborn, brilliant fool that you always were-but I still have the preliminary work."
"Is there a point to reminding me how absolutely terrifying you are?" How does it help me rip that bastard limb from limb?
She smiled, and her eyes glittered with triumph. "You aren't the only one with Lazarus tech anymore. Everyone's favorite assassin has it, too."
Matt hauled himself into a sitting position. His limbs screamed in protest. "What do you need me to do?" The pain scraped at him like a dull knife, but it was good to be sitting up again. He was naked from the waist up, but bandages covered his chest. Glowing reddish-orange bits were visible between the gaps. Half medicine, half computer repair. Matt wasn't sure he liked the metaphor.
"Nothing right now. You're too weak. I'll be back in a few days, and we can discuss it then." She gripped his shoulder and gently pushed him down. "Try to get some rest."
"No." He grabbed her hand. "I'm strong enough for whatever you need done. If you keep coming back, Cerberus will start getting suspicious. And every day—every hour—we wait is time that you're not working on that virus." Fury overtook him. Not the hot, uncontrollable rage that had caused him to lash out at everything after Mindoir. No, this was something quieter and more easily directed that he had learned from her. "Leng's killed two of my crew already. I'm not going to let him kill more."
"You always were a stubborn ass." She grew serious. "The virus is in a crude, but workable state. I've run some simulations with the data I was able to salvage from Lazarus. Theoretically, I should be able to take limited control over nonvital systems. Theoretically. I'd need to test it on the actual implants to be sure.
"You want to hack me."
She nodded, and Matt shivered. After his biotics had manifested, he'd hid them from his own family to maintain control over his life. Then Miranda had waltzed into his living room and informed him that he was the most powerful human biotic seen to that point and had to be trained. He'd fought joining the military. Then batarian terrorists had struck his new home on Eden Prime. All his life he'd fought for control, and all his life, he'd lost. At least Miranda was asking this time.
Killing you off one by one. He didn't have a choice here either. "Do you remember the first time we met? You got me so angry with you that I attacked you with my biotics. I coughed up blood. Well, I'm willing to go through a lot more than that. Do it."
They stared at each other. Something like regret had settled itself in Miranda's eyes. It didn't quite suit her, like using modern paint to restore an Old Master. It would never match up, no matter how hard you tried. But she called up her omni-tool. "One finger. I'm going to take control of one finger. Specifically, your left index finger. Uploading virus now."
Nothing happened. Matt exhaled. "I guess that was a bust."
"I'm not done yet. Code Epsilon-347. Tap three times."
Matt's finger tapped the edge of the bed three times. There was no struggle. It simply followed the commands as simply and easily as if they had come from his brain. Matt watched in horror and fascination. "Was that what the control chip was supposed to do?"
"More or less. Code Delta-628. Scrubbing virus." Her own fingers convulsed suddenly. "I'm glad the Illusive Man turned me down. Father nearly killed me trying to turn me into what he wanted. What would I have done to you? A brilliant, passionate man destroyed in the name of safety and expediency. It's a price I'm glad I didn't have to pay."
Matt didn't answer. She would have destroyed him. His will would never been entirely his own. He would have been an automaton. It would have made some things easier. He wouldn't have gotten blind drunk after finding out that it was Cerberus that had trained him. Automatons didn't doubt, any more than saviors of the galaxy did. But they didn't fall in love, either. He cupped her cheek with his right hand and brushed the skin with the pad of his thumb.
She turned her face to kiss Matt's palm and fingers. Pleasant sparks of electricity coursed through him. She was gentle, the touch of her lips no lighter than a feather. Matt let her. There was a time he would have taken her in his arms, full of giddy passion and not having seen her in weeks. But he was too tired and angry to care. Another thing this war had taken from him. "I hope you don't have any attacks of conscience when it comes time to use this thing on Leng."
"Attack of conscience? No. I said I was glad I didn't have to sacrifice you. If it had been anyone else, I probably wouldn't feel the slightest pang of conscience." Her eyes narrowed. "Leng? I'll positively relish it."
Only a handful of people knew that his relationship with Miranda was genuine. Half of those saw it as a morality tale about the transformative power of love. Liara has waxed downright rhapsodic about how much he had changed her. But he had changed her at all, had he? Merely gotten himself classed in the same category as Oriana. She cared about him, enough to risk her life by being here to save his. But her moral compass pointed in the same direction it always had: For the Greater Good. She was like one of those dragons the hero befriended in old stories. Just because it wouldn't eat you didn't mean that it wouldn't eat the fellow it didn't care about.
He loved her. That didn't mean she wasn't terrifying. Goddesses were always terrifying. That was why they were goddesses.
She smiled sadly at him. "Michel can look after you from here. I'll be in touch when I can. And try to get some rest. For Chambers and Chakwas, if nothing else."
"For Chambers and Chakwas."