Through his contacts, he found out that Illium was far from the ideal metropolis that its outward appearance engendered. Slavery, drug traffic, and a host of other unsavory things were perfectly legal there, depending on who you were paying off. It was run with brutal corporate efficiency by companies who's morals were loose to say the least. Anything goes as long as you know which hoops to jump through.

He climbed the stairs to Liara's office slowly, passing an empty desk on his right. He considered the empty desk for a moment before palming the lock. Her office seemed awfully unsecured to him, her safety, in as dangerous a place as this, in doubt.

"Ah, Garrus, it's good to see you again." She looked up from her monitors at him, impassively. For a moment, he watched her face. Apparently, Liara learned a thing or two about not showing all her cards since he'd seen her last. That was exactly the face that Shepard made so she wouldn't give anything away. Funny how Shepard made such an impact on them all. "What can I do for you?"

She gestured for him to take a seat, which he did, plopping down and crossing his ankle over his knee. He showed her a datapad, "Shepard gave me this to give to you. I know you're after the Shadow Broker. Cerberus had data on where to find him. Interested?"

Finally, a spark of the old endearingly young Liara as she excitedly said, "Absolutely! I had no idea...Let me see what you've got!"

Her fingers flew over the pad, flicking through images, "It looks like a leaked transmission between Shadow Broker operatives. Some hints as to the location, and..."

She froze when the image of a male drell popped up, "It's about Feron. He's still alive."

Hope and amazement colored her tone and Garrus looked at her questioningly. "Who's Feron?"

"He was a...friend. He helped me recover Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker." She turned away from him, deep in thought.

"Why did the Shadow Broker want Jane's corpse?" Liara looked sharply at him at his use of Shepard's first name. He looked away from her, feeling like a fool for giving away such a simple admission.

"He was going to sell her to the Collectors," A wave of nausea hit Garrus low in the gut, he tried to give none of his feelings away, but Liara watched him too closely as she continued, "but Feron and I stopped him. Feron sacrificed himself to save me."

"So you rescued...Shepard. Then how did she end up with Cerberus?" The missing bits of the story were coming together at last, he couldn't help but to pump her for information.

She glanced away, a little shame showing in the tension of her cheek, "Well, they gave me the intel to help recover her. They actually put Feron with me in the first place. After I got out, I gave her to them. They said they could bring her back..."

She fell silent, not looking at him, obviously expecting some kind of reprisal. Garrus came around the desk and embraced her. She tried to pull away in surprise, but soon her stiffness relaxed and she brought her hands up to pat his back, "You kept her out of the Collector's hands. Without you, she would have been gone...forever. Thank you."

His voice almost broke on those last two words. She sighed against him, "I couldn't tell Shepard before, when she came to me a few weeks ago. I didn't know if she'd feel betrayed or..."

Her voiced drifted off and Garrus released her, stepping back, "She'd have understood. She knows us."

Liara smiled in gratitude, her cheeks dimpling prettily. "Cerberus brought her back. And now they're giving me a chance to find Feron."

He watched her run her fingers over the face on the datapad, her voice soft, "After two years, I hadn't even dreamed..."

"Sounds like you two were close." He made his tone just a little suggestive, she quirked an eyebrow at him.

"It's funny. He betrayed me more than once. He was double-dealing for Cerberus, the Shadow Broker...But in the end, he...sacrificed himself for me. I owe him." The defiant tilt to her chin clued him in on just how much Liara had changed. She wasn't the unsure little girl any more, awkward and naive. She'd come into her own, stronger now than she'd been before Shepard died.

He put his hand on her shoulder, "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. What's the next step?"

She looked down, a frown on her lips, "I-don't know. I need to prepare, to think. I'm going home. Use my terminal if you need any local intel."

She walked past him, not meeting his eyes. Garrus said, his voice a concerned rumble, "Liara, are you okay?"

Liara snorted a bitter laugh, "Huh, I've spent two years plotting revenge. Now, I have the chance to make it a rescue."

She turned at the door when Garrus called to her, "Let me help. I'll come by your apartment?"

Liara smiled at him, he saw the shadow of pain in her gaze, "Okay. Hopefully, I'll have a plan by then. Thank you, Garrus."

Garrus was pretty sure chasing a rogue Spectre across Illium wasn't the plan. He clutched the steering wheel as he had to cut sharply right to avoid colliding with an airbus. The two women in the car with him squealed in terror, clutching at the restraints. He knew he'd had a bad feeling about Tela Vasir, the asari Spectre who was now leading them on this merry chase through the city. She'd been just a little too helpful when he'd come to Liara's apartment to find it trashed and her blood everywhere. In his worry for Liara's safety though, he'd overlooked his misgivings. And now, a building was destroyed, lots of people dead or injured.

Garrus worried briefly whether he'd botched this job, but knowing every option he realized that Shepard would have done the same.

"Hang a left." Garrus shot a look at Liara, worried at the intensely manic expression on her face. She was almost panting.

"I'm on her." He said briefly. Looking around, he started analyzing all the possible routes she could take, ready to change direction should Tela Vasir shift one way or the other. He could almost see the trails crisscrossing ahead of him and wondered if this was the way Shepard saw things all the time. Garrus shook his head, concentrating on staying on Vasir's tail.

"She's going into that construction site. Left! Left!" Then she screamed a bit when he dodged a vehicle carrying freight, scraping all along the edge of it. "Goddess!"

Jack in the back yelled at him, "Are you taking driving lessons from Shepard, Vakarian?! What the fuck!"

Liara clutched at his arm, "I'm not letting her escape with that data!"

He yanked his arm out of her hand and yelled, "Just let me drive, will you? We got this."

With that he hit the boosters, almost climbing up Vasir's ass. Jack's hand shot past his face to point, "Proximity charges!"

"I noticed!" He roared back at her, moving the aircar around them deftly.

They all ducked reflexively when rockets blew around them, exploding into the face of the building ahead of them, Liara looked back and yelled, "She's got reinforcements!"

"Where are the guns on this thing!?" He pushed random buttons, making the radio come on and off, opening and closing the sunroof.

Liara looked at him incredulously, "It's a taxi! It has a fare meter!"

In the silence that followed that statement, Garrus heard a snort in the back, then a guffaw. Liara was giggling into her hand. Then he was laughing. The whole aircar shook with their riotous laughter.

Liara broke off to yell, "Truck!"

"I know." said Garrus tensely, trying to control the wheezing from the uncontrollable laughter.

"TRUCK!"

"I KNOW!" He slid around the tumbling flaming debris that used to be a truck and laughed again, yelling, "THERE WE GO!"

"You're enjoying this." Liara shot him an accusing glance and he shrugged.

"Maybe." They were heading into oncoming traffic again, with more congestion than before. Tela Vasir was pretty far ahead of him, so he hit the boosters again, ignoring the pained grunts from Jack and Liara. Liara all but whispered, "A head-on collision at this speed..."

"Yeah, I hear those can be bad for you." He dropped them under the skylane, keeping his eyes firmly on the aircar they were chasing.

"Truck!" Liara pointed ahead of them, where another truck was foundering, rocking from being hit with rockets. It spun on its axis slowly towards them.

"What, again?!" Garrus cut the corner, avoiding the truck, knowing from the pattern of Vasir's driving that she would most definitely turn there. He nearly crowed as his intuition proved correct and he easily pulled alongside her, smiling into the Spectre's stunned face. She grimaced and rammed the side of her car into them, almost making them veer into an oncoming vehicle. Garrus returned the favor and she was not lucky enough to dodge as she collided with another aircar. They watched her lose control and slam into a highrise below them.

Garrus lost sight of her briefly while he looked for a place to park. The highrise, he now saw the name 'Azure' had many garden tiers so he landed on one as close to the downed aircar as possible. They piled out and pulled out their weapons, all of them in half crouches, looking for threats.

Liara pointed off to one side, "There's Vasir's car. C'mon, she can't have gotten far."

Jack gestured above them, "Reinforcements!"

"Liara, take cover over there. Jack, cover me." He pulled out his sniper rifle and picked off most of the incoming baddies on the slowly descending platform.

Jack said, "Six o'clock."

"Miss T'soni could you drop one of your famous singularities behind us?" He heard her laugh at his formality, then the 'bwamp' noise of her engaging her biotics as he headshotted the last man in front of him. A descending disc on his right signalled the arrival of more cannon fodder. "Jack, do you think you can shockwave all those guys off their floating disc thingy?"

No sooner said then done, he watched the men fall to their deaths with something close to satisfaction at a job well done. A damn drone floated over his bit of cover taking potshots at his shields and he realized they had a damn engineer with them. A couple shots from Liara's pistol had the drone spinning away and exploding. Spotting the man, he tossed an overload, shorting out his shields. Then watched him fly over the edge of the building with the help of a biotic throw. Garrus grinned at Jack, who shrugged.

With Garrus directing them, they made short work of the waves of shadow broker agents that came at them. He easily predicted where their insertion points were so he moved them around the battlefield accordingly. He was just starting to enjoy himself when he realized all the agents were down. He signalled his team to follow as he said, "Let's move."

Around the edge of the balconies, they tracked her blood trail. She'd been injured pretty badly in the crash, but that didn't stop the detestable woman from shooting all the civilians she came across. Garrus stepped into room after room with bodies on the floor, shaking his head. He found a couple survivors in one of the rooms, reassuring them in few words that he wasn't going to hurt them. He turned to look at a floor to ceiling vid screen with dancing, nearly naked asari on it and his jaw dropped, "Liara, what kind of hotel is this?"

She glanced at the screen nonchalantly, turning to him with a quirked eyebrow, "Azure. It's a luxury resort with an...exotic edge. 'Azure' is slang for a part of the asari body in some parts of Illium."

Embarrassingly, he felt blood rush under his plates as he said, "Where?"

Jack choked out a laugh, but Liara turned a too innocent eye to him, "Mainly the lower reaches, near the bottom."

Garrus coughed and said, "I meant, 'where on the asari body?'"

"So did I." Liara's face broke into a cheeky grin as he stared at her, dumbfounded. Jack guffawed and elbowed him in the ribs. Stunned, he followed her to where she knelt on the balcony, pointing at a bloody pool. "She's got to be close. She's lost a lot of blood."

"She's tough. I'll give her that much."

Almost reprovingly, the asari replied, "She's a Spectre."

Garrus saw Jack flit in and out of rooms and said, "What are you doing, Jack?"

"Looting. And before you give me that glare, it's what Shepard would have done and you know it."

Chagrined, he said, "True...carry on."

The next door opened on a large area filled with people. Garrus grimaced, "Euw. That can't be good."

He saw a figure stumbling through the crowd out there and resigned himself to a messy firefight. Liara moved past him to yell, "Vasir! It's over."

The injured asari paused and turned toward one of the party guests, "Hey, hey you. Come here. What's your name?"

Crap, now she has a hostage, thought Garrus as he scoped in on her. Too much risk of collateral damage for him to take her out now. He was gratified to note that the other partygoers had apparently decided it to be prudent to vacate the premises. One hostage was enough.

The frightened woman in the Spectre's arms said haltingly, "M-Mariana."

Vasir cooed in her ear, "Mariana, you want to live, don't you? Tell those people you want to live."

Garrus bared his teeth in a snarl when he heard the woman reply, "Please..."

Forced himself to say comforting words, "We'll get you out of here safely, Mariana."

Barely heard the Spectre's cruel words as she taunted them, his eyes focused tightly on the gun in that bitch's hand. He brought his crosshairs over the heatsink chamber and knew deep down in his wishbone that he could do it. He squeezed the trigger so gently and watched his round veer true to the mark, breaking that weapon's ammo chamber open and rendering it inoperable. The women stumbled away from each other in shock, crying out, "Run, Mariana!"

He spun on the asari as the hostage scrambled away, who threw a burning glare his way and teleported, fucking teleported to the edge of the balcony far from them.

Jack grunted, "I think she has a mass effect relay shoved up her ass."

With that, they all broke for cover and Garrus started turning the situation over in his mind. Saw from his visor's readout that she was doubly protected by barriers and armor. She's going to be a tough nut to crack and she keeps zipping around like a pyjak on redsand. As he studied her, taking a few shots as he did, he started to notice a pattern in her teleporting. They seemed to be equidistant jumps, so there must be an outward limit to how far she can go and she never did short jumps either, it was always the same distance. Using the part of his brain that calculated all his firing algorithms, he started charting her progress around the balcony.

It became elementary how easily he could predict her movements and together they picked away at her shields with overloads, warps and AP ammo, he shouted out her next position as she transitioned. The reinforcements went down easily, until all that was left was that blue bitch. All her defenses stripped, Garrus watched her face light up in rage as Liara picked her up in a singularity. Garrus shot her rifle out of her hand as she floated there helpless. The three of them converged on her as she screamed in outrage, "UGH! Dammit! Dammit!"

Liara reached into the blue field and yanked a datapad from the Spectre's belt. She plugged it into her omnitool, scanning the encoded data, "Sekat's personal datapad. This is what we need to find the Shadow Broker."

The singularity disipated, but there was no fight left in the dying woman. She rasped out from where she slumped against a wall, spitting blood, "You're dead. The Shadow Broker has been in power for decades. He's more powerful than anything you've ever faced."

Garrus crouched in front of her, spearing her with an intense glare, "Is that why you sold out the council to work for him?"

Her bloodied lips curled into a sneer, "You think I sold out the council? Like Saren? Go to hell!"

She spat at him and he wiped the bloody mess off his cheek. He growled deep in his chest, hissing, "No. Saren had a higher ideal, he thought in his fucked up way that he was saving every soul in the whole galaxy. You have no love for anyone but your own petty ends. What's wrong with you people? It's always the end justifies the means with you. What, a little intel, a few favors and a handful saved lives justifies all of this?"

He slammed his fist into the wall next to the woman's head, showering her in debris, "So, Spectre-" he spat the word, "how many people died today because you're protecting the man who wants to sell us all to the Collectors? People are not means. Those people in that building you blew up were not means. All the people in this damned hotel were not means. And you didn't hesitate, did you? If you'd lived to see tomorrow, those people wouldn't haunt you. They were beneath your notice."

Her mouth opened and closed in shock at his rant, but her mouth hardened in a line, her eyes calling him hypocrite, "It didn't stop you from killing me."

"No, it won't. But I'll remember you." Garrus shook, feeling like he'd touched some fundamental truth, "Just like I'll remember the fifty men you sent against us so you could escape. Because they matter."

He stood then, looking down at her. They all matter. The thought held the undercurrent of fate and almost blew him over with its magnitude. Garrus shook himself free of it for now, tucking it down in his mental inventory to peruse later. Both Jack and Liara were looking at him, bemusedly. Garrus turned to watch the last ember of life extinguish in those blue eyes, Yes, I'll remember you, and your tragic end. I'll remember that you failed because you didn't care enough.