For an atheist, death and beyond excluded the presence of consciousness. It was therefore a sign of life. And if that wasn't evidence enough, pain was an ample collaborator.
Miranda opened her eyes. All her senses felt raw and abraded. She tried to swallow against a dry throat, and found obstruction in the form of a substantial tube. A breathing mask covered half her face and she could hear the hiss of a working ventilator. Despite the aid, every intake of air felt like breathing fire. Tears leaked involuntarily from the pain that wreaked her. It was the only reaction her battered body could muster.
Monitoring equipment must've registered a change because a figure moved into her field of vision. Blinking hard, it materialised into a woman with dirty blonde hair peering at her worriedly. A cup came into view and the woman lifted the mask to dab her lips with water before dribbling a little of it into her mouth.
She tried again to work saliva into her throat, but all that came out was a frustrated "chhk…"
The blonde woman looked at her sympathetically. "I can't administer more painkillers without having you go down under. And I suspect you'd probably want some answers and explanations."
With great effort, Miranda inclined her head, breath hitching at the exertion. The next few moments were spent struggling against impending unconsciousness when the sudden application of a cold towel wiping away her tears came in time to keep her senses focused.
"I'm Kahlee Sanders. I arrived at this station five weeks ago. Shortly after your self-inflicted "experiment". Makes me wonder if it's serendipity that I came just in time to help reverse the effect of those nanites."
So that was who she was. News that Sanders had been researching on indoctrination and had the most promising leads had been taken into consideration before the research team was established. But then came devastating news that she'd died in the initial attack on the Citadel, prompting Shepard to abandon plans to search for her.
The towel left her face, and the mask came back on. Sanders move out of sight even as her voice continued. "I'll be sitting here beside your bed. Just listen, don't try to move."
The sound of a chair scraping the metal floor drifted across.
"I think you know who I am. I spent the last two years on the run with my research. A quarian ship picked me up two months ago and shuttled me to an alliance base which sent me here. I've seen your team's work. It's sound, although I wish you didn't have to waste time reinventing the wheel. Your test showed that your vaccine can keep the nanites at bay for up to eight hours. I'm working to incorporate my research and extend that window even further. Colonel Ravkas has determined it's sufficient for the job of destroying Reaper cores. There's also a good chance we'll have to settle for just the human and asari versions, but it's still a qualified success. So congratulations, Ms. Lawson. Your gamble paid off."
Miranda's lips cracked in an involuntary smile. She was faintly disappointed that the vaccine would only delay indoctrination onset, but Sanders was right: for the parameters of the mission, it sufficed. It was as if a great weight was lifted off her and she was tempted to give in to sleep again when something wet and cool touched her lips. She opened her eyes to see the older woman applying on a coat of medi-gel.
"Thought you went under again because I wasn't done." Sanders brushed away errant strands of hair from her face and peered closely, as if gauging her level of cognizance.
Satisfied, Sanders continued. "As you've probably guessed, your team went to some lengths to stabilise you. They put you through extensive blood transfusions and lowered your core temperature to induce stasis. All that prevented the nanites from destroying your neurological functions and altering your body extensively. I've managed to disable their self-replicating function and introduced a virus custom-made to attack their biological components."
The blonde woman shook her head in what seemed like admiration.
"You're lucky you're engineered to heal that fast. The virus would've destroyed the nanites along with their human host. But the approach isn't a hundred-percent success. There's just too many of them. They're too weak in numbers now to exert an effect, but it's likely you'll to have to live with their presence for a good many years. There may also be some memory loss, but the pain you're feeling is mostly the effect of the virus clearing out of your system. I suppose we should be grateful the nanites were programmed to repair even as they alter. Do you know you're likely the only person to have survived an outright indoctrination attack?"
Sanders turned to the side to adjust the control on a machine. "I'll be giving you a clean bill of health so you can revoke your standing orders if you wish, but the powers above have something else in mind. You've been ordered to transport the human-compatible vaccine to Alliance forces in the Voyager Cluster. I'll be taking over your role here. Oh, and I brought with me a personal message from Admiral Shepard."
The blonde woman removed the breathing mask again, and peeled the medical tape off her cheeks, lifting a tube into view. A twist at the connecting joint separated it into halves.
"I think you're strong enough for me to remove that feeding tube now." Sanders tried to extract the tube gently, but even so, Miranda gagged as it slid up her throat. Once it was gone however, the relief was indescribable.
"Ready to go under again?"
She swallowed several times and thought of trying to speak. Eventually, she settled for forming words with her lips. Sanders frowned as she read Thank you and then No. The other woman began to look troubled.
"Are you sure? Maybe I shouldn't have said so much." Sanders muttered.
She nodded her head infinitesimally, hoping that her ability to track Sanders' movement would be evidence of her clarity of mind.
"All right." Sanders conceded reluctantly. "Try not to tire yourself out."
Fine-tuning a number of monitoring controls, Sanders turned down the lights before finally leaving the room.
It was a cold light that filtered in from the stars outside the observation window. Miranda forced her head to turn towards the view. Either she was getting better at ignoring the pain or her body was healing at its usual accelerated rate, because the effort was bearable this time.
She noticed Sanders hadn't called her out for her gamble. She had to wondered how much of her decision had been compelled by necessity and how much was reaction to the despair she'd felt then and maybe even now. Except she was mostly numbed. Sanders' news should've brought elation, but it hadn't. Knowing that Shepard was alive should have brought relief, but again, it hadn't.
She wondered if she would ever feel like herself again.
-~o~-
2195 CE, New Canton (Present Day)
Morning came to the blurring senses as a series of events: the gradually warming light that stole into the room, outlines of objects subjected to her meticulously arrangement emerging as distinct shapes and the sounds of Shepard's moving in the hall.
Slowly, Miranda eased herself from her curled-up position, taking care not to make a sound. She padded softly across her room when there came a knock on the door.
"Miranda?"
She stopped on her tracks.
"I know you're awake. Breakfast is on the table. I'm going off now. But I think we should talk when I get back. I'm sorry if I was too hasty last night. Didn't mean to. It's just…" There was a brief silence. "Never mind. I'll see you later."
In time, the main door opened and closed with a finality that told her she was alone. Leaving her room, she found things just as he'd described; a meal laid out for her neatly and covered up. An involuntary smile tugging her lips, she picked up the single flower left beside the arrangement. It was a common species, but considering it was spring, she had to wonder how far he'd gone to find the bloom.
He was right. They had to talk. She let the flower slip to fall on the table and sat down, head rested against tented hands. It wasn't right to lead him on any further. The conversation last night had been a right step towards finding each other again. That he'd made it obvious he still wanted her was both humbling and exhilarating. Maybe they could be satisfied with just the emotional connection? Almost immediately, she snorted. Who are you kidding?
Keeping things under wraps on a small ship like the Normandy had been impossible towards the end. Theirs was a relationship that thrived on pushing the limits. It'd always been a case of all or nothing, don't ever lie to me intersecting with trust that I won't hurt you. It was also clear her resolve was breaking down. She didn't think she could subject herself to more incidents like last night and not go mad with frustration. Just the thought made her body coil up all over again.
Breakfast was disposed of and cleaned up in short order. She took a shower and pleasured herself in the attempt to relieve the tension. It helped, somewhat, but also brought home the point that something had to be done, and soon. Exiting the cubicle, she put on a smart pair of dark slacks and a form-fitting black shirt. Slinging a matching coat on the backrest of her console chair, she glanced at the chrono. The datapads stacked neatly as the side would be abandoned for today.
The seven-year war had left Miranda mostly in the dark about her sister's whereabouts. It was a stroke of luck that Oriana chose to become a terraformer on a colony at the edge of Citadel Space. She was spared from the initial wave of attack, and spent the next few years moving from system to system. They were reunited briefly above the orbit of Earth before work pulled Oriana away: this time to a human colony in the Skyllian Verge where her talents would be best put to use.
Determined to stay connected with the few personal ties she had left, Miranda invested in a secured quantum-entangling data channel linking her directly with Oriana. She punched in the code on the console and whiled away time browsing the extranet, trying to quell her irritation at the limited range of information. Out here in a Terminus system with most of the information buoys knocked out or destroyed, what news or information that filtered in was mostly either out of date, or non-existent.
The chat window finally beeped, announcing Oriana's entrance.
08:45 OR: Sorry sorry. Got caught up
08:50 ML: No worries. How are you?
08:51 OR: The darnedest thing just happened. Was coming back when I found I lost my ID card. Spent a full hour looking through the hovercar lot.
08:51 ML: Did you find it?
08:52 OR: No, damnit. It's not important, just a pain in the ass to replace. I wonder if...nah, I'd better do it soon. But the queues at the colonial office are always so long.
08:52 ML: Trouble?
08:53 OR: What? No. I need the card to sign out the heavy-duty trucks. It's the only way to lug all my equipment to the fringe colonies. Anyway, what's done is done. How are your studies coming along?
08:54 ML: I'm on track to clear half the modules. But I'll wait till I've mastered the whole course before taking the exams. Saves time on the back and forth.
08:56 OR: Speaking of which, are you gonna accept the honorary degree that salarian university is awarding you?
She frowned and fired off a query.
08:57 ML: What are you talking about?
08:57 OR: You don't know? You should really bug your governor to fix those comm buoys. Hang on...
The console beeped after a few seconds, signalling an incoming data-packet. It was a news article, one she'd never seen before. Miranda scrolled through the content quickly. Apparently, a renowned university on Sur'Kesh intended to award her a bio-engineering doctorate based on her work on Reaper indoctrination and Project Lazarus. Her eyes grew wide at the last line.
09:03 ML: Do me a favour? Run a search on "Project Lazarus" and tell me what you find.
09:05 OR: I see a total of... 56 entries. 12 of them praising some fundamentalist Asari cult group. 8 news articles deriding same cult group, all from human agencies. 2 personal sites mocking the whole thing by—-surprise, Krogans! Aaaaand 1... OK, OK, I'll stop. Anyway, there're 23 biomedical-related entries. Mostly science periodicals and research quarterlies. The earliest was dated one year ago. Keep in mind the extranet here isn't exactly stellar either.
Her mind went into overdrive, racing to make links in an attempt to locate a leak. A search on the local net turned out two entries. She cursed.
09:11 ML: Could you forward those to me?
09:12 OR: On the cult group? Sure. Just kidding! Hang on...
09:14 OR: Miri... Is what they say true? That you brought a dead person back to life?
She thought about denying it as the requested files came in, but it seemed the data was already out there beyond retrieval.
09:16 ML: Yes. But that was a long time ago.
09:16 OR: Who was it and why?
She sighed.
09:17 ML: It was John. He was killed shortly after Sovereign's attack on the Citadel. Cerberus put me in charge of rebuilding him.
09:17 OR: And you never thought to tell me this until now?
09:18 ML: That information was classified. Can you imagine what would happen if the galaxy got wind Cerberus was involved?
09:19 OR: Well, it's out there now. Besides the both of you are heroes for crying out loud! What's the use of fame if you can't squeeze it for a little benefit? Hmm... Give me a mo, just thought of something...
Miranda shook her head at her sister's unfounded optimism, and took the opportunity to look through the files received. Studying every article would take an entire day, but a glimmer of a suspicion took hold when she saw that most of the files originated from Sur'Kesh, the salarian home-world.
Mordin...
09:22 OR: OK. Somehow, I don't think you'll like this...
There was another beep as a new article came in. She opened, scanned through it and nearly choked.
09:24 OR: Romantic, isn't it?
09:25 ML: Tell me you're being sarcastic. This is ridiculous. There must be a way to stop the spread of such baseless assertions!
09:25 OR: Maybe if you get a better extranet link (I'm being sarcastic) Not sure you can justify the baseless part either. You did fall for him...
09:26 OR: And yeah, yeah. I know what you're gonna say: we're not discussing this. Message received. Anyway, you and John should come visit one of these days. This planet is breathtaking.
She stopped in mid-sentence, and deleted the line with a well-practiced sigh before resuming typing.
09:27 ML: Sounds nice.
09:27 OR: Is that a yes? I have leave to spare in two months' time.
She hesitated, remembering what happened the night before.
09:28 ML: Let me discuss it with John first.
09:28 OR: Well, don't sit on it too long. Damn... I think I just heard a window shutter slam. Looks like it's gonna rain. Let me go check it out.
09:29 ML: Ori, don't you lock your windows before leaving the house?
09:29 OR: It's a loose shutter. Meant to get it fixed but never got around to it.
09:30 ML: Do you want to close this session then? I have errands to run myself.
09:30 OR: Sure. I'll catch up with you again.
09:30 ML: Sorry I got you caught up with my problems. We'll talk more next time.
09:31 OR: C'mon now, that's what sisters are for. Take care!
Miranda signed off and glared at the opened files on the screen. She took one baleful look at the foremost article and trashed the offending item. The thought that her private life was fodder for the tabloids was disturbing. Shepard would probably laugh it off, but he was used to far more public scrutiny. Even out here on a remote world, a security network surrounded him, mostly in the form of round-the-clock shadow surveillance. It was something she was personally glad she didn't have to endure.
She saved the rest of the files for perusal later and shrugged on the jacket before making her way to the garage. Powering up the hovercar used for trips to the main settlement, she nudged the controls, veering over the low-lying pre-fabricated units of their small community towards the space port of the planet.
New Canton was unusual among colonies for a space port that catered only to orbital and planetary shuttles. Its microbial-based ecology meant star-ships were required by quarantine protocols to dock at a modest-sized space station orbiting overhead. Together with cargo handling, the station was also equipped with personnel holding areas and state-of-the-art medical labs to process new colonists.
One month ago, before landing on the planet, Miranda had used her clearance as a senior Alliance scientist to access the labs. Running a complex gamut of medical tests on herself had become routine after her experiment with the indoctrination nanites. As it turned out, Sanders' prognosis had been correct. Their numbers fell every year, but if she was looking to be entirely free of them, it would take five more years according to the rate of reduction.
It'd felt like a reasonable time back when nobody could predict what the war would bring the next day. But the question now was how willing was she to risk contaminating Shepard. There was no knowing how many of the damn things he'd accumulated in his body over the years. They'd probably have to get him checked out after her disclosure, but her trip today was more than just picking up the test results.
She banked the vehicle, making a beeline for an extranet company field office, the one that she'd signed on for the quantum-link. The chat with Oriana troubled Miranda in more ways than one; the gaps in her information net most of all. She had to wonder how much more she was missing out.
Without preamble, she headed for the service counter to buy time on a quantum extranet link, submitting her Alliance ID to cut through the restrictions involved in securing such a channel. The Citadel's network used to be the originating point of public quantum links, being the seat of the galactic government with access to all information nodes from various parts of the galaxy. Since its destruction, users had to decide which point they wanted to link to, with the understanding that data in particular areas would be lacking depending on their choices.
After a moment of deliberation, Miranda selected Bekenstein on a haunch that its undamaged infrastructure and location in Citadel space would be sufficient to assure a decent database. The search on Project Lazarus turned up over two hundred entries this time. Most of the papers still originated from Sur'Kesh, further confirming her suspicion that Mordin was the one who'd leaked the information. She fired off a query to the university where the bulk of research papers came from, requesting copies of the original files. Reluctantly, she signed off with her Alliance ID as proof that she was project leader.
The spectre of Cerberus continued to haunt Alliance politics, and she could only hope that Mordin had removed every last reference from the files. The last thing Shepard needed was more public evidence tying him to that organisation. There was no denying that her name was a screaming red flag. Hopefully, the brunt of whatever backlash that arose would fall on her instead.
Frowning at the implications, Miranda switched over to the general news section. The articles were mostly non-current, with dates that stretched back the further the distance of the locations were from Bekenstein. But she'd paid for the time on this channel, an exorbitant sum in fact, and there was several minutes yet left on her session. Outdated as some of the items were, there was nonetheless news that remained relevant.
[Earth Standard Time 16:06 13th June 2195 CE]
Martial Law Lifted From Earth
The martial law imposed by the Systems Alliance Military for the better part of five years has finally been lifted by the newly-elected Alliance Parliament. Prime Minister Jeong Han Park, who won by a landslide majority last month, has vowed to return governance to civilian hands. At the top of his recently-unveiled agenda is investigation into accusations of gross negligence on the part of Alliance forces resulting in the needless loss of human lives during the lead up to the conclusion of the Reaper war. Celebrations have erupted over the news in many parts of Earth, along with massive protests taking place in numerous cities, demanding redress for the lack of accountability, as well as insufficient transparency in the war-making process.
She shook her head at the cycle of recrimination that seemed to have sprung up again, and resumed her scrolling of headlines, eyes flicking expertly over every page, stopping only to speed read through particular items. Over the years, she'd learned to spot-glance certain keywords on subjects that interested her, and that was how the next piece caught her attention.
[Earth Standard Time 13:45 20th March 2195 CE]
Aiken Eldfell of Eldfell-Ashland Energy Dead
Eldfell-Ashland Energy's co-founder and major shareholder, Aiken Eldfell has passed away early this morning in John Hopkins Hospital's intensive care unit. The 92-year old reclusive Australian tycoon had been fighting for his life for the past three months after being caught in the conflagration that engulfed the area of Detroit in the United States during the Reaper strikes. Eldfell's personal fortune is estimated to be worth in excess of 102 billion credits, including major estates in the cities of Frankfurt, Tasmania, Wuhan and Pusan. Eldfell's lawyers remain unavailable for comments on the status of his personal will, citing corporate conflicts as reason for the delay. The Australian government has requested that Eldfell's body be transported back to his home country for internment. A date has not been set for the wake.
She sat eyes unseeing, shaken to the core as another spectre from the past reared its head, this time in the form of her father's death.
It was one she thought she'd never be rid of. Until now.