Black hair settled over a pink silk robe as Miranda tied it shut, padding from her bedroom to her small office. Though her quarters were not as large as the Crow's Nest, they were more than adequate and honestly, more luxurious than some accommodations she'd been presented with since joining Cerberus.

She was still trying to settle in, to feel at home. She had been used to shuffling from ship to ship, project to project, but being at Lazarus station for two years, she had begun to feel slightly rooted, settled. Now on the move again, it simply felt…odd.

The simple act of seating herself at her workstation caused her five console screens to automatically power on, and a brush of her fingers over the DNA sensor beside her HI keyboard accessed her most secure programs. The consoles lit up with a wealth of various information…scrolling ship and project reports, relevant information from her wide network of both Cerberus and non-Cerberus contacts, security vid feeds from various areas of the Normandy itself, and Orianna's update page.

She always went over Orianna's page first. Usually short, it simply gave school status updates, indications of various activities or anything that went outside the usual schedule and routine of her day. It reassured Miranda that the girl was safe, happy, and living normally.

That done, Miranda half-turned her attention to various ship reports scrolling over one screen as she accessed old Lazarus files on a second.

Though most information about the project itself had gone up with the station's self-destruct, Miranda had been able to retain a great deal of Shepard's personal and personnel files. The Commander would probably be alarmed at the amount of information they had on her…everything from the most minor of vaccination records and police reports to classified Alliance documentation. A human being's entire life in a million varied pieces, it had obsessed Lawson for the duration of the Project…from the moment of Shepard's death until the station had come under attack.

To rebuild the woman, especially her brain, as perfectly as possible required every possible detail, every seemingly insignificant piece of data, every psychological nuance of personality (of which Shepard had plenty) that could be scraped together.

The Project still wasn't over, even though Shepard had been restored. Miranda was almost constantly looking for more, anything that would pinpoint the smallest flaw in what she'd achieved. Most would call her search for complete perfection with Shepard an impossibility and they were probably right. All her research, years of intense study that continued even now…and still, Shepard could surprise her.

Unknown to either woman, Miranda shared Dr. Chakwas's initial impression from back at the maiden launch of the first Normandy, when the crew had been initially formed.

Shepard shouldn't be possible. Yes, the woman has her psychological quirks, her starkly unresolved anger issues but that's just it…they shouldn't just be quirks. She should be a raving lunatic, or broken so completely as to be utterly non-functional in reality.

Yet, she wasn't. Or didn't seem like she was. Perhaps therein lay Miranda's hesitancy. Always confident, in control around people, even the most dangerous of criminals, Miranda found it almost impossible to relax around Shepard. Part of her was always in a knot of nervous tension, always wary…as if Shepard were some wild animal that might seem calm and rational at the moment but that also might suddenly turn and maul without the slightest provocation.

That was the crux of her first real disagreement with the Illusive Man. Shepard was a walking time bomb, both mentally and emotionally. Being a marine alone, actually dying in the field, she most certainly suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder…a condition so common among military combat forces most soldiers referred to it as SSDD instead of PTSD: Same Shit Different Day.

On top of that there were signs she had some form of borderline personality disorder and was possibly a self-controlling psychotic…no doubt stemming from her overwhelming childhood trauma.

Miranda selected a file on her console and opened it. There were photographs along with the archived text story. The pictures showed a room, perhaps fifteen by twenty. It was a small room in a larger 'Home Again' building in the deepest slums of New York.

The Home Again project was created by the US government some forty years before. Government subsidized but privately owned buildings were doled out to the homeless, each qualifying individual or family getting a single room within a larger structure. While the project may have had idealistic origins all it had done was move the outside homeless situation inside…into cramped, diseased, vermin-infested hot-boxes.

This particular room was assigned to a Baethan Torrfield and his common-law wife, Jaia. Baethan was the uneducated, bullying spawn of a family just one step above those slums…a common street-thug, drunk, and drug addict. Jaia was no better, often whoring herself out as well for what credits she could get…sometimes at Baethan's direction.

The room had no furniture save an old greasy console that barely worked, a cracked and malfunctioning toilet parked in one corner, and a broken down old sofa. In the photos, the room was strewn with debris and filth, accumulated beer bottles, scattered cigarette butts, overflowing filth, waste, litter and refuse of every imaginable kind. In the text, it said the smell in the room was so overwhelming that the super and initial police response team had vomited upon entry and had to retreat and wait for proper re-breathers.

They were crime scene photos. Jaia was dead upon the sofa, bloated and grotesque, flies coating her eyes. Baethan was on the floor, the congealed mess of brains removed by the pistol in his right hand clotted nearby. He was similarly bloated, the couple having died within an hour of one another and having been left unknown for three days of summer heat before the super had broken in the door due to the overwhelming smell.

In the report it described how, when the super had forced the door open, he had thought there was some kind of animal inside, a pet or a stray that had been drawn through some pipe or crack in the wall by the smell. It wasn't until the thing managed to dart past him and out into the hall that he realized it was an actual child.

It was Shepard. She would have been six years old, and every moment of her life had been spent in that miserable, smelly little room. There wasn't even a window. The girl had never know fresh air, sunlight…or that anything at all existed beyond those four walls.

Miranda fancied that was what had sent her to take to the ventilation systems to begin with. She could imagine that frightened girl rushing through unfamiliar halls, consumed only with the instinctive urge to get away. She could picture her somehow making her way outside and seeing that sun for the first time. Bright, painful…it had probably terrified her, and she'd mindlessly sought out the nearest avenue of escape to flee from it.

Six years old. Miranda couldn't imagine spending five minutes in that room, with those people. Six years and the child had survived by feasting on the detritus left behind by the couple, gaining water most likely only by condensation that formed on pipes or, when she was old enough to lift it, from the toilet tank itself. The child had been born in that mess. Once she was crawling she had probably never been lifted or held, never hugged or kissed. She was spoken to only to be screamed at, threatened. She probably learned to speak at all simply by hearing the couple argue and shout at each other.

Switching off the unpleasant images, Miranda drew up instead the vid of Shepard being brought into the institute for the first time, meeting and talking with Nancy Salgado after being delivered by a pair of unfeeling policemen. Here is where a small, niggling puzzle had started…one Miranda had never been able to solve.

Her name.

Shepard had a pair of arrests previous to the one that landed her in the institute. Each time, when severely pressed, she had given her name as Delilah Spruce Shepard…a name she even now hated with a passion, much preferring to go simply by Shepard or, if you were granted her particular favor, you might get away with calling her Del.

Thing was, the couple in the room were called Torrfield. Given the level of their degradation and neglect, Miranda highly doubted they had even bothered to name their unexpected and unwanted offspring. They certainly hadn't filed any sort of birth certification. If they had, the judge would have taken one look at their living conditions and Shepard would have been in the social services system before her umbilical cord had a chance to shrivel.

So where had the name come from? Had Shepard picked it herself, and if so…why would she pick a name she disliked so intensely? There was no birth certification for anyone named Delilah Spruce Shepard, anywhere in the entire state of New York for the last one hundred fifty years. A few Delilah Shepards perhaps but the middle name 'Spruce' was fairly unusual, and should stand out…yet Miranda couldn't find a single reference before the girl's first arrest record.

One thing she did know for certain: Jaia was Shepard's mother, but Baethan was not Shepard's father. The military did full genetic testing on every applicant and could trace their race history with remarkable acuity. Shepard's genetic history from that test and from the ones Miranda had performed herself revealed her to be predominantly Native American, mostly from the Choctaw tribe. As well she had small scatterings of English, Welsh and Scandinavian blood.

Jaia's family were all mostly Choctaw, Jaia's biological father being mixed with Norwegian. But Baethan's family all came from Madagascar and New Zealand…not a single marker of which showed in Shepard's blood.

Shepard, it seemed, was the product of a 'business exchange' drawn out by Jaia's need for booze or drugs, and some nameless, faceless man's available creds.

I wonder what Earth's ancient forefathers would have thought to know that someday, the greatest hero humanity ever produced would be the product of some junkie's whoring in a back alley.

The name still bothered her. It was unimportant, of course, a non-detail, pointless in the broad scheme of things, but Miranda hated loose ends. She hated questions to which she didn't have the answers. Of course, the solution was simple…simply ask Shepard. The woman remembered back far enough that she could recall the overdose death of her mother, the accidental deranged suicide of the man she thought was her father…certainly she could remember naming herself and why.

Miranda was hesitant to take that tack, however. It seemed like becoming too familiar with the wild animal, and in Shepard's current emotional state…too much temptation toward getting bit.

This is why T'Soni should be here, she thought, putting her in mind of her argument with her boss once again.

Shaking her head she closed out the vid and all her old files on Shepard, turning her attention instead toward the woman's computer files and email.

Part of Miranda's job on the Normandy was surveillance. Cerberus might be far more permissive in some areas than the Alliance…allowing greater free reign toward project goals, for example, or turning a blind eye toward fraternization between crew-mates, but it all came at a price. For a mission as important as this one, the price was quite high. Every inch of the ship save the lavs were under constant vid and audio surveillance. Miranda had access to every moment of tape and could call up any section of the ship at any time. All of the surveillance was forwarded on to Cerberus where it was scanned and archived.

But the monitoring wasn't just limited to picture and audio. She was also the only one on board that had full computer access. She could open anyone's files and emails at any time, including Shepard's. Even if said files were on OSD, the computers were designed to capture a copy of anything that passed into their ports, the copies automatically sent to Miranda's console.

Shepard had not proven, so far, to be big on extranet access or computer use. Unlike Joker, whose net history was at times amusing and at other times vaguely disturbing, Shepard had no recreational access whatsoever, much preferring to spend down time in her tiny gym hitting things rather than playing mindless online games or surfing porn.

Her personal files, however, were another thing altogether.

She had three files of note that Miranda was able to pull. Firstly, there was the doctored information on Liara T'Soni's movements since the Normandy's destruction that the Illusive Man had provided…and oddly enough, according to the log, Shepard hadn't even bothered accessing yet.

Secondly there was another file labeled simply Tianlán…Shepard had accessed that four times in the last three hours, the first time very shortly after they had returned from Zorya. With her specialized access Miranda could see from the encryption key that it had come from Cerberus as well, though anyone else trying to hack the system or trace its origin would have found that information difficult if not impossible to come by.

Thirdly, there was an OSD ghost capture, from a disc Shepard had inserted and opened once several days ago.

More curious about the Tianlán file from Cerberus, Miranda opened it and watched in silence as Liara's message played, her slim dark brows knitting as it did.

It took no hard guessing to know that the message was coerced or an outright fake. Even without her previous conversation with her boss, the fact that it came from Cerberus and not some external location, and the fact Liara claimed to be working for the Shadow Broker which Miranda well knew was an outright lie, was more than evidence enough for her.

Either the Illusive Man had swung some mighty threat over T'Soni's head…and it would have to be mighty indeed for her to go along so convincingly…or else this was a complete fabrication, concocted and conducted and spun by the spin doctor himself.

Closing the file she selected the OSD ghost capture, surprised to see it was a historic call log. She remembered the OSD that Shepard had picked up at Nancy Salgado's house…clearly, this was it. Out of curiosity she opened one or two calls that Shepard herself had accessed, watching the conversations with a mix of sympathy and curious amusement, before she noticed the last file. Made a year to the day after Shepard's death, it could not have been a call including her.

Shepard had also opened it, but had stopped access just a few minutes in, less than halfway through the call. Pursing her lips, Miranda opened it as well, watching as the conversation unfolded between Liara and Nancy, lamenting first the anniversary and then briefly devolving into polite conversation.

As she approached the mark where Shepard had closed the file, she leaned forward a little and let the call play to its conclusion.

"Listen to me, going on like this," Nancy finally said. "How has your own work been going, dear? You don't look like you have been sleeping."

"I…am all right," Liara murmured, clearly no better of a liar than she had ever been. "Work is steady enough. I have been keeping myself busy. It is just with…this anniversary today and…and Feron. I just feel as if I am letting him down, just as I let Shepard down."

"Letting her down? Oh, sweetie…you haven't let her down! You have done more for her than anyone could, more than anyone could even dream was possible!"

"Have I? I let my…my grief get in the way of rationality, Nan. I missed her so much, I had to take any chance I could to bring her back. Even the hope of…"

"I know," Nancy said gently. "I pray every night for it, Liara. I get down on my knees every night and pray that they're successful, that they can bring her back like they said. I know the horrible things those people have done and yet…I can't let go of hope."

"What if it works? What if she hates me for giving her over to them?" Liara whispered sadly.

"Hate you? Del? That's not possible," Nancy scoffed gently. "I'll make you a bet, sweetheart. I will wager that if Cerberus is successful…if they bring back our Del again, just as she was…the first thing she'll do when she opens her eyes is ask where you are. Even before she asks for a whiskey and a smoke."

Liara gave a weak, sad little laugh at that, shaking her head a little. "It's kind of you to say…"

"It's the truth. She'll ask for you and she won't stop until she knows you're ok. That's just Del, darling. As for Cerberus, well…they'll have to have their tap shoes on because it will take a great deal of dancing if they think they can even hope to manipulate her to their use. Del doesn't take pushing, she pushes. She'll either leave them in the dust or else have the whole damn place working for her in the end. She'll get the job done and then they won't see her for dust, you'd better believe it."

Liara nodded. "Thank you, Nan. And thank you for your prayers. It is impossible to know for certain what will happen, if they will even be able to do what they claim but…since we cannot know one way or another, we may as well believe the outcome that brings us hope, instead of fear the one that does not."

"That's exactly right," Nan replied. "I'd best let you get some rest, hon. You look about worn out. Let me know if you hear anything, about Del or that drell that helped you out. You all will be in my thoughts."

"Thank you Nan. I will. Pleasant dreams. Good-bye."

The call ended, Miranda sitting back, her blue eyes weighty with her thoughts.

Shepard had not seen the entire call, not yet. She'd turned it off at a critical juncture. Had she listened to the rest of it than she would have known instantly that the message supposedly sent by Liara was a total fabrication. She still would, if she somehow returned and watched the entire call.

Miranda had access to a program command in the computer system that she could alter to target the OSD's particular data signature. If she put it into effect, the moment Shepard slid that OSD back into her console the data signature would prompt a complete, immediate, and permanent wipe of the data recorded on it, instantly. The OSD would be useless, the phone calls gone forever. Shepard would never see the rest of that call.

As she pondered, EDI's voice chimed in as the holographic orb appeared over her desk. "Course change has been laid in and activated. We are on a new course heading."

"Location?" Miranda asked.

"We are heading to the Citadel," EDI replied.

"Where is Shepard now?" Miranda asked, standing up and striding back to her bedroom, slipping off her robe as she did so and gathering a uniform to dress.

"She is in the CIC."

Showered, changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a button down shirt, Shepard stood over the galaxy map in the CIC, leaning on the rail and regarding the slowly swirling holographic interface with intensity. Her brown eyes reflected the miniscule stars and swirling colors of infinitesimal nebulae as if seeking answers in their shifting patterns.

{ETA to the Citadel, four hours,} Joker reported from the helm. Nearby, Kelly was watching the Commander with scrutiny.

The redhead glanced over at the lift as Miranda appeared, the brunette XO glancing at the yeoman a moment before drawing to a halt below the navigation dais. "Commander?"

"Miranda," Shepard replied, straightening. She turned and stepped down from the dais.

"We're heading to the Citadel?" Miranda hedged gently.

"Yes. One of the dossiers I selected was for a Kasumi Goto. Contact information is listed only as 'Citadel' so we're heading that direction. If you don't mind, see if you can't get a more precise address than that."

"I will do so, of course," Miranda replied. She could feel that tension inside again, as she always did when talking to the Commander…though it seemed stronger right now. Shepard was calm, collected…should she be so calm and collected after seeing that message from T'Soni? She'd watched it four times. Miranda would have expected Shepard to be in her gym, hitting things…or doing her best to get drunk, not acting calm and professional.

"Something wrong?" Shepard asked. Miranda was excellent at schooling her expressions but her tension was showing in her stance.

"I just hope you're prepared for this, Shepard," she answered. "Once we go to the Citadel your identity will be known. The Alliance, the Council, they will all know you're alive. The Alliance can't arrest you on Citadel grounds but that door will be open. Once word gets out you will likely be swarmed with reporters, questions…"

"It'll be a circus, I know," Shepard answered. "But I can't hide forever, and we need Goto."

"Understood. It's your call, Commander."

"I appreciate the concern, Miranda, but it'll be fine. Honestly, I hope I get to see the look on the Council's faces when they see I'm not dead."

And Shepard smiled. Actually, rather warmly, smiled.

Miranda had never thought a simple smile could make her worry so much.

Unlike the Alliance, Cerberus did not have private, secure docks. The SR2 slid into one of the numerous public docks and locked down without incident. Garrus, finally and officially cleared by Chakwas for duty, stepped out of the airlock behind Shepard and squinted a little at the bright light.

"Never thought I'd be back here," he said, looking down at the much smaller human woman. "At least not any time soon."

"Yeah, me neither," she murmured.

As they were on the Citadel, Shepard was not in a hard-suit. She had found before that, no matter how often her face was plastered around posters and vids, so long as she dressed in civvies people found it hard to recognize her. So she wore her jeans, her new boots and swagman, and a button down shirt over a tank. She was armed with her knife and her machine pistols on her hips, her still as-yet-uncut hair pulled back from her face in a tail.

She couldn't go completely incognito, of course. Security scans and facial recognition programs that were in everything from sanctioned C-Sec check-points to the power ads designed to personalize themselves to everyone who approached would very quickly alert C-Sec, the Council, and anyone in authority that a dead woman walked their halls.

But, hopefully, between the hat and the hair the regular populous and the vulture-like media wouldn't have a goddamn chance in hell of recognizing her by sheer accident.

She'd brought only Garrus along on purpose. She wasn't ready yet to risk Zaeed, and bringing along actual uniformed Cerberus personnel wasn't a wise idea either at the moment. Garrus was a friend, ex-C-Sec, and she could trust him. Right now, she needed that trust…and she needed his ear away from the Normandy.

As they entered the lift to exit the docks, Shepard plucked a pair of cigars from her pocket. Lighting one, she tucked the other behind her ear.

"Miranda wasn't able to find any specific location for Goto," she said as she exhaled. "Not surprising, the woman's supposed to be good at hiding, some kind of thief. Lawson was able to get a message to her contacts, though, so hopefully she'll find us."

"So we just…wander around until she makes herself known?" Garrus asked.

"Something like that, yeah. I want to see if I can't get in to talk to Anderson as well."

"Right off the bat, hmm?"

"Council's going to know I'm here within an hour," she nodded. "I might as well. I owe it to the man, anyway, and if we're going to get any kind of ally on the Council or with the Alliance here, it's going to be him."

"Sounds good," he agreed as the lift opened. They stepped out and stopped. The turian blinked a little.

"That's…new."

The entire main docking floor was sealed off from the rest of the station by huge C-Sec checkpoints. Officers were clearing everyone through weapons and identity scans before allowing them into the station itself.

"Guess word's going to be out quicker than I thought," Shepard murmured. "Wonder why the hell they put this shit up."

Though the line markers were clearly designed to handle large crews, they seemed to have come during a slow period. The pair only had to wait for one rather grumpy turian to finally clear through and exit, before it was their turn.

The officer that looked up at them looked bored, and tired. Seeing the pistols on Shepard's hips she said, "Sorry, civilians are not allowed to carry weapons aboard the station without a permit. If you don't have a permit you must surrender any weapons you may be carrying, including biotic amps."

"Hmm," Shepard replied, making no move to unship her pistols. "Wasn't like that the last time I came through here. What changed?"

"The Council implemented some security reforms after the geth attack," the agent replied. "These measures have been put into place to prevent another synthetic incursion. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Shepard stared at her a moment, then spoke slowly. "So…all this is to make sure the geth don't attack again."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Geth that got onto the station through means other than the docking bays."

"We cannot assume they will always use the same method," she answered with a frustrated roll of her eyes. "We have to be prepared for every contingency."

"Even interrogating organics that are clearly not even close to geth?"

"I cannot make that assumption, ma'am."

"…that I'm not geth?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Uh huh." Shepard looked at Garrus with a 'can you believe this shit?' expression on her face, then back at the agent.

"Well, I'm a Spectre. They're allowed to carry weapons, aren't they?"

"Certainly," she answered with a smile. "However there are no human Spectres at this time."

Shepard took her cigar out of her mouth, casually leaning on the counter. "How about you scan me, and find out, hmm?"

"I would be happy to do so," the agent replied. "But I should warn you, the penalty for impersonating a Council Spectre in an attempt to bypass security protocols is quite strict."

When Shepard didn't budge, she gestured to the scanner port on the front of the desk. "If you'll look directly at the blue light please?"

Shepard straightened, doing as she was bid. The scan flashed, then beeped. The agent looked at her read-out, and then stiffened a little. "Umm…just one moment, ma'am."

"Take your time," Shepard smirked, lifting the stogie to her lips again. The agent made a selection on her console, and a moment later Shepard heard footsteps, then the ratchet of guns. She turned her head to see three C-Sec officers with rifles pointed directly at their faces.

"No fast moves, ma'am," the one in the lead told her, then glanced at Garrus. "If you would please follow us. You too sir."

Obediently the two followed the trio past the check-point and in through a door to the actual C-Sec check-station. A dozen officers were working, led it seemed by a haggard man at a desk. He looked up as they walked in, scrutinizing her face a moment before dismissing the trio with a jerk of his chin.

"So, little problem with the scanners," he said cheerfully enough. "They seem to think you're dead, Commander Shepard."

"Yeah, fancy that," she said dryly.

"Indeed. How 'bout I fix that for you?"

This surprised her. "That easily?"

"Well, normally it'd be a mess and a half, take you days and goddamn endless piles of paperwork but…well, you clearly have things to do, and so do I. So, I put you back in the system, the scanners all realize you're alive and a Spectre, and life gets easier all around."

She narrowed her eyes a little. "What's the catch?"

"No catch," he said. "I hate needless entanglements, and that's what this is. Besides, you're the Hero of the Citadel. I think a button-push is the least anyone can do for you."

"Uh…well, thanks….?"

"Bailey," he supplied. "There, done. You're all back in the system. You might want to go and speak to the Council though. I put your clearance back on the level it was, but it's up to them if it actually stays at Spectre status. Be more headache than it's worth if they find out the hard way you're running around again and didn't let them know."

"That was surprising," Garrus said as they left the check-point and moved into the station proper.

"Seemed a bit easy, didn't it?" Shepard agreed.

"Indeed. 'Entanglements' where you're concerned usually are resolved with less politeness…and a lot more bleeding."

Shepard snorted a laugh. "Too true, my friend. Bailey didn't seem to recognize you."

"Nah, don't know him. He was probably assigned to an entirely different section than I was, or a different department. I'd say he may have been hired on after I left but he's a captain, and seems to old hat to have only been here two years."

"Yeah. At least he had his head on straight. I-"

"Commander Shepard, enter the password and win a prize!"

Shepard only glanced at the power ad that suddenly spoke her name because she was surprised. Didn't take long for Bailey's clearances to go through if even the ads recognize me now, was her thought.

Her glance lingered, however, because of the content of the ad. A woman's face, half pretty enough but half shrouded with a hood, hovered above a bright neon background that had scrolling Chinese characters. They read, 'Goto's Guaranteed Pick-Me-Up!'

Touching Garrus's arm to halt him she inclined her head, moving closer to the ad.

"Speak the password and you could be the next lucky winner!" the ad declared.

"Iftah ya simsim," Shepard smirked around her nearly depleted stogie, folding her arms.

"Classic literature, nice," the ad replied with a smile. "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, very to meet you, Commander Shepard. Kasumi Goto, as I'm sure you have already concluded."

"Nice touch using a power ad, and Chinese characters, especially since you're Japanese."

"I thought Chinese would appeal to you more, given your personal history, Shepard. Who knows? Perhaps by the time we're done working together, I'll have you swearing in Nihongo as well as Mandarin."

"Well, I do like to embrace a wide variety of foul-language and colorful metaphors. I'm pan-cultural in that respect," Shepard smirked. "So, Ms. Goto-"

"Kasumi, please."

"Kasumi then. I'm Shepard. I hear you're very good at what you do."

"I'm the best thief in the business, Shepard, not the most famous, and I've worked hard to keep it that way. I don't have so much as a parking ticket. Cerberus's message indicated you had a mission you need my help on…something no doubt desperate and galaxy-saving…very adventurous. Just my cup of tea. I must say, however, I am surprised Cerberus suggested me. We're hardly the best of friends. I've…liberated some things from them in the past."

"That's exactly why I picked you," Shepard said. "I need the top agents in their fields, and ones that dislike Cerberus are a fucking bonus in my book."

"Interesting that you'd be working with them and yet despise them," Kasumi mused. "What does this mission entail?"

"I'd rather not go into too much detail while standing here at a public power ad," Shepard told her. "We're addressing the issue of the missing human colonies, and it will be extremely dangerous. I can fill you in on the rest someplace a bit more…discreet."

"Understood, Commander. Well, my senses are all tingling. I'll tell you what. I'll meet you in person aboard the Normandy and we can discuss the details of both mission and payment."

"Cerberus will front any amount of creds that you need-"

"Oh, I don't need credits, Commander. What I need is a favor…one only someone like you could pull off. But we can talk that over later. I have already snuck my belongings aboard your ship. I will see you there when your business on the Citadel is complete. You might want to stop talking to a power ad now, you look a little crazy."

The girl gave a wink before the ad flared with a micro-instant of static and returned to its normal operation.

"I like her," Garrus commented as they turned away from the ad terminal.

"If nothing else she made herself a thorn in Cerberus's side," Shepard smirked. "I like her too."