The small transport released vents of steam that billowed and coiled in thick curls along the frozen tarmac. The electric blue sky was so cold the few white clouds seemed sharp, chipped from frost and ice.

Two men stood faceless in full hard-suits, the armor painted in lime green, black and yellow. On the center of their chest-plates were the black stylized image of two snarling dog heads facing away from each other, surrounded by a maroon sun.

Behind them, heavily reinforced doors led into a facility carved directly into the base of the mountain side. Ragged and rough-hewn rocks framed it, and on a small ledge a young woman crouched, thick locks of bright purple hair stirring in the cutting breeze.

Without the mercs, the facility, or the lowering transport, the view would have been breathtakingly idyllic. The mountain crags framing the sapphire sky, coated in thick blankets of white. The vast, still, serene lake only a mile to the west was a nearly perfect reflection of the sky, broken by slabs of tourmaline ice that sailed low and slow like grand ships.

The transport settled and powered down, and almost immediately a pair of forms disembarked. The first was another merc, also wearing Orthrus colors. The second was a woman dressed heavily against the cold, bearing a moderate limp and wielding a cane as if every tap of it on the tarmac were meant to tremble the ground with supernatural wrath. Despite her limp, she moved spryly enough. As she strode up to the waiting men it was clear she had no intent on stopping or even slowing. They turned a bit to let her pass, the one on her left speaking.

"Mrs. Wyatt-"

Her cane slapped him across the chest as she walked past him.

"Ruth," she said firmly, a scowl appearing on her already reddened face. Her breath was visible in thin white plumes, and combined with her expression one could almost imagine she was about to breathe fire. "Call me that puling sycophant's name again and I'll see she grows you an extra tongue between the cheeks of your ass!"

The merc was clearly startled as he followed her. "Sorry, I-"

"Where is she?"

"She's sealed herself in her main lab."

As they neared the doors, the young woman perched on the rock suddenly leapt down beside them. Her eyes were almost the same incredible blue as the sky…and seemed just as cold.

"Luka, how has she been?" Ruth asked her as they went within. Once the doors were closed, the heat of the facility swiftly banished the sharp cold without.

"Quiet. Stormy…" Luka replied, her eyebrows- just as purple as the hair on her head- knit. Under the starker fluorescent lights of the facility, her skin deepened in color from mahogany to dark chocolate. "She wants to see no one."

"She'll see me," Ruth said, matter-of-fact, and continued on her way. Luka watched her, drawing to a halt, then called after her.

"If she does, tell her I am waiting. Tell her that I will bring her Shepard's head. She should have sent me first!"

Ruth ignored her, gingerly climbing a set of metal steps before heading down a short hallway. Osco's door was in fact sealed. Shifting her cane from hand to hand and shedding her heavy, thermal coat, Ruth dropped it carelessly to the floor and hit the com.

"Jelly, let me in."

Silence. She hit it again.

"Jelly, it's me. You know it's me. Let me in."

A pregnant pause, then the door flashed green and slid silently open. Ruth immediately headed inside, the metal portal closing on her heels.

The lab was dim, almost dark. There was a humid smell, mixed in with the cinnamon of medi-gel, the sharp bite of antiseptic, the rich loam of culturing agar. The only sources of light were the dozens of holographic computer displays casting pools of yellow and green on the cold floor.

One the far wall, three huge tanks bubbled silently behind close metal shield doors. At the console closest to them, Gellian Osco was intently bent to task, her choppy lengths of blonde hair coiled about her shoulders and hanging in curtains around her face.

Ruth headed her way, weaving through the maze of equipment, consoles and instrument panels, the click of her cane loud enough to echo through the room. As she neared the blonde, she saw the open case on the table nearby. A dozen vials, tiny boxes, and syringes were lined inside. Some of the boxes held powders-blue, yellow, and red. One or two held tiny crystals, like chips of glass or plastic.

She eyed the case with a wary frown. Beside it, an empty syringe was idly cast, and a tiny plate with traces of blue powder.

"How much?" she asked moodily. Osco didn't look up from her work.

"Barely a taste," she said. Ruth's frown deepened a little, but she chose not to address it.

"The alerts went off. I departed home before the Alliance could close in. Judging by that and Luka's comment, I'm assuming that Delilah Shepard is still alive, and that pathetic excuse for a husband of mine is dead?"

"He's not dead," Gellian told her, finally straightening and looking around. Just a hair shorter than Ruth, she had the weary, drawn look of someone who had been very long ill, or who had not slept in days. Both were, in fact, true.

Gellian had been ill since birth. A sufferer of a rare genetic condition known as Petit Wahler's, her deformed brain allowed her to enjoy an astronomically high IQ- but also several rather intense side-effects. The worst of these was a condition known as a mental cascade seizure, where her brain would frantically start dumping information as it went into overload, eventually tearing itself apart, resulting in death. Most with her condition did not live past infancy or early childhood. Thanks to her own genius, Osco was now in her forties, but a catastrophic seizure was always just on the horizon, a perpetual looming threat that could strike her at any moment.

She'd long ago found that a mix of prescriptive and illicit drugs could help stave off information overload, allow her to deal with and function under the weight of her own frenetic mind, calming it enough for almost normalcy. Thus far, the near constant cocktails of narcotics had also managed to prevent that final cascade seizure from hitting her…but she and those around her were well aware that someday they would not be enough.

Her hyperactive mind made it hard to sleep, as did the narcotics. Her brain was slowly killing her, and so were the drugs. It was simply a race to see which particular ill would be the one that would end her life at last.

"Well, that's a pity," Ruth replied. "Can I still hold out hope that he was captured?"

"He was. By the same spectre that rescued Dr. Shepard from Virmire. A growing nuisance named Liara T'Soni."

"Asari?"

"Yes." She turned and touched a control, and a nearby display switched to show the image of an asari woman standing in full armor. "She was the youngest asari ever to be named to the Spectres, nominated when she was a century. That was six years ago, and she's only made more of a reputation. Still, Wyatt managed a successful test on the Percusses and reports are pointing to an even more successful one on the Flotilla."

"You know Shepard's figured this out by now. Woman's too smart and knows your research too well not to have. Luka is out chomping at the bit. Send her in. Get rid of both spectre and doctor, before they find a cure."

"You are assuming there is a cure to be found," Osco replied, and turned back to her work. Ruth frowned, stepping forward and catching her arm.

"Let Luka go, Jelly," she said, brusqueness fading for gentility. "Why risk it? They can't stop you but they can make themselves a horrible irritation. Besides, why did you even make Luka if just to keep her lurking around here? Put her to use, before she tears the walls down."

Osco looked at her, her muddy green eyes weary and only half-focused. Ruth gently cupped her chin.

"You've taken more than just a taste," she said softly, referring to the drugs. "You're getting even worse."

"It's irrelevant-"

"Irrelevant?" Ruth was instantly furious again.

"Yes, irrelevant," Osco replied calmly, and gestured at the three shielded tubes. "The final mix of PMD is very nearly ready. Once I have the last of what I need from the Flotilla incident then we release it. One hundred and fifty different worlds, spanning this galaxy from home space to the Traverse. Erase the trash, the chaos, the flawed slime and refuse that continues to endlessly drag the rest down. Soon, nothing will be left. Nothing but perfection. My perfection…order in a way the gods and nature could never manage."

"And what of you?" Ruth asked. "You just wither away and die after that?"

"The PMD won't work on me, you know that." She snorted bitterly. "My DNA is too goddamned flawed. I'd have a heart attack in seconds. I've been living on borrowed time since the womb, infected with this muddy tangle of junk genetics, the result of barely human primates rutting in indolent and thoughtless fury."

"So you will not even try?" Ruth demanded, as Gellian looked back at her console. The amber light only etched the dark hollows of her eyes finer, and deeper. "There are other ways. You are the smartest soul in this entire galaxy. There are other ways, and if anyone can find them, it's you."

Gellian studied the amber shifting lights with intent distance. "Do you know what insanity feels like, Ruth?" she asked softly. "In 1919, in the north end of Boston, Massachusetts, a storage tank collapsed and flooded the city street with two million gallons of molasses. It created a wave fifteen feet high that killed twenty one people and several horses, and swept with a force great enough to knock buildings off of their foundations."

Ruth stared at her, perplexed, and Gellian met her gaze again. "One young man said later that he was rolled under the wave like a pebble, choked and suffocated by sweet so thick it coated his throat and left him unable to talk or cry for help. That is what insanity feels like. Being rolled and clogged and tangled and sticky and suffocated by sickly sweet."

"So you give up? Just lay and drown in it?"

Gellian barked a laugh. "I'm about to kill trillions of people, Ruth. Lift up my almighty hand and sweep them off the face of the galaxy to make room for order, power, and perfection. One might argue I drowned in it years ago-"

Ruth reached out, catching Gellian hard by the shoulders, pulling her in closer and capturing her lips in a kiss that was almost as violent and demanding as it was needful.

"I believe in you," she said breathlessly.

"Yes, well," Gellian replied, her hands balled tight in the cloth at Ruth's shoulders. "You're fucking crazy too."


The Flotilla hung motionless and silent now, hundreds of ships in drifting stillness. More rescue vessels had arrived to help, and by the time the last of the quarian vessels had been cleared for survivors, they had discovered just over thirty.

The majority of these thirty were moved to a small quarian medical ship that had the facilities to hold and treat them. It had been cleared and fully sterilized before they were moved aboard, but most were not in any position to appreciate or even recognize where they were. Of the thirty, two appeared to be immune, including the marine Deefa'Raan. The rest were either quickly going mad as their brains degenerated, or were locked in feverish delirium as mutations began to set in.

Tali had been brought to the small medical vessel as well, much to Deefa's fury. Her best friend was wracked with fever and delusions, but the marine had overheard about Purdue, and about Dr. Shepard. Almost the moment Liara and Jondum Bau appeared on the ship, delivering the final quarian they had discovered still alive, Deefa strode to the barrier of her static cell.

"You! Spectres!"

Bau nodded toward Liara, taking charge of the patient as the asari headed over to the marine. "You are Deefa'Raan, are you not? The one we found in the shuttle."

"Yes. My friend Tali is very sick. The doctors think she's mutating. I want her moved."

"I am sorry about your friend, but this ship is uniquely structured and staffed to-"

"No. No, it's not. I heard about that human colony, the one that was hit before us. You have some kind of genius doctor there working on a cure for this, don't you? I want Tali there. I want her under that doctor's treatment."

"Dr. Shepard is working diligently to find out why this is happening and to halt it if she can," Liara said. "However, she only has so many hands, and Purdue is not equipped to keep a quarian patient-"

"There are cells like these, yes? Static-free is static-free. This is the daughter of an Admiral we're talking about here, and the only family I have left, asari. If this Shepard can help her-"

Vega appeared, striding over to Liara. "Sorry to interrupt, Captain, but you have an urgent communication from a Mordin Solus. One of the eggheads said you can punch it up on the spare comp over there."

Liara excused herself from the visibly frustrated marine, and walked over to the indicated computer, accessing the call. "Dr. Solus?"

"T'Soni, good. Breakthrough. Shepard has identified pathogen. Polyneuro-mimetic DNA infecting and altering strands of-"

"She found the pathogen?" Liara said, interrupting what she knew would be an extensive descriptive far above her head. "Can she cure it?"

"Unknown at this time, cure problematic. However, immune and improving humans non-carriers, no risk of infection- will know for sure at the end of experimental exposure."

"Experimental…exposure?" She did not like the sound of that. "Who's exposure?"

"Dr. Shepard's. Was confident in her hypothesis, put herself in cell with Delphine and removed helmet."

"She what?" Liara was furious. Shepard was their only real hope toward stopping this thing, and she had deliberately risked infecting herself? "And Feris allowed her to do so?"

"Move was…unexpected. Not Commander Feris's fault, she was unable to intervene. Alarm understandable but not necessary. Dr. Shepard has been exposed now for nearly two hours. No sign of symptoms. However, has request. Do we have quarian immune?"

"It seems the fatality rate for this contagion among quarians is a much higher percentage than among humans. We have only two that show no symptoms, and greater than eighty percent succumbed to the initial histamine reaction."

"Good! Contagion reacts-…my apologies. Did not mean good that quarians suffered so, but shows contagion has different effect across species. May be why Osco tested as she did. Comparative and contrast studies between quarian and human reactions may yield valuable data. Need quarian specimens here. Room now that Domingo and Delphine need no longer be contained."

"Then it seems we have two volunteers," Liara replied. "One immune and one who is in the early stages of mutation. I can arrange for them to be brought with us back to Purdue."

"Good, excellent. How long?"

"There is a strong military and Council presence here now, and there is not much left that I can personally do. I will make arrangements for the patients and leave immediately. We should be back on Purdue within four hours."

"Will prepare for quarian patients' arrival. Will see you soon."

As his image faded out, Liara pinched the bridge of her nose, scowling in irritation. She is our sole hope at beating this thing and she nearly kills herself trying to prove a theory. Goddess save me from the stubbornness and bullishness of human beings.

Even as she thought it, she knew it was untrue. Yes, humans could be quite stubborn and bullish, but it was not a trait they alone could claim. Asari may pride themselves on different qualities and pretend such things didn't exist in their people, but it was patently untrue.

One has only to meet my father to know just how bullish an asari can be.

Still, Shepard's actions bothered her to no end. Liara had seen far too much of what this plague could do, both on Purdue and on the Flotilla. She had no desire to see the human doctor in such horrific circumstances.

Forcing her thoughts away, she returned to the marine, nodding once. "Drs. Solus and Shepard have requested an immune quarian subject and are willing to accommodate your friend as well. I will be making arrangements to take you both to Purdue immediately."

Deefa let out a breath of relief. "Thank you. Thank you so much, Captain. This means more than I can say."

"I make no promises on whether or not your friend can be saved," Liara told her. "Prospects are grim. You need to understand that."

"I do, but…it's a chance-and it's the only chance she has. Thank you."


It was odd to be standing outside without a static-suit or helmet on. The sun was low and bright, and she lifted a hand to shield against it as the Aswa and a small medi-transport moved in for a landing.

Shepard had been released-along with Delphine and Domingo- the moment the two hours had passed. Had she been wrong about the infection, she would have been dead or displaying symptoms by then. Now knowing the PMD could only last a few seconds outside of a suitable fluid habitat, the full quarantine restrictions on the camp had been lifted. So long as no one tried to handle a sample or an infected host with no protection against fluid contact, there was no risk of the plague spreading.

The reports on what had happened on the Flotilla still haunted her. Fourteen million people- an entire species- reduced to just under four hundred members in less than three hours. Most of those had been young quarians on their Pilgrimages, or occasional small ships away from the main fleet for repairs or trade missions.

Less than four hundred left, and several of those related…that's not enough for a viable population. It may take sixty or seventy years for the final knell but…the quarians are extinct. Gellian killed them all. It will just take time for the last ones to stop breathing.

That was a fact that she had to keep reminding herself off-Gellian killed them all. Since they'd gotten then news, Shepard had been struggling with the idea that it was her fault. If I'd caught on quicker, realized the target sooner, maybe we could have stopped this. Maybe we could have saved them.

Logically, she knew that was a trap. She was not the one who manufactured the PMD for some twisted ideal of perfection, and she certainly wasn't the one who had released it onto the innocent quarian ships.

Still, if I'd been a little bit faster…

Feris, Solus, Traynor, and several others were gathered nearby. She felt Traynor's hand slip into hers, giving a reassuring squeeze.

She always did know me too well, she thought, but the gesture did little to ease her melancholy. In fact, it added to it…for other reasons.

A moment later, the medical team escorting the quarians emerged, and Shepard broke from Traynor and headed toward them, the others on her heels. The immune quarian-a mature female by the look of her- was in a full enviro suit. Shepard had never seen a quarian suit up close, and was stunned by the amount of detail and even artwork that was incorporated into it. It was functional yet lovely at the same time, the crimson and gold of an ocean sunset.

Just behind her were two medics escorting a static-pod. Shaped like a large, elongated egg, the top of the pod was transparent. The patient was inside, and as Del reached her side, she realized she wasn't in an enviro-suit.

She had seen a quarian outside his suit before…but he had been several days dead and preserved for autopsy and research. This quarian was alive though clearly quite ill. Her skin had a pale, gray-rose hint to it, and gleamed with sweat. Her dark hair was damp with it, and the confused, bioluminescent eyes were foggy with delirium.

She looks so young, was her first sad thought as she fell in line with the medics. Were she human, Del would guess her age at about eighteen or nineteen. She was half-conscious and confused, her three fingered hands reaching up to press against the transparency as if trying to work out what it was. Occasionally, her body shivered violently.

"What are her stats?" she asked as they moved toward the static lab.

"Her temperature is highly elevated-" one of the medics began, and continued to list off her vitals as they hurried along. Traynor was on the other side of the pod with Mordin, but behind him Shepard could see Liara and Williams had appeared. She briefly met the Spectre's eyes, before the asari turned and indicated to Feris to accompany her. As they walked away, Williams fell into step with the pod.

I hope Sam doesn't get in trouble because of me, Del thought, then forced her mind away from the asari and her marine protégée, and back onto her patient.

As they reached the lab they passed the pod in through decom, locking it into place against one wall as the immune quarian was then brought in. Shepard pointed at her.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Deefa'Raan vas Rayya," she replied.

"Deefa, good. Deefa, I'm afraid we're going to have to put you temporarily into the static cell while we get blood and tissue samples. I need to be absolutely sure a quarian presentation of immunity is the same as the human one, and you are not actually carrying the pathogen. We'll let you out again as soon as we know. Sammi, could you see to those, please, while I take care of-"

"Tali. Her name is Tali," Deefa said as they guided her toward the cell. "Please, doctor. You have to help her."

"I will do everything in my power, you have my word."

Traynor gathered the items she needed and headed toward the cell with Deefa as Shepard turned back to the stasis pod. Mordin brought over the instruments necessary for their own samples, sliding them in through a slot sealed with an anti-path field. Shepard sterilized her hands, and then slipped them into the pod's reinforced gloves. She gently caught hold of Tali's hand as it reached out, gripping it tightly.

"Tali, can you hear me? Do you understand me?"

The girl looked her way but didn't respond. Shepard stroked her other hand over her hair, leaning closer to the glass. "My name is Dr. Shepard. I am going to help you, Tali. I know you're hurting, I know you're confused and frightened, but you're not alone, all right? I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

She saw Traynor's eyes flicker over to her at that, and knew what the other woman was thinking. You can't make promises like that, 'Lilah. You can't make promises that you know you can't keep.

As Mordin took a tissue sample on the other side of the pod, Shepard carefully drew a blood sample from the girl's arm, explaining what she was doing though she knew the quarian was far too feverish and delirious to really understand her. Depositing the samples for analysis she input instructions on the pod to change the interior atmosphere. The medics had already made it cooler, attempting to help lower her temperature, but it wasn't working. Shepard adjusted it cooler still, then administered a gentle sedative. Tali's eyes fluttered closed, opened again to half-mast, then fell shut, her body slumping into sleep.

Del let her hand brush over her hair again, her dark brown eyes aqueous. "I'm going to help you," she whispered. "I promise."