Chapter 6

By the time Miranda caught up with Jack again, the convict was chomping away on a skewer of grilled meat, while in her other hand was an unopened bottle of beer. The burnt smell was enough to make Miranda's empty stomach turn, and she asked Jack, "What're you doing?"

"Pretty sweet, huh? Managed to grab these up from some gawking assholes when they weren't paying attention."

Miranda swallowed, trying to settle down her guts. "How can you eat that stuff after what we just watched?" she hissed, keeping her voice low enough that the people around them wouldn't hear.

Jack kept chewing, only pausing long enough to give her a derisive snort. "God, you really are a pampered little bitch, aren't you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I fail to see how money has anything to do with my disgust."

"That's 'cause you've never been hungry, cheerleader. Not really. You didn't feel like eating right now, you figured they'd be more food in daddy's fridge later. Well, guess what? Now you're down in the gutter with the rest of us. That means you better eat when you can, 'cause who the fuck knows when you'll get another chance."

Miranda sighed. As much as she hated to admit it, Jack was right. She'd always thought of herself as knowing the uglier side of life, and in some ways she did. Violence and war were long-time companions of hers. But not material deprivation. Whether she'd been with her father or Cerberus, she might not have been happy but she always had enough to get by, and often far more than that. Now, she was in very different circumstances and she had to adapt.

Especially given what they were up against. Even if some of the cheering throngs were just going along with Ford out of fear or a desire to conform, many of them had clearly bought into his new regime. Overthrowing him was not going to be easy, if it was even possible, and she had to keep up her strength regardless of her feelings.

Fortunately, her time as an operative had taught her how to pick something up without being noticed, even if it wasn't usually food. A little hunting led her to a couple who hadn't gotten around to eating their picnic lunch, and while the woman distracted her date by nibbling on his ear, Miranda swiped one of their sandwiches. It just contained cheese and some vegetables, and the absence of meat made it seem somewhat more palatable to her still-unsettled stomach.

She rejoined Jack at the edges of the diminishing crowd. The convict was sucking down her beer, and when Miranda took a bite of the sandwich, she grinned. "There you go, cheerleader. Feel better?"

"I suppose," she admitted. Until she started eating, Miranda hadn't realized just how hungry she'd been. The sandwich was hardly great, but just then, it tasted like the finest french cuisine.

When she'd finished eating, Jack turned back to her. "So what the fuck are we gonna do now? 'Cause these bastards have to pay for this."

"Agreed." Miranda brushed her hands clean. Now that her stomach wasn't growling anymore, it was easier to think. There was still so much they didn't know about this situation. Where were the aliens who hadn't already been killed? Just what resources did Ford have? What were his long-term plans? He had control of the city, but it certainly sounded as if his sights were set far higher than one mid-sized colony world. She needed more information before she could act.

Looking out at the commons, she saw that they were mostly empty by then aside from a smattering of picnickers, giving Miranda a clear view of the stage. The Cerberus soldiers were packing up their equipment and cleaning the mess their brutal execution had left behind. She spotted the large man the crowd had called Givoni staring at the charred remains of the executed brothers with a smirk on his face.

"I think we should follow them," she told Jack. "They might lead us back to Ford, or at least some kind of headquarters. Maybe we can get a sense of what they're planning."

"Who cares what they're planning? We ice Ford and none of that crap will matter anymore."

"Are you willing to take that chance, Jack? There's always more people like Ford. If you really want to put an end to Cerberus, we'll need to understand exactly what they're up to. That way we'll know how to bury them for good. And whatever your opinion of me might be, I assure you that's what we both want."

Jack threw up her hands. "Jesus, fine! We'll do it your way for now, cheerleader."

Miranda pointed to the remains of the stage and the large man in front of them. "This Brother Givoni seems to have some authority, which means he might know where to find Ford."

"Then what are we sitting around here for?"

Jack stormed off towards the stage, leaving Miranda to scurry to catch up with the convict behind a tree near the stage.

"What should we do about the bodies?" one of the armored Cerberus troops asked their leader as he leapt off of the stage.

"Leave 'em." Givoni ordered. "They'll be a nice reminder to any other alien loving scumbags thinking of doing anything stupid." With that, he marched off in the direction of an empty street.

"Let's go," Miranda ordered.

For a while Givoni simply walked alone down the unsettlingly clean streets. A few passerbies shook his hand and offered kind words to the man, much to Miranda's disgust. It seemed his role as executioner had made him a folk hero to many of these people. No one noticed them as they followed. With their new Cerberus disguises Jack and Miranda hardly drew any attention but just when Miranda made the mistake of thinking that things might be easy, she was proven wrong.

The city street had led into a dead end. Stretched between the two skyscrapers was a tall barrier wall manned by a squad of well-armed Cerberus troops. Miranda and Jack ducked behind an empty skycar as Givoni came to a stop in front of the guards.

"You heading in, sir?" a short but solidly built soldier asked him.

"Indeed. I heard we got some new toys."

"Yeah. We caught 'em sniffing around the east wall last night."

"Any turians?"

"Two females and one male"

Even at this distance, she could see the sick smile that now stretched across Givoni's face. "Good. I can break them myself in before we put them to work. Seems like the games are on tonight."

"Definitely. Who you got your credits on?"

"That asari bitch is still the best. She hits like a fucking truck," Givoni opined.

Suddenly Miranda heard a shrill voice cry out, "Please! Let me go!"

Her eyes turned to the street corner by the blockade as another armored trooper dragged a gaunt Salarian by his neck up to the guard post.

"What do we have here?" Givoni asked as the man threw the salarin to the ground before him.

"Caught him lurking around near the rally."

"Please! I was only looking for food," the salarian cried.

Givoni crossed his large arms. "This tiny bastard doesn't look like much fun at all. Wouldn't last two seconds in the kennel, and we don't need another useless mouth to feed." He quickly un-holstered the short barreled shotgun at his side and before the alien could even make another protest, he blew his head off.

"Feed him to the varren," Givoni ordered before the barrier's glowing blue wall lowered just long enough for him to pass through it.

"I want these assholes dead." Jack hissed, hate seething in her eyes. "All of them."

"So do I but we're not charging in here."

"You saw what they just did."

"We need to get information. Not play hero."

A low growl escaped Jack's throat. "You really are an ice cold bitch."

"Be that as it may, right now, I'm also our best chance at stopping this madness. So do you want to put an end to all of this, Jack? Or do you want to get yourself killed over one dead salarian?"

Jack only grunted in response, keeping her eyes trained on the corpse. "We need to see what the fuck these assholes are guarding in there."

"That, I agree with." Miranda took a moment to survey the area around her. This part of the city wasn't as desolate as the outer regions had been, but one of the buildings behind them still looked to be abandoned, and it should allow them to see over the barrier. She gave a nod in its direction. "Let's head up there."

Jack didn't say anything, but she didn't protest either, and the two of them managed to slip out from behind the car and into the building without being noticed. Once inside, it was clear that this had been an office complex in better times, though many of the furnishings had been stripped since then. The power on the elevator didn't work either, leaving them no choice but to take the stairs, and as they climbed, Miranda felt the day's fatigue finally starting to hit her. She'd been pushing past it for the last few hours, but now, her legs burned with each step. Jack seemed to be feeling it too, not rushing up with her usual energy, and by the time the two women reached the top floor, both of them were breathing hard.

It had been worth it, though. The empty office suite they were now in commanded a good view of the blockade, and despite the gathering darkness, there were enough street lights shining that Miranda could get a look past it. The sight was not what she might have expected. Laying in what used to be a public square was the crashed frame of a large starship, but it wasn't a burnt-out wreck. Its shields must have taken the worst of the impact, because the bulk of the hull was intact, and inside, lights were on.

"So what the fuck are we looking at?" Jack asked.

"At the barrier, it sounded like they were taking captives that way. My best guess would be that they're using the ship as a makeshift prison."

"Yeah? Then maybe we should stage a little jailbreak."

"And maybe we should try not delivering ourselves straight into our enemy's hands."

"Hey, screw you, cheerleader," Jack spat. "I know you don't think I'm taking this seriously but if we're not going to try and kill all these assholes ourselves, we're gonna need some help. What better place to find it than a prison full of people who hate Cerberus' guts? Plus that Givoni bastard went in there so if we wanna find out what he knows, we'll need to catch up with him."

Miranda took a deep breath, letting go of her instinctive urge to argue with Jack. "You may have a point," she conceded. "Of course, it won't be easy to get in there or get anyone else out."

"I'm sure you can think of something. That's your job right; planning this shit out?"

"Perhaps," she said non-committally. Her whole body ached, and just then, she wasn't sure she could plan a grocery trip let alone an operation to break into a Cerberus prison. "Let's come back at this in the morning. After the day we've had, I think we could both use some rest before we head into action."

Jack looked around the room and Miranda's eyes followed hers. There was a couch that had managed to survive more or less intact, along with a few remaining office chairs and a conference table. "Yeah, sure. Good a place as any I guess."

The convict slumped back into one of the reclining office chairs, while Miranda took the couch, kicking off her boots before lying down. She'd known she was tired, but until she settled in, she hadn't realized just how good it would feel to get off of her feet.

"Hell of a fucking day," Jack said. She tipped the chair backwards, sounding as tired as Miranda felt. "I mean, I knew this place would be bad, but this is…. Every time I think Cerberus has run out of fucked up shit to do, there's something new."

Miranda nodded wearily. "I suppose there is." She paused before continuing, but she decided that she might as well try and explain herself a little further while the subject was still fresh in their minds. "You know, Jack, I don't like what we've been seeing any more than you do."

Jack snorted. "You sure have an easier time walking away from it."

She considered a cutting remark about self-control, but in the end she decided to avoid it. She was too tired to argue any more. "It's like you said when we we're talking about food; we've had different life experiences. When you do undercover work, you see a lot of things you'd like to do something about, but all that does is get you killed. After a while, the urge isn't so strong."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Jack shook her head and leaned back in her chair. " Fuck it, this was simpler with a soldier like Shepard. We saw something messed up, we kicked its ass. This spy bullshit is harder."

In spite of herself, Miranda laughed. "True enough."

She was ready to go to sleep, but Jack didn't seem willing to let the topic drop so easily. "So what was the worst spy-type thing you ever did? Ya know, back when you were still wearing your black and gold panties and waving your Cerberus pom poms."

She narrowed her eyes, suspicious of Jack's motives. "What does it matter now?"

"It matters because I wanna know."

Miranda crossed her arms under her chest, turning her gaze to the crashed prison ship below them. "For what purpose?"

"Maybe I just wanna know who I have watching my back out here. So answer the damn question."

She took a deep breath. She could tell Jack was trying to establish some sort of trust with her even if the convict didn't realize it but Miranda never had been one to open up. In all her years she'd only shared herself completely with one person. A man who broke her heart, left her for some simple minded Alliance grunt, and then got himself killed before she even had the chance for a proper goodbye.

Why not? We'll probably both be dead by the end of the week anyway.

Miranda kept her eyes trained outside as she spoke, not wanting to look Jack in the eye. "Two years before the Illusive Man assigned me to the Lazarus project, I worked an undercover op on the planet Bekenstein."

"Undercover? Like what we're doing now?"

"No. Something much more...intimate. There was a woman who lived on the colony, an engineer by the name of Sameen Pasi who'd created a prototype for an adaptive artificial intelligence. A machine that could learn on a level far beyond anything that had come before it. It's applications were nearly limitless. The Illusive Man wanted her AI for Cerberus but Sameen wasn't selling, to Cerberus or anyone else. So he sent me in, posing as a fellow researcher named Doctor Vivian Walker."

"To kill her?"

"We needed her to help us understand the AI's source code and she couldn't do that if she was dead. He wanted me to get close to her, to befriend her. To acquire her as an asset."

"Shit, if you were the friendliest girl that bastard could send in it's no wonder Cerberus went tits up."

"Sam and I...we had a lot in common. Perhaps the Illusive Man knew that before he selected me for the mission. She was brilliant, driven… isolated. Her wife had recently died from an element zero exposure that she'd suffered at their labs. Sameen had created her machine as a sort of tribute to her, to deal with the loss I suspect. It took me three months to get her to trust me. Once she did, we grew quite...close. At times, I'd forget Sameen was simply an assignment. Eventually I convinced her to let me assist in the AI's development. She wanted to release the source code to the public when it was finished. She said that something so powerful should benefit everyone. As you might have guessed, the Illusive Man did not share her sentiment."

Miranda spared a glance at her partner and found that Jack actually appeared to be listening. "Then what happened?" she asked.

"I procured Sameen's code. Some of it actually went into the EDI project, as I recall. I told the Illusive Man that the mission was finished but he didn't agree. He said that a woman as brilliant as Doctor Pasi was someone humanity couldn't afford to let fall into the wrong hands. If I couldn't turn Sam then… I'd have to burn the asset."

"Damn. So what did you do?"

Miranda looked back outside. "I followed my orders."

She braced herself for Jack's response. Anticipating how she'll call her a monster, a backstabbing bitch and all the other epithets Miranda knew she deserved. She'd had more than enough time to reflect on her career with Cerberus when she was in Alliance custody and she could hardly blame Jack for hating her. Yet instead of the curse laced response she was anticipating, she was rewarded with a truly unexpected reply.

"That's pretty messed up," Jack said before she leaned her head back and stared up at the building's rotting ceiling. "Whatever, what's done is done. We should sleep, it's not like Cerberus is gonna make things any easier on us tomorrow."

That's it?

Miranda let her surprise at the woman's apparent understanding slip away before she spoke. "You're right. We'll need to be at our best."

Miranda leaned her head back against the couch's cushioned arm and thankfully found that getting comfortable didn't take too long. Before she fell asleep, however, Miranda's eyes turned back to her partner as Jack settled herself in for the night, inspecting the ugly scars that marred her body. Miranda cringed when she thought of all the horrors Cerberus must have inflicted upon her as a child, knowing better than most what it meant to have your innocence taken from you. She had done some truly horrible things for Cerberus over the years. Sameen was only one name on a long list.

Perhaps we're not entirely different after all. My scars are just on the inside.

Before sleep could take them both Miranda was overcome with a sudden need to speak her mind. "For what it's worth, Jack… I'm sorry."

Jack's brown eyes shot back open in clear surprise. For a moment she thoughtfully stared at Miranda, no doubt trying to figure out if the woman's apology was genuine or just some attempt at manipulating her but Miranda had meant it. Whether she believed that or not, though, Jack only replied with a quick, "Go to sleep, Cheerleader."

It wasn't long before Miranda could hear the sounds of Jack's breathing slow as she drifted back off and the operative did her best to follow her. If there was one thing spies and soldiers had in common, it was that you had to rest when you could because tomorrow was usually going to be worse than today.

Notes- Thanks for reading, I hope you'll share your thoughts with us in the reviews.