Chapter 17
Cracks of thunder mixed in with the distant boom of explosions before a bolt of lightning flashed in the sky above Typhon. The rain pounded down in heavy drops that drummed on the roof of the abandoned skycar where Jack had sought refuge from the storm. Her wet body shivered from the cold, but her big brown eyes were narrowed into angry slits. Dried blood was caked on her knuckles, the result of her pounding her charged fists into whatever surface she could find.
She'd spent the hour that followed Ford's broadcast pacing in the street, mulling over every possible course of action. As much as it had pained her to admit it, Miranda had been right. There was no way they could've stormed Ford's tower together, let alone by herself. The operative had given her life so that Jack might survive. Deep down, she knew that Miranda didn't want to be saved, that attempting to do so would only get herself killed and make the other woman's sacrifice pointless.
Fuck that. She doesn't get to decide what I'm willing to die for.
It was true that Jack came to Typhon with no real goal beyond taking down as many Cerberus bastards as she could before they killed her, and that when they had left Earth together, she had counted Miranda among those bastards.
But now she had caught feelings for the woman. In fact, she had never felt like this about someone else. Her history of relationships was a brief catalogue of people who used her and screwed her over. Jack didn't believe in love, but she also knew there was no way she was leaving this planet without Miranda.
Another explosion sounded in the distance as Jack's thoughts returned to her list of suicidal rescue plans. Yet time after time, she was interrupted by the distant sounds of battle.
Can you fuckers knock it off for a minute. I need to figure this shit out.
Suddenly, her eyes shot open and she sat up straight.
That's it!
Without a moment's further hesitation, Jack kicked open the old sky car's door and ran out into the pouring rain. There had been an answer all along, one Jack had simply missed. She and the cheerleader were not the only two people on that rock who wanted Cerberus dead.
That asari in the prison said there's a whole fucking camp of aliens ready to kick Cerberus' ass.
Now all she had to do was find them.
South district, beyond the wall, dead Reaper on a shopping mall.
Alfina's directions played in her head over and over, Jacking hoping that she remembered them right as she opened her omni-tool's compass to get a bearing. As she did, she realized that Miranda no doubt had thought of this option too. The fact that she never brought it up told Jack that she never expected it could work. More accurately, she probably never expected herself or Jack to survive the full on assault even with the back-up.
Maybe she's right but I have to try. Jack's eyes returned to the top of Ford's tower. Don't get yourself killed yet, cheerleader. I'm coming.
"So, what do you think, Miss Lawson? Can it be done?"
Miranda ran a hand through her hair, taking a moment to consider her answer. Her first instinct was to lie and say that the surgery would be extremely dangerous. That way, she might be able to let Ford simply die on the operating table, and pass it off as an accident. But the man doubtless had a good sense of the risks already. If she oversold them, he would realize her game, and not give her a chance to perform the procedure at all.
I only get one shot at this. I have to make it work.
"It's doable," she finally told him, "If difficult. The repairs themselves aren't that complicated. A few components to replace, some tweaks to the circuitry; nothing I can't handle. The main complication is that, based on your charts, your own cardiac system is too far gone to turn off the artificial heart even temporarily. That means I'll have to make the repairs while it's still on, which is certainly trickier than usual. But not impossible."
"Not for you, anyway," Ford said. "Which is why I recruited you."
Recruited me?
Miranda tried to restrain a smirk as she closed the data file on the pad and set it down on the table between them. "All right then. When do we do this?"
"In a few hours," Ford replied. "There are some preparations that have to made, but there's no point in putting it off any longer than necessary."
I'm glad it's relatively soon, Miranda thought. She had screwed up her courage as best she could; more time to contemplate her impending death wouldn't make what had to be done any easier. "That's fine."
Ford got up from his chair. "While my people get everything ready, why don't I show you some of the facilities? After all, you're going to be joining us soon, and I want you to get a better idea of what we're working with here. Our resources may not be as substantial as those Cerberus possessed at its height, but I still think you'll be impressed."
Miranda rose as well. "Most certainly," she said, trying her best to sound enthused.
The two of them made their way out of the conference room, flanked by a pair of Ford's omnipresent, silent sentinels. The massive, augmented soldiers were not only a safeguard against Miranda attempting a more conventional sort of murder, but also a reminder of why she had to make this work. She didn't know what humanity's future held. After everything that had happened to the galaxy, she worried it wouldn't be very good, at least for a while. But she couldn't let it be that: being transformed into monsters to do the bidding of men like Ford.
"So, what are we going to be seeing?" she asked as they made their way onto the elevator. It hardly mattered; after all she wasn't planning on sticking around long enough to make use of these resources, but it wouldn't do to let Ford know that.
"The future, Miss Lawson," Ford replied as the doors to the elevator slid shut behind them.
"It's impressive you've been able to accomplish anything here given the situation."
"It's more favorable than you might imagine. The Typhon installation was home to sixty of Cerberus' top minds in addition to thousands of our soldiers. Granted, we lost many men repelling the Reapers' invasion but we're steadily rebuilding our numbers thanks to both recruitment and successful experiments like our friends here." Ford gestured to the two guards as he hit the elevator button.
"War isn't won by soldiers alone," Miranda reminded him. "And even in their current state, the Alliance will easily outnumber any force we could throw at them."
"Indeed." Ford agreed. "Heart and minds. That's the true path to victory."
The elevator doors opened onto a sterile lab. For a moment, Miranda felt as if she'd stepped into a scene from her own past. The laboratory was nearly identical to the one she had called home for several years as she spearheaded some of the Illusive Man's more daring endeavours. And yet her deja vu was forgotten when she saw the slab of glowing metal on the large central table. The piece shone with a dim, blue light and let out a dull humming noise.
Ford gestured to it. "You recognize the technology?"
"Reaper?"
Ford nodded. "A piece of the Alpha Relay in fact. After Commander Shepard used it to delay the Reapers and destroy the Bahak system, the Illusive Man had pieces of the relay's debris brought here for study."
"For what purpose?"
"To better understand how the relays work of course. You've no doubt heard many of them were destroyed or at least rended inoperable by the Crucible, preventing travel to and from many systems across the galaxy and leaving countless millions stranded. The Alliance and the other races have begun their reconstruction efforts but it will be decades before the relay system is fully operational once more." Ford led her up to the relay piece's side and continued. "They don't really know what they're dealing with. But we do."
"We've understood how the relays function for ages," Miranda reminded him. Sure it was true there was many unknowns when it came to the details but the basics of their structure and how they facilitated galactic travel had been understood since before humanity ever made its first journey through one.
"Perhaps. But they have many secrets, some of great value."
"Such as?"
"We've figured out how to control them. Thanks to study of the Reaper IFF your team on the Normandy recovered for your journey through the Omega Four Relay, we now know how to lock out travelers we deem unworthy or even how to remotely deactivate the relays, just as the Collectors did." Ford raised his hands for emphasis. "Imagine it, Miss Lawson. Once this technology is operational, we will be able to prevent our enemy from ever leaving their own solar systems. We could hold the keys to galactic travel! Not just for our enemies but for everyone. The people of Earth would look to Cerberus to bring their stranded loved ones home to them and to protect them from alien invaders."
"If you've figured this out already, the Alliance's reconstruction teams won't be far behind."
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. But for now it's an ace up our sleeve. And if we can beat the Alliance and its allies to the punch it won't matter if they would've figured it out later." Ford led her away from the lab and after a short walk down a gleaming corridor Miranda found herself in a vastly different space. They stood in a large, white room completely void of anything except for a strange, translucent tube at its center which rose to approximately waist height.
"And this is?" Miranda asked dryly.
"This? This is how we win the coming war, Miranda." Ford reached into his jacket and removed an OSD drive before he plugged it into the access dock rising from the center of the room. Instantly a holoprojector was activated and the room was filled with dozens of screens, making the once-empty space feel cramped. It was a sight Miranda found dismayingly familiar, but Ford merely turned to her and smiled.
"This is Cerberus."
The glow of the screen cast a orange light on Miranda's face as she scanned the information feeds on display. She knew what she was looking at, knew what it meant before Ford could even explain.
"Cerberus did not die with the Illusive Man," Ford began. "Before Thessia was invaded, he prepared for every eventuality, including his own defeat. He assembled every resource, every bit of intel, every asset the organization had gathered over the years and archived them all into an encrypted network that can only be accessed by this device." Ford gestured to the OSD.
"I understand you may not like me, Miss Lawson. You may even hate me for the horrors you no doubt witnessed during your journey here. But this goes far beyond just us. Think of the good we could do for humanity with this information, with this power. Miranda, with Cerberus' backing you cured death itself!" Ford stepped forward. "Think of what we could accomplish together with this. We could reshape the galaxy with the intel Cerberus gathered on the Reapers and their technology alone!"
"And I'm assuming that alone isn't all you have."
"Not at all," Ford said confidently. "Hidden bank accounts, as-yet unrevealed sleeper agents, intelligence on many of the Alliance's highest-ranking members… This drive unlocks an incredible treasure trove. As I said before, the Illusive Man was a genius. That brilliance was overwhelmed by his obsession with the Reapers, but before his madness took hold, he had been preparing plans that would have led to Cerberus assuming total power over the human race by more conventional means. Means that have now come to me. To us, when you rejoin the fold."
"That is quite an impressive cache of data," she replied, and Miranda had to admit to herself that not all of her awe was feigned. Ford really did have an shocking array of tools at his disposal. As weak as the Alliance was at the moment, she wasn't sure if they would survive a well-coordinated attack led by this new Cerberus, once it was ready.
But will it survive him?
She found herself wondering if killing Ford would be enough to bring down what he had built here. There was no way to know for sure, but she found some consolation in the fact that he was recruiting her to be his right hand. That meant he didn't already have one, which hopefully would lead to a destructive power struggle after he was dead.
It doesn't really matter, I suppose. I've already set myself on this path; there's nothing to do now but walk it to the end.
"I'm glad you think so. Because soon enough, you will be aiding me in..." She never got to find out what the rest of Ford's sentence would've been. Without warning, he lurched forward, letting out an agonized grunt as he clutched at his chest. His two guards tensed and Miranda moved toward him, trying her best to simulate concern.
"Is it your heart?" she asked, offering an arm for him to lean on.
Ford didn't take it. Instead, he straightened back up, his eyes opening and closing several times in rapid succession as he fought to blink back the pain he must have been feeling. "It is. It will pass, but the attacks are becoming more rapid as your handiwork fails, so I'm afraid that our tour will have to be cut short. But you have seen enough already. In my office, you suggested you were prepared to make a deal. Does that willingness still hold? Will you help me? Will you play your part in the rise of humanity to heights never before seen? Or will both of us die here on this squalid little world?"
Miranda did was expected of her. With a nod, she said, "Well, when you put it that way, I think the former option sounds rather more appealing."
"As I thought," Ford said, forcing a smile onto his face. "After all we are both survivors, Miss Lawson. I'm going to prepare myself for the surgery." He nodded to one of the guards. "This gentleman will escort your back to your room, where you'll get all of the updated medical data you'll need to perform the procedure. When I see you again, it will be time for us to usher in a new age of Cerberus."
No, Miranda thought to herself as Ford turned to leave, When you see me again, we'll both be about to die.
The storm hadn't subsided during Jack's long trek to the city's outer walls. If anything, the rain had grown heavier, yet she didn't let it slow her down. By the time she came to a stop before the the massive structure, her lungs burned in her chest, and her soaking wet clothes clung uncomfortably to her body.
It was an ugly thing she was resting in front of. The stupid, Cerberus-loving civies who called the godforsaken city home must have cobbled the barrier together in the early days of the alien rebellion out of anything they could find, and now it was also decorated with the blood of soldiers and civilians, aliens and human alike.
And I just made own my little contribution.
Jack's fists ceased glowing as she looked down at the two dead Cerberus troopers she had finished massacring. The fools had thought they could guard the wall from her.
Fucking idiots.
As Jack holstered her weapon, she lost herself in thought. Her whole life could have been defined as being nothing more than a never ending battle against Cerberus. They created her, tortured her, stripped her of any humanity, and just when she began to think herself rid of them, Commander Shepard and Miranda Lawson rode into her life and recruited her to fight alongside them. And now Cerberus had returned from the dead to fuck her over one last time. The sad truth of it was, Jack didn't know who she was without Cerberus. They took everything from her, but in a way they also had given her a purpose, and now they had given her Miranda.
And what exactly am I doing with her?
Jack pondered that question as she squeezed her way through a large crack in the wall that battle had carved there. She once believed that getting attached to another person was weakness. That in the end people always let you down, especially the ones you cared for most. And now, at last, she had the opportunity she used to dream of as a little girl on Pragia. She could be free from Cerberus, from everything that had once tied her down. All she had to do was find herself a ship and do exactly what Miranda asked: leave it all behind. Yet Jack wouldn't even consider it. She didn't want the life of freedom and solitude she had once yearned for. Now she found herself hoping for a different life altogether.
Such daydreams vanished as soon as she reached the other side of the wall. A revolting stench hit her so hard that she had to choke back the vomit creeping up into her throat. It hadn't just been the aliens these walls had been constructed to keep out, Jack realized as she cupped her hand over her nose and looked at the piles of rotting corpses heaped in front of her. Some of them were fresh kills the people had tossed over the barrier but the majority of them Jack recognized as the fallen armies of the Reapers. The Cannibals and Husks had decayed slowly in the months following their deaths and their bloated flesh made their already ghastly appearances even worse. She saw dead Brutes and other elites troops scattered across the battlefield as well, even a Banshee. The skin had been stripped clean from the monster, leaving the freakishly distorted asari skull on full display. However, it was not these rotting beasts that truly caught her attention, but the heroes who had died fighting them.
All across the ground, Jack saw the bodies of human men and women, most of them dressed in Cerberus combat armor. There were hundreds of them and every last one had died fighting for the lives of the innocent colonists who had fled to the inner city during the invasion. Finally Jack realized how the people of this planet came to view the organization she loathed as their savior.
A crack of thunder sounded a moment later followed by a bolt of lighting which briefly illuminated the night sky. Beyond the legion of the dead that laid before her Jack saw the the towering corpse of a Reaper resting up against a large building in a clearing not far away.
That's it. I hope.
Jack wasted no time sprinting through the bodies beneath her. She'd been running on and off for hours and yet nothing would slow her down now. She was so close, just 200 or so yards away from her target: an old shopping mall that looked surprisingly intact given the massive Reaper that lay atop it. Yet just when she could see the entrance to the structure, a squadron of soldiers leapt forward from a trench about ten yards ahead of her.
Jack halted but her body glowed bright with biotics as the figures aimed their rifles at her. Another flash of lightning revealed to her that the people holding her at gunpoint now were not Cerberus. In fact, they were not even human.
One of the alien rebels screamed over the storm, "Who the hell are you, human?!"
"What's it matter?" another cried. "She's human! She's Cerberus! We should kill her now."
"I am not with fucking Cerberus!" Jack shouted back.
"No? Then what are you doing beyond the wall?!" the leader of the gang demanded as she stepped forward from the pack, her aim still steady on Jack's torso.
"I need your help," Jack admitted.
"With what?" the alien asked. She wore a helmet with a face mask like the rest of her soldiers, making it impossible to tell exactly who she was or what she was thinking.
"Destroying Cerberus once and for all," Jack answered as the alien finally came to a stop before her.
"Well, I'll be damned," the woman said once she had finally gotten a good look at the human. "You haven't gotten yourself killed yet?"
She reached up and removed her helmet, making Jack smirk when she recognized the asari's face beneath it. "You're Alfina right? From the prison?"
Alfina nodded. "And you're one of the humans who saved my life." The asari turned to her squad. "Lower your damn weapons! She's with us."
Notes- And the stage is set for our climax! Thanks for reading. Revan and I would love to read your thoughts on the chapter in the reviews!