Chapter 18

"So," Alfina asked as Jack shook the water out of her damp hair, "What brings you to our little corner of paradise?"

The description was clearly intended to be ironic. The ruined mall wasn't exactly the luxury hotel on Illium Jack had used pilfered Cerberus credits to stay in while Shepard chased up new squad members. The place had been garish to begin with and now the furnishings were in disrepair, and the lights kept flickering on and off. But it was warm and dry, and more importantly, it was filled with warriors of every stripe taking their rest. Asari and turians predominated, but plenty of others were there as well, and at the sight of them, Jack allowed herself to hope. There was more strength here than she'd guessed, and maybe, just maybe, it would be enough.

"I'm here for all this," she said, nodding in the direction of the small army. "To use it to take down Cerberus, once and for all."

The asari chuckled and shook her head. "Yeah, we all want that," Alfina agreed, "But that doesn't mean it's actually gonna happen. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're pretty well dug into that tower of theirs."

"So, if you're not going to take them on, what's all this shit for? A big o'l slumber party?"

Alfina laughed, her broad chest rising and falling. "I like you, human. And we are going to take the war to Cerberus. But not yet. Not until the time is right."

"The time is right now!" she insisted, drawing herself up as high as she could manage, though she still only came to Alfina's neck.

"Why? What's the rush?"

Because they're gonna kill the fucking cheerleader, Jack thought, but that wasn't a reason she could give Alfina. The asari might have been grateful for their instigation of the breakout at the prison, but it wasn't fair to ask her to go on a suicide mission just because Miranda had gone and gotten her ass captured. But maybe there was another reason that would suffice, one that impacted all of them.

"Because Cerberus is only gonna get more dangerous if we don't stop them now."

"What do you mean?" Alfina asked. She sounded legitimately curious though, not dismissive, and so Jack pressed again.

"Well, I'm guessing your people have been coming up against some special Cerberus soldiers the last couple of days. Big, use biotics, creepy as fuck…"

For once, Alfina looked a bit unsettled. "Yeah, I've heard the stories. They're bad news. Every one we've managed to take down has cost us way too much. But that's all the more reason to wait until we've gotten a better handle on how to deal with them."

"Yeah, well, you'd better be figuring out how to deal with a lot of them. 'Cause I'm pretty sure Cerberus is breeding those sons of bitches in that tower of theirs and if we don't dig them out of it now, you're gonna be overrun pretty soon."

Alfina sighed, looking tired. "Goddess help us, this was supposed to get better. The Reapers were dead, the war was over, and I thought we could go home. Try to forget all this bullshit, rebuild our lives…"

"I know what you mean." Jack shook her head ruefully. "I thought these Cerberus fuckers were done when their boss went down. But now it's up to us to make sure they're down for good."

Alfina let out a sigh as she led Jack down a narrow hall and into a more secluded room. "Look, human, if it were up to me I'd love nothing more than to tear apart every last one of the bastards."

Jack jutted her chin in the direction of the rest of the mall. "Thought this was your show here?"

Alfina just shook her head. "These people follow my bondmate as much as me, if not more. Before Cerberus nabbed me, I was the one in charge of the action, but now, not so much."

"Bondmate? What's that? Like your girlfriend or something?"

"More like what you humans call a wife. But while Seris and I might be together, we don't always see eye to eye. When you helped spring us out of the Kennel, I was ready to go to war but when we got back here…" Alfina sighed and leaned up against the wall. "Not everyone wants to fight. Some of them just want to find a ship and get off this rock for good. I can't exactly blame them either."

"Well, how many people could we get to storm Ford's tower with us?"

Alfina threw up a hand. "We? Whoa there, human. Who said anything about me getting myself killed in your suicide run?"

Jack jabbed a finger into Alfina's chest. She'd been trying her best to be reasonable, but her fear for Miranda was making her give free reign to her anger. "We saved your ass back at the Kennel! You owe us, and it's time to settle up."

"And how would I do that? By running headfirst into my death? Even if we had hundreds of soldiers on our side, Ford stays at the top of his little fortress. So say we rush the entrance, get past the defenses, and somehow get inside. We still need to fight our way up the whole fucking tower! You said it yourself, they're building those troops in there so who knows how many they've got?"

"So all that talk about bringing the fight to Cerberus was what? Just bullshit?"

Alfina smacked Jack's hand away from her chest. "I'm not saying I'm not on board with taking the battle to them. Just that we need a better plan than running straight into death. There's no way to get to Ford outside of fighting our way up, so if that was to happen we'd need to be smart about it. And we won't get shit without Seris' agreement."

Jack paced back and forth. "Well you're the one who fucks her right? Can't you convince her somehow?"

"Maybe." Alfina shrugged. "Seris does what's in the people's best interests. If what you say is true, then maybe it is best to strike now."

Jack twisted the bottom of her ratty shirt between her hands as she wrung out the rain water. "We have to do it," she muttered.

"Why's it so important to you anyway? I get that you want them dead, but are you really so keen to die doing it?" Alfina paused, looking Jack up and down as she considered something she hadn't before. "So, where's the other one?"

"What're you talking about?"

"The pretty human who was with you last time. Did she get herself killed? Is that why you want revenge on them so badly?"

"Miranda's not dead!" Jack insisted definitely, though whether she was really trying to convince Alfina or herself was harder to say.

Alfina put her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Then where is she now?"

"She's…" Jack hesitated before she spoke. If she told Alfina what had happened to Miranda, the asari might think conclude this was just some personal quest and bail. And yet, could she really lie her way out of this mess?

The cheerleader's the slick operative. I'm no good at that bullshit. Let's just try the truth. "They've got her."

"Cerberus captured your friend?"

"Kind of. Miranda, she…" The words didn't come easily to Jack, but she made herself say them. "She turned herself over to them. She's trying to get close enough to Ford to kill him."

"Well, good for her. But then what do you need our help for?"

"'Cause they'll kill her afterward," she spat back, trying not to show just how much that thought frightened her. She had to sound reasonable. "And 'cause this is our shot. After their crazy-ass leader is dead, Cerberus will be disorganized for a little while. We can go in and fuck them up while they're still trying to figure out what's going on. But if we wait here, they'll just find some new fuckhole to take over for Ford, and pretty soon you'll be right back in the fryer."

Alfina's hands interlaced, the fingers of one tapping against the back of the other as she considered Jack's words. "Do you think she can pull it off?" she finally asked. "Because if she can, then an attack might actually make sense. But if she fails, we'll be putting our tits in the wringer for nothing. And if our soldiers fall, Cerberus will have no problem wiping out all the innocent people here we're trying to protect."

It was without hesitation that Jack replied, "Fuck, yeah. Miranda will find a way."

Miranda felt a curious stillness come over her as she walked into the operating room and looked down at the old man laying on the table in front of her. She was overcome by a sense that her entire life had brought her to this moment. Running away from home with her infant sister. Turning to the Illusive Man for protection. Heading the Lazarus Project. Betraying Cerberus to stand with Shepard. Accepting this mission from the Alliance. All of it had led up to this: a final chance to balance the scales, to destroy the organization that had defined so much of her life.

Or to rejoin them, a voice within her whispered. Before coming to his tower, she hadn't realized just how vast the resources at Ford's disposal were. Certainly, the man was reprehensible, the excesses he had allowed this new Cerberus of his to commit, vile. But the organization could be remolded. If she repaired Ford's heart, and took her place as his right hand, she would have time to arrange a coup that someday could remove him and leave her in control. She could use all of that power to make a better world, really better, as she had once dreamed of.

And yet, how would Jack react if learned that I re-joined Cerberus? Could I really do that to her?

There was no time for her to further consider the question. The other doctors and nurses were looking to her for the signal to begin the procedure. In some of their eyes she read enthusiasm, behind others, mistrust.

Perhaps they guess what I have planned. How will they react if my betrayal is revealed? If I really do go through with this, I had best go down fighting then, she concluded. Otherwise my death will neither be pleasant or quick.

One of the men stepped forward, and though an operating mask obsured his face, she could still sense he was one of those who mistrusted her. "Ms. Lawson. My name is Doctor Henry Keller. I understand you're the woman who invented the device we're going to repair."

"That's right," she replied, mirroring his coolness.

"I've studied it for quite some time now and yet elements of its design are still alien to me," Keller said. "You must be a brilliant woman to have designed it, so I shouldn't have to tell you that if anything happens to Anthony Ford…" He gestured to the four armed guards standing directly behind Miranda and said nothing more.

"If you're finished making self-evident threats, I'd like to get started," Miranda replied without a trace of fear in her voice. She outstretched her hand to the man. "Omni-Saw."

The doctor gave her one more suspicious glare before hesitantly handing the tool to her. As Miranda powered the device on and the orange glowing blade manifested with a buzz, she felt her nerves tingle. Ford laid out before her utterly exposed. The mask over his face and the blue sheet covering most of his body somehow made it hard to see him as the power hungry mastermind she'd learned about in her time on Typhon.

Could there be more to him then that?

Miranda had certainly believed she'd been doing the right thing for years, living in comfortable ignorance. Perhaps Ford was a bit like her, wanting to believe in the promise of Cerberus and not the reality of its actions.

Though after all the horrors I've seen on this planet, he can hardly be innocent.

She brought the omni-blade to her patient's sternum and began to saw through the tough layer of bone there. As the energy blade sunk in, Miranda allowed herself to reflect on a more innocent time in her life, when she might have been disgusted by the sight of a man being cut open.

But just because she'd been innocent didn't mean she'd been happy. Miranda had only one pleasant memory from her childhood; just one. She could still feel the sting of her father's hand on her cheek, as well as the stunned look in his eyes when he came running out of their house in the middle of the night to see Miranda carrying Oriana in her arms. It was a moment she still found deeply satisfying. And that feeling when her car left the ground, giving her the first taste of freedom she'd ever known... Chasing that feeling had been enough to push her into the Illusive Man's arms.

Was it really a mistake, though?

Miranda pondered that question as she spread Ford's ribs, opening up his chest cavity. Certainly, she'd done horrible things for Cerberus; she had no illusions about the kind of woman she truly was. But there had also been times when Cerberus' potential for good had been realized. They'd advanced human medical science by leaps and bounds in a few short years, gathered priceless intelligence on the Reapers, and of course, there was Shepard and the Normandy. Humanity and the rest of the galaxy might not want to admit it, but Miranda knew that had it not been for Cerberus, the Reapers would have never been stopped.

There had been more to her loyalty than blind faith. Once upon a time Cerberus did stand for something good.

Perhaps it could again.

The heart was constructed using a synthetic flesh she developed and later used in Shepard's reconstruction. It looked real enough from the outside but the inside was a concentrated hub of technological wonders that could have only come from a brilliant mind such as hers. It had been the Illusive Man that first believed in her, that first gave her the tools to fulfill her potential and create marvels like that device keeping her enemy alive.

And now Ford is offering me another one.

Could she really throw that away? Could the galaxy really afford to lose Cerberus? The questions stuck in her mind as she stared down at Ford's beating heart.

Time to choose.

Seris wasn't quite what Jack had expected. Buff and badass as Alfina was, she'd assumed that the bondmate who'd taken over command of the rebels from her must be one tough motherfucker. Instead, she'd found a skinny, round-faced asari no taller than herself, who looked more like a hostess at some Ilium hotel than a hardened killer. As she looks d into her deep, purple eyes, though, Jack could see an iron determination that gave some hint as to her real strength.

"Alfina says you want us to take the fight to Cerberus."

"Yeah." Jack put her hands on her hips, meeting the asari's powerful gaze without flinching. "That's pretty much the idea. You two, me, and as many of your people as we can round up storm that fucking tower and blow Ford to kingdom come."

"Look, Jack," Seris said, not unkindly. "You seem like a decent enough human. And I really appreciate what you did back at the prison, rescuing my bondmate from that Cerberus hell." Seris reached over and gave Alfina's shoulder a squeeze that made the taller asari smile down affectionately at her. "But if we do this, a lot of my people are going to die, win or lose. And too many of them have already been killed in this war."

Jack shook her head. "I know. It fucking sucks. But we've got no choice. Either we take Cerberus out now or they grow so many of those mutant freaks that there's no way you or anybody can find a ship and clear away all the crap around the relay before they hunt you down and kill you."

Seris turned to Alfina, giving her a quizzical look. "Do you believe that's true?"

Alfina shrugged. "She's worried about her friend, this Miranda, but yeah, I believe she believes it. Past that, it's hard to tell the truth. These Cerberus bastards are pretty hard to figure out. But you know how dangerous their new elites are. How many of our people they've killed already. And they did only show up just recently. If there's any chance they're pumping out more of them…"

"Then we've got to stop them first." Seris nodded and took a deep breath, clearly coming to a decision. "All right, Jack. We'll do it your way. But I hope you know what's at stake here."

"I do." Jack felt the horrible, frightened knot that had formed inside of her stomach when she first saw Miranda on that vid-screen untie itself, at least a little bit. Now we have a fighting chance. She clenched and unclenched her fist, steeling herself for what was coming next. "So, what've we got to work with here?"

"There's about 1000 people here in the mall," Seris told her, "But only about half that number are fit to fight. Still, we've got plenty of biotics here, and we've managed to scavenge up a fair amount of heavy weapons to arm them with. And, of course, there's our little surprise…"

Jack wasn't sure what Seris was hinting at but she could see Alfina's eyes light up at the prospect. "It's ready? I thought we still needed parts."

"We did. But there's been a lot of progress since you've been gone, honey."

Alfina laughed, and for once she seemed genuinely excited. "All right then, babe. Let's round up the troops. It's time to give these Cerberus bloodsuckers the fight of their lives."