It wasn't long before we were taken to a high-security hospital at an undisclosed location. Well, they may have told me where we were going, but I honestly couldn't remember. All I knew was that I was no longer feeling loopy, and was, instead, starting to feel rather sick. The only reason I hadn't thrown up was that I hadn't eaten in like six hours, and even then, I doubted that the concrete-like emergency ration bars would have been able to come up at all. There's no way one can beat gravity and take that shit upwards.

The place where they took us – and by us I mean Tali and I, because I had several holes that needed patching up too – was loaded to the brim with guards. I saw alliance marines, and C-sec officers. Turians, humans, and asari. Tali was taken rather urgently towards an emergency wing, whereas Ashley half-carried me at a more sedated pace.

Thankfully, both Shepard and Ash took pity of me, and decided not to drill me immediately, leaving me to be patched up and to rest. The doctors got to work as soon as I was down on the stretcher – and they took my armor off so quick I still have no idea how it happened. I had this mental image of myself being shucked out of my shell like an oyster, which probably was close enough to the truth anyway.

Nobody really spoke to me the whole time, other than telling me where I had the holes and what they were doing to fix them. The worst had been the turret round that ripped right through my arm, and the shot that had embedded itself against my shoulderblade. The sniper shot that had punched through my shields and almost through one of the ceramic armor plates had cracked one of my ribs, and I had been peppered by shrapnel on my arms and legs a few times. I had a few fractures on my ribs, actually, but bone-weave fixed them very easily.

All in all, I can say that medical interfaces should be standard on any suit of armor. Damn things are awesome. I went through enough medigel to paint me whole, like a fake tan, but I survived.

I didn't make much conversation either, because I was busy with my face buried inside a bucket they had given me. Yeah, not a lot was coming up, but I was still incredibly sick. Once I was patched, they put me on an IV to both re-hydrate and feed me, as well as give me a dose of beta- and neuro-blockers to flush the stims out of my system. Oh, and while they were at it, and under Shepard's orders, I got a shiny new pair of translator implants.

I'm going to stop here. But believe me, it was a hell of a night. It wasn't helped by the fact that, in the middle of my feeling like a bucket of refried crap on toast, I kept thinking about the assault on Chora's Den.

I had shot three people.

Yes, it bothered me. It bothered me a lot. But what also bothered me was the fact that it didn't really seem to affect me as much as I had expected it would. Maybe it was because I was so busy being sick, but after a while, I started to realize it was because they were standing between me and Fist, and I just had had to get to him to be able to save Tali.

But I kept seeing the face of the poor bastard we had let run away at the end. He looked nothing like a criminal or a murderous thug. He just looked like some guy who happened to have to take a gun and try to shoot the two of us.

I couldn't stop thinking whether the others I had shot were anything like him.

When my omni-tool beeped to me that it was six am, I wanted to stab someone in the face. With just a couple of hours of fitful sleep, I was at least feeling good enough that I was hungry, but ye gods, the pain. I stood up slowly, letting my legs get used to carrying my weight, and found that someone had left the case I had abandoned at Serrus' in my room. And my uniform and other stuff were inside. Score!

With a shower, a shave, and a good brush of my teeth, I was starting to feel alive again. Time to go for a spin.

"Sorry kid, can't let you out."

Or not.

I looked at the C-sec officer posted outside my room like he had grown a second head. He was about my height, built like a freaking linebacker, and had a dark haired buzz cut, dark brown eyes, and a face that looked like it had been stretched upwards.

"What?"

"Orders are orders, you're in protected custody until we can figure this shit out."

"… Shepard's gonna kill me."

"That's what she said yesterday," he replied, and didn't bother hiding his smile.

"Great. Any news on the quarian?"

"Not a clue," he said, shrugging. "Got my orders to stay put, so that's what I'm doing."

I nodded and was about to walk in, when I remembered there was someone else. "What about Garrus? You guys got there in time?"

"Garrus?"

My heart bumped in my chest, and I tried to fight down the mild panic that was rising in it. "Garrus Vakarian. I sent you guys a message yesterday!"

"Shit, that was you?" he said, mildly surprised. "Yeah, he's all right." I felt an enormous amount of relief, only it was short lived when the man gave me a very sharp look. "Why did you go and leave him alone for?"

"I... I'm sorry. I had to go get Tali. The quarian," I added, when he gave me a blank look.

"Tsk, a suit rat," he said, shaking his head. "Leave a good officer behind for that."

I didn't realize what I was doing until my hand started scratching my tight, where my pistol would have been clipped had I been wearing armor. Son of a-

"That's a quarian, and her fucking name is Tali."

The guy gave me a look like I had just turned into a giant turd. Without any warning he pushed me inside the room, and the door closed between us, flicking to locked a moment later.

"You're in protected custody, so stay in there."

I took a moment to bite back the curse that had threatened to escape when I fell on my bum, and stood up, going for the armor crate. Unfortunately, neither Shepard nor Ash had seen fit to leave my armor or any of my guns, so there was bugger all for me to defend myself with. Not that I wanted to shoot the guy – okay, maybe a little – but having my room suddenly locked up did put me on edge.

So, I fired up my omni-tool, and risked getting an earful and making an ass of myself by giving Shepard a call. Only I couldn't connect. Huh. I had no extranet access either, no connections at all.

Yeah, that put me even more on edge.

Note to self, get an omni-blade app.

Luckily, I didn't have to wait for long. Ten minutes later the door opened, and in came a nurse carrying a tray.

"Good morning!" she greeted me, a cheerful smile on her face. She looked every bit an Alliance member, standing ramrod straight, and with her light brown hair held back in a bun. She walked in and put the tray on the small table by the bed. "I don't think you should be pacing like that this early, at least until the doctor gives you a once-over."

"I'm feeling quite well, thanks," I replied. And it was true, the pain was slowly receding. "Trying to loosen up. Any idea when I can get out of here?"

"Dunno," she shrugged. "I'm just carting the food around."

"Oh."

I made my way to the table as she left, and lifted the cover of the plate, only to find the familiar shape of foil-wrapped emergency ration bars under it.

And I could just imagine Ash laughing her ass off somewhere aboard the Normandy.

With a sigh, I sat down on the bed and picked the pack up. Better than nothing, and I was starving. When the door opened again, I was working my way through the third bar, but stopped mid-chew when I saw who had walked in.

That's not Shepard.

It was a turian. He looked vaguely familiar, reddish-brown scales and with white paint all over his face. There were two other turians with him, both wearing C-sec uniforms.

"Mister Morgan," the turian said. There was a slight buzz behind his words, which took me a moment to realize it was because of the translator. So it worked.

"Mister... turian," I replied. I continued my breakfast, looking at the turian.

"I'm executor Pallin, I heard it was you who found Vakarian," he said. If he expected some sort of reaction from me, he was probably disappointed, because other than an "oh, so that's who he is", I didn't have any further thoughts about him. I let the silence hang as I ate, but he didn't elaborate. He was probably trying to make me feel uncomfortable with the protracted silence.

Hah. Good luck with that.

After a while, I heard some noises outside, and I recognized Shepard's voice easily enough. What surprised me were the other voices. There were a lot more people out there than I thought. Someone was telling Shepard she couldn't get through, then the volume started to raise... And all hell broke loose.

"What the-"

Pallin didn't even have time to finish his question before the door opened and a human C-sec officer was launched into the room at full tilt, crashing rather unceremoniously on one of the turians inside.

Shepard followed almost immediately, and I kind of pressed back against the bed when I saw her. She was smiling. As in a wide, happy smile, with full-on crazy eyes to go with it.

"Hi!" she said, sounding very chirp. "Executor, so nice of you to drop by."

I noticed the other turian started to edge away from Shepard, but she turned ever so slightly to fix the beams on him, and he stopped immediately.

"Shepard," Pallin replied. "Why-"

"Any particular reason why you're here harassing a member of my team?"

She sounded so freaking chirpy about it, even I was getting freaked out. The crashed C-sec officers were untangling themselves and standing up, but they didn't make a move towards Shepard either.

"You team member is a suspect in an investigation."

"Oh?" Shepard said, and looked at me.

Creeeeeepy.

"He thinks I shot Garrus Vakarian," I said, shrugging. "I found him and helped him, but-"

"You fled the scene immediately," Pallin replied. "Why?"

"Ask Garrus, he's the one who told me to run," I said.

Bad lie? Probably, and as I said, I'm a bad liar. Only, not always. There is a bit of pretzel logic that allows me to "skirt the truth" in my own head sometimes, and that's that I can lie to myself – and believe it, too. So, given what I knew of Garrus, when he was grunting turian nonsense at me, he was probably telling me to leave him and go do X, but whatever X was, I had no idea. It could have been to go look for Tali.

That's what I figured out, and that's what I sold to Pallin.

"He hasn't regained consciousness yet," Pallin grumbled.

"Well, isn't that convenient," Shepard replied, grinning. "I can still vouch for Roy, he was at the Alliance Training Range all day."

"You have proof of that?" Pallin said, looking at me.

"I do!" Shepard said, getting everyone's attention. She got her omni-tool, fiddled with it, and a moment later Pallin's own tool pinged.

When he opened it, the familiar noise of the shooting gallery greeted my ears. Quickly followed by my spluttering of nonsense as an electric round took me down, and the dressing down Ash gave me as a response.

"There are hours of that in there," Shepard said, giggling. "It's very entertaining. And timestamped too."

Pallin grumbled again – I was starting to think the guy had a cold and couldn't speak up – but he apparently accepted it. He gestured for the rest of C-sec to leave, gave me one final glare, and left the room.

Shepard and I watched them go in silence, and when the door closed, she turned to look at me, still with the creepy crazy smile on. She then raised her omni-tool, and started scanning the room. All the while, humming to herself some of that non-music she seemed to favour.

Seriously, that's not techno anything.

"What are you doing?" I said.

She hushed me, and kept scanning. I saw her take something out of her omni-tool a couple of times, some tiny electronic gizmo I assumed she had made with the micro-fabricator, and place them on particular spots – one on the wall, one next to a light switch. When she was done, she took the time to lock the door, and turned to me.

The crazy was gone, but she was still smiling.

"Much better, now we can talk."

"Jeez," I said, breathing in relief. "You were seriously creeping me out."

"Why? Because of this?" As if to illustrate her question, she put the crazy Shepard face back on, but only for a moment. "Always plant a truth inside a lie, kiddo. Works every time."

Does that mean you're only partly crazy? I thought, but had the good sense not to vocalize it.

"Duly noted."

"So," she said, and the smile disappeared completely. She sat down on one of the visitors' chairs, and crossed both arms and legs, fixing me with a stare. "Start talking. What the hell were you doing?"

"I told-"

"Vakarian doesn't speak English, and you didn't have your implants yesterday," she deadpanned. "So what the hell happened? You went to this clinic where coincidentally a C-sec officer had been shot, then tracked down a quarian with information on Saren, and apparently managed to convince one krogan battlemaster, who you knew by name, to accompany you and talk to me about joining my crew. Did I leave anything out?"

"Um... the part where I saved the day?"

"You mean going into Chora's Den and shooting a whole lot of people? I was hoping that little detail would come out, yes."

My bed was starting to feel very uncomfortable.

Think, think! And think fast!

I was expecting the mysterious AI to yank me out and give me yet another warning about don't tell Shepard or she'll have a meltdown, which come to think of it, was a little strange. But in the meantime, Shepard was still waiting for my answer, and the way she was looking at me, she wasn't going to take a lie from me.

Yet a lie was what I had to try.

"The Shadow Broker," I finally said, in a defeated tone.

"You work for the Shadow Broker?" Shepard asked, and there was an edge to that question.

"No! No, not that. I got the information from the Shadow Broker." In-game, at least.

"Morgan, you really need to start explaining that, right about now," she said in a low voice, and I didn't miss the fact that she had used my last name.

"I... may or may not have wanted to kind of score a goal here." I glanced at Shepard, but she was a perfect statue. Damn. "I just thought if I could prove that I'm useful, then maybe... dunno..."

"That's crap," Shepard said. She didn't sound too happy at all.

"Really? Because I've been so useful so far," I said. "I mean, did you see the video you gave Pallin?"

Come on, come on, take the bait and ignore-

"Leaving that bull aside, how the hell did you contact the Shadow Broker? I'm surprised you even know about him."

Well, crap. Wait, did I say that already? Double crap then!

"I'm not the one who contacted him. He's in the habit of collecting information, and I was a material witness to Eden Prime," I shrugged. "Turns out he has a bone to pick with Saren because he double crossed him," I hastily added, hoping to distract her, "so I got the information for free," which I did.

"For free."

"Yeah."

Shepard kept her gaze fixed on me, and for a while I had no idea what she was going to do. It didn't look promising.

"Okay Roy, listen up," she said, and stood up. "I'm not buying half the stuff you're selling for a second. I don't know what's going on with you, but let me make something perfectly clear. If you double-cross or endanger my crew in any way, shape, or form, I'll make it my life mission to make sure that you regret it."

As she spoke, I had been inching backwards slowly, until I hit the board at the head of the bed. I swear, she looked more dangerous than freaking Sovereign. I didn't say a thing, because quite frankly, I couldn't even open my mouth.

"So think very carefully whether what you're not telling me is something that I should know," she finished.

As soon as she said that, my vision drained of colour, and the familiar swirling of the images came back. And so, like that, I was back into the dream-like place with the freaking glowing AI.

She looked exactly the same she did before. Expressionless as ever. I looked more at the details this time. Her skin was completely flawless, so much so that it skirted right into the uncanny valley. She wasn't all white, there was a slight cyan tone to her skin, and some kind of circuitry-like structure in her eyes. The hair was definitely pearl white. And yes, she had this slight, weird glow.

I started to wonder whether she was like this in reality, or they were merely putting the image in my head. The idea planted a seed of dislike for them into my brain, I'll have to admit.

"You can't-"

"I know! I can't tell her!" I snapped. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"I'm sorry. You will have to come up with a story."

"Haven't you been paying attention? I SUCK AT LYING!" I shouted.

She looked surprised for a moment, but she recovered quickly, her expression going back to neutral, and her gaze somewhat unfocused.

"Then silence will have to suffice. She will grow suspicious of you, thus you will have to earn her trust with your actions." As soon as she was done, she looked focused again, and looked straight at me.

"That wasn't creepy at all. Any other advice?"

"No," she replied. "We do not want to influence your decisions more than we must, Roy. We need you to find a solution we have not been able to."

"And how the hell am I going to know what's new? I have to think of something, and then you pull me here and say no, that's not new, and-"

"Roy, please. Stop," she said. After an eyeblink, the faraway look in her eyes came back, and I noticed that even her voice had changed slightly. "A chaotic system can change radically by minute alterations of its components."

"The butterfly effect?" I said.

"That is the most common description the other humans we called gave to this phenomenon. We cannot predict all outcomes, we can only predict the few."

With that, my vision started to go bonkers again, and I started to drift back. The last thing I saw was the AI breaking out of her strange reverie, and try to say something, but it was too late for me to hear.

Great, now I was going to spend all day trying to figure out what the hell she was trying to say.

"Well?"

Oh, I was back, and Shepard was still waiting for an answer. And she still looked like she was going to break me in half if I as much as sneezed wrong. I was feeling rather dizzy, but I tried not to show it.

"I... I don't know what to say, Shepard. Last thing in my mind is to do something to the crew. I promise you that." And that was the truth, at least.

The answer didn't seem to satisfy Shepard completely, but at least she did back off a little, giving me some room to breathe and find my legs again. I was really feeling like throwing up once more, and I was pretty sure the only reason I hadn't done so was that the stupid bars I had been eating were impossible to reprocess. This mental travel link with the AI wasn't fun at all, last time I even passed out; well, that may have been the shot that went through my shoulder.

"And as far as making yourself useful, I am the one who calls who does what, because it's my command. Captain Anderson has the ship, but I have the ground team. You don't go off the rails like that without even the courtesy of a call. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," I said. Or whispered.

She took a deep breath, and sat down again, letting some of the tension melt off. I imitated her, took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. Luckily, the sickness I was feeling was starting to disappear.

"Look, Roy. The main reason you're here, is that you seem to be more clued into what the hell's going on than the rest of us." She paused for a moment, and I noticed she was trying to tone down her face-melting gaze. Although she wasn't quite as successful as I'd have liked. "I'm going to stop asking you why. For now at least. But that's your main job. I want you armed and trained because everyone who's part of the ground team has to carry their own weight. But until you get yourself one of these," she tapped the N7 on her uniform, "leave the solo heroic missions to me. All right?"

She smirked when she asked that last question, trying to clear the air again. I was starting to get the feeling that her good cop / bad cop performances might actually not be done on purpose, at least not all of them. I had assumed Shepard was more of a paragon than a renegade, based on the fact that she hadn't shot me (Ash, on the other hand, was a renegade through and through, she enjoyed shooting me way too much), but I wondered whether the renegade was there, just beneath the surface, and she had to actively suppress it.

"Okay, commander," I said, earning a glare from her. "Shepard."

"It's not a difficult name, is it?" she added, shaking her head. "Come on, get up. Time for you to earn your pay."

"Huh?"

"Miss Zorah is already awake. Let's go pay her a visit."

Instead of standing up, I sank into the bed. Relieved? You bet. So much so that I had to close my eyes and wait for it to sink in.

"Do you know this quarian, Roy?" Shepard said.

"No," I replied, shaking my head. "Not personally. She's a kid, straight out of the flotilla." This was easy, it was all true. I opened my eyes and looked at her. "Can you imagine? Leave home for the first time, only to get shot and kidnapped like that."

"Yeah," Shepard said. "I see your point. Come on."

She helped me up, and the pain from all the crap I had endured the day before hit me again like a ton of bricks. It only dulled away when I started moving. I hissed, straightened up, and walked off after Shepard.

C-sec hadn't left the building, but I saw the Alliance soldiers were still around too. One of them was Ash, and I winced when she put her eyes on me and came straight for us.

"Chief," Shepard said.

"Commander," Ash replied, saluting. She then turned to me, put her hand to my chin, and turned my head to the side.

Ah, that's where she punched me.

Yeah, I did have a bruise. Not very big, because future medical tech is that awesome, but it was there. She gave a satisfied nod, let go of my chin, and pointed her index finger at my face.

"Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again," she said, and she sounded like she meant it.

It really was something. I wondered whether I had a genetic predisposition for pissing off all women who interacted with me for more than a minute, or if I just needed to change my brand of deodorant.

By the way? Old Spice survived two hundred years into the future. Now you know.

"Fine," I said, absently rubbing the bruise.

Ash nodded and scampered off, going back to her post with two other Alliance soldiers. Shepard just shook her head, and gestured for me to follow. Going past a corner and a few more guards, we got to the intensive care unit, and in front of it, a furiously pacing Nihlus.

"Shepard, about time," he said.

"And a jolly good morning to you too!" Shepard replied, her chirp tone teetering close to the creepy over-happy Shepard I had been treated to that morning.

"Morning," I replied.

"Roy," Nihlus said. "Just the man. I'm dying to hear what your story is."

"Urr... sure?"

"Come on," he gestured, and led the trio of us into the ICU.

The first stop was Tali, and we all had to be suited up before going into the clean room. It didn't hit me until then, but it probably meant that Tali was out of her suit. It was really not the best time to think about it, but I wondered whether she looked like the recycled stock image Bioware used for her or not. I told myself that I just wanted to know whether reality followed the game closely or what. And I believed myself too.

After a very long decontamination procedure, the isolation room opened, and we walked in. Tali was laying on a bed, covered with a light sheet, and... She was wearing a full face opaque mask.

Well, that's that.

The doctor was next to her bed, also suited up, and tapping away at one of the consoles. He turned to look at us, and even through the full face mask, I could see he was glaring at us.

What's with doctors in the 22nd century? Did they get their corn flakes pissed on every morning at medschool or something?

"Make it snappy," he said. "My patient needs rest."

"Of course," Nihlus replied.

With a final lingering look at Tali, the doctor walked off, and left the four of us alone. Wait, four people in a room, does that count as alone?

"Miss Zorah?" Nihlus said.

"Yes," Tali replied. Yep, that was her voice all right. Only, it did sound a little different, without the quarian envirosuit filter. That was a surprise.

Also, she sounded desperately tired.

"My name is Nihlus Kryik, I'm the Spectre in charge of investigating Saren. This is Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Shepard," he gestured at Shepard, and Tali turned to look at her.

"Miss Zorah," Shepard said, nodding.

"Just Tali will do."

"And that's Roy Morgan, the man who found you," Nihlus finished.

"Tali," I said, smiling.

"Thank you, mister Morgan."

"Just Roy's fine. And you're welcome."

Introductions over, Nihlus took the lead. "Tali, we'd like to hear what happened to you, in your own words."

"What happened? Fist set me up, that's what! That bosh'tet! He-" she stopped her angry retort with a cough and a grimace, putting her hands on her stomach. Even before I could blink Shepard had rushed to her side, and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Take it easy, don't get excited."

"Ugh..."

"You had quite a few bullet holes," Shepard said.

"I know, the doctor told me," Tali replied. She laid back heavily on the bed, and I noticed she was trembling slightly. Shepard pulled the sheet over her and tucked her in. "I was on my pilgrimage," she continued, speaking slowly and in a low voice. None of us interrupted, it was clear it was taking her quite an effort to talk. "On my way to Illum, we ran into a geth signal on the Crescent Nebula, on an uncharted planet. We hadn't seen geth outside the Veil since our people fled Rannoch, so I decided to investigate. I managed to disable one and extract some information off its data core."

Nihlus and Shepard exchanged looks, but didn't say anything. I could just feel Shepard wanting to ask a dozen questions, but holding back for the sake of the wounded quarian. With some effort, Tali brought up her omni-tool, and started playing the recording I knew so well.

"Eden-prime was a major victory," Saren's voice gloated. "The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."

"That's Saren," Nihlus growled.

"The Conduit?" Shepard said, and looked at me.

Luckily for me, Tali chimed in. "Wait, there's more," she said, and poked the omni-tool again. "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

"I don't recognize that other voice," Shepard said.

"Reapers..." Nihlus said, and for a moment he looked shocked.

"According to the memory core, the Reapers were a hyper-advanced machine race that existed 50,000 years ago."

"And the ones who destroyed the Protheans," Nihlus replied. He stood stock still for a couple of seconds, his eyes lost in the distance, then groaned and put his hand on his head.

"Nihlus?" Shepard said.

"I'm fine," he grunted. "Just... Just the beacon images. It's nothing."

Tali was looking at both Nihlus and Shepard alternatively, trying to figure out what they were on about.

"Okay," Shepard said. "Tali, could you send us a copy of that recording? I'd like to find out who that other person is, and figure out what Saren's after."

"Sure," Tali mumbled, and with a swipe of her omni-tool, the transmission was done. "Are you going after Saren yourselves?"

"That's our mission, yes," Nihlus said.

"I want to come with you."

That was a surprise to two of the three of us. True, I was a little surprised she still had energy to say that when she was in bed, clearly feeling sick, and recovering from bullet wounds.

"I don't think you're in any condition to go anywhere," Shepard said.

"I'll be fine! Just need a couple of days- ugh-" her excitement, once again, ended up with a grunt and a gesture of pain.

"Really," Shepard deadpanned. Not unkindly, but there it was.

"Just give me a couple of days to recover," Tali said. "I set off on my pilgrimage to prove myself to the flotilla. And look what I found. Geth, attacking humans. Someone trying to bring some killer machines back from the past. What would it say about me if I turned my back on this?" She looked at Shepard for a few seconds, until the commander relented.

"We'll see. I won't take you if you haven't recovered, but we'll be here for a few more days. If you're fit for duty, I'll welcome your help."

"Thank you commander, I won't disappoint you."

"Come on, we'll let you rest."

She gestured with her head at us, and we filed out in an orderly fashion. Another very long decon later – which made me wonder, since it was a clean room to begin with, but they seemed to love their decontaminations – and we were outside.

The doctor was waiting for us, a blonde guy with a weathered face, and a mouth like he had been sucking lemons all day. You could tell from a single glance that he was a ray of sunshine.

"About time," he grunted.

"But she's such charming company!" Shepard replied with a big smile. She seemed to love poking people that way. "How is she doing?"

"Before you three went in there she was doing fine," the doctor snarled. "Fever's going down and the antibiotics are working."

"Good, I need her on her feet before the end of the week. Don't spare any expenses, it's coming off his paycheck," she said, pointing at me with her thumb.

I was so surprised that it took me a second or two to voice my response, with the obvious question.

"I have a paycheck?"

"Not anymore you don't," Shepard said, smirking.

The doctor simply ignored us and headed for the room again, leaving us alone. Shepard, however, turned her attention to Nihlus.

"You okay big guy?" she said. "You're awfully quiet."

"Yes, yes, just a lot to take in," Nihlus replied. "To hear Saren say that..."

"We already knew, Nihlus."

"I suppose."

"I'm more interested in the Conduit," she said, and turned to give me the beams. "Roy?"

"Yes?"

She furrowed her brow. "Start talking."

"Commander, if there were easy references to this Conduit, don't you think Saren would have found it already?" I said, shrugging.

"I don't care about Saren, I care about what you know."

"I know that I haven't ever seen references to the Conduit," I said, which was completely true – at least in-universe, "and that the protheans didn't seem to leave many records on it. That I've seen at least."

"So what do you think it is?"

"Something that's keeping the Reapers away?" I offered, and furrowed my brow. Time to go on with one of my game-plot rants. "I guess it doesn't make any sense. If the protheans had figured out how to keep the Reapers away, they wouldn't be extinct, so how would anyone think that could make sense?"

Unless it was done by a remnant of protheans left behind waiting for the Reapers to return to dark space and slam the door shut behind them, that is. Of course, I didn't say any of that.

Apparently, my answer wasn't satisfying enough for Shepard, because she was making an annoyed face.

"That's not helping," she said.

"What do you want me to say, Commander? That I have all the answers?" I said, and shrugged.

"I wouldn't mind," she replied, crossing her arms.

"Enough!" Both of us turned to Nihlus, who didn't look too happy about the rather silly argument we were having. "This is getting us nowhere."

"I know," Shepard said, still pointedly looking at me. However, she finally shook her head and let it go.

I could see that what the AI had said was pretty bang on. She was getting suspicious, more so because of the roundabout, half-assed answers I was giving her. I figured Nihlus, at least, would be on my side, given that I had managed to save his life back on Eden Prime, but it didn't look like it was the case. If anything, Shepard's attitude was making him more and more suspicious of me.

They decided to adjourn my execution for a few more hours, and we went to talk with Garrus. To my surprise, however, I wasn't invited. Or rather, I was invited, but C-Sec wasn't having any of it. Until Nihlus pulled Spectre rank on them, and they had no choice but to let me through. That didn't look promising. Getting on C-Sec's shitlist, that is. I decided to keep a low profile and hang back while Nihlus and Shepard interrogated Garrus.

He was laying down on a hospital bed, but looking a lot more lively than Tali had. In fact, he looked like he wanted to bolt out of the place right then and there. Considering he was still out when Pallin came to put the screws on me, it was rather impressive.

"Vakarian," Nihlus greeted him, getting a groan from Garrus in return.

"Just call me Garrus. I hear Vakarian, and I start looking for my father."

Nihlus chuckled at that. "This is Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Shepard," he said.

"Garrus," she said, nodding.

"Shepard. I've heard of you. Eden Prime, right?"

"Yeah, it was my team on the ground," she replied.

"Heard it was rough out there," he added. "Pallin assigned me to investigate Saren after that, but I couldn't find a spirits-damned thing. I heard from Dr. Michel about this quarian that had some information I may want to check, but when I got there..."

Garrus grew quiet, and although we waited, he didn't seem willing to elaborate.

"This is Roy Morgan," Nihlus said, trying to break the awkward pause. "He's the one that found you in the clinic."

"Garrus," I said, nodding at him, and still trying to blend in the background.

"Morgan," he replied.

"Oh, and he's got no implants, so you'll want to speak English to him."

"That's unusual," he rumbled, giving me his detective eye.

"Wait," Nihlus said, and turned to look at me. "You were talking with the quarian too, how come?"

"Well, I got a brand new set last night," I replied. "So- wait. Garrus? You speak English?"

"Sure, standard for C-Sec detectives, gotta speak at least three languages. Mostly for reading, can't always count on translation being available."

I looked at Shepard, and saw she was looking at me with such innocent eyes, and a small smile on her face, that you'd have to be crazy to think there was something amiss.

Son of a b-

"But thank you," Garrus said.

"No problem. Sorry I had to leave you there, but-"

"I know. Did you find Dr. Michel?"

Have you ever been punched in the gut out of nowhere by something you couldn't see and left to wonder what the hell happened while trying to breathe? Well, neither have I, but I can't imagine it being too different from what I was feeling at the time.

"I... What? No, I... I went after Tali, I..."

"Dr. Michel?" Shepard said.

"The owner of the clinic!" he said, and turned to look at Shepard. "That's what happened, there were four men threatening her, turned out they were working for Fist. I was going to take them down, but didn't see the one hiding in the back! Spirits!"

He threw the sheets aside and was about to jump out of bed, but Nihlus managed to restrain him.

"What are you doing?"

"Let go, I have to find her! She-"

"Calm down Garrus!" Nihlus snapped.

I took several steps back, and for what I saw, so did Sherpard. She came to stand next to me, as we looked at Garrus and Nihlus arguing. It was also the first time I saw a Turian out of his armor, and unkind as this may sound, he did remind me of a bird frame. Sure, covered in plates and all, but...

"Nice job," Shepard muttered.

"Gee, thanks."

"We've got a missing person, and twelve hours late notice." I looked at her, and I realized she was serious. "Not to mention that Fist's dead, so it's not like we can interrogate him."

"I didn't know, did I? I didn't have implants yesterday. I couldn't understand a thing he was saying."

"Which you could if you had stopped for five minutes to talk to him, and told him you needed him to speak English," she insisted.

I had to find Tali!

I wanted to shout that at the top of my lungs, but I caught myself before I did. She was absolutely right, no matter how much I wanted to deny it. I could have found out what happened in Dr. Michel's clinic, and even asked Fist before Wrex... Well, before Wrex.

"You're right, sorry. I'm sorry," I muttered.

Shepard waited some more, but when I didn't say anything else, she merely frowned and shook her head. Yeah, it wasn't a very satisfying answer, but what did she want me to say?

That question started my paranoid over-thinking brain.

What did she want me to say?

Author's notes: So... Whoops? You thought Roy had gotten away with it, didn't you? Well, so did he (or should that be "so did I"?). Apparently not. Actions have consequences, and screw ups have even bigger ones.

Loads of reviews this time around too, I'm still in awe, thanks so much everyone!

XraiderV1, that's how I roll! Just wait, hehe.

Archer83, Thanks! And yeah, the old man's a badass extraordinaire. I mean, who else would be able to unify Tuchanka by force? And well, you touched on the key issue here, only it came with a plot twist.

Vixeona, you got that right, it's going to be hard to explain! Yeah, I said going to. Dun dun DUN! :-)

Mizuki00, the day will come when Roy will get a hug, but it won't be this day! (Read that in Aragorn's voice, when he's rallying the troos in front of the black gates :D)

.best, thanks, too! Yeah, thinking of how to keep it fresh was a key issue. True, a "real" self-insert of myself would have likely end up with me as a corpse on Eden Prime, so there's a definite suspension of disbelief here, but rest assured Roy won't become the galaxy's most prominent badass anytime soon :D

So, the question is, what's next for Roy? I'll give you three guesses, and the first two won't count. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading, following, favoriting, and reviewing!