It was no secret that Cerberus wasn't the cleanest organization in the galaxy. Their mission was undoubtedly important, and while their methods were sometimes questionable, it was key to consider them in the larger context of the common good. Sometimes hard choices had to be made. This time, however, went way beyond that. Marie was absolutely fuming. She stomped towards Miranda's office with a determined step, ignoring absolutely everyone she came across. The base was one of the larger ones Cerberus had, and one of the most secretive too. There was a reason it had taken her two days to arrive, and she wasn't even sure which system they were at.

The door to the office was closed, the red lock prominently displayed on the center of it. Undeterred, Marie rang, knocked, and called loudly.

"Miranda, open this door!" she yelled, hammering the door with her fist.

It took a lot longer than she had expected, but the door finally opened. She started to rush inside, and bumped on the person that was trying to leave - in twice the hurry she was, at that. "Shit!" she cursed loudly.

The woman ignored her and rushed past her. Marie only caught a glimpse of black hair, a young face, and flowing tears, hearing the sobbing as the young woman ran. Then it stuck her that she was covered in blue, possibly asari blood.

"Don't just stand in the door now," Miranda called.

Her voice was like shattered glass, she hated that sound right now. She turned and walked inside, and saw the young woman was sitting at her desk with a portable terminal in front of her. The casing had a large blue handprint on top. More blood.

What the hell...

"So," Miranda continued. "What is it?"

"What- Are you serious? You took Roy out of the hospital! What the hell are you trying to pull!"

"I warned you," Miranda replied. She finally stopped fiddling with the terminal and pushed it aside. "We had no time to waste, and we needed to know where he fell with us. As you have shown us, he's not a fan."

"Because you rushed me! I wanted to help HIM, and Cerberus too. He's not just something to use and throw away!"

"You have no idea what he is," Miranda retorted.

"And neither do you!"

Marie's yelling didn't seem to faze Miranda one bit. Without even losing her composure, she gestured for Marie to sit down, then bent down and searched through the drawers under her desk. She came up a moment later with a datapad.

"Tell me what you see here," she said.

With a venomous look at Miranda, Marie took the datapad and started reading. It seemed to be a list of assets, bank accounts, and financial instruments. It was a very long list.

"What's this? Some matriarch's state or something?"

Miranda chuckled in response, getting Marie's attention.

"That," she said, pointing at the datapad, "is our friend Morgan's list of assets."

"Say what?!"

Marie looked at the datapad again, this time more carefully. Substantial share blocks of many companies, most of them on Illum, a few off-Citadel bank accounts, but all of them were to companies' names or even hedge funds, Roy's name wasn't mentioned anywhere. The total added up to...

Good heavens, she thought, counting the digits on the number, this is crazy.

That wasn't the kind of net worth an Alliance marine should have. That wasn't the kind of net worth a normal person should have. If that was really Roy's, he should be in Bekenstein living up the life, buttering up politicians, and eating endangered species for hors d'oeuvre.

"I don't see his name anywhere," Marie said, her voice doubtful.

"You won't, but we know it's his. It took a lot of digging to be able to connect all the dots. It all traces back through the Volus banking system to one Larran Goh, who recently managed to promote his clan to the 500 Fortune Management Board thanks in no small part to the initial investment of 10,000 share options for the Ala'ksha Exploration Corporation. Namely, the company that discovered Ilos and the Prothean VI."

"But... None of that links to Roy."

"No, I haven't found a direct link. Volus banking is much too opaque for that. But the movements fit. More importantly..."

Miranda handed Marie a second datapad. It had surveillance pictures and dossiers of several people. An asari Spectre, a turian contractor of some description, a member of Fallon Security, which was the favourite firm of several Volus bankers to attend to their clients' needs...

"What the hell is this?"

"That all the people who, so far, we've caught trying to figure out where Morgan is."

Marie's brain was having trouble processing all that. The money. The people. That wasn't Roy. It couldn't be.

"You never even noticed any of this, did you?" Miranda said.

"This... doesn't make any sense," Marie replied, not looking up from the datapad. "That's not Roy. What kind of person has all that Money in the bank and just goes around..."

"That's what we are going to find out. But without you," Miranda said. "This is no longer your project."

"What? No! I'm-"

"OUT!" Miranda shouted.

Marie's nostrils flared and her breathing sped up. Miranda didn't miss it, and the two of them squared off for a couple of seconds. Finally Marie dropped the datapad, and scampered off as it clattered on the ground. This all stank to high heaven. That wasn't Roy. It couldn't be. Either Miranda was wrong or, given the unlikelihood of that, Roy was being manipulated by someone.

And she was going to find out.

As she walked off, she came across the young woman she had bumped against earlier. She heard her before she saw her, her weeping coming from a corridor leading to one of the storerooms. Marie followed the noise, and found her sitting on the ground by the locked storeroom door. Clearly she had been looking for a place to hide, and given up on that spot.

"Hi," Marie said, sitting back on her haunches in front of the young woman.

She didn't answer, merely looked away.

"I'm Marie Roux, what's your name?"

It took a while before the woman answered, which Marie waited for with infinite patience.

"I'm... I'm..."

"Yes?" Marie prompted.

"I'm Eva," she finally replied. For some reason it didn't sound sincere.

"All right Eva," Marie said, "why don't we go clean you up, hm?" Marie stood up and offered her hand. "Come on, you can tell me all about what's eating you up. Or not, it's okay."

It took some doing to coax Eva out of the floor, but once she did, she followed Marie like a lost lamb. Perfect. If she was going to figure out what was going on with Roy, she was going to need help. And right now she didn't have anyone on her side. With any luck, this Eva could be helpful. For one thing, they both had already something in common.

Neither of them could stand Miranda.

It wasn't that long ago that Wahea was shaking her ass at the seediest bar she had ever set eyes on. Tracing back the steps that had brought her to that place was not exactly easy, in part thanks to the gaps she had in her memory courtesy of the alcohol, the drugs, and everything else she barely remembered. Then Matriarch Aethyta had shown up, plucked her out of the place, and after making her part of, as she called it, krogan negotiations with a freaking krogan warlord, she had thrown her on the deep end of some sort of political intrigue she didn't quite understand yet. All she knew is that she had had to learn fast, and learn a lot. All while getting herself clean, off the drugs and the booze.

That had been the hardest part.

At first she didn't even know why she was doing it. Fear or admiration for Aethyta, she couldn't tell. After a while she was sure it was fear, but not because she was afraid of the matriarch. She was afraid because she didn't think she could do any of the things she was tasked to do. She had smuggled guns to Tuchanka, escorted VIPs in Asari space, chased after Salarian spies, and even entertained guests at some of the most upscale parties she had ever seen.

She had asked Aethyta why she had helped her, once. Her answer had been strange.

"Shaking your ass at a thousand credits a cocktail is one thing," she had said, "where you were is something else. Feel free to go back if you want."

A thousand credits a cocktail was how it all had started.

After all that, there was little Aethyta could ask of her that she wouldn't do. The matriarch had trusted her from day one, and while she didn't understand it, she had grown to be thankful for it. But right now there wasn't anything she could do. And that hurt her more than anything.

"It was your responsibility!" Benezia yelled. Wahea winced internally, looking at the Quiet sign plastered on the wall. It was a hospital after all.

"She ditched her escort after leaving YOUR meeting!" Aethyta retorted.

"And why would they let her! And how did someone get in the project to steal her VI and SHOOT HER! Did you even run background checks?!"

"Of course I did! You think I'd have let anyone get-"

"YOU DID!"

The screaming math came to an end when the door to Doctor T'Soni's room opened, and Shiala stepped out.

"Matrans!" she yelled, making Wahea wince. To insult those two in the middle of an angry exchange like that was to put one's life in the Goddess' hands. "If you want to yell, go somewhere else! Liara needs rest!"

Without even waiting for an answer, Shiala closed the door, and the two matriarchs stood there for a few seconds, glaring daggers at each other. Even their biotics flared and subsided, and Wahea dedicated several prayers to all three aspects of the Goddess, asking for patience for the two of them.

Finally, Benezia stepped aside and walked to one of the waiting rooms, while Aethyta came directly to her.

"I need you to find Morgan and bring him here," Aethyta said.

That was all she said. Like Benezia, she walked off to one of the waiting rooms on the opposite side of the corridor, and left her with several unanswered questions, starting with the obvious.

Who in the Goddess' name is Morgan?

Shiala sighed and sat down by the bed, looking at the resting form of Liara. The young asari looked so frail and pitiful, tubes coming out of her mouth and nose, as well as from her chest cavity, which drained fluids at a regular rate. She had come out of surgery and the ICU, and while the doctors had done their best, they couldn't say whether she'd make it through the night or not. If she did, she'd have a small chance. If she didn't, well, it wouldn't be surprising.

"I'm sorry about that, Little Wing," Shiala said, her voice trembling with emotion. "They're scared. They both are, because they love you."

She wiped the tears with the back of her hand and reached for Liara's arm. It was the reason she was there. She was an adept of the Me'eli Lae, the healing meld. An old way of helping those who were dying, and give them a fighting chance at life. Modern medicine only conceded that there could be a minor effect in the recovery chances of a patient if they melded with someone who they cared about, and clinical trials had proven inconclusive one way or another. But she believed. She believed today more than ever.

Did she really deserve to be here? She had abandoned Liara as much as her mother. True, they were not blood, but she had known her for most of her short life. She had been the one to train her in the use of biotics. She had been her bodyguard when the time called for it. And then she had abandoned her. There was no reason why she couldn't have told Benezia to stuff it and thrown her lot with Liara. Could she have used an asari commando as a simple lecturer in the University? Well, why not? She could have found a way to make herself useful. But no.

What if Liara rejected her? She could make everything worse. Maybe she should step away, let someone else do it. Maybe...

No. It was her responsibility. If Liara was angry, let her vent her anger. Let her share all the negative emotions, all the hate, all the pain. Let her unburden herself. So what if it hurt? She'd take it all in. She'd welcome it. She'd deserve it.

She hadn't been there to protect her.

With a deep breath, she took Liara's hand, and closed her eyes. Slowly, very slowly, she started the meld. Physical meld. Her heart beat strong and regular. It could beat for Liara. Her breathing was smooth and regular. She could breathe for Liara. Little by little she felt their bodies become as one. Outside, beyond her senses, the vitals monitor showed a return to regular baseline values. Finally, her feelings. Her thoughts. Her mind.

Pain.

Physical pain at first. Then, anguish. Liara felt so much pain. Shiala could identify the pain easily enough. Betrayal. She knew it well. She felt her pulse accelerating, the anger, the-

Calm down. Calm down.

She couldn't let anger take over, it would hurt Liara more than anyone else. She thought of her beach, the hidden cove far from everything where she spent so much time alone. Calm. Quiet. Perfect. She searched for Liara from there, and soon there she was, their minds finally in sync. She was laying on the soft sand, a pool of blue blood around her. Slowly, Shiala approached her, and called her name.

Liara.

There was no answer. No movement. Nothing. Shiala knelt by the fallen form of the young asari, and cradled her head on her lap.

Liara.

Again, no response. Liara had her eyes fixed on something, and with some patience, Shiala managed to coax the memory out of her. She was inside a room. Mars. On the ground, as she felt her life ebb away, a human came to kneel in front of her. Liara was confused. Sad. She felt... She felt the love that Liara had for that woman. The human was crying, carrying something in her hand. A portable terminal.

The Prothean VI.

She kept saying the same thing over and over. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Liara didn't understand.

Calm down. Feel the breeze. The gentle sea. The warm sun. It's all being washed away.

The betrayal. It was worse than she had thought. It wasn't just someone infiltrating the base to steal valuables. That was someone who had gotten close to Liara. To her heart. A lover. In Liara's mind, even more. But she couldn't let the anger take over. Let it all go.

It's all my fault.

The thought came hesitantly, broken. Liara. It was Liara.

It is not your fault.

It's my fault. I thought...

Shhhh, don't say that Little Wing.

Liara gently caressed Liara's crest, as she had done so many times when she was a child. She wanted her to feel safe. She wanted her to feel loved. There were people waiting for her.

I thought I had something. I thought I could be happy...

You can be happy. You deserve to be happy.

I can't. I thought I could. I can't. And now everything is ruined because of me.

Nothing is ruined. This is nothing that can't be fixed.

I want it to end. I can't stand it. It hurts so much. Make it stop please. Make it stop...

Shiala didn't answer. There was no need for words. She took it all. All the pain. All the sadness. All the hate. The tears. The despair. Liara could give her anything, and she would just take it all.

No more burdens. No more. I'll never abandon you again.

The meld lasted for nearly twelve hours, the longest meld Shiala had ever done. She nearly passed out from exhaustion when it broke, but even so, Liara had made it through the night.

Three weeks since the Pelion Incident, formerly known as the Battle of Pelion. The incident in question had been downgraded for the sake of maintaining galactic harmony, but Lieutenant Larissa Kalenda knew better. As the Arcturus assistant to Real Admiral Aino Kishi, she knew what the cost of the battle had been. The rest of the Ninth Fleet had been commissioned in a real hurry, and the Rear Admiral herself had taken command of the Heraclides for the time being. The crews from the damaged carriers had been set to rotations with the auxiliary flotillas, sent on shore leave, or in some cases were still recovering from the ordeal. There had been honorable discharges.

And funerals. Far too many letters had gone through her desk to families of fallen soldiers.

Incident my freckled ass.

Even so, Admiral Kishi had kept on top of everything, even down to tracking individual members of the fleet crews to check on their progress. She didn't know how the admiral did it.

The comms console brightened up with an incoming call from the admiral herself.

Case in point.

"Sir," she called, answering promptly.

"Lieutenant," Kishi replied. "Have you managed to locate Chief Morgan yet?"

Larissa had to take a moment to do a quick recap, going through her notes as fast as she could read. The admiral always did that, she talked as if the hundred different conversation threads they had were always fresh in her mind. They probably were, but Larissa needed some extra help to keep track of all that.

Oh, there he is.

"No sir, he is still on medical. The hospital replied that he's not accessible at the moment."

"No more details?"

"No sir."

There was a pause, and when Kishi spoke again, her voice was firm.

"This stinks to high heaven. I need you to get to the clinic and find out exactly where Morgan is and what his condition is. And unless he is hooked to a piece of immovable equipment, I want him reporting to Drescher in less than no time. The admiral is getting impatient and I'm not going to keep her waiting any longer. Understood?"

"Yes sir," Larissa replied.

"Good, let me know as soon as you have news. Have you finished compiling the crew rotation schedule?"

"Ah, I just received the latest from the Schrödinger this morning, I will have the full schedule early in the afternoon."

"Very well, thank you Lieutenant."

"Of course sir."

Without further ado, Kishi ended the call, and Larissa wrote yet another note on her schedule. There was no end to it. She sighed, finished her coffee, and decided she'd rather get the problem with Morgan out of the way as soon as possible. She had no idea why not one, but two admirals had so much interest on a NCO, but it wasn't her place to ask. As far as she could tell he was still in the Wing 2 Fore Clinic, close enough that she could just go on foot. Ten minutes later she arrived at the place, and stepping in found the lobby to be completely deserted. A little odd.

"Can I help you?" the man behind reception called.

"Yes... Richard," she said, after finding his name on the desk signage. "I'm here to see Roy Morgan, SSN 5742-AB-2814."

"Morgan, Morgan..." he muttered as he searched through the terminal. "Ah. Yes he's under observation at the moment, not taking any visitors. Perhaps you could-"

"Let me stop you right there," Larissa interrupted. "I'm here on orders from Admiral Kishi. I'm to find Morgan, check on his status, and unless he's in mortal danger of immediate death, drag his ass to meet with Admiral Drescher. So, where is he?"

"I'm terribly sorry, but he's not available. Medical report says he's not fit for duty."

"And I'm telling you what the Admiral told me. Fit or not, I will at the very least check up on him."

"Do you have direct orders from the Admiral? It's my ass if I simply let you in, Lieutenant."

"Fine," Larissa replied. She brought up her omni-tool, wrote a quick message to the admiral, and after sending it, closed the screen and calmly leaned on the counter. "Now we wait."

"For?"

"It won't be long."

It wasn't. Not twenty seconds later her omni-tool pinged, and she opened the incoming message to see the authenticated priority order from Kishi, demanding that her Lieutenant be allowed to check on Morgan's status. Richard looked surprised for a moment, which she could understand - those things usually took days - but more importantly, he looked noticeably put off by it.

I smell a rat.

"Well?" Larissa said.

"Fine, fine, just one moment." He typed a few things on his console, and after waiting for a few seconds, sighed and closed it. "I need to wait until someone comes to replace me, I can't leave the-"

"I don't need you to babysit me. You know what? I'll find him, you just sit there."

She stepped decisively towards the entrance, ignoring the calls from Richard for her to wait, and she hadn't walked more than ten steps when a doctor came out of one of the rooms, hastily buttoning up his uniform. She wondered if she had caught him napping.

"What's going on?" he called, coming to a stop in front of Larissa and forcing the Lieutenant herself to stop.

"Ah, doctor," Richard called. "She's here to see Roy Morgan."

"Hm?" the doctor's eyebrows arched, and he looked at Larissa. "He's currently-"

"I have priority orders," she interrupted, raising her omni-tool once more to show the message to the doctor. "Now, are you going to take me to him or am I going to have to go through the clinic myself?"

The doctor took his time reading the message, but after that he merely sighed and gestured for her to go in. "Fine, fine," he said in a dejected tone.

The walked to the end of the corridor where the lift was waiting for them. The doctor hit the bottom floor, and after a couple of seconds, the doors closed and the lift started its interminably long descent towards the bottom of the clinic.

"It's just three floors, we could've just taken the stairs," Larissa said.

"Are you in some sort of hurry?" the doctor replied.

"As a matter of fact, yes. I have a lot of work to do."

"So do I, so let's get this over with, shall we?"

It felt as if the ride down was even longer than usual, which Larissa found somewhat ridiculous. While lifts in general were exceedingly slow due to safety protocols, she'd have thought that a lift in a hospital would be a lot faster. A patient may very well die of old age just waiting for the doctors to get him up or down. Once the lift finally opened, the doctor led the way until they came upon one of the isolation rooms. There was a single bed inside the room, surrounded by a thin privacy curtain. She couldn't see inside, but she could distinguish the silhouette of a person laying down on the bed.

"Here you are," the doctor said.

He passed his omni-tool over the terminal outside, and the holoscreen came to life. A screen full of vitals and diagnostics, medical history, and a live feed of the face. That was the chief all right. He had tubes going in through his mouth and nose, and wasn't moving one inch.

"What's wrong with him?" Larissa said, flipping through the charts.

"Vitals started to deteriorate once we deactivated the implants," the doctor replied. "We have him on assisted for the time being."

Larissa kept reading through the file. It was surprisingly messy and disjointed, but then again, they had had a lot of work in recent times.

"Satisfied?" the doctor said.

"Yes," Larissa replied, "let me just get a copy of this."

She brought up her omni-tool and found the Chief's file. As she copied the data, she realized that the picture on her omni-tool, straight out of his personnel file, was strikingly similar to the live feed she was seeing. The haircut was identical down to the last hair, even the shave seemed to be irregular in all the same places.

Without another word, and before the doctor could even open his mouth, she stepped aside and resolutely walked into the room.

"Hey, stop! You can't-"

She ignored the doctor and pulled the curtain back. And although she had expected it, it shocked her to discover that the person there wasn't Morgan. Blonde hair and completely different face.

Immediately she felt several punches on her back, mixed with a series of loud pops she didn't even identify at first. She looked down and saw a large red stain all over her clothes.

"What..."

She stumbled, looked back, and saw the doctor pointing a gun at her. Without thinking she brought up her omni-tool, but never managed to do anything with it, several more shots hit her. As her consciousness faded, the last thing she heard was the voice of the doctor.

"What a mess."

Popular guy.

The recording showed a third person coming to the apartment of this Roy Morgan in the span of 48 hours, and this one was a Spectre to boot. Unlike the previous two, she didn't waste time breaking in. A wave of her omni-tool and the door opened as if it was her own apartment. Not bad.

Talen wished he had that kind of tools at his disposal. Instead, he had to make do with charm, wits, and when all that failed, money. Luckily, the Volus bankers he usually worked for had deep pockets and a predilection for solving problems drawing the minimum amount of attention. Which suited this turian just fine, thank you very much. His days of running around like a fool, gun in hand and shooting everything that moved, were well behind him.

He reached for the cup of hot apha and gave it a sip. It was amazing how well stocked on dextro foods and drinks Arcturus was. Considering it was the heart of the Systems Alliance, he'd have expected a lot more limits placed on foreign visitors. He could think of worse assignments.

"Hey Talen," Joseph, his local contact called. "How long are you going to be in there?"

"Just a few more hours," he replied.

"I might have to kick you out soon, I don't want anyone to find you in here."

"Don't worry, they won't."

First rule on his line of work, keep the contacts happy. What he was doing was not technically legal, but as long as he didn't get his contact in trouble by misusing the information he was gathering, he would be fine. The Arcturus surveillance footage was routinely deleted for privacy's sake, and unless there was a specific reason for it, it was never transmitted outside the observation server, so he had to work on site if he wanted to review it. Hence Joseph's worries, anything that he dug out from it could be traced straight back to him if he wasn't careful.

He absently adjusted his armor, noticing how warm the room felt. Turians liked the warmth, but humans, not so much. He reached for the environmental controls and realized that the temperature was set for five degrees lower than it was at the moment. Odd. Where was all that heat coming from?

After some examination he realized that one of the terminals in the room was running far hotter than the rest. Fans on the back were whirring fast, and the air coming from it was definitely far warmer than it should be for an idle piece of equipment. He brought up the interface and opened the task manager, and immediately the noise stopped.

No running processes. Huh.

Curious. He opened the logs, and indeed, there was no trace of unusual activity logged into the system. Not convinced, he opened the network logs. Same result. Nothing. Finally, he decided to open the low level logs. They showed an idle central processor staying at room temperature.

He knew that was false.

Someone had broken into one of the most secure servers in Arcturus Station, and ran what had to be hundreds of processes pouring through surveillance data while not leaving a single trace of their passing.

Coincidence was not something he believed in. Roy Morgan was a popular guy indeed. He knew the guy to ask for forensic data analysis, but he wasn't cheap. He opened his omni-tool and send a message to his employer. He was going to need extra funds.

"Roy."

I recognized the voice right away, didn't bother to look up. Marie.

"What do you want?"

I had been stuck in that cell for... I wasn't sure for how long. I didn't see anyone, didn't hear anything, and only got meals at irregular intervals I couldn't follow. Even the lights were always kept on, not giving me a clue as to the time of the day. I thought had ended up in the hospital after my argument with Marie. The last thing I remembered was hitting the emergency call on my omni-tool when I felt like my head was going to explode. Instead, I woke up here.

"To talk to you," she replied.

"I have nothing to say to you."

"I do. I need to ask you. Why? What are they doing to you? If you need help, we can help. I told you."

I didn't answer. There was no need. Cerberus. The same assholes who... No, they didn't do anything to Shepard, but the image in my head of the future, what they'd do, how they'd sell us to the reapers. No, there was no need. Cerberus had to go.

"Walk away before it's too late Marie," I said. Dammit, why? Keep your mouth shut. Why do you care?

"Walk... You don't know anything about Cerberus," she retorted.

"I know enough."

"Of course you do, you always know everything don't you?" Marie retorted, raising her voice. "Well they gave me a chance when nobody else did!"

Thanks to me, right?

She didn't come out and say it, but it was easy enough to pick up. I wasn't going to take the blame for that one. I simply let it slide. I sat back on the lone cot in the cell, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Conversation was over.

"Fine. Be that way. But I will find out. Whether you want me to or not."

She walked away and I was left in peace once more. I was slowly getting used to the implants being off, though my reflexes were still shot. As long as I remained calm, my head more or less stayed functional. If I got excited, the headaches were horrific.

I had three more meals before anyone else showed up. I guesstimated it at a couple of days, but it could have been less. It was a tall bearded man, dark hair and a narrow face with tan skin. He stood in front of the cell's kinetic barrier for a few minutes, not saying a word. Not that I cared. I was laying down at my bunk, looked at him for a while, and when I saw he was just playing the long silence move, I just laid back, closed my eyes, and relaxed.

"Mister Morgan," he finally said.

I didn't answer. Didn't even look at him.

"I've decided it's time we have a chat. Do you know why you're here?"

"Because Cerberus are a bunch of dicks?" I offered.

He chucked lightly, with no humor behind the sound.

"You're accused of treason," the man said. "Punishable by death."

"Joy," I replied, my voice flat. "Call me when my lawyer arrives."

"Very droll. We know you have been working with the asari, that you were involved in their discovery of Ilos, and the surge of Eclipse and other asari operations out in the traverse." He paused, getting no reaction from me. "You. A member of the Systems Alliance military, selling out Earth."

I didn't bother saying anything. What good would it do? I was already preparing the mental barriers for the interrogation I knew was sure to follow. I had no idea what route they were going to take. I had no idea if I was going to be able to hold out. All I knew is that it was Cerberus, the terrorist group that nearly handed over the galaxy to the Reapers in the simulation inside my brain. If I gave them the farm, it was game over.

Game Over.

For some reason that phrase felt very apropos. I couldn't follow the train of thought, however, because the man was speaking again.

"Santos, you have the target?" he was saying.

"I do indeed," a cheery voice with a soft Latin accent replied. "Let me see... One Aliana Shepard." My eyes shot open as my heart hit my ribcage. A dull headache started to set. "Whew, look at all this, it's a miracle she's alive."

I looked up from my laying position. He had his omni-tool up and had turned the video feed around so I could see it. It was an isolation bubble, I could see a lot of machinery had been hooked up to her, although I couldn't see her body behind the translucent canopy. Santos was tapping the terminal at the feet of the bed, bringing up different charts.

"Alive might be a generous assessment," he said as the brain scan popped up. Minimal activity. "I should just save the taxpayer a lot of credits and put her out of her misery."

In saying that I saw his hand reach down, and draw a pistol. He aimed it at the bubble. I stood up, my eyes fixed not on the screen, but on the bearded asshole in front of me.

"Hold that thought Santos," he said, switching the feed off with a satisfied smile on his face.

I walked until I was barely an inch from the kinetic barrier, looking at him straight in the eye. I took my time, studying every feature with care, learning every detail. As my headache became more and more intense, so did my focus on the man's face.

"Well?" he finally prompted. "Feeling talkative now?"

"I'm studying your face," I replied. "Making sure I remember. You're a dead man walking."

He was surprised at first, probably not the response he was expecting. His smile turned crooked, ugly, reassured by the fact that there was a kinetic barrier between us, and he had all the cards. He hit the comms on his omni-tool, never breaking eye contact. A few seconds later he did it again, this time looking down quizzically. When there was no response, he seemed to huff in annoyance, but didn't lose his smile.

"I'll leave you to think about it," he said, and stepped away, still hitting his omni-tool and mumbling under his breath.

I had to sit down before my head split in two, clenching my teeth so hard I thought they would shatter. There was absolutely nothing I could do.

Author's Notes: Retaking a story this big after a long hiatus isn't easy, specially when it was left at a nexus point of several plot threads! After a couple of false starts, I decided to wrap up the chapter early and more or less neatly to get into the swing of things, which unfortunately has the side effect of having not much happen in the chapter, but set up the next one beautifully (I hope).

After all this time, I hope there's someone out there still reading! :)