Thinking about it, it wasn't that long ago that Garrus thought the amount of time C-Sec spent doing nothing was completely wasted. All that time waiting in the offices was time that could have been spent going after criminals that everyone knew were guilty. Instead, all he ever felt was that he was wading through a sea of red tape. Taking off with Shepard and Nihlus to go after Saren had been a breath of fresh air. Having the authority to do as necessary was the only reason they had managed to stop Saren on time. They had had to literally steal the Normandy to go to Ilos and find a way to shut down the Citadel relay. Of course, it wasn't without its downsides. Case in point, C-Sec would have never gotten unqualified civilians get involved with the hunt for Saren. Having some kind of check could have saved them some trouble with Liara and Morgan. Specially Morgan. Liara, at least, had known to stay out of trouble when possible. So having a second opinion wasn't always a bad idea.

Regardless, it had been clear then that becoming a Spectre was the perfect next step for his career. His father had admonished him thoroughly back when he had first asked his opinion about becoming a Spectre. Some of it had been hs C-Sec backbone, he knew. His adherence to rules and regulations. He had gotten all that and more growing up. But some of it had felt personal. Like he didn't expect him to measure up to standard.

"It takes a strong spine to carry on straight without the aid of the Law, son," he had said.

He just didn't see it. He had come close to quitting C-Sec regardless, but it was all he had always known. It was both simultaneously comforting and familiar, yet constricting and repressive. It was hard to explain. He wanted a way out, but he couldn't see one. Being part of Shepard's mission had been exactly what he had needed to get out of the slump. It wasn't everything he had thought it would be, but it was definitely what he had wanted.

That is, until Shepard was declared M.I.A. To call that a shock would not do it justice. The Normandy lost in battle against Geth, of all things? He had been aboard the ship when Joker took on two frigates and a cruiser. And the boarding. Even with Morgan in tow the crew of the Normandy had managed to repel the boarding and complete the mission. It sounded like complete nonsense. His detective self could smell the rotten aptera egg a mile away. And it had only been confirmed when he started to dig. C-Sec was being stonewalled. He got in touch with Nihlus, and even as a Spectre he was finding nothing. A Geth attack, the Normandy had been lost, open and shut case. And just as that happened, all the information about the reapers had been quietly scrubbed off all official sources. Sovereign, Saren's ship, had been classified as a Geth super-dreadnought. The threat of the Geth had been played up, resolutions had been pushed through from the Council with little oversight for the "good of the Galaxy". It was a naked power grab, and they were stepping over Shepard's corpse to get there.

Nobody would listen to him. He quit his Spectre training in disgust and headed out. He hadn't had an objective in mind when he left, but had ended up in Omega, of all places. No Council, no Spectres, and no law and order. He hadn't planned on becoming a vigilante, but things had fallen in place when he saw what true lawlessness looked like out there. Of course, Aria would not quite put it that way because there was Law in Omega: Her. But she never saw past the surface. For all her proclamations about being the queen of the place, she seemed to care little about her "subjects".

All this was going through his head once again, it was a long chain of events that had brought him to his current place in the Universe. And he had time to think about it because, despite his somewhat naive early proclamations about wasting time. sitting in place and waiting was still a big part of his life. In this case, they were watching a block of apartments deep in the bowels of Omega. There was a steady stream of junkies and addicts coming and going, with a dealer standing at the entrance and managing the sales. They still weren't sure which was the actual apartment they were supposed to hit, but at some point the dealer would have to get more product. Or close shop for the day.

"How long are we going to stay here?" Melanis called through the comms.

"As long as necessary," Garrus replied. "I told you before, detective work requires patience."

"Yeah, and you said you hated it. Don't blame me for agreeing with you," Melanis said.

Garrus chucked and shifted in place, settling more comfortably in his perch. He had a good view of the level below and the apartment block, but the downside was the updraft from the bottom of Omega. It stank there.

"You have somewhere to be?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I was planning on visiting the Spa to get rid of the stench."

"I think you have to leave Omega for that."

"Don't tempt me," Melanis said. "I would- wait, there's movement."

Garrus adjusted his visor and zoomed in. At first it looked like just another junkie coming for his fix, but his steps were firm and regular. The dealer exchanged a few words with the newcomer - a dirty looking human with dark hair and layers upon layers of dirty clothes - and disappeared inside the building. He came a moment later out with a bag, gave it to the raggedly looking human, and the latter just turned and left. No exchanges, nothing.

"How do you want to play it?"

"Stay here and keep an eye on the place, I'll follow him."

"Call if you run into trouble," Melanis said. Not an argument, just a check. Exactly what he wanted.

"Will do."

Coming down from his perch quietly took some time, but he never lost sight of his target. The human was walking calmly, confidently. The way he carried himself, his right hand underneath his clothes, he was armed and not particularly worried about anyone he was coming across. Still, not a hard tail by any stretch of imagination. Getting lost in the mass of aliens in Omega was child's play. The human walked down three levels with Garrus in tow, and looked like he was heading towards one of the lower docks. It was the industrial bowels of Omega. Less people, but more security. It was a little harder to be inconspicuous, but not impossible. The human finally came upon one of the docks, but it was completely empty.

There was a muttered curse, and the human just stopped, looking around.

Could be a chance.

Garrus brought his omni-tool up and wrote a quick message to Grundan. He might be able to dig information on who was supposed to be there at the dock. Ship manifests were kept, even when bribes were involved. Aria didn't usually care about what her subjects did, as long as she knew about it.

And got her cut.

As he waited, the human paced around the place, impatient. Odd. He had seem pretty calm during the rest of his trip. After a few minutes, there was a faint chime, and he raised him omni-tool. A message. He read it, muttered a curse loud enough for Garrus to hear, and started looking around. Garrus dug deeper in his hiding place and waited. The human paced around a few more times, then walked with a solid step towards the opposite end of the landing bay. Garrus ventured a look out, and saw the human pull the cover off a ventilation duct, stuff the bag inside, then put it back in place. He went back into hiding before the human started to look around again. But he didn't. After putting the bag in place, he walked to the exit and exchanged a few words with the guard there. Their omni-tools flashed for a moment - an exchange of credits, if he ever saw one - and with that the human disappeared towards the lifts.

That left Garrus with a dilemma. Go after the human, check the bag, or simply wait. The guard seemed rather unconcerned about whatever the human had told him, and was pacing lazily and obviously bored. So, Garrus waited. To see if someone would come to pick the package.

It took maybe an hour before he got a message back. Grundan was his usual laconic self, but had found the info he was after. The dock had been booked for a ship that never came, should have arrived a day ago, and was going to stay for another three, but there was no sign of it.

Unfortunate. He could be there for a very long time waiting for something to happen. Either he went and tried to find that human, or went to check the package. Plant a tracker in it and move on. He decided the package was the best bet. He quietly got out of his hiding spot, and stealthily made his way along the edge of the bay, well out of view of the lone guard. He would be a bit in the open while he dealt with the thing, but it still was a good idea to be cautious. He found that the grate over the ventilation duct was not anchored, so he pulled it noiselessly with ease and made a quick scan with his omni-tool. No electronics. He reached inside, pulled the bag out, and before he could open it, there was a loud report. Sniper rifle. He jumped to his feet immediately, but he was not really conscious of it. The bag exploded when the sniper round hit it with an extremely loud bang and a blinding flash of light.

Garrus tried to stand up, but hands fell on him and pinned him down. His struggle was short lived, blows fell all over his body until he was pushed face down and his hands tied behind his back. More blows. More pain. He puffed and grunted as he struggled, but never said a word.

"Well, well, the famous Archangel," a distinctly batarian voice said, speaking close to his face. He could barely hear it through the ringing in his ears. "Finally have a chance to talk."

S'kak.

He only hoped they actually wanted to talk. His team would find him if given enough time.

"Wow, you don't mess around, do you?" Keiji said, looking through the window at the mess below.

"What do you mean?" Roy said over the comms.

"You have enough cops down there to start a small war, three SWAT teams, four police shuttles overhead... What did you tell them?"

"Nothing much, just the truth. The guy's pretty dirty."

"Wait," Kasumi said. "Since when do you have the kind of pull to absolutely run someone's life that hard?"

"It's a recent development, and it's not me. I'm actually going to owe someone a favour because of this."

Outside, the police were moving in pretty heavy. It was a pretty large property, the kind the rich and powerful liked to keep just to show off how rich and powerful they were. Terra Nova wasn't the most luxurious of places, mining corporations had set up shop thanks to the Platinum Rush of '54, but while money was pouring into their pockets, they hadn't spent much of it in development. Except, of course, for the well-paid directors and members of the boards of those corporations.

Case in point, Marcus Caleb, the final buyer of the reaper artifact. It had taken a whole month to track him down, something that had surprised everyone involved. And the purchase hadn't come directly through him. Someone had brokered the sale and sent the artifact his way. Kasumi had the feeling they were standing at the edge of a very deep hole, yet here they were, watching it all unfold and preparing for the next step. Track down the actual buyer.

"And to think that long ago you were living under the Citadel sewers," Kasumi said, getting a chuckle out of Keiji.

"Life is funny that way," Roy said, his voice not very lively.

Still a sore subject it seems, Kasumi thought.

"Wait, I think they're bringing him out," Keiji said. "Security has given up very quickly."

"Well good, I was worried this was going to turn nasty."

"Oh it's nasty all right," Kasumi said. "Just maybe less bloody than expected."

"What does it look like inside?"

Keiji looked at the feed, the bioscanner updating the positions of everyone inside the building. "It's crowded inside."

"Is he out yet?"

"Give them a minute."

They had the house pretty well bugged on the perimeter, but Kasumi had steadfastly refused to go inside, and Keiji hadn't pressed the issue. The shouts inside were loud, and there were guns being discharged. However, the SWAT team had gone in heavy, and didn't seem to be slowing down one bit. He was pretty sure that they already had him, but for some reason they were still inside.

"Well?"

"I'm not sure what they're doing," Keiji said. "They're still inside, they might be searching the place."

"That's not good," Roy said. "Hold on a second... Is the explosive in place?"

"Yeah, the drone's literally sitting on the thing," Keiji said.

"Let's clear out the place then," Roy said.

"All right then," Kasumi replied. She raised her omni-tool and after some fiddling, made the call.

"Who is this?" a gruff, harried voice answered.

"Someone good enough to get through to your personal line," Kasumi said. "And deliver a friendly warning. You have twenty seconds to evacuate the building."

"What? Identify yourself!"

"I do apologize, but there are things inside you're not supposed to see. Fifteen seconds now, tick tock!"

With that, Kasumi cut the call and waited. The downside was that, now that the threat was made, they had to follow through. But, as Roy had said, they couldn't risk anyone else coming into contact with the damn reaper thing. Not the nicest thing to do if they really didn't evacuate the building, and surprisingly ruthless coming from Roy, but after her experience with being in close proximity for only a few seconds, she was just as convinced as he was of the dangers.

There were yells inside the building. The markers from the SWAT team spread out. Damn, they weren't buying it? No. The yells changed soon, someone had obviously spotted the drone. And to her relief, everyone rushed out of the building at full tilt.

"Told you we didn't need to make it inconspicuous," Keiji said.

"Well, he was lucky he didn't spot it and try to remove it," Kasumi replied.

"Are we clear?" Roy called.

For an answer, Keiji pressed the trigger, and a moment later a veritable column of fire exploded through the roof of the building. It wasn't just any old explosive. It was an extreme thermogenic charge, and one large enough to reduce a small vehicle to literal vaporized plasma. The explosion was focused through the internal structure of the delivery vehicle, and as such, it created that column of fire instead of reducing the entire building to molten slag.

To his surprise, there wasn't a lot of yelling as this happened. It looked like most people were simply shocked.

"Keiji?"

"Worked like a charm," Keiji said. "We'll confirm shortly, but looks like the charge went off exactly as planned."

"So, vaporized?"

"Pretty sure," Keiji said. "We'll get back to you."

"Great, thanks."

"You know Roy," Kasumi said, "you could just come and join us, it's a lot more fun to watch this live than to just get updates through an omni call."

"Yeah well, can barely stand as it is. I'm getting some gene mods," Roy replied.

"Gene mods?"

"Yeah."

"Cool, what are you getting?"

"The standard combat package and one for ambidexterity, apparently."

"Ambi... dexterity? They have a mod for that now?" Kasumi said.

"So they claim. I haven't been able to stand straight in two weeks, it friggin' sucks."

Kasumi cackled and shook her head. Would wonder ever cease.

"All right then, sit tight and let us do the heavy lifting then. And be sure to thank your sponsor for all the help," Keiji said.

"You know I will find out who it is, right?" Kasumi said. "You're just delaying the inevitable."

"I'm sure you will," Roy replied. Damn him, he really wasn't giving anything away. "Be careful."

"We always are, talk to you soon!"

That was it. Some rich bastard was in really, really deep trouble with the law, and they had destroyed the reaper artifact for good. Or at least they hoped so. They'd have to confirm it, Roy seemed to imply that anything less than complete obliteration of the thing would be dangerous. Keiji hadn't even blinked at that, all it meant was a much more expensive set of explosives to be used. And after that, they'd have to figure out who had send the thing.

And if there were any others.

"So, how are we feeling today? Ready to have a talk?"

Garrus looked up through his left eye, his right one being too swollen to be able to even try and open it. The batarian, whose name he hadn't learned, was back. What did they want? The rest of his team, it seemed, and any other names he could give. They had been at it for days, he didn't know how many. And his team hadn't come. It was pretty clear by now that they wouldn't come. It was up to him.

"What do you want?" he muttered. His voice low, too low, he knew, for the translator to pick up.

"What was that?" the batarian said, and slapped him across the face. "Speak up!"

"What do you want?" Garrus said, speaking lowder. His head was lolling to the side, his energy, apparently, gone.

"What do I want? Have I hit your head too hard? I want names, I want places. I want the crew of the mighty Archangel at my feet begging for their lives!" He punctuated his declaration with another hit to Garrus' face.

"The crew..." Garrus muttered, his breath labored and raspy. "Down on... The level..."

His voice trailed off as his head lolled forward, his consciousness visibly slipping. A rough hand grabbed him under his mandibles and pulled his face up.

"HEY!" the batarian yelled, leaning closer. "I don't have time for this! Where-"

He stopped talking the instant Garrus grabbed the hand on his face and yanked him forward, following up with a headbutt to the batarian's face. It hurt like the devil, he had had to dislocate his own thumb to pull his hand free from the restrains, but he managed to catch him by surprise. He grabbed the batarian and lunged forward, crashing on the ground with the char as his feet were still tied to it. He couldn't let him scream. He managed to jam his hand in the batarian's mouth, and as they struggled on the ground, he git his face to his neck and found flesh. He bit down as hard as he could, his teeth easily breaking the skin and the flesh underneath. The batarian tried to scream, his voice muffled by Garrus' hand, He tried to bite down too, but turian skin and scales were much more resilient than the soft flesh of the batarian neck. Blood pooled into his mouth, and he kept biting, trying hard not to swallow the sickening liquid.

It was a long struggle, made longer by his exhaustion and his pain. The batarian got increasingly weaker as he lost more and more blood, until Garrus finally ripped his throat off, blood splattering everywhere. He spat out the chunk of flesh as he held the batarian down, feeling him die under his grasp. He coughed and spat, over and over, trying to get the levo blood out of his mouth. It wasn't going to be pretty, but it was his only chance.

"Everything all right in there?" a voice called from the other side.

"S-Stop please," Garrus said out loud, and banged the chair on the floor again, letting out his best loud grunt of pain.

It seemed to do the trick, no other questions. As he kept making noise, he was quickly searching the body. Knife, pistol, and omni-tool. To his surprise, no biometrics on the tool. He put it on but didn't search it, no time. He could already feel his throat tensing, the allergic reaction starting to get hold of him. He didn't have much time. He cut the restrains on his ankles and stood up on uneasy feet. He had to go. Pistol in one hand and knife in the other, he headed for the door. He was dressed in nothing but rags, but didn't have time to find better protection. He opened the door and opened fire on the thug standing on the other side almost instantly, the shitty pistol nearly overheating but managing to punch through the kinetic barriers before the human could recover from his surprise. Red blood and brain matter splattered over the wall.

His breathing became more and more labored. He had to run.

"Aaaand, for the sixth time in a row, the winner, queen of the cake, your hostess, Jack!" the announcer yelled over the screaming of the assembled audience.

Jack wiped the blood off her mouth and stumbled towards the exit, stepping over the fallen body of her opponent. Another biotic, like her, this one a batarian. He was a tough bastard, but had been no match for her. None of them were. None of them had grown up fighting like she had. There were cheers and hoots, but everyone stayed well clear of her, they had learned that lesson at least. Not when she was in a fighting mood. Two of her people moved in to pick up and carry the loser away, while the wire fence started to come down.

From fighting pit to mosh pit. The band was already making noise, and like a switch had been flipped, the crowd moved from cheering for the bloody fight to dancing to the extremely loud music. Jack made her way to the bar, where a cold bottle of batarian beer was waiting for her. Four-eyed bastards did know how to make a good brew. She took it and gave it a good pull as she walked to the back of the room and to the office there, closing the door behind her.

A fucking bar. The dumbass had actually gotten her a fucking bar. What the hell was his problem? She was pissed, more so because he hadn't even told her what he wanted. All he had done was send her a message with the location.

There's a good space there, do whatever you want with it.

Un-fucking-real.

"What the hell is that dumbass' problem?" she said, kicking the desk as she walked past.

She sat down and opened the terminal, and to her surprise, fucking Cerberus had finally replied. She brought the line up and put the call through. It was just a few seconds before Jacob answered, his face coming up in the terminal with some digital noise.

"Jack, what can I do for you?" he said.

"What- Don't fuck with me Cerberus, you know why I'm calling," she snarled. "You fuckers owe me information."

"You already had your chance when you were-"

"Don't give me that shit!" she yelled, and pointed an accusatory finger at the screen. "Half the fucking files are redacted. That wasn't the deal!"

"That deal was with Morgan, I don't think Miranda was really on board with it," Jacob replied. "But-"

"But fuck you!" Jack interrupted. "You owe me! Just because the cheerleader is butthurt that I pulled of what she couldn't, it's not my fucking problem. Pay up or I'll find you and kick your ass!"

She slammed her hand on the terminal, cutting the call. Fuck her life. Fucking Cerberus. Fuck everyone. She couldn't believe she was actually talking to those bastards. All they deserved was to burn. She took her bottle and downed most of it in one single pull, burping loudly as she finished. There was the metallic aftertaste of blood in her mouth. She better take care of that.

Before she could, the terminal pinged with an incoming message. Jacob.

Send me a copy of what you have so I know what to look for. I don't have that kind of pull but I'll see what I can do.

She looked at the message, weighting whether to bother with it or not. Outside, the thumping of the music was getting louder, that and the stomping of feet as people let loose in the mosh pit. She probably should clean up before going out there. She smacked her tongue in distaste and composed a message. She didn't even type a single word. She just attached a copy of the documents she had found.

He better fucking come through.

Entry 45:

We have completed compatibility tests with the modified auxiliary implants, and the results are encouraging. We have managed to make the collector implants in Shepard's spine interact with our implants in a stable manner. Our next step will be to start running interference tests. Reprogramming the collector implants themselves has proven to be extremely difficult, thus it might be more achievable to interfere with the signal at the terminal interface than to try to change at the point of origin. It creates some unique issues of redundancy, but I am confident they can be overcome.

I must note that the procedure was suggested based on data collected by Wilson. It was a surprising show of initiative, and moreover, it is somewhat suspicious. I a not sure what resources he tapped to collect the data he showed me, but some of it seemed beyond the capabilities of our current equipment. It is clear that he has tapped into some other Cerberus resources, it's just a matter of figuring out which ones.

Initiative is always appreciated, but not without knowing who else is getting their hands in my research. There are appropriate channels for that kind of thing.

Regardless, the next step will be to attempt interface and terminal signal interference with the central nervous system. If at all possible, I still would like to remove or reprogram the collector implants, but it might not be possible after all. If we can restore some of Shepard's original brain functions, we might be able to have a better idea of how much control these implants have over Shepard's wetware.

Miranda Lawson signing off.

Author's Notes: Bits and bobs, things happening left and right. Jack has a bar, but looks far from being settled down. Roy is finally getting some much needed upgrades to optimize his squishy organic platform, and you know the ambidexterity package was Gee complaining about how absurdly inefficient organics were when only one side of their bodies was optimized. Keiji and Kasumi are sniffing out things everywhere, and then there's Garrus.

If you thought for a moment that I was about to pull a Sidonis with Garrus, i.e., making Garrus do what Sidonis had done to him in the games, know that I was very tempted to do so. Imagine the reverse loyalty mision, where a survivor of his crew goes after him after he betrayed them and got them all killed. Yes, very tempting.

But this is Garrus we're talking about. Where Sidonis had failed, Garrus pulled through. Or so it seems. Of course, that means consequences. An experience like that doesn't leave one unscathed. Also, in case you haven't noticed, the names from the squad members are 100% lifted from "Masses to Masses". Hat tip to those who came before me!

Anyway, as usual, if you want to support me and my works, you can do so here:

tinyurl (period) com (slash) y2q9cop6

(Still think FFnet sucks at hyperlinks).

Reviews time! I do wonder if the ME fanfic section will see a revival with the launch of the remastered games. I hope so, there's been some cool works in here and wouldn't mind some fresh blood. In the mean time, let's review the reviews, shall we?

maesde, BJ Hanssen: Oh yeah, the council and their paranoia of the Terminus systems. I personally saw it as a missed opportunity, there was so much potential with them and the whole "frontier living" vibe you got from them. Completely lawless like Tortuga? More of a "gutsy Sheriffs vs. desperados" kind of thing? All of them? I mean, there's the chance of being much less monolithic than the way the Council powers are presented. Ah well. But yeah, there has to be some friction there if I want to make it believable, right?

fANFICrEDER: I think you've found yourself a writing prompt there!

RIOSHO: I probably won't unearth the Leviathans too early in the game, so to speak, because that'd make things so ridiculously complicated it'd probably merit its own fic focused on only that LOL.

Uemei: Rest assured that Shepard's brain won't end up in the clone's body, that's okay but we can make things more interesting. There'll be more of that soon. As far as Liara and Nihlus, well, it can totally happen, can't it?

Tom712, SpecterXCove, Thanks!

Next time, on My Effect: Convergence! Shepard, Shepard, and more Shepard. And we'll see what else. Until then, thanks for reading!