Lazarus Shunned

by Two-Eyed Charlie

Cerberus has spent billions of credits trying to bring Shepard back from the dead, and despite the odds it seems to be working. Then a saboteur makes his move and Shepard's resurrection takes a horrific turn, leaving both the Alliance and Cerberus scrambling to control the situation...all while the Collectors begin their harvest of humanity [PREFERRED EDITION ON AO3]

34. Chapter 33: ACT 3: Nutters PtI

ACT THREE:

Chapter 33: Rise of the Nutters: Part I

Prelude

"This presents a grave security threat, Udina."

"I am intimately aware of that, Amul. The last thing I need right now is a reminder to do my job."

"Then what is it that you need?"

"Assurances. Nothing new—we've had this conversation before. But I'll need assurances."

"As do I. I am hopeful that a former soldier understands, in these situations, that we can take no prisoners."

"Were I a betting man or drunk enough to pretend to be one, I'd wager that I'll never again get so little pushback. Anderson will see blood in the water, even if I somehow bungle the sale's pitch."

"And, in light of everything else that he has said, what are we to do with him?"

"Anyone wearing a Coalition hat should get used to sitting on the sidelines. The last thing we need, collectively, is the appearance of discord between Earth's government and her representatives on the Citadel, and that was before this Terra Firma business. Unless you're planning a defection right out from under my nose."

"Humanity's best interests remain with the Council. Only a few voices in Cabinet need that reminder."

"Then those voices and others can wait until I sort this out myself. I can move mountains, Amul, never forget that—and a mountain is the perfect place to hide the bodies."

"I wish I shared your confidence, Udina."

"All I care about you sharing is what I've told you I need. If Morton objects to any of them, I'd seriously consider finding a new Minister of Defense."

When Prime Minister Amul Shastri finally logged off the call, Udina swept a datapad up into his hands and spent a minute reading its contents—for about the tenth time that morning. As he left his office his personal assistant heard him curse somebody out under his breath, but couldn't make out a name in all the huffing and puffing.

What he'd said was that he was getting goddamn tired of cleaning up after long-dead nutters. And, running the numbers in his head again, he spat out a second curse about how quickly nutters procreated relative to the rest of humanity.

And then he cursed out Bob Morton again, because until the officious prick was finally run down by a skycar, he quite frankly deserved to hear far more scorn than the politically illiterate masses were willing to give him.

As was usually the case, he hadn't calmed down enough when he finally reached Anderson's office.

1.

Earlier that morning...

David Anderson put away the datapad cupped in his hands once he realized he'd been daydreaming. Daydreaming about one of Shepard's missions long ago, one he'd heard bits and pieces about from the Abraham's Captain (can't remember her name; been outta the Navy for years, he knew that much) and from Shepard herself (back when she could talk…leave those thoughts out of this, old man). That'd been…god, that'd been decades ago, before Shepard fully given up Military Intelligence and got admitted to ICT. Hell, that'd been before she'd officially graduated from the College, even; she'd taken that semester's leave to do some "field work," as she called it, and since all College students had the rank of Service Chief, she was technically senior enough to lead a fireteam if needed. She done that with this mission, and it'd ended with a hostage getting shot by a squadmate and her going back to her classes, because the half-assed approach wasn't working for her. That was long, long ago—so why the hell was he…?

Anderson looked at the datapad again. Right, that'd be why: Wexler was talking to Westerlund about Shepard's "fitness," how the Alliance went out of its way to put her name up in lights because none of us had anything goddamn better to do with our time. He'd disappeared into his own head instead of throwing the thing across the room. That counted as progress, according to some people. And why stop there? Why not remember the next time he'd met Shepard after that, when she'd been back at the College for a few weeks and had been debriefed on the Wexler situation multiple times over.

They'd been sitting in a bar in Vancouver; Anderson was buying, and Shepard had said she wasn't in any mood to fight about that.

"Financial situation not so good?" Anderson had said.

"Yeah," Shepard had said back. "Not enough money to make people just shut up and stop arguing with me."

"Anyone with enough money to do that's liable to cause runaway inflation."

Shepard scoffed. "Least convincing excuse I've heard all day."

Anderson set his burger down and wiped his hands. "Been a while since you snapped at me," he said.

Shepard's face immediately turned apologetic, then sheepish. "Friendly fire," she said. "Sorry."

"Who were you aiming at?"

Shepard looked over her shoulder, pointed at a random guy at the bar. "Him," she said. "He looked at me funny when we came in."

"He's been unconscious since before we got here."

"How would you know?"

"That much drool? You'd need more than fifteen minutes to get that large a pool."

Shepard slid back into her chair, sighed. "Fifteen minutes? We've only been here that long."

Anderson had picked his burger up again; now he was back to putting it down and wiping his hands. "I'm boring you, aren't I?"

Shepard shook her head. "You know you're not."

"Good," Anderson said. "Because I haven't even started on the Hastings stories." He'd been a freshly-minted Lieutenant Commander—and XO of the frigate—at that time. God, felt like an eternity ago.

Shepard hadn't taken the bait, though. She was slouched in her seat.

"That's not good for your posture," Anderson said.

"Sorry." Shepard straightened out.

Anderson made attempt number three at his burger. "Is it school? People giving you a hard time there?"

Shepard shook her head. "Not anyone I care about."

"This thing that happened on the Abraham, then." Bite, chew, swallow. "That's bugging you?"

"A bit, yeah," Shepard said, crossing her arms.

"'Just a bit' never got you in this deep a funk before."

"I'm in a funk?" Shepard sat up a bit straighter, but her eyes were down at her uneaten fish and chips. "Well…glad you see it too. Was starting to worry it was all in my head."

Anderson put down his burger. "Yeah, it's noticeable. C'mon, if you can think it, you can tell me."

Shepard didn't say anything right away. But…eventually, she did.

She said, "I'm just feeling impotent."

And that was about it for the memory, because what they'd discussed afterwards didn't have a whole lot of bearing on the rest of Shepard's life. She was good at listening; even better at absorbing information and adapting to it. But she'd made up her mind, there.

Only other thing that Anderson's subconscious had marked as important was her saying that—

"I felt this way before, and you know what happened afterwards."

"You're a different person now," Anderson had said back. "It's not like you're stuck on a track."

"Different person…nobody's ever bothered to tell me what that even means, Anderson."

Yeah, that was the only other thing his brain had marked as important.

There was a lot to do today, and he'd already spent a large portion of his early morning staring at that datapad. He'd come back to this, though—he'd have to—so he could put a pin in it for now.

Anderson looked at his watch.

Just a few more minutes and Udina would be in his office. Maybe he'd be yelling; maybe he'd be cursing. Maybe he'd get the way he sometimes got, where the number of polysyllabic words rose in proportion to how hard he was suppressing his anger.

Or maybe he'd just find a new way to call Anderson's tenure as Councilor a "shitstorm." God knows he said that over a lot less than airing dirty laundry during a press conference.

All Anderson knew was that, whatever level of anger Udina woke up with this morning, it was only going to get worse.

He almost felt guilty about it. Maybe, given enough time, that guilt would feel more genuine, too.

2.

It'd been maybe—maybe—two days since Emily Wong filed her story. Max three. She legitimately couldn't remember because what even was sleep? (besides being necessary for proper brain function and memory, imagine that). But in that time—whatever that time actually was—there'd been rumours, which to be fair, being a reporter, that'd be exactly what you wanted. You poked something, right? And now people with those big ol' paychecks were paying attention? And talking? And the people who were paid to pay attention to those people were talking about their talking?

Yeah no, of course. You'd love that. But the thing was? The thing was the rumours were basically saying the Alliance government was gonna collapse. And uh, well the polls were saying that Terra Firma might just have enough support now to be a major contender. As in: big enough to get a minority government or convince Shastri, who was a moron, that they'd be a better partner than the SocDems. So that was bad. And because Emily lived on the Citadel, if the human government got taken over by space racists (democratically taken over by space racists) it'd get real awkward all of a sudden.

So yeah, she didn't cause those rumours—that was one hundred percent someone else's fault—but none of the rumours that she'd normally pounce on were making her feel great about things, y'know?

And that's before getting into the space zombie with Spectre clearance! Man, you dream about these kinda stories in school and then they happen, and you're like, shit, I've gotta live through this. Let's go back to boring, okay?

Emily was thinking all those things because she was alone in Ryuusei's Sushi Bar, watching really expensive dishes pass by her table that were one hundred percent not ordered by somebody with a Future Content Corporation salary. Maybe—just maybe—a journalist could afford those dishes if they decided that being a "news producer" made entirely out of hairspray was the best career choice around, and maybe they'd afford two of those dishes if they also worked for a company so morally anemic that a court legitimately had to question whether they classified as "entertainment" or news, and maybe they'd rub it in your faces if they also realized undermining galactic INSTITUTIONS okay okay okay, easy Emily, easy. Wait till she gets there, see what the hell she could possibly want with you, and then chew her out and tell her just what disposal chute her quote-unquote "stories" deserved to be dumped down.

(yeah because you've been so good at defending yourself before, right?)

Well, no time left to think about any of that: the woman of the hour approached. Emerging from behind two waiters (some might say she angrily pushed them out of the way but, of course, saying something like that was just smearing an honest truth-lover), Westerlund News' very own Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani trundled her way towards Emily's table. Emily gave smiling the ol' college trial and, nope, her mouth refused to work. Probably just looked like she was about to sneeze.

"Wong," Khalisah said, sitting down.

"Khalisah," Emily said. "Fancy duds. Fancy place."

"The place is convenient—I hate fish." She was fiddling in her bag, a shiny black thing that could fit half the Fifth Fleet in it.

"There're like ten fast-food restaurants around here."

"Fast-food? Seriously?"

"Fine," Emily said, "there's a blood bank down the street. That more your speed?"

Khalisah stopped fiddling. "Should I expect a lot of comments like that?"

"Uh, yeah?" Emily said. "Probably? I mean, hopefully I mix it up a bit but—"

Khalisah was fiddling again and, with a massive tearing sound, finally yanked what she was looking for free from the black abyss. "There, finally." It was a piece of paper; she slapped it down on Emily's side of the desk. "Sign it."

"Uh, no?" Emily pushed it back towards Khalisah; the glasses and utensils clanking against each other added to the whole thing. "Do people normally sign stuff around you without a lawyer? Also y'know who still uses paper for contracts or whatever? Politicians and drug dealers and the Blue Suns. Sooooo you're not in good company."

A turian waiter approached their table. "May I interest either of you in our drink menu this evening?"

"No—shoo," Khalisah said, waving him off without even looking at him. Emily scowled as the waiter left.

"Super polite."

"Like you actually care."

"Just—" Emily pushed the piece of paper further away from her. "Take this and burn it. I'm gonna end up on a list just by being around you."

Khalisah grabbed the paper and then slammed it right back down in front of Emily. "Read it and stop acting like a brat."

"Just tell me what it is then!"

"Read it and shut up about it."

Fine, whatever—their collective funerals. Emily picked up the piece of paper and…and she held it in front of her eyes for a long, long time.

It was, indeed, a contract. A proposal for a joint Westerlund News/Citadel NewsNet story. About Terra Firma. About Cerberus influence in Terra Firma.

Uh…what?

Emily put the paper down, looked around, and then leaned towards the centre of the table. Khalisah did too.

"Interested?" Khalisah said.

"What the hell is this?" Emily said. "Said"—more like "snarled directly into Khalisah's face." Emily felt no guilt when the other woman recoiled.

"Quiet—keep it down." Khalisah leaned in further. "Are. You. Interested?"

"Yeah, I'm interested in why Westerlund cares! Half the people you work for ran as Terra Firma candidates: why're you doing a hit piece on them?"

Khalisah jabbed a finger towards Emily, which nearly went right into Emily's eye given how close to each other they were. "Hit piece? Seriously? You look at that and think 'hit piece'?"

"I think it'll make Terra Firma look pretty damn bad so, yeah, if we'd run it you sure as hell'd be calling it that!"

"You seriously think we'd go after you just because it makes the party look bad? We call your BS 'hit pieces' because they're ideologically driven. This is—"

"Wow—wooooow. You really just said that? Ms. 'Makes Millions a Year Pandering to Human Supremacists and the Tin-Foil Hat Brigade' just said—"

"Have you two had time to look at the menu yet?"

Khalisah's head jerked towards the waiter and her finger jabbed out towards the kitchen. "No—fuck off Pablo."

"Pablo?" Emily said, as the waiter sighed and turned around. "He—why would a turian be called 'Pablo'? That's stupid! That's—I'm pretty sure that's racist and I know that's stupid!"

"Saying a turian can't be called 'Pablo' sounds pretty racist to me."

"Oh my god. Oooh my god, why'm I here, why'd I agree to this—why am I even bothering?"

"Does. This. Sound. Interesting, Emily—Jesus just answer the question!"

"Fine—fine!" Emily threw up her hands. "It does! I care! And I've got two questions for you: One, why do you care? And two: Why share any of this with me?"

They'd both slammed themselves back into their seats, their mouths scowling and their eyes glaring at each other. At least until they realized they'd been making a scene, probably; then their eyes were scanning the restaurant, making sure nobody was looking and snickering and/or pointing them out to a bunch of C-SEC officers.

Emily crossed her arms; Khalisah adjusted her dress. "Pablo", whatever the poor guy's actual name was, kept a wide berth, and Emily couldn't blame him for a second.

"All right," Emily said. "So, that makes it your turn."

"I told you why I care," Khalisah said.

"No you didn't. You said: 'blah blah blah ideologically driven blah blah blah legitimate news source."

"It said—the contract said—that Cerberus was involved. What more do you want?"

"You donor card? Or whatever tax receipt you get for donating to Cerberus?"

"You…" Khalisah grabbed her napkin and started squeezing it; probably as a substitute for Emily's neck. "Westerlund does not—and I certainly don't—associate with, condone, or support Cerberus activities."

"Because it'd look bad."

"FCC gets its funding from every council species. Do you condone what they do? What the Council does?"

"No. And we've got a big piece of legislation that tells us we don't have to." Emily uncrossed her arms. "If we're talking about my side of things, then you might as well say why I need to be involved."

"What? So you're saying FCC's going to veto this? Because it involves a rival organization?"

"Um, they...might?" Emily leaned back further in her chair and looked at the table. "I dunno, they…they might."

Khalisah looked surprised…but then there was that predatory look she always got. "Glad to see its employees know how to go to bat for it."

"Hey, I work for them—I'm not in love with them." Emily leaned forward again. "They take my stuff and their algorithms make it all house styley, that's the arrangement."

"'House styley'? Gee, wonder why they'd need those."

"Khalisah just…just tell me why I'm involved and why there's a fire lit under your ass."

Khalisah, always the confident one—always the one that liked to pretend she was in total control of the situation (except for that one interview; the one everyone remembered), looked a lot less sure of things all of a sudden. You noticed that, y'know? It was like stepping out of a hot tub and then running through the snow: the massive temperature change got amplified to the point of being overwhelming.

So, y'know, good—but also yikes, because that meant something really was up.

"You're involved," Khalisah said, "because this fits the Council's narrative, so Editorial will eat it up."

"Reaching, Khalisah."

"And you individually are involved because I'm not aware of the work of any other NewsNet reporters."

"Mmm," Emily said.

"Westerlund will want this story too because it's not something anybody—including advertisers—will ignore."

"Wow," Emily said, "that was almost self-aware. You'll pass the mirror test in no-time."

"Fuck. Off, Emily," Khalisah said. Then she got quiet, so Emily did too. Looking away from the table, down towards the floor, Khalisah said, "And I'm involved because I need to be."

Emily stayed quiet, but only for a second.

"Cryptic."

"Emily—"

"Yeah I'm—I'm leaving it there, don't worry." Emily was looking around the restaurant now too. "You've…you've got my attention."

More silence. They both looked over to see if "Pablo" was making his way back in their direction. He wasn't.

Emily sighed. "So what next? What's the next move?"

"The next move?" Khalisah pointed at the paper. "You sign this, we go somewhere semi-public—just in case—and I show you my sources. Then we figure out how much more we need to make the story stick."

"'Just in case'?"

"Just in case Cerberus gets wind of this, yeah."

"I guess…I guess I can't call you paranoid for that."

"Not if you're smart." Khalisah tapped the paper. "Sign it."

Emily did.

"Your office is best," Khalisah said, standing up and stuffing the paper in her bag. "Meet me there in half an hour. Get whatever you need for a long night, because we might be at this for a while."

"My office?"

"Yeah—your office." And then Khalisah spun on her heel and left the restaurant. Just like that; right after dropping a dreadnaught-sized bomb right on Emily's head.

It was only after Khalisah left that "Pablo" wandered back over.

"Would you like anything to eat?" he said, just a bit of exhaustion noticeable under the turian growl.

Emily shook her head.

"Uh, full disclosure?" she said. "I can't afford to eat here. Uh…s-sorry for the, uh, trouble we caused."

The waiter looked at her and then sighed. "Enjoy your evening, ma'am," he said. Then he, too, turned and left.

Which left Emily by herself, minus the hint that she should probably leave the restaurant if that was gonna be that. So Emily did, walking out into the neon and noise of the Silversun Strip.

Yeah, so, that was…that was great. Did Emily have a problem with this sort of thing? She did not, especially if, hey, turned out Cerberus was involved with Terra Firma and their polling numbers suffered (please be enough please be enough please god don't let them somehow get more votes out of this). She didn't have a Spectre to help her out with this and, yeah, that Spectre's absence was noticeable (was, indeed, the big cloud hanging over everyone's heads at the moment, especially since "absence" only partially covered that whole issue). The problem was: would the Future Content Corporation and NewsNet play ball? They should—there really wasn't any reason to think they wouldn't—except money was tight and deadlines were tight and there was this thought Emily had that, maybe, just maybe, if this was gonna be done at all, it'd better be done right, otherwise the whole thing could backfire badly. And there was that thought that maybe, just maybe, there wasn't enough time or money or commitment to give this story the treatment it needed, since it was actual investigative work and not just stuff the Wire Service programs could usually cover, except with the added personal touch of a writer putting sentences together. They were too busy striking a whole analysis section in friggin analysis articles that criticized things like how two particular people were being treated and how Wexler was a hypocrite for making one of those people the focus of like everything and—oh yeah!— the BS from Morton about everything even though he'd been one of the people who approved Anderson for the job it was just—it was just that analysis piece looked like somebody taking notes in a friggin first year poli sci class and...

...and maybe—just maybe—Emily had this thought that Khalisah and Westerlund knew that FCC and NewsNet might not put their all into this story, and the whole thing might get fumbled on the goal-line, and then maybe Terra Firma would have a whole 'nother round of ammo to accuse NewsNet of being bought and paid for by anti-human interests. Hell, maybe Khalisah was being genuine, but Westerlund did the math and figured they were willing to sacrifice her for the sake of…whatever. Of being the first hires for the new Humans Only Ministry of Truth or something.

And maybe Emily was thinking to herself that she'd at some point wandered into the Tinfoil Hat Brigade's annual parade, so she'd be better off just shutting up and picking up the pace so she could beat Khalisah to the office.

Emily started doing walking, she really did, but then she remembered that she was on a space station that'd been attacked by a massive starship and an army of geth and a rogue Spectre who wanted to take over the galaxy, and nobody'd believed the other Spectre who was sounding the alarm until it actually happened, and then when that Spectre said the worst was yet to come nobody believed her again until she ended up getting killed over Alchera. So, uh, yeah. Tinfoil Hat Brigades: the newest fashion style for people like her?

Good thing Khalisah said to meet in half an hour. Emily needed to go for a walk at least that long, just to figure out which part of her brain was supposed to take the lead.

3.

Maya Brooks was on the Citadel, which was the utterly stupidest place she could've possibly been. Yes yes, nobody knew what a Cerberus agent looked like, but nobody was supposed to know what a "Lazarus Cell" was either. Lo-and-behold, the Lazarus Cell was very much a top story tonight (and every night since Councilor Anderson's speech), so really you'd be asking for a nasty visit from C-SEC—at best—if you let your guard down.

Of course, that wasn't the only reason it was stupid for Brooks to be on the Citadel. In theory, Cerberus shouldn't have been awfully happy with her decision to move into enemy territory—not without an explicit order and a fully-stocked doggie bag of cyanide pills. So, in theory, when Brooks contacted her handler within Intelligence Command that she was heading for the Citadel, she should've been reminded how hazardous spontaneous decisions like that were for the average operative's health. And that should've prompted a further round of personalized debriefs, in which Brooks could have registered a few objections to previously assigned missions and then seen just how much her handler actually liked her.

What shouldn't have happened right afterwards was this:

HANDLER: Priority request from TIM. Report to the Citadel and wait for further instructions.

BROOKS: $#&!

Such was the life of a Cerberus pincushion.

She joked, but the desire to create a confrontation was real; and despite the inherent risks that sort of thing posed, she'd bet on Cerberus procedures for dealing with "managerial reviews" being slow and out-of-practice. While her complaint was kicked upstairs—far enough that a resounding DO NOT QUESTION US could be delivered nastily to her front door—she'd be in limbo, more or less. No more assignments; no more suicide missions with a side order of "did we neglect to mention the 'suicide part', then?" Just Brooks, her Alliance-funded apartment on Arcturus Station, and some quiet, since neither Intelligence Command nor the soon-to-be-reassigned JSOC staff nor whatever the name of the Parliamentary Defense Committee was this month would bother her. She could reflect a bit, figure things out, remember which organization had the most pull over her again.

So when Cerberus said yes, by all means, go to the Citadel…well she really should've turned herself in at that point. Life as a convicted mole for a terrorist organization was better than being "operationally superfluous" from Cerberus's perspective.

Brooks was in a hotel room somewhere in the bowels of Zakera Ward, staring at a wall, wondering which direction the bullet would come from (and which gun would be firing it) when her omni-tool buzzed. Her handler was here—goodie. Another person who probably wanted to be anywhere else but the Citadel, and might very well take it out on the person's whose name was on the hotel registry.

Brooks certainly would be tempted to do so, couldn't deny that.

She opened the door and in walked Hal McCann. Mmm, "walked" wasn't right—he burst in like the door had snatched his bag, that was closer to the truth.

"Right," he said, pushing past Brooks, "don't know what you did, but understand that when I die, I'm putting in a truly awful word to Satan on your behalf." He walked to the centre of her hotel room, stopped, turned, then looked at Brooks with his hands on his hips. "Well?"

"I've had worse greetings, believe it or not," Brooks said.

"I didn't want to say this," Hal said, "but being we're friends: the plan two minutes ago? Me'n the doorman were gonna come up here and push you out a window. 'Cept he's a volus and couldn't reach the elevator buttons so, there you go—it'd been an elcor, you'd be street pizza."

Brooks pinched her nose. "Is there a way to get through this without you opening your mouth?"

"Heard that in a hotel before," Hal said. Like a functional adult, he then slapped himself and grew back the angry look he'd first brought into the room. "Can we not—can we not get away from the fact we're up to our necks in shit, yeah? Did you, at any point since we last spoke, piss off someone in Cerberus enough that we're being violently placed in the unemployment line?"

"In what possible universe would I know?" Brooks shut the door and joined Hal in the centre of her room. "My itinerary since last week: go to Agebinium, witness a massacre, get pulled out at the last second—"

"You're welcome, by the way."

"—deliver a ranting moron with half a face to an Alliance hospital, take stock of my life, then put in a simple request that I knew was going to be turned down."

"Which was…?"

"Some R-and-R on the Citadel."

"Right," Hal said, "and that—that right there—"

"Is hardly grounds for killing the both of us. So whatever's about to be launched into this room from across the street—or whatever Cerberus's preferred method of dealing with us happens to be—it's not because of me."

And, just like that, Brooks saw Hal's face change. Patronizing and smug to legitimately worried. No regrets, of course, but it underscored a fairly brutal fact for her: if Cerberus was going to kill her, it'd be impersonally. Hal wouldn't do it; Hal would, at best, be caught in the blast.

The phrase, take stock of your life, gets bandied about an awful lot…where does thinking about all the ways your employer might go about killing you fit into that notion?

Hal, with his new worried look, said, "Right so…not being paranoid, then, thinking something's up. Field agent confirmation: been good enough for me so far."

"It's unusual," Brooks said. "Us being here, you have to admit it's unusual."

"I have to admit I wanna shoot me past self with a very large shotgun—absolutely need to admit that."

Hal sucked in a breath and started pacing the room. Might as well join in, really, except someone had to act calm so the reality of the situation didn't overwhelm the both of them. Supposedly, that was field agent territory—supposedly, that was her job.

"Right," Hal said, "so we've got a plan. One of us does. Meaning you. You've got a plan."

Brooks crossed her arms, looked at the floor, tried to usher forward as much clear thinking as she could muster. "Being quite honest, here, we've little in the way of options. Meaning we'll likely have to take whatever call we're given."

"If I'd just stayed in me office and didn't bother showing up, how many colleagues would've tried to kill me?"

"As in, how many other moles are in Intelligence Command?" Brooks shrugged. "Irrelevant, really. Whatever we did to end up at the end of Cerberus's rope, that's our focus. In the vain hope that we can convince them someone else actually did it."

"So we're absolutely sure we're fucked," Hal said.

"No," Brooks said. "Hardly sure of anything, really, except there being no such thing as solid ground around this organization."

"Translation: we're fucked, but, good luck trying to understand why."

"We had to have known that going in."

"We had to have known?" Hal threw up his hands like he was trying to swat down one of the overhead lights. "Sorry, are we all of a sudden different people from the—dare I say—committed patriots that signed our contracts? Because, speaking only for meself here, that guy was pretty convinced failure equals death policies were a bit—just a bit—in the realm of fucking kids cartoons. Not even sure where the fucking failure is unless I'm getting punished for things the person I sponsored di—"

Hal's omni-tool beeped, except to Brooks' heightened senses it sounded more like a shriek. At least it shut Hal up, though; couldn't complain about that, despite the quiet giving Brooks just enough time to feel a panic coming on. So stop staring at your wrist, Hal, and give us a damn update so the rest of us could decide what bpm their heart should be do—

…Hal was laughing. Cackling, actually. Beg pardon? Brooks held up a finger like she was trying to signal the schoolmaster.

"I'm being sincere, here, when I say that if this is the moment you chose to utterly snap, it'd much appreciate if you'd do it outside."

Hal stopped cackling but he had a smile on like he'd just been given a free appointment with the Consort. Then, he went and waved her off. What the hell?

"Oh we're fine—absolutely fine," Hal said. He started fanning his face with his free hand. "Genuinely—this isn't a lie—I genuinely feel like I just had a gallstone removed."

"Be a friend and spread the relief around, would you?"

"Yeah, 'course. Cerberus Command just wants us to kill a journalist—nothing major." Hal went back to fanning his face. "Oooooh probably gonna need to use the loo before we do. This what being shot's like? You people are morons—genuinely, you're idiots. Couldn't pay me enough to do something like this day-in day-out."

Brooks just stood there, though. Stood there, tapped her foot, waited for her disheveled to stop looking like he'd just witnessed an unplanned birth, or whatever the hell his face was doing. It took far too long but, eventually, Hal realized he was the only one celebrating.

"Right, sensing a wee bit isolated all of a sudden."

"Cerberus dragged the both of us here to assassinate a journalist. We're convinced that's the truth?"

"Right, I say we: the plan is, you kill the journalist, I happen to be on scene so Intelligence Command—read: ten Cerberus agents in a trench coat—can worm their tentacles into the investigation. Lest the whole thing backfire which, let's be honest with ourselves here, is the sort of excellent forward-thinking that makes this company the best-managed terrorist organization this side of…I dunno, what've the batarians got?"

"A, you're in Intelligence Command—you should know that; B—that wasn't the most important part but it's worth saying nonetheless—B, that explains very little about why the both of us needed to be here; and C, we're still talking about assassinating a member of the press. I wouldn't be so cheerful about it were I you."

Hal closed his omni-tool and closed the rest of the distance between him and Brooks. "A, I'm too busy flirting with the water cooler, so shut up; B, it, in fact, does explain that because of the first law of Not Looking Gift Horses in Mouths; and C, very weird objection, do not approve of it, because let me be the first to tell you, I didn't join Cerberus because I have morals." Hal blinked. "Let me walk that last one back: I've got morals, yeah, but journalists are barely people anyways so can't be fussed, a paycheck's a paycheck." Hal crossed his arms. "Did I miss anything?"

"Multiple problems with all of that, but let's focus on B." Brooks put some distance between herself and Hal again. "Assassination hardly requires the handler be present and Cerberus has plenty of plants already inside C-SEC, so I'm fuzzy on what, exactly, your role here is."

Hal shrugged. "Heard that in a hotel room before. Wait, 'ave I made the joke already?"

"What was the last Cerberus-related meeting you had?"

"Taking the Illusive Man's dog to the vet. Strangest thing, went and looked a gift horse in the mouth and got their snout bit clean off. Looks like someone's sleep paralysis demon now."

Brooks wasn't going to let this go. Lord knows she shouldn't let it go, being that only one of them seemed as suspicious about Cerberus's human management practices as they'd been not five minutes ago. And being lost in it all was the fact that Cerberus was taking out a journalist, which—Hal's comments aside—smacked of another "clean up" operation. Being groundside during Shepard's rampage…it was getting awfully hard to ignore just how many Cerberus operations needed a "clean up," wasn't it?

Well…it was hard for her. For others it was apparently as easy as looking out a window and getting distracted by a passing bird, because someone of us apparently weren't born with any object permanence.

God she'd tell Hal that to his face if he wouldn't just turn it right back on her.

Brooks sighed. Some things you had to go straight through in order to get out the other side. Maybe after this was over and Hal was elsewhere, she'd do that "taking stock of her life" thing she'd mentioned once or twice.

"Oh, by the way," Hal said, "when we're done you're wanted off in the colonies for some business or another—email didn't specify."

"You absolute knob!"

"Hey you leave me knob out of this, yeah? This is between you and Scheduling."

Involuntary outbursts (and assumptions that Hal had, somehow, done that on purpose) aside, this was…this was at least a sign that things were back to normal, weren't they? For her, at least. You didn't schedule a mission for someone after they were scheduled to be executed…well, unless you wanted to lure them into a false sense of security but, being frankly honest, if the Illusive Man didn't expect his operatives to assume the worst then he wasn't the all-seeing operational savant he no-doubt believed himself to be. Everyone in the organization did paranoia the way the rest of the population did blinking and breathing: trying to trick people into believing they were no longer expendable just wouldn't work…except maybe for people like Hal, but, Brooks was caring less and less about his well-being the longer they shared a room.

So…back to normal, keeping in mind that "normal" still required yet another clean-up operation. Brooks sighed one more time.

"Right, fine…let's have the name, then."

"Who's?"

"The journalist, Hal. Let's have their name. No doubt some public crusader for this or that thing Cerberus dislikes."

Hal pulled up his omni-tool again. "Right, yeah, just a minute: forgot to read past the bit where we're not going to die…" He fell silent, then started clucking his tongue, and then he whistled and gave Brooks a look. A "well isn't that interesting" kind of look.

It wasn't comforting.

"Guess the eighteen-to-forty-nine demographics aren't doing so well this quarter."

"Pardon?"

It wasn't a public crusader—at least, not for any cause Cerberus was opposed to. In fact, she'd crusaded pretty hard for a number of things that, at least until an interview with a now undead Spectre (explosions rocking the ship Leng's mangled face Jesus what did Cerberus DO to her?) made her fairly popular with new recruits.

"Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani," Hal replied. And Brooks could bloody well tell that calling this a "clean up" assassination didn't even scratch the goddamn surface…

4.

It'd been better than Anderson feared, and worse than he'd hoped.

Udina marched into his office with enough speed and force that Anderson worried there'd been a leak. He'd calmed himself when he remembered there was nothing to leak, unless he'd been sleep-writing down his thoughts in late-night emails and sending them to his advisor. The first couple of sentences more or less confirmed that, whatever had gotten Udina in a mood, it hadn't been Anderson's fault. Off the hook, apparently…a weird way to think about someone who was technically your subordinate, but, there it was. Plenty of room, then, for Anderson to make it his fault later on, when the news finally dropped. God help anyone who was stuck in the office that day.

Duty…duty always came first, though, so as much as Anderson felt a bit of relief over Udina's ire being directed elsewhere (for now), he knew a political problem when he saw it. For now, it'd be his job to weather that—provide guidance for the great, decaying Ship of State to get through whatever shitstorm Udina was fuming over—and once that was solved to a reasonable extent…then he'd drop his bombshell. Only seemed fair, given that Udina had been, if nothing else, damn good at his job.

Udina always started his briefing with the economy. The crises got to wait until Anderson had a decent idea of which way the money was flowing. Goading him, it felt like sometimes, to put the Power of the Purse on full display when the money machine was running well; telling him to not even think about it when things were going bad. Today…things had the potential to run well, with some positive knock-on effects in the future if the Alliance played its cards right. The volus wanted mining rights on a planet just a hair within Alliance space; what the Alliance would get in return was a number of exclusive licenses from Elkoss Combine and a few other, comparatively minor firms. The turians would also consider upping the number of dreadnaughts the Alliance could field when the Treaty of Farixen came up for renewal: five to four would be the ratio, making it clear that humans were an integral (if junior) partner to the turians in the Citadel Peacekeeping Fleet.

In principle, Anderson was involved only to make sure it conformed with Council trade laws. In practice, the deal wasn't going through unless he and Sparatus gave the all-clear. And Sparatus wanted the mining rights sold because, according to him, giving the humans more dreadnaughts would be a hard sell in some parts of the Hierarchy. Small concessions without much gain would go a long way to smoothing the notion over, Sparatus had said. A coward's way to negotiate with a rising power, Anderson had said back.

God…if he'd been sitting on the fence, shit like this would've tipped the balance.

"What are our obligations outside of handing over the mining rights?" Anderson asked Udina. Anderson was leaning his head on his right fist; Udina was standing and reading from a datapad, scrolling up and down far too fast for any normal human to actually read what was on it.

"Only that the turian fleet have priority clearance if or when the mine comes under pirate assault," Udina said. "A condition imposed by the turians, obviously enough, but it further cements the mine as Protectorate property."

"A bit of Hierarchy space carved right out of Alliance hands."

"No doubt a quote we will both read in one of the Westerlund rags in due time. You're under no obligation to beat them to the punch."

Anderson shook his head, then glared up at Udina. "We got an excuse ready for when this deal goes belly up?"

"Excuses will present themselves when necessary." Udina finally put the datapad down. "If we need to take the Protectorate to the Citadel Trade Board we have ample resources to win that fight—and that was before being granted a Council seat. Our focus is and will remain on signing the deal and informing the rest of the galaxy of the economic benefits we have just unleashed."

"By 'galaxy' you mean Shastri and the rest."

"Make no mistake, Anderson, that anything coming from his Communications Team is just part of the job. They're well aware of the broader implications of this deal."

Anderson stopped glaring, just stared out at the door to his office. "Some people might say getting our excuse ready is part of being prepared."

"And those people are far away from holding elected office." Udina moved back into Anderson's line of sight. "We don't encourage self-fulfilling prophecies in this business—not if we want to stay a part of this business. We're also well aware that STG has ears everywhere and some of those ears have an interest in economic sabotage."

Mmph…can't fault the man for neglecting defense with comments like that. All appearances to the contrary, of course…

"If you'd led with that," Anderson said, "I wouldn't've come on so strong."

"It's a free lesson, Anderson—I suggest you milk it for all it's worth. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that our roles are usually reversed." Meaning one of them was being the cynic, and usually it was the man in the white suit.

"Sparatus probably expects me to want the five to four ratio badly, just because I wore the uniform. Truth is, I'd rather have a conversation about scrapping the treaty all together. But I don't get to broach that conversation, do I?"

"It has been made unmistakably clear that if you mention 'Reapers' in an official Council meeting one more time—"

"I don't need to be reminded about things that've been said straight to my face." Enough of this: Udina's mood was only going to get worse. No sense burning bridges before you'd bothered to retreat. Anderson stood up from his desk and moved towards the balcony in his office, looking out over the Presidium. A lake, water fountains, trees and an artificial breeze—it'd all lost its appeal a long, long time ago.

He settled his arms on the edge of the balcony. "What else is on the docket?"

Udina followed, stopped just behind Anderson. "Things of little consequence that I've yet to fob off on anyone else."

"Let's hear it, then."

Udina had another datapad in his hand. Or maybe it was the same one, Anderson couldn't tell. "For starters, you've yet to reconfirm Rear Admiral Greer's appointment to the Joint Species Relay Maintenance Commission. An appointment the press gallery is no-doubt eager to ask about, of course."

"Remind me again why we saddle a flag office with that?"

"For security clearance purposes; the Hierarchy's insistence. I'm sure if there's a reasonable explanation beyond that we'll hear it at their earliest convenience." Check. "Next is the proposed colour changes for the Alliance Navy. A select committee has hit on blue and black; red, supposedly, is a poor choice for a peacekeeping force. I'm sure exceptions will be made for the N7 program."

"Mmm."

"Someone within the Ministry believes this is worth your time."

"Someone in the Ministry thinks I don't work hard enough."

"Then let's prove them wrong."

Anderson looked back and now he knew it was the same datapad. "Something to do with the datapad you've been carrying around, isn't it?"

"Anderson," Udina said, "this is the latest polling information. In a separate window is a spreadsheet tracking every parliamentary election since 2160. In as non-partisan a fashion as I can manage let me state that we are on the cusp of a monumental catastrophe. I make no exaggeration, Anderson, when I say the end of rationality and basic principles of decency are on the verge of being extinguished."

Anderson turned to completely face Udina. "If you're being sarcastic or doing a bit—"

"In twenty-five years Terra Firma has polled at an average of eight percent—after the Skyllian Blitz they peaked at twelve. If an election were held today they'd pull in twenty one percent and, by all accounts, Shastri is losing enough traditional Moderate supporters in their direction to tip the balance. The research divisions of both your office and the PMO believe the latter number might be grievously underestimated." Udina's eyes narrowed. "Please inform me, Anderson, if any of that sounded sarcastic."

Terra Firma…Anderson looked back at his desk. Somewhere in there was Joe Wexler whining about Shepard. If that sort of thing was all it took to woo voters then…or maybe what you really needed was a goddamn rookie Councilor opening his mouth on primetime intergalactic news.

Goddammit Kahlee, you said honesty was—no, no you're not putting that on her. Knock that right out of your head before you outsource that job to the sharp edge of your desk.

Anderson looked back at Udina—he was still holding that expression. "What's the latest on the SocDems?"

"Poor enough that they need Shastri's coalition more than the reverse. We entered the acute phase of Pasokification just before Gerwig took over—it's only gotten worse after the latest round of cuts." Udina took a step forward, looked out over the Presidium, then shook his head. "Anderson, the operative issue is anyone who's the least bit skeptical that prosperity is just a war with the turians away is rapidly being out-flanked. Saracino would have the second largest party in parliament at this point—"

"And Shastri's either going to have to shift hard to the right or shake Saracino's hand."

Udina nodded. "Farixen would be the first treaty to be torn apart, then, believe me. Their latest candidate for an at-large spacer seat just declared the entire population of the Citadel to be agents of pan-galactic communism—it's entirely possibly that this office would be burned to the ground as part of Terra Firma's Act Two."

"God."

"If you still believe in God after all this, Anderson, then I would kindly ask you to share whatever mood suppressants you've squirrelled away."

Both fell silent, after that. Anderson leaned on the balcony and stared out at the Presidium again. An elcor diplomat was lumbering past the Conduit, that statue of a mass relay that turned out to be a Prothean-built backdoor. Two years ago, an army of geth poured through that thing and slaughtered everyone in sight. Then Shepard and her team came through and saved the whole damn station—the galaxy, too. Ever since then, Terra Firma went out of its way to call Shepard a fraud. Maybe it distracted from all their talk about human blood and how much turian-blue would need to be spilled to even the score. Maybe Wexler got a free pass to criticize Shepard so long as he played the part of the disgruntled solider: a former marine with more faith in the nationalist politician than the alien-loving Admirals who hadn't bombed Palaven first chance they got. Didn't matter that Saracino conveniently developed ulcerative colitis the day before he was set to enlist. Didn't matter, too, that the only reason anyone was alive was the turians and the humans putting animosity to the side. Hmm, made you wonder what would've happened if someone like Saren ever accidentally wandered into one of their meetings. Not something a moral person wanted to think about…

"I shouldn't need to remind you that Shastri is not in a position where he can simply ignore Saracino," Udina said, snapping Anderson out of his own head.

Anderson scowled. "I know how things work, Udina. I stopped expecting politicians to stick their necks out a long time ago."

"The better angels of our nature always seem to head for greener pastures, Anderson. It's very much a two-way street."

Anderson shook his head, pushed off from the balcony, turned to Udina. "I've got no love for Terra Firma, but I don't know what you expect me to do about this. Hell the more I get involved, the more we're just throwing fuel on the fire."

"Precisely why you can't get involved," Udina said. "Which doesn't subtract from the threat of a nationalist coup in the midst of humanity taking very fragile steps into the greater galaxy."

"So resign? Use my soapbox to tell everyone what a bunch of idiots Saracino's people are? Or are you expecting somebody to play dirty?"

"I don't need to play dirty. All I need is some assurances that nobody from the Embassy staff is going to get in my way."

And there it was: the second shoe dropping, like a MAC round from the Kilimanjaro. You can't get involved, so send your son-of-a-bitch to do the work for you.

Well, consider the facts: Terra Firma was bad news, no way to avoid that conclusion. More than anyone probably realized: isolationists weren't the type of people the galaxy needed with the Reapers out there on the galaxy's edge. And frankly…what they'd said about Shepard these past two years, you wanted to wring every one of their necks. If he'd contributed to all this by going to the media…God, that thought wasn't going away, was it?

None of that mattered. This whole conversation was going down a dangerous path. Even thinking about destroying the party because of things they'd done to a kid he cared about? That was Saren shit, plain and simple. Maybe he needed to lean more into recognizing the kind of family Shepard represented to him, but there were limits. And democracy didn't stand much of a chance if people in power decided to ignore them.

"We're talking about gumming up the democratic process," Anderson said. "That's exactly the kind of thing Terra Firma already thinks the Citadel does."

"Believe me, Anderson, they're talking about significantly more than that. And their relationship to democracy is strained at best: Saracino's midnight liaisons with authoritarianism and other political prostitutes should concern everyone—if they had the means to see them."

"I only went on one political sabotage mission. You hit something this fragile with a hammer…" Anderson shook his head, pointed at Udina. "All the talk earlier about not making a mess—"

"It's a heuristic—not an iron-clad rule. And this hardly counts as political sabotage: it's a political intervention from the office of the one human in the galaxy entrusted—as a matter of principle—to see the wider galaxy." Udina crossed his arms. "As your advisor, I'd recommend not lying to me and claiming that you've never politically intervened before."

And there it was: Udina's coup de grâce. If that was intentionally planned…

Anderson was quiet for a while. Then, he walked closer to Udina.

"Two questions," Anderson said. "Then I'll give you my answer."

Udina paused, then said, "Of course."

"When you say you don't need to be dirty—"

"I've plenty enough dirt to sink the party six times over. What's been lacking is a means of getting this dirt into the field. I'll sleep easy once this is over, Anderson, mark my words."

"That doesn't tell me much of anything."

"Assume the worst of me, then, and recognize I'm not likely to sacrifice my pension or a Chancellorship at a university of my choice."

"You'd find ways around that."

"Then consider a brute fact, Anderson, that far too many imbeciles go out of their way to neglect: you can only really kill a politician with an election. Everybody remembers the Kennedys. If anyone recognizes the name 'Dukakis,' it's only because it's a tried and true punchline. We gain nothing by going outside the system on this—that it requires extra legwork on my part is a small price to pay for burying this thing for good."

Anderson nodded—fair enough.

"Last question…why are you doing this? What's your angle? I don't know your ideology—I've seen STG reports with more slip-ups than you—but something tells me you're not paid to be a bleeding-heart cosmopolitan."

Udina…looked taken aback. Or surprised. Hard to tell, even after two years of sharing this damn office. Took him a second, though, but he eventually recovered.

"I'm paid to advance the interests of humanity. If I thought the Terra Firma-way would do that, I'd be a card-carrying member of Terra Firma." Udina's eyes narrowed again. "I assure you that I am not."

They both stared at each other in silence.

"Is that sufficient, Councilor?"

Anderson paused…and then said, "It's not my call. I can't be involved."

Udina's turn to pause, his eyes still narrowed, still pressed for a fight…and then they relaxed, as much as Udina's face seemed capable of relaxing.

Donnell Udina nodded, then bowed his head slightly. "Councilor," he said. And, with that, he turned on his heel and exited Anderson's office.

Better than he'd feared…worse than he'd hoped. Conspicuously absent? Any chewing out over the dirty laundry business. Hell Shepard didn't come up once, except inside his own head. Maybe he should count himself lucky. Maybe the worst was just yet to come.

Anderson walked back to his desk and realized—consciously, like this thought was dragged up from some murky swamp—that he'd practically handed Udina his resignation on a silver platter. Udina hadn't bought it, or didn't care, or figured it was just a joke and not…well, not a Freudian slip.

Right after that thought was the realization that letting Udina go off on his mission might calm him just enough for when Anderson made sure it wasn't taken as a joke…and maybe that, more than anything else, had been why Anderson agreed to all this.

The former Captain and N7 officer sank into his chair. He was getting good at playing a politician: demand pure intentions from someone else while having anything but on your own end.

Shit like that…it was definitely time to leave.

God help them all if he was making another wrong decision.

5.

The Future Content Corporation had offices just about everywhere on the Citadel, but NewsNet got to shack up on the Presidium. Proooobably because all the diplomats wanted to keep an eye on that weird inter-species investment that "kept wasting taxpayer dollars from a hundred worlds" but, whatever, Emily appreciated being able to walk home under an artificial sun. The problem was, though, that you kinda lost track of time up there, unless your eyes were glued to your watch. Hers hadn't been, so she ended up extending her walk by fifteen minutes. When she reached the NewsNet building Khalisah was, yep, wearing the galaxy's biggest scowl. Whoop-de-doo—maybe don't be an asshole for your entire life?

Okay that and someone being on time for a major meeting were kinda separate issues but just shut up in advance, all right? God if it was gonna be a long night it was gonna be a really long night.

"They wouldn't let me wait in the lobby," Khalisah said as Emily got closer.

"Did you tell them why you're here?" Emily said. She opened the door and the two of them funneled in.

"I said it was none of their goddamn business."

"Ooooo-kay, really earning the trust of the troops, aren't ya?"

"That thing you're doing? Acting like you're 'hip' and 'youthful'? Stop it. Nobody's impressed by it."

"Uh, no? And also: you seriously wonder why half your interviews end with the police getting called?"

Khalisah shut up after that, at least until they got into one of the conference rooms just past the newsfloor. Because, no, Emily didn't have her own office—please shut up about that too. And also, yes, other people would get dragged into this thing, but let's see the evidence first before I start saying things that'll get me a reputation as one of "those" people.

"What people?" Khalisah said.

"You know! The…the people who…when they—"

"Use complete sentences, for Christ's sake!"

"The people who make shit up because they were passed over for Insert Potential Promotion Here!"

Khalisah stared at Emily and Emily only sort of stared back (Khalisah had…had a glare to her. Jesus it was kinda unsettling). Then, Khalisah sighed and reached into that massive purse of hers again.

"Yeah, well, you don't have to worry about that." She took out another datapad and threw it onto the conference table. Emily, Khalisah, and the twenty empty chairs didn't move until, finally, Emily reached for it.

"This is it? This is all your evidence?" Emily said.

"Implying I should be carrying around more than that?"

"No I just—I just meant that in a…whatever." She picked up the datapad. "This is fine. Plenty of stuff fits on just an OSD."

"Like with your bust on Fist and his cronies."

"Yeah." Emily peaked over the datapad. "That was a pretty good hit, right?"

"Sure. Whatever."

Whatever…yeah, whatever—focus on what's in your hand now, Wong.

So Emily did. The datapad had tax returns, lists of shell companies (Cord-Hislop? Didn't they make, like, engine parts? Uh-oh, that can't be good), some partially decoded correspondence, something from a "Professor Solus" about Seeker Swarm countermeasures (SEND TO ALLIANCE ASAP, it said), it was…it was a lot. As in, how do you expect me to sit and digest this in a single night kind of way. Let's return to an earlier point: how do I know you're not just pulling one on us or somebody is or, god, I dunno, d'you think I'm gullible? Desperate? Am I just really really uncomfy with the idea that the party I've spent most of my life hating is actually in bed with terrorists? I dunno, Khalisah! It's only been three fucking minutes!

"The video's the real kicker," Khalisah said. "Watch the video. Everything else is just so much icing."

Watch the video, right—and get cursed for a thousand years (oh god just shut up, Wong!). Emily found the video and pressed play and then nearly dropped the datapad.

A very familiar figure was speaking. Or, at least, a familiar figure if you followed what'd gone down on the Citadel two years ago as closely as Emily did. And the figure was speaking at a volume where everybody could hear it okay just, just let's get that volume down a tad.

As Emily fumbled with the volume, the image of an asari started speaking.

"Hello, Ms. Al-Jilani. My name is Liara T'Soni: I…was a colleague of Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard, and I was with the Commander the day the Citadel was invaded. The asari census will say I'm currently employed as an Information Broker on Illium: I've left that job and am now working for Cerberus. No further details are forthcoming, because if this data package is being sent your way…there's a very good chance I'm not in a position to contribute any further."

"Jesus," Emily said, having now gotten the volume under control.

"Just listen," Khalisah said.

Liara's image continued. "Cerberus has recently been connected to Shepard's resurrection. I can vouch for the accuracy of that claim, as well as the accuracy of the information currently in Councilor Anderson's possession. I compiled that information, and I bear the largest responsible for Cerberus's crime outside of The Illusive Man and the great galactic threat that Shepard tirelessly warned us about. Whatever judgement is due to me, alongside those two pillars of evil, my focus right now is making sure the galaxy knows…the rot goes far deeper than a single power-mad cell, deeper than a handful of shell corporations and double-agents within the Alliance Military. Cerberus won't rest until it has infiltrated every aspect of human society—warping and twisting it in the Illusive Man's demented image—and if you care as much about democracy and freedom as you claim, Ms. Al-Jilani, then you'll fight back.

"I can aid you in this fight, in the only way I know how: with information. Information that may have cost me my life, though if I am truly dead, I'm certain Cerberus has been hunting for an excuse the moment I joined the Lazarus Cell."

"Lazarus Cell?" Emily said.

"Just listen, Emily," Khalisah said.

Emily did.

"Terra Firma is only the tip of Cerberus's spear, but it is a sharp tip nonetheless. Nothing validates a xenophobic agenda quite like the illusionary support of the 'silent majority.' And regardless of what you think of aliens, Ms. Al-Jilani, I assure you: what's waiting for us is far, far worse. For the sake of yourself, your family—your species—trust me when I say that we all need to stick together, or we're all equally dead. If you can think of no other reason why Cerberus should be stopped, I hope that is sufficient on its own.

Liara's image paused. She looked…tired. Beaten down, just…tired.

"You might be wondering why I contacted you, of all people. I have my reasons. First and foremost is that Councilor Anderson has already sacrificed far too much as a result of my actions. He deserves to have someone else step up—I'm hoping that will be you. And second…this is not the only copy of the data, obviously enough. I have other agents who can distribute other copies to whomever I've designated automatically, in case I'm no longer able to issue commands. But…it will be significantly more difficult for hardliners to dismiss this information, if it comes from your mouth, your show—your brand.

"I hope you can rise to the occasion, Ms. Al-Jilani. There's more at stake than you can possibly imagine. Or, maybe you can, if you'd only have listened to Commander Shepard two years ago.

"This is Liara T'Soni, signing off."

The message ended.

It took Emily a bit of time to remember how to speak.

"So, there you go," Khalisah said, waving away the silence. "My one and only source. Just so happens to be the biggest goddamn source imaginable."

"I…holy Jesus there is so, soooo so much to unpack there."

"Well unpack quick because we've gotta move on this."

Emily was sitting in a chair—she hadn't realized she'd found a seat. She promptly stood from that seat. "Yeah except we need, like…to verify this and get scrubbing algorithms on it a-and like a…a million other things before we do anything but—"

"I'm not incompetent, Emily, I know how this works."

"No just—shut up for a second. What I'm saying is…" Emily stared at Liara's now static image. "She thinks she's going to die, Khalisah. She thinks this killed her. And if she's with Cerberus, then…there's no way to know, but someone like her wouldn't say all that without legitimately thinking it."

Khalisah looked pissed…and then she very much didn't. The sigh she let out? It sounded shaky, something deeper than exasperated o-or annoyed. Something way deeper than that.

"Just treat them like any other gang, right?" Khalisah said. "Treat them like that and…and just take the necessary precautions. All we can do."

"I-I guess, but…" Emily looked back down that the table, then out into NewsNet's newsroom. Bustling people, blue and yellow walls, monitors showing a million things at once…the truth was that'd not been Emily's first thought. She knew…a part of her knew that anything involving Cerberus was going to carry some big risks. You got that way when you worked a crime beat for waaaaay way too long. No, the issue was…between the lines.

"I'm just thinking that, if Liara's talking about what I think she's talking about, and Cerberus is willing to kill her to stop all of this getting out…"

"What do you think she's talking about?"

"The…the Reapers? Y'know, Sovereign but way more, way older, waaay more capable of killing us all? That's what Shepard was warning us about, and…" Two thoughts connected and hit her brain like they were a speeding skycar. "Oh god, the disappearing colonists."

"Shepard's theories aside," Khalisah said, "I just need to know you're in. All right? That's all I need."

"Yeah yeah I'm in," Emily said. "But…"

"But what?"

Emily finally tore her eyes away from Liara and looked at Khalisah. "I'd…Terra Firma's been evil in my books for a long, long time. Okay? And Cerberus…the little I knew about them, I thought they were pretty friggin evil too. But I trust what Shepard said, and if something like the Reapers are on their way and Cerberus is trying to undermine galactic unity..."

"They're bat-shit crazy, I get it. Not an earth-shattering revelation, Emily."

Emily shook her head. "I just…I just thought they had a better reason for being evil."

Or, be honest with yourself here, you thought things were a little less "real" and pressing down on you when Terra Firma was just some edgy assholes that didn't believe half the shit they said. Now they were a threat to everyone everywhere, and just being exasperated and angry about the whole thing no longer cut it.

Now the things you were going to write about had consequences. And if you didn't write them good enough, the consequences would eat everything you cared about.

So be honest with yourself, Wong. And while you're at it, be honest with the asshole who was stuck in the mess before you were.

Emily shrugged. "I just thought they had better reasons."

Khalisah shook her head and was already walking around the conference table, towards Emily. "Whatever. I'm serious, though—we need to move on this." She stopped in front of Emily, snatched up the datapad. "You…you do more investigative work. What's the next step? What're we doing while this gets verified?"

Emily looked at the datapad, then back out at the newsroom, then again to the datapad.

"Um, first thing? We get a list of questions." Emily nodded to herself. "Yeah, first thing we do is we come up with some more questions and figure out the best places to find them. Anything that backs up what Liara said is a bonus."

"Fine." Khalisah, eventually, nodded to herself too. "What do you recommend as far as questions go?"

Recommendations? Oh, Emily had plenty. She said the first one that came to mind.

"What I'd want to know as a reader or an editor is…god, when did this all start?"

Yeah, when did it all start, God? When did terrorists decide democracy was just as good a weapon as a bomb or a gun?

6.

Brooks and Hal were still in the hotel room, though only one of them was doing any actual work. That person just so happened to be the person who (hopefully without being overt about it) was having several second thoughts about a whole multitude of things…if that even made any sense, god, Brooks' head was a complete and utter mess at the moment.

She was busy tracking Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani's movements, or at least that's what she would tell Hal if he bothered to ask. Khalisah's trail grew somewhat cold after a reported sighting of her in the Silversun Strip, but "somewhat" was the operative word there. A modicum of digging and Brooks would have her approximate location, down to a handful of blocks. No, what was interesting Brooks at the moment was Khalisah's latest reports—or
"ambushes/harassment lawsuits/completely inappropriate insinuations," as some people might say. Those people weren't typically Cerberus people, and as far as Brooks could tell, Khalisah'd not said anything that didn't, in much less eloquent terms, echo the kinds of chatter you found inside Cerberus. Were Brooks in the mood, she'd say something about how annoying it is listening to someone blanket valid points in utter nonsense—but Brooks was hardly in the mood.

Brooks combed through Khalisah's reports looking for when, exactly, she signed her own death warrant; Hal, meanwhile, combed through the complimentary channels on the hotel's TV and apparently didn't care if it was a commercial or an actual program.

"If you've ever wondered what humans of the past would say about the world of tomorrow," the advert said, "look no further than Blast from the Past: Return of the Cynics! An unforgettable evening featuring unforgettable icons of a bygone era."

"Now, I listened to the Reaper people," a hologram of a man with a grey ponytail and a black turtleneck said. "I really did. Because between you'n me I like a good End of the World story. Saves me from having to make coffee in the mornin'. But these Reaper people, they mentioned Mind Control that eventually melts your brain and you turns into a mindless, thoughtless—dickless, uh-oh—sad, decrepit, husk of a person. And all I'm gonna say to that is: we don't need Reapers for that! All you need to do is get an MBA and go into politics and you're already three-quarters of the [BLEEP]in' way there!"

Hal, with his feet up on the table and half a bag of chips scattered over his shirt, chuckled. "Bit uncanny, innit? Bet you we'd be in a lot less shit if we'd just resurrected Shepard this way."

"If Shepard can come back from the dead," the advert continued, "why can't the luminaries of yesterday?"

"Oi, fucking mindreading are we?" Hal said, pointing at the TV and shovelling half a handful of chips into his mouth. Brooks turned to the TV just in time to see the hologram of a man in a Hawaiian shirt, aviator sunglasses, and a gun the size of the Citadel Tower proclaim he'd "hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but if they get you into the Spectres I guess you can't complain."

Brooks turned back to the datapad, the one holding transcripts of every Westerlund report since Shepard's return. Why then? Well, why not then? Everything'd only become a nightmare and a half since then. Through seemingly no fault of the late Commander's, it should be said, and the fact that didn't trouble Hal in the slightest—a man who not half an hour ago was fairly convinced his employer was going to kill him—was…well it spoke for itself, really. So long as they're not after me, I can't be arsed about their assassination plans? Short-sighted enough to be suicidal, if he'd be the least bit honest with himself. Which raised a number of questions about if that was precisely the type of person Cerberus recruited, given that self-preservation instincts had a nasty way of messing up the best laid plans.

"Blast from the Past: Return of the Cynics," the advert concluded. "See modern technology and today's best impressionists bring to life the hardest hitting historical truths. A Francis Kitt production."

"Guy's bloody everywhere, isn't he?" Hal said. He turned to Brooks, who was doing her best to read a datapad through a repulsive headache. "M'I bugging you?"

"Just wondering why you're still here," she said, not taking her eyes off the blurry streak that was the datapad.

"Can't move until you do. Not unless we want people thinking the Alliance has pre-cogs all've a sudden." Hal chuckled to himself again, brushed some chips off his shirt. "That'd raise questions, wouldn't it? 'Oi, you've got pre-cogs, do you? Been on holiday the last few centuries, have we'? Probably'd just assume we all foresaw the paperwork we'd need to do and decided it wasn't worth it."

"As opposed to foreseeing all the ways you'd get shot if you worked for us," Brooks said. Under her breath, she'd intended, but Hal heard anyways.

"Might drop me taxes a bit if that's how the Alliance did things. Couple less civil servants to feed." Hal poured the remains of the chip bag onto his face, which drowned out all the teeth grinding that Brooks was doing. That didn't drown out her thoughts, of course, and so she was getting palpably close to using the edges of the datapad as a weapon when—

Hal's omni-tool buzzed. Hal, covered in chips, looked at his arm. "Awf bwoody helw," he said.

Brooks almost said "what," but he was standing up, swallowing, and pouring half eaten chips onto the floor. She heard the tell-tale sound of the omni-tool booting up its hardlight generator, and looking towards Hal she saw a bearded man in a truly awful looking suit appear in the room.

Wexler—she recognized him now. It was Joe Wexler, one of the Terra Firma people. He knew Hal, did he?

And…Joe'd just done an interview with Westerlund, hadn't he?

"Hal, mate, where the fuck are you?" Joe said.

"Earth," Hal said. He pointed a finger at Brooks as though she was going to interfere. She was not, even if it'd piss him off and he could do with a little of that right now. "What d'you want? We don't have a meeting scheduled."

"I've been trying to lodge a fucking complaint, mate," Joe said. "Getting a hold of you is like putting me arm through a fucking window."

"I just said we didn't have a fucking meeting scheduled, right? I'm not gonna be fucking available if it's not in the fucking schedule." Hal pointed at the hologram. "Also: don't work for you, right, and—frankly—there's not gonna be a universe where I do, because—and I've made this clear a bunch—good luck to your lot without our fucking intelligence, yeah?"

"Yeah, see, and this is my fucking complaint, you prick. Because I did what you asked, okay, and what's Charles saying to me? Charles is saying to me, 'You got it all wrong, mate! You got it all wrong because I've already got a package from Cerberus, and by the way, none of them told me to fucking drop housing!"

Brooks saw Hal's body language markedly change. This was back to before; this was back to the way he stood when he'd just burst into her room. But…Cerberus? So this intelligence transfer, it wasn't Alliance? Cerberus did this and…sorry, did that make the connection with Khalisah weaker or stronger?

God, like she had a chance to think at the moment, what with all the screaming and shouting….

"Are you fucking—what?" Hal started pacing. "You get intelligence from me, right? There's not a fucking competition in—we don't double book our agents, yeah? It'd be a colossal waste of fucking—" Hal stopped pacing, jabbed his finger towards Joe's hologram. "Who's sending Charles information?"

"I've got no idea, mate—no fucking idea—but if you pricks are dicking me around—"

"Joe, shut the fuck up and just—get off the goddamn line so I can figure this—"

"Swear to god mate, I'm done being dicked around by everybody."

"Does it sound like I'm dicking you around you fucking—" Hal balled his free fist and looked like he was going to put it through a wall, but at the last second he pulled back, smoothed his hair, and let out a massive sigh. "Let me sort this out. Don't fucking call me, I'll fucking call you, yeah?"

He cut the feed before Joe could say anything. That left Brooks and Hal alone again. Hal seemed to know Brooks was staring at him even before he turned around.

"Right, weren't supposed to hear that," he said. "So kindly shut up about it."

"Cerberus gives Terra Firma intelligence?" Brooks said, arms crossed.

"For fuck's…" Hal inhaled sharply then quickly grabbed whatever personal belongings he'd left on the table. "Right, I'm off to deal with this." He started walking to the door but left himself enough space to point at Brooks before he left. "Quit fucking stalling and figure out where this journalist is. Don't fucking kill her till I'm ready, right? Not in the fucking mood to write you up for fucking me over."

And then Hal was gone.

A recap, then:

-Cerberus wanted a fairly sympathetic journalist killed, and had brought Hal and her to the Citadel to coordinate.

-Cerberus was also giving intelligence to Terra Firma, through a candidate that everybody with a politically-inclined braincell knew was just to rile up military support.

-Cerberus, apparently, was also giving intelligence to Charles Saracino directly, without Hal being aware.

-And all this in the context of them having brought Shepard back from the dead, only for her to become a bigger threat than seemingly whatever was happening in humanity's colonies, if the news was to be believed.

A truly terrific list.

What the actual hell was going on?

7.

Udina was gone, the press stopped asking for him, and the Council had only communicated with him through proposed treaties and trade agreements—nothing in-person. Not since he'd made the call to go public with…well, about as much as he had on him at the moment. That left room for a call: an important call. And it'd be the first of a few before Udina got back, at which point if Anderson needed to be talked out of his plans, someone would've long-since figured out how to do it. Hopefully.

In politics, you had to end every sentence you drudged up with that word, "hopefully." The only certainty was somebody out there was going to make you pay for getting up that morning, one way or another.

"Let's hope they're a lousy shot," Anderson said to himself. He cued up the QED and waited for the other side to pick up. The other side did, and Anderson saw Kahlee Sanders' image appear in front of him.

"David, hey," she said. "How're you doing?"

"Just about running on empty," Anderson said. "Barely slept since the last time we spoke."

Kahlee clearly anticipated the conversation going straight there. "It was a good speech, it really was. Everyone here—hell, everyone everywhere, at least if they're wearing an Alliance uniform—if I see them, they're all telling me the same thing: it must've taken a lot out of you to say all that, but it's good that somebody finally did."

Anderson nodded, but without much energy. "Appreciate that, Kahlee. And I'm going to stop calling you strictly for business after this. You're not my advisor—it's not fair to you."

Kahlee's image smiled and shrugged, but both movements were slight. "Hey, business is just about the only way for us to connect. Not like our jobs leave all that much time for catching up."

"And if they did, we'd have enough stories to get us into old age."

"Hard to believe Saren and some illegal A.I. research aren't the most interesting things we've done together."

And then, quiet. Funny, too, how mentioning a life outside of work derailed conversations so quickly.

"Anyways," Kahlee said quickly, "you were pretty vague in your email. What's up?"

Anderson took a breath. "I'm about to make another major decision. I need someone to go over the optics of it with me—someone who I know will give me an honest appraisal."

"I get to be blunt for the greater good?"

"Let's just say that the people who tell me I'm stupid do so out of habit. It makes it hard to tell when I'm really being boneheaded. And the people who should tell me I'm being stupid can't seem to get past the medals on my chest. That's a whole other problem, in of itself." Almost added something about how Hackett was the next person he was contacting, just to show how serious a question this was going to be…but something told him to hold onto that fact. No need to downgrade just how important Kahlee's opinion was to him by bringing someone else into the conversation.

"Well…getting a sense of déjà vu," Kahlee said, "but other than that, I'm all ears."

Anderson took another breath. "I'm…thinking of resigning."

More quiet. Din Korlack screamed something at someone out in the Presidium, though anybody with working ears could've heard that no matter how loud Anderson's office got.

But the quiet didn't go away.

"If I'm making the wrong move…you can tell me. Nothing's in play right now, not just yet."

"Yeah I…I figured. Sorry, David, I just…I'm just processing that."

"It's appreciated." Though the longer she processed it, the more he started feeling like an idiot.

Eventually, Kahlee said, "That's gonna send one hell of a shockwave. And I dunno if the one you just unleashed has fully made its rounds yet."

"That's what I'm worried about too," Anderson said. "These two announcements coming back to back…if it harms the Alliance's image, I'll need to plan around that."

"It's not gonna look great, I'll be honest with you." Kahlee's image tapped at her chin. "Noticing that you said you'll 'plan around that,' rather than, just as an example, not resign."

"If the plan needs to be me staying put, then that's the plan. But I'm pretty committed to leaving, Kahlee. I think I've got good justification for it."

"All right. What's the justification, then?"

Anderson started pacing. "People keep showing me polls. Sending them to me. I close my eyes and I can still see bar graphs. Terra Firma's got everyone spooked, but they're not looking at the really concerning stuff. Maybe they're just not seeing the connection, I don't know."

"Something worse than Terra Firma?" Kahlee said. "You've been warning people about Reapers for a while, but I'm guessing that's not visible in a bunch of public polls."

"The Reapers—hell the Collectors too, even though we're all pretty sure the latter are working for the former—they make everything more complicated. It's nightmare stuff, especially because every crisis we face is just one more advantage the Reapers get to exploit."

"And trying to convince people these things exist might just create a crisis of its own."

"Exactly, which is where my concerns come in." Anderson paused, pursed his lips. "By the way…I appreciate you taking the Reapers seriously. People like that, don't tend to be around the Presidium all that much."

Another pause; Kahlee rubbed at her arm. "I trust you, David. God knows I trust you more than…hell, it's you and dad, that's about it. Beyond all that…I've seen things that make me think a galaxy-wide harvest isn't completely nonsensical."

Anderson nodded again, and again it had no energy behind it. "The polls I'm being given, I'm seeing people's trust in basic, foundational institutions drop every month—every week, sometimes. It doesn't stop at the Citadel: people are looking at parliament, the courts, universities, anybody wearing a damn lab coat, and they're thinking they're all rotten, we should just blow them up. All except for one thing: the military. Public support for the Alliance Navy is going through the roof. Even faster than the weeks after the geth invasion."

Anderson straightened his posture. "I've been trying to figure out why Saracino keeps a loser like Joe Wexler around, and it's only hit me recently. Wexler has the one thing Saracino's self-aware enough to know he lacks: a military record. And the only party that's made a constant showing about how humanity starts and stops with its military is Terra Firma."

Kahlee paused, tapped at her chin again. "So you're seeing some nasty historical parallels?"

"I don't think Terra Firma's going to start wearing red arm bands, no," Anderson said. "But do I think they'd use the Navy to build a power base? Then make sure enough militaristic rhetoric is thrown around that the turians can't help but respond—make it worse? Yeah, I'm pretty convinced of that. If I managed to avoid giving Terra Firma ammo with my speech, I'm guessing it at least didn't make the situation better." Anderson straightened up. "By the way...anything I say about that speech that sounds the least bit critical, it isn't directed at you. I'm kicking my own ass, nobody else's."

"I know, David, don't worry. It's...don't worry."

Easier said than done. "Besides, they'd've found a way to pervert whatever I said. The fact I bothered to tell the truth just so happens to open up a few more doors for them."

"What gives you that impression?"

"Because it put into the spotlight what kind of person she was—the kind of person she used to be." Anderson gripped his wrist behind his back. "And that's the kind of person Joe Wexler has been calling a military handicap for as long as he's been in the party." Anderson sighed. "Hell, Kahlee…polls are saying the number of people who think Shepard's a hero are climbing back up again. But with all this going on…I can't tell if it's because I convinced them she's innocent, or because people like the new mass murderer wearing the N7 stripe."

More silence. Kahlee looked deep in thought. It was appreciated; Udina would've made sure he said his two-cents by this point, even if he was just reading off a script. The problem was, Anderson still wasn't sure what he wanted Kahlee to say…and the fact he'd likely be leaning one way or another didn't sit right with him.

Somehow, an evolving battlefield on a bad day still managed to have more solid ground than politics on a good one.

"I'm guessing," Kahlee said, still holding her chin, "that you want to push back against that with a uniform on, right? You can't really do it from the Citadel, but being back inside the Alliance, you could try and find a way to break that connection."

"Exactly. Use those medals nobody can get past for good, for once." Anderson's posture somehow tightened more. Moment of truth. "What's your read on that?"

Kahlee all of a sudden looked very tired, and Anderson just barely managed to keep his face neutral.

"I…I don't know, David it's…I don't think I can give you an answer right away. There's…that's a lot to take in just all of a sudden." Kahlee gave Anderson a sheepish look. "Sorry, that's…probably not what you wanted."

Anderson was a lot more relaxed than he'd been just a moment ago, so that said enough, in his eyes. But, yeah, there was some disappointment floating around—not that he'd let Kahlee know. His own faults were exactly that: his own.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I appreciate your honesty. I do, believe me. It's why I needed to call you."

The sheepish looked changed. "Hey, well…I owe you."

"Not really. Just being present, that's always been good enough for me."

The nice moment lasted all of one second before Kahlee's face darkened.

"Wait, before I forget: you said earlier on something to the effect that these Reapers were all caught up in this. And in a way above and beyond just being a menace we've all gotta deal with at some point. What did you mean by that?"

Anderson had to think about through a headache he hadn't noticed until now. "About…mmm, you mean, about how convincing people they exist might cause a crisis itself."

"Yeah, exactly that. It made it seem like you think the Reapers just naturally tip the scales their way."

In more ways that one, Kahlee—in more ways that one. He'd tried to not think about it—think about Indoctrination, how agents of the Reapers could be anywhere, doing anything. He'd tried not thinking about how political leaders were targets, and since nobody knew a damn thing about indoctrination until it was too late…nightmare stuff, like he'd said.

Anderson shook his head. "They have ways of creating a crisis whenever they need. The fact is, though, that I don't think Terra Firma needs their help. Everything we talked about, it's something humanity's perfectly capable of creating on its own."

"God…" Kahlee let out a breath. "That's…not a great thought. Either of those things, actually. Frankly, I'm not sure what's worse, especially since it ends with us dead either way."

"Welcome to the private hell I've been stuck i—"

His omni-tool beeped; the receptionist was trying to contact him. He gave an apologetic motion to Kahlee and raised his arm.

"This is Anderson—what's the matter? I'm in the middle of a meeting at the moment, I can't take any calls."

"I know, Councilor, and I'm sorry," the receptionist said, "but there's a…there's a highly aggressive man here whey, SIR YOU CAN'T GO BACK THE—"

The message ended. "Shit," Anderson said, reaching for a sidearm that he hadn't bothered to bring.

"I'll stay on the line," Kahlee's image said. "Call for help if you need."

"I've got kinetic barriers, I should be fine," Anderson said. The backup was appreciated, though—and he'd been saying "appreciated" a lot, hadn't he?

There was shouting, and loud footsteps, and then the door to his office opened. The man that had charged past the receptionist desk didn't wait for the doors to completely open; he contorted around the separating blocks the moment the green holographic lock disappeared. He also caught his foot on one of the blocks, so, tumbling to the ground, his face was hidden from Anderson at first.

When the man quickly pulled himself to his feet, Anderson recognized him immediately.

The beard, the shit-green suit, the dreadnaught pin on his lapel—it was Joe Wexler. He'd just burst into Anderson's office like a krogan was chasing him.

"Joe?" Anderson said, unsure of whether he should help the man up. Joe got up on his own and, almost immediately, started pacing.

Anderson realized Joe was in the midst of a catastrophic panic attack.

"Ah, fucking…mate y-you've gotta help me," Joe said, pacing, unsuccessfully smoothing back his hair. "Ah J-Jesus fucking Christ this is f-fucking—" Joe bent over. "Fuck's sake!"

"Easy," Anderson said, tentatively reaching a hand forward. He checked over his shoulder and saw that Kahlee was still there. "Easy. What's going on?"

Joe ignored the hand but stopped pacing. It was at that point that Anderson realized Joe had blood all over the left side of his suit.

"It's Cerberus mate i-it's f-fucking—" Joe said. "C-Cerberus is trying to fucking kill me."

8.

When did this all start?

The Illusive Man took a drag from his cigarette and remembered names, places, dates. There was a date: August 18th, 2162. And a place: Arcturus Station had been finished four months prior. The Alliance Parliament itself had only existed for two years up to that point, and his manifesto—calling for a "Cerberus" to guard humanity against attack—was only five years old.

The name was rapidly receding from public memory, but the Illusive Man owed enough to it to never forget. Arnold Powell—Sir Arnold Powell.

The Illusive Man took another drag from his cigarette, closed his eyes…

…and was back in Arcturus Station, watching parliamentarians file out into the open greenspace, seeing a man in a black felt overcoat and matching black hat notice him and wave. He was known by a few people as Jack Harper, then. Official records said he owned a rapidly growing aerospace company, and they would continue to do so until Jack Harper disappeared from every census bureau, population list, and corporate registry in recently discovered Citadel Space a short time from then.

Sir Arnold Powell walked up and held out his hand and smiled, teeth framed by a grey pencil-thin mustache. Jack Harper took Powell's hand and shook.

"Ah, Jack my boy. Good to see a familiar face, I dare say."

"First time on Arcturus, right?" Jack said.

"Yes, well, much as I prefer to call into these sorts of things, I felt I ought to be here in person. I used one of your favorites the, um, the Rivers of Blood speech, yes—would have been dreadful to recite that over some blasted hologram."

"Harder to see everybody's reaction, too."

"Yes, yes that's undoubtedly part of it. Ought to see the fruits of one's labour, I suppose, if one's to drag history into the modern era."

Jack motioned for them to start walking. Powell nodded and followed. It would be the last walk Jack would take on Alliance property.

"Tell me then," Powell said, "how goes business?"

"We're thinking of consolidating," Jack said.

"Ah, I see."

"Yeah, nothing major—not right now. We've got a good thing going here and we don't, uh, we don't want to overreach while we're still vulnerable."

Jack realized Powell was laughing.

"What? What's so funny?"

"You've become awfully good at euphemisms, my boy. A far cry from when you were as blunt an instrument as a human being could get."

"Being blunt's great for the two or three people alive who can luck their way to anything. The rest of us gotta make do with subtly every now and again."

"Spy talk, my boy. It sounds like so much spy talk."

Jack shrugged. "If it works, it works."

A park bench came into view. Jack pointed; Powell nodded and sat down first. The elder man leaned back, draped an arm over the edge so he could fiddle with a leaf from a nearby shrub. Jack leaned forward, hands cupped in front of him, dangling between his knees. His face was serious, business-like.

"Cord-Hislop is about to get a capital injection from CDR Holdings, in exchange for a controlling stake," Jack said.

"Ah, CDR. That's Lawson's company, correct?"

Jack nodded. "We'll play things a bit closer to the chest this way. Might not have much use for 'Jack Harper' after this but…I guess there're diminishing returns on trying to be two people."

"Were the rest of us so fortunate to have an identity to spare," Powell said.

"We've got other plans in the works. This is the big one, though."

Powell nodded. "I should hope you focus on finances first. I'd bloody well have a right to smack you, otherwise. Playing a nasty trick on an old man, pretending to listen to his counsel like that."

"I'm listening, trust me." Jack stared at the ground, nodded to himself, then leaned back. He and Powell could look at each other without having to strain their necks. "News says your party's on life support."

Powell chuckled, teeth framed by his grey mustache. "And where, per chance, have we heard that proclamation before? My god, as though they can't remember all the times they've been wrong."

"It's not going great, though, is it?" Jack was back leaning forward, hands between his knees.

"Bah." Powell waved his hand dismissively. "It's the usual…oh, conundrum, I guess? Challenge is more like it: the usual challenge a politician like me faces. Established so-called 'common sense' politicians see me coming up the flanks, panic, and take what little rhetoric of mine they can understand and turn it into their own stump speech. The difference is that I'm a Tory and they're so awfully vulgar about the whole thing."

"Terra Firma hasn't won a seat since you were elected," Jack said. "And nobody's called about a coalition."

"I'd be forced to decline," Powell said. "Realpolitik be damned—I can't in good conscience be associated with them."

Jack looked at Powell and couldn't help but smirk. "Pretty sure a ton of Moderate Party strategists are saying the same about you."

Powell waved his hand dismissively again. "Then for once, we can help each other. Let them bastardize poetry on their own. I've a right not to be forced to hear it."

The smirk was gone; Jack was sighing, now.

"Protecting the purity of your words doesn't really help us in the long run."

"Ah, so we've now reached the business portion of the itinerary." Powell smirked, grabbed a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and made sure to blow in the direction of Jack's eardrum. "Well, out with it then. I'm too old to waste time pretending to be hurt."

Jack looked down at his hands, watched his fingers curl over one another. "There's an amendment to the budget coming up. You vote for it, it'll pass. If not we've gotta rely on a SocDem being out sick that day."

"And you know of this before me?" Powell said. "I ought to fire my staff, if I employed any."

"You see what I'm saying though," Jack said. "If you've gotta come back to Arcturus to get your vote counted, I'd appreciate you doing so. It's that important."

"And what, pray-tell, is this amendment?"

"Ups the voting floor for certifying a union to a super-majority." Jack looked at Powell, face serious. "It'd give companies a lot of flexibility over their workforce. Companies like Cord-Hislop."

Again, Powell chuckled. No, laughed was closer to the truth. But it was the kind of laugh that Powell was uniquely talented in creating: a mocking laugh.

"And leave us all in the hands of engineers," Powell said. "Engineers and business graduates who've yet to work a day outside an airconditioned office."

"You're being difficult."

"How very uncouth of me," Powell said, jeering, pushing Jack into the dirt with just his eyes and mustache-framed teeth.

Jack stood up, put his hands on his hips, and—as always seemed to happen around Powell—lost his cool.

"Having competing lines of authority isn't exactly the best thing in the world when you're on a deadline."

"My boy," Powell said, slowing standing up as well, "if an alien attack truly is just round the corner, then why should I want to antagonize the working man? There's an awful lot of them, you know."

"Yeah, lot of them and only one Cord-Hislop."

"And I should hope its owners are competent enough to succeed with humanity, rather than assuming it must happen despite them." Powell shook his head. "I must say I think I am awfully offended, now. Ignore my counsel at your peril but to resort so quickly to flinging folks beneath a bus—"

Jack held up a hand. Jack also tried his best to make sure there wasn't a gun in it, to not lose his cool and more than he already had.

"You need to make hard decisions in a war," Jack said. "The people who know how to make them don't need a committee of second-guessers."

Gone was Powell's smirk. He leaned in closer, stared at Jack from under the rim of his hat. "I was in a war too, Jack. And I won't resort to bulldozer tactics in the hopes an elevated few can hold the bastard hordes off on their own."

Then the smirk reappeared, and Powell pulled away from Jack's face.

"Since that is evidently all, I've a glorious blue dot to return to. I'll undoubtedly see you later, Jack my boy."

A tip of the hat and Powell was off…except that Jack called out after him.

"What I said's true in more ways than one," Jack said. "Competing lines of authority aren't good when you're on a deadline."

Powell stopped. Jack knew he got the subtext; he didn't know how the founder of Terra Firma would react.

Slowly, Powell turned…but he still had that goddamn smirk on his face.

"Jack my boy," Powell said, walking towards Jack again. "You do important work. Lord knows you do. And, yes, you're likely to be called to make difficult decisions from time-to-time; decisions that those of a…shall we say, fairer disposition, may object to. And, for that, humanity owes you a debt we cannot hope to repay."

The smirk stayed, but Powell leaned in closer again. "It does not, however, do one any good to wear a pristine tuxedo with soiled underwear."

"And that's what I am, huh?" Jack said. "Just shit-filled drawers while you kiss babies and insult the Prime Minister?"

"Well that's entirely up to you, my boy," Powell said. "But…well I really can't sum it up better than you already have: there are diminishing returns to being multiple people." Powell clapped his hand onto Jack's shoulder. "Cerberus has its three heads. We shouldn't expect one of them to run Athens in its spare time, should we?" Off came the hand; the smirk only grew. "Be seeing you, Jack my boy."

And Powell turned, left, and walked far enough away that he didn't hear Jack's reply. He didn't hear Jack say—

And the Illusive Man opened his eyes, looked out past the windows at the binary star—red and blue consuming each other. His cigarette had burnt down to his fingers; ash had spread itself over his armrest.

A useful distraction, if only to remind him of the work that had been done—the work that built Cerberus into what it was today.

He discarded his cigarette and opened a communications channel to the Widowmaker. Seconds later, Miranda's holographic avatar appeared in front of his chair.

"Miranda," he said. He reached for another cigarette, lit it, inhaled. "I haven't received a written report from the Lazarus Cell in some time."

"Apologies," Miranda said. "We've run into some delays on Tuchanka. I didn't think it worth your while to be bogged down by relatively minor details."

"Perhaps." Puff, puff, balance the cigarette between pointer and index fingers, take a sip of the bourbon waiting for him in its glass. "Regardless, I'd like us to stick to our reporting schedule. It's better to maintain that habit as we get closer to our goal."

"…understood," Miranda said.

"One more thing." He rose from his chair, walked towards Miranda. "There's an operation running on the Citadel. Successful or not, its outcome will likely impact the Lazarus Cell. I'd like you to monitor its progress and make the necessary strategic adjustments, if you think any should be made."

"This is the operation to remove reporter Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, correct?"

"It is."

"I'll monitor it, but I think this plays to EDI's skillset more than mine."

"EDI is currently occupied at the moment, as you well know. Besides, the Lazarus Cell is ultimately your responsibility. Any adjustments should come from you, not the ship's A.I."

He expected her to say "understood."

Instead, she said: "I suppose I see your point."

They were both silent for a while. The binary star burned bright behind the image of Miranda Lawson. Eventually, the Illusive Man broke the silence.

"Before you go, I have a request for you." He pulled another cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lit it. "This mission you're monitoring, I have reason to believe it was precipitated by Dr. T'Soni. While I don't want you to do anything hasty, it might be worth re-evaluating whether she's an asset or a liability to our mission."

"Dr. T'Soni has been dealt with," Miranda said.

More silence. The cigarette burned in the Illusive Man's hand.

"She was attempting to blackmail multiple crewmembers. I couldn't risk squad cohesion crumbling."

"When did this happen?"

"Right before we left Tuchanka."

More silence. Then, eventually, the Illusive Man broke the silence again.

"Good work, Miranda. This is why you're trusted to carry out sensitive missions. That'll be a—"

"I've a question for you, now," Miranda said. The Illusive Man stared her down; she stated back.

"Go ahead," he said.

"What can Cerberus tell me about the criminal Samara was hunting?"

The Illusive Man took a puff. "If we'd known, we wouldn't have needed you to find that information yourself."

"Then I might need to go to Illium."

Another puff. "We're running on a tight schedule, Miranda. I fail to see how this is relevant to the mission."

"It's relevant," Miranda said. "Samara's planning to kill me—I'd like some means of avoiding that, or at least postponing it until after the mission is complete."

The Illusive Man held the cigarette, felt hot ash on his finger again. "What I'm being told, then, is that both the asari you recruited are insubordinate."

"I've got Samara's loyalty. For now, at least. But it's artificial: her code dictates everything she does whether she actually wants it or not. If I can get her the information she needs, she might at least decide there are other people worth killing before me. It's worked with Dr. Solus."

Another, much longer puff. "And how should I interpret the fact that your sister happens to be on Illium?"

He expected a pause. There wasn't one.

"Unless you think my father's poking his head in places he shouldn't, in any damn way you want—it makes no difference to me."

"Henry's been neutralized."

"Then Oriana gets to go another year without knowing I exist. Simple as that."

Another long pause. The cigarette was beyond salvage, now. The Illusive Man discarded it.

"I'll have EDI look into it. But Miranda: don't deviate from the new plan. Make your pitstop after you've made some progress."

He expected her to say "understood" again. Instead, she ended the call.

Another communications channel was opened to the Widowmaker.

"EDI," he said, "I need you to look into the records of Samara. Find anything involving the criminal she was hunting and pass them to me." A sip of bourbon; warmer than he'd like but still crisp on the tongue. "And closely monitor all traffic around Oriana Lawson. Let me know if any of our operatives contact her. Updated me more quickly than you did when Mordin finished his countermeasures."

He closed the communications channel before she could say anything. It wasn't clear to him if an A.I. could understand the subtext…but EDI had demonstrated enough surprising capabilities for that to be the case.

Alone with the star and his bourbon, the Illusive Man closed his eyes.

Arcturus…he was still on Arcturus. Despite everything that happened during the war with the turians, and everything that had happened since, he always went back to Arcturus. To Arnold. To competing lines of authority.

Jack Harper learned what needed to be done on Palaven, but he only became the man he needed to be on that day in 2162, right in the heart of the Systems Alliance.

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Holy moly that was long. Won't waste anymore time: hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for more adventures of "Mass Effect but the author can't shut up."