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]

35. Chapter 34: Nutters Pt II

Chapter 34: Rise of the Nutters: Part II

Friends

1.

The receptionist and approximately half the Embassy's marine contingent stormed into Anderson's office. Getting them to storm right back out took some finessing, not the least because Anderson didn't want to say: Two years out of service and I'm still the deadliest son-of-a-bitch present. It was true, but that wasn't how Anderson negotiated.

"Mr. Wexler isn't a threat to anyone," Anderson said instead. "Maintain a presence outside my office, but otherwise, I'll handle this."

"O-outside the—you should be posting them at the fucking GATES, mate!" Wexler started pacing, right up until he paced too close to the marines and their rifles went from pointing vaguely at the floor to pointing unambiguously at his face.

"State your intentions," the closest marine said. "If you're bringing more people that can't follow directions then you'd better tell us wh—"

"Lieutenant Kassam," Anderson said, "I don't require any backup—especially not with a witness present." He pointed at Kahlee and the QED. "If the Chain of Command has any objections, their fight's with me—you're just following orders. Understood?"

Lieutenant Kassam had already snapped to attention, but his posture loosened at that last bit. A pause, then Anderson got his wish: "Understood, Councilor," the marine said.

The heavily armed bodies filed out of the office. The least heavily armed body stayed behind a moment longer.

"I'm sticking around the corner too," the receptionist said. "Just so we're clear."

"Crystal, Gina," Anderson said. And then, sending Gina off with a nod, it was just two politicians and a hologram in the office. The politician without blood all over his suit crossed his arms.

The one with blood all over his suit started pacing again. Looked like he'd forgotten Anderson was even there, what with all the muttering he was doing under his breath. Anderson—arms still crossed and his eyes still focused on Joe—turned his head towards Kahlee, just enough so she'd know he was talking to her.

"Appreciate your offer, back there," he said. "About sticking around in case things went wrong."

He let his eyes drift to Kahlee, now. Her image nodded at him, but he recognized that look. She'd narrowed in on Joe; the look she was giving Wexler, that was a work look. A man bursting into the Human Embassy with blood all over him would catch just about anybody's attention, but Kahlee, her attention was different. She was standing there, half a galaxy away, dissecting Joe with every innate tool at her disposal.

When you got to watch her do that to someone else, it was fascinating stuff—made you realize something that people who'd seen a Reaper up close were liable to forget: regular humans could do incredible things, from time to time. When that got turned on you, though? It was liable to scare the shit out of you, even with years of military training.

Or maybe that was just him. Joe didn't seem to notice. Then again, Joe didn't seem to notice much anymore.

"That body language is sending some bad signals," Kahlee said through the QED. Anderson turned and saw they were now making full eye contact with each other. "He might be switching from flight to fight."

"Are we at 'a danger to himself and everyone around him' yet?"

"I'd get a marine to escort any medical staff in. You can handle Joe, no problem, but once the syringes come out—"

Then Joe's head snapped around and he was back, he'd broken through the shock or something Kahlee had said got through—or both. But Joe was staring at Anderson now, and he looked as cognizant—and just as terrified—as when he'd first burst into Anderson's office.

"Ah s-s-s-so, um…s-s-s-s—fuck—sorry about that, right? Come in p-pretty hot, won't f-fucking lie to you."

"Joe," Anderson said, holding up a hand, "that's really not important right now. You just said Cerberus tried to kill you. We've got plenty of personnel here, but if you're serious about putting marines at the gates then we need to know exactly what's going on."

"I was fucking JUMPED mate!" Joe slapped his right hand into his left palm for emphasis, going from zero to sixty in less than a blink. "I was—see this fucking BLOOD on me? All right, you think that's mine? T-that's—this whole fucking liter of blood's from the fucking…ah fuck!" Joe started pacing again, hands on his hips and his head shaking. "Right in the fucking head just—and then they got the fucking other guy in the stomach and it's…fuck!"

Wasn't hard to piece things together. The blood all over Joe, that was from at least two innocent bystanders—two unlucky souls who got caught between Joe and whoever was trying to kill him. The fact he was so worked up about it…Anderson hadn't seen that side of Joe in a long, long time—nobody had. But leaving that aside…there was still an important question that needed asking.

Looking over at Kahlee—how her one hand was resting under chin, how her posture was leaning slightly forward—Anderson had a feeling that she was just about to ask it.

"Joe, we're sorry you went through that. Honestly, we are. But you need to tell us how many assassins are after you, and how you know it's Cerberus."

"We'll protect you," Anderson said. "You've got my word, for what it's worth."

Kahlee looked bemused; Joe looked like he'd just been woken up in the middle of an exam. He held that look for long enough that Anderson's brain flagged it, filed the snapshot under "Running your mouth without an exit strategy." Looking over at Kahlee again, she was rapidly becoming something other than bemused. Probably hit on the same conclusion as him—probably hit on it before him, as she'd done from time to time.

"Um…being honest with you," Joe said, hands in pockets like he hadn't just been chased by assassins, "I um…may've jumped the gun a-a bit, I guess."

"Jumped the gun?"

"As in, you're not sure it's Cerberus that's after you?"

"Well I…see, thing is," Joe was pacing again, "I mean, what you've gotta realize is…the guy, right, he—y'know how Cerberus people say their catchphrases all the time, right?"

"No. We don't."

"Nobody does. The last person I knew who went up against Cerberus, just got resurrected by them."

"Fuck, right, can't go three fucking minutes without 'earing her name, then."

Anderson took a step forward, just barely kept himself from jabbing a finger towards Wexler. "There are sheep farms that use the word 'Shepard' less than you do."

"That's fucking…" If Joe was going to challenge Anderson on that, the feeling must've come and gone quickly. The blood on his suit reached out and grabbed Joe's full attention again. "Look, right, I'm a walking fucking crime scene an', I'm not sure you've noticed, but I'm fairly fucking convinced I'm not outta the fucking woods yet—right?"

"That's been established," Anderson said. "What's still up in the air is what kind of threat we're looking at and what kinds of tactics we should expect."

"I was fucking SHOT AT you prick! W-what kinds of fucking people think that's a f-fucking NORMAL FUCKING PROCESS?"

"Joe, you have to realize: for someone in your position, there's an incredibly long list." Kahlee straightened her posture. "That isn't a value judgement—god knows someone should give you one—but that's as sober an assessment as you can get from me. You travel with a rough crowd; the people who really hate you tend to think they can be just as rough."

"And some of those people, all that's really needed is police protection and a public condemnation," Anderson said. "Cerberus is different. If they're really after you, we need to know so the appropriate pieces can start moving."

"Aw fuck off!" Joe went from pacing to galloping, back and forth across the front of Anderson's office. "You really fucking think I'd believe that? Fucking prick—anyone else and you'd've fucking believed me from the get-go, I fucking guarantee that. Fucking prick—you don't think I know the fucking score?"

Anderson, with his fists clenched and folded behind his back, took a breath. "If I kicked you out of my office, Joe, would I be signing your death warrant?"

Joe stopped pacing. His face said everything Anderson needed to hear.

"Then do yourself a favour and stow the attitude," Anderson said. "Because believe me: I'll have to be having a pretty bad day to lose any sleep over you. We understand each other?"

And, again, the look on Joe's face said everything Anderson needed to hear. Not going to look at Kahlee, though. Probably the only person on the station who understood where that came from, and being she was the only person…you liked to think you had your personal life under control, whenever people relied on you. You wanted other people to think that, too. If Kahlee thought that, despite everything Anderson had said the past god-knows how long…then it'd mean something.

If he looked over at her now he'd be in for a disappointment. So he kept his eyes straight ahead, focused on the bloodied politician from Terra Firma who'd said and done things that made you want to push him in front of a skycar.

"You're lucky that Anderson's going out of his way to offer a hand," Kahlee's image said, just outside the periphery of Anderson's vision. "Take his advice for what it is: we'll help, but we can only help you if you let us. Be honest—the more you are, the better we can protect you."

"She means: come clean about how you know it's Cerberus." Anderson's hands were still folded behind his back; his chest was still puffed out like he was inspecting a ship. "Because if Alliance Intelligence can't get a solid fix on what a Cerberus agent even looks like, then—"

"Anderson I think there's something in the corner of your—"

And then that thing in the corner of Anderson's office decloaked, and started walking forward, and Joe was already on the ground with his head covered by his hands. Anderson's hands went to his sidearm and Kahlee was saying something about calling in the marines and his eyes registered a freshly decloaked figure but his ears picked up a voice saying—

"He isn't gonna tell you, because if he did, the Alliance would execute him."

His brain put the audio and the image together and told his hand to leave his sidearm, at least for now. The decloaked figure was a woman; the voice was coming from her; and a quick scan didn't reveal a single weapon anywhere on her person.

Joe was still on the ground as the woman walked past him. Anderson was still in a combat-ready stance. Kahlee's holographic image had her omni-tool out. The woman stopped midway between Joe and Anderson and held her hands behind her back.

"This little piggy's been watching how the sausage is made for his whole career, but now that he's in line for the conveyor belt? He's gone to the other farm animals for protection, hoping they forget he's a little piggy that did everything he could to get others like him to that belt first." The woman blinked underneath her black hood. "I sort of lost control of the analogy there. Sorry—I've called politicians worse things, but it still feels bad saying that to you." She was pointing at Anderson as she said that. Her finger moved towards Joe, who was still on the floor. "Him? I couldn't care less what he thinks."

"Please don't shoot me," Joe said, head still buried in his arms.

"Shoot you?" the woman said. "The only weapon I've got on me is my personality, and you strike me as the kind of man who doesn't even know what that is."

"Then please don't stab me or kick me anywhere."

"Now you're just making it weird."

Anderson cleared his throat. Quick glance towards the QED and he saw that Kahlee still had her omni-tool ready to go. "This is a Council Office you've just snuck into. Unless I get some identification from you, there's a good chance some of the marines will object to your presence."

"I'm a citizen," the woman said. "Technically."

"More specific than that."

"I was specific. I didn't say 'tax-paying,' did I?"

"Anderson," Kahlee said, "there are a lot of unknown variables with you in that room. I'm not about to tell you how to do your job, but I think you should consider having some marines present."

"I'm pretty sure I'm fine, Kahlee," Anderson said. "Thank you. If our mystery guest wanted me dead, my bet is she would've come and gone by now."

"Believe it or not," the woman said, "the only two people in any real danger are me and the ugly carpet over there." She was pointing at Joe again.

Anderson almost smiled at that.

"All right…if you insist." Kahlee put her omni-tool away. "I think I decoded her metaphor. Sounded to me like she's saying what the both of us were starting to suspect."

She looked at Anderson, and he responded with a nod. Appreciate the handoff—the reminder that wearing a uniform doesn't mean you sold your brain for thermal clips. "I think you're probably right. Sounds to me like Mr. Wexler is more intimately connected to Cerberus then he wanted to admit."

"'Jumped the gun,' I think he said."

Joe was still on the floor, but he was looking up at everyone now—looking up and looking somewhere between sheepish and terrified. Understandable, given how many people were now effectively pointing a gun at his head.

The woman let out a breath; it looked like she was steeling herself.

"I have information," she said. "Information of a highly sensitive nature that I in no way sought out or went out of my way to acquire. And I've been in this position before, just so you know. I told myself if it happened again I'd just burn my hard drives and go live on Kahje." She shook her head. "Sorry, Keiji. Not funny, I know."

Anderson looked at Kahlee; Kahlee looked at Anderson. And Joe was curling up on himself even more.

"Go ahead," Anderson said. "Tell us what you think we need to know."

The woman took another breath.

"I found information sent by someone who I just recently realized is Liara T'Soni. It says Cerberus and Terra Firma are basically joined at the hip." She looked down at Joe Wexler. "And…well it's pretty obvious that he's the point man, isn't it?"

Anderson heard what this woman said. He heard it loud and clear. But a single word was pounding away behind his eyes, in his temples, in just about every part of his head that he expected to read a situation, find a threat, keep him and everyone around him alive.

That word was:

Udina.

And that was followed by:

You son of a bitch.

So thank god Kahlee was still paying attention.

"That's...pretty damning. And everyone here is pretty open to any data from Dr. T'Soni, especially from people who I'd guess don't make a habit of using her name for personal gain. But...where exactly did you find this information? It can't have been just lying around."

"So long as I'm not being judged," the hooded woman said, "I'm happy to tell you. Hell I can even show you. One of you. Unless QED's do more than transport glowing blue images."

The glowing blue image of Kahlee looked at Anderson. "I can be there in under two hours," she said.

"I don't want to pull you away from the Academy," Anderson said. "Much as we're rapidly approaching an 'all hands' situation."

"Rapidly approaching?"

"Udina's involved," Anderson said. "I'll leave it there."

"Good enough for me. But, David, it's fine. I want to help."

And there are very few things in this world that'd make Anderson want to keep Kahlee on the sidelines. Preventing her from sacrificing her professional life for his sake was one of those things. He'd already forced a woman he cared about to do that—more than that—before. Making the same mistake twice...it'd be hard to live with yourself if you went around, doing things like that.

"Whatever's going on inside your head," the hooded woman said, "let me speak from experience and say: let the lady do what she wants. It's really not your call."

Anderson...just chuckled. "She's right," he said, looking at Kahlee. "But just so you know, I'm still feeling mighty selfish right now."

"So am I," Kahlee said. She pointed at the blue void behind her. "Life's pretty boring over here. Besides, this gets me out of at least three meetings."

They smiled at each other—and, hell, Anderson was pretty sure he saw the mystery woman smiling at them too, just out the corner of his eye—but one person's opinion was evidently unaccounted for in that room.

"Look, right, I'm just some bloke that's got fucking blood all over 'im," Joe said, still on the ground. "But there's no fucking way I'm leaving this place if people are wishing me dead."

The mystery woman grabbed the back of his suit and hauled him to his feet. "I have a cloak," she said, "and for the low low price of you staying quiet, you can have this cloak too. I'm serious about being quiet, though. It doesn't work with you ruining nice moments all the time."

"I'm only in fucking mortal peril you stupid fucking bint."

"Ouch," the woman said. "Imagine if I cared about your opinion."

Anderson looked away from...whatever that was, back to Kahlee. "We'll plan a route to wherever we're going and send it your way, secure transmission only. We'll plan a series of locations where you can meet up with us, pending travel time."

"You got it," Kahlee said. She looked over Anderson's shoulder, towards the mystery woman. "Where's the destination?"

"This is the real kicker," the woman said. She looked over at Joe. "You'll love this, I bet."

"Fuck off," Joe said.

The woman ignored him.

"Where we're going? Westerlund News. I found everything at Westerlund News."

She paused.

"And on Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani's desk, no less. What a wild wild world we live in, huh?"

Yeah, Anderson thought to himself, that's one way of putting it.

So how exactly was Udina planning on handling this?

2.

An hour before that, Kasumi Goto was standing on a balcony—cloaked, shielded, and out of everyone's way—in Zakera Ward, and she was thinking: Exactly how am I supposed to handle this, you son of a bitch?

"L.T"—whoever the hell that was—had dropped a mother of all bombs on her head. Unintentionally, of course; you couldn't blame someone for leaving a package around that a curious thief might want to pick up. But you could blame someone for neglecting to check where the package was being delivered, and that was the real bomb. "L.T" had, somehow, sent a sophisticated OSD with names, dates, lists, income statements, bank drafts, and what looked like a small movie proving that Cerberus and Terra Firma were growing from the same branch to the one place on the Citadel that would undoubtedly end up destroying it. And now the only backups of that evidence in existence were stuck in a greybox that had a million more important memories it should be storing…with "more important," obviously, being very much in the eye of the beholder.

Kasumi tapped the side of her head. Calling the thing fused to her right temple a "greybox" was a stretch: it was a reverse-engineered simulacrum of the real thing held together by gum and duct tape. But it was supposed to be filling itself with data—data that didn't put its user's life at stake. Again.

So, yes, "L.T," whoever the hell you are—you're a son of a bitch that really should've done a better job of checking addresses. You go to all the trouble of packing that OSD with data you clearly wanted to protect and that's where you send it? People on the outside might think you weren't very good at your job…

…unless there was another angle, like "L.T" had meant to send the OSD to Westerlund. But why do that? And more importantly, who cared, except there was that "more important" claim again and Kasumi knew it really wasn't an eye of the beholder thing. She wouldn't have run if it was. Running away from something sure to net you a pretty penny from an Alliance Intelligence officer meant it was, very clearly, something incredibly important.

Shepard seemed like a cool person…she would've probably liked working with her. She seemed pretty "goodie two-shoes" too so maybe there would have been a conversation around "personal property" and "boundaries" and "some of the crew are concerned whenever you cloak and disappear" but, beyond that…yes, Kasumi probably would have liked working with her.

Right up until Cerberus turned her into a zombie. She was carrying two people around, you know—that meant double the harm, double the evil, double the…well double everything.

That thought rattled through her mind like one of those old plinko machines, so now Kasumi was pulling her omni-tool up to her face. She held it in front of her and at the same time was pulling herself up onto the roof, away from the streets, behind that corner over there, looked good, so the worst somebody could see was some mystery orange light. Citadel people kept to themselves, for the most part. She'd have enough privacy.

Kasumi held her omni-tool up against the nearest wall, let the orange image of a mid-twenties man spread out over its cracks and holes and chipped grey paint.

"Keiji," she said to the image, "you know I love you, but this pretty much your fault."

The image stared back at her.

"Sure it is," Kasumi said. "For one thing, it'd be a lot easier to ignore this without the greybox in…no we'll skip that, never mind."

The image still stared at her.

"But being in the wrong place at the wrong time? That never used to happen to me. Do you honestly think I'd get as good as I am if I didn't have luck on my side? Being unlucky—that was your thing."

The image stared on.

"You call it civic mindedness, I call it 'asking for trouble.' Besides, dealing with the Alliance is one thing. We're talking…I don't even know. I know you always said Special Forces were just terrorists with social insurance numbers, but I've never heard of N7 making zombies. Or Blackwatch. Or STG even, and I'm pretty sure at least half of them are upset they didn't think of the idea first."

Her arm wobbled a bit; so did the image.

"I am running. I'm trying to. Have you seen the price of shuttle tickets though? That's robbery. And thanks to the damn geth I can't even think about sneaking on. They have DNA detectors now. It's getting to the point where I'm seriously wondering if I should just move to Omega."

The image of Keiji—smiling, arms crossed, looking proud and free and alive—stayed the way it always looked. And then it didn't. Her brain made his expression change and the gum-and-duct tape greybox spat out sentence fragments that she tried to fill in with her own memories, the ones she knew got less and less reliable as time went on.

The image of Keiji said:

What is. This. Really. About.

"You already know. I've told you a million times. I needed Cerberus—Shepard, I guess, I needed her—and now that's…not on the table anymore. So I'm going to stop wasting time and take my head out of the crosshairs while I'm at it."

You. Are. Wrong.

"Come on, Keiji—I know what's happening inside my own head." She thrust out a finger. "Don't start with me on that, we'll be here all night. Day. Whatever time it is—god the neon's unrelenting here."

Not. Wrong. That way.

"Don't start with me on that either."

Didn't. Listen. To. You. Before. I won't stop. Now.

"Not listening to me got you killed."

And. Yet. Whoever. Hock. Is. After. Is. Safe.

"I don't care about them."

And. You. Are. Wrong.

Kasumi sighed, let her arm hang and the image of Keiji disappear. She brought him back, though. She needed the image and she was done pretending otherwise.

"There's no way for me to help. I can't leak any of this—nobody will believe me. Nobody knows who I am and if I tell them they'll…well they'll probably try to shoot me. It's happened before."

You. Are. Not. Dumb. You will. Find a. Way.

Kasumi shook her head. He would have said "brilliant" he…he wouldn't have said "not dumb." Not that it mattered. Not that…not that it mattered.

"A hint would be nice."

The image was still again. Kasumi slowly closed her omni-tool. Yet again, she was alone on the roof.

Find way…barring the possibility that "L.T" knew what they were doing, what exactly was she supposed to do? She hadn't lied, just then: people wouldn't trust her without a name and they certainly wouldn't trust her if she actually gave one. And none of this solved the problem that, regardless of what the voices in her head said, she needed to get to Bekenstein. She would care about the name "Donavan Hock" for only a little while longer, and then…she'd…get on with the rest of her life, whatever that ended up being.

And then the day-to-day bustle of Zakera Ward was sharply cut by a voice with a thick South-East England accent screaming "Somebody fucking HELP I-I'm fucking UNARMED!"

Kasumi was at the edge of the roof and saw, looking down into an alleyway, a human man struggling to pick himself off the ground. Two other humans were closing in on him and, just to the right of where he was flailing, another human was lying on the floor. Blood was pooling out of his stomach and it was clear, even from up there, that this other man was a corpse.

Somebody sprinted from around the nearest corner—another human, a woman in a server's uniform, it looked like—and was asking what the matter was, what this man needed help with, what was going on. And when Kasumi heard the crack of a pistol she was leaping from balcony to balcony, down towards the alley, even before the woman's head exploded all over the side of the man, whoever he was and whatever he'd done to get armed gunmen chasing after him on the Citadel of all places, into a human enclave that was actually pretty safe, if you didn't go looking for trouble.

The man was up and running and the two gunmen were giving chase just as Kasumi decloaked and jabbed a blade into the nearest one's stomach. She was cloaked again before the other gunman realized his support was down, coughing up blood and being a distraction long enough for Kasumi to line up right behind the last man standing, right in front of her with no way of knowing where she'd gone. She could be vicious, if she wanted to. She could make this hurt, if she wanted to.

She didn't—the blade went into the base of his skull and out where his nose would be—but it could've been much messier.

So at least whoever that man was had survived, and at least the people she'd killed hadn't suffered. Was that good enough? No, Keiji, for this specific thing. Not in a cosmic sense—just for this specific thing.

Whatever, the Citadel was going to hell. Street muggings, at this time of day? It…well it could be worse. It could've been an assassination attempt. The last time assassins had tried taking someone out on the Citadel had been that "gas leak" the Council tried to play off as an accident…and, well, there were rumours that Saren had tried to kill one of Shepard's crew with some assassins on the Citadel, too.

Kasumi looked at the body in front of her. A silenced weapon; unbelievably expensive. And unfortunately she could see enough of the insides of the one killer's head (eww) that there was tech—serious tech—stuffed inside.

She was already convinced these were assassins even before she hacked into their omni-tools. Identities were scrubbed, which was probably the first thing they did in the morning, but it said who their target was.

That man had been…Joe Wexler, of all people.

Keiji also liked to say the asari had it right and the whole universe was connected. Truly a cold comfort, Keiji, because it sure felt like everything in the universe was connected—and she'd managed to get her legs tangled in the strings.

She was going. Keiji didn't have to say anything else to her.

Kasumi tracked Joe to a skycar that he definitely didn't own and managed to pry its destination from the terminal before it could lift off. And since skycar terminals didn't have the same level of DNA trackers as the ports did, Kasumi could follow Joe in a skycar of her own.

The Human Embassy, that's where he was going.

And so she cloaked, and hid, and listened, and slowly crept closer and closer to Joe and Councilor Anderson and the woman in the QED, as Joe stammered and flailed and tried everything to avoid saying what Kasumi realized the moment she saw who those assassins were targeting: that Cerberus was after him.

This was her way of getting out—she'd pass the information off to Anderson (because god knows Joe wasn't going to say it), and that'd be it. Keiji couldn't object, because she'd done more than even he would have done in the same situation.

But then her brain made a connection and her plans to turn tail and run died right in front of her.

She decloaked.

"He isn't gonna tell you," she told the room, "because if he did, the Alliance would execute him."

She knew who "L.T" was.

"This little piggy's been watching how the sausage is made for his whole career," she began.

It made perfect sense.

"L.T"—aka, "Liara T'Soni."

Shepard was on a rampage. Kasumi guessed Liara was too.

3.

Joe Wexler was on a rampage after his call with Hal, and those emotions followed him out into the street. The streets of Zakera Ward—on the Citadel. Because that was the thing, right? The thing was, Joe knew Hal wasn't on "Earth." That same "info package" that Charles (prick) got from other Cerberus bloke or whatever the fucking hell was going on told him that Hal'd gone to the Citadel, right fucking quick, even before Joe'd had a chance to get ready for his interview.

Jesus fuck mate, this what the party was coming too? Disorganized fucking nightmare an' he was still banging on about Shepard. Y'know, it took some of the energy out of the whole thing when half the shit you were saying was forced. Even if you fucking meant it, right, there's a difference between saying it 'cos you worked your way into thinking it and saying it 'cos some prick with dodgy tax forms went and made himself Supreme Fucking Dictator. Of a grassroots party! Fuck's sake mate! And then there's Hal with his fucking housing bullshit! Right, like, appreciate the intel, mate, but all the fucking humans you're resurrecting these days, any idea where they're supposed to fucking live?

Fucking Christ…couldn't even remember who he was supposed to be made at anymore, being honest. Just wanted to punch anybody you ran into at this rate. Like that guy, walking down the alleyway, with the…fuck's sake, that supposed to be a leather trench coat and sunglasses? Being fucking William Gibson are we? Gonna pull out a one of them…wotsit, the silenced guns? The Carnifex with the tin can on the end? Been a while since the uniform got put on, but best of luck to you, even if you're pretending you've got a gun on you—fucking prick.

Right, hang on though—because this alleyway wasn't close to any of the walking paths, and it's just a joke but the guy's not exactly making moves like he's here by accident. And, right, so there's the second guy, dressed exactly the fucking same…

See, you walk down an alleyway in the arse end of London and not even the fucking pigeons bother you, but the only wrong turn of your life on the Citadel and now a cosplayer's nicked your trousers. Or two—two cosplayers.

Both the cosplayers walked a few steps closer; Joe stood, about midway between the back doors of this and that Citadel shop, with his hands in his pockets. Something about London had kicked up a storm in his head.

"All right mate," he said to the nearest cosplayer.

His brain completed the circuit, flashed an image of Hal, sent a tsunami of adrenaline rolling through his body.

Kind of dumb fucking costume you'd find on a Cerberus mook, right?

Hal'd said he'd sort this thing out.

Also'd said you weren't gonna be told if Cerberus decided they were done with you.

"Um," Joe said. He nervously jammed his palm into his eye, like he was wiping something away. "Right so…um, g-gonna be honest with you, um, if you're with Hal…I get, I get being mad if he thinks I'm blaming any of this on 'im, with the…with the Charles thing."

The two men in trench coats looked at each other, then looked at Joe.

"We're not with Hal," one of them said.

"Right, um…d-doesn't make me feel much better, you saying that."

"It shouldn't," said the other leather trench coat.

"Fucking hell…"

Joe started to back up, just as both the trench coats reached for—Jesus, fuck he wasn't fucking kidding those were, those were fucking M-11's those things were fucking shotguns with a six round clip and—

Joe had backed right up to one of the rear doors of a Citadel shop, and when the door slammed into his back he yelped because it'd been forever since he'd been shot at, right, it'd been forever and a cold metal thing slamming into your back might as well've been what a bullet felt like because he used to have amour, for Christ's sake! So Joe yelped and the man that'd been hauling two bags of trash out into the alley noticed Joe but not the others and went around to apologize to Joe but didn't notice the other two and fuck's sake the guns were up the barrels were point right at him—

Two shots, both hitting the man with the trash in the stomach. He doubled over by Joe's knee and started leaking blood everywhere just all over Joe, it was all over Joe's leg, and as the man with the ruptured stomach fell Joe lurched backwards, back towards a corner of the alley where if he looked to the right he'd see a slim way out and all he could think of saying was—

"Somebody fucking HELP I-I'm fucking UNARMED!"

A woman in a server's uniform rounded that corner to the right and blocked his escape for just a second and that was it, she was with them, Cerberus had fucking agents everywhere how the fuck did they manage that—but no the woman was asking what was wrong and she caught the two gunmen about halfway through, this time the civie saw them and Joe reached out to grab her, push her back towards the exit, just get the f-fuck out of here Cerberus is fucking AFTER ME for no fucking reason!

The woman stumbled—she tried to pull away from him and her eyes went wide when she saw the blood. And then her head exploded and i-it'd been a long—i-it'd been a long long time since Joe saw someone's h-head do that a-and he wasn't in uniform anymore and he w-wasn't looking down a scope but his chest felt h-hot and s-sticky a-and Jesus fuck JESUS FUCK.

Joe ran. He didn't look behind to see if anyone was following him; he didn't stop to see if bullets were biting at his heels. He ran to a skycar and programed the first destination he could think of: the Human Embassy. A brain of mush, his eyes seeing things that he'd long-since turned to drink and drugs and rage to hide, he didn't realize who would be waiting for him there. He didn't realize who was in the Embassy until the man started asking about Cerberus, and then the rage came back and the images receded and he got enough of a grip to channel everything at Lieutenant Commander David Anderson, the man standing in front of Service Chief Shepard.

But then the woman in a black hood decloaked, and she was saying things Joe couldn't say, and then they were off to Westerlund. He'd just been to Westerlund.

Cerberus knew he'd just been there, too.

They knew because they'd been there from the very beginning, hadn't they?

Nowhere was fucking safe with them. Anywhere was just fucking lambs to the fucking slaughter.

It shouldn't've ever come to this mate.

It shouldn't've fucking come to this.

Foes

1.

It shouldn't have even come to this, but he was being proactive. You felt the enemy closing in, you didn't wait for it to stab you in the gut. You went out and built a fucking shield. You went out and laid mines like they were fucking crops. Too many people in the Alliance forgot about that. The fact it hadn't bite them in the ass wasn't a sign they'd been lucky; it just meant the inevitable was gonna be a fucking hellstorm. And frankly? They deserved whatever was coming to them. He'd been done playing toy soldier; he'd been done pretending somebody jabbed a wind-up gear in his back. When the time came for them to crash and burn, he'd be long gone.

Kai Leng walked through the Citadel.

Leng's debrief'd been on Earth. Now he was on the Citadel. The seat of Galactic Government—the puppet master of the largest peacekeeping force anybody'd seen since before the asari, the salarians, the turians—humanity—since any of them'd crawled outta the muck and pretended that meant something. His debrief'd been on Earth but he needed to go to the Citadel. Needed to remind himself what everybody was too stupid to get. Needed to see up close that all of this was built by somebody else, somebody long-dead—somebody probably so smug they didn't even realize the end was just around the corner.

We didn't build this; this wasn't some fucking triumph of the human spirit. We found a bauble floating out in space and didn't think it was important enough to kill each other over. That's it—that's all this place was.

Maybe if the turians'd found it first aliens would've fought over it. The salarians? Who knows. Humans, though? If humans were the first kids on the block, we would've taken one look at it and said it isn't ours, we've got no connection to it. Just pass it by and get on with the next thing. Maybe we would've tried scrapping it. Probably would've forgotten about it the second we left the system.

So Leng was on the Citadel. People walked with aliens, the aliens giving the people funny looks. Anybody human on the station was paid not to notice that, but Leng noticed. Maybe the aliens were thinking the same thing, about humans just leaving the Citadel where they found it, because they didn't have Alliance propaganda force-feeding how great the station was for Earth. Maybe there was nothing going on behind those alien eyes. Maybe there was too much.

Leng walked through one of the wards and focused ahead, keeping the past where it belonged. He'd been given two weeks discharge, pending a further investigation. Blue uniforms kept saying it was medical—all they cared about was whether the prosthesis on his arm, his face, his chest, his knee, they just wanted to know it'd all integrated fine. Perfect cover to drag up some other investigation. Perfect cover to say an Admiral'd been protecting him all these years, but now, the bottom dropped out and the jackals could have their go with him.

Being proactive—that's the only way you protect yourself from jackals. They smell food, they keep coming back—so you poison their supply, make their offspring weak because their parents couldn't keep their noses out of it. Only good thing on the Citadel was a big batch of poison, so that's where Leng was heading. Through Zakera Ward, past the aliens, the pretenders, the delusional humans—past them all to Westerlund.

This Wexler guy thinks he knows how to use the media? Buddy, you knew Shepard for two minutes. Leng'd read Westerlund's except of that Bercuson book. If they were just pretending to be on the right side of history, at least Leng knew how to pull them along, where they'd be most useful.

Except the Citadel knew he was there. Up ahead, on a big screen ringed by red neon, ANN was blasting its news coverage all over the enclave of humans. Trying to slow him down; trying to pull his attention upward, to the red, to the searing red lights. Inside that red was a picture of a mask. The newscaster was calling it Shepard, but she didn't know. Nobody'd seen the real Shepard until it was too late. Nobody'd been there when the mask was ripped off and the red leaked through and flesh burned was pulled was ripped apart by the thing hiding behind the face, deep in the shadows, poison it was poisoning everything around it and she was never broken, she'd never broke after all she saw because she relished in it, she understood better than anyone the way violence worked. Now she didn't need to hide it and under that red red light, there was nothing left to hide.

There was a bar. Between here and Westerlund. He never drank, it…it dulled the senses, kept life too far away. Didn't matter now—the senses were hidden under a layer of prosthetics. Life was as close as it was gonna get and Westerlund was far, you couldn't see it like he used to with the fucking red haze everywhere. You don't need a drink—you need noise. You need something to drown the buzzing in your ears so you can fucking think about what you're going to say.

The bar was blue—blue and purple. Still hazy, the music was still burrowing into his skull, but he could think. He was getting better, head was getting clearer. He didn't need a drink—he just needed a second.

One drink. Keep people from fucking looking at him weird.

Leng sat at the bar and noticed the person to his left clear out immediately. Fine. The guy to his right stayed sitting, holding a green drink that looked completely full. Guy was all muscle, had tattoos running up his arm, to his neck. Looked like the shape of dog tags under his shirt. Guy didn't clear out; didn't touch his drink, either. Leng didn't have anything to say to him. Stay there, nurse your drink, try not to think about being chained to a dead dog, a dead dog worshiping a false god. Muscles like that, was there even enough blood to think? Idiot—probably didn't even know how trapped he really was.

The muscle guy noticed Leng staring, shook his head, went back to staring at his drink. Leng noticed the guy's eyes drifting to the prosthetics, though. Arms, neck, eventually face. Leng caught him on that one. Then muscle guy decided he had something to say.

"You serve?"

"I wear the uniform," Leng said.

Muscle guy looked back at his drink, then back at Leng. "Then I'm probably the last guy you wanna be sitting next to."

"You know who I am?"

"Not a fucking clue. You look like you've seen some shit, but other than that? You're just some guy in a bar who got pushed through a meatgrinder." Muscle guy flicked his still full glass. "I'm gonna count you lucky since a lot of folks don't make it through the other side, you know? But I also know you're probably not sitting here thinking you're lucky. Itching to get back out at all?"

"Never been my call."

"Got it, one of those meatgrinders. Sorry man, that's rough." Muscle guy flicked his glass again. "Hey if you wanna bail, I get it, but I gotta rant. Because you understand, right? You've heard all the talk of 'individual initiative' that the Alliance loves so much."

"It's bullshit," Leng said. "It's an affect. The Alliance wants you to buy in, and the best way to do that? Give you the illusion of control."

"Fuck man, it's barely even an illusion. Yeah you get to take a hill however you want, but you wanna shift the Grand Plan? Half the resources you have get pulled outta the system for some other op, and all your requests just get lost in the filing system. You make the decision but they never tell you you're gonna be the only one holding the bag when it's all over. I mean, how're you supposed to even prepare for that?"

"I already told you: it's about incentives. Little mice in a maze. People with ambition, they take the risk and get beat down after it all goes to hell. The smart ones see that and toe the line, because no matter what happens, they know the Alliance won't shoot their own foot off just to punish one soldier."

"Yeah, maybe. And the dumb ones like me?"

"You want pity, you're not getting any from me."

"Shit, man, you'd have to know to feel any pity, and I can't even tell you because of the big fucking red 'classified' stamp on the file." Muscle man picked up his drink, then set it down without even putting it near his lips. "Look, for the record, a guy sits next to me in a bar with some attitude, I might take offense to that. Especially if I'm in the middle of toasting some people the meatgrinder took. But seeing what you've been through, I'll give you a pass."

"Tell yourself whatever you want, I really don't give a shit."

"Really making me live up to what I just said, huh, Steel?"

"Steel?"

"Yeah, cuz you've got metal plates all over you and you're just as warm."

"Steel's also supposed to take punishment and keep on going."

"Hey, just because you're an asshole doesn't mean I ignore the facts. Whatever did that to you must've hurt—most people'd be impressed to see you walking around."

Leng looked at his own glass, also completely full. "Funny how few of them wear a uniform."

Muscle guy was holding his glass in his hand. He set it down, reached out with his now free hand. "Vega. My real name. Wanna replace Steel or d'you wanna stick with that?"

Leng kept his hands where they were. "Better if you don't know."

"Hey c'mon, I mean, suit yourself, but we're both serving. Sounds like we both got screwed by Command in one way or another."

"Cases are different. You don't know me now? Then you're better off not knowing ever."

Muscle guy—"Vega"—looked at the space where Leng's hand would've been, if he'd been playing that game. "All right, now I'm just curious. Should I be worried about you?"

Leng got up, threw a credit chit on the counter, just left—didn't say anything because there wasn't anything worth saying. He started walking towards Westerlund, where he should've been going before he got distracted.

And Lieutenant James Vega, who tried getting himself a drink after finding the Human Embassy closed, got up and slapped his own credit chit onto the counter.

Yeah, just getting up and leaving after that question? Not a good sign. Figuring he'd be better off without knowing the asshole's name? Even worse sign. And right now Vega was way too deep into his adrenaline reserves to just leave it at that.

Besides, wasn't like there were any Collectors on the Citadel to take his frustration out on. Maybe he'd actually stop a crisis from happening before it got people fucking killed.

Outsiders

1.

Maybe the fact this was an actual, like, honest to god crisis would keep the usual bullshit at bay?

FCC algorithms had gone over Dr. T'Soni's data several times by now. If something was off—if something should've tripped up the automated fact-checkers or read too much like a wild assertion—they'd find it. Up on the big screen in NewsNet's main boardroom was a checkerboard of digital data blocks, each one corresponding to a theme that a different set of algorithms had pulled out from all the information that'd been collected—or, y'know, dropped into the lap of a Westerlund reporter because…reasons, apparently. Yeah, so, all that aside…there were just a few data blocks with yellow highlights on them. "Passible, but get us some more evidence," they said.

So…on the one hand: better than some stories! On the way, way more important other hand, most of those stories didn't involve…all of this. The pan-galactic conspiracies and dead/undead Spectres and just a hint—a petite peu—of a Lovecraftian fever dream. It was "Big(TM)." It was the kind of big that would've gotten senior people interested even if the whole screen was yellow. And the fact that it'd been dropped on FCC's laps by a Westerlund reporter? No no—the Westerlund reporter? Yeah, "somehow," senior people had found out well before Emily told any of them.

And here they were, in the main boardroom, with Emily and Khalisah and the ghost of Liara T'Soni—the senior people sitting, the one and a half reporters standing just next to the screen.

Sispius Genedas, Executive Producer of Citadel NewsNet.

Clara McMichaels, Managing Editor of just about everything else, but also technically NewsNet.

Medorm Pezor, FCC General Counsel and VP of Risk Management.

A turian, a human, and a salarian all walked into a galactic conspiracy and said: but is it news?

She'd seen Clara exactly once before and that'd been for a lecture on "taking information from Spectres, including the ones without talons and carapaces that get in your personal space at ungodly hours of the night," which uh, yeah, that was a thing NewsNet people had to deal with.

Much as Emily totally wanted to hold onto that thought, though, what she was really thinking at the moment was: will the total wordcount of what I say in this room his double digits, or is gonna go how I think it'll go?

"That block in the upper left corner," Clara said. "The one that's only got two files in it—why is it yellow?"

"One of the files says Liara T'Soni is dead," Sispius said.

"And that's what's making it yellow?"

"Until we insert a third file that confirms she is."

"And we don't have that file, asked the woman who knows how the system works and was focused on the conspicuous lack of important data?"

"Yeah, well, if we did it'd be in there and the block wouldn't be yellow. Said the man who basically answered all of your questions the first time he opened his mouth."

Emily was going to say something, but Sispius shifted in his seat long enough and loudly enough to cut her off and keep talking.

"That block doesn't interest me," he said. "I'm not worried about that block. What I'm worried about is the one in the middle—the one that says Terra Firma's just the tip of the spear. We turn that green and we'll have a pretty solid story. We leave as is and we're inciting panic—or at least we'll be accused of it. And I think I speak on behalf of common sense when I say we can't just leave it out because we hate the colour."

"Common sense and the structural health of institutions are going through a terrible divorce at the moment," Clara said, "and as their attorney I'd appreciate it if you didn't bring it up in public."

"Overwrought metaphor aside," Sispius said, "the fact is, people will speculate—they'll go hunting. We say a political party and a multi-billion credit company are puppets of terrorists and they'll say: who else can I throw under the bus? So let's make sure whoever we throw can't get back up and sue us."

"And I absolutely love the idealism from you—I truly do—but imagine all the future good you'll have to put aside when you're dragged in front of Parliament just because you're defending the colour yellow."

"Let's be honest here: your Parliament will probably get last dibs on this—we'll be too tired from the Council interrogations to even notice what they're saying. I'm telling you this so you know I've thought through all the repercussions—not to make you squirm or want to shoot me."

"Getting a distinctly different perspective on this side of the table, Sispius, believe it or not."

Emily saw Khalisah look over at her in the corner of her eye, and no, she wasn't gonna turn her head any more than that. Yes, Khalisah, this was normal—shut up.

Medorm, who'd spent the entire time staring at the screen with his fist resting on his mouth, leaned back in his chair. "When we plugged all of Dr. T'Soni's alleged data into the computers, were we looking at the same distribution of green to yellow? Or did we slowly build up some confidence in what she's claiming?"

"I don't know," Sispius said.

"There are other people in the room," Medorm said.

All eyes went to Emily and Khalisah. Sispius's were staring the hardest.

"I don't work here," Khalisah said.

"A one hundred percent true statement," Sispius said. "Emily, what've you added?"

Emily took a breath. "Dr. T'Soni was pretty thorough—we really haven't added much. The only thing we touched up were some of the dates and, uh, I think the list of major stockholders in Cord-Hislop is…newer."

"They make engines, right?" Clara said.

"They make lots of engines," Sispius said. "Half the Hierarchy Fleet and pretty much anything smaller than an Alliance cruiser have Cord-Hislop engines." He turned to Clara. "In risk management speak, that's bad."

"Sispius, if I can speak with as managerial an air as possible: if you don't drop the patronizing tone I'll firebomb your house. Okay?"

"She will, too," Sispius said. "I caught her trying to blow up the newsroom once. Or you'd just shoved a metal container into the microwave—I can't remember what it was."

"Sispius?" Medorm said. All eyes turned to him again.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Sispius shrugged. "Loud and clear, Technically-Not-My-Boss."

Medorm turned to Emily and Khalisah. "Returning to the thing I actually care about: is there any indication, that you two have found, that makes you think Cord-Hislop is the key to all this? Because much as Sispius is walking a razor wire at the moment, he's right about the implications."

"I don't work here," Khalisah said.

"Two correct statements," Sispius said. "Damn—the Westerlund girl is really on a roll."

"For the record," Clara said, "the majority of the implications have been articulated by me. And I'm not going to stick my neck out too much for the other party here," she looked at Sispius, "but I think the galaxy would be better off if you didn't let your problems with women get in the way of running a newsroom."

"I don't have a problem—I can quit women any time I want."

"I just said 'shut up'," Medorm said. "You know what happens when someone high in the corporate hierarchy says 'shut up'? In normal workplaces, people shut up. We have things that can make you shut up—don't force me to use them."

"I'm feeling some misappropriated blame," Clara said.

"Best way to guarantee he shuts up is to make you shut up too. Sorry, we live in that kind of world and I'm paid too much to bother changing it."

It was getting really hard not to look at Khalisah, so yeah, shut up please, people I can't talk back to without fighting other freelancers for trash.

Medorm was still looking at Emily, though. So…guess it's time to talk again.

"We don't know. There are…some weird things about it. I mean, this wasn't in Liara's stuff, but there've been rumours for decades that Cord-Hislop's lobbying department is…I guess you could use 'tip of the spear' there, too. Industrial spies and blackmail and that's how they get so many military contracts—you know, that kind of thing." Emily rubbed the back of her neck. "The algorithms flagged how there's no information on who 'Cord' or 'Hislop' are. Were, uh, pretty…pretty sure there's nobody in the company with those names, not after we checked. We thought about ignoring it and just letting it stay yellow but, the name sort of gets to the beginning of all this, if you think about it. I'm pretty interested in that."

Medorm steepled his fingers, turned to Khalisah again.

"I already told you: I don't work here," she said.

"And about that: how many of your people know you're in enemy territory?"

Khalisah crossed her arms. "They don't tag me. If I'm out pursuing a story, my 'people' have faith in me."

"Let's…try not to lie to our new friends, all right? If Westerlund knew you were talking with us, it'd get violent."

"I have a contract. I gave a contract to your employee."

"Yeah, and, it's a fill-in-the-blanks. A template. You can get these at a corner store." Medorm leaned back in his chair again. "The reason I'm asking is, because, it's my job to worry about people shutting us down. Now, with you here, I have to worry about three organizations doing that: Westerlund, FCC…and the whole Citadel Council, because they just got a big bag of letters saying, 'my kid keeps asking why the ship Mommy's serving on is made from terrorist parts and it's ruining Christmas.'"

"Can I say something?" Sispius said.

"No—you're fired."

"Nah, you're joking."

"Say that to me again in five minutes—we'll see what direction my mood's gone." Medorm shook his head. "I guess, what I'm trying to get across is: none of the blocks are red because the algorithms don't understand the propensity for viewer overreactions to ruin the universe. And right now, from where I'm sitting—through that filer—our story is: a dead lady found out an extremist political party gets information from a terrorist group and her ghost told us that isn't very nice."

"And in fairness to the ghost," Clara said, "that was really the main focus of her video, if I'm remembering it correctly."

"The judges are unanimous," Sispius said. "Truly a proud day for the news. And better yet, we just saved ourselves some legwork."

"You said not five minutes ago we shouldn't toss it just because we hate the colour," Clara said.

"Well assuming I still have a job, I'd like to show solidarity with my fellow decision-makers in the hopes this puts to bed the accusation that I'm not a team player."

"About thirty more miles of tunneling upwards before you hit that point."

Emily's resistance broke down; she looked at Khalisah. It wasn't a quick enough look to see her reaction, which was good, because Emily knew the look on her own face. It was a white flag, that's what it was.

"It's a mighty fine story," Medorm said, starting to stand. "And a mighty important one, too. We'll just need to trim some of the things that incite panic and/or make it sound like we're trying to burry Terra Firma—which is what Westerlund would normally accuse us of doing if we didn't have one of their leading voices in our very own boardroom."

"Try saying that without spitting," Khalisah said. Medorm looked…pretty much neutral, actually. He walked towards Khalisah, stopped right in front of her.

"The best thing you can do, now, is eliminate one of the three potential plug-pullers—the one you actually have some control over." He started walking again, to the exit, with the other two senior people following behind. "Do that and you've got legal's support to run the story."

"Put everything on my desk when you're done," Sispius said.

"Or my desk if you actually want it filed on time," Clara said.

And then it was just Emily and Khalisah, alone with the green and yellow checkboard on the main screen in the boardroom.

Yeah…the white flags were definitely out in force today. Without question.

Emily finally turned to face Khalisah with an actual conscious look. See the triumph and the…the meanness (god, thanks English language, really appreciate you failing me right now) and just about everything else that Khalisah the Mighty, Khalisah the Determined, Khalisah the "Getting Punched by a Krogan is Worth Part of the Job, Even if It's Because I Was Being Racist At the Time."

"Shit," Khalisah said. "Be a lot easier if we had a finished story first. Westerlund's lawyers are dicks."

"That's…it?" Emily said.

Khalisah snarled. "What? What's it? We got the go-ahead—you're not the one that needs to pull a new contract out of their ass in the next two hours."

"I…nothing. Fine. Whatever." Emily palmed her forehead. "They didn't even watch the video it…Liara had a million other points she brought up."

"You were the one talking about how Liara died for this."

"That's not—I'm not afraid of getting killed! I just…" Emily looked at the floor. "Never mind."

"Take the rest to Councilor Anderson then, if you're so beat up about it."

"I said never mind. And also, you heard Liara: he's had to do enough."

"That's his fault for taking the position." Khalisah pointed at the door. "Your people are forcing me to grovel in front of my lawyers. Am I needed for anything else? Or can I go and get this over with?"

Emily looked at the checkboard again, then sighed. Yeah, white flags…just white flags and this sense of relief that she really, really didn't want, because it was gross to have it and it was misplaced anyways. Not like the story being scuttled somehow erased the fact that Cerberus had stupid reasons for being evil. Not like it erased the fact that stupid evil had infected pretty much everything.

"Well?" Khalisah said.

"Yeah yeah, fine," Emily said. "I'll…come with you, if you want. It's pretty much all automated from here."

Khalisah paused, but eventually—without her expression changing one iota—nodded.

"Then stop wasting time. It's not like we're just around the block or anything."

Emily and Khalisah started to make their way out of NewsNet's newsroom. Only after a minute of walking did Khalisah's expression change.

"So…was any of that normal?" she said. "The…talking and bickering and everything. Is that how it normally works?"

"That's the part you picked up on?" Emily said, still mostly looking at the floor.

"I picked up on the fact that you looked uncomfortable as hell. Guess I'll stop doing that, then."

Emily still wanted to look at the floor, but shaking her head—just letting herself close her eyes for a second—she eventually pulled her head back towards her new "partner".

"Let's…just say this is a pretty top-heavy place," Emily said.

Khalisah stared—glared glowered however you wanted to put it. But, again, her expression softened just a tad.

"Could be worse," she said. "At least none of them tried touching you."

"Hah, yeah guess that's true." Emily looked over and the expression on Khalisah's face, she could tell she'd screwed up immediately. "Oh, Jesus sorry I-I shouldn't have, um…I shouldn't have laughed."

"You're right," Khalisah said, through gritted teeth, "you shouldn't have."

"It's just that w-we all, like, joke that that happens so I didn't…I didn't know it—"

Khalisah picked up her pace and Emily decided to shut up, which she shouldn't done a whole lifetime ago. God, it…why was the world so fucking evil and stupid? Was it always like this? How stupid and evil did that make her for not noticing?

Emily tried to keep pace a bit more with Khalisah and had just enough mental energy available to notice the news story on one of the screens talking about a shooting in Zakera Ward.

Joking to herself about how she should buy a gun helped distract from everything else that was going wrong today.

2.

It had been…god, Brooks actually didn't know how long it'd been since Hal left, because just about everything felt like it was going wrong today. It'd been long enough that staying in the hotel was decidedly no longer an option, that's for sure, and it became all the more acute after she dug that tracker out of her arm that most agents were too asured of their own value to bother hunting for. Were it the case that she had any semblance of trust in him or this entire nightmare of an organization, she would've…well, stayed put. Done her job. Sorry, done what had been ordered of her, which was stay put and wait to do her job, once the funny logistics had been sorted out. The funny logistics of apparently two different Cerberus information sources giving information to two different parts of Terra Firma. A minor hiccup, really, save for the fact that Hal couldn't read subtext to save his bloody life.

It wasn't just that Cerberus had apparently doubled up on the number of Terra Firma sieves; it was the fact that these information sources didn't seem to agree. "Drop housing," Wexler had said. As in: Hal had told him to do that, but this mystery information source told Charles Saracino otherwise.

A minor discrepancy, really, save for the fact that we were talking about a major policy issue, here.

Any Brooks that obeyed those orders and left herself at the mercy of that kind of organization assuredly would've been killed a long, long time ago, so what a very much alive (and, cheers, planning on staying that way, all the same to you) Brooks planned on doing was Operation: Be Difficult To Track Down. And since it was becoming increasingly clear that Hal's authority amounted to something south of fuck all, the lynchpin of the plan was: accomplish the goal she knew was from The Illusive Man—the top dog, the big kahuna, Mr. "I am Alpha and Omega" himself—and bank on that fact to save her skin if or when Hal got in a "mood." Of the violent variety, of course: Brooks doubted he'd lie about avoiding firefights like so much good manners, given how people with repulsive personalities tended not to tear themselves down, but this was still Cerberus. There'd be tricks. He might drop the elevator on her—or pay a volus doorman to do it on his behalf, just to laugh about it later.

So that was what Brooks set off to do, as part of Operation: Be Hard To Track Down. Sorry, difficult to—it, fuck it, it didn't matter. Because once Brooks got about halfway out the hotel doors, out into the streets of Zakera Ward, that utterly useless voice in the back of her head said: killing al-jilani, are we? Weren't there a few questions that you couldn't get rid round that idea?

Fuck off, voice in my head.

No, but it was true. None of this made sense! Khalisah was one of the most consistent—well, being fair, nobody hit Cerberus's stated priorities perfectly; for one thing, Westerlund was the opposite of silent over Admiral Kahoku's death, and not in a good way—but Khalisah'd hit on the main points. Humanity needed to be strong; humanity needed to look out for itself; humanity was at risk of being subsumed by cultures far older than it; humanity was only as respected as its fleet was massive; humanity needed to stay human. Ostensibly, all those checked Cerberus's many boxes—Terra Firma's, too, which given the situation with Joe, you'd think would mean all three would form some troika of human defenders.

Three heads, right? Like the bloody dog itself. Was that it? Was all this an exercise in keeping a few of Cerberus's heads from growing back? Brooks never did understand where the metaphor stopped with this organization. Did we get the name because the organizational chart matched the myth, or was the Big Thing supposed to be both Cerberuses guarding the gates of hell? Didn't fit either description at this point, really: only one head was visible—that was already established—but given the situation with Shepard, you could make the argument Cerberus hadn't so much been guarding hell as inviting the fucking demons in for tea.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Cerberus had pivoted and Khalisah was now a liability. We tried resurrecting someone and it bombed on us, yes of course—but imagine if it'd worked. Then hell's not a thing anymore, so what use is a guard dog? All that talk about staying human? Well it was a bit of a stretch anyways since half our people had altered genes and cybernetic implants and more than a few plans belonged to the salarians, technically, if you wanted to get all legal about it. But now, no point in pretending, we can take any slab of meat and jam some wires into it and Jesus wept, as humanity's finest walked among the living again, plus or minus some parts they weren't born with. So, masks off then! Masks off, ladies and gents, and welcome in the brand-new Cerberus! What're we to call ourselves now—the Red Fucking Death?

God, "masks"…she was starting to sound like Kai Leng. God, red—she was thinking about Agebinium, wasn't she? It would've been grand if all this was some delayed mental breakdown, but it wasn't. Something was decidedly suspicious about all this, and pending flashbacks to the N7 bodies strewn upon Agebinium's salt flats had little role in that.

Brooks had wandered far enough that she was in the heart of Zakera Ward now, all neon red and background blue. The occasional alleyway moved in and out of the shops and stores and what-not, but for the most part, the ward was intensely vertical. Stairs upon stairs upon stairs. Once you got to the main business district it evened itself out a bit, but only because the accessible bits were the interconnected streets. The upper floors stopped being extensions of an open market and started being office buildings, and you needed a pass to get into most. Then you hit the residential areas and it started looking a lot more horizontal, like an actual city. Were you to think about plotting an assassination, the residential area would be a good place. Actual roofs, for one thing. Another thing—no pesky office tower security.

Brooks' target wasn't heading in that direction, though. A quick scan through some poorly guarded CCTV cameras and Brooks found Khalisah exiting a skycar launched from the Presidium. And Emily Wong was with her. Now, see, there was a journalist that Brooks figured would be in Cerberus's—no no no, done this dance already. Just…decide if you're actually going through with The Illusive Man's likely non-negotiable ask and…yes. Decide that and then decide how you're planning on getting off the Citadel—preferably without Hal in tow.

The part of Zakera Ward Khalisah and Emily Wong had landed in wasn't far from Westerlund's New Division HQ, so you didn't need a genius IQ or fancy algorithms to guess where they'd be heading. A curiosity that Emily Wong was with her, to be sure, but far from the most relevant thing on Brooks' mind. What she should be focusing on was internal layouts, possible ambush sites, structural weaknesses (all right maybe too far with that)—something that'd get Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani back out onto the street in a body bag.

Brooks sat on a bench. And waited. And waited some more. The only thing in her mind was the fact that nothing was in her mind except this train of thought.

"You can come back now, voices in my head," she said. A passing asari evidently overheard her. Fine, not like she wasn't legitimately crazy. Only crazy people got involved with organizations that killed their employees unless they hit an assassination quota.

Brooks didn't think Cerberus actually did that but the fact she wasn't entirely sure they didn't was…well, part of the whole problem, really.

More waiting. In that time, she'd hacked and rehacked the cameras inside the building about fifty times. Piss-poor security, which is truly what you wanted from a news organization, but not a lot was going on inside. So far as Brooks could tell, the only people Khalisah bothered to speak to were lawyers.

"If you're suing FCC, it's likely best to not bring a witness with you," Brooks said to herself. Two more people saw her; she pointed to her ear like she was on a call. Best not to get C-SEC involved, all things considered.

And that's about when she realized the voices in her head were back. And they were screaming out something very loud, very forceful, and—the more she let it leach into her consciousness—very persuasive. The reason she'd not heard them yet was because a thick fog had settled on top of her brain. A red fog.

Same colour as Agebinium.

Brooks was going to defect.

It'd be a weird defection since, so far as the Alliance knew, there wasn't much room for Brooks to defect. She worked for them, after all. Once they realized that was only a quarter of the truth, it would…get interesting. This wouldn't exactly be like slipping on a new suit.

But the thing was…well, it was Shepard. Cerberus had gone and turned her into that…thing on Agebinium. So much for remaining human—for all Brooks knew, Shepard's current state was half intentional. It clearly hadn't worked out for them, but what's the ultimate difference between a raging psychotic zombie and an army Thorian Creepers? Or—and now we're back to Kahoku—what about the rachni?

For an organization so dedicated to protecting humanity, they had an awful track record of outsourcing their job to monsters.

So…it was decided. And there was a benefit to doing it now, in the middle of the Citadel. She'd be going into Westerlund and informing a popular host—and the network that employed her—that a large chunk of the 18-49 demographic (shut up Hal) was in mortal danger. This information was being transferred out of the goodness of Brooks' heart. Of course, if you're looking for compensation, a nice letter to the Alliance—perhaps in the form of "we're not letting you assassinate the character of the person who just stopped a real assassination" (or something; Brooks wasn't a journalist)—that explained how Brooks was more useful free and reintegrated into society than as a prisoner…though if prisoners had sufficient protection then maybe a middle ground could be found.

And should Brooks discover that Westerlund was staffed entirely by mindless puppets for Cerberus, or some genius with an underdeveloped sense of logic claimed "we like Terra Firma—Terra Firma likes Cerberus—therefore we like Cerberus," then all was not lost. Emily Wong was there, and Emily Wong would have to be a world-class actor to have fooled Brooks. Put differently: this wouldn't be a story Emily would pass up.

They might just have to shoot their way out of Westerlund News HQ. Which was fine—it was turning into that kind of day.

Brooks started walking and reached the front desk in no time at all—not enough time to think of a reason to back out of her plan (fuck you one final time, Hal).

"I need to speak to Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani," Brooks said. "It's urgent—lives are quite literally in peril."

As the receptionist struggled to think of a response, Brooks noticed on a nearby screen that there was an "incident" at the Human Embassy. A big enough incident that, rumour had it, a Spectre had been deployed.

Yes, it truly was turning into that kind of day, wasn't it?

3.

It was turning into the kind of day Emily just…just fucking hated. Which was stupid to say given everything that was going on but, here she was, literal belly of the beast, waiting for Westerlund's lawyers to get back from wherever the hell they were going—because they had to o-k a friggin story about Cerberus—and…and all she could think of was apologizing to Khalisah.

They weren't inside a boardroom or anything: the lawyers had dumped them in some kinda upstairs waiting room. Which was weird, because Khalisah had a massive office and she was supposed to be the face of the network and, y'know, all that stuff. A lot of people were walking around like in awe of her which, yeah, Emily sort of expect that—but not everyone was. And that…meant something? Maybe?

Okay so it was the easiest thing in the world to have assumptions about how things worked, but apparently trying to actually figure out what those assumptions meant if true was…harder. Which was shit, because Emily was a journalist. And y'know what? She was a pretty fucking good journalist too. It just…Westerlund was weird. She thought it'd be more a caricature than it really was.

Yeah, all the while realizing that Cerberus and Terra Firma were as stupid and evil as she assumed, and apparently there was something on the outskirts of the galaxy that was just waiting for them to make life even worse. What's a bigger kick in the head: realizing you missed some nuance with Westerlund, realizing there is no nuance to Cerberus or Terra Firma, or realizing that both those things are true and it doesn't make any of them less dangerous?

"You've sighed fifteen times since we sat down," Khalisah said, beside Emily.

Emily looked up, realized she'd been hunched over and resting her chin on one of her hands. "Oh, uh…yeah. Sorry."

"It's annoying as hell. I shouldn't have to tell you that."

"Yeah yeah I get it."

"And friendly advice? Acting like stuff bothers you just attracts dickheads. Cut it out and they'll leave you alone."

"And if I wear three layers of shirts they'll stop looking at my boobs."

"Excuse me?"

Emily sat up straight. "Okay I'm sorry about the last thing, but c'mon that's—what you just said, about dickheads, that's like the mirror image of 'you dressed like you asked for it.'"

"You're sorry about what?"

"The last thing! The—back at FCC, when I made the…y'know."

"No, spell it out. Say it in full."

Emily stared at Khalisah, the other woman's arms crossed and a look of…actually she just looked tired, not quite like Liara but getting there. Emily looked at her and took another—hopefully quiet and like discrete—breath.

"I'm sorry I made a joke about…workplace sexual assault."

"Something apparently everyone does because they've got us all figured out, right?"

"Well…yeah. Yeah the, the first part." Emily sunk more into her chair. "Not the second part. Clearly we don't."

Khalisah stared, kept staring, stared some more, then…just shook her head. She leaned back in her own chair, too.

"The lawyers said they'll have a new contract in an hour. They're usually pretty good at time management, so once that's done, we're back on the clock."

"How much do they know?"

"As much as I told them the first time. Despite what Sisyphus said, I didn't just pull the contract from a corner store."

"Sispius. And it wasn't him that said that, it was Med…never mind. Look um…sorry if we're changing the subject too quickly from, y'know, you telling me off."

"Emily, I really don't give a shit."

"Okay but…fine. Fine." Emily held back a sigh, even though she wanted to let one out like it'd give her a nicotine rush. "So if the lawyers know, then the rest of your office is on board?"

"Our lawyers stick to their lane."

"But so the rest of your office doesn't know?"

"I told you back in the restaurant—when they see the projected numbers, they'll forgot any complaints they might've had."

"They'll honor the contract?"

"They'll look at what'll happen to their bottom line if I raise a stink, and then they'll make the right decision."

Emily looked at the ground, then back at Khalisah. "Okay so…I know you're not doing this for the numbers. I can tell because it'd be so, so much easier to just…I dunno, keep doing what you're doing. So um…why? You never told me that part?"

Khalisah's eyes narrowed, her lips looked poised to say something with some vigor behind it, but…nothing was said. She just stared ahead and left Emily sitting there, watching, like Khalisah was gonna grow a second head and it was gonna say, I am her conscience, I have retaken control.

Then, Khalisah spoke.

"A lot of people hate it when good things happen for reasons they think are bad. It's stupid. Don't go looking for something that doesn't matter, Emily."

Emily shook her head. "Except sometimes it does matter. Because, I mean…doing something good once is…anybody can do that. And unless you've got a better way of predicting people, sometimes a person's reasons are the best way of figuring out the commitment, y'know?"

Khalisah looked at Emily, and for a second there was just…a look. Nothing extra behind it, just one person looking at another person.

Then Khalisah said, "What'd I just say?"

"Uh, something wrong?" Emily said.

"Jesus Christ you're so punchable."

"Says the woman with—"

Another woman was coming up the stairs. She got Khalisah's attention right away.

"What?" Khalisah said.

"Someone in the lobby's asking for you," the woman said. "She's saying lives are at stake or something."

"People think lives are at stake all the time," Khalisah said.

"Yeah, but I think this woman's military. I'm pretty sure I can see dog-tags."

Khalisah looked at Emily, Emily looked at Khalisah. Then Khalisah stood up.

"Jesus Christ today…" She turned back to Emily. "Coming, or not?"

"Yeah 'cause I wanna stick around to—" Emily caught herself, bit her lip, just stood up and pushed that thought out of her head. "Yeah, I'm coming."

Her and Khalisah followed the receptionist down to the lobby, past TV screens that were now talking about how Councilor Anderson was apparently evacuated from the Human Embassy. Emily mouthed a "what the hell…?" but Khalisah's eyes were straight ahead, not paying any attention to things besides what was right in front of her.

They reached the lobby and found a woman waiting for them in the lobby. Emily couldn't see dog-tags but the fact she looked so calm, despite what she'd told the receptionist, it…it was one of those things were, yeah, you might just assume she was military. She'd seen that before, except for Shepard it was…like way calmer. Like a whole new dimension of calm. Unflappable but not in an emotionless way. How'd that even work? It was all irrelevant now, apparently, and…and yeah, that just brought the reality of what they were doing crashing back onto Emily's head.

"Maya Brooks," the woman said, holding her hand out to shake Khalisah's. Khalisah didn't budge, so Emily held hers out.

"You're looking for Khalisah?" Emily said.

"And you, actually," Maya said. "Fancy seeing both of you in the same place."

"You said 'lives are at stake,'" Khalisah said. "You'd better not be joking."

"I assure you, I'm not." Brooks crossed her arms. "Lives are, indeed, at stake. Chief among them is yours, Khalisah."

And…there weren't the cover. The tough girl exterior. The 'always in command' appearance. Khalisah's eyes got wide and now she was standing off balance. "W…what?" she said.

"I've information suggesting you're the target of a potential assassination," Maya said.

Khalisah immediately turned to Emily and her look was a mixture of fear and a scowl, like she…oh no you don't.

"Oh my god," Emily said, "why the fuck are you looking at me like that?"

This Maya person stepped forward. "Right, let me avoid a scuffle, then. My sources indicate it's Cerberus that's after you, not Miss Wong's employers or anyone related."

Khalisah wasn't looking at Emily anymore; she was taking a step back, her eyes even wider now, her hand close to her mouth but not quite touching it. "Oh my god Emily the OSD…"

"Beg pardon?" Maya said. "OSD what—what OSD are you—?"

"Hold up," Emily stepped between them, put a hand on Khalisah's shoulder to keep her from falling over. "Before we say literally anything else, what organization are you with and let's see some credentials, please."

"Of course," Maya said. "If you'll allow me, I'll reach into my pocket I'll—"

"You're phrasing that really terribly," Emily said.

"God, pardon me, but whilst I'm happy to oblige we really must remember that—"

And then the doors to the lobby opened and in walked a man with prosthetics running all down one side of his body, from face to arms. He looked like he'd just walked out of a cyberpunk movie but Emily, Emily saw this Maya person's eyes widen. And that was enough to make her start—subtly as he could—pushing Khalisah further back, away from…whatever the hell was going on.

"Leng?" Maya said.

That name…that…oh god.

"Kai Leng?" Emily said, as she stopped pushing Khalisah back. "Like the butcher Kai Leng? Maya you know him?"

"Leng, what the hell are you doing here?" Maya said.

"She knows me," Leng said, looking directly at Emily. "Only other survivor of the Midway, isn't that right? Walked away from a drive core meltdown, except you and I both know something far worse happened."

"Leng we…I am…we can talk about that later, if you really wish, but right now—"

Now Leng's attention shifted to her, to Maya. A bloodshot eye peaked out from just above his prosthetics, webbed black material that contorted as Leng scowled. "I'm here because everyone's being deceived. If Westerlund's the only place on this festering station willing to say what needs saying, then I'm right where I need to be. Survivor or not, you either get what I need to do, or you need to get out of the way."

"Christ," Maya said. "Your…fucking holy crusade is getting real fucking boring, you know that? I watched everything, you understand. I'd put the blame for all those dead N7's fifty percent on Shepard, fifty percent on you." Maya turned to Emily. "Obviously, you've a lot of questions."

"Uh, do I even have to fucking say anything?" Emily said.

Before she could, the door opened again, and in walked a man made entirely of muscles with tattoos that probably had to be welded on, Christ that guy was big!

"Hey, Steel," the guy said. "Really fucking suspicious, walking into this building. You know they only make bullshit here, right?" He looked at the congregation in the lobby, stopped, then held up his hands. "All right, so this is a thing."

Leng ignored him, even though it sure looked like this new guy was talking to him. New guy, though, wasn't having it.

"Hey, Steel, still talkin' to you, comprender?"

"Leng," Maya said, pointing at the new guy though, "I strongly suggest you finish your business with—"

"Wait," the new guy said. "Leng? As in Kai Leng? The Butcher of Torfan?" Now the new guy started walking—actually more like sprinting—closer to the group. "Oh, now you'n I got beef."

The new guy got to within a foot of Leng before Leng reached out and snagged the new guy's shift. Except new guy grabbed a hold of Leng's free arm—the one without prosthetics—and didn't look like he was in any hurry to let go.

"Try it, fuck face," new guy said. "I'll get you a matching set, promise."

"Oh Jesus Christ," Maya said.

"Nothing to say?" new guy said. "Heard all about how you run your mouth. Anybody tell you what we say behind your back?"

"Cute you think I care."

"Oh, I think you do. Because nobody who bitches as much as you's gonna have thick skin." New guy looked at the prosthetics-covered arm holding his shirt. "That why it came off so easily? Shit, probably like ripping up onion paper, no?"

A blade appeared. New guy didn't look the least bit phased. And then the doors opened again a-and oh, oh my god what the fuck was Councilor Anderson doing here?

And…Joe Wexler?"

"God," Emily heard Anderson say, under his breath, probably, but his voice still carried. "You two—stand down! That's an order!"

Leng and the new guy didn't, and the only reason anybody's attention got pulled away from Leng and his knife and new guy and his distinct lack of a weapon was because Joe Wexler started talking.

Talking. He started screaming.

"Fuck—FUCK! I've seen her she's—she's fucking Cerberus! She's fucking Cerberus an' that fucking FREAK is working with her!"

Joe reached for Anderson's side arm and started a wrestling match. Leng and new guy were still grappling but were looking around at Maya like that was new information, really new information despite Leng and her clearly knowing each other. And Maya was backing up against a wall like Khalisah'd been earlier and where the fuck Khalisah was right behind her like two seconds a—

And then the receptionist appeared from behind the counter with a Carnifex pistol and once the bullets started flying and someone screamed out in pain and then Emily was on the floor, with a weight on top of her.

And the world just started spinning and spinning and spinning and…

The Ones in the Shadows

1.

The world spun slightly as he stepped out of his skycar, back in 2162. He found his footing quickly, though—which was good, as he'd just bought the first new suit of his life. He'd never been in the public spotlight much; it hadn't mattered that he dressed like a spacer for most of his life. But it was the symbolism of the thing, he recognized that. A new suit was necessary. A new suit for a new phase.

Jack walked into a circular office overlooking Bekenstein, the skeletons of future white spires and flying columns of cars and, off in the distance, plateaus with thick green foliage. Someday in the future this planet would be humanity's answer to Illium. Today, that day in the past, it was an untamed wilderness ripe for exploitation by the prepared.

The man in front of him sat behind a crescent desk that was completely uncluttered. For the world at large, none of the important work happened at that desk; it all happened somewhere else, somewhere prying eyes couldn't see.

He gave Henry Lawson, CDR Holding's managing partner and chairman, a small smile.

"Jack," Lawson said, nodding. "We're still calling you that, correct?"

"The days are counting down," Jack said, taking a seat, "but we're not quite at the end of it, yet."

"I see. Good to see you've cleaned up a bit, either way. Slightly more dignified appearance, don't you think?"

"Being a spacer isn't dignified?"

Lawson smiled a toothy grin. "Depends on the polling firm. Now, just the two of us?"

"Just you and me, yeah." Jack patted his chest, felt the outline of a cigarette box, decided against pulling one out just yet.

"Discussing the deal, then? Or something else?"

Jack reached for the package anyways, but just cupped it in his hands. "No, not the deal. Better to let the lawyers handle that on their own."

"So it's about something else."

"It's about moving on from the past."

He and Lawson stared at each other, though truth be told Jack started staring past the other man fairly quickly. The skyline was more interesting. And if things went according to plan, he wouldn't see much in the way of a skyline for a very, very long time.

"Is there any chance I could convince you to speak in a straight line?" Lawson said eventually. Jack kept cupping the cigarette case.

"I'm talking about Powell, Henry. It's getting hard not to think of him as a liability."

Lawson shrugged. "And this is a problem?"

Jack straightened his posture. "From a personal standpoint? No—it happens. But he's embedded. I tried to tell him he's hemorrhaging support but, that aside, he's still got a following."

"So when he zigs instead of zags, and you want to pull him back, it's hard not to do so in a way that draws attention."

"If I could even get that far, yeah, that'd be a major issue."

Lawson leaned back in his chair and, after a second, shrugged again. "The operative question, of course, is in what way does this interest me?"

Jack looked at the floor, and kept his smile to himself. It threatened to peak out, on more than one occasion, but he did an admirable job of controlling his own facial muscles.

When he looked up from the floor, Henry Lawson's face was as smug as when Jack had walked into the office. And he saw that it was good.

"Only to the extent you want it to interest you," Jack said. "But I'd rather be told I'm oversharing than wasting time patching up communications holes in the future."

"It's just that this is plainly Oleg's jurisdiction," Lawson said. "Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, of course. But we all have our roles. Mine is money and materials, not…whatever you're clearly planning."

"Nothing's been planned yet," Jack said. "It wasn't going to be until I spoke with you."

"Me and not Oleg?"

Jack nodded. "Hired guns shouldn't be given more information than they need. Especially if you're paying them to be backstabbers."

Lawson nodded, too. "Suppose I see your point. Tell you what: on military or paramilitary matters, I see no reason to bog you down in bureaucracy."

"That's appreciated, Henry."

Lawson stood up, offered a hand, didn't notice or couldn't notice the slight change in Jack's disposition. "In matters monetary and mineral, however…well I really should get back to it, you understand."

"Perfectly," Jack said.

A few minutes later and Jack was in a skycar, letting the autopilot drive him out to a non-descript part of the planet, holding his omni-tool out in front of him. A second after that, and an orange image of Rear Admiral Oleg Petrovsky, Director of Operations in Alliance Intelligence Command, stood over the passenger seat of the car.

"Jack," Petrovsky said, "you're wearing a suit. Strange times indeed."

"A necessary change," Jack said, "if I'm leaving 'Jack Harper' behind."

"Pity. There's an 'everyman' quality to that name. Speaking purely from experience, oftentimes it's harder to pin a face to a generic citizen than a pseudonym—particularly a flamboyant one."

"Sending the message that the Alliance created Cerberus carries its own weight, Admiral."

"And with just a nugget of truth to it, too. Don't worry, Jack—I know I can't convince you otherwise. Just thought I'd register my opinion before you're officially subsumed by the 'Illusive Man'." The Admiral's image looked around the skycar. "Just us two, then?"

"Just you and me, yeah," Jack said. "What we're about to discuss is mostly a paramilitary matter, anyways."

"Ah, so the reference to 'the old man' is…a bit tragic, then. Pity to that, too. The man can hold a crowd like no other."

"Growing that crowd is a different discussion."

"Yes I suppose I could see why you'd be worried about that. If you think direct action is necessary then you've certainly got my support. I worry about the political impacts, though. Half of Cerberus's battles will be fought in the boardroom."

Jack nodded. "We might need support on that front. Anything to give Cerberus's financial assets an edge." Jack took out a cigarette and lit it. He avoided smoking for so long because starships and space stations were poor places to start that habit. Moving forward, he wouldn't have that restriction.

He said, "Obviously you know how to accomplish that goal better than anyone. All I ask is for the occasional report, in case other parts of the operation need to be realigned."

"Of course. We risk stepping on Henry's toes a tad, though, don't we?"

"It's for his own good. If we're successful in giving the invisible hand a slight nudge, CDR Holdings stands to become an economic powerhouse. When regulators start becoming interested in it, we'll want Henry to speak truthfully."

"With the added benefit of granting you just a bit more control."

Jack took a drag from his cigarette, then let it hang between his fingers. "Conflicting visions aren't a problem. Not between us three. Powell, though, is becoming an outlier."

"We've informants within a number of anti-racist and pro-Citadel groups. Shouldn't be hard to persuade one of them to pull a Kurras, though deleting records of informants is always a tricky business."

"You've found solutions before."

"True, but the new Deputy D-INT is catching things both her predecessor and her boss are want to miss. Ines Lindholm, is her name. Fancies herself the head of a numbered Fleet in a few years."

"See to it that she isn't a problem." Jack let the cigarette burn itself down to the halfway point, then ground it out. "We make a good team, Admiral. I have faith that we'll see this through."

The image flickered away and, yet again, The Illusive Man was on Cronos Station, looking out at the binary stars. Good timing: a flashing light in front of his chair indicated that someone had finally answered his hail.

A push of a button later and the image of a dishevelled man trying to hide his eyes under a baseball cap appeared in the middle of the office.

"Operative McCann," the Illusive Man said. "You're still on the Citadel."

The image of Hal McCann looked briefly terrified, then barely settled back down.

"Um…y-yeah, I'm there. Um, so far as I know that's where me orders said to be, right?"

"You'd be correct." Drag, puff. "I ask, only because your task was to shadow Operative Brooks. But as of five minutes ago, neither of you have reported in."

"Right, r-right yeah, well…about that, see, thing is—"

"It should be a simple explanation." Another drag, another puff. "It would require an interesting interpretation of orders for you to have separated, unless you had sufficient reason for making an adjustment in the field."

Hal's image grabbed at his baseball cap, apparently decided not to lift it off his head. "R-right, well that's exactly it. Um, see, got a call, not long ago, from a contact making a clearly baseless accusation. Said that Terra Firma's receiving intelligence from us from, uh, multiple sources. Inside Cerberus, I mean—like I said, obviously baseless—"

"And, yet, you're investigating it nonetheless."

Hal paused. The thing about QED images was, they were never able to capture subtle movements. Hal's image didn't look like he was breathing.

"Um…well, something to follow up on, right?"

The Illusive Man ground out his cigarette. "I might have made a different decision."

"Shit," Hal said.

The Illusive Man stood up. "Joe Wexler made that claim."

"Y-yeah he, how'd you—"

"Be quiet, please. I wasn't finished yet."

Hal's image slowly nodded.

"Mr. Wexler is a useful tool, but far from an informed one. And Mr. Saracino likes to think he's substantially more integral to both the party and humanity than any of his colleagues." He took a drink, let himself enjoy the taste of his bourbon for the briefest of seconds. "From a certain perspective, he's correct. But Mr. Saracino also knows that the leadership of Terra Firma goes to whoever serves humanity's interests best, and those interests often require a new face from time to time, for any number of reasons. Whatever he's told Joe Wexler, it reflects far more on his own attempts to remain in power, regardless of the currents, than on Cerberus's internal operations." Another drink, another pause. "Do we understand each other?"

Hal's image flickered. Any number of subtle gestures could be happening on the other side of that connection. The Illusive Man had an understanding of what they likely would be.

"Y-yeah, I think we're on the same page."

"Good." He returned to his chair. "Then I suggest you remain focused. Go back to the hotel, come up with a plan, and make sure it's clear who's responsible. There are any number of groups who'd love to see Ms. Al-Jilani dead: you're free to pick whichever one you feel is most appropriate."

"Understood, um, boss."

Understood—yes. Good, simple answer.

He ended the call, looked out at the binary stars again.

Good help was hard to find, the old saying went. Crude, but true, to an extent.

He watched Hal's tracker start its journey back to the hotel, where Brooks' tracker indicated she hadn't moved.

A minor detour, but nothing that a careful hand—like a talented gardener—couldn't deal with.

---

Good golly miss Molly, another long one. I'll keep the note brief, then, and say that the arrangement of the sections for this chapter was...uh...the result of some painful trial and error. Starting the chapter with Joe felt like too much of a lull after last chapter, doing a Memento thing for the whole chapter looked waaaay too confusing, and just screaming and asking why I can't write normally didn't get me anywhere, either.

I wanted a logically organized chapter that didn't end on someone else pulling a gun on the main cast. I compromised. I ate grilled cheese off the radiator instead.