FOUR
The Emissary
Shepard weaves through a crowd down a narrow street of the Wards. The air here is heavy, humid, and the glitter of the Serpent Nebula above is barely visible past the neon glimmer of holo-signs and the sharp angles of skyscrapers. Members of nearly all races pass by her in both directions—a turian in a business suit at one angle, a quarian with a work pack slung over her shoulder from another; a pair of volus walk close together, nearly striking Shepard's thigh by sheer girth alone, while a krogan opposite parts the crowd merely with his size. All the sights, shapes, and smells here blend together into a veritable cornucopia of mismatched cultures, her cochlear translator unable to contest with so many alien tongues spoken at once.
At her sides, weaving around a volus and past a krogan respectively, are Liara and Ashley. Ash's navy fatigues are augmented only by the shield generator affixed to her belt and the dark, leather jacket she's opted to wear over it; within, Shepard knows a Predator handgun, loaded with tungsten rounds, is folded and affixed by a more traditional holster. At a glance, Ash looks like any other civilian. Liara has changed into something lighter; she wears a scattering of whites and blues, close-fit pants and a striking, angular top in Presidium chic, which is complimented by a short-cropped jacket that, itself, is stark white. The jacket serves the same role as Ash's, allowing for the concealment of a Shuriken SMG. Shepard recalls her asari bought this set last time they were on the Citadel. She doubts Liara had this purpose in mind for it. Shepard, by contrast, the same navy dress jacket, skewed halfway casual, as before. Her customized Predator remains on her thigh, mag-locked.
The three of them round a corner at length, taking a moment to pause as the crowd continues to pass them by. They are in an alley now, a dark corridor between squat buildings, and Shepard casts it in pale orange as she opens her omni-tool. The coordinates are accurate. This should be the place. She gives Ash a look, who nods, then begins to lead the way with her two allies on either side. The Spectres' directions point to a disused maintenance area and a staircase leading up the back of a building. They have yet to find it.
"Not likin' the looks of this already, Commander," Ashley says, her voice a subdued murmur. "There are a lot of good ambush points."
"You're tellin' me," Shepard answers, her eyes scanning high and low. She draws her Predator preemptively. "Here's hoping the Spectres picked this place for its view."
"It must be incognito, at least," adds Liara. "I would have missed the turn if was not following you, Shepard."
They continue on a ways and round a corner, bringing them, finally, into view of the staircase mentioned. A keeper is the only source of movement here, its slow and deliberate limbs bringing it up the side of the staircase; from an odd angle, it continues work on reinforcements holding one of the landings in place. Just across from it, a small automated door stands locked.
Cautiously, Shepard and her allies mount the stairs and make their way toward the top; glimpses between the buildings cast shafts of lavender light from the Serpent Nebula, each a radiant blade that cuts the shadows as the squad passes. Shepard stops before the doors and looks around for an intercom. When she doesn't find one, she almost begins to wonder if she made a wrong turn somewhere. Before she can make any choice whatever, a text message reaches her omni-tool. "Welcome, Commander."
The auto-door parts, beckoning her enter. Shepard exchanges glances with Ash and Liara, but decides to enter anyway. Beyond is a short corridor, a rightward turn, and a steep descent down a staircase. The narrow paths and sharp turns which follow remind Shepard more of a tunnel than a typical piece of Citadel construction, and she wonders if the keepers would approve of it—or if, perhaps, they themselves made it. Either way, the path eventually brings them through an auto-door and into a small chamber. Here, a familiar pair await them.
"Ah, the woman of the hour," says Taleena, a warm smile on her face. "I hope you found the place okay, Shepard." She interfaces with her omni-tool for a moment, locking the door behind them. Shepard stiffens at this, but relaxes, if a little, when the asari unlocks another door ahead. This must be a security checkpoint, of a kind. Near the next door, Manok also stands. Both Spectres wear the same armour as before, but neither have drawn their weapons. The salarian dips his head by way of greeting.
"C'mon," Taleena beckons the group onward, "we have a lot to discuss."
Beyond the next door is a short corridor, leftward turn, and, finally, a broader room. This must be the actual safehouse itself. One wall is dominated in physical computer monitors, a desk and holo-interface beneath; upon another wall is a holographic projection of a map, a table below it, and a set of crates opposite are stacked adjacent to a weapon bench. There is one more door here, close to the weapon bench, which remains locked. Shepard notes, as she enters, that the monitors are displaying surveillance footage; one of them covers the back door she used to enter, while many of the others display the interior of the structure. It is indeed an active warehouse, with workers of multiple races operating alongside labour mechs.
"In case you're wondering, Commander," Manok starts, having taken position near the holo-map, "you weren't followed. We kept an eye on you as soon as you entered the Wards."
"Somehow, that's not as reassuring as you think," Shepard answers in acid sarcasm. "Either way, I'm here. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?"
"Of course," Taleena says. She gives a flick of her omni-tool, which changes the holo-map into a cascade of images. Shepard identifies pics of Sovereign during the Citadel attack, but each is interspersed with photos of clean-up crews, keepers at work, and, most particularly, a docking chamber in which a cargo freighter is nestled. "We'll start with a little background," the asari continues, "though I'm guessing you know a lot of this already. After Sovereign's attack, a lot of us," she catches Shepard's eye, "myself included, were sold on your Reaper theory. As soon as I saw what Sovereign did, how it blew through the amassed Citadel fleet like so much tissue paper, and how it took human intervention to even have a hope of stopping it, I knew the geth couldn't have made something like this. It had to be much, much older."
"We figured the Council had to have seen this too," adds Manok. "After all, Sovereign nearly killed them on the Destiny Ascension. We were expecting hundreds of new assignments, unprecedented levels of Spectre co-op missions, a boost in resources—it's what brought Tal and me back together, as a matter of fact."
Taleena smiles slightly, nodding her approval. "But none of that happened," she says. "The Council branded it a 'geth incident,' swept it under the rug, and put us on bunk assignments in the Traverse. That much I'm sure you know all too well, Commander."
"Very well," Shepard agrees, a note of irritation in her tone. "What can you tell me that I don't know?"
"Well, Tal here was almost ready to give up," Manok says with faint amusement. "And, to be fair, I can't blame her—hard to bludgeon through bureaucracy." He blinks, adding: "Unless your name is Shepard, I guess. Either way, I convinced her to do a little... recon without the Council's official approval. We set up a surveillance network overseeing the repair work on the Citadel. Mostly, we wanted to make sure none of Saren's agents survived to start meddling again." He gestures to the holo-screen. "What you see here is the fruit of that work. Pretty quickly, we caught on to a certain trend."
"A lot of Sovereign's pieces were going missing," Taleena supplies. "Some of them we managed to track down—a piece sold to a private collector, another piece seized by C-Sec. These were easy enough to obtain."
"And you destroyed them, right?" Shepard interjects.
"Of course, Commander," Manok answers. "We read your reports from Virmire, the... indoctrination you found going on there. To be honest, I don't quite believe it myself, but I believe in the Reapers. We didn't want to take any chances."
"Indoctrination is subtle," Liara adds. "You don't notice it until it already has a grip on you. By then, you wonder why you ever feared it."
"You sound like you have experience," Taleena notes.
A pause follows this. Liara dips her head a little, so Shepard catches her eye and offers a reassuring smile. The asari takes a breath and composes herself. "Yes," she says at length. "We saw what it did to Saren, to Benezia. If it can make a strong-willed Matriarch try to kill her own daughter, it can make anyone do anything."
Taleena's eyes widen a little.
"So you are the Liara I've heard about," she says in realization. "I'd suspected, but..." She trails off, clears her throat, and changes her tone. "I'm sorry for your loss. Benezia was a great woman. What you've done for all of us would make her proud."
Liara nods with a sigh.
"I know."
"Her loss," Manok adds, "was one more reason why we had to take action. We destroyed what pieces we could find, but many more were still lost."
"And this is the strange part," Taleena continues. "Manok is one of the best analysts I've ever met, and when even he couldn't track down the remaining parts, we started to get worried. We even sent feelers out through... unconventional channels."
"Unconventional?" Ashley echoes, skeptical.
"You could say, in the world of information," Manok explains, "all paths lead to the Shadow Broker. I'm ashamed to say we followed one of those paths. A few weeks and a good sum of credits later, we still hadn't gotten any closer to locating the pieces." Manok brings up a new image—a spreadsheet of data sets adjacent to a simple map showing a trail between star clusters. "That is until I noticed a pattern. Our surveillance network had been picking it up for a while, but I never put the puzzle together. One ship in particular—a cargo freighter—constantly reported the same cargo missing after each return. Always the same number of crates, always the same crate codes. This was one of many ships involved in the clean-up efforts, so I couldn't brush it off as simple smuggling."
"The freighter was registered under a shipping company," Taleena adds. "Some lesser-known one with a forgettable name. This turned out to be a shell company, which itself lead to another. A few layers deep, we managed to isolate a lead: One of the investors, the only one with an actual credit trail, lead us a to a ghost."
"A ghost?" Shepard echoes.
Taleena brings up a new image, this one depicting a grey-blue asari with broad features and a prominent scar streaking from cheek to lip. Her demeanour screams commando, though Shepard does not recognize her. "Meet Aneiva T'vani," the Spectre continues, "five-hundred-years-old, career soldier most of that time, and a fanatic once-devotee of Benezia."
"A sycophant, more like," Manok corrects. "The latter third of T'vani's life was served on Benezia's leash. And I say leash because T'vani wasn't much more than a hungry varren when it came to combat: Ruthless, tenacious, and unnecessarily violent. I'd say Benezia kept her around mostly to keep her out of trouble."
"But that was T'vani in life," Taleena says. "Officially, she died a few weeks ago."
"How?" Shepard prompts.
"You, Commander, that's how. She was among the asari commandos sent to Noveria. As far as your report described it, she would've died alongside the others during your skirmish with Benezia."
"I'm sensing a but," Ashley comments.
"But, according to our data," Manok explains, "her death was exaggerated. T'vani was also an investor in Binary Helix, alongside Saren, and she leveraged a lot of her family's wealth to do it. She was a true believer in the cause, it seems. We haven't been able to confirm her death, nor survival, but we know, at least, that someone is using her remaining resources for a new cause."
"And that brings us to The Emissary," Taleena continues. "With the data your quarian crew member deciphered—thanks for that, by the way—we were finally able to make a few connections we hadn't before. The geth are reporting to someone they refer to as an 'Emissary.' For whom or for what? We can't say for sure, but our bet is the Reapers. We can't confirm that T'vani really is alive, or that she's this 'Emissary,' but it seems to be our best guess so far."
"What's she after?" asks Ashley. "We already took down Sovereign."
"Goddess," Liara breathes, "you're not saying there is another Sovereign, are you?"
"Goddess forbid," Taleena says with a shake of her head. "No, the Emissary is after parts, which means she's looking for something Sovereign had. Whatever it is, the geth think it's important enough to risk infiltrating the Citadel and pissing off Sovereign's killer." A pause follows, before the asari adds: "I do have a... theory, though, if you want to hear it."
This seems to make Manok flinch, if only a little. Shepard eyes him for a second, then nods. Taleena continues: "According to your report from Ilos, the Protheans managed to sabotage the Citadel relay's connection to darkspace. They did this by modifying the keepers, correct?"
"The keepers are supposed to respond to a certain signal," Shepard confirms. "Whatever the Protheans did, the keepers ignored that signal this time. That's why Sovereign had to go to the effort of attacking us head-on."
"Right, well that's my theory: This has to do with the darkspace relay." When Shepard raises an eyebrow, Taleena explains further: "Whatever the Emissary is looking for, I think it has the potential to get around the keepers somehow."
"But Saren still needed Sovereign," Shepard counters. "That's what it was doing when it attached to Citadel Tower—trying to activate the relay."
"Right," says Taleena. "I don't know how, but I think the Emissary intends to do what Sovereign was trying to do—but this time, from inside the Citadel."
"You haven't mentioned this to me, Tal," Manok interjects. "What makes you think that?"
"Just a feeling," Taleena answers, rubbing the back of her head. "It's hard to say. Something I got from all the data we've been sifting through."
"True or not," Shepard says, "it's more reason to figure this out. And soon. What's our plan?"
"That's the main reason we called you here, Commander," Manok answers. "We wanted your help plotting one."
"You haven't even started?"
"This information is hot, Shepard," Taleena counters in defence. "I mean, we hadn't even known about the Emissary, not really, until we get your data. Before that, we were basically shooting in the dark."
"No offence," Ashley starts, "but I would've expected Spectres to be a bit more proactive."
"Shooting in the dark is all I did up until Ilos," Shepard adds. "It was all lead-chasing before that." She crosses her arms. "Sometimes, all you can do is keep shooting until you hit something. As Spectres, you should know that."
"Look," Taleena starts, irritated now, "we were running ourselves ragged managing our surveillance network alone. Forgive us if we may be a little... inundated with work."
"If we were dealing with batarian slavers, here, maybe I could. But the Reapers? No. We can't afford mistakes." Shepard approaches the holo-display, scanning it over once for each image. "Looks to me we're a few steps behind. If we want to stop this before it starts, you better catch up."
Taleena, brow darkened, looks ready to spit a cutting rebuttal. Instead, her omni-tool lights up. She flinches, then checks a readout. She's getting a call. "I have to take this," she says, halfway a growl, before turning away. The asari walks back the way Shepard had entered, disappearing beyond the doors. For a long moment, silence reigns.
Manok clears his throat.
"Apologies, Commander," he says. "We're both a bit on-edge—and tired besides. Tal's probably been running on stims the last few hours.
"She can be as snippy as she wants," Shepard says, nonchalant. "What I care about right now are results. You both have been too slow about this."
"I realize that," Manok answers, apologetic. "Nevertheless, this is where we are. Will you help us?"
"As if we have a choice," says Shepard. "Forward me all your findings. I'm gonna need some time with the team, work out a strategy. Get back to you when I have one." Shepard intends to say something more when her omni-tool, too, flashes for her attention. A screen displays a caller ID: "Wrex." Brow furrowed, she insures her two allies see the call before she accepts it.
"Shepard," comes the gruff and breathless voice of her krogan.
"Wrex," she answers in kind. "What is it? Something wrong?"
"Got the info I promised. Safe to talk?"
Shepard eyes Manok for a moment. Of course, he cannot hear the call—it plays via the same cochlear implant that offers Shepard seamless language translation—but somehow she wonders if he knows anyway.
"Safe enough," she says at length.
"The Spectres," Wrex starts, "you can't trust them."
"What'd you find on 'em?"
"Data from a terminal in their safehouse. One of them's been in contact with a third party, talking about the geth."
"Third party?"
"Goes by 'Emissary.' Don't know more than that."
Shepard blinks, but keeps her face neutral. In her peripheral vision, Manok eyes her.
"Which one?" she asks.
"Can't say for sure, but I think it's—"
The call disconnects. Shepard flinches, checks her omni-tool's connection, and confirms that she has extra-net access. Confused, she only has a moment to consider this before her tool flickers; the screens scatter into discordant pixels before winking out completely. Ashley's suffers the same, followed shortly by Liara's and Manok's. Shepard's pistol is unconsciously drawn even before the overhead lights flicker and shut down, the computer monitors deactivate, and the holo-display scatters. The group is plunged into darkness.
"Ten minutes," says Kyrus, brow-plates darkening his eyes. "I can't give you more than that or the boss will get suspicious."
"Won't need more," answers Tali, having already begun making her way toward the freighter. She leaves Garrus behind, who faces down his indignant turian counterpart with a wry smile. Since his talk with the traffic officer earlier, Garrus made a brief stop at the Normandy to re-arm and re-armour. He has his familiar blue hardsuit now, complete with a Normandy SR1 insignia on a shoulderpad—the closest to a badge of office he can really get. The three of them are in a small docking bay—two cradles separated by a walkway, just like the bay where they left the Normandy—but only one ship remains docked here: A Kowloon-class freighter. This one is fitted with three modules, though their exteriors suggest nothing of type or content.
"You worry too much, Kyrus," Garrus says at length. "You're doing a Spectre a favour."
"Yeah... sure," the officer mutters. "Just don't make me regret it." The two of them begin walking after Tali, but Kyrus halts just outside the docking umbilical. "I'll wait here," he says, "keep watch. Message you if there's any problem."
"You're a saint, Kyrus."
"Go fuck yourself, Garrus."
Chuckling, Garrus makes his way inside the ship. Tali is a short ways beyond, but he doesn't follow her right away. Instead, he notes the long, central corridor which splits the three modules of the freighter; he notes a thick blast door amidship, unusual for a Kowloon, and he notes the six connecting doors which line both sides of the corridor, three on each. These modules, too, are unusually sectioned-off, but they seem to primarily contain cargo. To emphasize carrying capacity is not unusual for shipping or trading vessel, but to do it to this degree and with this amount of customization? Garrus can't shake a feeling of unease at that.
At the fore of the ship, Garrus finds Tali already stooped over the cockpit's computers. Her omni-tool aglow, she communicates with the machine without so much as touching the haptic interface. "I have access," she says without sparing Garrus a glance. "Just a second—I'll override security systems."
As Garrus steps inside, he notes how cramped it feels. He doesn't recall a Kowloon's cockpit being this small, and the dashboard almost seems enlarged or over-emphasized. He furrows brow-plates as he scans about the interior. An old detective's habit from his C-Sec days comes once again to the fore of his mind. The seats, he notes, look pristine—almost new—as if they were hardly ever used. A small toolbox sits in one corner crookedly, its lid half-open. The dashboard is dusty and untouched. Deep scours are gouged in the metal floor-panelling near the computer, as if something was moved.
"Done," Tali says after a pause. "Okay... accessing flight logs..."
"Guessing you won't 'em," Garrus says, vigilant still in his inspection. "It's never as simple as 'went to the Perseus Veil, picked up geth, brought them to Citadel.'"
"Well, of course not!" Tali exclaims. "I expect to find..." She trails off, the furrow in her brow evident only in her voice. "What? Damn it!"
"Clean as vacuum, huh?" Garrus prompts.
"Cleaned and scrubbed. Someone must've known we were coming..."
"Maybe. Or maybe someone's just careful."
Tali taps on her omni-tool's interface.
"Wait, I might be able to..." She trails off again, but her shoulders rise and her and her disappointment evaporates. "Yes! Okay, there's still some residual data. I can reconstruct it if..." She mumbles to herself, immersed in her work.
Garrus, however, flinches at the faintest sound—a clatter, a clamour, metal-to-metal. He snaps his aquiline eyes to the amidship corridor, but sees no trace of its source. It was faint, maybe the settling of a ship or a tremour in the mass effect fields which keep it buoyant as it is. Still, something in his gut—as humans say—makes his trigger-finger twitch.
"Good girl," Tali mumbles, half to herself. Then, with a glance at Garrus: "V-I is doing her job. I found some scattered info that didn't quite get caught in the purge. Flight logs across the Traverse, repeated docking logs at the Citadel, and..." She pauses, the smile becoming audible in her voice. "And a series of missing cargo crates, always the same I-D codes."
"So we found our freighter," Garrus says, finally turning his gaze away from the corridor.
"Keelah, we actually did. But... there's something else." Tali looks at her omni-tool more closely. "One of the computer's drives is... that's strange..."
"What is it?"
"I don't—" Tali halts suddenly, her free hand flying toward her omni-tool in a desperate bid to flick a series of buttons. The computer's monitors suddenly flash to bright life, shifting from orange to light blue as a series of code boxes flicker on-screen. A horrific, binaric trill resonates from the console's speakers, all-but-throwing Garrus back with the sheer surprise of it. His foot smacks the nearby toolbox in the motion, prompting him to cringe slightly as he identifies the obstacle. And this proves to be as good as providence. A flash and a resonant zap skims by his shoulder, scorching a molten hole in the centre of the computer console. Garrus drops to a knee instantly, Predator drawn, and opens fire down the corridor. A shimmering, iridescent shape leaps from wall to wall, its form a blur of slender limbs and black synth-muscle. By its movement alone, Garrus can identify it: A ghost platform. The geth have found them. He fires thrice, misses each shot, and sends a final round after the thing before it leaps into one of the partitioned compartments and disappears.
"Form up!" Shepard shouts, a haze of biotic-blue light illuminating her silhouette. She uses a telekinetic impulse to rip the weapon's bench from its position—sending stray parts flying—and flip it on its side to face the door nearest it. Liara does the same with the other table in the room, creating cover from both doorways. The only light by which to trace the room is that of the green holo-signs in front of the two doors; beyond these, the room may as well be pitch black.
"Ash, flank by those crates," Shepard orders. She gestures to the supply crates near one of the doors—the one she didn't come through before. Ashley shoves some of the crates aside and does as ordered, her handgun braced as she crouches behind cover. "Liara, take the left flank," Shepard says next, this time in regard to the door through which they entered. "Shoot first, ask questions later. Unless Taleena sounds off, you pull that trigger. Understood?"
"Yes, Commander," is Liara's firm, if faintly quivering, response.
"Manok," Shepard continues, "with me. Brace from the right side, I got left." Though she knows full well a Spectre might bristle at being given orders from another, she appreciates that he complies. The salarian braces on the right corner of the table, having drawn a Shuriken SMG from his thigh, and with that Shepard takes position opposite him. A pause draws out following this, so Shepard takes a moment to beat a fist across her chest and embolden her barriers with biotic power. She's suddenly very glad she ate well before arriving at the Citadel; the headache to come would feel a lot worse otherwise.
At length, the door across from her—its connecting room a mystery—flickers, the holo-sign displaying an error. Someone from beyond is hacking it. Shepard fingers the trigger as a list of foes runs through her mind. Geth? Maybe, but this deep in the Citadel, she finds it unlikely. Mercenaries? Probable, but working for whom? This Emissary? She can't imagine anyone else behind this. Either way, she aims for probable head-height. First one in is getting a nasty reminder not to mess with the first human Spectre.
The door-sign flickers, shifts red, and promptly disappears. The doors part, a flash of light beyond, and, for the briefest instant, Shepard catches a glimpse of the C-Sec logo. She hesitates—her only mistake. A human in a full C-Sec combat hardsuit marches into view, pauses, and stares down Shepard from behind a tinted visor. Something in her gut leaps up into her hands, tightens her finger, but is still too slow. The officer takes aim and fires. Three bolts from an Avenger assault rifle scatter off her barriers before a flash of a blue tracer-shot strikes him in the back of the head. Six bolts in quick succession shatter his shields, then a seventh explodes out the front of his visor. He drops just as Ashley, still crouched, turns to fire on the next man. Shepard shakes off her surprise and joins her.
Together with Manok, a roaring storm of gunfire rips into the next officer—tearing through his hardsuit like paper and dropping him promptly. The next takes a round through the chest, scrambles away, and the next few beyond him drop to a crouch in the doorway, saturating Shepard's cover with a hailstorm of fire. She and Manok duck, pressing themselves against the table, while the very metal protecting them is shorn and melted away under the heat of the oncoming attack. Liara, turning from her position for a moment, hurls a singularity. The remaining attackers ahead are lifted off the ground, easy targets for a renewed assault from Shepard and Manok. In seconds, the hallway is cleared.
"Form up!" Shepard shouts again. "On me!" She leaps her cover, gun poised ahead, and pauses only to snatch up an Avenger from where it lies. Thus armed, she insures Ashley has moved into her peripheral vision, also stealing a rifle, before she begins to move forward. "Manok, Liara—watch the flanks! This place is a god-damned death trap and I'm not interested in getting buried under my body-count! Ashley, point!"
Wordlessly, Ash takes the lead and moves down the corridor ahead. Manok and Liara follow, but not before the latter objects. "What about Taleena?" Liara asks.
"She's a Spectre," Manok answers. "A damned good one, too. She can take care of herself."
"Might even keep our asses covered," Shepard comments.
The corridor banks right just ahead, leading, one can presume, into the main section of the warehouse. At this corner, Ashley halts, fist raised, and the group holds. Manok keeps his gun on the rear, while Liara comes to join her two allies ahead. From her belt, Ashley draws a grenade disc—previously concealed—and thumbs the trigger. Swiftly, she gives it a blind toss around the corner and hugs the wall. Two seconds later, a terrible crack follows a flash. Ashley is up and moving an instant later, her rifle trained forward. Shepard is next, Liara behind. Beyond, the hall leads out onto a walkway overlooking the warehouse floor; the metal here is charred and warped, victim to the grenade, and, lying adjacent to this, three men come into view; one is scorched dead, the other two reeling. Shepard's Avenger roars, Ashley's too, and three bolts each pulp the heads of their opponents. Once here, the group takes cover behind the railing of the walkway, glimpsing, for a terrible fleeting moment, the situation below. Countless workers lie dead, their mechs destroyed, and many even still crawl, bleeding, in the hope of reaching an exit. Among them, C-Sec officers stride with rifles trained, each poised to shoot at Shepard and her squad. The Commander has a moment, even as she ducks away, to confirm that these men are certainly not C-Sec. This level of unnecessary brutality is unprecedented. Mercenaries, then—and well-paid, unscrupulous ones too, if they were able to gather convincing hardsuits to sell their masquerade.
Shepard and Ashley both try for pot-shots over the railing, but neither make more than a glancing blow off a kinetic barrier. They retreat from the railing and take cover near the hallway's corner, identifying a staircase nearby. Shepard calculates her plan in seconds.
"Ash, suppression," she orders. "Liara, gonna need another singularity." Shepard crouches in the open, her emboldened barriers still holding, and takes aim at the staircase. Ashley complies a second later, dropping prone. "When they come up those stairs," Shepard continues, "I want it to hurt." She glances at the salarian Spectre, who still guards their rear. "Manok, what's the quickest exfil?"
"I have a skycar," he responds. "Parked it in an alley nearby. Problem is getting to it without being gunned down first."
"Any idea who these bastards are?" Shepard asks after a pause.
"Not C-Sec, I can say that much."
"No kidding." She sighs. "We'll just have to—"
A disc whirls into view, affixing itself to the wall near Ashley's head. Shepard's heart snaps cold, but there's nothing she can do. Time seems to stop, a terrible stillness in which she can do nothing but contemplate how she could have missed this—how she could have let this happen. She opens her mouth to shout the Chief's name, but it dies on her lips.
For a long moment, Garrus remains crouched; Tali, having pressed back into a corner, flicks rapidly over her omni-tool before it blinks and flares brightly. The computer console returns to normal.
"Got you, bosh'tet!" she growls. Then, suddenly breathless, she adds: "Geth node hidden on the ship's computer. Small one, thankfully. I scrubbed it."
"Great, but we got bigger problems," Garrus answers. "Gonna need you to back me up here."
"There," Tali flicks out her omni-tool, "got remote control of the ship." She draws a Shuriken SMG from her thigh.
"What kind of security does it have?"
"Well, I can open and close doors."
"Great."
"We'll just have to get creative, Garrus."
"You're telling me," he mumbles. Then, coming to stand once more, he steps carefully into the open. "Fucking active camouflage," he mutters, "why does it have to be camouflage?"
"Keelah, that must be a new tactic," Tali comments. "I just love it when they do that."
"Okay, it's just like chasing out duct-rats," Garrus says, half to himself. "Well, fast, heavily-armed, A-I duct-rats, but still." He moves cautiously into the corridor, stance rigid, and makes for the doorway through which the geth leapt. "Eyes open," he says, "that thing can come at us from any angle. If you see even a glint, hit it with some malware." He pauses to ask: "You can disable its tech, right?"
"I... think so," the quarian answers, uncertain.
"Your wavering tone is very reassuring, Tali."
"Shove it, Garrus."
They move for a time in silence, the constant drone of the freighter the only backing to their softly-echoed footsteps. At length, they come upon the doorway and take positions. Tali closes all doors save the blast door, in the middle of the hall, and the one before them. Assuming the ghost is still in there, it will have to go through them to get out. Garrus can't decide if that is reassuring or not. Once here, they pause and listen: Nothing stirs, yet something at the back of Garrus' mind warns against peaking through. With one hand, he readies a hotkey on his omni-tool and gives Tali a look. Though it's difficult to tell through her visor, she seems to offer reassurance. Or maybe that's what Garrus wants to see.
Either way, the turian snaps out of cover with pistol raised. He catches a fleeting glimpse of the interior—rows and rows of shelves and crates like a small warehouse—before a flash snatches his attention. His finger flicks the hotkey the very instant a flicker of red and a resonant snap strikes him in the chest. His barriers shatter, the remaining impact throwing him to his back, and yet as he falls his hotkey activates and a backup battery compensates. His shields come up in time to block a scattering of bolts—wildly-discharged rounds fired to confirm the kill. But he's already firing in return. Four quick shots trace the glimmering shape he spots affixed to the back wall, then, as it begins to leap aside, a fifth strikes it through the thigh. Lubricants trail like arterial spray as it dashes out of view, firing still as it moves. Tali flicks her omni-tool and the compartment door slams shut, absorbing the next salvo of rounds before they can hit Garrus. The turian leaps to his feet, nods in thanks, and rushes to breach the instant the door opens once more. Together, the two dart into the compartment and press themselves behind crates and shelf-corners, weapons snapping about for the faintest sign of movement. Tali shuts the door behind them.
A pause follows this, enough time for Garrus to note the integrity of his barriers; his monocular heads-up display confirms 63%. Only a few seconds more for the main battery to recharge them. This confirms, at least, that he can take a salvo from its secondary weapon. The first, if better aimed, might kill him instantly. He takes in more detail of the room from where he is, but this only seems to dampen his morale. The compartment is small, maybe a little larger than the Normandy's CIC, and sight-line-breakers are absolutely everywhere. The ghost could appear any instant and vanish the next, using the shelves and crates as easy cover. He'll have to be fast, precise, and clever. He wonders, however, if Tali has any hope of keeping up; she's a tech genius, of that he's certain, but a soldier? At least he served even before C-Sec, before Shepard. Spirits willing, she won't be the priority target.
The blast-mark in Garrus' breastplate still smoulders as he stands, pistol trained forward, and motions for Tali to move a different direction. They each take one path through the shelving rows, vigilant for any sign of movement. Halfway down, Garrus stoops to check under a shelf slat, realizing, with a pang, that a geth as agile as a ghost platform could contort itself to hide even there—in the few inches between slat and floor. A few steps past this, he turns and checks his flanks; he covers corners and ceiling, edges and crate-stacks; he kicks over a box, shoves aside another, and, ultimately, comes up empty every time. At the end of his row, he spots Tali emerging from the end of hers; she shakes her head, prompting Garrus to curse. The geth could simply hide here as long as it needs to, bide its time. They may never find it.
A quiet scuff suddenly steals their attention. They snap toward a row beyond Tali's, guns ready, and freeze for a long moment. Sure enough, a metallic scrape shortly follows. Garrus moves up to Tali's side and takes point, leading the quarian to a corner at which he pauses. Together, they snap around the edge, fingers tensed and weapons trained. And yet nothing stirs. On Garrus' point, they move forward slowly. Something tells him to stop, that he's missed some detail, and, this time, he grits his teeth and listens to that something. Last time he ignored it, he was shot in the chest. Halfway to a large crate, Garrus stops and waits, eyes scanning about. The sound must have emanated from this larger crate, but he considers just how unlikely it is that he would have heard it at all. They're a fighting a geth, not some bumbling merc on his first hit job; it doesn't make mistakes, at least not like that. Slowly, tension knotting in his chest, Garrus turns his gaze up to the topmost shelf just ahead. His aquiline gaze takes a moment to focus, but it makes no error in what it sees: A faint shimmer in the air, a layer of dust disrupted in streaks along the length of an old crate, and a tiny stream of off-white lubricants dripping to the floor.
Garrus glances at Tali, then points at his eyes and draws his fingers up toward his target. She follows, nods, and moves into a crouch nearby. Together, they take aim and open fire. A thunderstorm of bolts eviscerates the upper shelf, obliterating the slats and blasting crates into free fall. The shape leaps away in sudden and chaotic abandon—the closest to panic that geth can ever experience—before it leaps toward a wall and fires off a wild salvo. Its own bolts streak by, punching holes in crates and craters in floor-panels, but none of these bolts hit home as the platform makes to flee. Garrus barely tracks its movement, blue tracers from his pistol the guiding stars to Tali's own roaring bursts of gunfire. The ghost unit leaps from wall, to corner, to ceiling, and, finally, to the floor as a round grazes its shoulder. Its shimmering cloak is disrupted, flickering and parting in places to reveal black synth-muscle and thin armour plating. At once, it cartwheels backward, affixes its legs to a crate, and flips itself in the hope of finding cover. But not fast enough.
Tali's hand is already flashing out, immersed in holographic orange. The ghost platform seizes mid-spin, a coarse hiss underlain with mechanical stutters. Its muscles seize, camouflage deactivates, and monocular eye centres—almost in fury—on the quarian. The geth's eye flashes crimson and Garrus reacts instantly. He dives into Tali, bringing her to the ground just as a snap skims between them, wicking their barriers and melting a hole clean through a crate beyond. They hit the ground and the geth takes its moment to react. Despite its malware affliction, the ghost unit scrambles toward the nearby wall, races over a doorway shut to deny its access, and climbs up toward an egress previously overlooked: A vent. Garrus, having leapt to his feet once more, has only a moment to fire inelegantly before the ghost rips off the vent grate and dives through.
"Oh, no you don't, bosh'tet!" the quarian shouts, having leapt to her feet as well. She shoves Garrus aside and sprints for the door to the next chamber, opening it with a wave of her hand.
"Tali, wait!" comes Garrus' reply, an echo of the twist which seizes his gut—another warning.
But the quarian is already moving. She bursts into the next compartment, her ally hotly behind, and fires her Shuriken one-handed as she runs. The ghost is a blur of movement and flying bolts, two of them cracking off her barriers as she drops and slides into cover. This chamber is smaller than the last, with desks and computers dominating it, and a thought at the back of Tali's mind tells her it must have been a logistics centre. She half-thinks to preserve the computers, see if she can glean any new data from them, but forgets this the instant the geth's next salvo falls upon her. Bolts saturate the desk behind which she shelters, rending in twain computer, tower, and all into a shower of hardware gore. Teeth grit to bite a curse between them, Tali blind-fires in retaliation, hoping to push the geth further into a corner. Nearby, the door to the main corridor is in view; behind, the way she came, Garrus is forced to take cover in the doorway. And the suppressing fire does not cease. Each break precedes a new angle, a new bolt which strikes Tali's powerful barriers, and each passing second threatens to overwhelm them. With her blood pounding in her ears, Tali presses harder into cover and swallows. How are they going to get out of this now?
The grenade affixes next to Ashley's head, leaving Shepard little time to react. In her place, however, someone else does. Liara's hand flies out and envelopes Ashley in a bubble of crystalline biotic energy; she turns in the same instant and dives into Shepard, taking them both to the ground as the grenade explodes. Their barriers flare, resist the explosive energy dispersed upon them, and Shepard, supine, rolls Liara over and leaps to a crouch, her breath stuck halfway in her throat.
And then she exhales. The wall to which the grenade had affixed is a scorched crater, the walkway blackened and sagging, and yet, despite this desolation, Ashley remains prone where she was. A stasis bubble immerses her body, preserving her perfectly. For an instant, Shepard just about kisses Liara. Instead, she straightens her rifle and opens fire. A pair of faux-officers are rushing up the stairs, firing at Ashley's indomitable form before they realize their mistake. Liara's rifle joins Shepard's as they shatter the officers' barriers, splitting heads and breastplates both. The two attackers drop, collapsing back down the stairs, and Shepard has a moment to rush back into position.
Liara's stasis dissipates a moment later, allowing Ashley to scramble back in subdued panic. Shepard braces her, pulls her back around the corner, and looks her over for an instant. Wordlessly, though breathless too, Ashley nods in reassurance. Shepard returns it with a squeeze of her shoulder. Manok, having moved to take point, fires in suppression from around the corner. This does not dissuade their attackers from returning it. In this moment of pause, however, Shepard reassess. On the opposite side of the walkway, a small drop leads down to a row of shelves and crates, allowing for an acceptable drop to the lower level.
"Okay, new plan," she starts. "Ash, Manok, I need you to get their attention. Make like you're trying to force a breakthrough." When they affirm, Shepard turns to Liara. "You're with me, blue." She indicates the railing of the walkway. "We're going down to flank them."
"Goddess," Liara murmurs, "this won't be easy. If anyone else gave me this order, Shepard..."
Shepard takes her asari gently by the cheek.
"We've been through worse with less prep."
"I cannot argue with that."
Shepard gives her a wink.
"On my mark!" She takes a deep breath, steels herself, and readies her biotics. She waits for a break in the fire—when her enemies take a moment for heat discharge—before seizing her chance. "Mark!" she shouts, dropping low and readying her sprint. Ash and Manok leap from cover with explosive aggression, firing wild salvos into the combatants one flight down. A second after this, Shepard bursts into a run with Liara on her heels. They leap the railing and crash down against a shelving slat some feet below, bringing them close enough to drop the rest of the way. Shepard rolls with the fall and comes to stand with rifle raised and firing. No more than thirty feet away, and up one flight to a landing, a quartet of officers cluster close together in a crouch. Shepard fires full-auto, eviscerating barrier and armour both until one of the men is blasted back against another. Liara's attack is close behind, hers a biotic singularity that lifts the other three officers high into the air. Shepard's fire doesn't cease, but rather shifts to follow as the men are pulled into the air and left to dangle helplessly. Between Ashely and Manok above, and the Commander below, their foes are minced and diced in seconds—a roiling globe of rent metal and gore which drops with a resounding, sickly thwack as the singularity collapses. Shepard takes a breath, almost relieved.
Until a burst of bolts suddenly strikes her barriers, shattering them in an instant and grazing her exposed neck. She shouts, dropping supine instantly, and rolls about to fire; her attacker stands a distance away—one man flanked by another as they emerge from one of the shelving rows ahead. He fires still, but misses each bolt, until a flash of blue seeks to meet him in retaliation. Liara, fiercely aglow, throws out her palm and strikes the faux-officer with cataclysmic force. He folds at the chest and sails off his feet, crashing hard against the leg of a shelving row and collapsing it around him. The crates and slats and legs—all rattling with the impact—shatter under its force, raining down upon the second attacker and burying him beneath.
Tali returns fire blindly, but can only press closer into cover as the ghost platform suppresses in retaliation. She runs over options in her head—different positions, different tactics—but she doesn't have Shepard's mind for that. A part of her desperately wishes Shepard were here—that she would swoop in like she did that day in the alleys outside Chora's Den—but hoping for a saviour won't do her any good now. No, she has to rely on herself. With a quivering breath, Tali opens her omni-tool. Think! What can she do? What can she throw at that thing to give herself an edge? What can she control? When the idea hits her, it's enough to make her flinch. The ship may not have security systems, but maybe she doesn't need them. She opens a panel on her omni-tool, then finds a drop-menu of functions she can activate on the ship. She dares a glance, spotting, near the ceiling, tiny pipes and nozzles. Gas-based fire-suppression. Between these, LED panels provide low lighting. This will only work once, and only a for a second, and then only still if the geth network is simple—like she thinks it is. She needs to make it count.
"Garrus!" she shouts, catching his eye around the corner of the doorway. "Hold your breath!"
She flicks two prompts on her omni-tool and the ship responds instantly. The fire-suppression systems snap open, billowing a faint fog out over the ghost platform as it moves. It leaps across the ceiling in surprise, only for the LED panels beneath it to suddenly flash blindingly bright and strobe continuously. Disoriented, the ghost leaps down toward the floor just as Tali stands, Shuriken braced, and opens fire. Her salvo tears through an arm and severs synth-muscle and endoskeleton, tearing it clean from the geth's body. It fires wildly, missing each shot, before it leaps toward the wall and races for another vent—this time to the main corridor. It rips free the panel, takes another of Tali's bolts as it does, and springs beyond. But Tali is close behind. She throws open the door with a gesture and dives into the corridor, rolling with the fall in time to dodge a panicked salvo sent her way. The ghost hops from wall to wall, loping, awkward, with its injuries, and Tali auto-fires as she gives chase. Its erratic movement—lightning-quick darts and dodges—are enough, despite its injuries, to avoid the worst of Tali's gunfire until, with a click, her weapon overheats.
A curse on her lips, Tali throws down her SMG and thrusts out her omni-tool. Another hack seizes the geth's body, slows it to a trotting run, but still it makes quick time toward the exit. Tali staggers, eyes wide and breaths quick. After all this, she can't let it get away. She won't. There's still one thing she can throw at it. The ghost platform reaches amidship, leaps into a three-legged run, and comes to stand, for an instant, perfectly between the blast doors just ahead. Now or never. Tali's omni-tool flicks and the doors drop; a mighty and terrible roar, a dual-bladed guillotine dropping closed with hundreds of pounds of force. It snaps about the geth's midsection in the blink of an eye, cutting it clean in half.
Liara stands, blue eyes fierce and sclera black beneath the shadow of her brow. She seethes for but a moment before, with a pang, racing over to where Shepard lies. Blood streams down the side of the Commander's neck, stoppered only by the tightened grip of her own fingers, and, with wordless terror, Liara stoops down to help her.
"Flesh wound," Shepard manages between grit teeth. "Don't worry, blue." She parts her hand from her neck, revealing, to the asari's relief, that the graze hit nothing vital; a shallow rift streaks now across the Commander's neck, partially burnt by the sheer energy of the bolt which struck her. Shepard reaches into a pocket for a small capsule of medi-gel, some of which she applies to the injury. The bleeding stops immediately, the sting abating, and, with Liara's hand, Shepard gets back to her feet.
"Commander!" Ashley calls, having moved down the stairs with Manok behind. They move cautiously, with weapons trained, but the initial attack seems to have been repelled already. "Are you hurt?"
"You should see the other guy," is Shepard's answer. Her barriers flicker and recharge.
Ashley smirks at that.
"We might be clear, Commander," adds Manok. "My car is just outside. Let's not waste this chance."
"Clear or not," Shepard counters, "I'm acting under the assumption that they've got reinforcements. Ash, you're on point! Liara, take the rear. Manok, left flank." When each member affirms, they take a diamond formation and move toward the exit. They weave first between the shelving rows, avoiding the collapse that Liara inflicted, then move toward a door and hallway beyond. The adjoining hall leads to a front office, and Shepard grimaces at what she finds: The secretary, a salarian, lies slumped in his seat, several bullet wounds in his chest. Three more employees lie in growing pools of blood, and from these pools boot-prints trail toward and away from the interior of the warehouse. Whoever these attackers are, Shepard thinks, they're as ruthless as batarian slavers. This only emboldens her morale.
At the far side of the room, they find the front doors to the warehouse; these are glass, automatic, and through them Shepard spots enough to order her companions into cover. The crowds previously dominating the street have vanished, replaced instead by a cadre of officers—maybe a dozen—surrounding a number of C-Sec-branded skycars. Shepard has to assume that all of them are a threat.
"Which way to your car, Manok?" Shepard asks.
"Left," he answers, indicating with his head. "Just past the doors, about twenty meters away. First alley on the left."
"What if they're friendlies?" Ashley asks, a grim determination no less marking her face. "How can we tell?"
"We can't," Shepard answers with a shake of her head. "Extreme prejudice—that's the only way." She looks over the scene outside: The officers have formed a barricade, their cars as cover, and are waiting with guns trained on the warehouse. Behind them, a drop-off lined by a guard rail leads into a skycar lane—the most direct path of escape, assuming Shepard can reach Manok's skycar. The officers haven't made any demands or tried to negotiate. That's the best sign she can hope for that they're not friendlies. At length, she takes a breath to steel herself. "Okay, here's the plan," she starts. "Liara, I'm going to need your biotics. Ash, you got any grenades left?"
"One, Commander. High explosive."
"Good. When I give the signal, you're gonna lob high and detonate about ten feet above their heads. Understood?"
"Aye, aye."
"Manok," Shepard looks to the salarian next, "think you can get to your car while we have them distracted?"
"Absolutely," answers the Spectre.
"Good. Whether we kill 'em all or not, they won't be in a good position to shoot back. Fly out the car, pick us up, and get us the Hell out of here." Manok nods, so Shepard turns back to face the rest of the room. She thinks for a long moment, before finally adding: "I just need one more thing..."
She heads back into the warehouse, finds a crate of significant size, and drags it out into the front office with a haze of biotic telekinesis. With that, she insures everyone is in place before tapping on the door's holo-icon and snapping back into cover. As soon as the doors open, a hail of gunfire saturates the area. This lasts for a few seconds, then abates. Shepard smiles just a little: As if she needed more confirmation of their allegiance. Still, she shouts her next words out onto the street.
"This is Commander Shepard," she barks, "Spectre, geth bane, and god-damned Reaper killer! Consider this a warning. I have been up and down this fucking galaxy a dozen times over, killing things your nightmares couldn't dream up, just so you bastards can have the privilege of taking pot-shots at me! I've killed beings older than civilization. I've held a rachni queen's life in my hands. I've cut through a mountain of corpses to take down the best Spectre in history, and I killed an ancient mechanical horror as a bonus! So just who the fuck do you think you are?" Her voice resounds through the quieted street, prompting not one word nor errant shot her direction. At this, she smiles. "I'm giving you one chance," Shepard continues, "one chance to stand down, to bug-out, to get the Hell out of my way! Otherwise, I'll rip you into more god-damned pieces than I did Sovereign! And I guarantee you won't last half as long!"
She looks to her allies, a silent question, and receives three nods in assent. Shepard steels herself. "Let's get this show started, then." With an outstretched hand, mirrored by Liara, she grabs her sizable crate in envelope of biotic energy. "Just follow my lead, blue," she says. Then, with a glance at Ashley: "Ready when you are, Ash."
The Chief nods, draws her grenade from a pocket, and poises to throw. Shepard risks a glance out of cover, finding that none of her foes have decided to flee. Their funeral. Without more than a silent countdown, Ashley flicks the ignition and hurls her grenade high above the faux-officers outside. An instant later, Shepard and Liara hurl their crate through the office doors and hold it, suspended, in the air before them. A thunderous detonation is Shepard's cue to start moving. The explosion shatters barriers and car windows both, knocking enemies prone or otherwise throwing off their aim. A chaotic cascade of gunfire saturates their crate as Shepard and Liara rush out into the open, protecting themselves—if barely—with the massive hunk of metal before them. They rush out to the middle of the street and hurl the crate in tandem, outputting enough kinetic force to send it sailing into the nearest of the cars in the barricade. A skycar flips, crushing officers beneath, but Shepard pushes even further than this; with another tug of her unseen muscle, she hurls this skycar over and atop the next, making room for Liara to do the same. Together, they part the barricade in its entirety, killing fully half their opponents before the rest can retaliate. When they do, Shepard is already firing.
She and Liara both duck behind one of the skycars, taking opposite positions as they return fire. Ashley is quick to join them, taking bolts off her barriers for her trouble. Manok is nowhere to be seen. Shepard can only hope he made it to his car. After a blind salvo for suppression, Shepard falls into a familiar pattern she learned in the marines: Between herself and Ashley, they shift positions, fire at different angles, and never break cover simultaneously. A minute or two of this follows, giving Liara time to recover her biotics; even Shepard, after so straining her abilities, is starting to feel an oncoming ache in her skull. Nevertheless, she boosts her barriers with a thump of a fist against her chest.
"Ready, blue?" she asks at length, ducking into cover as a foe retaliates.
"As much as I can be, Shepard."
"Good enough." She peeks out—five foes left—and ducks beneath another salvo. "You know what to do." Without need for order, Liara peeks out of cover and throws out her hand. A singularity appears above their foes, drawing five up toward its inescapable gravity. Shepard and Ashley open fire, cutting through each in a matter of seconds. Like before, little remains but twisted metal and battered flesh. At length, Liara collapses her singularity and staggers a moment, clutching her head. Shepard braces her, but she shortly recovers. With this, the three of them emerge from cover, weapons trained, and move toward the railing and the skycar lane beyond. Shepard makes sure to clear the barricade, but finds no one left to oppose her as she does.
At length, they take cover here and remain vigilant. Shepard quickly realizes, however, that Manok should've flown his skycar to their rescue a long time ago. She has half a mind to think he ran off, another half to think he ran into more trouble than he could handle. Either way, he isn't here.
"What's taking the salarian so long?" Ashley growls, giving voice to Shepard's thoughts.
"The longer we wait," adds Liara, "the greater the chance of reinforcements."
"Brilliant deduction," is Ashley's curt reply. "Pretty sure the Commander already figured that out."
They share a glance—Liara's irritated, Ashley's angry—before Shepard interposes herself between them. A glance of her own, one for each companion, is enough to silence any further bickering. "We need to get moving," Shepard says. "Manok's a lost cause, wherever he is."
"Probably went back for his asari friend," Ashley notes. "Can't expect him to be loyal to us." Shepard considers, for a moment, what Wrex was trying to tell her before communications cut: One of the Spectres is dirty. She can't trust either of them until she knows which. In truth, it could well be both of them. Either way, Shepard backs up toward the railing and peers over the edge; the drop leads three or four storeys down, where another Wards street is visible, and between there and here a swarm of skycars travel in streams. They'll have to commandeer a skycar of their own, head back toward the Normandy, and rendezvous with Tali and Garrus. With any luck, Wrex will be there too. She'll have to take one of—
A resonant snap resounds, a scarlet beam shattering her boosted barriers and scorching her dress uniform. Shepard's breath is kicked from her lungs, the sheer kinetic force knocking her backward. Liara screams her name, hand outstretched, but little more than a flare of over-used biotics reaches out to aid her. For a moment, a glimpse of a shape—flickering, iridescent—and scarlet oculus catches the Commander's eye. Then Shepard pitches backward, trips over the railing, and falls.