Who Saves the Hero by Kudara

Chapter 8

Normandy, after Haestrom

They had reached Tali in time, but Shepard still wished they had gotten there sooner. She wished that they had been able to save more of the quarian marines and perhaps some of Tali's science team. Shepard saw how their deaths affected her friend, and she knew why, it was a heavy responsibility having people die for you. She was glad that she had persuaded the quarian marine Kal'Reegar to stand down and not sacrifice himself. Shepard had seen the relief in Tali's stance when he showed up behind them after all the geth had been killed and the observatory unlocked. The quarian had needed to know that not everyone who had been with her on that mission had died.

Now if only Tali's orientation meeting had gone just a little better. The quarian had let Jacob know in no uncertain terms that she did not trust him or any of the Cerberus crew and wasn't even interested in pretending to be friendly towards them. Jacob, not surprisingly, had gotten defensive in response to her antagonistic manner. Shepard hadn't known whether to groan and laugh, or knock Jacob upside the head for his last comment to Tali about not forgetting to introduce herself to the ships AI, EDI, as the quarian walked out the door.

Now she was on her way to engineering, hopefully Tali had settled in and would be more relaxed surrounded by the ship's engines. For everyone's sake, she needed the quarian to tone down the anti-Cerberus rhetoric. Tali didn't need to make enemies of people who were only wearing the uniform and logo because they believed Cerberus was the only one who would do something about the Collector threat. Most of these people had no idea about the atrocities Cerberus had committed in the past, or if they had heard anything they discounted it as Alliance propaganda.

It was also for her own sake, Shepard felt she was making headway among the Cerberus crew and she didn't need someone they knew was a close personal friend of hers constantly attacking them. It would just make winning them over that much more difficult and Shepard suspected she would need the crew on her side sometime in the future just like she had needed them on her side when she had to mutiny and steal the Normandy to follow Saren to Ilos.

"Shepard," Tali greeted her as she entered Engineering, "What can I do for you?"

Shepard didn't want this conversation overheard by either Donnelly or Daniels, "Have time to discuss the new Normandy?" She inclined her head toward the walkway that overlooked the Normandy's drive core. It would be impossible for any listening devices to work well this close to an active drive core, thus it was a safe place for their conversation.

"Of course," midway down the walkway Tali asked, "did you really want to discuss the ship?"

"No, I wanted to talk with you," Shepard admitted easily.

Tali nodded, "I suspected. We didn't really have time to chat while taking out the geth on Haestrom did we?" They stopped at the end of the walkway, at the overlook. "I can't believe so many people died, thank you again for getting Reegar out alive." Her tone hardened, "All for data about stars blowing up, I hope the Admiralty Board gets some use out of it."

That reminded Shepard, "Have you heard any word about Kal'Reegar? Did he survive his injuries?"

"He sent me a message, it looks like he will make a full recovery," Tali reassured her. "Any time you get a suit puncture it's a matter of luck. Reegar got out with a relatively minor infection."

Noting that Tali had used a shortened form of the man's name twice, Shepard eyed her quarian friend curiously, wondering if there had been something more to Tali's desire for the quarian marine to stay alive than just what she had assumed. "So Reegar huh? I would have thought his name would be shortened to Kal."

"No, that's for females," Tali explained,

"So, I gather Reegar is a good friend of yours?" Shepard inquired casually.

Evidently not casually enough though because Tali immediately growled at her, "What is it, I can't be friends with a man without everyone thinking that it means more than just that? Must I be looking for a husband already?"

Shepard held up her hands in hasty surrender, "Ok, ok, just asking. He seemed like a nice guy, is it so bad that I wondered if you'd met someone you might be interested in?" Obviously this was a very touchy subject.

"No," Tali deflated, "It's just that as Admiral Rael'Zorah's daughter all my actions have always gotten a lot of attention, and that didn't end once I joined the Neema. If I talked to a man more than twice that was enough to start the gossiping."

"Ah," that explained a lot, "I guess quite a few people have asked you about Reegar then," Shepard commented.

"Yes," Tali complained, and Shepard fought down the urge to chuckle at the wealth of irritation contained in that one word. She couldn't resist, she arched an inquiring brow at her quarian friend, and leveled her best entreating smile Tali's way.

Tali huffed at her and shook her head, but from the sound of it Shepard could tell there was amusement there as well as exasperation. "I don't know. We met when the teams were preparing to go to Haestrom," Shepard's smile slipped, "and well..."

"I'm sorry," she grimaced, reached out, and touched the quarian woman on the arm with her fingertips. "I didn't mean to remind you of that." Shepard paused, met Tali's glowing eyes behind her faceplate, "But if you ever want to talk about it Tali, just let me know," she offered softly.

Tali's hand covered hers, "Thank you Shepard, maybe sometime later." Then the quarian removed her hand, and drew away a little.

Shepard nodded, accepting the other woman's withdrawal. This was not the place for such a conversation, and if it happened it would have to happen when Tali was ready. "There is one thing I wanted to ask of you," she said after a moment, making sure she was facing the drive core. "Things were tense between you and Jacob; he's really not a bad guy. Just naive when it comes to Cerberus, but I suspect they've been careful to keep him far away from any really questionable activities. He got disillusioned with the Alliance, and Cerberus managed to recruit him because they promised to get things done without him having to go through a mile of red tape to do it or wait months for someone to make a decision about what to do."

"But Cerberus..." Tali protested, and Shepard noticed the quarian was also careful to remain facing the drive core.

"I know Tali," Shepard interrupted her, "I know what Cerberus is really like and the types of sick things they're responsible for, but you need to realize that most of the rank and file crew on this ship are colonists. They don't know anything about Cerberus other than the fact that their willing to do something about the Collectors, while the Alliance appears to be doing nothing. Or their like Donnelly and Daniels, severely disillusioned with both the Council and Systems Alliance because of what they said about me and the Reaper threat after I died. The only thing those two know about Cerberus is that they promised they would get to work for me and to do something about the Reaper threat. I'm not asking you to pretend you like Cerberus, just to give the crew a chance as individuals."

"Listen to them," Shepard continued, "listen to what they say about Cerberus and keep your temper and don't immediately jump in and attack them for who their working for right now. If they ask about why you don't like Cerberus go ahead and tell them about the attack on the Migrant Fleet, but don't overdo it and make them feel like they have to defend themselves."

"Alright," Tali answered cautiously, "but why?"

"This entire ship is like a well baited lure, trying to persuade me into thinking that Cerberus is a much more benign organization than it really is, but to do it the Illusive Man had to actually recruit people that would never have anything to do with their more questionable activities, much less the types of experiments we interrupted and destroyed. I'm fully expecting the Illusive Man to betray me at some point, and I'm planning on having the majority of the crew behind me and not him when it happens. I'm sure there are moles onboard pretending to be something they aren't, and I have a few suspicions as to who they are already. It's the rest of them I need to bring over to me before that happens, and that will be more difficult if they see a close friend of mine constantly attacking them."

Tali just stared at her for several seconds before drawing closer, "You are undercover," she whispered.

"In a way, yes, I guess I am and I'm asking you to keep what I said in mind and not let anyone know what I'm doing. Garrus is the only other one that knows. Oh, and feel free to destroy any bugs you find anywhere, both Mordin and Garrus have already done so and Garrus did, and regularly does, a sweep of my quarters. If there are any real expensive ones and your feeling nice, you can return them to Miranda. I think she's actually getting used to it now."

"Keelah," Tali uttered, her tone incredulous, "Shepard what have you gotten me into."

"A tense and dangerous situation, yes I know, and if you want to return to the Migrant Fleet at any time just tell me and I'll take you back. I won't blame you a bit for wanting out," Shepard assured her. She wouldn't put the quarian in this position unwillingly, and she knew it was a lot to ask.

Tali stared at her for a moment, and then replied resolutely "No, I'm with you."

Normandy, CIC

"You have unread messages at your private terminal Commander," Kelly mentioned as Shepard walked by, looking up only briefly from her own work as the Commander walked by her.

"Thank you, Kelly," Shepard replied politely. What would it be today she wondered, actual messages or clever spam that had managed to make it through the mail filtering algorithms.

The first was from some company Shepard had never heard of before with the subject line of, 'Have you been dumped for a krogan?' The second one was from Dr. Chakwas, 'Re: Your medical scans'. Even thought it was obviously spam, Shepard didn't delete the first message. It sounded like something she should read later just for the amusement value. As for the second, Dr. Chakwas wanted to see her at her earliest convenience. Shepard closed out her terminal and headed toward the elevator, both curious and a little concerned about what the doctor wanted to discuss with her.

"Commander," Chakwas turned around at the sound of the door opening, "I'm glad you came by so promptly. I found something unusual in your neurological scans." The doctor smiled wryly, "Well other than physical evidence confirming that the drell neurochemicals Cerberus used have changed the way your memories are accessed and stored."

The doctor turned around and typed on her keyboard for a moment, pulling up what looked like scans of a human brain. "These are the neurological scans I did of you the other day. What concerns me is this area here," Dr. Chakwas pointed out one dimly lit area on the display that looked like fine strands of an intricate and multilayered spiderweb. "These appear to be memories, but they're not where you would normally find them in a human," the display changed, "this is where I would expect to see memory activity, this particular area in your temporal lobe and around the hippocampus, and as you see, you do have memories located here. They appear a little different from I would expect, but as I mentioned, the increased synaptic pathway potentiation I'm seeing is due to the effects of the drell neurochemicals."

"Interestingly, this area of the temporal lobe, if you were an asari that is," Dr. Chakwas continued, "would be where memories shared during a meld would be stored. But the information we have on humans melding with asari shows that the new memories are stored in the same place as normally obtained memories. Human brains don't distinguish between the two different types of memories when storing them."

"The Cipher?" Shepard theorized hesitantly, "For the memories that are located where an asari would store them, I mean. Maybe they went there?" It was the only thing Shepard could think of that fit. What Shiala had given her hadn't exactly been memories, but the very essence of being a Prothean. The Cipher was supposed to allow her to think like a Prothean: to understand their culture, their history, their very existence. Shepard doubted she had ever fully understood it, but she had understood enough to interpret the beacon's visions and to understand the language of the warning message they had found on Ilos.

"Now that's an interesting possibility," mused Dr. Chakwas, "When I made the neural scans of you after the incidents on Eden Prime, Feros and Virmire, the diagnostic equipment on the original Normandy couldn't really tell me anything except that you had abnormally high beta waves and that you didn't appear to have any neurological damage. But then that equipment was mean only for basic neurological diagnostics so you could stabilize your patient long enough to get them to a proper medical facility, and not diagnosing unknown conditions cause by direct data input from ancient beacons or asari mind melds," she commented dryly.

Shepard grinned, "I always like to keep you on your toes doctor."

"That you do," Chakwas agreed with a smile. She turned to look at the Medical bay, "I have to say I appreciate the diagnostic and medical equipment I have available to me here. This medical bay is almost up to the same standards as your average colonial hospital, and the only reason it's not is because there simply isn't room for some of the more specialized diagnostic and treatment equipment."

"If there's anything we can upgrade, just let me know before we dock at Illium," Shepard stated. "There aren't going to be any hospitals on the other side of the Omega 4 relay, and I'd hardly consider the clinic on the Omega station a viable option for us either. You and Mordin will need to be able to treat most injuries right here." Shepard was quite serious about this; she didn't want anyone dying for lack of proper medical care.

Dr. Chakwas nodded and her green eyes narrowed as she glanced keenly around the medical bay, "I'll look into it and I'll ask Mordin if he has any suggestions as well."

Shepard straightened preparing to leave, "Well, if there is nothing else?"

The white haired woman returned her attention to Shepard, "Actually, I would like to try something if you have about thirty minutes Commander."

Shepard raised one curious brow at the doctor, "I do. What were you thinking?"

"Well, if it is the Cipher," Dr. Chakwas responded, "then I'd expect to see activity in that area of your temporal lobe when you access those memories."

Shepard frowned; she didn't remember getting any memories from the Cipher, only that she had finally been able to understand the beacon's message as something other than vivid nightmarish images. With the Cipher in her mind, she had been able to tell that the message was a warning sent to any surviving Protheans telling of the Reaper threat and that there were survivors hidden on Ilos. "The only Prothean thing I remember is the beacon message," she informed Chakwas.

"That's fine, if you'll just wait for me to get set up?" It only took a few minutes for the doctor to place the sensory pads on her forehead and around her scalp. "Now think about the beacon message and then just try and let your mind wander, see if anything else is associated with it even if it's just random images or words."

People crying out in despair, visions of world after world destroyed, and the violation of flesh by machine. For those still alive and seeking refuge, the location of Ilos, and finally the image of their attackers, a Reaper, a sentient machine. Shepard let her mind drift after the beacon message finished; trying to neither think of any one thing nor to think of nothing, just waiting to see if anything would come to the forefront of her conscious mind.

The sun shone brightly down upon Instructor Suiadan and his student Tuarwen. He was carefully explaining how to focus and maintain a mass effect field of sufficient strength and shape to form a short corridor within which Senior Student Tuarwen would float, safely cushioned and very close to mass free. In this way his student could propel himself across short distances. This use of a mass effect field was very similar to that used by the mass relays to move ships from one relay to the next. Only their corridors spanned many light years and were formed between two different relays. Once sufficiently skilled, Tuarwen would even be able to phase through most objects in his way. Just as the corridors phased though objects provided their mass and gravity was not enough to bend the corridor around them. Tuarwen wouldn't have that level of control over his mass effect field for many more months yet though. This was a very advanced skill and only taught to those Senior Students that showed sufficient aptitude and skill in forming mass effect fields that they were judged able to master it by the instructors.

Suddenly everything around him changed. Instead of standing up he was laying down upon something, and instead of outside he was in a room with a strange looking alien hovering over him. Who was this and how did he come to be here instead of outside where he had just been teaching? "Ya naa lle?" he asked. The alien looked confused and then alarmed at his simple question. "Lle rangwa amin?" Could it not understand him perhaps? How had he come to be here? And where was here? He looked about the room in confusion, "Manke naa lye?"

"Shepard," he looked at the alien wondering what it was trying to communicate, repeating the same sound over and over. "Shepard."

He focused on the sound wondering what it meant and why it seemed so important....

Dr. Chakwas this was Dr. Chakwas, and she was Amanda Athene Shepard, not Instructor Suiadan Ildroun, biotics teacher and...Prothean. "Dr. Chakwas?" Amanda blinked, trying to focus, clear the confusion, the lingering traces of being another person, another sex, another species.

"Commander Shepard?" the older woman hovered over her, looking down, her green eyes anxious.

"Yes," Shepard responded, "it's me. What just happened? It was as if I were another person," she frowned, "a Prothean biotics teacher." She sat up slowly, "His name was Suidan Ildroun, he was teaching another Prothean, another male called Tuarwen Shamirdren." She thought she managed to pronounce the names correctly, it felt both odd and familiar to say them aloud.

Chakwas just stared at her for several seconds, looking a little stunned. "You started speaking another language, looked at me as if you didn't know me. I thought you might remember something but I never expected..." The older woman shook her head, then refocused on her, "Do you feel alright?"

Shepard rubbed her face, "I have a slight headache, but other than that I think I'm fine."

"I'd like to run another scan on you, make sure you're alright," Chakwas said, she gave her a concerned look, "And this time don't think of anything Prothean please."

Shepard smiled, "No problem, once a day is enough for me." As she lay back down on the diagnostic table Shepard didn't quite follow the doctor's instructions to the letter. One Prothean thing was definitely on her mind, the way she had been using her biotics since she had awoke. Specifically the way she was now doing her biotic charge. She had never been taught in any Alliance school how to make herself mass free, or how to form a mass effect corridor to essentially glide within, or how to protect herself against injury when she came out of the charge by using the remaining mass effect field around her as both a shaped biotic impact attack and deceleration cushion. She had been using Prothean biotic techniques, the same ones Suidan had been teaching his student, and that fact chilled Shepard. She had been using the biotic charge in combat without fully understanding what she was doing, and she now knew could have very easily killed herself performing what was actually a very advanced and complex biotic skill which had been only taught to the prothean equivalent of graduate level students.

Instructor Suidan had a student who had died while learning how to biotic charge. Beinion had literally torn himself apart after forming his mass effect corridor incorrectly and then charging before a horrified Suidan could stop him. It had taken Suidan several months and some determined support from his wife, Erulass�, and the other Instructors before he had accepted that it hadn't been his fault. The senior students all knew that while learning such potentially dangerous skills they had to wait for their instructor's confirmation of each step before proceeding to the next. Beinion Crometh had just been impatient and convinced he should progress at a faster rate than his instructor was letting him. He had ended up a bloody and gruesome smear across the long length of the practice field.

That was one reason Suidan was so careful to teach the skill in a painstakingly exact step-by-step manner. After that tragic death, the Instructor had made sure his students had thoroughly mastered the easier sub-skills involved before putting them all together to actually master the biotic charge. Shepard didn't doubt that she knew it and had mastered the requisite skills now that she had Suidan's memories, but it would have been very easy for her to have killed herself earlier when she hadn't really understood exactly what she was doing.

Thirty minutes later. "This is very interesting," Dr. Chakwas commented staring at the scan results intently, "It's like there is another complete second set of memories stored within your brain encompassing all the different types of memory, semantic, episodic, visual and sensory."

"Here look," Chakwas typed in a few commands and pulled up two different images and then overlaid them, "See, here are the different declarative memory areas in the temporal lobe, but also look at the other memory storage areas of the brain in the hippocampus, amygdala, striatum, and mammillary bodies. See how the active areas shifted?"

Shepard did see it, it wasn't much of a shift, but it was clear that different areas were being accessed in the two different scans. "That's the Cipher then, the experience of being a Prothean and the memories...of course," realization dawned, "Shiala said that the Thorian absorbed some of the Protheans when they died. She didn't say how, but she did say that it absorbed some of their memories when it absorbed the bodies. That must be what I accessed, those memories." Shepard stared at the display with an uneasy frown and very unsettled feelings. She had the memories of people who had been dead for over fifty thousand years in her mind, and it seemed they were beginning to rise to the surface of her conscious mind instead of remaining locked away as part of the Cipher.

Citadel

Chief Williams had arrived on the SSV New Dehli almost a week ago, returning from the recently attacked colony Horizon with not only a highly classified report from Spectre Shepard, but the bodies of two Collectors and two husks. Specimens that the Chief had managed to smuggle onto the ship without anyone noticing and then had managed to get a secure line to Anderson to ask him to arrange for them to be removed from the ship the same way, without anyone noticing they had ever been there. That had been a little trickier to arrange, but Williams had made that part easier by hiding the stasis tubes containing the specimens in a crate marked as trash to be disposed. It had been some very quick thinking on the Chief's part.

It had only taken Anderson a few minutes to decide that his best bet was to contact Councilor Valern to gain his assistance. Anderson suspected the salarian would find the secrecy with which the specimens had been obtained and an opportunity to gather intelligence on the Collectors intriguing, and he had been right. With Valern's help, Anderson had gotten authorization for the New Dehli to dock at a Council dock when it arrived instead of an Alliance dock. From there Councilor Valern had made the arrangements to get the crate removed from the ship and into the hands of a group of Council researchers with sufficient clearance. Anderson suspected the salarian dock workers involved were actually STG members but he didn't care, they had successfully removed the crate from the New Dehli without any of the Alliance crew but Williams being any the wiser.

Anderson had been rather pleased with himself, he had managed everything without Udina having been involved or even privy to any of it. He had been quite frank with the other Councilors of the fact that he couldn't be certain that Udina, being as pro-human as he was and with his dislike of Shepard, might not be too much of a security risk to be informed of this. They had seemed surprised at his mistrust of the former Ambassador and now his aide, but demurred to his judgment in the matter of who on his own staff he notified.

The verbal report Chief Williams had tensely related to the Council had been disturbing to say the least. Shepard had made several assertions:

That Cerberus had found and taken Commander Shepard's body, that she had been clinically dead until only three months ago, and actually recovered enough to be on her feet for a little over a month now.

That Shepard had come before the Council after only a week after fully recovering, and her sole involvement with Cerberus until then was accompanying them to investigate the colony disappearance on Freedom's Progress.

That Cerberus had manipulated Council and the Alliance into providing her no support so that she would have no choice but to continue working with them if she wanted to stop the Collectors attacks.

That Shepard didn't trust Cerberus and believed they had a secondary motive for wanting her to attack the Collectors.

That Cerberus was intentionally and systematically denying information to the Alliance and Council to ensure that they didn't take any actions against the Collectors.

That Cerberus had manipulated the Alliance into sending Chief Williams to Horizon to lure the Collectors to that colony.

That the Illusive Man was a master strategist, and that Cerberus was well funded and well connected within both the Alliance and Alliance Defense Industry with a multi-billion credit yearly budget.

That Cerberus had spent four billion credits rebuilding Shepard, but that she feared they might take steps to ensure their control over her if they knew she was passing on information to the Council.

Even to Anderson, some of it had sounded very unlikely. Shepard had been clinically dead for almost two years? Cerberus had spent four billion credits rebuilding her body? Surely that was false information they had given her, perhaps to make her feel obligated to help them. And while he had no doubt that Cerberus wasn't to be trusted and he suspected it was true they were both well-connected within the Alliance and well-funded, the idea that they would be able to so easily manipulate both the Council and the Alliance's intelligence sources seemed improbable.

Then Chief Williams had transmitted all of the data the Spectre had given her along with the results of her scan of Shepard.

Even Councilor Melletus, who had been openly skeptical of everything Williams was saying, had been briefly silenced by the results of the scan once it was displayed. The omni-tool's sensors couldn't penetrate Shepard's armor, but she had not been wearing a helmet when Williams had taken it.

Shepard's entire face had been rebuilt, both of her eyes were cybernetic replacements, her jaw, facial bones had been reinforced and showed clear evidence of bone scars from multiple breaks. Her facial muscles, tissue and skin were now a combination of bio-synthetics and cybernetic replacements. Her skull had been reinforced as well, though it showed much fewer signs of past injury than the bones of her face. Her spinal column, at least what they could see of it in the scan, was now reinforced with protective metal plates over the spinal column and the biotic implant at the base of her skull did not register as an Alliance L3 implant, but one from unknown manufacture and with an unfamiliar design, obviously a prototype.

Suddenly Shepard's claim that her body had been found and taken by Cerberus and then rebuilt over the span of almost two years didn't seem so implausible. The completeness of the facial reconstruction evident in the scan Williams had made mutely spoke of the amount of damage done to Shepard's face and body to require it.

"Are we certain that was Shepard and not some Cerberus construct or clone?" Councilor Melletus had questioned his tone hard and suspicious.

"C-Sec scanners are state of the art, she is not a clone; the scanners would have detected it. In any case, if she were, facial reconstruction would not have been needed." Councilor Valern had responded, nipping the turian's questioning of Shepard's identity neatly in the bud so to speak.

Melletus' silence following Valern's rebuttal, had allowed them to move onto viewing the data files Shepard had transferred to Chief Williams. Anderson found information in the data files been both interesting, informative, and a grave cause for concern. There was a new Reaper, Harbringer, involved with the Collectors. Where was it located? Was it here in this galaxy or still out in dark space? And what connection did the Collectors have with it? Newly indoctrinated slaves, or were they working with it like the geth had been working with Sovereign? And what of these new types of husks Shepard had fought?

Councilor Melletus, once he had realized that Shepard thought the controlled Collector was possessed by a Reaper, had immediately started to question all of the data Shepard had sent to them. That hadn't surprised Anderson, and he had immediately begun to marshal his arguments as to why the other two Councilors shouldn't immediately dismiss it as well. They hadn't been needed however; much to Anderson's surprise, Councilors Valern and Tevos made it immediately clear they weren't willing to dismiss all the data Shepard had collected just because of that one thing.

Melletus had then insisted that whatever had happened to her, and whatever Cerberus had done to her; Shepard was clearly mentally unstable and should be brought back to the Citadel. By force if needed. Once again Councilor Valern and Councilor Tevos had demurred, insisting instead that they wait for the results from the scientists examining the specimens before coming to a decision on Shepard's fate. Anderson had only needed to agree with them to block Melletus' effort to send someone after Shepard.

Anderson wasn't entirely certain why Valern and Tevos were suddenly interested in Shepard, but in this case he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He was sure if he kept alert some hint would be dropped that would make the reasons for their turnabout clear to him.

Then the report had come in that a ship claiming to be from the Alliance had arrived shortly after the SSV New Delhi had left. The personnel onboard had combed though the colony and had taken every Collector and husk corpse they could find with them. The ship hadn't been Alliance; no one knew who it belonged to, but Anderson certainly had his suspicions. If Shepard hadn't insisted that Williams collect the specimens then they would have been left with nothing but the logs from Shepard's omni-tool.

That piece of information had definitely unsettled the other Councilors. Melletus had promptly tried to use it to insinuate that Shepard was actually working with Cerberus and that she was the one trying to feed them false information.

Anderson had scoffed at him, reminding the turian of Shepard's statement that working with Cerberus was akin to slogging around in a swamp filled with snakes and leaches. She hated Cerberus, and had in the past taken every chance to destroy any Cerberus bases she had come across. Once again Councilor Valern and Councilor Tevos had sided with him, insisting that all the evidence needed to be carefully examined before any course of action was decided upon. A few more days to let the scientists complete their reports would not make a great deal of difference. Councilor Melletus hadn't been pleased, but then Anderson could really care less about what the turian Councilor thought right now. Melletus was currently finding himself in a position Anderson was only too familiar with...three Councilors against one.

And now this, three days later an emergency meeting of the Council, classified at the highest security level. Anderson had no idea why, but he suspected it had something to do with the four specimens, two Collector corpses and two husks. The scientists examining them must have found something very interesting.

The two lead scientists, a salarian, Dr. Naven, and an asari, Dr. T'Rani, began as soon as he arrived since the other three Councilors were already present. The asari scientist started off their report, "We began running a genome sequence analysis on the Collector specimens as soon as we received them. The results we obtained from the original analysis were so surprising that we took a second set of samples and ran the tests again to verify the results. They were the same; the original results were not in error."

"The Collectors have been extensively genetically rewritten: there are no signs of any junk DNA sequences, and there is a reduced heterochromatin structure. We also found," the two scientists paused to glance at each other before Dr. T'Rani continued, "a quad-strand genetic structure unique to the Protheans."

Anderson's eyes widened, and he drew in a surprised breath...the Collectors had once been Protheans?

The salarian, Dr. Naven, took over, "Examination of the two Collector specimens shows extensive cybernetic modification probably to compensate for reduced intelligence due to the genetic rewriting. Their brains are wired with sensory input transfer structures which forward sensory data to a remote location. There are none of the normal functioning glands that we would expect to see in an insectoid species, instead they have all been replaced by cybernetics. Their digestive system has also been replaced by cybernetic implants."

"You're actually claiming the Collectors are Protheans?" Melletus asked disbelievingly, "But they look nothing like the statues on Ilos!" he protested.

Dr. T'Rani narrowed her eyes, "As we said before Councilor," she responded tersely, "they have been subjected to extensive genetic modifications. The quad-strand is irrefutable evidence that they started out as Protheans several generations ago, but they cannot be said to be Protheans now."

"Please continue with your report Dr. T'Rani," Councilor Tevos said firmly before anyone else could interrupt.

Dr. T'Rani nodded respectfully to her, "Actually I'm almost done Councilor. It is our conclusion that the Protheans were extensively genetically modified by some unknown species to serve basically the same types of functions for which we use mechanicals. No matter what they once were, the Collectors are now biological tools, incapable of true independent thought. If they are abducting human colonies, then there is some other species or agency directing their actions."

Anderson immediately knew what agency it was, the Reapers, but the other Councilors had already decided the Reapers were just a myth. How could he pitch this so the other Councilors would pay more attention to the Collector threat?

He waited until the two scientists had left the room before addressing the other three Council members, "What if Shepard is right and Cerberus has another hidden objective in going after the Collectors. The Collector assault rifle Shepard scanned proves that Cerberus is researching Collector technology. They're most likely the ones who took the Collector and husk corpses. They probably already know everything we've just learned about the Collectors."

"Cerberus has shown an interest in creating mindless and obedient soldiers in the past," he continued. "Shepard destroyed research facilities studying husks, thorians and rachni, all with the purpose of creating such an army. What if Cerberus is actually after the technology that made the Collectors what they are?

With the entire population of Freedom's Promise and a third of the population of Horizon, the Collectors have now taken over a million humans. That would make a good start on an army, and then this Illusive Man would have the ability to create more."

"You're suggesting they would do this to other humans?" Councilor Valen asked doubtfully.

"Cerberus has experimented on humans in the past, I'm certain it wouldn't bother them," Anderson responded grimly, remembering some of the sick experiments Shepard had come across. "And what's to say they would limit themselves to enslaving only humans once they had the technology in their hands?" Even Councilor Tevos, who was usually almost unreadable one of the three, showed some alarm at the possibility he had just raised.

"Then we should impound the Normandy at the next possible opportunity and arrest its Cerberus crewmembers, find out what they know about the organization," Melletus declared.

Anderson was ready for it, Melletus was rather predictable, "Cerberus will go underground and we will never know the extent of their plans. Shepard is obviously onto them, I say we let her know we are treating this as an undercover investigation of Cerberus activities and we let her continue doing what she is doing now. Keeping an eye on their activities and reporting them to us whenever she gets an opportunity to safely pass on the information. That way we not only find out what Cerberus is doing, but we also find out more about these Collectors and whatever is controlling them."

"Reapers again," Melletus sneered at him.

"In this case it's irrelevant what you or I believe, Councilor Melletus," Anderson took great pleasure in responding, "something is in control of the Collectors and I think we should find out who they are and what their intentions are toward us. They have abducted over a million humans and we have no idea what they intend to do with them. They developed a plague with nearly a perfect mortality rate for non-humans and deployed it on a multi-species space station. We need to know more about them in order to evaluate how much of a threat they are to Citadel space," Anderson stated firmly.

Tevos and Valern glanced at each other. Valern nodded in response to her, they looked over at the turian Councilor who stared angrily back for a moment before nodding his head in a short jerking motion.

"Very well," Councilor Tevos said as she turned back to face him, "We will follow your suggestion Councilor Anderson."

Continued...