The clinic containing the nMRI was a single-story compact structure with a flat roof. Its parking lot was deserted at the moment. "Where is everybody?" asked Shepard. Their aircar slid to a smooth stop near the clinic's front door. Shepard got out, slung his bag up onto his shoulder, and scanned their surroundings. They were in some sort of warehouse or industrial area. There didn't seem to be any foot traffic; instead Shepard saw constant streams of cargo haulers overhead, interspersed with the occasional aircar.
"We didn't just rent the machine, Shepard," said Chakwas. "We've got the whole clinic."
"Easier to guard," said Mordin.
"How the stink can you afford the whole clinic?" Shepard shook his head. "That must have been some favor."
Mordin smiled and said nothing in reply.
"And what do you mean, guard?" Shepard added.
The front door opened and a salarian poked his head out. "All ready for you in here, Mordin," he called.
Shepard knew that salarian very well. "Commander Rentola?"
The salarian gave him a cheerful wave. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Shepard. Come on in!" Several more salarians bustled out the door and grabbed the other bags out of their aircar. Shepard looked around as they trouped into the clinic. All of these salarians had been in the STG group on Virmire, along with Rentola and Captain Kirrahe.
There was a long corridor behind the main doors followed by a small antechamber. The group then moved into the large central room of the clinic. The nano-MRI unit was huge, and took up at least ten square meters. The central raised scanning platform was surrounded by a cylinder of bright metal. Shepard regarded the machine with some trepidation. He could see cold vapor streaming from a few ports as the machine's magnets began cooling to the near-absolute-zero temperatures they required. Mordin was strutting around the unit proudly, checking various connections and making satisfied noises.
Rentola was off in one corner, speaking with a few of the STG. They saluted and left the room, presumably to set up patrols. Rentola then walked over and shook Shepard's hand. "Captain Kirrahe sends his regards, and regrets that he couldn't be here personally. He's in the middle of another mission."
"I..." Shepard didn't know what to say. "How did you know about all of this?"
"Doctor Mordin notified a few old colleagues in the Special Tasks Group of his needs," said Rentola. "As he was getting the clinic set up, it just so happened that word got around to me of what was going on. I thought it would be prudent to send some additional assistance. And I had plenty of volunteers."
Shepard could only laugh. "Word got around, huh?"
Rentola smiled and leaned towards Shepard. "I have to confess, for a secret group we can be a very chatty bunch."
Chakwas placed a hand on Shepard's shoulder. "John, for the scans you're going to have to be sedated. We can't have any movement at all in order to get the proper resolution."
Shepard rubbed the back of his neck. "Sedated? I think you mean you're going to have to put me in a coma."
Mordin bustled by. "All appears well here. About thirty minutes until ready. Will check micro-surgery suite next door."
"We'll be ready to operate just in case we find anything," said Chakwas.
Shepard took a deep breath. "Damn, I hate being put under. But we need to do this, so let's get to it."
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The atrium of the Hotel T'Loria soared overhead. It was a gigantic, conically-shaped space lined with greenery and vines. It seemed like the interior of some impossibly huge arbor. Donnelly tried not to gape like a tourist, then decided he was a damn tourist and gaped anyway.
Jack's hand was warm in his. The biotic was wearing an all-leather outfit as usual, but this one was more figure-hugging and less skimpy. It was almost odd to see Jack in clothes which didn't show that much skin. She glanced up at the atrium. "That all must be a bitch to water," she said.
Donnelly laughed. "Yeah, it must be." He figured it was probably on some sort of drip irrigation system. One part of his mind began to work out how he would have routed the plumbing. Then he mentally smacked himself upside the head. This was a vacation, and he for sure had other things to concentrate on.
The asari at the reception desk handed them a keycard. "Have a pleasant stay, sir and madam."
"Oh, we will," said Jack. Donnelly picked up their bags and they headed for the elevators.
The elevator had transparent sides and ran up the side of the atrium. They stood side-by-side for a moment, looking out over the verdant scene. Then Jack turned to Donnelly with an evil grin. She held up a hand, and the engineer suddenly found himself pinned to the wall of the elevator by a blue glow. Jack climbed up his taller body him like a tree and kissed him hard on the lips.
"Are you ready for me, big guy?" she breathed in his ear.
"Just try me, lassie," he replied.
She responded with another deep hungry kiss, almost as if she wanted to draw his essence from him. The elevator door opened on their floor. There was an asari and a salarian waiting, and both of them goggled a little bit at the scene inside the elevator. Jack gave a laugh, and the blue aura holding Donnelly faded. He picked up their bags with some difficulty, seeing as how he had somebody wrapped around his torso.
"Pardon us," he said mildly to the waiting aliens, and strolled out. He found the room without difficulty. Getting the keycard in was a little harder since Jack insisted on biting his neck during the procedure.
The room was more or less palatial. There was a huge picture window that looked out over Nos Astra. In front of the window was a shallow well that contained a large circular bed. Nearby were a few chairs, a couch...and a cart next to the bed. The cart held a large bottle and two glasses.
"Last stop, little lady," said Donnelly. Jack sighed and climbed down off of him. Donnelly put down their bags and pulled out a little toiletries kit.
"Spoilsport," she said. "I thought you were just gonna throw me on the bed there and get to work."
"I was hoping to be a little more romantic than that. Plus I wanted to spruce up a bit first."
Jack gave a little growl, but accepted the sentiment. She looked around the room a little more. "Where the hell is the commode in this joint, anyway?"
"Um..." Donnelly looked around. There were no other doors, just glossy wood paneling. "There must be one, right?"
Jack laughed. "Maybe asari just mark their territory like wolves." She walked over to the cart and picked up the bottle. She turned it to look at the label. "Hmm, the Perky Slut remembered."
"Aha! I found it." Donnelly had figured out that what looked to be decorative section of paneling was actually a sliding door. The bathroom behind the panel was just as opulent as the room. It held a tub that looked big enough to used for naval exercises, and a sink that looked to be made out of a single piece of jade. It was probably synthetic jade, but it was still beautiful.
Donnelly brushed his teeth. Ever since his first failed seduction attempt as a teenager, he had a bit of a phobia about bad breath. He knew Jack wouldn't mind, but it was still a little ritual to calm his nerves. He washed his face, and gave himself one last glance in the mirror.
Jack had poured them each a significant amount from the bottle. Donnelly picked up the bottle and saw it had a printed note attached to it.
Jack, remember to have fun! K.C.
"This is from Kelly?" he asked.
"Yep. She's not too bad of a person, once you get over the urge to strangle her." Jack tossed down a healthy gulp of the brandy, then strolled up to the window. It was twilight, and the purple light outside framed her beautifully. Donnelly picked up the other glass and almost took a sip of the brandy himself, but then put it back on the cart and walked up behind her. He put his arms around her and felt her press back against him. Her head was tucked perfectly under his chin.
They watched the twinkling cityscape in silence for a long moment. Jack took another swig, and now her glass was empty.
"Easy there, big shooter," said Donnelly with a laugh. "I'm not having you pass out on me." He felt her lithe body twist around in his arms, and she leaned back to look up at him.
"I can't believe this," she said. "All of this. We're really going to make this work, right?"
"Of course we are, ya scunner. It's like you said, we're awesome." Donnelly leaned down and kissed her. Jack's mouth opened under his, and now she seemed gentler, almost hesitant in her passion. After what seemed like forever, she finally broke the kiss and looked up at him again. Donnelly brow wrinkled.
Was he seeing things, or did her eyes look at little unfocused?
Jack's glass hit the carpet with a dull thud. "Assface," she slurred, "I dun feel so good..." She slumped against him.
Donnelly felt, for the first time in a long while, a pang of genuine fear. "Oh, fook. Jack, just hang on." He picked her up, cradling her as he moved away from the window towards the bed. He gently laid her out on it. Her eyes remained unfocused, and by now she wasn't moving. Donnelly began to panic. Was this illness? She seemed fine this morning, and Chakwas was giving them all regular checkups. He looked around wildly. "Just hang in there, Jack, I'll call the Normandy and..."
His eyes lit on the bottle, and his untouched glass of brandy.
"Oh, shite."
H heard a click at the door as he lunged for the bottle. The door slid open and five armored figures charged into the room, all humans. They had face-concealing helmets and stun batons at the ready.
The first one through the door got a glass full of brandy thrown right into his face.
The glass broke against the visor, spraying liquor and glass over the attackers. Their neat formation faltered as they all instinctively flinched. Donnelly was among them in an instant. He roared in range and smashed the bottle of brandy alongside another helmet. The bottle shattered and the helmet's owner stumbled to the side. He spun and drove the jagged bottle at a third attacker, who batted aside his thrust and jabbed a shock baton at his stomach. Donnelly dodged most of the attack, but felt a agonizing jolt in his guts. He dropped the broken bottle and grabbed the man's extended arm and then his shoulder. He used the arm as a lever to throw the man into another of his comrades. He kept swinging. He was now all fists and elbows and rage, no longer a boxer or an engineer. Now he was once more one of the most feared members of the North Glasgow Express, itself one of the most feared football mobs in all of Scotland.
He managed to put three of them down hard before getting a stun baton in the back of his neck.
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The clinic's control room had a long window along one side which looked out onto the nMRI unit. Chakwas could just see Shepard's feet from here. The Commander lay stretched out in the scanning tube and deep in a medically-induced coma. She checked his biomonitors again. Everything looked fine from this side, but Chakwas was still worried. Due to the extensive modifications to Shepard, she was flying a little blind in regards to the amount of anesthetic that the Commander required.
She then turned to look at the wall next to the window. That wall held a huge holographic display which at the moment showed a transparent schematic of Shepard's body. During previous scans on the Normandy, Chakwas had seen the reconstruction done to her Commander. It was one thing to see on a smaller monitor screen, and quite another to see it all laid out larger-than-life such as now.
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Chakwas shuddered. The poor man had almost nothing left that was solely him. Every bone, every organ had been damaged in some way by the Collector attack which had killed him. Cerberus had reconstructed him using cloned parts where they could, but in many areas they'd resorted to cybernetics. The biomechanical repairs were everywhere in his body, and looked like a gray infection spreading through the Commander's form.
Mordin sat at the main control console for the nMRI. "Third full scan complete," said the salarian. "Signal noise levels acceptable. Averaging data together from each scan appears effective. Estimate five more full scans required for five nines confidence in imaging."
She nodded in satisfaction. The scanning was actually going faster than they had anticipated. "That will finish it right about early morning, then. Add another hour to bring him out of the coma. And then the surgery, if he needs it." Chakwas stepped forward and looked closely at the display. "Nothing new so far. I'm actually surprised. I would have thought that we would have seen something by now."
"Suspect Cerberus is using very subtle means to monitor Shepard. Anything obvious would be too easy to us to find by accident."
Chakwas sat down in a nearby chair with a sigh. "I imagine so. If there's a weak link in their scheme, it would be in transmitting the signal. You can't just miniaturize the antenna. It's got to be a certain size to work properly."
"Exactly," said Mordin. "That is planned line of attack. Will perform full check of imaging as each scan is complete."
The door to the room opened, and Rentola poked his head in. "There's nothing to report out here. It's a pretty quiet area. Is it all going well in here?"
Chakwas nodded. "So far. Thanks again to you and your men for your help, Commander."
The salarian commando shrugged. "No thanks are needed. If it wasn't for you and Shepard, we would be nothing but a few scattered bones on Virmire right now."
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"Problem, boss," said one of Kendra's men. "They've got guards."
Wilt Kendra wormed himself forward. The roof of the warehouse was covered with some sort of pebbled shingles that made small scraping sounds against his armor. He put his binoculars to his face and scanned the distant clinic. It wasn't hard to spot the slim forms of armored salarians moving around the perimeter of the building.
"Looks like three on patrol on the ground," said Kendra. "There's probably another on the roof." He watched for a bit longer and saw a quick blink of movement near a large structure on the clinic's roof. "Yep, they've got a lookout up there. Behind the air conditioning unit." Kendra dropped the binoculars and thought for a moment. The lookout was the real concern, especially if he could help get intel to his salarian buddies on the ground.
One of his corporals was looking the clinic over. "That's a pretty beefy-looking air conditioner," he said. "If we want to take out the one on the roof, we'll have to shoot through it."
Unfortunately, they hadn't brought any weaponry that was purpose-built to deal with significant armor. Kendra pondered a little more. "Yorbin, you have a few of those anti-armor rounds for your rifle, right?"
The platoon's sniper dropped his own binoculars. "Yeah, but that ammo is really over-powered for the gun. I might get four shots at most before the barrel is fucked."
"But you'll only need one shot, right?"
The sniper gave Kendra a nasty grin in reply.
Kendra checked his watch. "Time is still on our side. It's going to be a few hours before Shepard is awake. Let's be slow and steady, and plan this out properly. We only get one try at taking them by surprise."
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Donnelly came slowly back to himself. He felt something cold and rough pressed into the side of his face. He took a breath, and groaned at a new flare of pain all over his torso. Someone, or several someones, had given him a right proper kicking all along his stomach and ribs. His attention floated for a moment, then he suddenly remembered. The hotel room...and the drugged brandy.
"Jack!" he gasped, and his left eye snapped open. He was face down, and all he could see was a stained section of concrete. He rolled over.
He lay in an alleyway with a large amount of trash piled on him. The sky above was the rosy color indicating that dawn was soon to come. He got one hand against the nearest wall and pushed himself slowly to his feet. Nothing appeared to be broken, but his guts felt bruised and weak. He couldn't see out of his right eye. He rubbed at it and felt clotted blood holding the eyelid shut. He kept rubbing as he stumbled towards the mouth of the alley. He got the eyelid open just as he reached the street.
He had to get to some form of communication and get ahold of the Normandy. His attackers had probably dumped him in some godforsaken corner of Nos Astra, well away from any place where he could easily make contact. He had to move fast.
Donnelly looked around the street and blinked owlishly in the brightening light. It wasn't a street. It was a causeway alongside the ship docks. About a half a mile away, he could make out a sleek and familiar shape. It was the Normandy.
He stared in confusion for an instant. This made no sense at all. But he shrugged it off and staggered as fast as he could towards the distant ship.
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Commander Rentola was making another round through the clinic. He was currently in the nMRI room. The doctors had finished the final full scan, and were now pouring over the images as Shepard was carefully brought out of his induced coma. He glanced through the large window to the control room and saw Mordin and Chakwas gesturing to each other as they pointed at various parts of the transparent image of Shepards' body.
He walked back into the antechamber. "Position Six, check in," he murmured into his comm. That was near the rear loading dock of the facility.
"Position Six, all clear."
He reached the front lobby and looked through the small windows on the front doors. "Position Two, check in." That was their lookout on the roof.
No answer.
"Position Two, check in."
Still nothing.
"Position Three, do you have eyes on Position Two?"
"No," replied the commando at position three. "Let me move a bit."
"Go. Report ASAP," replied Rentola. He had been in STG long enough to develop a hypertrophied danger sense. Something smelled here. While he waited, he moved behind the lobby's reception desk. He decided that neatness was not a virtue in this case, and flipped the desk forward so that its surface faced the door. Various pens and datapads fell onto the carpet.
"Lead, This is Position Three. No sign of Two-"
The salarian hear a distant crack as Position Three fell silent. Rentola ducked behind the desk just as the door blew in. His shields helped with most of the flying debris. He heard the 'clink' of a thrown grenade just before the room was flooded with light and noise.
The flashbang would ordinarily have stunned Rentola. But STG was nothing if not generous with its resources. He wore state-of-the-art polarizing contacts as well as protective earpieces. Between those two devices, most of grenade's effect was neutralized. Rentola popped his horned head up from the desk just as an armored human appeared through the smoke in the now wrecked doorway. The intruder met a three-round burst from the salarian's machine pistol. The rounds sparked off of the human's shields as the intruder ducked back around the door.
Rentola rolled a couple of his own surprises towards the doorway and began retreating along the hallway, facing back towards the main door as he went. He couldn't see much through the dust and hazed. He did hear a crackle and a curse, however. He lay down a long burst towards the sound and heard a couple of screams. Just as he'd hoped, his discharge grenades had brought down their shields. That should make them advance a little more cautiously. He stepped backwards along the hallway, radioing his team as he went.
"All positions, we are under attack. All team members except Six fall back to control room. Position Six, status?"
"Clear here. Have taken cover, will notify if anybody tries a breach here."
"Good. Team, we are going to collect our package and go out the back if possible. I will contact Big Wheel to be ready for extract."
He made a few more calls before he reached the antechamber and shut the door. He placed a few more little surprises at the sides of the doorway and fell back towards the main room, where chilled vapor still shrouded the nMRI unit. Chakwas was in the midst of trying to lug Shepard's body out of the central scanning tube.
"Allow me to assist, madam," said Rentola. He reached in and grabbed one of Shepard's feet.
"What the..unf...bloody hell is going on?" snapped Chakwas as the pair wrestled the Commander's naked body out of the tube.
"We're under attack. I don't know who they are. What is Shepard's condition?"
The two of them began manhandling Shepard towards the door to the control room.
"He's about thirty minutes away from waking up," said Chakwas. "I hope he'll..errg..be okay, I wasn't able to fade out the anesthetic like I wanted to. I figured it was better to get him mobile when I heard that explosion."
"Very wise, madam."
They got to the door, and Chakwas tried to support her portion of the load and trigger the door button. "Gah," she gasped. "There are times I wish Shepard wasn't such an impressive specimen of a man." They got through the door just as a loud boom sounded from the anteroom. The door to the anteroom smashed open, and a great gout of dust and smoke poured into the nMRI room, along with more screams. Rentola smiled to himself as the control room door closed.
Mordin and Chakwas were already shoving Shepard into a coverall. It wouldn't be much protection, but at least it would keep things from flapping around. Rentola wondered, briefly, how in the name of creation human males managed to get through life with such important parts of their anatomy in such a vulnerable position.
Then, through the large window, he saw movement out near the nMRI. Amid the dust and haze there were a couple of shadowy figures that flitted in and took cover near the machine.
"We don't want any trouble," called out a voice. "We just want Shepard."
Rentola's comm crackled. "Lead, this is Position Six. Just had another group of partygoers pull up at the rear entrance. Giving them a warm welcome." Rentola could hear faint yells and the crackle of gunfire from the rear of the clinic.
"Come on, guys," called the voice again. "Last chance, or we start using gas."
There was a brief silence, and then the far wall of the nMRI room blew in. The pressure wave thrummed through the building as the window looking onto the machine cracked into a fractal pattern. Rentola ducked, but the tough transparency held. Rentola could just make out the figures of his other team members as they leapt in through the hole, their guns firing in quick staccato bursts. He glanced behind him to see that both Mordin and Chakwas had dragged Shepard into cover behind the nMRI control board.
Silence rolled in again. Rentola took another peek. Both of hostiles were definitely down. The two armored forms were riddled with bullets, and there was a quite amazing amount of red human blood all over the nMRI unit. His own team members were coming towards the door. That was just what he liked to see. Rentola unlocked the door and his team piled into the room.
"How are we doing?" Rentola asked. "What's our casualties?"
"They got Helfen on the roof, and Jardouk near the east wall," replied one of them. "I got dinged a little bit going through the wall back there, but it's nothing serious."
Rentola breathed out. Two men dead was still two too many. Now he had to make sure that none of the rest of his team was killed. "Give the doctors a hand with Shepard. We're going to collect Kelran at the back and get ourselves out of here." He turned to the doctors. "Were you able to get the scan data pulled from the control board?"
Mordin nodded. "Have everything. Also gave copy to Chakwas, just in case."
"We did see something suspicious in the scans," said Chakwas, "but for now we'll have to wait on dealing with it. I'm also trying to get ahold of the Normandy, but there's a lot of jamming."
"I'm almost glad you found something," said Rentola. "I'd hate to go through this for no reason." He looked out the window onto the carnage around the nMRI. Two of his men were down. Two good men that had survived the madness of Virmire, only to get shot down like vermin on Illium.
Rentola gave a grim smile to his attackers' shredded bodies that sprawled in the next room. He wasn't religious like Mordin, but he did dabble in studying the faiths of other species. He was particularly interested in the humans' Ten Commandments. He liked both the text itself and the fascinating mythology surrounding its creation.
He didn't know who his enemies were. But they were about to learn, in a very definitive way, Rentola's First Commandment.
Thou shalt not fuck with the Special Tasks Group.
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Joker dozed in his chair. It was just as comfortable as his bed, and this way he got to pretend he was still in space even though they were parked on a planet. If Joker wasn't flying, he wasn't really happy. Shore leave was, to him, just wasted time. Drinks and dancing were not really his thing, especially the dancing part.
He woke from the growl of the main airlock door opening. Joker turned his head to look behind him and saw Donnelly come staggering through the door. The engineer's face was a mask of blood, through which his crazed eyes stared at Joker. Donnelly held his stomach with both arms, as if it pained him.
Joker tried to jump to his feet and immediately regretted it when he felt a warning twinge from his legs. He more carefully edged himself out of the chair as Donnelly lurched towards him.
"Call general quarters," Donnelly wheezed. "Get everyone to the hangar. Jack's been kidnapped."
"What? Shit, dude, I-"
"CALL EVERYBODY!" roared Donnelly. "Especially Kelly, she needs to get her ass down there pronto. She has some fucking explaining to do."
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Garrus lay in bed, but he was not asleep. He was going to feel so much better once Shepard was back on board and he could properly relax. Of course, one thing that made the tension more bearable was a warm and welcome pressure on one side of his chest. Kasumi stirred a little bit as he moved, and murmured "five more minutes'" Her hair splayed out alongside them in a black wave. He smiled and began softly combing one talon through her hair. He had gotten rid of the cot he'd been using and substituted an inflatable mattress. It wasn't fancy, but neither of them cared.
Kasumi moved a little bit more as she came to full awareness. "Mmm," she said, "I had the most wonderful dream."
"Oh? Care to tell me?"
"I dreamed that I was in the bed of a handsome prince." She ran one hand along his chest. "He was big and strong, and very brave."
"Hmm. I think I'm a little jealous of this prince."
Kasumi smiled at him and kissed one of his mandibles. He still couldn't get over the whole 'kissing' thing. It had sounded ridiculous back when he'd first read about it. But Kasumi had definitely shown him the appeal. His only regret was that he couldn't really return the favor. Turian lips weren't really built for kissing.
She sat up and threw one leg over him, straddling his stomach. She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his. They stared into each other's eyes.
"I think I'm still dreaming," she said in a quiet voice.
He was about to respond both verbally and physically when a harsh klaxon sounded.
"General quarters!" yelled Joker over the intercom. "We need all hands to the hangar bay stat!"
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The room containing the AI core was quiet and still, and Tali hoped it would stay that way. Kasumi had given her a couple of little presents and had told her how to use them. They had both worked just fine. The little block of synthetic flesh apparently fooled the DNA sensor, and the more gruesome-looking artificial eye was also accepted without complaint. Tali wondered, briefly, just how Kasumi had pulled it off. The DNA was one thing, she could imagine how to get a sample for that. But how had the thief managed the eye scan? She was pretty sure that Miranda's retinal data was not on record anywhere on the Normandy.
Around her was the soft hum of ventilation. EDI's main processors were large gray blocks, each almost the size of her torso. There were many of them, stacked in cages around the center of the room. It could have been her imagination, but there seemed to be a soft buzz in the air from it all. Tali stepped up to the main terminal for EDI. It was a small screen with a simple keypad below it, along with the same security scanners as on the door. Kasumi's little presents worked once again, and Tali then tapped in the password that she'd been given.
There was a soft chime. "Root access enabled," said EDI's voice. Just as Tali was about to type more, the door hissed open again. She spun, only to be faced with the silhouette of a human with a gun in his hand. The muzzle was pointed right at her head.
"Well, well," said Rogers. "What do have we here?"