Mass Effect™: Retribution (13 page)

He was being transformed. Repurposed. The implants in his brain had spread throughout his body. The self-replicating Reaper nanotechnology had woven itself into his muscles, sinews, and nerves, transforming him into a monstrous hybrid of synthetic and organic life. His flesh had become stretched and semitranslucent. Beneath it he could see thin flexible tubes winding along the length of his limbs. Flickers of red and blue light pulsed along the tubes, the illumination bright enough to be visible through his opaque skin.

Even though he was no longer in control of his body, he could feel that the cybernetics had made him both faster and stronger. He was more aware of his surroundings; his senses were heightened to a supernatural level. The melding of man and machine had created a being that was physically superior to any evolutionary design.

But that wasn’t the only change. He was also developing rudimentary biotic abilities beyond those temporarily granted by dosing up with red sand. He could sense his Reaper masters pushing and probing, eager to test the limits of his weak but ever-growing power.

The Reapers turned his body to face the shelf of provisions. Inside he felt a buildup of energy, like a static charge increased a thousandfold. His hand rose, palm extended toward the ration kits. There was a sudden jolt along the length of his arm, strong enough to send a flare of pain shooting up to Grayson’s helpless consciousness.

The neat pile of carefully stacked rations was blown apart by the impact of a biotic push. Boxes shot up into the air, bouncing off the shelves and wall before clattering onto the floor.

It was hardly an impressive display. Grayson had seen his own daughter lift a thousand-kilogram piece of machinery and use it to crush a pair of Cerberus agents. The scattered ration packs weighed less than a kilogram each, and the impact hadn’t even been powerful enough to burst the seals keeping the food inside fresh. But he knew his power would continue to grow, and he sensed the Reapers were pleased.

Grayson lowered his arm, and it took him a full second before the significance of the action struck him.
He
had lowered his arm; not the Reapers—him!

The biotic display must have temporarily weakened their control of his body. Recognizing that their domination of his will was not yet absolute was all the encouragement he needed to fight back.

The whispers in his head grew to an angry roar as Grayson struggled to regain control of his physical form. He shut them out, ignoring them as he focused all his energy on the simple act of taking a single step.

His left foot rose in response, moving forward half a foot before coming back down to the floor. Then his right foot followed suit, setting off a chain reaction in Grayson’s body. He could literally feel each individual muscle tighten, then relax, as his mind reasserted its dominion over what was rightfully his.

As he came back to himself, his body began to tremble. His mouth felt dry, his skin itchy. He recognized the classic symptoms of withdrawal. The hit of red sand was wearing off, allowing him to regain his
focus and concentration, his most valuable weapons against the aliens inside his head.

The Reapers were mounting a counterassault: pushing in on his thoughts, trying to twist and bend them to their control. But Grayson refused to surrender what he had fought so hard to regain. It was a battle to save his very identity, and he was winning!

He felt a rush of elation and adrenaline … and something else. He barely had time to realize what it was before the warmth of another dose of red sand swept over him.

His head began to swim in an ocean of narcotic bliss, and the Reapers seized the opportunity to wrest control of his body away from him.

Helpless, he could only watch from within as his body walked over to the cot and lay back down on the bed. Lying there in a dust storm fugue, he struggled to understand what had just happened. There was only one explanation that made any sense.

Cerberus was still watching him. Studying him. They knew he was resisting the Reapers; they had dosed him with concentrated red sand to weaken his resolve. Sometime during his previous high they must have surgically implanted a device to allow them to remotely administer doses of the drug to keep him in a perpetual state of intoxication.

It wouldn’t have been hard; a small radio-controlled dispenser under the skin that released the sand directly into his bloodstream would do the trick. At a soluble mixture of near one hundred percent concentration, it would take only a few drops to send him flying each time. Eventually the supply in the dispenser
would run out, but that didn’t give him hope: he knew Cerberus would just refill it.

His eyes closed, shutting out the world. The Reapers needed him to rest; the transformation was still in progress. They needed him to sleep, and so he did.

The Illusive Man and Dr. Nuri had watched the entire episode through the one-way glass. The physical changes to Grayson’s body were gruesome, but any guilt the Illusive Man had over what they had done was offset by the knowledge that the data they were collecting could prove invaluable at preventing or reversing the process in future victims. More important, they were learning the limits of what the Reapers were truly capable of.

At first the results seemed to mirror those collected from experiments on the so-called husks: human victims transformed into mindless automatons by the geth during Saren’s campaign to seize control of the Citadel. But the Illusive Man knew the truth about that war: Saren and his geth army had all been servants under the control of a Reaper called Sovereign. And the technology to turn humans into husks hadn’t come from the geth.

But Grayson’s metamorphosis was something more subtle and complex. He was not becoming a mindless slave. He was becoming a vessel, an avatar of the Reapers—like Saren himself. And before his death at the hands of Commander Shepard, Saren had been very, very powerful.

“His strength is growing quickly,” Illusive Man
noted to Dr. Nuri. “We won’t be able to hold him prisoner for much longer.”

“We’re tracking his evolution carefully,” the scientist assured him. “It will be at least a week before he poses any real threat of escape.”

“You’re certain of your data?”

“I’d stake my life on it.”

“You already have,” the Illusive Man reminded her. “And mine, too.”

There was an awkward silence before he added, “I’ll give you three more days to study him. That’s all I’m willing to risk. Do I make myself clear?”

“Three days,” Dr. Nuri promised with a nod. “After that we’ll terminate the subject.”

“Leave that to Kai Leng,” the Illusive Man told her. “That’s why he’s here.”

“Based on my analysis, we have to strike at the six locations highlighted on the first page of the report.”

Kahlee had given plenty of presentations over the years, often to powerful and important people. But at her core she was a researcher, not a public speaker, and she couldn’t quite ignore the cold, heavy knot in the pit of her stomach as she spoke.

“The names listed beneath each location are confirmed Cerberus operatives believed to have specific knowledge of the layout or defenses of the target in question.”

This particular presentation wasn’t made any easier by the fact that, apart from Anderson, everyone she was addressing was a turian military officer. They stared at her with the intensity of hawks tracking a mouse on the ground—eight pairs of cold, unblinking eyes.

“In order to use their intel without giving Cerberus advance warning, the strike teams will have to be en route before C-Sec arrests the operatives.

“Even if someone does send off a warning, these bases are in remote clusters that haven’t been directly
linked into the galactic comm network yet. It’ll take time for any messages to get through to them.”

“What kind of window will we have between the arrests and hard contact?” one of the turians asked.

His uniform sagged under the weight of all the medals pinned to his chest.

Upon entering the briefing room she’d been introduced to the assemblage, their names and ranks thrown at her in rapid-fire succession as they went around the table. She hadn’t even made an attempt to try and remember them.

“Four hours,” Anderson chimed in. “Plenty of time for C-Sec to interrogate the prisoners and transmit the info to you.”

“Using the info, each strike team leader will have the authority to change the strategic plan for their target,” Orinia added.

“This information is reliable?” another turian, this one female, asked.

A thin white scar ran along her jaw, its color making it stand out from the dark red facial tattoos that signified the colony of her birth. She was the only female turian other than Orinia in the room, meaning she stood out enough that Kahlee could actually recall her name: Dinara.

Kahlee could have gone into a lengthy explanation about statistical analysis, margins of error, and probability matrixes extrapolated from incomplete, estimated, and assumed data. However, doing so could have created doubt in the turians’ minds.

“It’s reliable,” she assured them.

“Most of these targets are within the borders of Alliance territory,” Medals, the first turian, objected.

“Just before Orinia gives the go to the strike teams, I’m going to authorize a joint-species military action inside Alliance space,” Anderson explained. “Everything you do will be completely in accordance with existing Council laws and treaties.”

“That’s the kind of thing that could get you dismissed from your post,” a third turian noted.

“Almost certainly,” Anderson agreed.

“Two of the locations are inside the Terminus Systems,” Dinara pointed out. “You can’t grant us the authority to strike there.”

“Those are the most important installations,” Kahlee insisted. “The whole reason Cerberus has facilities outside Council jurisdiction is to allow them to engage in illegal or unethical research without fear of repercussions.”

“Attacking a facility in the Terminus Systems means a Council review,” Medals countered. “It could be grounds for a military discharge.”

There were murmurs of agreement around the table, and Kahlee feared the turians were turning against them.

“That could happen,” Anderson said, speaking loudly to be heard over the general grumbling. “But Cerberus doesn’t play by the rules. Neither can we if we want to take them out.

“If that’s a problem for any of you,” he added sternly, “you can leave now.”

There was a long moment of silence, but every turian remained seated at the table.

“The Terminus facilities are orbital space stations in uninhabited systems,” Oriana said, picking up where Anderson had left off. “If the strike teams
complete their mission, there won’t be any witnesses to file a report against you.”

“Understood,” Medals replied with a curt nod. “No survivors.”

“Except for any prisoners you find,” Kahlee hastily added. “If Cerberus is holding someone against their will, they need to be rescued.”

“This is a rescue mission?” Dinara asked, looking for clarification.

Anderson and Orinia exchanged glances before the turian ambassador answered the question.

“We can’t confirm the presence of prisoners at any location. If you find any, help them if you can. But do not put the mission—or turian lives—at risk unnecessarily.”

Kahlee bit her lip to keep from objecting. Anderson had warned her that getting the turians to cooperate wasn’t going to be easy. They had to offer something the turians wanted: the elimination of Cerberus. If she pushed the prisoner angle, Orinia might pull her people out.

“What about the Illusive Man?” Medals wanted to know.

“Capturing him would be an ideal outcome,” Orinia admitted. “But we have no pictures of what he looks like. All we have is a basic physical description. If you see anyone matching the profile, try to bring them back alive.”

Kahlee wasn’t sure what would happen next. She thought there might be a vote or some spirited debate regarding the mission. At the very least she expected others to voice their objections or raise concerns. True, the turians were a military culture, and they
were used to accepting and acting on orders from their superiors; but this was an unusual situation, and technically Orinia was no longer part of the chain of command.

However, whatever window there had been to question the mission had apparently been closed.

“Strike teams leave in four hours,” the ambassador declared as she rose from her seat.

Following her lead, the other turians stood and filed out, leaving Orinia alone with the two humans.

“I wish we could go with them,” Kahlee muttered.

“Each commander has crafted his or her team into a finely tuned military instrument through thousands of hours of training,” Orinia reminded her. “You’d only get in the way.”

“They’ll do their best to help Grayson if they find him,” Anderson assured Kahlee, reading her thoughts.

“I know,” she said, though secretly she had her doubts.

Kai Leng’s muscles strained as he pulled his chin up over the bar one last time. Then he dropped to the floor and knocked out a final set of fifty push-ups.

When he was done he threw a towel over his shoulder, strode to the fitness room’s gravity control, and dialed it back down from two hundred percent to one standard G.

He wiped the sweat from his bare torso and slung the towel back over his shoulder. He turned toward
the locker room, then changed direction instantly when alarms began to wail.

Rushing over to the console by the wall, he punched in his security code to get a status update. The screen might as well have said:
ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE
.

Three unidentified vessels were bearing down on the orbital space station. They were small enough to have slipped past the long-range sensors; that meant they didn’t have the firepower to pierce the station’s kinetic barriers and reinforced hull. Instead, they were coming in fast in an effort to get close enough to begin boarding procedures before the GARDIAN defenses could burn away their ablative armoring.