State Security Station
Hyderabad, India
"I need to see your identification please, Miss," said the officer.
Kasumi winced. Throughout her long career as a professional spy, thief, and hacker, she had made it her priority to erase every single record of her that ever existed. The hospital where she was born, the schools she attended, even the diner where she waited tables. She had tracked down and destroyed every last one. To the system, she did not exist.
Ordinarily during a job she would make it her first priority to obtain forged licenses and other documentation that would satisfy the occasional inquisitive authority figure, but Garrus had assured her it wouldn't be necessary.
"In and out," he'd said easily, smiling at her. "We go in, get the info and Shepard won't even have to leave the ship."
When she got out of here she was going to ram her omni-tool straight up his -
"Miss. Your identification please," said the officer. He'd lost his bored tone, and sounded a little annoyed.
"I'm not carrying any," she ventured.
"Oh? Why not?"
"It was uh, stolen."
"I see. Could you just tell me the details please."
Kasumi couldn't believe her ears. He was going to take her story at face value? With any luck she would be out of here in a couple of hours. She launched into a story of how her I.D. Chip was stolen by a couple of thugs, along with all her money. Kasumi knew the key to sounding plausible. No grandiose tales of fighting off an army one-handed, just plain and boring as possible.
"...and then he pushed me to the ground and damaged my omni-tool." Brilliant. The fool was taking everything down.
Just then a door opened and another officer came in and whispered something into the first guy's ear. He looked surprised, and shot Kasumi a nasty look. Then the both of them left the room. Kasumi felt her heart sink.
It was a small room with three chairs and a square table, and that was it. There weren't even any big glass windows with two-way mirrors, she had spotted two pinhole cameras covering the whole room when she was led inside. She knew her every move was being recorded, so she just sat and tried not to despair.
It was supposed to have been a simple job. She had done similar jobs before, and could have done it again in her sleep. It wasn't supposed to have ended like this.
Hours ago
It was surprisingly easy to get a room in Hyderabad, a city so jam-packed it was a struggle to just walk down the street. It was rather like swimming against a strong current. Kasumi was bumped into and jostled around so many times she felt as though she was inside a pinball machine. Garrus and Thane's alien appearances turned a few heads, but people simply didn't have the time or space to stop and stare. That worked to their advantage.
Old buildings were constantly being torn down and new ones were going up in the city. This meant that for long stretches of time, certain unfinished buildings could be utilised as a base of operations for the team. They had to scare off a bunch of homeless people, but that was relatively easy. The hard part was breaking into the headquarters of Sombra Corp.
A mighty building a hundred and thirty stories tall, made of steel and glass and glittering like a jewel on the banks of the Musi river, the Sombra Corp building utterly dominated the city skyline. Thane commented he would be able to see (and shoot) any person walking around openly in the city from its top floor.
According to Jacob's research, Sombra employed a staggering fifteen percent of the city's population and often made generous contributions to the local community. This in turn meant that they enjoyed greater protection and freedom from the authorities. The word 'corruption' hung in the air like a bad smell, but to Kasumi all massive corporations were by definition corrupt. That's why she had so much fun working to bring them down.
Infiltrating the building was alarmingly easy. She didn't even need her stealth mods to do it. If she wanted to Kasumi could literally disappear from sight, but she discovered early on in her career that the best way of becoming unseen was to be seen yet remain unnoticed.
Posing as one of the janitorial staff wasn't the most glamorous of ways to get the job done, but it worked. People's eyes slid over her as she watched past, thoroughly ignorant of her existence. It was the next best thing to being invisible.
Unfortunately while she had access to all of the building's secrets, the information she found was extremely disappointing. They lacked specifics, names, dates and places, anything that would provide conclusive evidence of Rick Foley's tacit support of Cerberus. She theorised that Foley was keeping the real information hidden elsewhere.
"Why are you certain this man has kept records at all?" grunted Thane. He had his rifle out again, and was recalibrating the sights. Thane got testy when he had nothing to shoot, and all he'd done for days was to formulate plans for Foley's murder. Kasumi had seen some of them, and she had to admit they really were rather good.
"You have to have records," replied Kasumi. "Can't cover your tracks if you don't know where they are."
"This is folly," muttered the assassin. "We waste valuable time sitting here idle. Every day our target remains alive is another gift to Cerberus."
"We have our orders from Shepard," said Garrus. He was examining some more documents Kasumi had managed to lift. The walls of their hideout were plastered from top to bottom with pictures, maps and charts trying to link Foley to Cerberus. It looked like a library had exploded and no one had bothered to clean up, but Kasumi thought she could see a pattern emerging. It was so tantalising to almost see the connections, continually shifting yet always stopping short. If she could just get her hands on a few more details...
Jacob made a disparaging noise. "Shepard's head ain't right, not since the Collector station."
"I thought he was your friend."
"It's because he's my friend that I'm worried. Spending all that time with Jack...can't be good."
"Why not?"
"Have you looked at her lately?"
"Just because she's got some ink..."
"Then take a look at her file. All of her bad blood's on record there. Who Shepard hooks up with ain't none of my business, but if it's going to affect our work I'm going to make it my business."
"Perhaps we should have this conversation back on board the ship," said Thane.
"You bet I will."
"Quiet!" said Garrus suddenly, his neck craned to one side. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
There was a brief moment a silence...and then the world exploded.
Kasumi was blown off her chair and ended up sprawled under a table. The air was filled with smoke and she couldn't hear a damn thing. There was a shrill ringing in her ears, which mercifully died away. It was replaced by the sound of shouting, which wasn't a whole lot better.
"Kasumi! Kasumi, get up!" Jacob was hauling her to her feet. "You need to get out of here! Tell Shepard the mission's been compromised!"
Before she could do so much as nod, the door was blasted apart and a horde of men in full-face helmets and riot gear poured in. They were carrying long-barelled assault rifles with grenade launchers attached, one still smoking from having fired the flashbang.
"Go, now!" roared Jacob. Garrus was down, there were smoking holes in his armour. Thane's rifle was useless at such close quarters, he tossed it aside and lashed out with his hands and feet. His blows bounced harmlessly off the guard's fortified suits however, and he was taken down hard. Jacob pushed Kasumi in the direction of the emergency escape route and opened fire in the opposite direction.
Half blind and deaf, Kasumi staggered out of the hideout. Some part of her wanted to stay and fight. Jacob was in there, he was in danger and she hated the thought of running away. But ultimately she knew there was nothing she could do. There had to be at least thirty men in there, and she didn't even have a weapon on her.
She cursed as her omni-tool sparked and died. With it she could do pretty much anything. Without, she was stuck alone in a strange land without means of communication or protection.
Distance. She needed to get away as far as possible from the hideout. Jacob had saved her life for one thing. She had to get back and tell Shepard about what happened. Otherwise he would have died for nothing.
She ran as fast as she could down the alleyway, pushing people out of her way. One thought was lodged in her brain. Shepard. Get to Shepard.
The sound of sirens cut through the night air and troop transports surrounded her. Hyderabadi police officers spilled out, aiming their weapons at her.
"Freeze! You are under arrest!"
"Baka," Kasumi swore under her breath.
Now
They had left her alone for a couple of hours, without a drink or allowing her a call. She was pretty sure some civil right or the other was being violated, but seeing as how she was in the country to commit a crime the legal process wasn't going to help much.
She was stuck. Kasumi had been in worse scrapes before, but that weren't a lot of comfort at this particular moment. She simply couldn't see a way out. The longer she delayed getting the message to Shepard, Jacob and the others would be in more and more danger. She refused to consider the possibility that he was dead. Not for a second.
Kasumi swept her hood over her head. She was sick of waiting helplessly in a small dank little room. She might not have anything at hand, but she was damned if she didn't at least try to break out on her own.
She pushed the chair away from the table and stood up. At that exact moment, the power went out and the entire building was plunged in darkness.
Kasumi stood stock still for a moment, analysing the situation. She could hear screams, coming from far away. There were the faint sounds of heavy footsteps, as if people were running.
When the emergency power kicked in, the red light illuminated an empty room.
Hours ago
Singapore City
Jack hated Singapore. It reminded her too much of the Citadel. Towering, imposing buildings covered every available square inch of ground. Trees and bushes and flowers were wound here and there among the man-made constructions like some kind of artificial, committee-designed jungle. They tried so hard to look natural it inadvertently came off as artificial. Shuttles flew through the air without deviating an inch from their set paths. Everything was way too shiny and neat and clean and orderly and disgustingly perfect.
She wanted the environment to reflect what she was feeling on the inside. Something war-torn and hellish, for a start. A nuclear blasted desolate wasteland of broken rubble dotted with puddles of radioactive goo while the shells of once proud buildings, guttered by fire, crumbled away into a heap of ruins. Dead bodies strewn here there and everywhere, while the wails of the living filled the air with the sound of their endless despair. The sky black with the smoke of wildfires left to rage unchecked. The very air filled with poison and smog, with clean water and green trees a mere memory. Something like that would do for a start.
Instead men and women in sleek business suits and dresses and perfectly made-up hair looked down their noses at Jack as she stormed past them. But even if she slammed into someone with her shoulder, the most she would get was a cry of surprise that was quickly silenced as the guy hurried away as fast as his legs would take him.
It occurred to Jack that she was currently in one of the wealthiest cities on the face of the home planet. Citizens of the local system on the whole never really had to endure war and strife and other threats to the rat-race that was their lives. They'd never fired a gun or stared death in the face. Fucking losers. This was what Shepard fought so hard to protect?
But thinking about Shepard just made a hot, sick swell of anger rush throughout her entire body. Jack Fucking Shepard. Just thinking about him made her want to kill something.
She almost believed him. Just for a little while Shepard had made her believe in the impossible. That despite all the bad shit she'd done in her life, despite all the pain that she endured, there was someone out there who could love her wholly and unreservedly for who she was, and accept her without reservation.
Jack passed a woman who actually yelped like a little puppy and dashed out of the way. She had half a mind to go back and fling the pathetic woman into the river with her biotics, but shrugged and moved on.
A bar. She needed a bar where she could down some drinks and beat someone up. Wasn't there a goddamn proper bar in this fucking country? Everywhere she looked there were glittering upscale yuppie places where people met to discuss business deals, where the cheapest drink cost no less than sixty credits a glass.
Jack Fucking Shepard could never hold his drink. Despite being about twice as big as her with all that fancy gene modification, she was sure she could drink him under the table. The only time she had ever seen him drink like a madman was right after Horizon, where he broke up with that cunt of an ex-girlfriend of his.
Jack's hands involuntarily balled themselves into fists. The nerve of that fucking cunt, waltzing onto the ship as if she belonged there, assuming command like it was 'back in the old days'...
Ah fuck it. She needed a drink badly. Jack ducked into the next posh bar she saw and flung open the door so hard it crashed against the wall and made everyone inside jump.
"Give me a whiskey," she growled to the bartender. He was wearing a uniform, for crying out loud. Where were all the proper pubs in this accursed city?
The man's hands were shaking as he poured her drink and pushed it timorously in front of her. Jack grabbed it, swallowed it down in one gulp and glared at him meaningfully. He took her glass and began to pour out another shot.
"Just leave the bottle," ordered Jack. He did as he was told and scampered to the other side of the counter, as far away from Jack as he could get. She could feel the eyes of everyone else in the bar on her.
"Anyone got a fucking problem?" she roared, turning around in her seat. Most lowered their heads. A few made for the exits, pushing each other in their hurry to leave. Jack ignored them and went back to her drink.
Love was a recent visitor in Jack's life. She knew lust, the thrill of copulating with a completely random stranger and giving in to your desire in the heat of the moment. She knew rage and fury and all that good stuff. She had even experienced one or two moments of brief, fleeting happiness, usually around the time when she was making off with a score enough to buy a fleet of ships. There was sadness and despair and grief, which she kept buried deeper than a grave. Such emotions were for the weak.
But love...Jack wasn't sure how to deal with it. She had approached it in her usual manner, as if it was another opponent to be dominated and defeated. But it hadn't worked on Shepard at all.
She thought he was just looking for a quick fuck before moving on. She'd been with men like that, pirate captains and merc leaders usually. She almost wished that Shepard would turn out to be the same. At least she knew how to handle them, after a tumble or two they usually left her alone, which suited Jack just fine.
But no. Jack Fucking Shepard wanted to know about her feelings. He wanted to hear her story. He even told her there was no rush, he was interested in her, not just her body. He was warm and sensitive and kind and funny and patient and...
Bastard. Jack tipped the bottle back and felt the liquor burn as it slid down her throat.
She knew this was going to end badly. She knew it in her heart. He was a galactic hero. She was murderous convict scum with the body of a teenage boy, more ink than a tankful of giant squid and a criminal record sheet longer than she was tall. You couldn't find two people who were more different if you tried.
But for just a moment, it looked like he could see past all that. He ignored the weapon and focused on the girl crying on the inside. He tried to change himself for her sake. He understood that with all the torture and trauma she had to endure, it was too much to ask for her to turn into a civilised socialite worthy of the great Commander Shepard. Although she had to admit he had never actually said out loud that was what he wanted, it was what she assumed he wanted. To her disbelief he had tried to connect with her on her level. He had braved the depths of the Grinder to prove he wasn't above coming into her world. No matter how many times she pushed him away he just kept coming back.
She had allowed herself to hope. The first time they made love she felt as though she was going to die right there from the sheer intense ecstasy he helped her to experience. And he didn't walk away after that, or treat her like a piece of meat. Jack Fucking Shepard was the best lover she'd ever had, in all aspects of the word. She allowed herself to believe in a happy ending.
Then that bitch had shown up...
Jack had given him a simple choice. Ignore the bitch's stupid plan of walking right into the lion's den, and go in hard and fast. Even the idiot krogan had pointed it out. Shepard was a Spectre. What good was there in being above the law if he wasn't going to take advantage of it?
He wouldn't do it. He insisted on following what Williams said. He insisted on doing what she told him to do. Sure Williams had acted all innocent, but Jack knew what was going on. She was there to take him back, and it would have been simplicity itself to kill the bitch and get it over with.
Jack slammed the empty bottle back down on the counter. Bastard Jack Fucking Shepard. It was his bloody influence. Now she actually thought twice before killing someone. Even though he had sworn not to take his old girlfriend back, he'd made it clear that they were still friends. Williams was an agent of the Alliance Intelligence Agency, and there were sickening rumours about what they did to people who hurt their agents, but Jack wasn't afraid of them. Forget what the AIA might do, she knew that if she went with her first impulse and killed the bitch, Shepard would never be able to forgive her.
It had taken every ounce of self control she possessed not to rip Williams's stupid head off and instead plead with Shepard not to go along with her moronic plan. Jack despised begging and pleading. Both at Teltin and in Purgatory, she had never apologised or pleaded even if it would have saved her a world of pain. She gritted her teeth and took a beating from the sadistic guards rather than debase herself.
But she had done it for Shepard's sake, and the bastard didn't even seem to notice. He'd seemed unusually agitated when she pushed for the 'guns blazing' option, and muttered something about being afraid of committing more acts of violence. As if that had ever stopped him in the past.
He had made his choice, not her. He was going to do what Williams told him to do. Jack would rather drop dead than to take orders from Williams. And killing the bitch was out of the question. So she had no choice but to leave.
"Oi, asshole. Keep it coming," she yelled. But there was no one at the counter. Jack raised a hand and another bottle of whiskey flew towards her. She caught it, opened it and went right to work.
She wished Shepard had landed in some other country though. It was going to be a nightmare trying to blend in a posh place like this. Stuck in Southeast Asia while Shepard and the bitch were flying to India to confront the Cerberus guy the next morning.
Jack sipped thoughtfully from her bottle. Why had it worked out like this? Why was she stuck in a stupid excuse for a bar while the bitch flew off with Shepard? She had let them go without a fight. And fighting was what Jack did. It was what she lived for.
She wasn't afraid of Agent Ashley Williams. The bitch might be a crack shot, but Jack had killed hundreds of soldiers. They died just as easily as anyone else. Killing Williams would turn Shepard against her...but teaching her a lesson, now that wasn't out of the realms of possibility. Jack mentally kicked herself for walking out without even teaching the bitch what pain felt like.
For once in her life Jack had found something to fight for, not just to fight against. She had walked out in a moment of weakness, and she was already regretting her decision.
Shepard was hers. And Jack supposed she was his, when you got down to it. Throughout her life if someone took what was hers, she would raise all hell to get it back. Now it was time to take him back.
Jack grabbed the second bottle of whiskey and got off her stool. She had the rough beginnings of a plan already worked out in her mind. She wasn't very good at the whole 'thinking ahead' business, preferring to live in the moment. Shepard was the one who thought long term, and she supposed some of his attitude must have rubbed off on her. The two of them were going to travel to Hyderabad by 9 am the next day to confront Ransom Foley, she recalled. That was the time of the meeting. So she was going to be there at the same time. And then do...something.
Alright, so the plan wasn't finished yet, but she had plenty of time to work out the finer details.
Before she could leave the bar, two men in dark blue uniforms walked in.
"This is the police. We've received reports of a violent disturbance in the area. You're under arrest, miss. Put your hands in the air and turn around slowly."
Jack chuckled.
"Get the fuck out of my way and you won't get hurt," she said, almost kindly.
"Should we call for backup?" asked the rookie nervously. He looked barely eighteen.
"What the hell do we need backup for?" asked the older officer in disbelief. "Just cuff the bitch, I want this over with fast."
Jack shrugged. She had already given one warning, and that was one warning more than she usually gave. She could use a workout.
Jack raised her arms, a gesture equivalent to a gunslinger checking the pump action of his shotgun. Then all hell broke loose.
Every single window in the bar exploded outwards with an almighty crash of smashed glass as the two officers were hurled through them to land in a bloody mess on the sidewalk outside. A security alarm begin to wail almost immediately, its klaxon call piercing the evening air. The crowd outside, already struck dumb by the spectacle of two policemen being tossed through the air like baseballs, watched with growing disbelief as the entire front wall of the bar was torn down by some invisible force, as if the unseen hand of God had reached down and decided to wreak havoc with property values.
As the dust from the rubble cleared, a young woman stepped over the pile of broken stone and twisted wood and metal. She was clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels and laughing hysterically.
"Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!"
Shift
Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened in Singapore. The evening news was mainly devoted to stock market changes and exciting events occurring all across the galaxy. Coverage of local news had dwindled away to almost nothing, as anything that was remotely considered newsworthy happened off-planet. It came as a shock when people across the country logged into the Holo net had their vids and shows and communications rudely interrupted by a special emergency broadcast.
"If you have just joined us, a terrorist situation is taking place right now in Clarke Quay," said the female reporter breathlessly. "It is understood that both police special forces and military commandos are involved, and the entire bay area has been cordoned off with absolutely no civilian or media access allowed. According to eyewitness reports prior to the crackdown the terrorists have already levelled one building, believed to be a bar frequented by tourists. Following the attack they have holed up elsewhere, fighting off waves of assaults mounted by special forces. Reports of several casualties have yet to be confirmed."
According to the brochure published by the tourism board, Clarke Quay was one of the most popular spots in the country with nothing but luxury restaurants and pubs lined up along the banks of the historic Singapore River. The old was fused with the new, with gleaming new bars and restaurants standing shoulder to shoulder with centuries-old shophouses, an area rich in both culture and history.
All of it was being cheerfully torn down brick by brick by a tattooed biotic that looked no older than fourteen.
The response teams were stunned by the level of the threat they were facing. They had initially laughed off the request from the police force to sent down a full team.
"There's been a terrorist attack in Clarke Quay!"
"Roger that. Confirm number of antagonists."
"Uh...one."
"Who the hell is this? Get off the emergency line, moron! Stop wasting our time!"
"Listen, this is a genuine emergency and we need backup asap."
"If we find out this is a joke of some sort, you'll be locked up from now until Judgment Day."
"It's Judgment Day right now from where I'm standing!"
Jack sent another biotic shockwave rippling through the massed ranks of soldiers. Some were blasted into the air, most were hurled bodily aside. She missed fighting, just her against the odds. The last time she had a chance to work out like this was on the Collector station. And she had to admit, it was somewhat therapeutic to annihilate all the military hardware that Singapore could throw at her.
A deafening blast echoed through the air, and Jack was showered in rubble and dust. She wiped her eyes and spotted the long barrel of a tank aimed directly at her.
Part of Jack's 'training' involved the rote memorization of nearly every military assault vehicle ever created by both human and alien. Hours were spent drilling the digitized information directly into her brain, and she had the specifications of capabilities of each at her fingertips.
For every fact she got wrong, her rations were taken away and she would have to kill a wild varren if she wanted to eat. Sometimes the guards would toss her a packet of ketchup, laughing themselves fit to burst while they did it.
Jack felt the old anger surface and fought to keep it down. She kept her eyes locked on the tank barrel, counting off the seconds in her head, every muscle stretched as taut as a tightrope wire.
Earth ground assault tank, Beijing-class Dragon. Weight 5 tonnes, range 25 kilometers, top speed 60 kilometers per hour. Time for reload: 4 seconds.
Her legs coiled and pistoned themselves half a second before she actually saw the flash and felt the shockwaves of the cannon blast. Her entire body was engulfed in ethereal blue flame, painting the walls around her a deep cerulean. She launched herself head over heels in mid-air, reaching a height unattainable even by Olympic-level gymnasts, and landed on the one spot where she could not fired upon: the tank itself.
The other soldiers immediately ceased fire, fearful of hurting their comrades. Jack allowed herself a small grin. Apparently her targets still possessed a degree of human compassion. She had fought against enemies who wouldn't think twice about destroying one of their own just to kill her. This was going to make things much easier...not that she needed the help, of course.
People misunderstood biotics on a number of levels. For one there existed the misconception that they were all psychic. Asaris could meld with other minds and human fiction was rife with tales of people wielding immense telepathic powers, but biotics were telekinetics. They could manipulate objects, not minds.
Another myth was that biotics gained tremendous strength, endurance and speed from their powers. That was not strictly accurate, although the end result was pretty much the same. A biotic couldn't punch through walls, but his telekinesis could weaken the foundations and the structure and render it so unstable a simple punch would demolish it. Similarly, a biotic wouldn't be able to survive a shotgun blast at point-blank range, but the barriers he was capable of creating would do the trick. As for augmented speed, telekinesis moved a body faster than any mere muscles could.
There were drawbacks. Risks, of course. Over-reliance on biotic ability tended to push the body far beyond its breaking point. But well-trained biotics would learn to recognise the limits of their powers, and just one well-trained biotic was a match for an army.
So when Jack reached out and ripped a wide hole in the tank's hull, revelling in the screech of metal and every popped rivet, she wasn't doing it with her hands, but her mind. When she yanked out the screaming operator with one hand and hurled him into the Singapore River with the other, it was also the mind doing the job. The same was true as she leapt off the ruined tank in a graceful swan dive seconds before being hit by another explosive shell, her biotics ensuring she maintained perfect balance, poise and speed.
Jack dropped to the floor in a perfect split, narrowly avoiding the burst of rifle fire that cracked just over her head. It impacted on the shields of the men behind her, shorting them out. With their shields down, it was child's play to reach out and mentally disassemble all the little locks and catches that held their regular armour together and make it shiver off their bodies. Exposed to the elements, Jack could take her sweet time personally knocking out each and every one of them, occasionally dodging the shots of the other soldiers she hadn't gotten round to dealing with yet.
A mere six months ago she would have snuffed out lives without thinking twice, but now she found herself pulling her punches, not using her biotic abilities to their fullest extent. A kick that would have snapped a neck now merely bruised. A biotic blast that would have flung a soldier head first into an exposed steel beam hurled him into the river instead.
What's going on?
Then it hit her. Shepard. He had changed because of her...but she also had changed because of him. It didn't matter that he wasn't with her, or that she might never see him again. She was still following in his footsteps, doing what he would have done in her place. No matter how far away she ran he would always be a part of her.
This made her so emotional she summoned as much biotic energy in one moment as she did in the previous week and levitated a tank ten feet off the ground. Ignoring the strangled screams coming from the inside, she flung it into the river as well. A wave of water surged over the banks, rushing up as far as her feet.
All her life she had relied on exactly one person: herself. Now she had come to realise that there was one more person she could place her trust in.
It had only been a few hours, and she already missed him. She missed his smile, big and confident, even when things looked their worst. She missed his humour, always ready with a wisecrack. The nickname 'Joker' shouldn't have been given to the pilot, but rather its captain.
She missed his strength, his calm assurance that everything was going to be turn out all right. Shepard may have been just as scared shitless as the rest of the crew in any given situation, but he never showed it until the crisis was over. It was only later, in the dark quiet of his cabin, where she would listen to him talk of the fears he'd fought to overcome. More often than not she would laugh at him, as Jack found being a counsellor rather unnerving. But it seemed like just talking about it made Shepard feel better, and the least she could do was listen.
And of course she missed being with him, running her hands over his rock hard muscles that only ever relaxed when they were alone, kissing him until her lips were sore. Lying in his lap with his arms wrapped tight around her. Making love whenever the mood took them. She wanted that back again.
She loved Shepard. And in a startling moment of clarity, she had come to understand the full meaning of what that word truly meant. Without him she felt hollow and empty, devoid of purpose. Shepard made her feel like a person, loved, whole and complete. She was damn sure he felt the same. She would move heaven and earth to be by his side once more.
Now for most people that would just be a mere phrase. But she was the most dangerous biotic in the verse, her powers allied to an extremely cunning and inventive mind. Most people wouldn't know how to get from point A to B without getting bogged down in the details. Jack saw the clearest line from A to Z and it was her habit to take the straightest route to get there, even if it involved running through walls and wading through armies.
Shepard was on his way right now to another country. She was stuck here. She needed some form of transport. The Normandy was far away behind enemy lines. So she decided to take one of her own. The tanks and other assault vehicles around her were land based, and the ships anchored in the bay would be a stretch too far to hijack, but...
A familiar booming echo far overhead made Jack look up. She then made a snap decision.
Jack faced her assailants, many of whom were cowering behind makeshift cover made of rubble and broken bits of stone, not daring to come another step nearer.
"You sorry bunch of bastards!" she began pleasantly, cupping her hands around her mouth to facilitate communication. "It's been fun. It really has. But it's getting late and I really have to go."
"Lie down on the ground and place both hands behind your head!" yelled back someone. Without thinking Jack reached out and tossed him into the river as well.
"Anyone else fancy a swim?"
Terrified silence.
"Now look, can't say I haven't enjoyed this workout. But it could have been much, much worse. The reason all of you aren't dead right now is because of that idiot Jack Bastard Shepard. Keep that in mind."
A moment passed. Jack drew all of her energy inwards, focusing her mind with laser-guided precision and compressing it into a single, all-encompassing thought.
Up.
Like a bullet from a gun she shot straight up into the air, flipped over, and landed feet and hands first directly onto the cockpit of a fighter jet that happened to be streaking over the battlefield.
Jack couldn't hear the horrified screams of the pilot as his face was almost totally obscured by his breath mask, but his eyes were clear and they bulged at her in a stark expression of terror.
The jet roared away at hundreds of meters per second. Any normal human being hanging on to the outside of such a craft would have been liquified, but Jack, as she told Shepard once, was hardly normal. She sheathed herself in a productive cocoon of biotic energy and as such the tremendous gravitational pressures and gale force winds mattered as much to her as a gentle spring breeze might have done.
Jack reached down and casually tore off the top of the cockpit, letting the pieces of glass whirl away far below. The pilot was trying to punch her in the face, so she snapped his restraints, picked him up with both hands and tossed him overboard as well.
Without bothering to look where he ended up Jack settled herself comfortably in the pilot's seat. She regretted destroying the cockpit panel a little bit, but she maintained her shields and a flat blue screen shimmered into existence, moulding itself perfectly above her head. It would serve for the duration of the journey.
Jack looked around, flipping switches, pressing buttons, disabling all communications and internal tracking systems. Despite never having been in an atmospheric jet fighter before she was intimately familiar with its inner workings. Her training had seen to that.
Earth fighter Asia-class Skywarrior. Armaments: Extensive. Estimated time needed for travel between Singapore and Hyderabad: One hour.
She was going to go to where Shepard was going and save his stupid life for him. Then she was going to explain to Ms. Williams very politely that if she wanted Shepard, all she had to do was to fight for him. Couldn't say fairer than that.
Another smile touched the edges of Jack's lips as she screamed through the night sky in her stolen fighter, leaving both the sound barrier and the borders of Singapore far, far behind.
Hyderabad
Now
Kasumi began to feel better almost immediately after leaving the small dank little interrogation room. The power failure had rendered the magnetic locks on the door useless, and after fashioning a rudimentary lockpick out of the heel of her boot she had slid the bolts open and was free to roam around the station at will.
She hated being caged or conformed in any way, and it was part of the reason why she took up her chosen career in the first place. It was also the reason why she remained a part of Shepard's crew long after her initial contract from Cerberus was over. He could be such an insufferable soldier boy at times, but he was a Spectre. His mandate of 'Above the Law' appealed tremendously to her, someone who walked the line between legality and morality on a daily basis.
Roaming around a state security station was not something that was completely unknown to her. She had undertaken several jobs against government targets, often on behalf of other governments. The basic layout remained more or less the same no matter where the station was, be it in the middle of a city, miles under water or on the dark side of a moon. The juiciest secrets and most important information tended to be stored in the centre under heavy guard, and it was to the centre that she was going now.
Call it a hunch. Call it instinct or intuition. Her search at the HQ of Sombra had turned up less than satisfactory evidence, and she wanted to see what records the local government was keeping on them.
She could hear loud voices calling out in panicked Hindi interspersed with English. No matter what language they used, it was clear the officials were not expecting this power blackout.
Kasumi found it child's play to slip undetected through the shadows unnoticed. The emergency lighting painted the walls a deep, foreboding crimson, and Kasumi moved quickly, circling closer towards the centre.
"The backup generator! Get down and get that working, you idiots! There's been a terrorist attack!" yelled an authoritative voice, and Kasumi heard heavy booted footfalls coming towards her.
She had no time to think, only to react. In the space of a second she crouched down, leapt straight up and spread her legs, bracing her feet on either wall. With a free hand she grabbed at a light fixture and held her breath.
A squad of men rushed along the corridor underneath her, clearly in a hurry to get away from the source of the shouting. They never even thought of looking up.
When they were out of sight, Kasumi dropped to the floor as quietly as possible, and moved on.
After a few minutes, she began to suspect that she had found her goal. Moving very cautiously, she peeked around a corner. At the end of this corridor was a big, thick looking steel door. But what was interesting was the presence of two heavily armed guards standing in front of it.
During an apparent terrorist attack, these two guards had decided that guarding whatever it was that they were guarding was more important than responding to the situation outside, or restoring power to the facility. Kasumi found this very interesting indeed.
Out of sight around the corner, Kasumi fiddled with the omni-tool she had lifted while passing by a storeroom. It wasn't a patch on her old one (and she missed it with all her heart), barely able to do the most basic of things. But it was enough.
With a little work she tapped into the local network and accessed the personal communicators of the guards.
"Attention. This is a code red emergency, return to Command immediately."
Around the corner, the guards looked at each other.
"Code red? What's that?"
"Beats me."
Kasumi cursed silently. She decided to play it differently.
"We have a terrorist situation on hand! We need you up on the Command level now, or else you can look for new jobs tomorrow!"
After a moment's hesitation, the guards shrugged and left.
When she was certain they had left, Kasumi walked calmly up to the door. A simple lockpick wouldn't have worked for this one, but with the help of her new omni-tool (blasted piece of trash) she got it open.
The door swung open to reveal a single computer terminal. Working as quickly as she could, Kasumi gained access and sifted through the files.
Jackpot.
Hyderabad
Now
"You are entering Indian airspace illegally. Identify yourself at once or we will shoot you down," crackled a tinny voice, coming from the control panel.
Jack glanced over at the communicator, and brought her fist crashing down on it. The instrument was smashed beyond repair.
It had been an uneventful trip thus far, as Jack pushed the jet to the limits of its top speed and stayed mostly above cloud cover. But now she was reaching her destination, and she had to slow down and drop back down a little to see where she was going.
Hyderabad by early morning was an uncommonly beautiful city. It reminded Jack a little of Ilium, with shining lights and towering buildings everywhere. Winding in and out and around were the lines of shuttle traffic, backed up as far as the eye can see despite the early hour.
A loud beeping sounded in the cockpit, and Jack looked at the sensor screen. A couple of blips were on the screen, converging on her position fast.
Jack half-regretted destroying the communicator, she was sure the pilots of the other jets were trying to contact her and it would have been fun to taunt them.
She kicked up the throttle a notch higher and felt a lurch as her jet zoomed forward, leaving her pursuers behind. Her shields were still holding, protecting her from the wind and immense pressure, but she was getting a little tired of maintaining it.
Jack was keeping her eyes peeled for the Sombra Corp HQ. It should be the biggest and most imposing building around, and her eyes were drawn to an immense black tower sitting beside the river. A beam of sunlight hit the familiar Sombra logo and lit it up, and Jack knew that was where she had to go.
The beeping alarm sounded again, and Jack's eyes narrowed as she once again checked out the sensor screens. The jets she thought she had shaken off were once again right on her tail. Time was running out, and it was time for her to take drastic action.
Shift
A loud wailing filled the air, and the simulation ended. Encased in the pod, Jack gasped for breath, the shock of the realistic images replaced by utter darkness unnerving her a little.
The pod hissed open, and the bright light made her blink. Then she was hauled bodily out of the pod and slapped hard across the face.
"Explain."
Jack poked her tongue out and ran it over her lip. The iron tang of blood was familiar. Then she was slapped again, and this time the blow was so hard she was knocked to the floor.
"Explain," said the voice once more. It had no change in tone, and was as flat and dead as ever.
"I made a mistake," whispered Jack. The blood from her mouth dripped onto the concrete. Then she was kicked in the ribs, the explosion of pain so overwhelming she almost blacked out. A tear welled in her eye and she forced it back down. No tears. Not now, not ever.
"That much is clear, Subject Zero," intoned the voice. "You made a mistake. Now I want to know what it was."
"I misjudged the angle of descent," mumbled Jack. "The other fighters shot me down. I crashed." She was kicked again, and involuntarily cried out in pain. She curled into as tight a ball as possible, blinking away more tears.
"A poor answer. You will get into the pod again, and you will resume the simulation once more. And this time you will get it right."
Jack forced herself to her feet, and clambered into the simulation pod. Before it closed shut, the voice spoke once again.
"If you fail again you will not live to see the morning, Subject Zero."
Shift
Jack flipped a couple of switches and pulled hard on the steering lever. The plane began to nosedive sharply.
Images flashed past her, whipping by faster and faster. The clouds. The shuttle traffic. Trees. The ground!
At the last second Jack pulled up, her arms shaking with the strain. There was a dull boom behind her as one of the pursuing jets slammed into the ground and exploded in a ball of flame.
Without taking a moment to celebrate, Jack roared away with the remaining jet in hot pursuit. She couldn't try the same feint again, and she had to get out of the civilian zone or risk massive casualties. Shepard's thinking once more.
The jet fired a missile at her and Jack released her countermeasures. The anti-missile knocked it off trajectory, but it was her last one. Her own jet was light on armaments, and she couldn't hope to take it out in a dogfight.
Jack began flying in a slightly more random and haphazard pattern. She would pull up, dive down, zip from one side to the other seemingly for the heck of it. The other jet stayed on her tail, but Jack could tell it was working. He remained a step or two behind her movements.
Her plan involved pitch perfect timing. But if she got it wrong...
Jack had never prayed in her life. With all that had happened in her life, the concept of a loving God was alien to her. But Shepard did, and it seemed to work for him.
"Give me this, you son of a bitch," she muttered between gritted teeth. "Then we're even."
She saw a silhouette in front of her, looming up fast. The familiar cylindrical shape of cooling towers of the main fusion plant that supplied power to half of the city. It would have to do, there was no other option.
Jack raced towards the power plant, with the other jet right behind her. She stilled herself, feeling the familiar wave of coldness settle over her. Nothing else in the universe mattered other than her mind.
At the last possible moment, Jack pulled her jet up sharply once more, going straight up. She let go of her shields, and a gale force wind swept into the cockpit. Sucked out of the jet like a cork popping from a bottle, she called up another biotic shield to kill her speed.
The pilot following her was an experienced, capable man. He wouldn't have fallen for such a simple trick and would have avoided crashing into the power plant...if not for Jack reaching out and ripping out his navigation systems with her biotic powers.
The jet spiralled out of control and crashed into the power plant, with her own jet, now without a pilot, following suit seconds later. An almighty explosion shook the plant, and the entire city was suddenly plunged into darkness. The only light came from the slowly rising sun, and the fires that were engulfing the power plant.
Jack spread her arms and felt her descent slow down as she strengthened her shields. She fell to the ground as light as a feather.
She ignored the rocketing explosions behind her, and the cries of the people shocked by the sudden power blackout. Her eyes settled on a dark tower in the distance.
That was where Shepard was. That was where she was going to go. And that was where she was going to take him back.
Without a weapon or gear of any kind other than the clothes on her back and her biotic mind, Jack set out