Citadel

"Commander Shepard," One of the AI ads beamed down at her, its voice bearing that slight always out of breath quality that made it an obvious fake. When you marketed shotgun style, the actual content and quality mattered less than reach and volume. "Records show it's been 28 months since you last purchased feminine hygiene products, perhaps you should consider-"

"Well, not everybody knows." Kasumi tittered in her ear.

"Thanks."

"I can update your log file if you want. Not sure you want to be getting ads for tampons..."

"I'm not in a hurry to make it public, exactly."

"Public's a relative term, you don't need to announce something to a crowd for most people to know it. If you've done any searches for condoms or male sex toys lately, the algorithms at least suspect-"

"Well, I haven't."

"You should reconsider, you can never be too safe in this galaxy, plus some molded silicon might help you when you have to talk to-"

"Please, do not try to sell me sex toys Kasumi."

Shepard heard Jacob stifle a laugh behind her, Miranda was less amused.

"You know, we can hear exactly half of... whatever this conversation is."

"Not sure how adept they would be at handling your size. You might want to look in the Krogan section."

Shepard beeped the mute button on her comms. Kasumi's voice blinked out for a moment. A moment later, it beeped again and it blinked back in. It sounded like she hadn't stopped talking the whole time she was muted.

"-I did see that some people started making ones with collection tips, it turns out when you ask a Krogan to jack it into a bucket, they tend to miss it a lot, or otherwise damage it."

"I don't think my mute button works," Shepard spoke to nobody in particular.

"Mine either, she's been playing Muzak over my comms the whole time," Jacob grumbled.

"Is that what that is? I thought the toilet sounds were an errant signal, so I pulled mine out." Miranda added semi-jokingly.

"Kasumi," Shepard spoke into her comms with patience she lacked.

"Fine, just a word of advice. They'd do you more good than feminine hygiene products these days."

"Even if I don't need them, it's how I remember the Wards."

"That's what you get for having a public browsing history."

"Well, what do they try to sell you then?"

"They don't try to sell me anything. If I'm not controlling the feed, they just kinda let off a beige background hum at all times. You know, like the one Mr. Taylor gives off."

"Hey, I like Mr. Taylor."

"Uh... thanks?" Jacob seemed like he was trying to ignore his captain seemingly talking to herself in public.

"You need to be careful what you say out loud." Kasumi sounded like she was having fun.

"I don't really have any other way to respond to you." Shepard was losing what little remained of an already low well of patience.

"The microphone is near your mouth, captain. You can whisper. Do you know how bad you blow your mic out when you're barking orders by the way? Or you could just not respond. Treat me like a voice in your head."

Miranda cleared her throat meaningfully, "Are we about done here?"

Shepard almost subconsciously reached under her helmet and adjusted her receiver, then answered in a restrained voice "Sorry, let's get moving."

The feed with the AI salesperson flickered in the middle of its third attempt to sell tampons. Every few seconds, the nose would twitch on the otherwise unmoving face, causing Shepard to rub her eyes every time she looked back over. The speech synthesis was oddly quiet for a time, enough to attract attention as the one screen not barking embarrassing targeted ads for a moment. When it resumed, it was far choppier.

"Ms. Lawson! Your condition is treatable! Call the number below-"

Shepard winced almost subconsciously, "We need her."

Miranda seemed unphased, "I've had worse."

Kasumi had... well introduced herself wasn't the right way to describe it. They were on the Citadel ostensibly for her and to sort out a couple of small legal issues involving a two-year **** period. Kasumi had shown up like acne. Starting as a fizzle in the comms, then punching through to sit in on their conversation. Now she was just... here. She would be, at least in theory, the easier of the two things to sort out today. Especially considering that she seemed to have moved into the ship already without any real permission or encouraging. As for the other problem, faking your **** was a pretty common ploy for getting out of paying taxes. It was the whole "coming back of your own accord" part that was probably going to be new for the poor clerk. Statistically, you could be the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy, you still at least tried to pay your taxes on time. Tax collectors, like the reapers, were an ever present threat that some lived in denial of while others simply learned to live in fear of. Cerberus had deep pockets, hopefully they could handle two years of back taxes.

She reeled her mind back in and breathed. The Citadel had a smell. All stations and ships had one, and it depended on who the place was for at that point in time. Unless you were a Volus or a Quarian and needed a suit, you had to breathe the same air as a couple of dozen different species with different biologies and colonies of microbiology living within them. Sure, a healthy, boosted immune system could protect you from anything the Earth baked up that wasn't antibiotic resistant. But, if you were unlucky enough for your lungs to prove fertile breeding ground from something that rode in on a Silicon-based organism, that was basically game over. The Citadel's atmosphere was made for the original three council races and then had been subject to as many concessions as could reasonably be strained from the bureaucratic process. It was the smell of air that was chemically treated as heavily as a public pool. The cleaners and antimicrobial agents were as strong as possible without being dangerous. Species livable, not species comfortable. Local ecosystem could dampen the effect. If your district smelled especially like cheap booze or curry lethal to several council races, you certainly didn't notice it as much, but it was always there. It dried your eyes after a while. It was like a Hospital. Either you could live with it or you tried to avoid it. Nobody liked it. Maybe that was why the politicians on it drank so much. She didn't particularly like it, but even if something wasn't great, after a while of good things happening in its presence it began to collect something of a nostalgic quantity. She wouldn't choose it as perfume, but it was like an old pair of shoes or a well-worn seat in a chair.

"If you're done woolgathering, Shepard, our ride is here." Miranda was less harsh than Shepard might have expected her to sound.

"Sorry," Shepard nodded, "Being back here is just... complicated."

"I figured," Miranda punched directions into the terminal of the skycar when Shepard was in and shrugged. "Things have changed."

"And yet, it's still the Citadel." Shepard shrugged back.

"Is there a Ship of Theseus speech I should prepare for?" Jacob glanced up from his terminal.

"What? No, it just has a distinct smell. Why would I lecture you about that?"

"Part of the record I was allowed to see said you read a lot of Plutarch."

There was a buzz on Shepard's comms, she wasn't sure if it was just hers.

"Cerberus has some incomplete records, the commander started those books a lot but never got very far." Kasumi mused.

Judging by the pair of slightly apologetic smiles, that wasn't just on hers. Shepard managed to shrug it off.

"Actually sitting down and reading some of the old classics is a taller order than you think it'll be. Besides, it's not like I knew I was going to get bounced off of reality without warning."

"If you'd known it would be coming, would you have done anything differently?" Miranda asked semi-rhetorically.

"I don't think my concern would have been finishing some put-off books."

"I'd probably try my best to take whatever it was going to be with me." Jacob muttered over his terminal.

"Not my first instinct, but not a bad answer." Miranda leaned her head against the window boredly.

"As the only person here with experience, I disagree."

Shepard waited for either of them to look over or ask her what she'd do instead, but Jacob's eyes remained locked on his terminal and Miranda remained staring out the window boredly. Neither of them spoke again. Shepard sighed and settled into her seat.

"Sometimes, you forget these ones aren't the fun companions." Kasumi grunted in her ear.

***

The Asari secretary's eye twitched slightly as she sat behind her desk and read over Shepard's forms. When she finally spoke, she cleared her throat and tried her best to sound upbeat and friendly despite what Shepard could only assume was a mountain of paperwork slamming invisibly between the secretary and going home.

"Could you excuse me for a moment?"

Shepard nodded. The Asari rose and patted her skirt for a moment before picking up the forms and striding a little too quickly into one of the offices and shutting the door. A moment later, the blinds closed as well.

"Can't help but feel I just made several people's day worse." Shepard sighed.

"It's her job." Miranda responded flatly.

"Yeah, but I don't think this is the part of it she had in mind."

Miranda opened her mouth, then closed it again. Eventually, she simply repeated herself.

"It's her job."

Everybody in the small office was looking at them. Shepard was used to that enough that she didn't flinch, but both Cerberus officers had been gradually inching back away from her until their backs were against the wall. It wasn't even that bad, all things considered. It was mostly empty, it was probably lunchtime for most of these people. The few people remaining were either Asari or too important or busy to take lunch out of the office. Liara had always treated food as a pretty "only when I absolutely need to" sort of thing, but Liara was also Liara. Extruding her personality onto anybody but her, Asari or otherwise, was a pretty poor choice. Shepard could eat when this was done. Jacob would probably join her, Miranda would act above it and then eat in her quarters later. In other news, fish would continue to swim and birds would continue to fly.

Was she getting comfortable with the opposition? Was Cerberus even the opposition at this point? Beyond the root opposition she had to the organization, you know, from the evil things that they'd done in the past, was there any reason to tilt at them now? It seemed like the basics of what they wanted were at least basically agreeable. Of course, that came with two caveats. One being that she'd been stuck on a ship with almost entirely Cerberus members for closing in on two weeks now. The other being that Miranda still almost literally had Shepard's balls in her purse.

She hadn't had any reason to actually threaten her with it or use it against her, but the threat was implicit beyond a certain level. Like with everything else, how much of that fact was also due to circumstance? After some slight grumbling about being left out of the room in Afterlife, a fact that Miranda's bugs made obsolete as far as Miranda knew, it had been all quiet. The worst had been small disagreements here and there. Shepard wanted things ran to spec, Miranda was used to running things cheap. Shepard liked to be ready an hour or two before going somewhere, Miranda woke you up when she was ready to go. These were solvable enough. Run things to spec where safety was concerned and let Miranda cut corners where it didn't run the risk of catastrophic failure, don't rely on Miranda as an alarm clock. But there were going to be other issues like Veetor, there were going to be other wedges. It wasn't if, it was when. And she didn't have an answer for that. The concern was that Cerberus, and Miranda, were going to want to cut corners or take the short and painful way at some point. And when it happened, Shepard didn't get a say otherwise. More than Cerberus, she would be tilting at Miranda. Miranda may have been unlike a windmill in that she didn't spin, but she was like a windmill in that she didn't listen.

"Credit for your thoughts." Kasumi grumbled boredly.

"Miranda is kind of like a windmill." Shepard whispered.

Kasumi paused for a moment before responding confusedly.

"It's good to see you still have a sense of humor. Or that you got it back, whichever."

"Considering I'm probably spending the next few days doing my taxes, enjoy it while it lasts."

"You could always just... not do them. Really, it's not hard. Might even be easier than doing them."

"Not all of us can turn invisible and burn our online records at the first sign of trouble."

"A fault I may forgive some of you for in time. So, how exactly is Miranda like a windmill? Wait, don't tell me, let me guess. It's because she's stiff and boring?"

"Not really."

"Bulbous and slow?"

The door to the office finally opened and the Asari pointed out the door. Shepard caught a glance of a scowl before the Asari noticed the party out of the corner of her eye and put her customer service smile back on. A slightly portly Salarian peeked his head out and then made his way over to the desk and sat down. He crossed his hands on the desk and looked at her sternly.

His voice was immediately far more nervous than the appearance he gave off. "So, uh... let me get this straight. You... died?"

"Wasn't my first choice."

His face didn't shift, Shepard groaned internally and gave up on trying to have a single playful conversation until she was back on the Normandy.

"And you... came back?"

"I... yeah. I came back. Cerberus found my-"

"Shepard, he's not need-to-know." Miranda stepped back up to her side.

"He's the guy currently in control of my taxes, what do you mean he's not need-to-know?"

Miranda talked past her to the Salarian. "You should have gotten my messages, whatever she owes in back taxes, Cerberus is taking care of it. She works with us now. Draft up whatever you need to so that she isn't getting flagged as deceased any more. Once you're done with that, you'll find that an account is most of the way open under her name, when your system doesn't say she's dead any more, we'll pay through that."

"Ah, your messages! One of our uh... secretaries must have thought they were spam and uh... misplaced them."

"Find who it was, get them to un-misplace them, then fire them."

Miranda didn't raise or point her voice, simply saying all of it as a bored recitation. The Salarian shifted in his seat and glanced from her to Shepard nervously, then rose.

"I'll uh... get on that..."

He shuffled back away to his office without another word. The door slammed harder than he probably meant it to and all of the other secretaries stopped trying to look busy and made their way out of the room.

"I really hope you didn't just make things worse." Shepard sighed.

"Trust me, even if the amount of money you owe isn't enough that he'd lose his job, he knows better than to fuck with the company."

"You'd think for a bureaucrat, "the company" would be the government."

"Cerberus has enough weight to throw around that they can make sure a pencil-pusher like that works sanitation the rest of his life if they want to."

Shepard leaned back in what would have been a cheap wooden chair down on an actual planet with a real atmosphere and greenery.

"So are you guys a Human-first Alliance cell or a multi-billion dollar company? It seems like the story changes depending on the situation."

"It's Citadel space, Shepard, we can be both." Miranda gave something like a fake smile. "Let's get going before the air in this place gives us cancer."

Shepard rose and kept a few paces behind the two of them. It worked out for both parties. The stares were less focused on the Cerberus agents, and it gave Shepard enough room to whisper.

"Ooh, I got it! It's because she's all stiff and you want her to burn down!"

"Not really, but that's probably as close as you're going to get."

"Not an easy guessing game, considering windmills don't have ugly, bolted on tits and a daddy complex."

"That's probably a little harsh."

"You'd be surprised, most of the windmills with tits I've seen have been perfectly natural. And anybody who goes on about "I'd take whatever it is with me" is either a meathead or just plain vindictive."

"I'd have probably given the same answer once, but having taken that trip around, I wouldn't any more."

"See? You're not vindictive, so you went from meathead to non-meathead. That's character development."

"Okay, non-meathead to non-meathead, what's your answer?"

"Ehhhh," Kasumi groaned, "See, I wanna say nuke my internet footprint, but the whole "delete my browsing history" thing is so tired at this point. With any criminal activity, they can't punish me if I'm dead and nobody is doing another Lazarus for me, so I'm good there. And besides, if not for my aggregation of weird pornography, what legacy would I leave behind? I'd probably start nuking, then get cold feet halfway through. By the time I'd stopped the proccess and decided to start again, it'd be too late. I'd die pissed that I tried to do it and more pissed that I didn't succeed."

"That's the problem I had, even when you know it's coming, you're too busy trying to do a hundred things at once to do any of them well."

"So since you get a second chance to die, what would you do differently?"

"Try harder not to."