Keeping a safe distance behind, Kail Leng followed them as they wound their way through the business and residential sections of Omega's central district. Eventually the shops and homes gave way to warehouses as they reached a dimly lit industrial area.

They passed several nondescript two- and three-story buildings before disappearing inside the warehouse at the end of the block. Even through the gloom of the street, Kai Leng could see that the windows had been shuttered or painted over to hide whatever activities were going on inside.

He found a spot just inside the arch of a doorway in one of the nearby buildings that hid him from view, yet gave him a clean line of sight down both directions of the street. He settled in to wait for Grayson. An hour later, he arrived.

His appearance hadn't changed much from when Kai Leng had last seen him. The stubble on his head was a little longer; his beard a little more ragged; his synthetic upgrades slightly more noticeable. Despite the ill-fitting clothes covering up most of his exposed flesh, the tubes winding from his neck up into his skull were hard to miss. And it was possible to see the glowing, pulsating wires and circuits beneath the taut, almost translucent skin of his cheeks and hands.

The Illusive Man had warned him not to confront Grayson unless absolutely necessary. He was no longer the man Kai Leng had so easily beaten and then drugged in his prison cell; he had become something far more powerful. The plan was to let Aria's people do the dirty work; he was just here to report back in case something went wrong.

Even without the warning, Kai Leng would have sensed something different about him. Grayson moved with a fluid grace he hadn't possessed before. He had the sharp bearing of a predator now, a hunter on the prowl.

He passed less than five meters away from where Kai Leng was hiding. Though it was dark, the assassin instinctively pressed himself deeper into the shadows to avoid being noticed. Grayson passed by without seeing him and continued on to the warehouse at the end of the street.

He stopped a few meters before the door and paused, his head moving from side to side as if he was studying the building. He seemed suspicious, as if he sensed it was a trap.

Kai Leng held his breath, praying he would step inside.

Grayson made his way quickly down the dark row of buildings. Despite the low light, his augmented vision allowed him to see clearly. He noticed a lone figure lurking inside the doorway of a building as he passed, but dismissed him as irrelevant. He was here to meet Kahlee; nothing else mattered.

When he reached the entrance of the building bearing the address she had given him, however, Grayson hesitated, suddenly wary. Why had Kahlee chosen this remote location for their rendezvous? Why hadn't she wanted to meet him somewhere more public? Her message said she was in trouble; maybe she was too scared to show up anywhere else.

It could be a trap. Is Sanders loyal? Can she be trusted?

He shook his head, dispelling the ridiculous notion that Kahlee might betray him. She had risked so much to help him and Gillian escape Cerberus. She'd put her career and her life on the line for them, risking everything to help Grayson save his daughter.

Gillian.

Gillian was safe now; not even the Illusive Man could find her aboard the quarian deep-space exploration vessel. Memories of the daughter he hadn't seen in over two years came flooding back to him: the way she smiled; the ways she spoke. Gillian was special-she had an autistic condition that had made it difficult for her to communicate. Despite her incredible potential, she had lagged behind the other children of the Ascension Project.

Ascension Project.

The goal of the Ascension Project was to help biotic human children control and even master their latent abilities. Kahlee had made a special effort to help Gillian, giving her personal instruction above and beyond what the other students had received.

Biotic children.

He didn't know much about the other students. During Gillian's time in the program he had visited her only once or twice a year, as per the Illusive Man's orders. But he was certain Kahlee would have taken a personal interest in every student at the Grissom Academy. Knowing her, she would have memorized every- Grayson forced his mind to a sudden, screeching halt as the truth dawned on him. The Reapers had grown stronger. The connection between them and him had deepened. His very thoughts had become exposed. They were sifting through his memories, picking through his knowledge piece by piece. And they suddenly seemed very interested in Kahlee and her role in the Ascension Project.

Terrified, he tried to turn and run. He had to get as far away from Kahlee as possible. In response, the will of his enemy came crashing down on him. He struggled to resist, but the Reapers would not be denied.

They forced him to march forward. Step by step he drew ever nearer to the door, until he was close enough to reach out his hand and tap the access panel.

Grayson fought against them, drawing on the mental tricks he had used to resist them in the past. But it was all in vain. The Reapers had grown far stronger than he'd realized. They'd been lying in wait, manipulating him instead of dominating him to hide their true power.

The door slid open and Grayson stepped into the dimly lit warehouse. He saw Kahlee standing in the middle of the room, her expression a mix of revulsion and pity when she saw his appearance.

"Oh, Grayson," she said, nearly breaking into tears.

But while his attention was focused completely on her, the Reapers were acutely aware of everything around them. Kahlee was not alone-at least a dozen armed individuals were scattered around the perimeter.

Adrenaline surged through him as his puppet-masters recognized they had been lured into a trap, and Grayson knew hell was about to be unleashed.

Aria's people were already in position when Anderson and Kahlee had arrived at the warehouse: a dozen on the floor, eight more perched on the catwalk running along the warehouse's rear wall. Shipping crates and forklifts had been strategically placed to provide cover for Aria's troops on the ground. The obstacles had also been arranged in a loose semicircle, effectively forming a corral in the center of the room.

It had been easy enough for Anderson to figure out the plan. When Grayson came far enough into the room, some of Aria's people would slip in behind him to block his retreat, leaving him surrounded on all sides. It was a good plan except for one thing: to lure Grayson into the right position, Kahlee herself would have to be inside the semicircle ... and right in the line of fire if things turned violent.

He'd voiced his objections, only to have them fall on deaf ears. Orgun, the massive krogan in charge of the operation, had ordered Kahlee to take up her position and wait for Grayson. He'd confined Anderson to a dark corner in the rear of the building, and ordered Sanak to keep an eye on him. The batarian was standing a few steps off to the side, his assault rifle drawn and ready to dissuade Anderson from doing anything that might interfere with the meeting.

From their location, Anderson couldn't see Kahlee, though he had a line of sight to the warehouse's front door. He was staring right at it when Grayson came through.

Anderson was shocked by his appearance. Kahlee had mentioned he had been altered by the Reaper technology, but Anderson had never imagined anything like this. He could clearly no longer be called human; he had become some kind of nameless abomination.

His skin was stretched and discolored. Beneath it Anderson could see that the cybernetics had merged with his body, as if he was being devoured from the inside by machines.

It reminded him of the colonists who had been repurposed into husks on Eden Prime. There had been no way to reverse the effects of their transformation. He feared the same could be said of Grayson.

He heard Kahlee say his name, and then Orgun stepped into view behind Grayson, blocking his retreat.

"Surrender," the big krogan growled, raising his assault rifle so it was pointed directly at Grayson's back, "or we'll kill you where you stand."

Grayson responded by dropping into a crouch, spinning around, and charging the krogan, doubled over so low he almost seemed to be crawling on all fours. It happened in the blink of an eye; Orgun was moving so fast he seemed to be nothing but a blur.

Orgun fired a burst from his assault rifle, but the unexpected speed and uniqueness of Grayson's reaction caught him off guard. Trained to aim for the chest and upper torso, his shots sailed too high as Grayson scuttled toward him.

Some of his troops around the warehouse-the ones with quick reflexes-squeezed off a few quick shots of their own, but in their haste they aimed wildly and the rounds deflected harmlessly off the spot on the floor where Grayson had been standing an instant before.

He slammed into Orgun, a 160-pound man versus a nearly 500-pound krogan. Amazingly, it was Orgun who was sent flying by the impact, his assault rifle spinning free of his hands.

The warehouse erupted with the thunder of gunfire as Orgun's troops got over the initial shock of the unexpected attack. Grayson responded by throwing up a biotic barrier, the air around him shimmering with the sudden release of energy. The bullets were devoured by the powerful gravitational field, losing their momentum instantly and dropping harmlessly to the ground.

Anderson glanced over at Sanak from the corner of his eye. The batarian had been as surprised as anyone by Grayson's outburst; he was only just now recovering. His attention was focused entirely on the carnage before him, the prisoner beside him utterly forgotten.

As the batarian took his first running step toward the battle, Anderson delivered a back round-kick to the side of the head. It sent Sanak reeling, the assault rifle falling from his grasp to skitter across the floor as he pinwheeled his arms.

Anderson followed up his initial attack with a flying tackle, knocking them both to the ground. They wrestled briefly, trying to get possession of the gun clipped to Sanak's thigh.

They grappled at close quarters, grunting and cursing as they each fought to gain leverage. But Anderson was on top, giving him the advantage. He wrapped his hand around the butt end of the pistol, but the batarian managed to get him in an elbow lock, pinning his arm in place so he couldn't raise the weapon.

Anderson squeezed the trigger anyway. The round ripped a hole in the batarian's thigh, causing him to scream in pain and release his grip. Anderson quickly brought the pistol up and shoved the muzzle into the batarian's gut, then fired three more times.

All four of Sanak's eyes went wide in disbelief as his body went limp. Anderson rolled off him and stood up, still clasping the pistol. The batarian opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a wet gurgle. He coughed, and a dark trickle of blood seeped from between his lips.

Anderson fired one more time, aiming for the heart. Sanak shuddered once. Then his head lolled to the side, his eyes glazed and unfocused as his life ebbed away.

The entire encounter had taken less than thirty seconds, but in that time the shooting at the other end of the warehouse had stopped. Looking up, Anderson noticed several of Aria's troops-including Orgun-lying dead on the floor. Some were bent and twisted, limbs protruding at awkward angles in the unmistakable pose of those killed by powerful biotic attacks. Others appeared to have been beaten to death, their heads staved in as if someone had smashed them with a sledgehammer.

But he couldn't see Grayson anywhere in the carnage ... or Kahlee.

Running toward the center of the room to get a better view, he realized he was the only one still alive inside the building. He had no idea what had happened to Kahlee, but a thousand scenarios were playing through his head, none of them reassuring.

Fearing the worst, he raced across the room and out the door, only to find her standing in the dimly lit street, alone and unharmed. She was staring off into the distance, her back to him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, panting slightly from his recent exertion as he ran up to her.

She turned in response to his voice.

"I'm all right," she assured him. "When the shooting started I just tried to stay low. Luckily nobody was aiming for me."

"What about Grayson?"

"He's gone," she said. "He broke through the circle of Aria's people and escaped out the door. They all ran off after him."

Anderson realized this was their chance. For the next little while it would be chaos as Aria's people tried to stop Grayson from escaping Omega. With everyone focused on him, they might be able to slip away unnoticed.

"Come on," he said to Kahlee. "We're getting off this station."

"How?" she asked.

"We just have to find someone with a ship who doesn't answer to Aria," he explained, knowing it wouldn't be nearly as easy as he'd made it sound.

A man he didn't recognize stepped out from the shadow of a nearby building.

"Maybe I can help with that," he said by way of introduction.

TWENTY.

Kai Leng heard the sound of gunfire from inside the warehouse; the trap had been sprung. A few moments later, however, he realized Aria's people had failed as Grayson emerged from the building still alive. As before, Kai Leng pressed himself into the shadows rather than confront him. As loyal as he was to Cerberus, he wasn't suicidal.

Grayson broke into a run, and seconds later three armed krogan burst from the warehouse in pursuit. Despite their massive bulk they could run much faster than humans, their muscular legs powering them along. Grayson, however, was no longer human. The cybernetic enhancements of the Reapers gave him incredible speed, and he had already opened up a gap of at least thirty meters before the krogan even appeared on the scene.

They opened fire with their assault rifles as they chased after him, their accuracy compromised by the poor illumination of the street and their desperate efforts to keep up with their target. Grayson moved in an erratic, zigzagging pattern to make it even harder for them to line up a clear shot. But it was impossible to dodge the hail of gunfire completely, and a few stray rounds found their mark.

The impacts caused Grayson to stumble, momentarily knocking him off stride. In response he wheeled around and thrust his palm out toward his pursuers. The air seemed to ripple and distort with the power of his biotic push.

Kai Leng had no doubt that if the krogan had been closer the energy wave would have pulverized them, breaking bones and liquefying even their redundant internal organs. As it was, Grayson's flight had already left them so far behind that the force of the attack had dissipated considerably by the time it reached them. Instead of crushing them, it had only enough strength to knock them off their feet.

Before his enemies could pick themselves up, Grayson was off and running again. He was limping noticeably, but the awkward gait did little to slow him down.

Behind him reinforcements came pouring out of the building: half a dozen batarians and two more krogan. While the original pursuers picked themselves up, those newly arrived joined the chase. Like the others, they fired their assault rifles as they ran, but by this time Grayson was well beyond the effective range of their weapons.

As he raced past Kai Leng's hiding place, he passed under one of the few lights on the street, giving the assassin a brief but clear look at his wounds. Blood was streaming from several places in his right thigh. His left arm dangled awkwardly at his side; Kai Leng suspected a round had shattered his shoulder. His injuries were severe, but none appeared lethal-miraculously, he didn't appear to have been hit in the torso or head.

And then Grayson was gone, fleeing down the street before vanishing around a corner. Kai Leng remained perfectly still as Aria's troops rumbled past several seconds later, knowing any movement might draw their attention to his hiding spot. He doubted they would bother to stop; they seemed intent on chasing Grayson down. But he wasn't taking any chances.

Several of them were shouting instructions into the transmitters of their helmets as they went by, no doubt calling in further reinforcements to help them bring Grayson to his knees. Kai Leng had a hunch they wouldn't be successful.

It was almost a certainty that Grayson was going to escape the station; the Illusive Man would not be pleased. But witnessing the failed ambush had still given Kai Leng hope. Grayson's wounds were proof that, as powerful as the Reapers were, they were not invulnerable. If any of Aria's people had managed a clean headshot, the threat might have been eliminated.

He was still concealed in his hiding place, wondering what to do next, when Kahlee Sanders stepped out onto the street. An idea began to form in Kai Leng's head.

Once Grayson left Omega, Cerberus would need to track him down again. The Illusive Man had told Aria T'Loak that Sanders was the key. That might no longer be the case, given her role in setting him up at the warehouse. But there was a chance she could still be used as bait to lure him out of hiding a second time.

As Kai Leng was contemplating his next move, David Anderson came out of the warehouse to join Sanders. He was armed with a pistol, though Kai Leng wasn't worried. If it came down to a physical confrontation, he was certain he was more than a match for Anderson and Sanders. But he wasn't sure that was the right way to proceed.

He stepped out of his hiding spot and began to move quickly but silently toward them. He stayed close to the edges of the buildings along the street, trying to make himself less conspicuous by sticking to the shadows. His efforts were helped by the fact that Sanders and Anderson were completely focused on each other.

"We just have to find someone with a ship who doesn't answer to Aria," he heard Anderson say once he was within earshot.

Acting on a sudden impulse, he stepped out into the open and declared, "Maybe I can help with that."

Kahlee took a quick step back, and Anderson raised his pistol.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

Kai Leng was close enough to easily disarm the admiral before he could fire a single shot. But he knew Cerberus would need Sanders's cooperation if they wanted to find Grayson. So instead of violence, he resorted to something even more radical: the truth.

"My name is Kai Leng. I have a ship docked at one of the ports outside Aria's sphere of influence."

"And you just happened to wander into this district?" Anderson said, making no effort to hide his skepticism. His pistol was still pointed directly at Kai Leng's chest.

"He's with Cerberus," Kahlee said, putting the pieces together. "The Illusive Man sent him to spy on Aria. He wanted to make sure she finished Grayson off."

"We have common goals," Kai Leng assured them, not bothering to deny her accusation. "We all want to get off the station, and we all want to find Grayson. We should work together."

"Or I could just shoot you where you stand," Anderson said, waving the pistol menacingly.

"You could try," Kai Leng answered. "But how will that help you escape Omega?"

"Not everyone here is in Aria's pocket," Kahlee replied. "We'll find someone willing to give us a ride."

"How long will that take? You don't have much time. Right now her focus is on stopping Grayson, but once he escapes-and he will-she'll turn her attention back to you."

"We'll take that chance," Anderson said, squeezing the trigger.

Kai Leng was already in motion, spinning out of the way. Before Anderson could bring the pistol to bear again, he seized the admiral's wrist, forcing it down and twisting it at a painful angle.

Anderson tried to fight back as the gun slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers by bringing his knee up toward Kai Leng's groin. But he blocked the move by turning his hips so the blow only struck him in the meat of his thigh.

Kahlee jumped in to join the fray, driving her foot into the center of Kai Leng's back. He absorbed the impact by tumbling forward in a somersault, still keeping his grip on Anderson's wrist. His momentum yanked Anderson off balance, dragging him down to the ground.

From his prone position, Kai Leng scissored his legs and swept Kahlee's feet out from under her, bringing her crashing down to the ground on top of the two men. He momentarily stunned Anderson with an elbow to the solar plexus, rolled free of the tangled mass of bodies, grabbed the pistol where it had fallen, and sprang to his feet.

He pointed the weapon at his two opponents, both of whom were still on the ground. He'd left them unharmed, though the blow he'd delivered to Anderson had him gasping for air.