Somehow he knew that if he concentrated on them, he would be able to understand what they said. But he didn't want to understand. He was trying very hard not to understand because he knew understanding the voices was the beginning of the end.

With each passing hour Grayson could feel the whispers growing stronger. More insistent. Yet even though Cerberus had implanted him with this horrific alien technology, his will was still his own. For now, he was still able to resist them. And he intended to hold them at bay for as long as was humanly possible.

"I thought you said the transformation would only take a week," the Illusive Man said to Dr. Nuri.

They were staring down at Grayson through the one-way window in the ceiling of his cell. Kai Leng was lurking in the shadows over by the wall, standing so still he almost seemed to disappear in the darkness.

At the back of the room, the other members of Dr. Nuri's team were monitoring the readings on the hovering holographic screens projecting up from the individual computer stations. They were tracking and recording everything that happened inside the cell: Grayson's breathing, heart rate, and brain activity; changes in body and air temperature; even minute fluctuations in electrical, gravitational, magnetic, and dark energy readings emanating from the room.

"You told me to proceed with caution after we nearly lost him during the implantation," she reminded him.

"I just want to make sure nothing's gone wrong."

"The time line was only an estimate. Our research strongly suggests indoctrination and repurposing varies greatly depending on the strength of the subject."

"He's resisting," the Illusive Man said appreciatively. "Fighting the Reapers."

"I'm amazed he's held out this long," Dr. Nuri admitted. "His focus and determination are far beyond anything I expected. I underestimated him in my initial calculations."

"People always underestimated him," the Illusive Man replied. "That's what made him such a good agent."

"We could try to artificially accelerate the process," Nuri offered. "But it would skew the results. And it might send his body into shock again."

"It's too much of a risk."

"Dust him up," Kai Leng suggested, stepping forward to join the conversation. "We still have the red sand we grabbed on Omega."

"It could work," Dr. Nuri said after a few moments of consideration. "Our testing shows narcotics have no impact on the Reaper biotechnology. And it could weaken his focus. Make him more susceptible to the indoctrination."

"Do it," the Illusive Man ordered.

Grayson didn't move when he heard the cell door open. He was lying on his side in the cot, facing the wall. He heard footsteps crossing the floor and he tried to tell how many people there were. It sounded like a lone individual, but even if there had been a dozen armed guards it wouldn't have made a difference; he knew this was probably his only chance to escape.

The footsteps stopped. He could sense someone standing beside the bed, looking down on him. He waited another half-second-just long enough to let them lean in to check on his motionless form. Then he sprang into action.

Whirling around, he kicked out with his feet, intending to send his target sprawling backward. His blow never connected.

Instead the person beside his bed-Chinese features, medium but muscular build-moved nimbly to the side and brought an elbow crashing down, dislocating Grayson's kneecap.

Under normal circumstances the agonizing injury would have ended the fight. But Grayson was driven by desperation and a primal survival instinct. Even as he screamed in pain, he curled his right thumb across a rigid palm, extended his fingers, and jabbed at his enemy's throat.

Yet again his attack was thwarted with ease. His adversary grabbed his wrist and twisted the arm up and back, yanking Grayson from the bed so that he landed hard on the floor, knocking the wind out of him. Momentarily stunned, he was unable to resist as the man plunged a needle into his arm and injected him with some unknown substance.

The man let go and Grayson tried to struggle to his feet. His attacker delivered a single punch to the liver, and Grayson collapsed back to the floor in a quivering ball.

The man calmly turned and walked away, never looking back. Helpless, Grayson could only watch him go. His eyes fixated on his assailant's ouroboros tattoo until the cell door slammed shut behind him.

A few seconds later he recognized a familiar warmth spreading through him. His face felt flushed and his skin began to tingle as the soft blanket of red sand wrapped itself around him.

Grayson had been a duster; he had always snorted the fine powder to get his high. But there were shooters, too. Red sand could be dissolved in a solution and injected directly into the bloodstream for those who wanted-or needed-a more powerful fix.

He curled up into a ball and closed his eyes, desperately trying to shut out what was happening. He'd been clean for two years. He'd put his body through the agonizing symptoms of withdrawal and battled against the powerful psychological urges of his addiction by clinging to the memory of his daughter. He had changed for Gillian's sake; staying clean was a symbol of the new man he'd become.

And now, with a single needle, everything he'd worked for was gone. He opened his mouth to scream at the unforgivable violation. Instead, he giggled softly as waves of euphoria washed over him.

He shivered with pleasure as the red sand coursed through his veins, the effects a hundred times more intense than anything he'd experienced while dusting. The first few minutes were a rush of pure ecstasy; yet already he was craving more. Every cell in his body savored the exhilaration of the concentrated drug even as he yearned for another hit.

Eyes glazed and a simpleton's grin plastered on his face, he managed to stand up. His dislocated kneecap sent signals of pain up to his brain, but the sand kept him from caring. Still giggling, he collapsed back onto the cot and closed his eyes in rapturous contentment.

Then, through the pink haze, he heard the whispers once more. And this time, he could understand them perfectly.

NINE.

This wasn't the first time Kahlee had been taken in by an alien species while on the run from Cerberus. In contrast to her stay on the Quarian Flotilla, however, she didn't have to wear a full enviro-suit at all times inside the turian embassy.

At Anderson's request, Orinia had agreed to let Kahlee stay in the turian embassy for protection while they prepared to move against Cerberus. If Kahlee had known that would mean being shadowed by a pair of turian bodyguards day and night and not being allowed to leave the building for nearly two straight weeks, she might have objected.

Fortunately, she had plenty to keep her occupied. The files Grayson had sent on Cerberus were thorough, but far from complete and somewhat out of date. Understandably, Orinia had no intention of taking action until every piece of information that Grayson had provided was verified, updated, and cross-referenced against her own people's files.

Kahlee was initially surprised to discover that the turians were keeping tabs on Cerberus. In retrospect, however, it wasn't that shocking. Cerberus was intent on destroying, or at least dominating, every nonhuman species in the galaxy, making them a threat to the Turian Hierarchy. The turians weren't about to take that threat lightly.

The intel they had gathered on their enemy so far was impressive. It had taken a lot of convincing before Orinia had allowed Kahlee to look at the classified files; even though the First Contact war had happened thirty years ago, the ex-general still held a lingering mistrust of humans. Ultimately, however, the sheer overwhelming volume of information had forced the ambassador's hand.

Kahlee was one of the galaxy's foremost experts in complex data analysis. She'd used her skills to help Dr. Qian twenty years ago with his radical AI research. She'd used it to help the Ascension Project design and iterate new biotic implants to maximize the potential of the students at the Academy. Now she was using her talents to try and save Grayson.

With an organization as fluid and secretive as Cerberus, information was in a constant state of flux. Individual agents and cells were given virtually full autonomy to achieve their mission objectives, allowing them to operate across a broad spectrum of parameters. That made tracking their operations very difficult, with a high probability of error.

Grayson had even admitted in his own files that there had been numerous false leads and dead ends. There were only a few individuals inside the Alliance with whom he had worked personally; these were the ones he could confirm as agents of the Illusive Man. The other two dozen names on his list were only suspected Cerberus operatives; it was possible some of them were actually innocent.

He'd also provided the location of several key research labs, but had warned that Cerberus would periodically abandon certain facilities and relocate operations just to make it harder to shut them down. And the companies that helped finance the Illusive Man's illegal activities were all public corporations employing thousands of workers, most of whom had no idea that their efforts were helping to fund a terrorist organization.

The turians needed accurate information if they were going to go after Cerberus. They couldn't just start detaining and interrogating suspected operatives; in addition to the legal and political ramifications, it would alert Cerberus that something was coming, giving them time to relocate and evacuate.

Similarly, they couldn't just send soldiers to raid every suspected Cerberus location. If the information turned out to be inaccurate, they might end up attacking a civilian facility, which could be considered an act of war against the Alliance. Plus, Orinia had a limited amount of troops under her command for this mission; they had to choose their targets carefully. They were going to get only one chance to strike at the Illusive Man; wasting resources on abandoned locations could undermine all their efforts.

The only viable strategy was a blitz approach: simultaneously arrest all known Cerberus operatives on the Citadel while at the same time hitting key installations with military strike teams. By cross-referencing Grayson's files with the turian intel, and incorporating follow-up research of her own, Kahlee was creating a list of confirmed high-value targets.

It would have been easier if they had been able to draw on Alliance resources for assistance, but that risked someone's reporting their activities back to the Illusive Man. Orinia had decided to keep this in-house: she and Anderson were the only nonturians who knew what was coming.

At least they had Citadel Security on their side. Technically C-Sec was a multispecies police force, but the top officials-and over half of the active force-were turian. Executor Pallin, the head of C-Sec, had served under General Oriana during his stint in the military, so he had readily agreed to create a special C-Sec turian-exclusive task force to aid in their efforts.

It all would have been so much easier if they could have simply arrested the Illusive Man himself. He was the mind, heart, and soul of Cerberus: eliminate him, and the organization would collapse into disorganized cells incapable of working together.

She had hoped that Grayson would reveal the Illusive Man's true identity, but in his file he had explained that was impossible. The Illusive Man wasn't living a double life, posing as a respected and powerful civilian as most suspected. He was the full-time head of Cerberus; he had no other identity. If he needed a public face for legitimate business, he'd call on representatives of the pro-human Terra Firma political party, or use clandestine agents in positions of authority to manipulate and influence events to get the results he wanted.

That was why it was so crucial to compile an accurate and effective list of targets. If the Illusive Man slipped through their fingers, it was inevitable that Cerberus would rise again. They had to either capture him, kill him, or deal Cerberus such a crushing blow that it would take decades for them to recover.

Kahlee understood all this; that was why she was willing to accept Orinia's careful and cautious approach. But she also knew that every day that passed made it less and less likely Grayson would still be alive.

It was possible he was already dead, but she wouldn't let herself believe that. The Illusive Man was cunning and cruel; he wouldn't simply execute someone who had betrayed him in the way Grayson had. He'd have some elaborate plan to exact his revenge.

As grim as this thought was, it gave her some small glimmer of hope to cling to as she analyzed all the disparate data in a desperate race to save him.

When Grayson woke up, he was horrified to discover he was a prisoner in his own body. He could see and hear everything around him, but it seemed surreal, almost as if he was watching a projection on a vid screen with the volume and brightness set way too high.

He rolled over in the cot, spun to put his feet on the floor, stood up, and began to pace restlessly about the cell-but none of these actions came from his own volition. His body refused to respond to his commands; he was powerless to control his own actions. He had become a meat puppet, an instrument of Reaper will.

He briefly registered the fact that his crippled knee had somehow repaired itself overnight. Then his eyes flickered downward, giving him a glimpse of his body, and his mind recoiled in disgust.

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."

TEN.

"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.