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Hallowed Truth	By : Spiritwolf71 Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 3767 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and its world is owned by Bioware, I make no profit from this tale.

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As she had figured news of the assassination was leaked slowly to the media. The first few hours all the general public knew was that the Prime Minister had been killed. It wasn’t until half way through the next morning that the assassination had been confirmed. The government maintained that they were still going through the details, but that it appeared that she had been shot. For a whole day speculations were issued and opinions expressed. People spoke about where they were and how they felt.
Some people were happy she was dead; they did not like her soft approach and figured that she would lead them into the same fate that had befallen the Batarians. Some thought she was a genius and she would lead the Humans into a whole new era of peace. People had blamed everyone for her death from the Batarians, to the Salarians to the Illusive Man and Cerberus. Then there were the neutral people who were simply in shock. Conspiracy theories crept up everywhere.
The one thing the press had not mentioned was who had killed the woman. It had surprised Lanie but she used that to her advantage. With no wanted poster she was still able to move about town. She had nowhere to stay and no one to trust but she did have skills that her government had spent quite a bit of money training her.
For now she moved from library to library researching everything she could, trying to come up with a reason for the woman’s murder. Prime Minister McCauley had grown up in the slums, clawed her way out, and gotten herself an education. From there she had studied law in Oxford and graduated top of her class. Lanie had poured over every record she could find from the McCauley tenure at Oxford but it was clean. Even her Law firm was clean; she had become a judge when she was thirty five, which is relatively young. She was married and had three children who were all successful in their own rights.
She had a lot of things on her plate and some grand ideas that she wanted to bring forward. She believed that it was time for all the races to set aside their differences and become as one. She had seen what they could do when they worked together and she wanted to build on that, but that was not new. All the races had been talking about this. She took a second to look around the library then took out a small disk and attached it to the computer. She needed to go deeper, perhaps even beyond the Prime Minister to find out who would benefit from her death. She was not the best hacker in the world but she could get by. She knew she was playing in an area she should not be in.
Her fingers danced over the key board as she navigated the security set up. Without even looking she knew some of her own answers. Cerberus was the big winner in her death but Lanie was not even sure they had that pull anymore. She found when she wasn’t typing she was biting her fingernails to the quick and once she got there she chew on the skin around them. It was a bad habit she had left behind a long time ago, or at least she thought she had.
She was almost in, she circumvented a few more passwords and then she knew she would be there. Suddenly her program shut down and a little smile face appeared. “Fuck,” She whispered to herself and restarted the program. She chewed her fingers further. The smiley face appeared again. “Fuck,” she said louder, drawing angry stares in her direction. She grabbed her stick and left. Someone had caught her and they would trace the computer pretty easily. She would need to move on to the next library.
She kicked herself as she exited the library, she had drawn attention to herself and she would now have to change clothes. She had spent the second night of her exile breaking into placed and retrieving items that she would need and that she could carry in her back pack. She had managed to extract some extra clothing and two pistols, a predator and then her favorite, phalanx. She had also picked up a few grenades. Since the war almost every corner store sold weapons, they were pretty much a dime a dozen.
She moved around the corner to the Central Library. She knew she would not have much time; the two libraries were much too close to each other. She flashed her stolen library card and sat down at the computer and jabbed the stick in. This time she tried a different route and attempted to go the long way. She felt she had actually gotten further along this time when suddenly the smiley faces appeared. She was about to slam her fist on the table and swear loudly when she remembered where she was. She bit her lip hard and then countered.
She moved and twisted and turned through the cyber world as opponent did the same. She continued to make it look like she was trying to break into the Prime Ministers files but really she was doing something else completely. Whomever she was going against was completely engrossed in their little game of cat and mouse and clearly had not figured out her ulterior motive. She looked as a pile of information filled her screen and quickly copied it to her stick. As she did she noticed the two men in suits enter and speak to the librarian. As she pulled out her stick her eyes focused on the name of her opponent.
She shut down the computer and headed out the back door before the men had even come looking for her. They would not have had enough time to set up a tactical team. She moved into one of the local restaurants and quickly changed into some new clothes, completely different colours and fabrics. She lifted her hand up and activated her Omni tool and typed in the name of the person who had been blocking her.
“Samantha Traynor,” She said lowly, “Well, we’ll see how much you know about what’s going on as I jam smiley faces down your fucking nose.” It wouldn’t take her long to find out where the woman worked, maybe a little longer to find out where she lived. She moved out of the bathroom and back onto the street. She would have to break into a house or an apartment and used someone’s personal computer. Whoever set her up would be watching the libraries now.
As she made her way to a residential area she could only thank god that Earth was still a mess. A lot of the surveillance they had come to rely on before the war was still inoperable. Traffic cameras were no longer linked up to anything and there were very few satellites yet. Once upon a time the government was able to follow anyone through cameras. Now there was nothing and that was a both a blessing and a curse for her.
Had there been surveillance she might have been able to prove herself innocent with it, if she could get her hands on the footage before it was destroyed. Now that it was gone though they had framed her and she was on the run, they had to physically search for her and then keep on her which she knew would be next to impossible for them.
She took a good hour of walking before she finally decided the house which she was going to break into. It wasn’t an overly large home but it wasn’t small either. There were no cars in the driveway and they had planted trees all around the yard to promote privacy, which was good for her.
Breaking into homes was relatively easy, specially locks that required keys. She was always surprised some people still liked to use them. The house she approached had both, a lock and a key pad she placed her omni tool over the door and let it go to work while she looked around. When the door clicked open she slipped inside and listened intently. She did a sweep of the house and then stopped at the fridge realizing just how hungry she was. She hadn’t really thought about it, but then she had gone days without food before.
She placed her back pack down and opened the fridge. She smiled as she grabbed several bottles of water and placed them in the bag. She found a bag containing left over chicken legs and grabbed them then went to the cupboard and filled the rest of her pack up with can goods and lastly grabbed a can opener. That should at least do her for a few more days.
The computer was quick to boot up. She looked to the picture of the family that lived in the house as she ate the chicken. They looked happy enough, man, wife two young children and a baby. She looked at the picture for a long time and felt her bottom lip begin to tremble as a wave of emotion moved through her; she reached out for the picture and pulled it down to the desk so she couldn’t see it anymore.
She looked to the computer and began her search on Samantha Traynor, eating the chicken as she did. She had never really tasted chicken that was cooked so well. Although everything tasted good when on was starving.
Her search revealed a rather pretty young woman with long black hair and brown eyes. She had a slightly exotic look but Lanie could not place her. She had a beautiful smile which lit up her face. After looking at the pictured she began to read up on her. She was born in London but raised on Horizon, so she was a colony rat like Lanie had once been. She was a genius in her own right and had joined the Alliance to help pay her tuitions for Oxford.
“So hoity totty it is,” she mumbled. She read on about how she was assigned to the retro fitting the Normandy and then ended up in playing a major role in capturing Cronus Station. Well, that was impressive; she had worked with the infamous Commander Shepard. She was presently assigned to project Vigil, Lanie had no idea of what that was, but it was pretty buried.
She finally found the address of her office. Some government building near the new Alliance Head Quarters, looking at the map it looked like it was attached to some warehouse area. She leaned back in the chair and studied the woman’s picture as she ate the last of the chicken. She wondered what kind of a person the young Lieutenant was. When she was done eating she borrowed the bathroom and allowed herself to clean her filthy face.
She wanted to have a full shower but she really had no idea of how much time she had before the owners returned home. Instead she cleaned up her mess and made sure she left nothing behind. Finally she lifted the picture back up without looking at it. The owners would know someone had been here, she had taken their food, but she left everything else pretty much untouched. They would have no idea it was her.
She rearranged the her ponytail in her own brown hair, it was not quite as long as it once had been and where once the ponytail would have just gone down her back, it now jutted from the back of her head like a dogs tail. It was the reason she had chosen the men’s extra deep hoodies. She pulled the black hood up and left the house her stomach, and back pack, filled.
She reached the sidewalk when her omni tool beeped. She cursed and activated it knowing exactly what she was going to find out. She had set it to alert her when her name came up on the extranet.
Sure enough her face was all over the place as the one that had shot the Prime Minister; the only thing that did surprise her was that it said she was dead, that she had died when her car had exploded. That had been unexpected and certainly made things interesting. It was good for whoever was hunting her, allowing them to just kill her when they found her, but it was also good for her cause local authorities would not be looking for her. She brought up the picture they were using for her and smiled when she realised it was her graduation photo. She had been wearing her dress blue and had short hair; it was not the most accurate picture for her now. With them saying she was dead, if anyone questioned her she could just say that she looked a lot like the woman.
She needed to get new identity thought and she needed to get it before she did get questions. She knew who she could go to and she knew she could trust him to do amazing work, then forget the fact that he had done the work immediately afterwards. The only problem was that he was costly and she had no money.
Walden Emmrich cared nothing about anything that was not money. She could have just bombed the entire world and as long as she could pay his fees, he didn’t care. He cared about two things only, weed and himself, probably in that order.
She thought back to Samantha Traynor, she would have to wait for her new identity, finding this woman that was hampering her investigation was paramount. She could not help but scowl as she thought of those smiley faces popping up everywhere. She growled to herself as she looks up at the sun setting. She would visit this woman office and see what she could find there, find out how she is involved in this whole affair.
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Government buildings were always the most easy to break into. They also had very lack security and relied on people to keep it working and eyes to see if anything went amiss. It was completely different in the private sector where they employed all sorts of electronic gizmos. One practically had to be a tech expert to break into them with their sensor overloads and drones floating around.
She decided to just by pass everything and moved to the fire escape. It was a hot summer night and as she looked up she saw several open windows. That was the thing with engineers, deep down in their hearts, they were not military, and they were geeks with great paychecks. Security was never the first thing on their minds.
Traynor was on the fifth floor but there was no open window there, there was one on the fourth though and she would head through that one. The climbing to the first level of the catwalk was easy and she ran up to the fourth floor. She would have to do a bit more climbing to get to the window, but that was what she was trained for. It was not her most favorite part of training but she could do it.
She frowned as she moved, her mind wandering slightly. She had been slated to enter the N7 training program after pretty much flying through the N6 program. Not that she had been the best but she had been up there and she had been looking forward to becoming N7, she did not have much else in life to look forward to.
She lifted herself into the window of the dark room and then looked about. She had expected an office not an open room with cubicles. She had always hated the thought of ever working in a cubicle. She envisioned herself with her hair pulled back tight in a bun where extra thick prescription glasses and then smiled slightly. She would never come to that mousey existence.
She moved to through the room to the stairs using the emergency lighting to help her see. She loved office buildings that had minor night time lighting; it meant she did not have to use a flash light which often got people discovered.
The fifth floor was completely different; it looked more like a working area. There was a large open area in the middle of the room but it looked like they were actually building something. There were several conference rooms and large offices. This Traynor must be important to the project, but by all records she was a genius. She moved through the floor until she found the office she was looking for and picked the lock to get entry. She shut and locked the door behind her.
Looking around the room, the first thing she realized was that the woman was anything but meticulous. She had piles of tech items about her room in no particular order, but then she had heard that most engineers are a bit of pack rats as well. Her desk was extremely tidy though with her console powered up but on a screen saver. She had two pictures on her desk, one with her parents, and she could tell that because she looked exactly like her mother. The other was a picture of her and Commander Shepard.
In the corner she spotted a half played game of chess and she smiled and moved over to it. “Fucking smiley faces, eh?” She said and switched several of the pieces around. She did not know the first thing about chess.
When she was done ruining whatever strategy the woman was working on she moved to the console and looked for a chair, instead she found a ball, she raised a brow, “Are you kidding me?” She disliked this woman even more. She shook her head and sat on the stupid ball, opening up the computer. She was greeted with some circuit board thing. She moved past it into the operating system of the computer. She would work her way out to the files that she was looking for. She paused and wondered why a mousey Communication Spec would be involved in a conspiracy. Judging from her room and the fact that she had worked, obviously closely with Commander Shepard, she thought she would be more solid than that.
She was about to continue when she hear someone approaching. She looked to the late time and curse, who the hell worked so late? She stood and the ball rolled back then bounced and hit the back of her legs. For a second she thought of putting a hole in it. She scrambled to the door and stood by the hinges, withdrawing her pistol.
“Yes, I’m working late again, I just need you to let Grover out or he’ll pee all over the place. I should be home to let him out in the morning,” the voice said as it drew closer. She noted the strong British accent. She held her breath and hoped that this voice did not belong to Traynor and that it would pass by.
“Great, I owe you one, Steve,” She said and someone was unlocking the door.
“Fuck,” Lanie whispered to herself. The door opened and the Traynor entered placing a bag of food on her desk. She moved over to the corner of the room where the chess board sat and she could see the woman frown, she could not help but smile to herself as she felt her quest for revenge satisfied. However she had a job to do and now that Traynor was here she could perhaps get answers even faster.
Samantha turned around and looked to her. “Really, you break into my office just to mess up my chess board?” She said, it was not exactly the reaction Lanie had been expecting.
“No, but it certainly made me feel better,” Lanie countered. They stared at each other for a long while until Samantha’s attention went to her gun.
“So is this a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing or did you need me to do something?”
“I want to know what the fuck you have to do with the assassination,” Lanie said.
“What assas… you mean the Prime Minister?” her eyes widened.
“Yes, I mean the fucking Prime Minister. I was trying to look into it today and you kept countering me with those fucking smiley faces.”
“You swear a lot,” Samantha noticed.
“Really, that’s your answer?”
“I haven’t heard a question yet.”
“Why are you covering up information on the Prime Minister and what is that information?” Lanie said. Dealing with people was never her strong suit. It was the reason she was an infiltrator. She attacked from a distance, not ever having to talk to people.
“I’m not covering up anything. I detected a breach and I eliminated it. That is my job. I just figured it was the media trying to dig up some dirt, who are you?” She asked trying to peak under Lanie’s hoodie.
“I’m the scapegoat,” Lanie said defensively and pulled down her hood. “They pinned this assassination on me and I need to find out everything I can about it to try and keep myself alive.”
Samantha looked to her and scratched her head. “They said you died in your car.”
“They blew up my fucking car.” Lanie said trying not let her anger build up.
“They said you were in it.”
“Obviously it wasn’t me,” she said and then wondered if it had been Gary. She ran her hand over her face to hold back her own emotion. This lack of sleep was getting to her. “Now can you get on your fucking computer and break into the Prime Ministers fucking files and see if she was doing anything that would warrant fucking killing her.”
“Did you kill her?”
“Jesus Christ woman, are you always this annoying?”
“Do you always swear a lot?” Samantha sighed, “Why should I help you?”
“Cause I’m the one with the fucking gun.” She said and waved it in her face for extra measure.
“You can at least tell me, did you kill McCauley?”
Lanie took a deep breath, “I was supposed to, and when I refused someone else took the shot. Not that I expect anyone to believe me.”
“Well, I believe you have a gun because I can see that. I just don’t know how I can help you; I don’t think McCauley was dirty. I don’t think you would find any answers in her files.”
“Well you’re a communications expert, could you, fuck.” She realised she had made a mistake in throwing away her communicator.
“Well no, I don’t even know you and you have a gun to my head,” Samantha said. Lanie was getting really annoyed with her rather cocky attitude.
“Shut up!” She demanded, Samantha moved slightly backwards as Lanie jammed the gun into her face again. She tried not to be sarcastic but she couldn’t help it and it got worse when she was nervous, like now.
“Maybe you should just turn yourself in, explain to the authorities it wasn’t you.” Sam suggested.
“If I turn myself in I’m fucking dead, do you get that, my life is forfeit and why, because I was doing my job, and then because I couldn’t kill a person that I believed in. I’m fucking dead if I don’t find something to defend myself with.” Suddenly it came to her.
“The directive order,” She said. “Every mission had to be documented and it’s given a directive order that almost no one has access to. I mean this was all set up by someone within the military, it was funded by them, all my gear was paid for, all of Gary’s equipment would have been requisition, and there would be a trail there, through the directive order.
“Where would you find that?” Samantha asked.
Lanie sighed, “Gary would have had that information.”
“And who is Gary?” Samantha asked, it was a fair question. After all she really had no idea of what this woman was asking. She had been listening to the reports the last couple days about the assassination. She remembered seeing this woman’s picture and hearing her history as it was played throughout the day. Lieutenant Alana Flynn had been born on Mindoir and taken prisoner by the Batarians, she had been a prisoner for eight years forced to do god knows what. Then she was rescued by Cerberus and served with them for three years before defecting to the Alliance where she became one of their top agents.
Samantha had wondered why a woman with her history would defect. The story had told how she had blown up a Cerberus facility because of the atrocities that had been happening. It certainly did not sound like someone who would turn against the Alliance, but then stranger things have happened. Even though she had her doubts, she certainly was not going to take this woman’s word for it.
“He’s my handler, or was,” She took a deep breath, “he’s probably dead by now. But you, you found Cronus station when it seemed impossible. You could find the directive.”
“So you want me to hack into military files?” She asked. She was good but she wasn’t sure she was that good.
“Well, yes, that and I need your money.” She admitted.
“So now you’re going to rob me as well?”
“If there was another way, I’d take it Lt. Traynor but right now, you are all I got, so here’s what we are going to do.” She said and moved closer, pushing her gun into the Communication Specialist back. “We are going to make a withdrawal from your account and then we are going to go to your house and take care of your dog for the evening and then you are going to see what you can do about hacking into the military database and finding me that directive.”
“So this isn’t a date then?” Samantha asked, unable to stop herself. She was rewarded with a cuff to the back of the head.
“Let’s just get going and if you try anything funny, I will put a bullet in your head,” Lanie said really hoping she wouldn’t have to.
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Hallowed Truth