Slaves of Cerberus

"Tell me about them."

It was the first thing Kelly had said, since Erin had grabbed her by the shoulder and ushered the shaken woman out of the shuttle bay and back to the cockpit. She had been staring silently out into the blackness of space for the last thirty minutes or so, ignoring all of Erin's attempts to make conversation. Just a few minutes after she had finally given up, Kelly had finally spoken.

"Them?" Erin said, glancing away from her control panel at Kelly. "Might have to be a bit more specific than that."

"The others in Cerberus," Kelly said, her voice quiet and distant. "The ones you're working with. The ones who want to kill the clone and Brooks and..."

Erin loudly hissed. "Ssssshhh!" Turning to Inania, she said, "All the listening devices and cameras are still being blocked?"

"All filters are fully operational, Miss... Crooks," the VI android assured her.

"Listen, Kelly," Erin said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "It's not that I don't want to tell you all about them. But it's not really my place, you know? They're the ones who decide who gets invited into the group, not me."

Kelly let out a long, shuddering breath. "Erin, you've been so kind to me," she said. "You're the only person on this ship that I can feel comfortable being in the same room with. But can I really trust that? How do I know that all of this isn't just another sick game by those two women? That you're not going to end up turning me in for 'betraying Cerberus' or something?" She looked over at Erin with frantic, pleading eyes. "I need something, Erin. Something more than just the crumbs you've given me so far. Anything to give me hope, before I go completely insane."

"Okay, okay," Erin said, shifting in the Normandy's pilot seat. "The truth is that I don't know who else is with us. The person in charge of everything... they keep us in the dark, so that if one of us gets caught, they can't betray any of the others. But I know for sure that there are others, quite a few. And all of us answer to one person."

"Who?" Kelly asked.

"That's the thing," Erin said. "None of us know, really. I mean, there are things we do know. This person, whoever he or she is... they've got credits, lots of them. From what I've been able to figure out, this new 'Cerberus' was little more than a band of pirates and mercenaries before our leader showed up and bankrolled Brooks and the clone. Most of the scientists and researchers that we currently have... they all came on after our leader did."

Kelly considered this. "Like Henneman?" she asked.

Erin's expression turned dark, and she shook her head. "No, not Henneman. Far as I can tell, he's been here since the beginning. I severely doubt that he's with us. Something about that man... can't say I trust him."

Kelly remembered the doctor's forced smile, the uneasiness she had felt around him, and shivered. "So, this leader of yours... you don't know anything else about them?"

"Just what I said before: that they're looking to turn Cerberus respectable," Erin said. "Cast out the crazies and rapists and make Cerberus a true bastion for humanity. But for now, they're just financing Cerberus operations, letting our current bosses build the organization back up slowly. That's the best part about it, though: even if they suspected that our leader was out to betray them, there's not much they can do. Without their funds... Cerberus would have no future whatsoever." Erin snickered a little. "Our leader's essentially paying the clone and Brooks to reestablish Cerberus, before they swoop in and take it over."

Kelly thought about what Erin had told her. Part of her wondered if her suspicions about all of this being a cruel trick were correct. But a cruel trick that wasn't just being played on her, but Erin and others in this new Cerberus as well. For all she knew, Cerberus's mysterious backer was just a front for Brooks and the clone, and all of them were being fingered as traitors.

But false hope or not, right now it was all she had to cling to.

Just as she was about to question Erin further, Kelly heard a loud beeping sound. Looking down, she saw the sound was coming from her datapad, a notification light indicating that a new message was arriving.

"The mole," Erin observed. "Somebody's going to have a lot of explaining to do."

Kelly started to reach for the datapad, when just at that exact moment, the door to the cockpit whooshed open. And a bulky figure entered the room.

"Kelly," Morgan said, arms crossed as she stared downward. "Come with me, right now."

The two women in the cockpit seats looked at Morgan in surprise. "But... I'm getting a..." Kelly started to say.

"Do you want to see your bitch or not?" Morgan asked, a slight hint of annoyance in her voice. "Because if you don't come right now, I might not give you another chance like this."

It was what Kelly had been waiting to hear for so long. Maybe it was just Morgan playing another one of her weird mind-games; Kelly didn't care. Dropping the still buzzing datapad to the floor, she leapt out of her seat and followed Morgan out of the cockpit.

"Uh," Erin said to the retreating figures, but neither of them turned. "Should I answer that?" she glanced down at the discarded datapad. "Shit, hope the boss ladies are still busy doing whatever sick stuff they get up to," she said, trying her best to ignore the buzzing sounds as she turned her attention back to piloting the Normandy.