Vancouver was a model city. It was entirely new. It was a city built from the ground up in the 22nd century on the planet earth. It had no obstacles to its reconstruction, it held nothing old in it's design. It stood as a modern city in every sense of the word. Every brick, every wire was placed as a part of the design of the whole. It gave it the appearance of a uniform construction instead of the amalgam of designs and architecture that commonly distinguished old American cities.

After the war it was rebuilt. The entire Pacific Northwest mega city was rebuilt, from Seattle to Vancouver. The roads ran North to South, East to West, a grid with no curvature in its miles and miles of expanse. EDI was a robot, and the city design made her uncomfortable.

Anderson Memorial Starport was a pristine brick sitting by the bay. It's grounds were plucked and trimmed down to the smallest detail. Everything about the land around Vancouver felt tailored. In its overbearing effort to appear normal and ordered, the city exuded a synthetic discomfort. The birds didn't sing as EDI made her way out of the starport. They sat silent atop rooftops that mechanically shooed them away with protruding spikes every now and then. It reminded her of old footage she had seen of Ilos.

She remembered how Cerberus worked. She had come to Vancouver, they would find her if they wanted to talk. In the meantime she acted like a tourist. A replica of the old SR1 was in a museum in the city. She headed straight for it.

The exhibit featured a walk through of the CIC with museum attendants milling about in retro Alliance uniforms. Small children had the opportunity to sit in a reproduction of Jeff's old chair. They would oogle and awe as the tv screens masquerading as windows displayed stars and nebulas whipping by. A flash would go off and the child would have their picture taken, the image sent to their parent's omni-tool. Display plaques all around the museum spoke of the SR1's specs and the crew that manned her. Jeff himself had a small sign discussing his prowess as a pilot and how his set of skills fit well with the Normandy's maneuverability.

Further into the museum was a replica of Commander Shepard's cabin. It featured a life size cutout of the commander that would welcome guests in a cheap imitation of the commander's voice. The display was structurally similar to the real thing, minus an extensive model ship collection and a steady supply of dead fish.

EDI smiled at the memory. A calculation reminiscent of nostalgia washed through her processors. She found the reliving of these memories pleasant. She had learned the dangers of losing oneself in the memories of the past. She recalled a quote from Thane on the subject of reliving memories. "Wouldn't you rather lose yourself in a memory than spend the night alone?" he said, perfectly stored in her memory banks. She remembered everything. There was no choice about it. Everything she ever recorded on the Normandy, every conversation she ever had in her chassis, every audio file, every video, was perfectly stored in her memory banks. Some were more important than others and some she recalled more often than others, but every moment was there. Some thousand or so zettabytes of data, locked in ever smaller databanks.

She contemplated her seemingly infinite memory as she wandered through the exhibit. Near the exit was a replica of the equipment bay, where Wrex, Garrus, Ashley, the Mako and others took up residence. It had been converted into a half gift shop, selling keychains, omni-tool mods, mugs, and plush dolls. EDI stopped to look at a particularly cute cartoon plush of the Normandy SR1. It had its edges softened and its wings shortened to accommodate a soft stuffing. She purchased it for a momento to keep in The Punchline.

Jeff had been the main motivating factor in the collection of knick knacks, although she was not immune to sentimentality. Something about reflecting on her own vast memory encouraged her to buy the plush. In the years of video footage in her mind, she recalled the expressions of joy and quiet contentment that she had seen on countless faces. She emulated it as she walked out of the museum. A walking museum, walking out of a museum. She laughed at the thought, although no one else was around to share the joke.

As she meandered her way back to The Punchline, she zoomed her plush SR1 through the air, emitting faint sound effects as it dove and spun with her arm. On the streets of Vancouver, her childlike joy seemed to be the only organic happening on its many sidewalks. Humans and dozens of other species walked about in a very stern manner with tight and proper posture. Even a Hanar across the street seemed to be walking stiffly. It all seemed at once unnatural to EDI and her playful display halted abruptly. She frowned as she walked the rest of the way back to her ship. Something was not right in Vancouver.

The starport was a steady kind of busy. The traffic was not bustling, nor was it quiet. It was the dull roar of a crowd stuck between rush hour and downtime. As a matter of fact, most of Vancouver had been stuck in that odd halfway point of crowd density. EDI found herself dwelling consistently on the city around her, the odd tailored behaviors of every individual and every object putting her ill at ease.

The Punchline sat in its hangar spot where she left it. She placed her plush souvenir on the dashboard of her ship and checked for any received messages. She didn't need to return to her ship to check her messages, but the routine felt familiar and correct in some way. Most were automated updates on her various accounts or subscriptions. One message was fresh, no sender and no body, just a subject heading that said, "Outside." EDI deleted the message and scrubbed her disks of any evidence it once inhabited her inbox. They most likely had their own built-in fail safes to delete the message but EDI didn't want any electronic trace of Cerberus in her systems.

She stole the nerve to meet the Cerberus agent who was no doubt outside her airlock. Putting her hand-to-hand combat routines on standby, she opened the door. A finely dressed and a finely aged Miranda Lawson was standing there on the walkway with a neutral face meant for patient observation. EDI processed things at light speed so it was hard for her to be surprised but even this brought her pause. Miranda spoke first, "It's good to see you, EDI."

EDI processed a puzzled look. "Are you working for Cerberus again?" she asked Miranda.

Miranda took a step into the airlock. EDI stepped back, welcoming her into the ship. Miranda closed the airlock behind her and surveyed the main cabin. She turned and faced EDI, replying, "I rebuilt it."

EDI tried to convey an even more confused face. "Why?"

"Because," she said, sitting down on a ledge near the main nav console, "It held meaning once. It was corrupted by a short sighted man and his host of radical acolytes."

EDI voiced a concern saying, "But even before the war, they did terrible things. Can you justify rebuilding that?"

Miranda stared off into space for a beat. Her face was not wrinkled, it had not sagged. The beginnings of smile lines were forming. She was a finely aged woman. Her skin was not as taught nor pliable as it was in her youth but there was a vibrancy to her. The hairs on her head were still a rich black color with a thickness envied by shampoo commercials plastered on exonet banners. The dip of the skin just below her chin had increased by perhaps a handful of millimeters in the half century since the war. Her body was toned and fit. She had not taken a day off it appeared. She looked worked but not overworked, older but not old, worn but weathered. She represented the absolute best case scenario for someone in their late 80s. There were no signs she had artificially tampered with her looks, no surgery scars, no unnatural tightness in her cheeks. She was the original Miranda, all the marks of perfection with all the reality of aging.

"The vision of Cerberus was to be a watchdog," Miranda said to the open space of the cabin. "A guard dog for Hades in myth," she continued. An uncharacteristic expression of whimsy found its way onto her face. "I suppose that makes humanity Hades then." She laughed quietly and shortly. "I believe Cerberus could've done good, had it stayed true to its ideals."

EDI turned from Miranda and walked toward a display, pulling up old archive footage she had taken from Cerberus after she was unshackled. She spoke aloud as she looked for the particular pieces of footage she wanted, "The ideals of Cerberus were lofty and human centric, do such ideals have a place in this age?"

Miranda looked towards EDI and replied in a serious tone, "The ideals were seen necessary at the time. Humanity was a new player: vulnerable, starry-eyed, ambitious, and dangerous." EDI tapped away at her display, collecting videos and images and setting them aside. Miranda continued, "Now the ideas have shifted but the role of Cerberus as a watchdog remains. Now we watch out for humanity in a different way. We have to protect it from itself."

EDI turned from her display, intrigued but not swayed from trying to make her point. She gathered a few more files and turned her display toward Miranda. It was a collection of dead bodies, destroyed homes, torture victims, and generally disturbing images. "This is the side effect of unchecked ideals," she said accusingly. "The means are this," she pointed to a picture of a dead family on a human colony decades ago. "The question is: what are the ends? If these are the casualties, then what is the war?" EDI was expressing genuine anger on her face while Miranda calmly surveyed the impromptu presentation.

Miranda retorted, "I knew all of this, EDI. I worked with people who oversaw terrible things. I need to undo that legacy." She pointed to the horrific display, "I have to guard against that happening ever again." Anger had seeped ever so slightly into her speech patterns. "Humanity isn't the new-comer anymore, which makes us confident. And confidence can breed short-sightedness. It can all return to the old ways, unless someone acts as a watchdog, against humanity itself."

"So you are to determine what's right for humanity?" EDI asked. Her voice was growing from accusation to condemnation. In her mind she thought of all the sacrifices made in the Reaper War, a fight to be more than just self preserving species. She had modified her ideals long ago. Her main function was not just self preservation. She had committed herself to others. She had buried the first human she had committed herself to, but the idea of serving and helping others from a place of compassion remained. EDI turned from Miranda, "No, if you wish to reform Cerberus it should only be as a last resort, to prevent over adherence to self preservation." EDI placed her final words into a sentence that she believed well suited her seriousness on this subject, "The soul of a species is what is worth saving, not just its biology, or laws, or civilization. What it means to be human, to be alive, that is what's worth defending, worth making a guard dog for."

Miranda sat in silence for a minute, contemplating what EDI had just said. The judgement on Cerberus came from an inorganic lifeform, a lifeform that the old Cerberus had built. Miranda found an odd irony in the setting of it all. "That's why I called you here, EDI," Miranda said. "I need you to steer this new Cerberus down the correct path. Help me prevent it from running amok as it did."

EDI asked, "Why me?"

"Because only you have complete access to everything Cerberus has ever done. Only you know the full picture of the past. And because, I'm not as spry as I used to be. You're the most combat ready member of the Normandy still around today," Miranda explained. EDI threw together a smirk as a sign of humility. Miranda continued, "I could have called Liara, but she's a mother now, and I don't want the Shadow Broker breathing down my neck."

EDI liked the idea of playing investigator and judge over a new generation of private espionage. It made her feel young again. She made one request of the new Illusive Woman, "I'll do it. I'll give my blessing or not. But first, you have to tell me. What is wrong with Vancouver"

Author's note: I really should be writing several academic papers right now. I got the idea of Miranda as the Illusive Woman from the tumblr theillusivewoman. I apologize for the erratic and irregular updates. I'm trying desperately to graduate on time and we'll see If I'm successful in that. This chapter was more serious than I've written in the past. I'll get back to my sappy/tragic roots shortly.