"Wrote it? If that is true, then that would make you the original Shadow Broker," Liara said, sounding thoroughly mystified. Shepard was at a loss for words as well, staring perplexed at the boy before them and finding it difficult to connect him with what had once been the most enigmatic, dangerous information broker in the known universe. Granted, even the most formidable organizations and powerful figures had to start somewhere, but to think this legacy had begun at the hands of this fairly normal looking boy…

Then again, she'd heard and seen stranger things.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure who that is. I never went by a name like that," Dib said, cocking a brow, before becoming thoughtful and murmuring to himself, "That would have been so cool to use for the Swollen Eyeball Network…"

"The Shadow Broker is...or was...an unidentified entity who collected and controlled massive amounts of information on just about anyone or anything and then distributed it in exchange for other valuable data," the Asari explained. "I just recently took over that mantle."

"Yes, but before that, what we assumed was the original broker had the system forcibly taken away by his 'pet', which just happened to be a rather large, angry Yahg. But I'm guessing you had passed on long before any of that happened," Shepard said.

"Likely so given I've never heard of the Yahg, either. But the only person who had access for the FARR was Gaz and she-oh. Oh, no." Dib planted his face into his palm, slowly running it back through his hair with an almost pained expression claiming his features.

"What?" Shepard and Liara chimed in perfect chorus.

"I gave Gaz my data after I died because I was running out of time. I had intended to turn the entire archive over to the Swollen Eyeball Network for safety and study, but my health failed me before I had the chance.. Gaz never had an interest in anything I was doing, or an interest in anything really. I figured at worst she'd stow it in some dusty closet somewhere or bury it right along with me, but I never considered that she might actually use any of the information!"

"You think your own sister would use your research for malicious means?" Liara asked.

"Oh, most definitely," Dib asserted without hesitation, adjusting his glasses on his nose. "It's clear that Gaz was always a lot more 'sturdy' than I was when she was created, but as I said, she was also very unpredictable and a bit sociopathic."

"And you thought giving someone like that all the power in the world was a good idea?" Shepard couldn't help but say. Mistakes like this were nothing new to her, but she couldn't help but mentally facepalm every time she heard it. Dib gave her a disgruntled look.

"I told you! I didn't have a lot of options and at the time Gaz was the most viable choice! I didn't think she'd actually go and start some crime racket and sell information to the highest bidder for-ohmygodwhatamIsaying? That sounds exactly like what she'd do!"

"Well, that's beyond the point now. Liara is the Shadow Broker now, so your information is in good hands."

"Thank goodness for small miracles, I guess. But I'm confused. You said a ..what was it...a 'yahg' took the system from the original broker?"

"Yes, though we were under the impression it had killed its owner and usurped the position, but your sister seems perfectly well, or as well as someone like her might be. Maybe there was someone else in the interim who had the position?" the Commander glanced at Liara who shook her head.

"No. At least, as far as I am aware, there was no other party involved."

"You know what? I wouldn't be surprised if Gaz just let that thing take over the FARR."

"Why would she do that? I wouldn't think anyone would willingly give up this kind of power."

"Easy. She got bored. And it was probably more interesting that way."

"You've got to be kidding me," Shepard huffed, brows knitting tightly together. "You're saying your sister would be batshit crazy enough to loose that monster on the universe on purpose?" Subconsciously, she reached up and touched her fingers to her right side, just against her ribs which began to ache as if triggered by the memory of the Yagh's shield contacting and breaking a few during her fight with him.

"You did mention that she said she 'liked insanity'," Liara reminded her gently.

"So how exactly am I supposed to trust she had good intentions when she handed this laptop over to me? Given her history and my track record, it sounds like this could all very well come back and bite me square in the ass."

"I'm afraid I can't guess at what Gaz's intentions are. I could never make any sense of her. My best tactic was to just stay clear of her most of the time," Dib said, apologetic as he reached up and scratched the back of his neck, looking sheepish. "It could be she was just tired of having it around. Or...she could be trying to make it so you 'owe' her something. That's how the broker worked, right?"

"Ugh," Shepard groaned, chin dropping against her chest momentarily before she lifted her eyes to meet theirs again. "I should probably put the crew on alert to take caution should Gaz or any of her associates try to contact them. The last thing I need is another security breach."

Tali's hand hovered over her omnitool's comm link only briefly before she allowed the holo to flicker into nothingness for the seventh (or was it eighth?) time. A thought which had been prickling at the back of her mind ever since she awoke on the Normandy, breathing unfiltered air and feeling unobscured things, had come on full force in the quiet of the crew's impromptu shore leave.

When would she tell those back home about her miraculous recovery; not only from death, but from the very restrictions that had plagued them for ages? As exciting a development as it was, part of her felt guilty, while another part felt thoroughly anxious. What would they think of her now, as a Quarian who could walk amongst aliens without her suit? What would they think of her as a Quarian...who was no longer really a Quarian at all?

The second thought bothered her the most. She'd had no say in the matter of having Irken DNA introduced to her system, but she could not exactly say she would have preferred to have been left dead. There would be no easy way to explain herself to her people when even she, herself, could not decide if the whole development was a blessing or a curse. She supposed it was the perfect example of the kind of response she'd be greeted with by those outside of her predicament. Some would revel in her discovery and others would question what the effect of the 'taint' really meant.

As she inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, Tali realized the novelty of a simple breath was still not lost on her. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit she felt better than she had in a long time, if a little vulnerable; stripped bare to the world and all its sensations that surrounded her. The mere rush of a door opening or closing still managed to startle her as the subtle rush of air contacted her skin. Even the muffled murmuring of conversation that drifted in and out as Alliance members passed by her on the breezeway overlooking the central hub was more clear than she had ever experienced before.

The constant barrage of stimuli could be overwhelming at times, so much that she could not be sure what exactly to focus on as it all ran together in an almost too-vibrant wave. There was no telling how many times her name had been said before she took notice of whom was trying to speak to her.

"Tali'Zorah Vas Neema."

"What? Oh. I'm sorry, are you speaking to me?" she asked a little dumbly as she extracted herself from the haze of her thoughts. There was no one else who would have been known by that name, after all. Unlike humans who, for some indiscernible reason, liked to confuse themselves by giving hundreds of individuals the same names, Quarians were very purposeful and distinct. Never mind the likelihood that a Quarian with her exact name would also be on an Alliance station.

If she even identified as one anymore.

"Yes," the woman said from where she'd come to stand next to Tali, overlooking the hustle and bustle of activity below. Tali blinked a couple of times as she tried to recall who this person was and how they might of known her. It took a moment or two, which the tall, slender human seemed ready to allow her, before the realization hit.

"You're the woman from earlier, the one who met us when we docked."

"Miha Etzi."

The name struck an odd, dissonant chord in Tali's mind, just like everything else about the female before her. It was as if she was one degree shy of being aesthetically pleasing, whether it be the sharp angle of her cheekbones or the slightly too-narrow line of her jaw. She was the sort of person that would stick in one's memory without them ever really knowing, almost as if she'd planned it that way.

"Right. And how did you know my name? It's actually Vas Normandy."

"So you are part of Commander Shepard's crew?"

"Yes," Tali answered, feeling slightly wary. It wasn't unusual for someone to know about Commander Shepard, but the other members of her crew tended to be regarded as little more than footnotes in the larger picture of her increasingly epic tale. Tali's own notoriety tended to be confined primarily to members of the Fleet. It had not escaped her that Miha had addressed her by her former name, either; which made her wonder from what dossiers the woman had gleaned her information.

Perhaps she was being paranoid, Tali thought. Being brought back from the dead would probably have that effect on anyone. With Shepard currently off the premises, Miha was likely just looking to enlist the commander for some task via the assistance of a crewmate. It seemed these requests had increased ever since the Reaper incident on the Citadel, whether because more people believed Shepard these days, or because she could never seem to say no to anybody no matter how menial the job.

"I'd like to ask you some questions about the Commander," Miha said as the Quarian's silence persisted. "I have heard she is quite the formidable opponent."

"You could say that. Though most people usually refer to her as a hero, not an opponent...unless you're Krogan."

"I understand you've been serving with her for quite some time, so you've witnessed her abilities first-hand. How absolutely fortunate for you. "

Tali did not much care for the way Miha spoke, exuding an air of superiority that reminded her too much of how she was often treated during her pilgrimage - inept and worthless. As was the habit these days, she could not help but make herself stand a little taller. It made her feel a bit better despite still being half a foot beneath Miss Etzi's upturned nose.

"Yes, I have. Chances are all the stories you've heard about her abilities are true. Most anything to be known about Shepard can be found on the extranet these days, though. I'm not exactly the best one to ask about all of her accomplishments."

"There's no need to play coy.. As I've heard it, you were there when the Citadel was under attack. Surely, that must be quite clear in your memory. It's not often one, much less a human, takes down a Reaper."

"You...believe the Reaper existed?" Tali asked, understandably surprised. Gigantic fragments of Sovereign had once littered flame-engulfed Citadel grounds and still the Council had chosen to feign ignorance of their reality. If anyone disagreed, it was done so in hushed corners where no one else could hear.

"You would be ignorant to deny the existence of superior entities in the universe. Tell me, how did Shepard destroy it?"

That was an odd way of putting it. What did she mean when she said 'superior entities'? It was not exactly the sort of language Tali had ever heard a human use.

It was then that she recalled the name of the company Miha represented - Amazing and Extreme Discoveries. With a name like that it would make sense that they might be invested in the appearance of a supposedly nonexistent being. At least, that was the most logical reason Tali could surmise for this amount of unusual interest.

"Was it brute force?"

"Not exactly," Tali answered just as her comm link sounded the arrival of a new message. Glancing at her omnitool and noticing it was from Shepard and marked urgent, she quickly brought it up to read.

"Technical sabotage then."

"Um, kind of." The response was not intentionally vague so much as it was offhand. Tali was suddenly quite distracted taking in the content of her Commander's warning and finding it strangely ironic that she just so happened to be standing right in front of one of Gaz Membrane's representatives at that very moment. It wasn't until she had reread the message a second time for the sake of clarity and lowered her omnitool that she noticed Miha had begun to look somewhat irritated with her.

"Is it really so difficult for you to form a coherent thought?" she spat, with a strangely biting tone. "I should have known better than to ask a Quarian anything."

A distinctively heavy knot began to wind itself tightly within Tali then and she frowned disapprovingly at the human before her.

"Is it really so difficult for people to stop treating us like third-class citizens? If your goal is to get information out of me, you're extremely bad at it." It was probably for the best that Miha had begun to show her true, intolerant colors, only giving Tali further cause to cut the conversation short.

"Trust me. If I wanted to get information out of you I have plenty of methods much more effective and less tedious than listening to you talk."

"Are you threatening me?" Tali flared, incredulous and agitated. This woman sure had no problem jumping straight to the punch, did she?

"Take it however you like, but I will find out what I want to know by any means necessary."

"You say that now, but I highly doubt you'll get one word out of me before you take a pistol to the head," Tali said, growing impatient as she began to feel the eyes of passersby falling upon her. Standing alone she had been able to obscure herself enough to appear as a typical Quarian, but now that she was having an open conversation with an equally attention-demanding Miha, the attention was starting to grow by the second. "I should go."

She had just turned, cringing mentally for having echoed the very phrase that they'd relentlessly begun to tease Shepard for overusing, when Miha's next words froze her in place.

"How is it you're walking around without your suit, Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy? Are you even still a Quarian?

Last I heard, they could not survive without the presence of an active filtration system."

The sweat that began to form at the back of her neck had never felt so cold, a sharp contrast to the rocket of heat that flared up through her body. For a second, Tali began to worry that she was falling ill with fever, but soon realized she was experiencing nothing but good, old-fashioned anxiety. Reaching up self-consciously to pull her hood around her face more tightly, she took a more hasty stride in the direction away from the prying woman, all the while feeling a cold stare at her back.

She rounded corners, intentionally weaving a path that had no rhyme or reason, just in case she was being pursued. She did not dare to glance over her shoulder or anywhere other than straight ahead until she found her way into a lift to head for the residential block of the station. The doors closed, leaving her alone inside.

Taking a deep breath, she selected the floor and backed towards the rear of the elevator with the intent of leaning back against the wall and coaxing her pulse into something less frantic. It would not be so, for the instant the elevator began to move, Tali felt hands upon her shoulders, stronger than something that slender and light should have been, and was forced up against one of the metallic walls. She felt things lurch to a stop, between floors just before the familiar voice seemed to hiss into existence near her face.

"Did I mention that I'm not the patient sort?" Miha spoke. "I'll have my answers now."

Tali shrugged against the hold on her which had her nose and cheek uncomfortably pressed to the cold, unyielding surface. She could feel the barrel of a gun jammed up against her back, though she could not be certain of its make.

"You're either a complete idiot or entirely crazy if you think you'll get away with holding someone up in an Alliance station," she huffed, breath clouding against the wall. "There's surveillance everywhere! I doubt the elevators are any different!"

"Don't you worry about that. The first thing I ever learned in my line of work was how to cover my tracks and vanish at a moment's notice. When I'm done all they'll find is an unexplained corpse on the floor of the lift."

"You're bringing a whole storm down upon yourself if you kill me. Shepard will- UNF!"

In a split second, Tali found herself whirled around and suddenly at a loss for air. It had been knocked out of her in an instant and she felt like buckling over, but Miha held her up with a hand still firmly planted at her shoulder.

"Your Shepard is nothing compared to us, and she will pay for her transgressions against my-"

As she fought to breathe normally again, Tali was unsure what had caused her assailant to stop mid-sentence until the following silence was disrupted by the sound of clattering just outside the elevator. Although her chest still ached, she realized that this momentary distraction was probably her best chance. Working quickly, she accessed her omnitool and targeted Miha's gun with the hopes of sabotaging it. The gun did not immediately look familiar, so she could not be certain the effect would be the same.

Whatever it did, the effort drew Miha's attentions back to her, and the gun did not appear to malfunction in the slightest as she lifted the barrel of it to Tali's head.

"Nice try, but those tricks aren't working on this gun," she said with a smirk that carried more malice than any the Quarian had seen in her lifetime. Once more, she found herself dragged about as if she weighed nothing, planted before Miha's form as the woman held the strange handgun over her shoulder as if preparing to use her as a shield. She followed the increasingly frenzied noises above them with the barrel, breath even despite the heightened atmosphere of the situation.

The clattering stopped suddenly and Miha kept the gun poised at the upper opposite corner of where she held Tali, waiting. A few silent seconds passed before she seemed to exhale through her teeth in frustration.

"I know you're out there, you insufferable fool," she muttered. "Get on with it!"

That was when the elevator began to move again, upward, and much too fast. It caused Miha to stumble, and she outright fell with Tali to the floor as things took an equally unexpected turn and sent the capsule downward. It repeated this action once or twice more, making it impossible for either to gain any footing. Miha had begun to shriek and vocalize what Tali could only guess were obscenities as she was thrown about the lift. The Quarian was starting to feel much too dizzy to join in as she huddled back against the corner.

Just when it seemed things had gone completely off the rails, they were moving upward again, at a much more controlled pace. The elevator settled and stopped at the nearest floor, announcing its arrival at the residential hall as the door whooshed open.

"Ah HA! I KNEW you were hiding in there!" Zim declared as he stood with his arms crossed in an indignant manner, tapping his foot. "You're not going to get out of our deal that easily!"

"Zim...wha-?" Tali breathed as her insides began to settle from the wild ride she'd just been on. Anxiety shot up within her and she looked towards the other side of the elevator certain that Miha had just gotten an eyeful of the undocumented Irken standing right there in plain sight, only...she was no longer present.

With an arm cradling her gut, she pushed herself to her feet and wandered the small expanse of the space, puzzled as to where the woman could have gone to. Certainly, even if she'd taken the repair hatch above, it would have been easy enough to see happening.

The first thing I ever learned in my line of work was how to cover my tracks and vanish at a moment's notice.

"Keelah…," Tali sighed out before returning her attention to Zim, who was only starting to look more impatient as he jutted out his lower lip and narrowed his eyes at her. "Zim, did you see anyone just now? Anyone besides me, I mean, in the elevator?"

"Don't try to distract me with stupid questions! The Tali-Tallest was the only one hiding in there!"

"No, I wasn't! I mean, I wasn't hiding! I was taken hostage! There was a woman and she was trying to interrogate me! But now she's just...gone."

"You're crazy."

"No, I'm not!" Tali growed out in frustration. "Someone attacked me in there!"

Zim scrutinized her for a moment longer, his large eyes narrowing to slits and his pout fading into a frown.

"Ugh, never mind. It's not like you care," she said, striding out into the hallway past him with the plan of shutting herself in her room for awhile to get away from the madness. She had to tell Shepard about the attack immediately. It would confirm her suspicions that Gaz and the AED were up to no good for sure.

"Where are you going?"

"I have things to do, Zim. Whatever you want can wait."

"But I need to read the SIR's memory disc! How else will I know what TAK was doing?!"

"I don't know! It's not important right now!" Tali said, waving him off as he marched up beside her. "What's important is capturing this woman who attacked me!"

"Who CARES about some stupid earth-monkey! You're not dead, are you?" Tali stopped in her tracks as Zim reeled around and stood in front of her path, clenching his fists. How could this Irken talk about life and death like it was just some inconvenient malady that would pass with proper bed-rest and time? All she could suppose is that life meant nothing to his kind, especially if they could give and take it at will, a feat she'd found herself smack in the middle of.

"And what if I had been? Would you have just brought me back again? Can you do that?" Resting a hand on her hip, Tali leaned to one side, curious as much as she was annoyed at this point.

"Zim can do anything," he gloated, as per the usual. "You're no good to me dead."

"Of course. So what if this woman comes back and tries to kill me again? Won't that be inconvenient?"

"It would be irritating…"

"Then we need to catch her first, then I can make your disc reader."

Zim's face scrunched up. If he'd had a nose, it would have wrinkled in distaste. Then he planted his feet apart and clenched his fists so hard they shook.

"If she gets in the way of my plans I will destroy her!"

"That's the spirit."

She knew it wasn't anything to feel flattered over; the idea that Zim had practically vowed to avenge her should she die again. After all, it would be a massive insult to him if someone just swooped in and mucked up everything he was working so hard to accomplish. Still, there was some small amount of comfort knowing that this crazy little megalomaniac had her back in his own, off-centered sort of way.

Miha Etzi was trouble, that was for certain; and even worse, she seemed to be a bit of a loose canon. What had been all that nonsense she'd been going on about? There was no shortage of people trying to get revenge on Shepard, but Tali was not familiar with her having acquired any new enemies. She had also seemed to have an inkling as to what was going on with the elevator to the point of speaking to whomever it was that was lurking outside.

"Zim," Tali asked as they walked towards her quarters. "Did you...do something to the elevator?"

The Irken turned his large eyes towards her and frowned again.

"It was stuck. I unstuck it."