Betrayal - Part 1

Sophia Keating had always shown signs of biotic potential, ever since she was small. Her mother and father must have exposed her to dust form element zero before she was born. Most human biotics weren't noteworthy, most couldn't lift more than a mug or a plate. Hers, however, had shown promise. She was no biotic prodigy, but neither was she bad.
Her main issue, she was told, was the strength she put in to her mass effect fields. Her control was unparalleled in the Alliance training programme, able to hit the smallest of targets with biotic energy, but the fact she didn't hit the targets with enough power was her biggest downfall. And no matter how much she tried, no matter whether she had damage-boosting amps installed or not, she couldn't muster up the necessary power required to have biotics which could actually be effective. She lacked something.
The Alliance training programme she was involved in was a small group of humans with biotic potential trying to better themselves. It wasn't anything to do with the military, though exceptional students would be offered a place in a new section of the Alliance that was forming for biotics.
Keating knew she'd never get a place. Because of the fact that she would be no use in combat - she could barely throw someone back, because she simply was not strong enough. Yes, she could create an unstable mass effect field which could tear an enemy apart - but it was too weak. In the long term, it could probably take the paint off their armour, but not more. She could hurl them at one every second or so, but that meant nothing if they weren't powerful enough.
She did have a friend in the programme, however. Well, slightly more than a friend...
Sophia had met Brian Richards on her first day in the programme. He was slightly older than her, four grades above her in training, and they had started "going out" within the first week. His style of biotics completely differed from hers - he could kill someone by throwing them back, but had trouble hitting targets. Brian once joked that their child would be the perfect human biotic.
When they weren't being trained to help further their biotic skills, they were in their apartment they had bought together. Of course, they hadn't bought that straight away - they had been involved in the programme for about a year before they had considered living together. And when they weren't in their apartment, Keating and Brian had jobs. Completely different jobs.
Sophia was a detective, and was rather lucky that the biotic training programme had been set up in Vancouver so it was relatively close by. Brian was an architect working for the government of Vancouver, and he was working on building a skyscraper capable of surviving a direct strike from an Everest-Class Dreadnought. Which was no easy feat.
In her spare time, Sophia was building a ship. She had finished part of the hull, using designs Brian had found from a prototype frigate schematic from a ship called the SF-2 Falcon.
Just as she was about to leave the building where the training programme was being held, she got a call on her Omni-tool.
"Hello?" she said, "This is Detective Keating."
"Keating," said her partner, Henry, "There's been a murder of a government official. We've been sent to investigate."
"Ok, send me the address. I'm on my way."

Keating stepped into the room, past the holographic police barrier which beeped as she moved through.
"What do we have?" she asked Henry, "What happened here?"
"One victim, no signs of a struggle, dispatched by a shot to the front of the head."
"Who is the victim?"
"He's one of the Alliance Defence Council. Was in charge of the Biotic research part, along with anti-terrorism. His name was Mit al Aladin."
"It could be a terrorist attack?" she questioned.
"It doesn't seem like conventional terrorists. It's too clean of a kill. No collateral damage, not a window smashed or an object out of place. It took one round from a pistol, not one more, to get the perfect headshot."
"In which case, the round from the gun will still be there, if there's no sign of any damage. Get CSI down here and lock this place down. No unauthorised personnel get in or out. I want a full forensic exam of everything in this apartment."
"Yes ma'am," said Henry, and began making the appropriate calls.

Keating waited for a little while at the crime scene whilst the CSI and the forensics did their job. However, it was clear that she could do nothing more - with no current DNA findings, and next to no evidence, it was likely to be an assassin who had killed him. But it was just a question of finding out why.
She went to the police station and started looking through the databases about Mit al Aladin. It seemed that he was in charge of the biotic programme she was attending but wanted to cut down on the amount of money they were spending on it, since training biotics was expensive at the best of times.
Sophia also found out his acts against Cerberus - the pro-human terrorist organisation had come under fire from the Alliance Defence Council as they dubbed their work "unlawful" and "extreme".
So there were two possible reasons why he could have been killed - possibly more. If a biotic didn't want him to cut money from the programme they could have a motive, and it could have been an act of sabotage from Cerberus to try and get their actions legal again.
Or it could have just been neither of those reasons and just a plain old murder. She'd have to see if the forensics came up with anything, but until then she could do nothing. She went home.

Brian was waiting for her in their apartment.
"I saw you leave the programme. Was everything ok?" he asked her.
She shrugged, "Someone on the Defence Council was killed. We have no evidence for who yet, but I think I've figured out a few reasons for why. It's just a case of waiting now for them to run fingerprint and blood tests."
"Are you ok? You don't like dead bodies."
She nodded, "I'm fine. It's kind of part of my job and it happens only rarely, so I can deal with it... Do you know they moved me down another level in training?"
Brian nodded, "Yep. It's bullshit. You match and Asari for your control and yet you're being moved down grades. Did they test you?"
"Yes. I was supposed to knock a statue over. I made it sway but nothing more. I just can't do it. They keep telling me I'm 'not bad', but yet I overhear them saying I have the level of a child. Being a biotic is a load of crap."
Human society tended not to accept biotics very well. Ever since they had discovered human biotics were possible, lots of myths had been made up - about how they could control minds, which stemmed from the Asari's melding. It didn't help, either, that some biotics used their abilities to cheat in gambling games. Keating had to deal with several situations in the past where biotics who had annoyed too many people had a mob after them. And, to her, the risk of accidentally upsetting someone and causing them to react violently because of misconceptions about her abilities was not worth being able to control dark energy. Especially not with her extent.
"Yes, but it's worth it," Brian replied.
"But you're the one who is in the running for getting the place in the biotic division of the Alliance. I am nowhere near."
"You said you didn't want the place."
"I don't! But I want to be recognised instead of people telling me I'm shit. My boss tells me I'm a shit detective, the Alliance tells me I'm a shit biotic..."
"You're not shit," Brian said, "You just need practice. You've only been in this job for a few months and you've only started biotic training in the last few weeks. You can't expect to be brilliant at something right away."
"True..." she sighed, "But everyone has overtaken me in the training. I might quit."
"No. Don't quit," he told her, "Quitting will get you nowhere."
"Ok."
Her Omni-tool buzzed.

"This is what I don't understand," said Henry, "The killer didn't use a mass accelerator firearm like we first thought. It was an antique pistol. I took the bullet fragments to a dealer and it seems the gun is from around 2002, so it's old."
"But why would anyone use an antique pistol to kill someone? It's almost like they want to be found."
Henry nodded, "I think that was the idea. We found a small engraving on the side of one of the bullet fragments. It was Cerberus. The bullet had their logo."
"Why would they want to be caught?" she questioned, "It doesn't make any sense."
"Whether it makes sense or not, we should probably tell the Alliance," Henry shrugged.