Here's Maria's next letter to home.
Hey Mom,
This is one of those letters I don't think I'll ever send. I can't, but Doctor Chakwas says it's therapeutic to write things down. Given all I've been through, I think she worries about me too much. So, I'm writing. I'll have EDI send these to Anderson, so that if by any chance I die on my big mission... I'll...well, I guess you'll read this. Not as good as the real thing, right? But at least you'll know your daughter loved you enough to answer. Eventually.
I've done some bad things the past few weeks, falling back into old habits, the ones you didn't teach me. I feel like a bad soldier, like I've betrayed everything I stand for. I'm doing it my way now and damn everything else, I'll get it done. But seeing Kaiden Alenko on Horizon just made everything worse.
You remember the Collectors? The old nursery tales Dad used to tell me when he was home on leave, the ones he'd picked up out on the Rim? "Eat your vegetables or the Collectors will come get you! Clean your room Maria or we'll sell you to the Collectors!" Well, they're real. They've been stealing colonists from the Terminus Systems, outside Alliance space. I've been trying to stop them. Trying and failing, but that's just me. It's scary to think my childhood nightmares have become a reality. How many people have they taken? How many children?
Kaiden was all right, the Collectors took most of the colonists, but they left him. Why?
I'm not looking this gift horse in the mouth, I just.... I don't know.
Kaiden accused me of being a terrorist, working for terrorists. But no one else is trying to help these colonists! No one else is trying to stop the Collectors. No one but TIM. He'll betray me eventually, but if I have to sail through hell to get those people back I will.
Still, I feel like I'm betraying everything I stand for by working with these people. The worst thing was, Kaiden doubted I was really me. Miranda and Jacob assure me that it's not true, I'm me just with a few cybernetic enhancements and tweaks. I can't help but wonder.
Am I really me?
Some nights, I sit on my bed with a bottle of Scotch in hand, just staring. Staring at my hands, my skin, trying to memorize every vein, map every pore, study every cell, I know it all checks out. But my mind is clouded with doubt. Even after all the scans and confirmation from the Citadel, I just...I don't know.
I don't even know who Maria Shepard is. Did Kaiden ever really love the real me? Or was the person who died on the Normandy just a fabrication? The Hero of the Citadel, the first human Spectre. A lie.
I can't sleep anymore.
Love,
Maria