It's a good thing for his strength, because she is denser than you'd think, and heavy with the weight of hidden cybernetics, both legal and otherwise. Shepard laughs, sharp and brief, more as if she can't help it than because there's something actually funny about the situation, and then opens the note between them. A code.

"Bet you ten credits, this is about an underground resistance," Shepard murmurs, with the salted air of a lifelong cynic, "Sam?"

Oh, he is tall. Everyone is tall, compared to her, but— at the moment he seems to have all the height in the world. It's either annoying or... a different kind of annoying. Shepard isn't really sure which.