Garrus smirked, listening to the tinny bleep of his omni-tool. He was down in the guts of the forward battery, completely out of sight of the door, and he's just foisted Shepard off with the reliable "Calibrations are running!" excuse. He twisted his fingers, making the hologram dance, and spread his mandibles wide in triumph.
"That looks like a new high score," came a female voice from above him, and he panicked before his brain caught up and identified it as Kasumi. The lithe thief turned off her cloak, returning to visibility with that odd fizzing sound. "Haven't you gotten bored with that one yet?"
"Kasumi Goto, next time you sneak up on me like that, I'm going to shoot you on general principles," he growled, deactivating his omni-tool. Part of him was pissed off at his own carelessness in not checking the room better after Shepard left. The rest of him was dreading what kind of demands she was going to extort from him to keep it a secret. "What do you want?"
"Nothing much. I just got a new game that I knew you'd love to try. Though it might be a little too complicated for your tastes." I get it now, he thought, she thinks she can beat me at this game. "I sent a copy to your tool just now. I also gave copies to Mordin, Jacob, Kelly, and the engineering duo." She grinned that annoyingly cheerful grin, and strolled back down the length of the gun. "I'm on my way to tell the rest of them now, but I wanted you to get a head start."
He frowned at that thought. What other game is she playing with this? He thought frantically. "Why's that?"
She paused at the door, lifting the cowl just enough to see the glint in her eyes. "Oh, just run through the tutorial, and you'll see. We'll work out when to run the actual game once everyone has had a chance to get used to the style." With those cryptic words, she vanished from sight again, the door swishing closed. Not satisfied, Garrus made sure to sweep the battery twice before settling back to try the game.
The title seemed ominous enough – Thief: Reliquary, it was named, which made him think of those strange games advertised on the Citadel, like Galaxy of Fantasy. Still, he was starting to get tired of Home Hackers 3 and STG Ops: Tuchanka and Batarian Crime Lords. At least he could play off the hacking game as keeping his skills sharp if Shepard did catch him playing games.
With only a minor twinge of misgiving, he started up the game. The hologram of his omni-tool flickered as the game adjusted settings to match his not-quite top of the line tool. Visor detected; utilize additional ocular output? Y/N and he selected yes. A moment later, the hologram had shifted, moving into his visor and projecting the game imagery over both eyes.
The starting menu was a pre-flight city, somewhere after the rise of machinery but before the discovery of pollution measures. At the same time, there were flickering lights free of any power source, and the woodlands outside the city were filled with non-human creatures, a whole walled-off section of the city was filled with walking corpses, and uniformed people armed with a mixture of giant hammers and crossbows guarded large, gaudy temples.
The "Play Game" option was currently inaccessible due to "No server found," and he wondered how long it would take Mordin to convince EDI to set one up for them. There were two tutorials listed, one for "Thief" and one for "Guards." Sure he knew what Kasumi wanted him to do, he selected the thief option. The hologram cleared for a moment, then switched to a movie.
A cloaked man walked through a crowded street just after dawn, and in his wake came angry shouts. The camera closed in on his hand as he swiped a coin purse, then a gold comb from a pocket, their owners blissfully unaware until the man was several paces away and out of sight. The camera zoomed out, showing the tangle of the city until it was lost to smog. The next scene showed him opening a trapdoor, boosting himself up and looking around at several filthy children on the brink of starvation.
"Garrus," one of the children said, and the turian nearly jumped in spite of himself. Damn, this game was thorough! "The guards caught Alea. They turned her over to the Hammers." The thief paused, setting down a bag full of food, and simply nodded, eyes glinting, one green and one copper.
The scene changed again, showing the cloaked man perched on a rooftop, looking into the compound surrounding one of the smaller temples. Men and women wearing the deep red and carrying hammers walked through the compound, and sitting at a table, watched over by stern guards, were a dozen street children, being put through forced labor. "I'm Garrus," the man narrated, and Vakarian had a moment of feeling rather dumb. I get it, she finds a game where the main character is a criminal with my name. I'll show her. "Master thief, savior of the city, and last of the Keepers. The glyph magic still works for me, but I can't teach it to the children who show talent while they're still starving. Picking pockets for your daily bread is a dangerous occupation.
"There's no love lost between me and the Hammerites, especially when they go bribing the City Watch for expendable child labor. I'm sure they're sincere about saving the children who all seem to end up burned, maimed, or dead in their forges." While he narrated, the camera flicked through images of children scarred by horrible injuries, and the turian found he was grinding his mandibles in anger. Ok, maybe I will like this game. "Might as well make this little rescue count. A temple like this must have enough loot to pay my rent for the next month."
The tutorial started simply enough, teaching Garrus how to use the thief's primary weapons: dagger, blackjack, arrows both normal and water (which he found incredibly odd, but chalked it up to the strange setting of the game, especially when it mentioned air crystals, something sure to give the scientific Mordin apoplexy), flashbangs, and most importantly, how to move silently and unseen. Overall, it only took him about half an hour to go through the temple, bludgeon every single Hammer into unconsciousness, and carry all of the sleeping children outside to safety.
Checking his objectives, he was proud to see his score rated as Expert. "Damn right I am," he said, finally saving and exiting the game. This little game showed promise, after all. He wondered how the "Guard" tutorial went, but he could already guess how the game went – probably multiple people logged in, choosing to either play as a thief or a guard, and then worked to thwart the other side.
Keying up the communication, he paged Mordin. "Question?"
"Kasumi bring you the game?" he asked.
"Yes. Interesting world, juxtaposition of magic and science, both in opposition and harmony. Exploration of right versus law, allows exploring both paths. Look forward to playing against you." Mordin was, as usual, more rapid firing than an Avenger.
"I only went through the Thief part so far," he admitted. "I'm trying to decide whether to like the guy for stealing my name as well as everything that wasn't nailed down."
"Possible to steal more. Game bugs on extranet, can steal furniture, decorations, even walls." The turian blinked at the thought of the slender, cloaked thief ripping a wall off the house and stuffing it into his loot pouch. "Server access already done. Can play when everyone is done with tutorial." He cut off the signal without so much as a farewell, not that it surprised Garrus much.
"Huh." He glanced at the omni-tool, tempted to just jump right into the guard tutorial and see about pitting himself against the scientist, but the rumble of his stomach convinced him to at least eat lunch first.