"Shepard?" He mouthed, his mandibles shifting just an inch in shock. He beckoned his partner in crime over.
"What are you doing here?" Garrus asked of the human.
Commander Jane Shepard, who had not recieved so much as one promotion since stopping the Reapers, shrugged,
"I think the real question is: What are you doing here?" Shepard asked.
"It's Archangel business. I'm tracking one of Kelham's runners. If I can get him, I can get him to talk, get us a lot of information on his operation." Garrus exposited, holding up his omni-tool, showing Shepard a holographic picture of the runner.
He was a distinctive man. His scarred skin was so pale, Shepard might have expected he was an albino. He also had a thick head of ginger hair, a sure sign of his villainous intent. Shepard herself was a natural ginger. The reason she kept her head shaved was to avoid anyone making assumptions about her morality.
"Need any help catching this guy?" Shepard smiled, already knowing the answer.
"Sure thing, Commander. You can keep an eye out for the runner, and report to me on his location." Garrus said. "It will be nice to work with you again. It'll be just li-"
"Just like old times. Yes, I know." Shepard finished for him, before taking her place in the crowd.
At first, the seething masses made it difficult to see, but Shepard caught a glimpse of the villain's hair. He boldly paraded his gingerness around. It made Garrus sick.
"I see him." Shepard said into her earpiece. "I'm gonna tail him."
The Commander followed the runner through the crowds, playing a delicately gentle game of cat and mouse, making sure not to have her personage detected by him.
"He's going into a nightclub!" Shepard declared. She couldn't read the sign above the door. It was funy how her translator only translated text into English some of the time.
"The Brown Dwarf?" Garrus said. "Yep. I see him. I'm gonna go in after him, alright?, maybe beat him up in the bathrooms. You guard the door."
Garrus entered the club, only to find himself face to face with the runner. His pale face somehow managed to get even more pale.
"Oh shit, Garrus Vakarian!" He shouted, pointing at Garrus' face. He darted off across the crowded dancefloor, the turian giving chase.
The blur of bodies, the bright lights, the cheesy techno music, they all got to Garrus, threw him off his game. He was sure he saw the runner run into the kitchen. Garrus ignored the sign on the door, stating that the kitchen staff were on break, darting in after his prey.
A quick thermal scan showed that the runner was nowhere to be found. However, Garrus noted his eyepiece could not penetrate through the thick walk-in freezer door. The criminal had to be hiding in there! Garrus slid the door open, readying his gun, and jumped in.
As the door slammed shut behind him, Garrus swept the large fridge. There was plenty of meat, but no sign of the runner.
"Goddamn!" Garrus sighed, briefly forgetting his culture didn't actually have gods. His entire trip to Omega was turning into one big bust, and not in the good way, either.
The turian grasped for the handle of the freezer door, only to find, to his dismay, that there wasn't one.
"What the hell, man!" Garrus asked, to God, he supposed. "Shepard, come in! This is Garrus! I've been tricked!" Garrus pleaded into his earpiece. There was nothing on the other end, no static, indicating he couldn't use his commset in the freezer. Garrus titled his head to heavens and let out a long bellow of his favourite expletive. One of the benefits of being in a soundproof room, he supposed.
Garrus slumped down onto the wall of the freezer, letting out a defeated sigh. Had he come so far, fought so many battles, just to end it all here?, he wondered, shivering as he rubbed his hands across his lightly armoured torso. He wanted to do something, wanted to beat on the heavy steel door or shout for help. As the turian's strength slowly disippated, he found it hard to think of doing anything more than resting, at least for a moment...
"Garrus?" Shepard said softly into her earpiece. "I think I lost him." There was nothing. Radio silence. Shepard felt a concerned grimace develop on her heroic visage. It wasn't like Garrus to keep quiet. Something must have happened to him. Shepard navigated her way through the sea of souls, scanning the dancefloor for any turian who looked remotely like Garrus.
"Garrus!" Shepard called, raising a gloved hand to her jaw as she shouted "GARRUS!" She continued to call out to him, desperate for him to reply in his soothing, honey-like voice. Just then, she spotted a turian, facing away from her. His blue combat armour was a dead ringer for Garrus'. She dashed over to him.
"Garrus?" Jane Shepard said desperately, grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him around to face her.
The turian before her was markedly not Garrus, despite his passing resemblence to him. This turian's mandibles were far doughier than Garrus' lean ones, and he bore bags under his eyes, a similar brilliant brown to Garrus', and above his clan tatoos.
"I'm afraid you have me mistaken for someone else." Not-Garrus frowned, informing Shepard of the fact in an irritating, nasal tone. "My name is Garruis Vakrariun."
Shepard turned away, mortified. She had lost him. The one good thing in her life, and she had thrown him away due to her own damn carelessness.
"!" Shepard bellowed, half trying one last time to draw him out of the crowd, half lamenting the loss of the best man the galaxy had ever, or would ever, know, ever.
The batarian bartender, a middle-aged man with few teeth and precious little tolerance for the nonsense Omega had him deal with, approached her.
"Look, lady. I have no idea what a Garrus is, but we don't sell 'em here, so get the hell out of my club!" He demanded, pointing to the door with his hand, covered in scars from an incident with an angry volus and a Wagon Wheel biscuit.
A broken woman, Shepard shambled out of the nightclub, vainly continuing her search for Garrus across Omega.
Arnia T'wit, an asari construction worker, bit into the last morsels of her burger, gulping the perfectly cooked beef down. She leaned forward in her barstool.
"Brixt, you never fail to amaze me with how good your ""Famous" Human Style Burgers" taste..." She smiled, kissing up to the middle-aged batarian.
"That's great, lady, but you've still gotta pay your tab!" Brixt said gruffly.
"Aw, come on!" She sighed. Damn hardass batarians...
"Hey guys!" Renia's on-again, off-again roommate, Denny Gaston sidled up to the bar, sitting down with his two friends.
"Hey Denny, we were just talking about you." Brixt said, his smile revealing his bare gums.
"Oh gee, that sure does look delicious!" Denny said, eyeing Arnia's half-eaten burger.
"You want one, human? It's yours, my friend! As long as you've got the credits?" Brixt said, getting his sales sphiel on.
"How much is it?" Denny asked.
"So you want it?" Brixt retorted.
"I want it." Denny said, his eyes getting wide like the moon of Thessia.
"Five credits get you the thickest, most totally cool beef burger ever prepared on Omega..." Brixt declared.
"Oh man..." Denny drooled "You couldn't loan me five creds, could you?" He asked his asari cohort.
"Hell no." She scowled. Reluctantly, Denny fished a credit chit out of his pants and roughly gave it to the batarian.
"Thanks for your custom, human. I'll go tell Chef to get right on it." Brixt smiled "Speaking of which, did you know we hired a new kitchen apprentice the other day? I heard he's good!" Brixt informed his two only friends. All of his other companions had left him after the snooker incident, and after that debacle, even the most deformed, immoral Omega hooker wouldn't touch him. The batarian set off for the kitchen, leaving Denny to mind the bar.
"So..." The asari exhaled.
Brixt stuck his head into the kitchen.
"Hey, Chef!" He hollered. The salarian, a greasy, sallow faced chap with skin that put most humans in mind of canned pork, poked his head up from his work station, looking annoyed.
"I have a name, you know!" He said irritably.
"Yeah, I'm sorry Cheff." Brixt apologised. Cheff's expression softened. "We've got another order, though. That weird human kid wants one of our ""Famous" Human Style Burgers". Can you do it?"
"It is my specialty, isn't it?" Cheff smiled. "I'll get right on it, boss."
"Great, now, if you don't mind. I have a bar to tend." Brixt smiled, exiting the kitchen.
Weyrloc Guild lifted a load of varren testicles out of the deep fat fryer. He admired the sheen on them. They were golden brown, cooked to perfection and fluffy as a cloud. The Krogan kitchen assistant popped one into his mouth, indulging himself as he laid the others out on a plate.
"Guild, I'm going-" Cheff approached the krogan, stopping in his verbal tracks as he spotted the plate of deep-fried testicles.
"More testicles? What have I told you about bringing those things into my kitchen? It violates all sorts of hygiene compliance laws! Where the fuck do you even find them?" Cheff raged. The testicles were a pet peeve of his, which his therapist had a lot to say about.
"Don't get mad, boss." Guild mumbled, hanging his head in shame. Cheff let out a long sigh, holding his head in his hands.
"I need a smoke..." Cheff said, cursing the day he was landed with the idiotic krogan. "I'll be back in five space-minutes, alright? Brixt wants you to cook him one of those damn burgers."
"Brixt wants me to cook a ""Famous" Human Style Burger"?" Guild said, the honour obviously creeping into his voice. "I'm honoured!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Cheff said, heading for the door and rummaging in his apron pocket for his smokes. He needed nicotine, or maybe something stronger...
"Hey, boss? What meat do I use?" Guild asked, rubbing the back of his hump with one hand. Cheff silently thanked his goddess he didn't eat at the Brown Dwarf.
"The beef." He replied tersely.
"Uhh, where's the beef?" Guild asked. Exasperated, Cheff turned and closed the distance between himself and the dimwitted krogan.
"Let me make this very, very clear, assistant" Cheff said, spitting out the word like it was a vile word, or maybe phlegm "You use the meat in the metallic blue container, in the walk-in freezer, got it?" He hissed. Guild recoiled away from his master slightly.
"Got it." Guild answered. Even someone with his memory would be able to remember that. With Guild pacified, Cheff turned on his heel and strode out of the kitchen, into the outdoor smoking area Brixt had provided for the club's staff.
I hate this place, Cheff thought as he lit up. He made a mental note to kill everyone in the club when he had time, and blame it on the vorcha or the air filtration, or something.
Weyrloc Guild had never been bright, even for a krogan, a race that had been scientifically proven to be stupid. He'd been bottom of his class on Tuchanka, and had suffered further damage to his brain in the 2185 assault on his clan's base, where he'd taken a cryo round to the base of the skull. Even someone as simple as him, however, knew not to let the walk-in freezer's door shut behind him.
It didn't take Guild long to spot the container Cheff had specified. Metallic blue, it was. Guild was vaguely aware it was uncommon for meat containers to be six foot tall, have blue-ish clan tattoos and have the greyish meat exposed to the elements, but he was far to busy to worry about that. Guild scooped the cold, motionless meat up and carried it through to the kitchen.
He laid the large slab of meat down on the counter, removing the blue, almost armour-like coverings from it. Guild noted with a laugh that the meat has a glowing blue eyepiece attached to it.
"Must have been a prank at the slaughterhouse." Guild rationalised, grabbing his butcher's knife. He sunk the blade into the flash, cutting himself out a nice thick slab of beef before returning what was left of the meat to the walk-in freezer. Guild, a slackjawed expression on his face, greased up a frying pan and got to work frying the delicious meat.
"That smells great! I know a young man who can't wait to get his hands on your meat!" Brixt complimented, entering the kitchen and watching Guild put the finishing touches to his ""Famous" Human Style Burger" "I'll just take that, if you don't mind." the batarian wrested the finished burger from the vacant-eyed krogan, returning to the bar with it.
"Oh man..." Denny said, his mouth watering as Brixt set the burger down before the human. Gleefully, he took the sandwich in both hands and took a large bite out of it.
Juices ran down Denny's chin as he savoured the first bite of his ""Famous" "Human" Style Burger".