The squad car pulled up to the warehouse, and Shepard had to admit she had never seen a more ugly or run-down place in her life: the building looked like it had been abandoned for several years, then overtaken by squatters. She jumped out, followed by two other humans, and the smell of garbage hit her smack in the face. Someone had based an illegal live animal dealership here? It would barely be clean enough for scrap storage, let alone for animals. She resisted the urge to gag as she moved over to the filth-spattered door and scanned for explosive devices. Finding nothing, she motioned the two men forward, and one of them smashed in the door.
A horrible smell met her nostrils as she and the men moved into the building; stale smoke and spoiled food. She gritted her teeth, wrinkled her nose, and kept going. The rooms looked mostly empty, but a few had broken or hacked-up furniture in them. Empty liquor bottles and greasy wrappings from fried food lay scattered about the rooms like leaves after a storm. The walls might have once been white, but now were gray with stains splattered across them from various substances, one of which looked suspiciously like red sand. She ran down a small staircase that led to a tiny, stinking cellar lined with bulging garbage bags. She sighed and holstered her pistol, scooping up a gutted, ancient datapad. Whoever had inhabited this building was long gone, and with them, any information that C-Sec could have used to track them down.
She tossed the datapad back on the floor, where it fell with a clatter that made her wince. She turned ant put her foot on the bottom step when she heard the desperate whine. She whipped around, but saw nothing. Wary, she paced the room, tapping the wall panels, searching. Her armored glove knocked against a hollow section and she stepped back, raising her pistol, and kicked it as hard as she could. The panel gave in with a crunch, plaster dust flying everywhere. The smell of week-old urine and feces made her gag, but her aim remained steady as she pointed her weapon at the single figure cast into sharp contrast by her flashlight.
"Freeze!" she barked, then realized that there was no need to shout. A filthy, frightened turian cowered in the beam of the flashlight, its arms thrown over its face. It growled at her, but its growls sounded thin and high-pitched, on the edge of a whine. She quickly lowered the pistol, careful to stay out of reach of its talons.
"Hey, hey. It's okay big guy. I'm not gonna hurt you." She panned the light around, but didn't see much. The room was completely bare without so much as a pile of rags for the turian to sleep on. The floor squelched faintly beneath her boots, and she realized she stepped in sewage. Her stomach roiled threateningly, and she dry-swallowed, looking back at the turian. The poor thing had been sleeping in these conditions? She edged closer, looking the animal up and down. Its ribs showed through its hide, its plates scuffed and discolored, probably from malnutrition. Where it wasn't covered in its own filth, its unplated skin showed bruises and cuts, some of which appeared to be infected. The turian had been abused and starved, by the look of things. She needed to get it out of here, but would it let her?
Shepard dug in her pocket and produced a compact cube of some meat substance, what the pet store sold as "turian treats". They smelled absolutely vile, but the stench around her drowned out the odor. It got the turian's attention, however, and its growls cut off as it turned to her and sniffed at the "food". It stepped toward her, but didn't grab the treat, and she realized it was standing at the end of a taut chain so coated in mess that she could barely distinguish the links from the back wall. The turian whined, looking longingly at the food. She edged closer, and the animal moved. It snatched the food from her grasp, lightning-fast and retreated with its prize, growling, then pressed a dirty hand to its mouth and gulped the cube down without chewing. She stared disbelievingly, and it met her gaze, growling slightly. Its growl sounded different, more of a warning than any actual aggression. She noticed how intensely blue the turian's eyes were, and the animal's gaze unnerved her. She distracted it with another treat, which it took even more readily than before, and got a better look at the collar on its neck. A scratched steel ring ran around the turian's throat, protecting a thick chain that tightened when the turian pulled at it. The collar held together with a crude but efficient magnetic lock that she felt sure she could hack if the turian would just hold still. The animal had withdrawn again and crouched against the back wall, its teeth bared.
"Hey big guy. It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you."
The turian let out a low growl, but stopped when she stopped talking. She sighed and offered her last treat, which the turian took without hesitation. She reached up and stroked its neck while it was distracted, and the animal's soft growl leapt up into a wicked snarl. The turian whipped around, its teeth fully bared and glinting menacingly, then suddenly stopped, tilting its head. Its mandibles pulled back against its face, and she reached out again, not daring to touch it. It studied her fingers for a long moment, then put its head down and brushed her palm with the ridge of its brow. Her heart thundered in her chest. She'd never seen a turian do this. She didn't know what it meant, but she knew if the turian hadn't attacked her, then this gesture was probably a good sign.
"See, buddy? It's okay. I'm here to help."
The turian moved forward a bit so she could reach its neck and bobbed its head so that her fingers brushed its skin in a back-and forth motion. This gesture was crystal clear: more, please. She held her breath and ran a hand along the plates on its neck. The turian closed its bright, piercing eyes for a moment, then nudged her arm.
"What is it, big guy?"
The animal nudged harder, then pawed at its collar. It whined softly at her, its blue eyes begging.
"All right, big guy. Just hold still."
Her omni-tool flared in the dark as she opened her hacking program and scanned the lock on the turian's collar. Before she could electronically interface with the lock, though, she heard feet on the stairs. Her turian leapt away from her and cowered against the wall, snarling as her two squadmates came thundering down into the hidden room, pistols drawn.
"Shepard! Get away from that thing!"
Shepard turned on them, scowling furiously as one of her colleagues trained his weapon on the turian.
"Stop it! You're scaring him!" She didn't know what gender the turian was, but, she didn't particularly care. Calling the turian an "it" wouldn't help get the others' sympathies.
"We're scaring it? Shepard, just listen to it! It sounds like it's about to kill something!"
"Put your damn weapons down! He was fine before you came thundering down here like a pack of rampaging krogan!"
" How can we be sure it won't kill us if we let it off the leash?"
"Because I fed him. He's harmless. Really."
"You what? It could have bitten your hand off!"
"But he didn't."
The man shook his head, but lowered his pistol.
"Do me a favor and pull a leash and collar out of the vehicle. We should get the turian out of here." She paused and glanced at the animal. "Besides, the smell is really getting to me."
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Moving the turian out of the building wasn't too difficult. The turian let Shepard put the nylon collar around its neck with minimal fuss, and it behaved surprisingly well while on the leash, keeping close to Shepard and not pulling. Of course, that may have been because the poor animal was trembling in fear, but at least it wasn't growling or trying to maul her. Getting it into the reinforced crate in the back of the animal control vehicle was a different matter, however. It took half an hour to coax the animal inside, then another half-hour to close the door of the crate without panicking the turian. It seemed extremely reluctant to lose sight of her, even for a moment. Luckily the crate had large openings so that the animal could see out, but when she tried to close the vehicle's back doors on the animal, it started growling and whining and banging around so loudly that she feared it would tear its way out of the crate. She decided to sit in the back and keep the poor thing company.
Now it lay curled up on the vinyl-cushioned crate floor, its head against one of the metal sides of the box, sound asleep. She scratched its neck absentmindedly, careful to avoid its bruises and cuts. The more she looked at the turian, the more injuries she saw under the layer of dirt matting its scales. The poor animal had obviously suffered and needed the rest.
"You're safe now," she murmured. "It's gonna be all right."
At this, the turian lifted its head and blinked sleepily at her. She felt sure it couldn't understand her, but it must have heard her, or it wouldn't have woken up. Maybe it just felt the driver hitting the brakes. Either way, the shout that followed most certainly would have jolted the animal from sleep.
"Hey Shep! We're here. Get that thing ready to go, because I'm not dealing with it."
The turian flinched at the yelling and bared its teeth.
"It's okay, big guy." She soothed. "He's just being loud." She opened the crate, moving slowly for the animal's benefit, and let it look around the loading bay before attaching the animal's leash. She pulled lightly, and the turian followed, looking around. It shifted back and forth, sniffing the air, as though uneasy. She wondered what it could smell even though they hadn't made it inside the vet clinic yet.
She successfully coaxed it inside the back door, though the turian huddled close, its shoulders tense. As she stepped up to the small desk, acknowledging the salarian behind the counter, the turian started growling.
"No." She said firmly. "You be nice."
The animal fell silent as though struck dumb.
"Turian is in need of medical help." The salarian said as she stopped. "Will let one of the vets know." He typed a quick message, then turned back to her and looked the turian up and down. The animal bared its teeth.
"Uneasy around salarians. Asari better to handle this. Sit. Will be with you in a moment."
She led her turian over to the row of hard plastic seats and sat down. Her turain remained standing, looking around with quick, birdlike jerks of its head. Its mandibles drooped, and it appeared to be panting slightly, like an agitated dog.
"Sit, big guy." She told her animal. "Sit."
The turian sat on the floor, surprising her, then looked up at her and let out a low whine. She scratched its neck.
"Hush. It's okay. They're just gonna look at you."
The look the turian gave her was so desperate that it took all her self-control not to get up and walk out. The animal obviously felt threatened by something, but she kept telling herself that the turian needed to be looked at if she wanted to bring it home. She would make the turian stay only as long as necessary. A smiling asari in a white coat appeared and beckoned them back. She gently pulled at the leash, and her turian stood up, trudging after her, its mandibles hanging so low they might have been broken. The animal whined at her again, and she shushed it and scratched its neck.
Once the vet shut them inside a room, she looked up at the turian, smiling.
"He's a big guy," the asari remarked as Shepard prodded her turian up onto the exam table. "He's also a mess."She reached out and scanned the turian with her omni-tool. The turian looked away, tucking his chin into the side of his cowl, his body tensing. Shepard stared. Did he feel embarrassed? Was it possible for the animal to feel embarrassed? She swallowed and dismissed it as a random fluke in behavior.
"Turians can behave gently, but they are big, dangerous animals, and males can get highly protective. This sometimes leads to…incidents."
Shepard let her mind wander, vaguely registering the vet's monologue. It was nothing she hadn't heard before. Maulings were commonplace, even frequent among irresponsible or bad owners. People had died due to the amount of damage inflicted by an angry turian, and usually the animal suffered the consequences. They were big, dangerous animals after all...
She pulled herself back to reality as the vet said something about "in heat" and decided maybe it was a good idea to listen.
"Because of the trigger chemicals involved with…sexual attraction, it is advised that you fix your turian so that he is more docile."
"Are you saying he could become…sexually attracted to me?" Shepard asked in a strained voice.
"In the same way a dog is attracted to an owner, yes. We haven't had a lot of reports of…overexcited animals, but it does happen on rare occasion. Aggressive maulings are far more common. "
"Mmm. I'll think about it." She wasn't keen on the idea. The turian obviously hated this place and wanted to leave, and she felt it would be best to take him home.
"All right." The asari peered at Shepard's turian. "He's been abused, that much is obvious. Looks like he may have lived in that basement for somewhere close to…hmmm, two weeks? Someone starved him severely. I'm surprised he's still standing."
"How long until he can come home?"
"Could take a while. We'll need to look at his injuries too, which right now look pretty bad, but they could just be infected. Why don't you let us look at him and we'll give you a report?"
"All right. Just…be gentle with him, okay?"
The asari gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. We'll take care of him."
Shepard nodded and passed the leash end to the asari. She looked at the turian, who stared back at her with bright, mournful eyes. He stood quietly, not pulling, but the look he fixed her with crushed her with its desperation. Don't leave me here, he seemed to be begging her. She had to leave, though, because she already ran late.
Shepard half-turned, but the asari stopped her with a word.
"We may need to do surgery. Nothing major, just to clean out infected wounds."
"Do what you need to, but no more. Now, if you don't mind, I really have to go." Bailey would tear her a new one if she didn't get back soon. Shepard's omni-tool lit up, and she stopped again with an irritated sigh .
"I need you to sign the consent form."
She scrawled a hasty signature, then sent the document back, casting a last glance at the turian.
"I'll be back for you in a few days, big guy. I promise."
The long, low whine he let out when she closed the door behind her lingered in her ears long after she left the clinic.
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SheegothBait here! Sorry about temporarily removing this. (I was having account issues.) But anyway, it's back now!
I know that the lack of explanation may be frustrating to some of you, but I promise: everything WILL be explained. Cheers, and I'll see you next chapter.