DISCLAIMER: Mass Effect, its places, races and distinctive likenesses are the property of Bioware and EA. I'm only a huge nerd doing what huge nerds do best.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: A project like this isn't all that strange when you're a fan of both Mass Effect and hard-boiled crime fiction. I could tell from the very beginning that what I was writing was some funky, artificial extension of something like Blade Runner. It definitely is fun sailing these bizarre waters.

So what is Noir Effect exactly? The way I see it right now, it will be a collection of short stories with a tone not unlike what you'd read in a pulp magazine. The difference is, of course, that the setting will be rather far from the "streets dark with something other than night" that Raymond Chandler brought to life in his work. A quick search helped me understand I'm not the first to try this, but I still went ahead. You won't ever get to do anything fun if you always want to be the first.

In terms of characters, I expect to hop back and forth between a number of OCs while doing my best to stay true to the Mass Effect universe. I already made a big mistake close to eight years ago, when my OCs took away control from canon characters in an old fic –don't bother looking–. It's something I'd rather not repeat, and so I'm making that promise before we begin.

I certainly can't force you to keep reading my work and like it, trusty readers, but if there are some of you out there who wind up enjoying this project as much as I hope to enjoy writing it, then I'll be forever grateful. Maybe it will pluck one of your heart's strings; maybe it will make you laugh; maybe it will make you nod in approval; maybe it will help you pass the time. Whatever it is, I have nothing but thanks for your attention.

Do also feel free to leave a review. Whether it's good or bad, it can only help me improve.

Without any further ado, let's begin.
_

Drinker on Duty – Part One

Booze. Chemotherapy for the kind of pain that would otherwise turn worms into men or a memory; an escape. It made sense that I drank and liked it.

It didn't matter if I got wasted at home in my cheap C-Sec salary apartment, or here in this quiet, forlorn bar somewhere probably outside my jurisdiction. The intention was more or less the same, regardless of the ward; I was a small dust particle trying to get smaller in an already vast galaxy.

The place I chose for that particular binge was my kind of rat hole: smelly, dark, unwelcoming… but most of all quiet. Loud house music, pulsating lights, mumbling turian bartenders and a tribe of horny teenagers prancing around would have made my drinking heavier that night, if that was possible.

Speaking of the bartender, he didn't care to know why I was drinking alone as long as I allowed him to drain credits from my savings account. At least he was human, thank God. I didn't need some boney salarian trying to rationalize my pain, or a krogan calling me a bitch for not dealing with my problems with a headbutt and a blast to the face.

If they only knew; the bartender did, or that's what I thought. The fact that he was a retired, balding dock worker trying to make a living off of babysitting drunks like me made no difference. Just being part of the same species helped us reach a quiet, mutual understanding.

"Isn't there somewhere else you should be, pal? Maybe chasing away perverts or drunks like yourself?" the bartender asked me in an annoyed voice as he cleaned the last of the dirty glasses.

So much for understanding.

I slammed my hands on the counter and sat upright. The whole left side of my face was sore and probably red from the short nap I took, if you could call it that. My feet were numb and so were my fingers. To make things worse, just blinking and looking ahead entailed some kind of balancing act. Lucky for me, my tongue was as sharp as always.

"…kicking me out? That's how it is?"

The bartender cocked his head to the side.

"Yeah. That's how it is," he parroted. "I closed an hour ago. I did you a small favor, but enough is enough. You're the only one left here."

He motioned to the rest of the place with his hairy arm and I followed his lead. It was true. Except for the quarian mutt getting paid maybe a hundred credits to clean the joint and live in the janitor's closet, there wasn't anyone else around. Empty. I never noticed, but then I was so sloshed the geth could've vaporized me and I would have probably slept through it.

"I've got a wife waiting for me at home, pal. Beat it," he said, thumb pointed toward the exit.

"Okay. I can take a hint," I answered, groggily running a hand over my face. "If anybody asks you, you didn't know I was on duty, alright?"

"Wh-You were on duty!?"

"Yeah. Still am, if my watch's not running late again. I bet you didn't mind one way or the other," I said, already dreading my next bank statement. "Be glad I didn't shake you down, okay? I mean, I'm sure all your papers are in order, considering you just sold alcoholic beverages to an identified C-Sec officer. It mustn't have been too hard to make me with my uniform still on."

I slid off my stool and staggered a little more. My knees were so weak that it felt like an orbital drop, instead of some inches shy of one measly foot. The quarian looked at me like he was meaning to come and help. He was the kind of Samaritan I didn't need.

"What's the story with bubble boy here?" I asked the bartender. "They could pinch you for slavery if you're not careful. It's not like you're keeping a dog here."

The quarian's eyes shone like green, angry stars through his visor. I smiled back at him, only because I could.

The bartender tightened his jaw and looked me in the eye. His whole head now reminded me of a really ugly, really angry brick.

"What do you want?" he asked, hammering every word with his voice.

That was a good question; it's too bad that the answers I had in my head were all stupid and terrible. Meanwhile, my silence was probably sign-language for "Come kick my ass", because that's what the bartender intended to do next. There are not that many interpretations when somebody cracks his knuckles in a high stress confrontation; the list gets shorter when you're the cause of it.

In the shape I was in, I couldn't hit an elcor even if you put him in front of me and told me he slept with my mother and owed me money. I was a wreck and an idiot for picking fights I couldn't even start; I'm a terrible fighter to begin with, but being drunk on top of that was too much. Things were going to get real messy real fast.

Then a female voiced called to me.

"Detective Seyer!"

I was more or less lucid enough to know that was my partner. The door slid open with a familiar wheeze and she came running, ignoring I had just pissed off some tough guy from the docks and his alien buddy. She looked like she was in a hurry, not to find me but to be somewhere else, probably far away from that joint. I figured she'd give me an excuse to be somewhere else soon. Rather, that's what I was hoping.