Ch. 1: So It Begins…
Jaric awoke with a gasp and covered in a cold sweat. He breathed heavily for a moment, blinking rapidly, trying to bring himself back to reality. It was the nightmares, again, the same nightmares that have been haunting him all these years. He propped himself up in the bed, running one hand through his sweaty hair, repeating to himself softly, "It was only a dream" over and over again. It was starting to become a nuisance, having these nightmares. As one could imagine it is really hard to do one's job if they rarely had a good night's sleep.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and put his face in his hands, taking a few deep breaths. The thing about work is that you usually need to go to where your specific skill set is needed to find it, and the Citadel wasn't known for its abundance of mercenary work. He had only been on the Citadel for a little over a month and people were already running out of problems. Most of the time they went to C-Sec, which is something Jaric isn't used too. Not like on Omega, there were enough people with problems on that rock that Jaric would have issues telling people he couldn't take the job. Though he wasn't really surprised at that, his background made him a fairly common choice for when something needed to be handled.
Jaric worked, well did work, for Aria T'Lok; a job that carried weight in his profession. He'd been doing what she asked ever since she found him on Omega running errands for two bit gangsters.
He smirked as he thought of one job in particular that Aria had him do that involved kneecaps and a very unlucky man. A soft moan behind him brought him back to reality and he looked over his shoulder. The woman in the bed had rolled over and part of the blanket fell to reveal her breasts, which Jaric reached over and fixed. His mother had raised him as well as she could, and he wasn't enough of an asshole to let the girl get cold. He looked at her for a moment, taking in her beauty again.
Her skin was almost the color of porcelain, which went well with her red hair and the green eyes she had. Though these Citadel girls couldn't hold a candle to women on Omega, those girls were tiny explosives in organic form. Girls on the Citadel were all the same, wide eyed and easily impressed with stories of gunfights and big battles; but not Omega women; you actually had to try to impress them. She was still asleep so Jaric got out of bed and made his way to her bathroom. He closed the door and turned on the shower before grabbing a towel from under her sink. He looked up to see himself staring back at him in the mirror. Jaric looked himself over, studying the scars and tattoos that covered his well-muscled body.
Being a mercenary had left Jaric with a number of scars, mostly bullet wounds and a few from a knife, but thankfully his tattoos helped pull away from those. Across his chest, just under his collar bone, was the phrase 'Forgive Me Father'. His right arm, and a bit of his chest and back, was tattooed to look like battle armor that knights would have worn back in medieval times. It was funny; Jaric looked nothing like he did when he first got to Omega except for the short cut black hair and green eyes.
Jaric showered and dressed before leaving the woman's apartment. The darkness of the early morning was giving way to the morning sun; Jaric lit a cigarette and started his trek home. The walk wasn't far; the girl lived actually relatively closed to where Jaric did, and when he finally reached his apartment his exhaustion hit him. He unlocked the door and stumbled into his apartment. It was fairly large, three bedrooms, kitchen/eating area, bathroom and a living space. He collapsed onto the couch face down and fell asleep.
Jaric woke again, still on the couch, and let out a groan of discomfort. He got up, stretched, and made his way to his bedroom.
"Oh, look who's finally awake." Said a metallic voice as Jaric passed the third bedroom. He stopped, sighed, and went back to the doorway and said, "Good morning to you too, Evin." The Quarian stopped typing away on the console on the desk she sat at, her eyes moving from the screen to Jaric. She leaned forward, elbows on the desk, resting the chin of her helmet on her folded fingers. Jaric couldn't see her face, thanks to the visor, but Jaric could swear she was smirking at him.
"It's actually the middle of the afternoon,' she said matter of fact like, 'but while you were out wasting time I was working so." The Quarian stood up; her blue armor seemed cleaner than normal by the shine of it.
"Going somewhere special?" Jaric asked, folding his arms and learning against the doorway.
"Yes, though it's none of your business. And to answer the next question, yes it is a date." She said as she walked past him. Jaric followed her to her room.
"Is he Quarian, Human, Turian,' Jaric asked, as she transferred some credits onto her Omni-tool, and then added with a smirk, 'Krogan?"
"Turian, actually. He's an office with C-Sec, quite decorated too if the background search was right." Jaric let out a laugh at the last part.
"The problem is that's actually believable. I can't wait to find out what he thinks of your choice in profession." Jaric said, still grinning. She turned to face him, again he couldn't see her face but he could tell she was giving the usual glare.
"What of my profession, I'm simply your secretary if I remember your words right, besides,' she said, 'he doesn't need to know everything on the first date." She walked past him and headed for the door.
"Well, if he's lucky he'll get a second one." Jaric said with a soft grin. Evin turned to look at him, again he could tell she was smiling too, putting a finger to her respirator and tapping it twice. Jaric did the same, putting his index and middle finger to his lips, repeating the double tap. He'd known Evin for years, most of his life actually. Jaric will be the first to admit it, he owes he's fairly lucrative career to Aria T'Lok, she can give one very convincing letter of recommendation. Jaric worked for Aria until he was about 19, starting out simply running stuff for her then even moving on the stealing and graduating with a degree in violence. He got picked up by the authorities while doing a job for Aria and was essentially told join the Alliance Military or go to jail; Jaric to the former rather than the later. The military gave him training and taught him discipline, something that Jaric needed badly. He served four years before being discharged and went right back to Aria. She'd found a new lacky to fill Jaric's spot but now he had training that made him of use to her.
A deal she offered him, she'd help him find work as a mercenary but anything she needed him to do would come first. He agreed to the deal, but Evin was coming with him. He'd met Evin when he first arrived on Omega, she was the same age as Jaric but she never told him why she and her parents were on Omega. They became practically brother and sister, Jaric often staying with Evin and her family when he had nowhere else to go. Evin had been a big help to Jaric over the last three years, she was very gifted with technology and made hacking into secure bank accounts look as simple as breathing. Jaric owed her his life on more than one occasion thanks to her talents.
"Oh,' Evin said, 'There's a new message for you on your console and the credits from the last job have been added to the account. And yes, I checked the message, it's clean." And she was gone. Jaric made his way to his room and sat at his desk, keying in the password to the console. The password would do little to stop someone from breaking into the terminal; it was more of a personal thing, something to say this was his. Besides, the security program that Evin had designed would be enough to stop even the most experienced hacker. He pulled up his inbox and there was the message Evin had mentioned. It wasn't titled, which wasn't unusual, so Jaric opened up the message. There was one line, just one that read 'Open the attachment.' Jaric stared at the screen pondering opening the attachment. After a moment he clicked on the attachment and instantly regretted the decision. The terminal's screen went haywire before suddenly going black.
"Fuck!" Jaric said, as he tried clicking random buttons. 'Evin's program should prevent viruses and hackers, this isn't good at all.' He thought to himself. Suddenly a voice came from the terminal's speakers. The voice was distorted; he recognized it from when Evin would do it to threaten potential victims of her cybercrimes.
"Jaric, first off do not worry. A virus has been placed in this terminal to remove this message after its completion. This is just a cautionary measure to make sure that this message is heard by only you. We offer you a job, it will require a large amount of your time but we can make it worth your while. If you are interested come to the White Tea Rose Café at noon tomorrow. Come alone, as cliché as it sounds, this is a private matter to be discussed."
The terminal haywired again and brought up his normal screen, the message gone. Jaric leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head. This was interesting, but he'd wait for Evin to get home. She was usually good with this sort of thing plus she'd probably shed some light on what happened. But until she got home he'd simply have to wait for her. Jaric undressed and got in his bed, a nap would definitely pass the time.