Prologue
"Lock everything down," said a tall, lithe man with a noticeable Irish accent as he directed several people in ragged lab coats that were scrambling about. "The last thing we need is some upstart 'dock guard' deciding that our cargo is worth more than his pay."
A middle-aged woman that was several inches shorter than him had passed nearby to halt her trek towards the airlock in order to twirl as she put on a coat to hide most of her underlying garb. "Liam, this is Illium, not Omega. We should be fine here." She tossed her straight gray-streaked auburn hair over her shoulder with her right hand once the jacket was on.
Liam McRoilie's brows creased together as he watched a few of his associates hang up torn and dirty lab coats to don their own crowd-blending apparel. "I don't care where this is, Allison. Risks are risks, and we can't afford much in that regard. It took us a month to slip out of Cerberus's shadow, and the fewer the slip-ups the better."
Every blocky corridor of the MSV Appalachian had been a bustle of activity ever since they had docked. The six of them that remained from the original team of twenty had made this ship their home, and they needed to prepare the ship to take on one more tenant. She was to be the first non-human to join them since their exodus from the clandestine space station that housed the mainstay of their project's equipment and research. The alien they planned to take with them, an asari known as Maela T'Vess, was critical to their project's existence and success many years ago. That very project is almost 27 years old by now, and on the verge of extinguishing itself for reasons out of their control—at least until they get Maela on board.
The Irishman saw Allison purse her lips but she remained quiet. Instead of argue this time, she simply nodded once and turned to vanish into the ship to grab a few more things. Once she returned to him, he vainly attempted to flatten out a few creases in her jacket and kissed her forehead. "Come on, the sooner we find T'Vess the sooner we can get moving."
He had to slow down when walking down the yellow and black striped stairs that led to the airlock. He was well into his sixties now, and even though humans generally lived to be healthy at over one hundred years in modern days, he could still feel age catching up with him. His black hair was starting to get heavily streaked with grey and his cheeks were gaunter than they've ever been. I'm no cripple, he decided, defiant against his own natural progression. I've got many years left before these bones can't make the chase any longer.
Once through the heavy doors that led out of the Appalachian, Liam had to squint and bring a hand up over his face to block the immediate intensity of Tasale, the system's local star. He could see each of his companions doing the same. It's been far too long since we've seen a bloody sun, he thought. Hopefully it won't be the last. The air was heavy, hot, and smelled of a thick mix of filtered manufacturing air pollution, fresh packaging, and expelled sterile air straight from the surrounding office complexes and laboratories.
They had landed in Nos Jusra, a production-oriented city almost half a world away from the popular tourist front of Nos Astra, and the upbeat and colorful atmosphere of the trade capital was wholly replaced by a dingier ambiance akin to a shady cousin often covered in soot and grease. You don't like to look at him, you don't want to be seen with him, and you don't really want to touch him or get too close, but neither can you deny the fact that he's there or, moreover, is the go-to guy if you need work done.
Their ultimate destination here was a high-class research facility in the heart of the city—at least, if their source could be trusted. T'Vess had her namesake's genetics lab there, and while the security here wasn't on the same level nor held nearly as much infamy as Noveria's various labs, they still had to squeeze their way in. Lucky for them, a few old Cerberus contacts that had yet to be cut off managed to forge a few important meetings with Maela herself, granting Liam, Allison, and a bare handful of others the chance to convince the infamous asari xenobiologist and xenogeneticist to come with them. Failing that, they would have to resort to more… extreme measures. Liam prayed it wouldn't come to that.
"Liam, do you think Maela will come willingly?" Allison asked apprehensively as they weaved their way through a collection of dock equipment just outside their dock's umbilical ramp.
Liam halted his trek for a few seconds to let a train of hauled crates hover by. "Hard to say, but my gut says 'not bloody likely'. We'll essentially be asking her to walk away from everything she's worked for here. I get the feeling we might have to employ plan B before the day is done." Lord help us if plan B isn't convincing enough, he thought direly.
The plan they drew up during their long flight from the choking hands of Cerberus's agents was simple and tiered into three parts with the second and third being contingency plans of the prior if things went awry. First, they would reach Maela under the guise of a business meeting to discuss a new project. They would have to swap topics to that of the project they once worked on together—the one that brought forth highly effective natural biotic human children into the world. I can try an emotional angle, Liam decided. Maybe that'll have more effect. She's almost a matron, maybe she can empathize on that…
Plan B, the backup if that failed to sway Miss T'Vess's motives, was to use some channels and data dug up by an old Cerberus friend of Liam's to… moderately blackmail her into helping them out. Okay, well, blackmail is never really moderate, but he liked to think of it that way to soften the blow to his dignity. While Liam's contact assures him that the bait will be irresistible to Maela, he remembers how… unusual that asari is; how she'd get manic every time she became frustrated, how she'd almost quite literally spit in the face of adversity, and how her decisions often times didn't make a whole lot of clean sense. Just in case, they needed a Plan C.
Plan C was the least complicated of them all and by far the most likely to end in death. It more or less consisted of trying to kidnap Maela and steal her out of the research facility so they could drag her back to their ship. Liam wasn't trying to kid himself—none of them were any sort of agents or soldiers. If it came down to Plan C, success meant relying upon a heaping dose of luck slathered with coincidence. Naturally, this plan was an absolute last resort.
"Why are we risking our necks for this kid?" one of the other project members asked as he emerged into the sunlight. He was quickly regarded by all the others with contemptuous glares. Had this one forgotten what they had spent half their lives working on? Had he given up on the last surviving child they all brought into the world?
"One more question like that, Gerald, and you'll find yourself left behind, hogtied and dumped in an alleyway," said Allison amidst angry points and daggered glares, giving voice to much of the team's feelings on that sort of matter. "We've invested far, far too much to tolerate that kind of cynicism from anyone."
Liam felt obligated to elaborate in order to be sure Gerald hadn't actually forgotten. "Don't be a moron, Gerald. You know as well as I do that Kevin's the last living subject of our life's work, and we don't exactly have the luxury of time. If he—"
"Yes, the final Neural Cascade, I know." The pale man, who was a few years Liam's senior, spat. "It just seems like we're going out of our way to get ourselves killed. If I remember correctly, Maela wasn't very fond of adversity and I'm not exactly trained to face asari biotics. Nor are any of you."
As many of the final preparations finished up and they locked down the Appalachian, the majority of the team began to follow Liam and Allison out onto the docks. Tension was high, evident on the faces of every sleep-starved individual that walked off of that ship. Liam placed a friendly hand on Gerald's shoulder as the man walked up to him. "Lord willing, it won't come to that. It's not like any of us are any more eager to stare down a biotic throw than you, Gerald. Just keep a cool head and remember the objective. We're not here to convince Maela to accept everything thrown at her, we're just here to get her off of this planet and into our jurisdiction."
Gerald looked off into the distance over Liam's shoulder, shrugged, then nodded to confirm his acquiescence. After he and the others walked off into the streets lightly crowded by slow-moving rivers of people, Liam and Allison brought up the rear of the group and began making their way through as well.
Following a collection of convenient signs that pointed out the major business and industrial-park skyscrapers of this area and the companies hosted within, they took a pair of cabs to the center of the city and followed the maze of bridges that connected building to building. Much to everyone's dismay, the scenery here wasn't nearly as attractive to look at as Nos Astra's, by far. It was full of dull colors, browns, beiges, pale blues, and off-whites. These buildings weren't meant to look pretty, they were meant to last as long as possible. Few of the shiny and colorful enamels used to coat the outside of the buildings in Nos Astra were considered 'durable' when stacked up against the hot sun all day and the occasional violent storm that pounded against the outer walls. Lastly, the horizon lacked the awe-inspiring view that Nos Astra claimed, as the Nos Jusra buildings were often more flat, stubby, and didn't fan out as far to create the jagged, sparkling barrier separating dirt and sky.
After a solid forty-five minutes of travel from their ship, they finally arrived at the office building that housed the "Maela T'Vess Center for Genetics Research". Liam read the large sign over the main door into the building from this skybridge and he zoned out for a moment. I wonder just what she's done to get a research center named after her, he thought. Moot point, I suppose. We need to get her out either way. It might be harder to convince her, though. She's clearly invested here…
"Liam, stop stalling," Allison called back to him, turned half-way around to see him standing there, blank-faced. "It's time."
The Irishman sighed and nodded, moving quickly to catch up with the others. "Pray this doesn't all go to Hell in a handbasket," he said cautiously as he gave Allison's right hand a final squeeze before entering the building.
The nice and cool interior of the building was much more enjoyable than the sweltering heat outside. The light was more tolerable as well; the entire lobby was bathed in a collection of clean light-blues and sterile white lights at far fewer ambient lumens. Every surface, even the walls and ceiling, were smooth and polished to a reflective sheen. To top off the regal atmosphere of a business lobby, there were plants precisely placed in aesthetically pleasing spots along the corners and walls with a few by the receptionist's desk. Gerald pointed out a massive plaque by the double elevators that pointed out all of the various levels and what was housed in each.
Liam walked over to it with the others and inspected it with a hand cupping his chin. "Hmm. Floors thirty-six through forty-six are all dedicated to her labs. Where to go?" The whole group mulled over the problem for a minute or so before Allison walked up to the group from elsewhere.
"Maela's offices are on the forty-fifth floor," she declared with a hand on her hip.
"How do you know that?" Liam questioned while waving a few fingers at the plaque. "There's no indication of what floors have offices and what floors have—"
"I asked," she said simply as she started moving towards the elevators with a smirk on her face.
As everyone else fell in behind her, Gerald tapped Liam's shoulder with the back of his hand. "You're going to hear about that for weeks."
Liam squinted and shook his head, knowing that Gerald had the truth of it. "She never did miss an excuse to take advantage of my extremely rare and ever-minor lapses." They shared a chuckle and filed into the elevator.
On the ride up, Allison tugged at his sleeve. "Liam, the secretary at the desk mentioned off-hand that we're the second group to ask for Maela's offices."
Liam shrugged. "She's a big figure in the research field now. That's not really all that surprising, I'd say."
"Surprising? Maybe not. Coincidental? Even less so, I'd say." Allison leaned in to give Liam that sideways glance that always spoke of uneasy, elevated suspicions. "Just keep it in mind, alright?"
Liam held her hands together for a short moment and he nodded to her. Not more than a few seconds later, the elevator doors opened wide revealing a well lit hall full of office doors, each with large glass windows to their right. The point of the windows seemed lost, as every single one had some object—from the backs of bulky furniture to various shades left down and closed—entirely obscuring whatever lay inside. They all moved down the near silent corridor until they spied a wall-mounted nameplate indicating Maela T'Vess's office.
"Here we are," Liam said casually as he tapped on the door access panel where he waited for the decorative metal barrier to slide into the wall to his left. Inside was a short hall lined with some kind of filing cabinets, all cracked open and overflowing with physical documents. Not more than a couple meters ahead, the hall made a ninety degree right turn into the office proper.
Before they could even get as far as that, however, flustered yelling caused them all to give pause.
"That's Maela, alright," Allison noted with a roll of the eyes. "In the middle of one of her frustrated fits, it sounds. I'd know that grating sound anywhere." Behind them, the door closed.
"Damn," cursed Gerald as he pressed knuckles to his hanging head. "We have some piss-poor timing. She's not going to want to hear us out now."
Just then they heard a second voice. A woman, calm and collected, making some indecipherable counter-arguments to Maela. The team of scientists crept forward to see if they could hear a little better and stopped just before the turn of the hall.
"Now that voice I don't recognize," Allison quipped in a whisper, crossing her arms. "Sure wish she'd been the one we were dealing with back in the day."
Liam pressed an index finger to Allison's lips to keep her quiet. He inched his way closer to the corner so that he could get an even better ear on the conversation. He gestured to the others to stay quiet and pressed himself flat against the file cabinets at the precipice of the turn.
"Why do you care?" Maela said angrily. "I was told that project was abandoned years ago!"
"We're simply tying up loose ends, Miss T'Vess," said the mystery woman. She sounded human to Liam's ears. "You know as well as I do that liabilities of the smallest sort can wreak some nasty havoc."
"Is that what I am to you idiots? A liability?!" Maela was quite infuriated by the sound of it. "Listen here, 'Miss Hasgrove', I don't owe your corporation or its smears of varren shit for an R and D team anything! If you think I'm—"
"There's no need to yell, Miss T'Vess," the unknown said, cool as ice. "We can be diplomatic about this or we can take a less savory path. I prefer the prior, if you don't mind."
"I hardly call pulling a gun on a geneticist 'diplomatic'," Maela said, her rage having suddenly fled in great amounts.
Liam's eyes went wide.
"Let's just call it a motivational factor in your compliance. No, don't move those pretty hands of yours. I'll not have any biotics flying about the fragile wealth of this room." A short silence followed that seemed to go on forever.
"What. Do. You. Want?" It sounded as though she were gritting her teeth through every word.
"As I said before, I want any and all documentation you have on the Symbiosis Experiment. You may know it as 'Project Evolution'."
Liam realized he had to move. If I don't do something, Maela will be shot, he reasoned. There's no way in hell she's going to let go of that data. He shuffled around the corner as quietly as he could, much to the shocked dismay of his teammates. Lucky for him, the professionally-clad mystery woman with a Phalanx in her right hand had her back to him, aiming somewhere just to the right beyond his line of sight. Unfortunately, that also meant that Maela was out of sight as well, so he couldn't figure out just what kind of situation she was in. That's a moot point, idiot, she's being questioned at gunpoint! he thought, gritting his teeth.
Maela was as defiant just as Liam expected. "That's some of my finest work. I don't care how clandestine that project was, I'd sooner dive into a thresher maw's mouth than let you walk away with that data."
The unknown woman brandished her pistol slightly. "May I remind you that you're not exactly in the position to be making any decisions here? It wasn't a request. Go get the documents or your head will join in decorating that shiny, plaque-covered wall of yours."
Just a bit closer… Liam was crouching as he moved towards the woman, but he was unarmed and she had a gun. He quickly searched his immediate area and found a huge, slender bottle used for transporting volatile liquids. It was empty, but if he could just hit her on the back of the head…
No good. When Liam moved to grab the bottle, his fingers pushed a second one that was blended in and unseeable behind it. The clanking noise it made when it fell over was more than enough to alert the woman. She quickly spun around, focusing the aim of that deadly pistol right at his head.
"Damnit…" Liam cursed as he stood upright and put his hands up, dropping the bottle to shatter on the ground at his feet.
"Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?" the woman inquired fiercely.
It was all the time she needed. Maela, a deep blue skinned asari garbed in the classic labwork clothes of her people, produced a pistol of her own from somewhere under her desk. She took aim and fired without a second of hesitation. "You can kiss the crack of my ass, whore!" A single shot on the unshielded woman was all it took.
Liam flinched hard and shut his eyes reflexively as the shot rang out in the room and a warm, red liquid exploded from the center of the woman's throat to splatter on his face and clothes. He could hear the through-and-through whiz right by his head and impact the wall behind him. "Stop stop stop!" he yelled out, his brush with death causing panic to take over for a split second.
"Who the—" Maela scowled at Liam, looking as if she were to shoot him without a second thought. The shot never came though, and her face morphed through several emotions as recognition came to her. "Dear Goddess, it's you," she spat, her tone full of disdain. "More of you lackwit Cerberus goons come to steal my work. Either your timing is hilariously bad, or you lot have quite a fondness for getting shot."
Liam, arms still up in surrender, looked down at the body on the floor amidst a growing pool of blood. "S-she's with Cerberus?" He shook his head. Bugger all, how can they already be here?!
"Tried to pass of as a worker of New Dawn Pharmaceuticals, but any idiot in the industry knows they're just a front. Personally, I don't give two shits about what they do, but the moment they step onto my floor with a gun in hand, they're crossing way too many lines."
She fell silent for a moment and tilted her head, studying Liam. He found he was suddenly not in a talkative mood and instead focused on trying not to hyperventilate. That and keep his hands up as though it might save him from any bullets careening his way.
T'Vess squinted at him and gave the gun a little shake to spur the human on. "Well, you didn't know she was here, so your timing is, indeed, hilariously bad. What do you want, McRoilie? I have half a mind to take your head off too and save myself whatever trouble you brought with you."
Liam forced himself to find his voice. "J-just hear me o-out, Maela. P-please, p-put the gun down, I'm not here to steal anything, I swear!"
Maela stared at him intently for a good minute or so with a massive frown taking over her face before she lowered the gun. "Stop blinking so fast, it always made you look pathetic."
Once the gun was down, Liam let out a long held breath and let his arms fall to his side. One more long breath steadied his lungs so he could speak more comprehensively. "T'Vess, there's a matter that urgently needs your attention. We came here looking for help."
"We?" the asari asked, her brows furrowing.
Liam turned around to call back to the hallway behind him. "Guys, come on out. It's… safe now. Relatively speaking." Shortly after, Allison, Gerald, and a few others cautiously stepped into the room from around the corner.
"Oh Goddess, there's more of you?!" She growls loudly, as if her day just couldn't get any worse. "Why aren't you all dead? Ugh! The hell do you all want from me?"
"Maela, we're not with Cerberus anymore. We got out," Allison said, trying to hold her tongue.
The asari threw her head back in exasperation. "Is that supposed to make me feel happy about this… impromptu visit of yours? And what does that even have to do with why you're here, anyway?"
Liam stepped forward, hands folded politely in front of him. "Maela, we need your help. Project Evolution wasn't cancelled years ago. It was active only until a couple months ago."
T'Vess's daggered glare softened a little as curiosity took hold. "Go on."
Liam was a bit surprised. He expected more resistance. Now! Explain it now, or you'll never get the chance! The Irishman pulled at the neck of his collar, cleared his throat and continued. "The subjects that were the result of our work—of your work—lived and went on to become adults. But there's a problem with their nervous system and they suffer from catastrophically disabling events we've come to call 'Neural Cascade Incidents'." Liam grew quiet. Gravely quiet. "They've…" He had to clear his throat again, as if it were suddenly clenching of its own free will. "They've proven deadly on more than one occasion."
"How many occasions, exactly?" Maela asked, her tone much softer now.
Liam closed his eyes and thought a moment. The lives they had nurtured and watched all those years flashed by in his mind and he had to take a deep breath to maintain his composure. "All but one."
Maela's brows crashed together, but not so much in anger like before. She drew in a deep breath of her own. "Just… one? Which one?"
"Kevin Folner. Remember? That spunky one that kept pushing the blocks into the other kids. Last we heard, he was still alive and residing on Omega for some God-forsaken reason."
She shook her head, a frown taking over her features again. She closed her eyes slowly. "So why come to me if all but one are dead?"
"We weren't idle while our… subjects were dying off." He had to struggle to call them that. They were their children in his heart. The children of all the remaining team, including T'Vess, but he wouldn't say that in front of her. Not here in this place. "We eventually found the cause, the NCIs, but there's no known equipment that can interface with a human's entire nervous system and neural paths the way we need in order to correct the problem before the fatal NCI occurs. We hoped you had some solution for this, but our time is very short. If you'd come with us to find Kevin…" He left the rest unsaid.
Maela fell silent as she looked to the floor for her answers. A time of silence that felt very near to an eternity passed before the asari looked back up to the humans in her office, her composure resolute. It was clear a one-time only decision had been made.
"Sorry, but I can't help you. I have too much work here, too much investment to stop and head off to deal with one last surviving experiment. If you manage to drag him here I could see if I can free up one of my labs. Other than that, you'll have to solve this problem without my expertise this time." She turned away and started back towards her desk, reaching for her intercom.
Liam's heart sank into his gut. If she wasn't invested in this project anymore, they'd be hard-pressed to get her to bother even if they stole her out. All at once plans B and C seemed pointless and far too much trouble for the worth.
Allison took a step forward and Liam held out an arm to stop her. "Allison, don't." He knew she was going to jump right to blackmail and somehow he knew that would do little to faze Maela. Instead, he took a step of his own and folded his hands out in front of him. Time to appeal to that emotional angle. "Maela, please. This is all we have. Kevin's your child just as much as ours."
Maela tensed visibly when Liam called Kevin her 'child', but she still managed to call to her secretary over the intercom. "Selira, please send in a cleaning crew. Someone left a huge mess on my floor." After the acknowledgement came from her contact, the asari turned back to Liam and the others, her face scrunched up. "Look, maybe you haven't heard, but I'm not exactly the most sentimental geneticist out there. I'm not coming with you. Now do I have to call security or can you find the exit by yourselves?"
The other scientists looked to Liam and the Irishman frowned hard. One last shot, he thought, losing hope. Maybe I can appeal to her pride in her professional career. "Maybe you're not the most sentimental, but you are the most qualified. Such a shame that talent's going to waste after all these years, especially when we bring in amateurs to help us find a solution and they get credit for your work."
With that, Liam turned on his heels and started for the exit of the room. There were only two notable sounds in that room just then; the sounds of their exiting footfalls and the asari's teeth grinding harshly. Once out in the halls, the scientists huddled in a circle.
Gerald was the first to speak once the office door was shut. "That went well. What do we do now?"
Allison was red-faced with rage. "I swear to God, I'm going to go back in there and strangle that bitch! We all worked for years on this project and she just up and pisses on our one chance to redeem it? Aaaugh!"
"What happened to sticking to the plan, Liam?" One of the other since-silent scientists, named Jeremy, asked.
Allison punched Liam square on the shoulder. "Yeah! What happened back there, Liam? You abandoned our whole plan! Remind me not to let you design team efforts ever again."
"Everyone calm down," Liam said, straining to keep his voice down and waving palm-down hands up and down to help in that. "She obviously didn't have any interest in the project anymore. None of our other methods would have done anything to warrant her help even if they succeeded in getting her out with us one way or another. They might have just gotten us thrown in prison instead! Is that what you all want?"
The team shifted uncomfortably and fell silent as they considered the question. Liam had the truth of it. He could see it in all their faces. It was then that a trio of asari in cleaning uniforms pushed passed the huddled group and went into Maela's office without a word.
Gerald waved a hand in the middle of the group. "Okay then, back to my still-unanswered question: What do we do now?"
Liam placed fists on his hips and he sighed as his eyes fell to the floor. After a brief moment of thought, he said, "We'll go to Omega without her. Maybe with Kevin's advanced state of decay… Maybe we'll see something we couldn't with the others and get a solution in before it's too late."
"I'm not sure I like those odds," Allison admitted, her rage finally cooling.
"Nor do I," Liam said with a regretful shake of the head, "but it's all we have right now. This," he said while gesturing towards the office door, "is a dead end."
"To Omega, then?" Gerald asked, ever the astute one.
Liam nodded sternly. "No more detours. It's time we paid our last a visit."
The team all nodded in response and turned to leave the same way they came. Before they could get very far, however, the asari cleaners walked out with a bagged up corpse in their hands, a mix of shock and disgust on their faces as they hurried on by the scientists again. Liam got some especially funny looks thanks to the many red splotches that dotted his clothes and face.
Allison leaned in and whispered with one hand flat along the side of her mouth. "Mmm, I think you should probably wash up before we head for the shuttle, Liam…"
It was only then that it struck him. "Allison, didn't you say there was a group that inquired after Maela's offices before us?"
"Yeah, but like I said, it was an off-hand comment. She probably wasn't really paying attention."
Liam didn't respond to that, but he looked back towards the office door and stared cautiously before continuing towards the elevator with the others. Are there others? he wondered. What's going to happen when we walk away? Could we do anything even if we were here? The answer, he knew, was a painful 'no', and tried to push those thoughts from his head.
Back down in the streets of Nos Jusra, the team began weaving their way through the streets again, making their way towards the somewhat distant docks where their ship was. The others were laughing at a joke someone had made when the deafening sound of an explosion and shattering glass filled the air behind them. The sudden crash of sound caused Liam to duck reflexively and nearly piss himself. Immediately the streets turned to chaos and it was all they could do to stay close to each other and standing upright as to not get trampled. They collectively fought their way through the torrent of screaming, flailing bodies to reach the side of the street where the dangerous waves of flesh and metal and cloth were far less hazardous.
"Oh my God…" Allison said, horrorstruck, as she pointed up at the massive skyscraper they had just come from.
High up on the side, fire and smoke was spewing from a large window in the center of a deformed circle of other glassless windows. A couple Nos Jusra police skycars were just beginning to arrive. One flew down to the walkways to ensure no one was seriously injured by falling debris.
"How much do you want to bet that was Maela's office?" Gerald shouted amongst the shrieking ambiance.
Liam began to began to grit his teeth in anger. "She should have come with us!" I should have stuck to the plan…
Gerald grabbed both Allison and Liam by the arms and started pulling them off the street and towards the docks. "Come on, you guys! Don't forget we're trying to escape Cerberus too! If they're here, it's the last place we want to be!"
Liam was dragged stumbling a few meters before he found his legs and started to walk briskly with the others. "Damn them! Damn them all!" he said loud enough for the others to hear. How is it that those God-forsaken mongrels are at or ahead of us every step of the way? The fists clenched at his side further gave away his displeasure. "At least we could have brought Kevin here before, but now? Now we can't even contact her for advice, much less use her labs! How many people do you think are going to note the 'gaggle of humans' entering and leaving right before that… that blast!?"
"We tried, Liam. Let's just get to Omega before things get worse." Allison had a hand searching for a way to lace fingers with his left hand and failing.
Spare me, Allison! You were just as angry as I am not too long ago! is what he wanted to say, but his mouth had clamped itself shut to prevent such an outburst.
Barely a few minutes of ensuing chaos and fearful speed-walking later, the cab call platform spread out in front of them. Or at least, they thought that's where it was. The platform they had entered this area of the city on earlier was now absolutely smothered in fleeing individuals. They were still somewhat as frantic as they were when the explosion split the air, and anyone attempting to hail a cab there risked getting trampled, inadvertently choked, or shoved over the railings and off of the platform.
"Bugger that!" Gerald exclaimed above the din of the panicked crowds. "We're better off finding another way out of the district!"
Liam nodded in agreement. There's one problem, though, he thought. We don't know any other way out of the region. "Does anyone actually know of a different way out?" he asked, knowing the answer.
The shaking heads confirmed his fears and he pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt defeated, as though all his efforts were for nothing even though the thought was premature since they hadn't even gone to Omega. Cerberus has been doing that to a lot of people lately, he supposed, but it didn't make him feel any better about it. Maela's death was a nasty pitfall of a crater in the road, and he had to figure out how to get around it. It didn't help that they were already short of options.
Entirely stumped on how to proceed in the timely fashion that he needed, he sighed and let his shoulders slump. He was more or less resigned to just take his chances with the mob at that point.
Only…
Not more than a few seconds after that, a voice called out to him. It was a familiar voice, if a bit winded, and far more amiable than it had any reason to be. When Liam turned to confirm is most hopeful suspicions, he was more than pleased to see Maela T'Vess running towards the docks. Everyone's eyes went wide with both shock and relief.
Her clothes were lightly scorched all over, but she see seemed relatively unhurt. How she managed to survive a bomb blast, he'll probably never know. She slowed to a trot just before reaching the spot where Liam was standing and bent down to rest her weight on her knees with her hands so she could catch her breath. It wasn't until then that it became evident to Liam that she was favoring her left leg.
"Got… the… bastard…" she wheezed.
Liam waited until she could speak normally again before asking. "I thought you—"
Maela held a hand up in front of his face to silence him. "I changed my mind. Uh, with a little motivation from suspicious persons and their… fiery toys of course." Before Liam could get any other responses in, she was already limping her way towards a relatively empty side of the street near the cab platform. She beckoned the others, who were staring wide-eyed at the asari ghost, to follow her there.
"Does this mean you're on board with our problem?" Liam asked as he caught up to her shortly after she began moving. He saw the eyes of the group light up expectantly as they hurried to follow along.
Maela opened up her omni-tool and tapped a few times on the glowing haptic adaptive interface. For a while she remained silent, avoiding the question and churning turmoil in their hearts. Once the large, private cab descended from the sky and parked next to them, she nodded and then cocked her head to the side. "I have no machines that can accomplish what you all want. I'm going to tell you that right now." A couple groans echoed above the still prevalent aural chaos despite the obvious easy escape from the city. "I do have an idea on how to get around that problem, but…"
"But? But what?" Allison shot out, anxious to have some solutions.
The asari didn't answer right away but gestured for everyone to have a seat in the cab, and quickly. The nearby mob easily noticed the lone, fancy transport landing away from the group, and some of them felt they would not be denied. Within a few seconds, the scientists and the asari had all taken seats within the vehicle and the doors started to close to prevent the oncoming swarm from getting in.
"Well?!" Allison shouted alongside pleading gestures, her patience long since worn thin.
Maela smirked deviously as Illium disappeared behind the cab doors. "Well… You're probably not going to like it."