Mass Effect is property of Bioware.

Welcome to First Thermodynamics (and a short-winded author's note)! By now you know the drill: a picture's worth a thousand words, so Lair of the Shadow Broker and peripheral matters appear in thousand-word vignettes. This stuff just didn't fit comfortably with Newton's Second, so here it is as its own thing.

Also, if I failed to answer your reviews for the last chapters of Newton's Second, my apologies. FF-net had a glitch in its notifications and I found several reviews in the 'wall' that didn't make it to my inbox. I think I found them all, but in case I didn't…

Thank you for reading and reviewing,

~Raven Studios

-J-

-MASS EFFECT: THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS-

The First Law of Thermodynamics (the law of conservation of energy) states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but can be neither created nor destroyed.

-J-

He could no longer avoid the facts: the woman who had checked out room 203B had to be approached. From all accounts it sounded as though someone was being murdered in there, except there were no screams—only the sounds of heavy objects being flung about and the occasional yelp.

It would be worse, he thought as he stepped out of the elevator, if 203B had any neighbors closer than two doors down. 202B and 204B were empty—she had insisted on that arrangement if possible, and now he knew why. The noise made him jump: it sounded as though something heavy had just hit a wall before 'son of a bitch!' came muffled through the door. More out of habit than out of any real animosity…still…

He bustled up to the door as a lull of sound ensued. For a moment he feared that something horrible might have happened, it was so quiet. He knocked, at first nervously, then he repeated the gesture louder.

This time it was a muffled 'dammit!' that greeted him.

The sounds of footfall approached and he stepped back, which turned out to be a wise course.

The door was wrenched open, revealing the Alliance solider who had checked in earlier. Her pale, hawk-like features, almost unattractively sharp, were pulled into lines of displeasure, a red flush high on her cheekbones, her breathing elevated. Her eyes glittered steely with something akin to murder. "What?" It shouldn't be possible for a human woman to ask a question like that and yet seem to show her teeth like an angry dog.

The hotel's manager swallowed hard, eyeing the soldier's general state. Her shirt was gone, revealing the dark sports bra beneath, but one strap was nearly severed. Her belt still threaded the belt loops, but the way the buckle caught on one, it looked as though someone had tried to yank it off the wrong way.

She was lean, almost wasted down to muscle and bone, a hard sort of person used to using heavy labor or long hours of boredom which she filled with physical activity. She made heavy duty safety cables seem like silken threads by comparison.

All up and down her forearms were defensive marks, mostly scrapes and abrasions. They continued across the tight muscles of her belly, across her collar bones in pink lines and…and was that a bite on the muscles where neck joined shoulder? Her lip was split, but glistened faintly with a seal of dried medigel. Her dark hair hung ragged around her face, but rumpled as if she had been thrashing around. It looked as though she might have taken a blow to the face, but if it was bruising her dark hair hid most of it.

"Some of the other patrons were…concerned," he offered timorously. There was something about the soldier that made him feel like…prey…and not in a good way.

"Concerned?" She seemed to taste the word, as though it was unfamiliar, then her mouth spread into a wolfish grin. "They needn't be." She glanced over her shoulder, flexing a hand that suddenly glowed with blue light.

He stifled a shocked intake of breath: she was a biotic.

"Everything is quite under control," she almost purred the words, still managing to show far too many teeth for such a faint smile. In the back of his mind, he recognized that this smile could be alluring…if she didn't seem to be sizing him up, like a varren eying a pyjak before the spring and chomp.

"But…it sounds like there's a war going on…" Bad choice of words: she was a soldier. They could be…touchy about 'war' comments. It depended on the soldier and their specialization—if any—or whether the speaker was in the service or not.

"It's a skirmish, not a war."

As if that was supposed to be reassuring!

"Not this time, at least." She shifted her footing, drawing attention to the fact that she had, somehow, lost one of her boots. She bent over, freed the laces and pulled the other article free, but held it in her hand as though she meant to attack someone with it. With brutal speed and the precision of one well-practiced in such things, she threw the boot. It reached a turn in the wall and a biotic push sent it rocketing around the corner, eliciting a muffled curse.

"Did I get you?" she asked cockily, before giving a low snicker.

The muttered response (he could not tell if it was a promise or a threat) did not translate, but the manager was sure he did not want to know what it meant. The flanged tones told the manager all he wanted to know. Before his mouth could curl into disgust the woman darted out a hand, grabbed him by the shirt, and dragged him to within inches of her face, her eyes filling his vision. "You know, those who sneer most are those most guilty. Should I start asking inconvenient questions where others can hear them?"

The manager shook his head. It didn't matter if she was correct or not: there was madness in her eyes, a contained sort of madness, the most deadly kind, because she knew she was mad and liked it. Normally he would assert his prerogative, turn them out but…he had the feeling it might not be conducive to his own longevity.

"Good…."

A chuckle came from around the corner. Plainly someone approved her handling of the situation.

She gave him a shove and slammed the door, turning away as she did so.

The last the manager saw was something dark come at her. She slammed into the closed door with a yelp before something heavy hit the ground muted by distance. He winced at the sound of breaking glass and a shout that undoubtedly belonged to the woman—though of censure, not discomfort.

Why, he wondered grimly as he strode back to the stairs, did they have to pick his hotel to trash?