Deus Ex Human Revolution is the property of Eidos and Square Enix

Mass Effect is the property of Bioware and Electronic Arts

Mass Effect: Human Revolution

Chapter 7: The girl in Indigo

or

When Tali met Detective Adam Jensen


"You know, this has got to be the cleanest, nicest smelling sewer I've ever been in," said Wrex after sucking in a lungful of air. It was indeed impeccable: the walls were polished dark brass, and the floor was made of gleaming, seamless ceramic of a matching color. The flow of waste that divided the floor was the only filth here, and it was contained in a cylindrical mass effect field that kept it a centimeter apart from the pristine ceramic. Wide fluorescent strips on the floor and ceiling cast a green gloom on a Krogan, a Turian and a Human cyborg, the three men that had come to save a Quarian girl from a rogue Spectre's assassins. The assassin's were all dead, mostly through the girl's combined use of flash-built explosives, paranoia, and a shotgun. Now, the goal had shifted from rescuing her from Saren's men to rescuing her from the fifty thousand squatters who were enraged at coming under chemical attack. Thirty people had died slow, agonizing deaths, and their friends and family were looking for the one that was apparently responsible.

Ultimately, it was Saren's fault for sending in Pharm-Aug'd Turians modified with Self-Termination systems after an armed Quarian in a crowded slum. But Quarians, of course, made for more convenient scapegoats for everyone else's problems.

Said Quarian had escaped into the sewers and locked the manhole behind her, not knowing that she had inadvertently cut herself off from rescue. The three men had to find another way in, and the closest manhole they could find was one hundred and fifty meters away. By the time they got to her last known location in the sewers, she was long gone into the maze of tunnels funneling Zakera Ward's liquid filth to the nearest processing plant.

Fortunately, Wrex caught her scent.

It was, of course, the same scent that stuck on every Quarian: a mixture of leather, plastic, dyed cloth and disinfectant. It wasn't hard to track it thanks to the level of cleanliness in which the Keepers kept these sewers. With his 'nose', Wrex led the group towards the Presidium, then spin-ward, then tip-ward and then spin ward again. It was then that the Krogan caught other scents, the kind that belonged to angry animals: Humans, mostly, but also some Drell, Salarians...and Greasels.

"Some rioters came down here," stated Wrex, "looking for her with pet Greasels."

"...Think they found her?" asked Garrus. He didn't dare voice his concerns: a bite from the nasty critters could easily breach the Quarian's suit and infect her with something. And then they'd start to feed...

"I don't smell blood, but damn if she hasn't led them on a merry chase, I can smell them all over this place!"

"She could have set traps for them, but I didn't hear any explosions. She couldn't have run out of Omni-Gel so quickly..."

"...She didn't want to see any more people die," said Adam. "Least of all because of her."

"Aw, Void!" cursed the Krogan. "Someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back! If she doesn't-"

Faint gunfire echoed from the tunnels, then an explosion roared through them.

"-speaking of Tech Mines."

"It's our Quarian!" declared Garrus. "She must be under attack!"

Adam ran in the direction of the blasts, going as fast as he possibly could - only to encounter thick metal bars in his way. There was no way he'd fit between them. He grabbed two bars and tried widening the gap between them, but they simply would not budge.

"God dammit!" he cursed through clenched teeth.

"Stand back!" shouted Wrex as his fist glowed a fierce blue in the green gloom. "I'll soften them up!"

Jensen complied, and the Krogan Battlemaster threw a Wide Area Warp bolt at the bars. In less than a minute their molecular density had been corrupted so much that both Jensen and Wrex could bend them far apart enough to fit through. They had to widen it for a Krogan, though, and the whole process had taken far too long for anyone's liking, but trying to get around the barred way would have gotten them lost: The Protheans liked their sewers complex.

More gunfire, shouts of victory and then... nothing.

They had little choice but to keep following Wrex's 'nose', and they encountered another set of bars.

"You're certain that's the way?" queried Adam.

"Smells are getting stronger that way." answered the Krogan as he released a Warp blast at the bars. When the biotic energies had done their work, he grabbed a corrupted metal rod. "Let's get to work."

~[h+}~

Once again, they were too late. They had to overcome yet one more set of bars and they had encountered a search party composed of three Humans, a Salarian and a Drell. Both situations had been easily dealt with, but it had taken precious time to do so.

Wrex stated that the Quarian's scent was at its strongest in the spot they were standing on, and yet, she wasn't here. Instead there was the corpse of a Greasel with blood in its mouth with its belly torn by buckshot, gunshot marks on the walls and spent thermal caps glowing orange in the green gloom. The blood was a shade of dark purple, and after Wrex had seized the lizard's head and sniffed its bloody maw, he confirmed Garrus' fears: the blood was the Quarian's. The Greasel had bitten her right through her suit.

A metal ladder was nearby, leading to a manhole and the world above. At the bottom of the ladder was a small black box the size and shape of a cigarette pack, but curved to fit on someone's wrist and dotted with lenses and studs. It was an Omni tool, and Jensen knelt, picking it up. As he did, a haptic button appeared on its surface, asking to be pressed. Jensen obliged, and on the palm of his hand a hologram took the form of a young Quarian woman. She was wearing a dark blue-gray high-tech full body suit wrapped with faded indigo cloth strips patterned with curved white lines. She was slumped against an invisible wall, shotgun in hand, her suit ruined at the leg. She looked so weak and vulnerable...

"I don't know who you are... Maybe you're a Vorcha looking for something to kill or sell or eat. Maybe you're a mindless keeper cleaning up a mess. You might even be one of the men who wanted me dead. I know there's no way I can convince you to keep listening to this, but I don't care: I have to take the chance- the small, precious chance that - that you might care.

Oh Keelah, I'm recording my last words in a sewer..."

She started coughing, but repressed it and continued. Garrus was watching the recording as well, over Adam's shoulder.

"My name is Tali'Zorah, child of the Rayya. I don't remember much from the early years of my life, as i spent it like all Quarian children: learning about our history, learning how to fix a ship, learning how to survive aboard a ship and outside of it. I was like all the other children, save for one detail: My father is Admiral Rael'Zorah, a leader and storied hero amongst our people. Things were expected of me. Greater things, and I was never allowed to forget it, right up to my Pilgrimage.

I spent a whole year looking for something to bring back, along with another young Quarian on his own Pilgrimage. His name was Keenah'Breizh, child of the Moreh, and early on we had managed to find an old corvette: it was old, fitted with VTOL plasma jets and had an oversized eezo drive on its aft, but it was a good ship...with a good soul. A good enough gift for any Quarian to bring back to the fleet and be welcomed into a crew. But it wasn't good enough for a Zorah. Things were expected of me, and Keenah - ancestors bless him - was kind enough to help me look.

He's dead now, because of me.

...Noveria. We flew over the surface, scanning for anything of value. What we found instead...were Geth, beyond the Veil. We managed to isolate one and salvage its memory core, and what we found inside was horrible: Attack plans for an imminent attack on Eden Prime, and a recording implicating a Turian named Saren. He ordered the slaughter of...thousands? Millions? And he did it by unleashing an uncaring, unfeeling machine horde upon these people. Kennah and I knew it was too late for these people, and then came the time to do something with the core we had salvaged. I could have gone home, offered up the core to a captain and bring an end to my Pilgrimage. But I knew how insular we can be, and I knew that once the core was in the hands of the Admirals it would never leave see the light of day again. Nobody would know who was responsible for these deaths. That was fine with Keenah, It would have been fine for anyone else.

But not me.

I decided- no, I KNEW I had to do the right thing. I came here, hoping to speak for the dead and point at their murderer for all to see and punish. But no one wanted to listen to me. No one would speak for me. No one moved a finger when I was shot through the arm with poisoned bullets, and that bosh'tet doctor wanted triple the price for treatment. When I tried to give the police the evidence, they spat at me, shoved me away, yelled at me, threatened my life simply because my mere presence ruined their day. When I tried to contact the human government, I was given the same treatment. I had the very proof that they needed, and they did not care. Everywhere I went, nobody cared.

And because of they did not care...h-here I am, about to die in the dark where-"

She coughed. There was the chirping sound ofGreasels on the prowl in the distance, and it startled her. Wrex was now watching, looking over Jensen's shoulder.

"I don't have much time..." she whimpered. "Too...weak to...climb..." she was laughing weakly, and bitterly. "...Inside this Omni-tool you'll find proof of Saren's crimes, and...and I-I hope that you don't delete it. I hope that you speak for the fallen. I hope that you prove some small thing, a small, tiny, but precious thing to me: that there's one other person in this whole galaxy that... that LISTENED to this, and cared, and did the right thing when it was so much easier to do nothing. If you are that person, then i want you to understand what I mean when I tell you that even if we will never meet, even if we will never laugh or cry together...I..."

Someone shouted. She had been seen. Her sobbing image fizzled out into a cloud of static, and sounds of gunfire roared from the Omni tool's speakers, then there was some screaming – hers - and shouts of victory.

The recording did not stop there.

"Hey, boss! We got her!" It was the voice of a Salarian, doing his best to sound tough.

"Hold her down," ordered a human with a deep baritone.

"We're trying!" shouted another, younger human. "Bitch! You better stop that or I'm gonna fuck you bloody! You killed my Ma, bitch! You killed her! What did she ever do to you, huh? YOU LOOK AT ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU!"

"Don't break the helmet, man!" pleaded the Salarian over the sound of crying. "She won't last long without it!"

"Lay off, Roach," commanded the baritone. "You're not the only one who wants to see the suit rats pay. Father Sandy was clear: bring them in live."

There was more sound of struggling, and Baritone spoke again. "Up the manhole. We got a ground van on the way to take us to the plaza."

"Father Sandy put the word out?" asked Roach.

"Yeah, it's gonna be quite a party: we got three more rats like her chained up for all to watch. Today we're all getting some justice."

Some cheers, the sound of a manhole opening, the clatter of the Omni Tool's mic banging against the hard ceramic floor, and then nothing else came out of the speakers.

Adam, Wrex and Garrus stood there, silently processing what had just happened. It was Wrex who broke the silence. "Well, so much for the full bounty. At least we got your proof."

Adam rose, making a copy of the data on his Omni-Tool. He threw the Quarian's Omni-Tool at the Krogan, who caught it with a smile. Data secured, Quarian's as good as dead. Shame about that last part, but the job's done. Time to go home and get paid. But Jensen wasn't thinking about walking away. Wrex's eyes widened when the human cop started climbing the ladder. "Hey! There's nothing but trouble up there, we can safely exit somewhere else."

Jensen threw a dirty look at the merc as he kept climbing.

"Ha, I know that look in your eye! I've seen it a thousand times before: Some damsel's in distress and some dumb young turk gets all heroic and stupid and thinks he's a one man army! You've seen her suit! She's infected, and not long for the Void!"

Adam opened the manhole. His face was bathed with cool, fresh air, and noise rushed inside the sewers. The noise was the clamor of an enraged people, with gunfire and cheering mixed in for good measure. Jensen rose up into the world above.

"You hear that? There's thousands of them up there! If disease hasn't finished her you can bet they're going to hang her soon or worse. Cut your losses. Walk. away. You've got Saren by the balls!"

Garrus followed Jensen up.

"You know what?" said Wrex with a bitter chuckle as he holstered his gun. "I forgot that I didn't give a damn about either of you. Go on and die, idiots." He turned ring-ward, away from the insanity, and walked away. It was the smart thing to do: even Krogan were no match for an enraged, rioting mob. And while Wrex was no ordinary Krogan, he hadn't survived all these centuries by taking moronic risks for a few million credits. It simply wasn't worth it. Let young fools be young fools.

He walked on, ever ring-ward. But try as he might, he could not stop himself from looking back.

~[h+}~

"We got a plan?" asked Garrus as he checked his Mongoose pistol while following a striding Jensen.

"Yeah." answered Jensen as he handed a bundle of leather with Jensen's Omni-tool on top of it. "You get back to the car and you hover around the plaza and you wait for me to call on you. If you don't get the call, then you drive away full speed and get the evidence to someone who can use it. Who WILL use it. Give me a hypo Panacea: She'll need it ASAP."

Garrus holstered his gun, withdrew a Panacea Dextro hypos from his pack and traded it for the bundle.

"Jensen, you don't have to do this alone. I started this, let me be there to finish-"

"No arguing." said Jensen has he checked his newly acquired Cicada machine pistol's ammo block. "It's five minutes as the crow flies on foot towards the plaza, and with all the congestion on the ground that van's going to need half an hour at least to get there. I can get there before they do - maybe even intercept them. If not...public executions take time to set up."

Garrus checked the map on Jensen's Omni Tool. It was indeed five minutes on foot to the plaza. Five minutes - for a man with mechanical legs and rooftop parkour skills. The Spinner, meanwhile, was twenty minutes away - for a wounded Turian running on meds - in the other direction, away from the plaza. Garrus sighed. He'd only slow Jensen down.

As Adam started climbing a nearby low-rise, intending to use the Thieves' highway - the rooftops - to avoid the crowds and save time, Garrus couldn't help blaming himself for the whole situation. He recalled that question in the elevator, almost half a day ago.

"…I'm still in. You need me to tag along?"

I should have said yes. Spirits, I should have said yes. We might have avoided all this. He started his sprint towards the Spinner, pushing - or punishing - his legs harder than ever.

~[h+}~

Veetor'Nara had not thought his day could have gotten any worse. He had been busy fixing plumbing for Mrs. Manley, a round dark-skinned human woman with a funny accent who kept offering delicious looking (but sadly poisonous) food for his services. Then suddenly several armed humans came barging in, screaming something about Quarians and murderers and death, and they meant to take him someplace where 'everyone would see him pay for his crimes'. Manley had been indignant at the intruders, and promptly came to Veetor's defense with her cane. Veetor had always liked Mrs. Manley. She always had a nice meal ready for him whenever he visited, even though he couldn't eat it and she didn't seem to understand the biological barriers that prevented him from enjoying it. She had cared enough to try and keep him fed, and he suspected that the reason her kitchen sink always 'broke' was because she liked his company. In many ways, Veetor thought of Manley as the fussy grandmother he never had.

When the angry ones shot her in the belly and left her for dead, Veetor's heart broke.

He had been thrust into the back of a Van along with a child. And, just as Veetor thought things couldn't get any worse, someone unceremoniously threw inside the van a barely conscious Quarian woman soon after. She was wounded and feverish, and there was a bloody tear on her suit's left leg, as if a varren had bitten through it. Veetor's felt terror wash over his mind at the implications of this: the mouths of animals were the worst kind of breeding ground for all kinds of horrible germs, and a Quarian getting bit by a beast is almost a death sentence. She'd have an hour, maybe minutes to live if he did not do something.

He had frisked her, hoping to find an Omni-Tool, but the men had apparently confiscated it. Fortunately, they had not taken her small emergency kit, and he was able to seal the breach in her suit and give her a dose of antibiotic. The whole time he was doing this, some little demon in the back of his mind reminded him that he had never been this close to such a beautiful girl let alone touched one. Veetor kept his mind busy, thinking about complex Virtual Intelligence algorithms while his practiced hands made quick work of the woman's suit damage.

She was lucid now, but she had maybe hours to live.

Tali was lying on her back, and she could feel three fingered hands working on her left leg, below the knee. She strained her eyes in the dark, trying to take in her situation. She was in the back a moving vehicle, medium size...a van, with all its rear seating removed. Judging by the occasional shaking and swaying, and the muffled din of an electric motor, it was a four-wheeled ground car. There was some occasional banging on the hull, and a clamor from outside resonated within the van. Besides Tali herself, there were two other passengers here with her. Sitting in a corner was a small Quarian child barely old enough to be out of its bubble yet wearing a rather loose fitting all-white environment suit. It was holding an odd wooden doll: it looked like a bottle, and it had a face and dress painted on it. Besides the child, there was another Quarian: a man in a tarnished white suit and red cloth, frantically trying to repair Tali's ruined suit.

"...W-who are you?" she asked him.

"Hm? Oh. Oh! I'm Veetor'Nara vas Qwib Qwib." His hands retreated from Tali's leg, their work done. "You'll be alright, I've repaired your suit and given you some medicine. You'll...you'll be fine."

Tali turned her gaze on the child.

"That's Fyodor."

She expected more names, but did not get any. "...Just Fyodor?" As she pronounced it, she realized it wasn't a Quarian name.

Veetor nodded. "No ship, no family. He doesn't remember his parents, but I suspect they were Exiles. I don't know what happened to them."

"...You've been taking care of him?"

"Ah, no..." answered Veetor as he shook his head, embarrassed. "Believe it or not, one of the Omar - an old woman - had been taking care of him when I first met him."

Tali looked around, but saw no Omar in the van with them. "Where is she?"

Fyodor looked at her, then resumed playing with his doll.

"...I think they..." Veetor began to stammer. "I mean, if there's anyone the humans hate more than a Quarian, i-it's an Omar and..."

They had killed her, Tali realized. And he had no doubt seen it happen. O Ancestors! Preserve his soul...

She decided to change the subject. "We're moving...where are they taking us?"

"They're taking us to the Plaza."

"What for?" Why haven't they killed us yet, she left unsaid.

Veetor was quiet.

"Veetor?" Tali prodded.

"...They're going to execute us: someone detonated a toxic gas bomb near the bazaar, and they think a Quarian is responsible. They'll beat us, hang us, then burn our corpses, and if we're lucky," Veetor gulped. "...They'll do it in that order. I've seen them do these things to an Omar that had allegedly sold tainted medicine to some children. Father Sandy had the crowd so worked up they were cheering when the fire started."

"Father Sandy?"

"Some priest from some human church called The Order. He set up a mission in these slums a year ago. When he found out about the local Omar population, he started lacing hate in his sermons, directed at the dozen or so Omar that live here as well the six or so Quarians that are stuck here, including me."

"Just the Omar and Quarians?" That had seemed odd to Tali. Human racists hated anything non-human with equal measure. "Why?"

Veetor shrugged. "I have no idea."

There was gunfire and more cheers. Tali looked at Fyodor again. "Are they...are they going to kill him too?"

"I don't know, I mean, they say this payback for the gassing, but...This isn't about justice. It's about blood. They're hungry for it, and just one Quarian won't do."

"No...I can't let this happen!" Tali struggled to rise. She had abandoned all hope for herself, but she wasn't going to let these people die because of her, not while she could still move...

"Lay still! Conserve your strength."

"Conserve it for what? To be butchered for a laugh? No, I-I won't let them-"

"There's nothing we can do! We don't have any tools! The driver's compartment is locked, the doors are locked, and even if we get out of this van there's a mob outside! I'm sorry, but all we can do is – all we can do is wait for the inevitable."

Tali was about to make another protest, but then an explosion shook the van.

~[h+}~

Tyrone sat in the passenger's seat in the driver's compartment of the van, letting Roach (a pimply human barely out of his teens) drive. He was leaning back comfortably, while Roach was hunched over the analog wheel.

"We should have wasted 'em." Roach said bitterly, having stewed in his own hatred for a while now. "We should just waste all of them."

Tyrone wanted to groan. Not this shit again. "You know what Father Sandy commanded us to do."

Roach gave Tyrone a half-hearted laugh, as if he finally realized the punchline of a bad joke. "I meant...We should just kill all of them. Like Father Sandy says! Every single one of these freaks. Wouldn't that be great?"

"Just drive."

Tyrone took a gander beyond the windshield: There were was another van in front of them, wading through a sea of angry people that was being parted by the threat of a ton of moving metal and the gunfire of a dozen escorts on foot. Fucking traffic. It's times like these he wished he could afford an aircar permit.

He should have been able to afford one, dammit.

In another life, Tyrone had been an Alliance Soldier, with a capitals 'S'. None of that biotic or technology crap: He was all about the guns and the soaking in the hits. But then he got himself involved in contraband and he was dishonorably discharged. He got his back-pay, of course, but a few bad business decisions landed him in the Zakera Ghetto, stuck with morons like Roach and a bunch of filthy aliens.

"You, you know what your problem is, Tyrone? You don't care. You don't care about what Father Sandy says. I feel sorry for you, man. I don't even know why you're here."

At least I won't be first in line to drink his goddamned punch. No, I don't care about Luminon Sandoval's sermons. I don't really care about the apocalyptic second coming of cyborgs, or gods, or karma, or any of that shit. I care about getting paid, and If you only knew, Roach. If you only knew how deep 'Father Sandy's' pockets really are, you'd understand why I 'm here, why I do what Sandy tells me, why I attend his Shard on Sundays, why I teach his goons how to hold a gun right, and why I don't cook sycophants like you for looking at me like you're doing right now, Roach.

Oh course, Tyrone didn't voice any of his thoughts. "Just drive."

"They deserve it." Roach kept muttering to himself. "They killed my Ma."

Your Ma was a cross-dressing man-whore who died years ago with a needle in his arm filled with the zyme you cooked wrong you delusional little shi-

Time stopped for Tyrone as he saw the smoking trail of a super-velocity round that tore open Roach's skull.

~[h+}~

When Otrera had gotten the word, she had a hard time believing it. All four of Saren's freaks and their goons were KIA. She had seen them in action, was perfectly aware of what they were capable of, and doubted that a little Quarian girl had killed all of them.

Then again, explosives had a way of leveling the playing field like that.

The asset that kept track of the Quarian reported that she was being pursued by a bunch of humans, captured, and was being slowly transported by a ground van. Otrera's commando of eight Asari Huntresses, the Furies, had been on standby to provide Saren's men with support should the need arise. With them dead, the Furies were now in charge of the op. Benezia had been clear: capture Quarian, secure intel, then eliminate the girl. And with their 'asset' relaying the target's current location and intended destination, it wasn't hard to clear some buildings of squatters and set up a cross-fire ambush. Otrera herself was perched on a rooftop overlooking a wide street, large enough for ground car traffic. She was eyeing it down the 4x sight of her DMR, a Toxotes mk IV, and after a little waiting, finally caught sight of her quarry.

The two vans came down the busy street, parting a clamoring crowd of humans, turians and salarians dressed in castoffs and dirty rags. The two ground vehicles were being escorted by at least twenty armed thugs, some of them sitting on the car's roofs and shooting their guns up.

"Did the asset specify which van the target is in?" asked Lampedo, the commando's sniper.

"It said the van was painted gray," answered Otrera.

"They're both gray."

"Then we shoot both drivers. You take the one in the back. Anaea, the one in front has a bigger target. You take that one."

"Got it," came Anea's reply. She wasn't as good as Lampedo, but she was close enough for this shot.

"On my mark...Three...Two...One...mark!"

Two heads exploded in unison, and the two vans stopped. To their credit, the twenty thugs didn't panic and tried to find cover. A large, dark-skinned human came out of the rear van, and started shouting orders. Otrera quickly identified him as the leader to the rest of the commando.

"Lampedo, can you take him out?"

"No, he made me and he's keeping the van between me and him. I need to reposition."

"Cyme here, I spot three humans making their way to Lampedo by cutting through the buildings."

"Intercept them. Gryne, fire your GEP above the vans. Let's see how these thugs deal with an airburst..."

~[h+}~

Boom.

Adam was starting to hate explosions. He was parkouring the rooftops when he heard the distinct sound of an exploding rocket in the distance. It was different from the exploding bottles of homemade explosives the hoods around here were fond of. This was the sound of military gear, and the only group he could think of with access to that kind of kit were Saren's men. Then again, it could just be two gangs having it out, and one of them got their hands on a rocket launcher...

Either way, it came from one of the roads wide enough for ground car traffic, and if Zorah's van wasn't under attack, it soon would be, and he had to act.

~[h+}~

It was over in under 3 minutes. The thugs had been trained to be brave in the face of bullets, but explosions weren't exactly common in the Slums. Panic amongst their ranks and the crowd had thrown their measly attempt at resistance into disarray, and the Furies could pick them off at their leisure. There was nothing left on the street but corpses, two vans full of scared Quarians, and a commando of Asari Huntresses.

Otrera stood over the corpse of the large, dark-skinned human. He had been tougher than the rest, and she silently muttered a prayer for this fine warrior. He deserved a better fight, and better warriors to fight at his side, but alas...

Still, she would not be sorry for winning.

Her seven battle sisters, clad in their full-body combat leathers and distinct gilded white masks, had rounded up the captive Quarians. There were six of them, huddled together on their knees: three women, two men, and one child. They were scared, knowing full well that their fates were no longer theirs to decide. They would be decided by these eight masked shadows in the shape of women.

Otrera addressed them, her mask's speakers warping her voice. "Which one amongst you is named Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?"

The Quarians muttered amongst themselves: none of them went by that name, but 'Zorah' was apparently a name of significance amongst themselves. A Quarian woman in a gray suit and lime green cloth pointed another girl: she was obviously sick, and could barely stay upright, even on her knees.

"That one! She's wearing Zorah Indigo! It's got to be her!"

Otrera approached the indigo-clad Quarian and addressed her. "Are you the one we're looking for?"

She was struggling to breathe. "...Yes."

"Do you know what we want from you?"

"...You want the evidence of your-" she was sucking in air. "-of your master's crimes."

"Good...maybe you'll be even more cooperative and tell me where you've hidden it."

"...No."

Otrera sighed. "Of course not." She pulled out her small shotgun and shot the lime-green Quarian woman in the face. "How about now?"

"I...I can't..."

"Of course you can. You just need proper motivation..." She aimed her shotgun at another Quarian. The child.

"Wait!" shouted one of the males. He was wearing a tarnished white suit wrapped in red cloth. The Quarian child was hugging him tightly. "She's too sick to tell you anything! Her suit's been breached! She's doesn't have much time!"

"Otrera," said Gryne. She was a giant of a woman, the commando's heavy weapons specialist. "If she dies here and now we will have failed in our task, and Benezia will be the one to pay. We need to have her treated."

"And we can't take them with us for leverage." said Lampedo. "Barely enough room in our two cars for us let alone four suit-rats."

They were right, of course. Gryne and Lampedo had been with her the longest, and she always listened to their counsel, but her instincts told her she needed to finish this job quickly. Taking care of a dying Quarian and extracting the location of the package was going to take hours, maybe days of torture. They could just kill her now, but Saren wouldn't like the idea of incriminating evidence out there. It would drive him insane: and he'd let out his rage on Lady Benezia first, then the Furies, and might even burn the whole Ward just to make sure the evidence never came to light.

She decided to be cautious. "How long does she have?" she asked the red Quarian.

"I-I don't know! I did my best, but-

Otrera pointed her shotgun at him.

"-an hour! An hour, at best!"

"Good enough." Otrera holstered her shotgun. "Gryne, take the girl and come with me. Lampedo, you're coming too: extracting the target to our safehouse. The rest of you, clean this up."

~[h+}~

Jensen arrived at the scene, dropping stealthily from the rooftops behind a group of five women in black leather suits wearing gilded venetian masks. They were armed with machine pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles, and carried themselves like professionals. They were facing a group of four Quarians, two men, one woman, and a child. There was a corpse nearby, clad in green. To his relief, none of them wore indigo. Behind them was an open van – no doubt the one Baritone had spoken of in the recording. But where was Tali'Zorah?

Adam strained his ear, listening to the leather-clad women talk to each other.

"I'm just saying, fire's a lot more fun," said one, her high-pitched voice scrambled by the speakers on her mask.

"I dunno," said another. "The screaming might give me nightmares. How about Warping them?"

Warping. Biotics. Jensen turned on his Smart Vision, and he saw bright dots within every masked woman. Element zero nodes. They were all Biotics.

"You want to hear screams? I hear getting Warped is worse than being set on fire. No, I say we just shoot them."

They're going to execute them, Adam realized. If these women had taken Zorah somewhere, then they were probably covering their tracks. He had to act.

He activated his cloak, engaged the noise cancelers in his legs and moved out of cover. He'd have to be quick about this.

"Well that's boring – Well, unless we let them run for a-" said one of the women in black before Adam punched her in the back of the neck.

"What the-" said another at the sight of her friend going slack like a rag doll. She barely had time bring her gun up before Adam struck her in the throat with a knifehand strike, grabbed her, and shoulder-threw her overhead, hard, at the one that had been considering using incendiaries.

"Cloaker!" shouted one of two remaining women. She flared up, readying a wide area Nova blast that would disable and reveal their attacker, but Adam was already on to her: He kicked her in the knee (causing her leg to bend the wrong way), grabbed her by the shoulders, and brought her face down on his knee. She went limp, but the energies she had been holding back surged out, and Jensen was momentarily bathed in biotic energies that outlined his form.

The last remaining masked killer capitalized on that and struck at Adam with a biotically-charged fist. It barely grazed his face, but it was enough to stun him for a moment, causing his cloak to disengage. She followed it up with an elbow strike to his ribs, and quickly chained that with another attempt at pulping his skull with a charged fist. Adam grabbed her by the wrist with his right hand, pulled her in, then elbow struck her with his left arm in the back of her neck, causing her Biotic Amp to fizzle out. She lost control of the energies laced within her hand, and they tore it apart. She barely had time to scream before the darkness took her.

"Oh Keelah..." said one of the Quarians. He was clothed in red, and hugging a child protectively. "You...you killed them all in, in seconds..."

Adam wanted to say they were just barely alive, but he was still focused on his task, "Adam Jensen, C-Sec! Was there a-"

"A Quarian girl in indigo?" He answered quickly.

"Yes! Yes, was she here?"

"You just missed her – Their leader and two others took them down that alleyway! You have to hurry!"

"All of you! Take their weapons and find a place to hide until the riot blows over!" He didn't wait for them to acknowledge, and ran as fast as he could down the alleyway.

~[h+}~

They had just finished securing the Quarian into one of the two aircars when Otrera's Tactical HUD reported Cyme condition to be critical. Then in turn Anaea's name blinked red as well. Then Areto, then Iphito, and then, after ten seconds, Myrleia. They were all incapacitated and slowly dying.

How? That had been the only word on Otrera's mind. She had trained her Furies so well. Nothing short of a trio of Justicars could have bested them!

"Spectres," said Gryne, as if answering her leader's thoughts. "It has to be."

"Saren assured us the Spectres wouldn't be a problem!" shouted Lampedo, disbelieving.

It doesn't matter who, thoughtOtrera. "Get in the car."

"Should we not save our sisters?"

"The mission comes first. If the Specters are after us, then we can't afford to risk a confrontation. We need to leave, right now!"

They were all in one of the aircars in less than a second, and took off the next. As they left the ground, Otrera thought she heard a loud 'thunk' sound, something banging on the hull, but decided it was probably just her nerves.

~[h+}~

Eight minutes. That's how fast he got to the Spinner. He also had to scare off some hooligans trying to vandalize the old aircar. Thank the spirits SydMotors made their cars sturdy.

He started up the ignition sequence, and activated his headset.

"Jen – Whew!" Garrus took a few deep breaths. He had really pushed himself hard. "Jensen, I've got the car ready."

"There's been a slight change of plans. Lock on to my signal."

"I've got you on your Omni...Jensen? Did you jack a car without telling me?"

"No?"

"Then why are you in the air moving at eighty kilometers per hour?"

"...Because I'm hanging on to the aircar carrying Zorah, and it's flying at eighty kilometers per hour?"

"...How in the hells did you-"

"Just get here. I'll try to slow them down."

~[h+}~

Adam had to admit, jumping cloaked onto a rising heavy aircar and hanging from its rear bumper wasn't exactly the smartest thing he ever did. He hadn't even been sure it was the right car to hang on to, but his Smart Vision vindicated his impulse: Four contacts, three biotics and one sick Quarian. Jackpot.

Adam had hoped that he could just keep on monitoring the situation inside the large vehicle until his backup arrived, but his Augmented Reality HUD alerted him that the Quarian's heartbeat was getting slower. She would need medicine, and soon. Worse still, the car was getting a little too close to the edge Zakera's 'atmosphere'. Adam suspected Saren's women would be taking a VR inter-ward highway, exposing him to empty space. Jensen could hold his breath for a very, very long time, but the lack of atmospheric pressure would cause his blood to boil. He didn't have an aug for that.

Note to self, requisition a full hard-suit.

Thinking fast, Jensen singled out one of the car's four 'wheels', a mass effect stabilizer ring. His own Spinner needed two of them to maintain its altitude, and he hoped this car would be no different. He activated his right arm sword, and stabbed at it.

~[h+}~

Lampedo had paid quite a bit of cash for two older model CG-4c Sky Rovers, but their toughness and reliability made them worth the price. She was surprised, then, when the car's VI reported that one of its stabilizers suddenly went missing. So much for the warranty.

"What happened?" asked Otrera. The constant swaying, stalling and rising was starting to get to her.

"One of the stabilizers is...gone. The other three are straining to keep the vehicle aloft...I need to get us down to one of the physical roads."

"Do it. Take the highway."

~[h+}~

"They're coming down on the highway." Jensen said over the wireless. "Sky Rover, beige. You see it?"

"I see it," replied Garrus. There was indeed a CG-4c off in the distance, some two hundred meters away and closing. Sparks were flying off one of its stabilizers, and it was about to land on Zakera's highway, a floating bridge that hovered one hundred and fifty meters above the ward's ground. It ran the whole length of Zakera, providing the poorer population that couldn't afford aircars an expressway to everywhere else on this arm of the Citadel.

"And if I squint, I can see you too. How's it hanging?"

"Don't be a smart-ass."


Garrus was just about to quip back, but then he and the Spinner were somewhere else entirely, about to crash into another turian... which Adam promptly saved by teleporting him away, of all things. Garrus checked the rear view screen, making doubly sure he hadn't killed someone. The sight was otherworldly: he was surrounded by space filled with alien machinery that stretched out into infinity. Reality was shattered glass...

His eyes widened when he realized that the turian he had nearly run over... was himself.


"What in the seven hells..." muttered Garrus. He was back to the Citadel, the vision of what was to come fading away rapidly.

"What's going on?" asked Adam, worried.

"Nothing, nothing!" Spirits, Garrus prayed, don't let me go crazy like Mom did. He centered himself, focusing on the chase. "How do you want to do this?" The road wasn't terribly congested, but there were other vehicles on it. Garrus knowing Jensen, he'd want to keep casualties to a minimum, if at all.

"...Lights on, ping them. Driving with a busted tail light is something you can pull them over for."

"I don't see-"

Jensen punched one of the tail lights out. He then cloaked before vaulting over the car's trunk as it landed, hovering just three inches above the metal road.

"Ah, there it is." Garrus switched on the Spinner's police holograms and sirens, and pinged the Sky Rover's VI.

~[h+}~

"There's a C-Sec car pinging us." said Lampedo.

There was no way Otrera could explain their weapons and captive. Speeding away would bring heat down on them. Blowing up the patrol car would only bring a C-Sec response to the wreck.

"Gryne. Take care of it. Lampedo, slow down."

Gryne, who was sitting in the backseat along with the Quarian, deployed the mini-GEP she strapped on her back and opened one of the rear door windows.

~[h+}~

"They're slowing down, Jensen."

"Huh, that was eas- ah, shit!"

"What?"

"GEP GUN! EVADE!"

A large leather-clad woman was indeed leaning out of the Sky Rover's windows and aiming a small, boxy, silver-blue missile launcher at Garrus. His small eyes widened at the sight and he hit the brakes, immediately putting distance between the Spinner and the Rover.

The GEP-wielding masked woman fired the weapon, and Garrus banked to the right. The missile missed, but it was coming about. Damned Wasp missiles!

"Jensen! You think you might..."

Adam pulled out the Cicada machine pistol from his holster and fired at the missile. A stream of metal shards tore the munition apart, and it exploded not five meters away from the Spinner's tail.

"I think I just did."

Garrus breathed a sigh of relief, that had been too close. He drew his Mongoose pistol and opened his window.

Two can play that game.

~[h+}~

"There's someone on-" Gryne had barely uttered the words when a phasic round the shape of a grain of rice tore through her mask, right above the eye, then lodged itself inside her brain. She dropped her weapon outside, and she hung lifelessly from the car window.

And then there were two: Lampedo driving, and Otrera on the forward passenger's seat. If there was any doubt they were dealing with Spectres, they knew it now: no one else could have made that shot from a flying vehicle.

"If it's a dogfight he wants, let's give him one...take us into the air, evasive maneuvers!" Otrera ordered.

Lampedo protested. "If we do that, C-Sec will be on to us in minutes!"

"I DON'T CARE!" Otrera shouted as she withdrew her shotgun.

As the Sky Rover rose into the air as far as it could, a glowing figure appeared out of nowhere on the left hand side of the car, hanging on the driver's door. It was a pale human with dark brown hair and, Otrera realized, he had mechanical arms, one of which was drawn back, ready to punch the car door's reinforced glass. It strained under the pressure of the first blow, cracked under the second, and then exploded from the third.. Lampedo was glad her full mask protected her face from the shards, but she soon found the cold edge of a blade at her throat.

"Land this car RIGHT NOW." demanded the human. A Fury, however, did not answer to threats, and she struck with a biotically charged hand, swatting the blade away. She shifted her weight on the pedals, and rolled the Sky Rover clockwise in an attempt to throw off the mechanical human, but his fake hands held fast, bending the car door's metal under their grip

From the inside of the car's own gravity field, the constant spin did not affect the occupants, and Otrera could easily level her shotgun at the human's face. She took too long savoring the shot, however, as a pair of three fingered hands pushed at her arm. Startled, Otrera fired her shotgun right into the car's dash panel. The hyper velocity pellets tore through the dash's plastic, then the Sky Rover's VI core and finally made their home into the car's engine block. Blasted suit rat had picked that very moment to be brave, and she had doomed them all!

"You little cunt!" she cursed the Quarian as she struck her in the face, and her helmet's visor finally shattered after all the abuse that it had suffered.

She would no doubt die in minutes now, but Otrera was beyond caring about Saren Arterius' wrath at this moment. Of course, it wasn't his wrath that she should have been worried about now. That human had seen her strike the Quarian, and she had made Detective Sergeant Adam Jensen very, very mad.

~[h+}~

The car stopped spinning, and Jensen positioned himself to stab at the locking mechanism. Once the lock was ruined, he pulled the car door with all his might, tearing it from its hinges and sending it tumbling down to the city below.

He grabbed the driver by the throat, and forced her out of her seat to follow the piece of debris. She might have screamed and begged for her life, Adam wasn't sure, and he did not care.

The way open, he entered the car, where the last masked woman was readying her shotgun again. Adam, quick as a snake, lashed out and grabbed the weapon by the barrel and twisted it, causing it to backfire into the huntress' face. Her mask shattered, revealing the pale blue skin of an Asari. Her body flared, readying a biotic attack, but Jensen did not give her time to finish it. He punched her in the skull, again and again, until she stopped moving. He punched again, just to make sure, and the car door she was leaning against gave way. Her limp body fell down, joining the other killer.

"Jensen? Jensen! What's going on in there? The car's starting to spin out of control!" Vakarian's voice came through loud on Adam's headset.

"...The asari are down. I'm taking control of the...Aw, hell."

"What?"

"The haptics on this thing are glitched-out! The VI core is scrap!"

"It's worst than you think!"

"Oh, do tell."

"Sensor's picking up a lot of heat from the Rover's engine block! The power cell is going to blow!"

Adam quickly forced the passenger's seat forward, giving him access to the backseats. The Quarian was breathing in poison with every breath, but she was alive if barely conscious. He grabbed her by the shoulders.

~[h+}~

Garrus was flying as close as he possibly could to the out-of-control, overheating Sky Rover. Its course was getting more and more unsteady, and flying too close to it would result in a mid-air collision. If this were a search and rescue craft, saving Jensen would have been as simple as switching on a tractor beam. Sadly this was a refurbished old police cruiser Jensen had saved from the scrap heap.

Time slowed down for Garrus as Adam leaped out of the Sky Rover, holding Tali'Zorah tightly against him. By the time Garrus had processed what had happened, Jensen and the Quarian were hundreds of meters away behind him and falling down, headed for the streets below the highway.

"Titans of Palaven save us!" He shouted as he made a rapid U-turn. There was no way he'd get to them before they hit the ground, but by the spirits he would try.

~[h+}~

Tali felt weightless, that much she understood through the fog in her mind. She opened her eyes, and then she understood that she was falling to her death. It didn't scare her as much as it should. In fact, she was quite...at peace with the idea.

She felt embraced. This wasn't like being held by Aunt Shala. this... there was strength in it, this was more how she had imagined her father would embrace her, if he had...if only he had not been so driven, so distant, so cold.

She was bathed in a golden light, and she could feel every nerve on her skin tingle. Time seemed to slow down, and the buildings didn't stream past her so quickly. Had she died? Was this what lay beyond the fade? An eternal feeling of weightlessness in a shining light?

Savor the light, she told herself. Savor the flight, she insisted. Savor this embrace. Everything will be alright.

Maybe I'll finally see my mother, here, in this place.

It's...it's so hard breathe...

~[h+}~

Adam crashed on his back, crushing the thin metal roof of a car. He had attempted to put himself between the ground and Tali'Zorah, knowing that the reduced effectiveness of his Icarus Landing System in an artificial gravity environment would not be enough to save her from severe injury. He wasn't worried about himself: he could take it. He wasn't certain about her, considering her critical state, and he refused to take any chances.

He held back a scream of pain, grinding his teeth: the strain of a sudden stop had cracked his ribs. His spine would be alright, having been reinforced to handle the stresses of augmented limbs. A crowd was forming around the scene, myriad faces with myriad voices shouting distress and disbelief. Someone begged someone else to call an ambulance, over the familiar sound of a Spinner coming in for a landing.

"Jensen!" Garrus shouted. He had landed nearby, and rushed towards his partner. "Oh, spirits..."

"Argh!...the Quarian! Is she okay?"

Garrus lifted the girl's limp body off Jensen and set her on the ground. Jensen got up, his Sentinel Health System already releasing painkillers to deal with the pain as micromachines repaired his ribs. He knelt by her side as Garrus scanned her with Jensen's Omni-Tool.

"...She's alive, but she's got a few bruises, Greasel saliva's in her system, and she's breathing in allergens" Garrus set the Omni-Tool's to flash-forge a omni-gel applicator. "I'll repair her helmet - Give her a dose of Panacea!"

Jensen pulled out a hypo from his utility belt and jabbed it in the Quarian's arm. It had a conveniently designated applicator port on it. Her eyes fluttered, reacting to the sensation of a warm liquid gently breaching her skin and making its way to her veins. Breathing became easier for her, if only slightly.

~[h+}~

Tali's eyes caught the face of her saviour. He was human, pale, and dark brown hair covered his head and face. His eyes were hidden by dark gold mirrors and, at the moment, Tali wished dearly she could see his eyes. She did not know why.

Hold on, he told her. His voice was deep and raspy, so close and yet so far away, and she wanted to listen to it again.

It was getting darker.

You're going to be alright.

She couldn't focus her eyes, and her eyelids were so heavy...

Hey...

Everything was a blur.

Stay with me...

And then everything went black.

~[h+]~

Tali's eyes flickered open, and she saw nothing but blue steel walls. She felt nude, with needles puncturing her arms, a sheet covering her skin, and a plastic tube down her airway, providing her tattered lungs with air. She was surrounded by glass, in an enclosed space with clean, disinfected air. She panicked: she couldn't move her arms and legs. Had she been captured? This didn't look like a hospital!

She turned her head to the right, hoping to gain insight into her situation. Beyond the glass she could make out the form of a human in a long blue coat, leaning back against a chair, his arms folded over his chest, which rose and fell in slow intervals. His eyes were shut. She recognized him, and she calmed herself.

Tali went back to sleep, safe in the knowledge that no harm would come to her.

~[h+]~


Author's notes: Don't worry, Tali is going to be FINE. I was going to leave her fate more ambiguous, but I was worried fans would jump to the wrong conclusion and spam my message box with protests and promises of bodily harm.

Did I have you sweating over Tali's fate? Good. I borrowed a move from Joss Whedon: this is where killing Shepard in such a sudden and unexpected manner starts to pay off, restoring dramatic tension to a story we've all read and played over and over again. If I'm willing to kill Goddamned Shepard of all people right at the beginning, who else am I willing to kill? I'd never kill Tali or Garrus, of course (I loves them so vewy vewy much). But the rest of the cast, including Jensen, are fair game now.

To be honest I'm not a hundred percent happy with how this chapter turned out, as I had several different scenarios in my head for the rescue. "Car chase" wasn't on the top of my list, but oh well.

So, Wrex walking away. Before you ask, no, I didn't make him a coward. He's just not young anymore, and he knows it. His best years are behind him. I'll write something dealing with that, of course.

Tali's "last words." are based on Valerie's letter from V For Vendeta. I cut out the last part, as I thought it wasn't quite time for it yet. Don't worry, Tali will have a chance to finish that sentence someday ;)

Here's to hoping I can stick with my "on chapter a week schedule" from here on in...No codex today, though. It's 2 AM and I'm beat...

EDIT: Added a few lines of text due to recent events in MEHR, Chapter 79.