DIVINE INTERVENTION

FOUR: GUESTS


Evidently, I have missed an important development in galactic etiquette. It appears that the usual method of greeting has changed to include knocking me unconscious. Either that, or I'm just that annoying.

Talk about the lesser of two evils.

For what seemed like the twentieth time in the last month, Garrus awoke with a splitting headache and the undeniable feeling that somebody was seriously contemplating killing him. The latter felt much like the former.

At least this time his vision was clearer, the trauma to his head less dramatic, the risk of brain damage encouragingly low. Think positive. You're still alive.

How many times have I thought exactly that recently?

He was in a room. That much was obvious from the featureless metal wall about five feet away from him. It didn't seem too bad a room, as places to wake up in having been beaten and abducted by mysterious cyborgs went. A quick mental calculation put it at roughly four metres by four. A good size for a prison cell. Still, mustn't complain. Clean, well-lit, devoid of devices designed to delicately reconfigure various bodily extremities. No blood on the floor. Then again, that could be bad. The Blood Pack never bothered to clean their floor, and they're largely incompetent. That means you have a chance. If your captors wipe the blood away, that means they mean business. The bad, 'you're probably not leaving here alive' kind of business. And on this planet, business is good.

Dammit, what happened to 'think positive'?

He tried to move his hands, not really out of an expectation that he'd be able to. It just seemed like the thing to do. He was rewarded with absolutely no movement, though he could dimly feel something hard pressing against his wrists, which were held tightly behind his back.

OK, par for the course.

He was sitting down in what felt like a metal chair. A cautious investigation revealed the back to be far too tall to scrape his hands over, and another told him it was heavy enough to stay stuck to the floor no matter what he did.

Ooh, professional. I'm flattered.

A painful look over his shoulder revealed nothing else was in the room but a door. It looked suitably forbidding, a heavy rectangular block of grey metal. Not a good sign.

So, situation.

Blank room, alone. Sidonis isn't here, so... either dead or held somewhere else. Hopefully the second. Most likely the first. Too much to hope that he's somehow free and getting Golf to help, I suppose. Or Vunas. Or anyone.

OK. Definite number of at least two I'm facing, but the volus-thing counts as two. Or five. That, and the nature of the room, tells me they're working for someone who knows very much what they want and have a good idea how to get it. High-tech, low-number, hit hard and hit fast. That's classic special-ops tactics right there.

So, whoever this is is pretty serious. They want the ship. Of course. How did they know it's here? Interesting question. Everyone thought it was destroyed but them. So, we conclude: one, they are extremely lucky. Doubtful in the extreme. If not, then two: they have some way of knowing where the ship is at all times. That implies to me that they are either deeply familiar with it, seeing as how they penetrated our disguise, or actually created it. Either way, it seems we've found what we're looking for, if not in exactly the way we wanted to.

But then we come to the mysteries. Who is this 'Deus' the volus was talking about, and why do they think we're working for him? A former owner of the ship, quite possibly. An enemy of our captors? Almost certainly. Does that make him our ally?

I doubt it.

His reverie was interrupted after he knew not how long by the sound of the door sliding smoothly open. He twisted around to see who was there, tendons in his neck screaming at yet more abuse, and saw Melenis standing in the doorway. He was back at a more reasonable, less terrifying and impossible size now, but somehow that made him even more menacing, knowing what he was capable of. Behind him was another figure, presumably the other one he'd seen at the port, but now he could identify it as a salarian, a mottled brown-green specimen. He was wearing what looked like finely engineered light armour, a dark metallic bronze in colour, inlaid with white piping. Stylish, I'll give him that, but generally speaking, ugly is better. People assume you're more important if your armour's shinier. Might as well paint a target on your chest.

As he walked past Garrus, he could see one of those leather hoods hanging from the collar-piece of the suit. The volus followed suit, and as he passed Garrus found himself staring at that unnatural, mechanical gait again. Melenis didn't give him a second glance.

"Ah," the salarian said, in that distinctive tone of theirs. At least this one doesn't appear to be a seven-foot mutating cyborg thing. Key word 'appear'. "You're conscious. Good."

Oh, I don't like the way he said 'good'.

"Your friend," Melenis said, "is not a helpful man by nature."

"Gotta say you're right there," Garrus conceded.

The volus didn't reply, instead strolling – well, stalking, maybe – over to a corner and standing there as if on guard. The salarian moved around in front of him and leaned back against the wall, staring at him intently with large, dark eyes.

"Hello," Garrus said. "I'm fine, by the way. How are you?"

"Ah, a wise-guy," the salarian said. "Your friend is much the same. Except without the 'wise'."

"Does any of this serve a purpose, or is this just a communal 'bash Sidonis' session?" Garrus said cheerily. "Because I have a few points there, you know? For a start, he can't cook to save his life – and when you spend two weeks stuck on the same ship as the man, you'd better believe that matters-"

"Yes, let's talk 'ship', shall we?" the salarian said. "Sidonis has proved somewhat difficult to extract information from."

"Yes, I can imagine. My sympathies."

"However, Garrus," he continued, "perhaps you'll be more helpful."

"First-name terms already? I should warn you, I never kiss on a first date."

The salarian snorted. "See, this is why I love interrogating turians. The backchat is always top-notch. Better than batarians, anyway... all you get from them are obscene threats, and not even creative ones..." He seemed to lose his train of thought, then blinked and refocused dark eyes on Garrus. "I'll play along, then. Call me Erash. My partner here, as I believe you may have been informed, goes by the name of Melenis."

"Not a volus name," Garrus said.

"I am a volus. It is my name," Melenis said from the corner. "Overarching racial culture is not everything, Mr. Vakarian, as I am sure you full well understand."

"What happened to 'Palaven-clan'?"

"To call you thus was impolite on my part. I apologise."

"You know," Garrus said, "there may be some out there who would consider the whole beating-abduction-imprisonment-interrogation thing impolite."

"A necessary evil."

"Ah. One of them. Why are they always so much worse than regular evils?"

"An interesting subject, upon which I have written extensively-" the volus began.

"Can you go five fucking minutes without promoting your goddamn philosophy textbooks?" Erash snapped. "There are more important things we need to worry about. And don't you dare say that there aren't, because there are."

"As you say."

"See, classic relationship trouble right there," Garrus said. "It's the power imbalance. It was doomed to failure from the start, I say. Giant-scary-cyborg-salarian couples weren't meant to be."

"Do you want me to shoot you?" Erash said. "Because I'd be happy to." He tapped an expensive-looking pistol strapped to his belt. It was short, snub-nosed, grey and nondescript, yet somehow it oozed an air of high-quality engineering. My technician senses are tingling!

"Don't you need me alive to give you those codes?" Garrus said, keeping one eye on the piece.

"Well..." the salarian said, as if weighing it up in his head, "nobody said shooting you had to be lethal."

"...true," Garrus said. "However, I've gotta say... it doesn't matter how many times you shoot me. You might as well put one in my head, because I'll never give you the codes."

"Sidonis told us that as well, although you're at least calmer. However, he doesn't have the codes. You do. His opinion is not exactly relevant, correct?"

"Finally, non-partisan confirmation. Can I put that on a certificate? 'The opinions and beliefs of Lantar Sidonis are hereby officially proclaimed irrelevant', or something like that. It would make such a good nameday present."

Erash sighed, and leaned back against the wall. "Can we please skip the comedy?"

"What good is an interrogation without a little witty repartee? It's what helps establish our hero's immense willpower and loveable personality."

"Unfortunately for you, you're not the hero," Erash said. "You're a henchman."

"Ah, I was wondering when we'd get to this," Garrus said brightly. "Let's talk about this 'Deus' of yours who I'm apparently a henchman of, shall we? Who is he, and why the hell do you think we work for him?"

The two in front of him exchanged glances. Whatever it meant, it looked significant, if only because of how unreadable both faces were.

"Now," the salarian said thoughtfully, "here is where things become interesting."

"I don't think I can handle much more interest. Could you maybe make it boring? Have Melenis tell me."

"The code package is of a unique design," the volus said. "It cannot be copied, edited, split or hacked. It can only be transferred by mutual consent-

"Or torture," Garrus interjected. "Torture works too."

"Indeed," Melenis said matter-of-factly - which is probably worse than saying it while holding a knife and smiling evilly. At least then you know they have a little sense of the theatrical, and that's always something you can exploit. "The fact that you are the current bearer of the package suggests to me that you are trusted absolutely by Deus."

"Or maybe that I have nothing to do with him?"

"A possibility," Melenis conceded. "But this presents a new problem: that of how you claimed the codes initially."

"At gunpoint."

"Naturally," Melenis said drily. "From a member of Manus Dei?"

"I don't know that name. Mercs?"

There was another short pause while more glances were exchanged.

"Get Sidonis," Erash said finally.

"Yes," Melenis said. Now, is that him agreeing, or taking an order? Could be valuable information. Unlikely, seeing as how that requires my survival, but the potential's there.

The volus left the room, feet clanking slowly against the floor as he passed Garrus. Erash was scratching his chin, looking faintly agitated.

"Listen," Garrus said, attempting to lean forwards as much as he could with his wrists locked tight behind him, "you're wrong. We're alone, we have no ties to Deus. We don't know who he is, we don't know what he wants. All I care about is destroying this ship and stopping whoever knows how to build it from making more."

The salarian regarded him with dark, deep, emotionless eyes.

"We'll see."

The door slid open again, and those familiar footsteps started up again on the floor – only now they sounded louder, weightier.

"-fucking – oh, hi, Garrus," Sidonis's voice said from behind him. "I see you're still alive. Well done."

Melenis walked past, carrying a chair. One of his arms had doubled in length to facilitate it; he was holding the very top, but was somehow keeping it absolutely straight with only one arm. That would have been remarkable enough had it just been the large chair, but it also happened to have Sidonis handcuffed to it.

"Sidonis," Garrus said, nodding in greeting. "Same to you."

"Ten grand says I live longer," Sidonis said, as Melenis lowered his chair to the floor beside Garrus's own.

"And if we survive this?"

"Well," Sidonis said, grinning, "one of us might just have to collect."

"I'll shoot you at the same time if you don't shut up," Erash said brusquely. "Now, I want to know how the hell you two got this ship."

"Story's simple," Sidonis said. "There's a ship. Someone has the codes. Other people know. Cue long chain of torture and gunpoint extraction, ending with us. That's all there is to it."

"You know, I just realised we've only been on this damn planet for about an hour," Garrus said. "This is ridiculous. We went here specifically because nobody would be able to find us." He glared at Sidonis. "This is probably your fault somehow."

"Oh, yeah, because I'm the one who's supposed to predict giant fucking volus-bots," Sidonis said sourly. "I told you you were bad luck."

"And I agreed. How did you find us, out of interest?"

"Those orbital rings," Erash said, with not a hint of smugness, "may not be as anonymous and secure as they advertise themselves to be."

"Well, that was money well spent," Sidonis said. "Wait, would you have found us if we hadn't gone to the rings?"

"Eventually. That ship's very difficult to hide. It would have taken longer than it did, though."

"Remind me never to listen to you again, Garrus," Sidonis said dejectedly.

"I have run a basic background trace on both," Melenis said suddenly. "There is no data on Sidonis that can be uncovered without an information specialist. However, Vakarian's background suggests ties to Deus may not be strong. If they exist."

Ah. Do I detect a note of doubt there, my spring-loaded friend?

"What?" Erash snapped. "What do you mean?"

"We know Deus does not have a presence outside the Terminus Systems, yet Vakarian served with C-Sec and the pan-species task force against the geth until five months ago. That is not sufficient time for him to have worked his way into Deus's inner circle, and he does not appear to have worked for him beforehand."

"Don't I? Oh, that's good," Garrus said. "Well, no harm done, so if you could just release-"

"You're saying they might be... telling the truth?" Erash said slowly, with an expression even non-salarians could recognise as mounting worry.

"It appears to at least be a significant possibility," Melenis said.

"This is bullshit!" Erash exploded. "We know that ship can't have got off Omega without Deus's say-so!"

"Yet certain signs point to the influence of a third party. The broadcast of the ship's specifications. The chaos on Omega. The destruction of Vult. And now this."

"Wait, what's this about Vult?" Sidonis said. "What does-"

"Forget that," Garrus cut in. "Who the hell is Deus and what's going on?"

"No, shut up," Erash said, and stalked over to Sidonis, staring down at him suspiciously.

"Am I in trouble, sir?" Sidonis said sarcastically. "A bigger boy told me to do it."

"What do you know about Vult?" the salarian said.

"There's not much left to know, really. We really did a number on them."

"You? You two took down Vult?"

"Us two?" Sidonis gave a short bark of laughter. "Like this asshole could do something like that."

"You know, I saved the galaxy once," Garrus said. "Why don't I get any respect for that? It's a nice galaxy."

"Who destroyed Vult, Sidonis?" Erash asked, with a dangerous-looking glint in his eye.

"Your mother," Sidonis said cheerfully. "See, she tried to get through a door, and – well, the structure just couldn't take it-"

In the blink of an eye, Erash's leg snapped up and caught Sidonis sweetly in the middle of his face. His head flicked back as the sound echoed around the room, then lolled forwards, blue blood dripping steadily into his lap. There was a silence that seemed to last a lot longer than it did, broken by short, wheezing laughter.

"Ha. Ha ha. Touched a fucking nerve right there, didn't I, fish-boy?" Sidonis said, lifting his head again. Blood was dribbling down his chin, but he was still smiling, smug and pained at the same time. "Why does that make you snap when you took all the other shit in your stride? Mommy issues, huh?"

Snarling, Erash drew his pistol and crashed it across Sidonis's face, sending a small, warm shower of blood droplets over Garrus. Sidonis spat out blood and laughed, this time long and loud, as Erash stood in front of him, breathing heavily. Creepy, creepy, creepy. Then again, I don't want to say anything about it. He'll probably hit me. Ah, if only I were a masochist. It would make my life so much more pleasurable.

"Tell me who destroyed Vult," Erash said, and Garrus could easily, easily hear the tone wobbling millimetres above the threshold of violence.

"You want to know? Fine," Sidonis said, breathing hard. At least he'd stopped laughing. "I'm a dead man anyway. I helped bring Vult down from the inside, me and nine others. They're all dead. Want to complete the set?"

"From the inside- you worked for Vult?"

"For a time."

"And you said you'd never heard of Deus."

"I hadn't," Sidonis snapped.

"Bullshit," Erash said flatly. "Deus runs Vult. He named it after himself, for fuck's sake!"

Garrus's blood ran as cold as ice.

"What?" Sidonis said. When Garrus looked around at him, his face was frozen into a grimace of horrified realisation.

Been there.

"Deus Vult," Melenis said. "A phrase in the Latin language, a human dead tongue. 'God wills'."

"Fuck," Sidonis said. "Fuck!" He twisted round towards Garrus, ashen. "Garrus, I didn't know, they never... we didn't... I don't even know who he is!"

Dammit. It's all connected. The ship. Vult. Deus. These two. Sidonis.

Me.

OK, think, think. Sidonis doesn't know Deus runs Vult, I know that for sure. He's definitely not lying. That means that it's an outside job – and the way they talk, Deus isn't dead. Deus had the codes at one point or another, and he took the ship to Omega. These two say they represent someone else who wants the codes – and they say he rightfully owns them. Does that mean he built the ship? How did someone else get the codes? What part did Vult play in all this?

Every damn time I go somewhere, crap like this happens. I hate my life.

"Garrus..." Sidonis said, almost pleading. Blood was still trickling from the corner of his mouth, glinting in the white glow of the light fixtures. "You've got to-"

"It's OK," Garrus told him. "Cool it. I believe you."

"Erash," Melenis said. "We must assume they are not in league with Deus for the moment."

"What the hell have we got ourselves mixed up in now?" Erash said wearily. "This is ridiculous. If these clowns aren't with him, who the fuck else is in play here?"

"Nobody!" Garrus half-shouted. "We're independent! We don't know who Deus is! We don't know who you work for! I have no idea what's going on, and I've been beaten up and kidnapped – twice – because I'm trying to save a few billion lives, and everybody keeps dropping names that I don't know anything about, and my head hurts and I'm pissed off!"

"...what he said," Sidonis muttered into the ensuing silence.

"We need to tell Sensat what's happening," Erash said to Melenis. "This is... I don't know what this is. Are you sure we can't just kill them and have him break into the system himself?"

"The codes cannot be reproduced," Melenis said. "His intent was to prevent it from being possible to steal."

Erash laughed bitterly. "Oh, yeah. Because that went so well for him. What a mess."

"I suggest we return to him for the moment. We need to-"

The volus suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence.

"What now?" Erash said. "Mel?"

"Vakarian is receiving a transmission to his earpiece," Melenis said. "It is unencrypted. I am holding it for the moment."

Vunas?

"Let it through," Erash said, after a moment's thought. "Patch me in. Vakarian, react normally or you die. Got it?"

"What was the second part again?" Garrus said acidly.

Erash regarded him coldly for a second, then nodded to Melenis. "Put it through."

"-rus? You there?" a female voice said on the other end of the line. Vunas. I thought so.

Then again, that might just be because I don't know anyone else who would actually call me.

"Vunas? I'm here," he said. "Sorry about that. Sidonis, uh, was... distracting me."

God, that sounds lame.

"Running trace," Melenis said quietly to Erash.

"Distracting," Vunas said sceptically. "Are you sure you're just colleagues?"

"Wh- oh. That again," Garrus said. "Look, I'm telling you, we're not-"

"Don't let me interrupt your private time," Vunas said, her smile almost audible. Garrus couldn't help but notice Erash trying not to laugh in the corner of his eye. "After all, I-"

"What is it?" he snapped.

"Calm down, scales. No need to bite my head off. Just thought I'd let you know that I'm seeing some interesting traffic about this ship of yours."

"Go on," Garrus said cautiously. Melenis and Erash were watching him like hawks. Sidonis was staring at them in confusion, only getting one side of the conversation.

"OK, so," Vunas said, "it's like this. There's a whole lot of residual traffic from when everyone was talking about the ship, and that's carrying over to an extent – it's still big stuff on some of the newsnets that'll run any kind of story they can think of, but it never really hit the Citadel nets hard. Most people said it was a fake, some kind of hoax or scam. Since it was Omega, you can't blame them, I guess, but what's important is the trends. The ship is confirmed destroyed according to damn near every source I've traced, which is good for you. That means that nobody is looking for it except for people who know it survived – and that means that any moderately skilled net-diver can trace the data currents right back to the source."

"And are you a moderately skilled net-diver?" Garrus asked.

"Baby, I'm the best. That's why you came to me."

"Uh, not really, but carry on."

"Wow, you really know how to make a girl feel special," Vunas drawled. "Well – and bear in mind this is only preliminary stuff – you'll want to start with the Emendus family and their corporate affiliates."

"The Emendus family?"

"Yep. I still have a couple of quantum hardspikes from the feednet I managed to flashport into their mainframe a few months ago-"

"Uh, I have no idea what you just said," Garrus said. "And I'm usually pretty good with this stuff."

Vunas sighed. "OK, you know that part of quantum theory that allows one vibrating particle to influence another, no matter where it is? It's kind of been pushed out in terms of practical applicability by eezo, but it's still got its uses. Basically, I have a few ultradense packets of them floating around in a bunch of important people's computers. Well, me and every other feeder in Valac."

"And that lets you take information straight out of the computers?"

"Yes and no. I don't really have much control over what info they take, just over their general position inside the system architecture – and even that's a bitch to maintain. Every system has hundreds milling around inside, usually only from the best divers. All the amateurs get weeded out by security picobots. The upshot is that I can take a tiny sample of the data constantly, and with that – and one hell of a lot of skill, let me tell you – I can build up a picture of the coms they're running. Works best when you have some kind of focus, like your ship. And guess who's been chattering about it?"

"The Emendus family."

"Ten out of ten for short-term memory. Now, these boys are pretty new in town. Not even a family in the biological sense, but not many of them are these days. They've been around a couple of years, but they have big-time funding from a couple of major players – Triumphans, Kovukus Tech, Eaisa. They're nouveau-riche, but round these parts that's the best kind of riche. I'm only in the external systems, away from the really tasty stuff. That'll take time. But they have a lot more traffic about your little doomsday device than any other organisation I can trace, and the difference is too much to be coincidence. There's nothing incriminating – incriminating, hah. Nothing concrete, I should say, and what I do have ain't complete... but it's a lead. Might be that these fellas know a little something that you'll be wanting to beat out of them."

"I... that's, that's great, Vunas," Garrus said. "That's incredible. You're incredible."

"I'm also blue, if we're playing 'state the obvious'. I'll keep digging, but you have enough to make a start. You want my advice? Abduct someone in the family and torture information out of them. Usually works."

"You'd be surprised how often that completely fails," Garrus said, and winked at Erash. The salarian didn't react.

"Yeah? Well, I'm a high-tech girl. I'll leave the heavy lifting to you big strong men. Tell Sidonis he's an idiot for me."

The call disappeared in a short hiss of static in his ear. Then, silence.

"So, anyone want to tell me what the fuck that was about?" Sidonis said.

"Vunas Deniaya. An independent information feeder," Melenis said. "She is not affiliated with any group. Furthermore, her lodgings and employment record suggest there are no clandestine links in existence."

"And the Emendus family? This is the first I've heard that they even knew about the ship," Erash said. "Do we believe her?"

"We must for the moment," Melenis said. "This warrants further investigation. However, I believe that this turn of events indicates they do not work with Deus."

"They went to her... you're right, damn it. They're not with him," Erash said quietly. He rubbed a hand down his face, closing his eyes. "God damn it. Deus wouldn't use idiots like this."

"Hey," Sidonis said indignantly.

"It appears so," Melenis said. "This is a difficult situation."

"What's going on?" Erash moaned. "What's Deus doing? Sensat never said anything about crap like this!"

"I don't suppose that means you can let us go, does it?" Garrus said, without much hope.

"Hell no," Erash said, rounding on him with a sudden anger in his eyes. "This was meant to be easy! Do you know how much you've just fucked up our lives?"

"You attacked and kidnapped us," Sidonis pointed out.

"Because you have the codes to the ship! Just hand them over and you can go! I don't give a shit about you or what you do, we just need those goddamn codes!"

"Patience," Melenis said. "We are not short of time."

"I know, I know, but... fuck! We're not anywhere near as in control of this as we thought we were. How the hell did Deus manage to lose those codes? Who's this third party?"

"Is there one?" Garrus said. "I mean, there's us, obviously, but we're alone and incompetent. Isn't it possible that this wasn't planned by anyone?"

"A pertinent question," Melenis said, almost thoughtfully. "Consider our evidence. To understand the situation, we must trace the course of events, beginning from Sensat's split with Deus. The codes were in the possession of Deus. This much is confirmed. The ship was on Omega. For reasons we do not yet know, the codes left his possession. We must assume this was due to him entrusting them to a lieutenant so that the ship could be moved or used; the only other possibility is that the codes were taken from Deus himself."

"Yeah, as if," Erash said. "So he gave his lackey the codes for some reason. What then?"

"At some point, the person bearing the codes lost them. There are numerous possibilities, but the most likely is that they were taken."

"Taken from Deus's most fanatical guys? Like they'd give them up."

"Pain and the fear of death are powerful motivators," the volus said simply. "It is at least conceivable that this is what occurred, is it not?"

"Conceivable isn't plausible, though."

"I remind you that our mission hinged on exploiting exactly that to extract the codes."

"True enough. OK, let's say this is what happened," Erash said reluctantly. "Then...

"Then commenced a series of similar happenings: the codes passed from person to person over several days, before finally arriving with Vakarian. At this point, the ship left Omega and travelled to Deinech, where it was refitted in the orbital shipyards. It landed at Valac, at which point we immediately entered the fray. We are now here."

"But that doesn't explain the broadcast of the ship's specs," Garrus ventured.

"No. It does not. This is the most perplexing event," Melenis said. "We can only speculate. However, it seems an ill-advised tactic to announce the existence of an extremely valuable ship that can be claimed on Omega. Furthermore, that broadcast could only have been made by someone with knowledge of the ship's capabilities, which leaves a very small number of living candidates: Sensat, who we can safely discount-"

"Sorry, who's Sensat?" Garrus said.

"Our boss," Erash said. "The original designer of the ship and the technology used in it."

"Right." Was it really that simple to find out who built it? We need to put a stop to him, at any cost. But if he designed it, who're the Emendus family? Is he part of it?

"Deus is the other obvious possibility," Melenis continued, "and perhaps the most likely to do it, even if the reasons remain unclear. But we know that the codes would have been necessary, because the broadcast unquestionably came from the ship. Therefore, the only truly plausible option must be-"

"Someone with the codes," Erash finished. "So at some point, someone had the codes and nobody else knew that they had them or even that the ship existed. Instead of just taking the ship, they let everyone in the Systems know it was there. Then, they lost the codes. Every two-bit merc on Omega surrounds that ship like flies to shit, and things are just about ready to explode. People stay away from the ship even if they have the codes because it's too hot. The codes keep changing hands until they reach our metallic friend here."

"Sounds about right," Sidonis said thoughtfully.

"Yet this hypothesis relies on the code-bearer acting against their own interests, or so it seems," Melenis said. "It is not a perfect answer. However, I cannot see a more likely one – assuming, of course, that Vakarian and Sidonis are indeed independent."

"He was with Vult, though," Erash said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Sidonis. "That ties him to Deus, whether or not he claims he didn't know the connection."

"He's also in the fucking room, man," Sidonis said indignantly. "He doesn't appreciate being talked about in the third person all the time."

"He can also shut the hell up," Erash said, without turning round.

"However, he claims to have destroyed Vult – the timing of which is indeed suspect. It occurred the day before the broadcast was made."

"Come on! I never had those codes! I couldn't have been involved! It was dumb luck!" Sidonis said, straining forwards as far as he could. "Can't you check, or something? Go through my omnitool?"

Erash turned back to him, looking thoughtful. "Can you?" he said to Melenis.

"No. The code package does not leave any data trail."

"Well, that's just fucking perfect, isn't it?" Sidonis said. "So, basically, there's absolutely no way for us to prove we're just in this by chance, is there?"

"That's just the problem," Garrus said heavily. "From what they know, all the evidence points either to me being the one who made the broadcast or to whoever actually did being dead."

"It doesn't even matter," Erash said. "None of this matters to what we're meant to be doing. Sensat can worry about this shit, or he can pay us to do it. I'm not doing it free of charge." He jabbed a long finger at Garrus's face. "Either you give us the codes now, or we move on to torture. I don't like torture. Mel doesn't like torture. I really doubt you do. But that's the only way forward for us. Sorry."

He sounded genuinely apologetic, Garrus had to give him that. Whether it was genuine or not, well, that was another question entirely.

"Can I sit out of the whole torture thing?" Sidonis said. "Because, you know, I don't actually have anything you want-"

"Yes, but I don't like you."

"Ah. Fair point," Sidonis conceded.

"So, back to square one," Garrus said, trying to ignore the snakes that seemed to be wriggling through his stomach. "We don't work for Deus, it's all coincidence, et cetera, et cetera. Are you at least going to tell us who Deus is? What he wants?"

"We do not know his ultimate goals," Melenis said. "Power and money seem the most likely. They often are."

"And as for who he is," Erash said, "well, we're not too sure there either. Sensat doesn't tell us everything. Just what we need to know."

"And that doesn't include who your enemy is?" Sidonis said incredulously. "Yeah, that's a world-beating strategy right there."

"You don't argue with Sensat. The boss is always right."

"If your boss is creating superweapons that are capable of killing billions of innocent people on any planet he likes," Garrus said coldly, "maybe you should rethink your definition of 'right'. I will not hand over the only set of codes to a weapon like that to the maniac who built it. It's an abomination, and I'll die preventing it from being used if I have to."

Ooh, that sounded good. A defiant last stand for the brave, selfless hero. Except I don't really have a lot of alternatives, because I don't believe for a second that they'll just let us go when we know as much as we do. Even without the codes, there's a hell of a lot we could screw up for them. We know names, we know the ship's still intact – we know enough for there to be a chance that whatever they're trying to do will fail.

No matter how this goes down, I won't see another day.

"Well, that doesn't put me in a difficult position or anything," Sidonis muttered. "I never should have rescued you in the first place."

"Hey, that extended your life by about two weeks," Garrus said. "Admittedly, they weren't exactly good weeks, what with all the grieving and boredom and serious injuries, but still."

"I still plan to outlive you, you know. While you're dying I'll be still alive, and then I'll laugh. And then die."

"Good for you," Garrus said vaguely.

"Admirable goal, I guess," Erash said. "It's a shame you're not raving about how you want to destroy the galaxy or something. That would make it easier. But my hands are tied."

Garrus smiled thinly. "I can relate."

"Torture may not be necessary," Melenis said. "It remains a possibility that Sensat could break into the ship's programming. He left no back door, but his knowledge of its architecture means he may be able to bypass the protection with enough time if we are able to prevent its auto-destruct protocol from activating when it senses the threat."

"That's a lot of conditionals there," Erash said. "We know the codes work. We don't know that will. How much time is 'enough', anyway?"

"...most likely, several months," Melenis admitted.

"You could try calling Sensat and proposing that."

"I fear such an effort may prove futile."

"You know, you really have a gift for understatement, Mel," Erash said with a mirthless smile. "Go and get some, ah, equipment, would you? We might as well make a start."

Oh joy.

The volus nodded, and began to walk towards the door. Just before the threshold, he stopped dead.

"Mel?" Erash said uncertainly. "What's-"

"There is a large air-vehicle approaching the building. I... ran a trace on the call from the information feeder," Melenis said slowly, and for the first time, Garrus could hear a trace of real emotion in the voice. It was the unmistakeable ring of horrified, belated understanding.

This... is not good.

"Yeah. So?"

"I used Sensat's software to do so... and I neglected to encrypt my trace. If the unique signature of the software were being watched for-"

"We could be traced," Erash finished, the same horror etched across his face. "Can you confirm it? Can you conf-"

Mid-sentence, a loud, heavy, dull explosion sounded, somewhere off to Garrus's right. It was muffled and distant, but still loud enough to make his ears ring for a couple of seconds and make his headache about twice as bad. More ominously, it was powerful enough to send a tremor racing through the floor beneath his feet with a low rumble. The lights flickered for a second, then came back on to full power as Erash stumbled against the wall.

Oh, this is so not good.

Wait, maybe it is.

"Breach in the east face," Melenis said, with psychotic calm returning to his voice. "They will come down the hallway. Free them. Arm yourselves. Get to the car. They will shoot to kill."

"FUCK!" Erash exploded. "You idiot! You led him right-"

Melenis was already sprinting out of the room, and even as he disappeared from view Garrus could hear the telltale hum of the machinery beneath the suit sliding into action.

Well, on the one hand, he's not planning on torturing us any more, which is nice. On the other, we're still in pretty immediate danger, but that's par for the course these days. Probably a net positive, overall, but not by much. Still, I'll take what I can get.

"Oh yeah, just go," Erash spat, and drew his pistol. "Shit!"

"Get us out of these chairs," Garrus said, amazed at the calm in his own voice. "They want to destroy the codes. We need you. You need us."

"I need you," Erash said, moving around behind him. "Not your friend."

"Hey! What the fuck do you mean, not me?" Sidonis said, struggling furiously. "Hey! HEY!"

There was a click, and the handcuffs fell away from one of his wrists. No sooner had he brought his hands around from behind his back, Erash seized them and locked the loose cuff back onto his wrist, so that his hands were chained in front of him.

"What the hell-"

"I'm not stupid," Erash said. "What's to stop you from attacking me?"

Can't complain there. I'd have done exactly the same thing.

Garrus got up, muscles burning after so long without moving. Away to his right, the unmistakeable snapping noise of gunfire had started up, along with a few echoing shouts. They seemed to be getting closer.

"You'd better not have meant that, fish-boy!" Sidonis said. "Let me go!"

Garrus turned to Erash, who was eyeing the door longingly.

"Either we both live," he said, "or we both die. Free him."

"Fuck it, OK, OK! We don't have time-" Erash said, and knelt behind Sidonis to open his restraints. Sidonis, with uncharacteristic sense, put his hands together to be cuffed again.Maybe there's hope for the kid, eh?

"We need guns," Garrus said urgently, as Sidonis stood, stretching.

"Agreed," Erash said. "This way."

He turned on his heel and ran for the door, and Garrus followed. They emerged into a corridor done in the same simple style as the room, plain and well-lit. When he looked in the direction of the commotion, all he could see was a turn in the hallway, as blank as the rest, but the crack of the guns and those shouts were louder still. The same sight greeted him in the other direction.

In front of them, two metres across the corridor, was another door, the same grey rectangle that they'd just come through. Down each side of the hall, there were a few more, spaced at irregular intervals. Erash set off down away from the gunfire, which struck Garrus as a wise move. Three doors down, he skidded to a halt and rammed a hand into the controls. Nothing happened. Erash uttered some salarian curse even the translation matrix couldn't figure out and tried again. Garrus realised that this was the only door that had those sort of controls on it, and briefly wondered why before the door slid aside to answer his question for him.

There were guns. Lots of guns. There were whole racks of lean, menacing assault rifles, a dozen blocky automatic shotguns hanging from the wall, rifles and pistols and big, heavy, unidentifiable slabs of dangerous-looking metal were strewn across worktables, and what looked oddly like a rack of swords was attached to one wall. There was barely an inch of the room that didn't contain something capable of blowing someone's head into more pieces than seemed necessary.

I suddenly feel so inadequate.

"...fuck," Sidonis said appreciatively.

Erash tossed his pistol aside like it was a fifty-cred Saturday night special and grabbed an assault rifle from a table, bringing it up to check it. It was long, sleek, thin and looked deadly as all hell. Garrus didn't recognise the make, and that meant a lot. Custom. Specially built. Hell, the only guns I can identify here are a few of the pistols and that one shotgun, but even they're modded! There must be about fifty million creds' worth of firepower here... just who the hell are these two working for?

The firefight was getting closer still, by the sound of it; as Erash took a pair of pistols from a worktop, Garrus stuck his head out of the door in time to catch sight of a few bright energy bolts fizzle and crackle against the wall of the corridor back in the other direction.

His head snapped around at the sound of his name just in time for him to catch the pistol Erash had thrown at him by the muzzle, fumbling awkwardly with his cuffed hands. It was lighter than it looked, but somehow he didn't doubt that it was more powerful than anything he'd held in about five months.

I suddenly feel even more inadequate.

"OK, boys and girls," Erash said, handing a similar pistol to Sidonis, "here are the rules. The pistols are programmed not to fire if their VI thinks your intention might be to shoot me, so don't try it."

Sidonis tried it. Nothing happened.

"Just checking," he said, shrugging.

"Yes, I guess I should have expected that," Erash said drily, and headed for the door. "Also, I'm capable of remotely overloading the thermal clips and blowing your hands to a fine paste. Just a heads-up."

"Generous," Garrus commented, and followed. The end of the corridor was smoking from all the shots fired against the wall, and the sounds of gunfire had risen to a storm. There had to be at least ten guns active by Garrus's reckoning, quite possibly more. If anyone can handle that, though, my money's on the gigavolus.

They ran down the hallway in the opposite direction, Erash leading the way, and rounded the corner at the end into another stretch of corridor, a good forty metres long and lined with the same doors as the last one. This place is big... did Melenis say it was a whole building? In Valac? That's serious, serious money.

At the end of the hallway was a full-sized steel shutter that ran across the width of it. It looked suitably final as they ran towards it with the sounds of gunfire and explosions fading behind them, but when they'd gone barely three metres towards it, Erash skidded to a halt. Garrus tried to follow suit and use his arms to keep his balance, forgetting they were chained together. He might have stayed upright if Sidonis hadn't made the same mistake.

"-again, Mel, I'm not hearing you right-" Erash said urgently into his communicator. "Mel?"

"What the fuck now?" Sidonis griped, as he hauled himself off Garrus.

"Don't ask me," Garrus said, and stooped to grab the pistol he'd dropped. "Isn't-"

"DOWN!" Erash bellowed, sounding more krogan than salarian, and dropped to the floor. Garrus's training and instincts took over and performed a controlled demolition on his knees before he had time to think, and as he hit the ground again something exploded. He couldn't tell what, exactly, because his vision seemed to have been replaced by a large purple blotch and his hearing with a high-pitched whine. It was an experience rather like the time a couple of friends had roped him into going to a krogan metal gig in the Wards.

He felt a hand grab him by the collar of his suit and drag him upwards, and he recovered in time to dimly catch sight of shapeless figures moving through a cloud of smoke, which was pulsing like a thundercloud in a rave club. Erash was firing away with his pistol, making a vaguely audible phut sound through the ringing in his ears. Automatically, he brought his own up and opened fire – incredible design on this thing, the recoil feels like a pellet gun – as energy bolts started to crackle around his ears.

"Get back!" Erash was shouting, although it didn't sound like shouting even with his wrinkled brown mouth about ten centimetres from Garrus's ear. He found himself pushing himself back towards the corner with his legs as his vision slowly cleared and kept firing through the smoke, taking targets wherever he could. He thought he saw one drop, but for all he knew it could have been a trick of the light, and before he knew it he was back at the corner, with Erash already behind him and Sidonis making a pass on the outside. Erash grabbed his arm with one surprisingly strong hand and forcibly dragged him into cover, but not before a few of the shots had found their target. The first three burst apart against his shield, but the fourth tore through it and smashed into his chest, driving the air out of him and knocking him on his ass.

It felt like he'd been punched by a krogan, but not much worse. A shot from a pistol might have penetrated from that distance, but assault rifle rounds weren't going to get through the heavy protection. I think.

"What the fuck was that?" Sidonis called over the cacophony. Garrus's ears still felt like someone had set off a grenade in them, but he could still hear the sound of the firefight at the other end of the building slowly getting closer.

"The landing pad!" Erash said, and fired a few rounds blind around the corner before popping the clip.

"Tell me the car wasn't through there," Garrus said, without much hope.

"Sure, it wasn't," Erash snapped. "Hell, I'm also the goddess Minit."

Garrus leaned over and stuck his head around the corner. The smoke was clearing enough for him to pick out a target easily enough, but they were smart; there were about ten or twelve of them laying down heavy fire, enough to cook the wall to his left and definitely enough to convince him to take his head back as fast as possible. A quarter of a second later, a bright blue streak of raw power hummed through the space where his forehead has been and put another miniature molten crater in the wall.

"Uh, I don't think we go that way," he said. I could swear that singed my fringe. I really can't afford to lose that.

"Well, this is fun," Sidonis said brightly. "Any good ideas?"

"Mel? You there?" Erash said. "Melenis! Listen, they destroyed the goddamn car! We're going to Plan B!"

"...Plan B? What's that?" Sidonis said.

The salarian shrugged expansively. "Fucked if I know. The same as every other Plan B: kill people until the problem goes away." He clicked another thermal clip into his pistol and opened fire again, totally blind. "Let's have a little fun."

"Ah," Garrus said. "That kind of Plan B."

I so don't see this going well.