December 7th

The rec room was full of people sitting, standing, moving about and loitering. The furnishings were metal alloy and not the most comfortable, but there was no lack of seating in the room. The dozens of tables strewn about had holographic projectors capable of running most tabletop and card games, and the walls had screens for playing news feeds, TV shows, movies and video games. The noise coming from all of this was almost deafening and took some getting used to. More often than not there was food in the room, ordered from some nearby restaurant, the smell of which was distracting at best and nauseating at worst.

I usually had to make an effort to block all of the sensory input, but right now I was focused solely on what was in front of me.

The sergeant had handed each of us a datapad. Fingers itching with nervous excitement, I hastily scrolled thought the datapad's contents. It consisted of what looked like a real, legal contract, though mercifully shorter than most I had seen. It was just a set of mandates and rules for both parties, a small list of stipulations and a price at the bottom. Said price made my eyes widen.

One thousand credits each, plus ten thousand for the Blue Suns.

Sergeant Dyric was speaking again. "The client's name is Zyrrius Erikin. He's a turian businessman, pretty small-time but he's got some credits. He's arriving on Omega tomorrow for a meeting and he's contacted us to arrange for his security. That's where you come in." The tan, barefaced turian fixed us with a stern look. "You are to be there when he arrives and protect him for the duration of his stay."

Vilnius spoke suddenly, voice as flat as ever. "Does this Erikin have any enemies that we need to be aware of?"

"No, actually. As I said, he's not very important. All you really need to watch out for are muggers. If there was a potential threat, I would have asked a more experienced team. As it is, I don't think you guys could fuck this up too bad." The sergeant gave Vilnius an odd look. "Also, he specifically asked that the team we assigned had a turian on it. From the sound of it this guy hasn't gotten out of turian space much, he's not used to aliens."

Vilnius jerked back a little, but nodded. Javern looked disdainful. "Seriously? Our first job is escorting around some racist kurthda?"

I could recall being called a 'kurthda' a couple times before. There was apparently no direct translation for whatever it was, but I gathered that it cast doubts upon the recipient's courage or masculinity.

I shot my batarian teammate an unamused look. "For a thousand credits? Yes."

I remember having to break into an Eclipse warehouse to make that kind of money before. Escorting a cowardly businessman with no known enemies for a day or two? Yes please.

Javern's answering look was heated and he opened his mouth like he was about to respond before the tan turian standing by our table interrupted. "As I said, he's arriving tomorrow at ten. Here's where you're going to meet with him." The sergeant brought up his omni-tool and sent an address to Vilnius, Hyrn, Javern and I, along with an image file. "He's going to be on the station for a day at most, but be prepared for anything. Also…" Our omni-tools blinked again. "There's your pay for the last few days." Sergeant Dyric flicked off his 'tool and looked us over. "Do this job right and you'll be seeing a lot more. If you have any questions, ask around." At that, he left.

I checked the credit transfer, which was apparently for two hundred and fifty credits. Fifty credits per day? That's… reasonable, I guess. That'd be… three hundred and fifty a week… seven hundred for two weeks… minus two hundred for rent that'd be enough for food and leave some spending money. Assuming I work every day, but by this setup I could afford to miss one or two days a week and still have enough to get by. And this job- contract-is one thousand credits for a day's work.

Holy crap. I might not have to just scrape by anymore.

That was a revelation. By this point I'd become used to the idea of living hand-to-mouth. The idea that I could have money left over was crazy.

I shook my head. Focus.

The image file was a picture of a light gray turian with black colony markings. It took a moment for me to recognize them as from Palaven. It was logical to assume that this was our client. The coordinates he had given us appeared to be for a docking station at the far end of the district. I quickly thought out a timetable that would put me at that spot an hour before the given time, giving me plenty of time to talk to Taren for a bit and get some rest if I could beforehand. Vilnius' quiet voice interrupted my planning. "Does everyone know how to get to the location?" I nodded distractedly, still working out what route I wanted to take, and looked up at the other four people at the table after a second. Brek, in what I was quickly identifying as normal behavior, acted disinterested with the whole conversation. It looked like he hadn't even touched his datapad, and was instead focusing entirely on Javern. Javern studied his omni-tool before glancing at Vilnius and nodding. When the turian turned his attention to Hyrn the salarian hesitated before also giving a small nod, then went back to fiddling nervously with the datapad in his hands. Vilnius mirrored us with his own little nod, then continued speaking. "Alright. Let's meet up at the coordinates at 09:30, agreed?" Again, there was a round of affirmations. "See you then."

The two batarians wandered off after that without a word. I got up and briefly waved to Hyrn as I left as well. As I headed down the hallway to the exit, I heard someone calling my name behind me. I stopped and turned around to find Vilnius not too far behind me. He stopped short, seeming briefly uncertain, before stepping into conversational range.

I was startled, but I forced my tone to be even and polite. "Did you need something?"

"I- ah, no…" The dark-skinned turian stuttered and withdrew slightly, then suddenly stood up straight and rigid. His face showed none of the turian facial expressions I had come to learn and his voice was as inexpressive as the day I met him. "I wanted to apologize if my previous misunderstanding was in any way offensive. I have had very few dealings with humans in the past. I would prefer if this did not affect team cohesion."

I blinked in surprise, but shook my head. "…no, it's wasn't offensive. Confusing, but understandable. It won't affect the team."

"Good." After that short acknowledgement, Vilnius turned around swiftly and walked away.

Well that was… odd.

I cleared the whole incident from my mind and returned my attention to scheduling.

The walk back to the apartments seemed shorter than usual; I was so deep in my own head that it was in no time at all that I was in the lobby. To my disappointment Taren was not there. His friend Reyik was sitting at the desk instead. The turian vaguely nodded to me, then did a quick double take. "What happened to your-"

I cut him off in a harsh voice. "Got in a fight." I was down the stairs before he could respond.

I went through the near-instinctual ritual of unlocking, opening, closing and locking my door, then peeled off my armor and curled up in bed. My alarm was set for 02:00, which would give me eight hours of sleep if I slept the whole time. I doubted I would, but decided to try anyways.

My body was tired but my brain was going a thousand miles a minute, a common ailment for me when trying to sleep. I couldn't remember how many times I had stayed up late into the night thinking about random stuff both good and bad. This was a fair share of both.

On one hand, I might not have to worry about not having enough money. On the other…

What? I have to actually work? There is no downside to this. The probability of getting into a firefight during this contract is low.

Yeah, this contract. And low does not equal non-existent.

I'm just being paranoid.

Paranoia isn't all that unhealthy on Omega.

Why can't I just accept this as a good thing?

Because good things don't just happen. Not here anyways. This job isn't a cakewalk. It's going to require fighting at some point, and killing. More blood on my hands, and for what?

For survival. For living to see that fucking 'task' I wasn't told about done so I can go home. What wouldn't I give for that? God…

Even though I had stopped believing in the Christian God many years ago, I half-considered praying to him that I might go home soon. The ban I enforced on thoughts of family during the 'day' seemed to fade now that I was laying here in the dark, and doubts began to creep in.

Would they even want me back after I told them everything? Even if they believed me and didn't chuck me in a mental hospital, would Mom still love me after all the shit I've done? Theft, murder, corpse-looting?

Of course she'd love me. She's Mom.

I fucking tried to get a job at a brothel! Forget how disgusted I am about that, what about her?

She'd understand. They all would.

I'm not the person they knew.

…it's time to stop thinking about this.

Yep.

Eventually, I passed out.

December 8th

I was running through unlit corridors and alleyways, full-on sprinting. I needed to escape, get away, but there was nowhere to go. Everything was a murky grey; I couldn't see where I was heading or what I was running from. There were no paths left but forward.

I ran and ran and-

I jerked awake in my bed, sheet tangled around me and my heart pounding. I attempted to recollect what I had been dreaming about, but it slid through my mental fingers like smoke. All I knew was that I felt as tense as a bowstring and a little nauseous. I just laid there and took deep, gulping breaths for a bit before I got up and looked at the time. I had slept for only four hours.

I went about readying myself for the day, but that didn't take long. Before I knew it I was sitting on the cot again in full armor with eleven hours to go before the prearranged time. Taren likely wasn't awake at this point, and I had no idea if Lera was up or not. I didn't want to leave and probably end up missing Taren; I wanted to let him know what was up so he didn't worry.

Resigned to staying in my room for a while, I turned on my new omni-tool. It was a Chameleon model Mark II. It's previous owner hadn't changed the color from the default orange and I didn't know if I wanted to, but he'd done some customization with the layout that still disoriented me. Instead of arranging the buttons in a radial wheel like my original 'tool, this one grouped buttons into subcategories and rotated them individually. I had yet to find the program that caused it and it made finding things a hassle, so I avoided using the device when time was of the essence. It undoubtedly ran faster than the Cipher tool but I definitely didn't want to hit the wrong button on accident during a fight.

While searching through the program files in the hope of getting rid of that particular setting, I saw two filed I hadn't noticed before. They were titled 'proj-neur' and 'prog-bios'. When I opened the files it was immediately obvious that they were programs of some kind, written in a salarian programming language. Some of the terms were unfamiliar, but it was derivative enough from the language I used for me to make a guess as to their purpose. One of them was designed to overheat a biotic's amp, the other was supposed to emit a very specific electrical pulse on contact with an organic that would shock their nervous system. The neural shock program appeared to be unfinished, but the biotic dampener looked functional. I sent the two files over to my cyan omni-tool. I'd take a crack at finishing the neural shocker later.

Now I was left looking at my main omni-tool, wondering what to do next. I still had hours of waiting in front of me. I stared at the buttons hovering over my left hand for a while before I opened the extranet browser and typed in 'electronic arts bioware game studio earth'.

There were plenty of results for 'games', 'electronic', 'earth', and a few for 'bioware tech', but Bioware the game company did not exist.

Next I tried looking up some other stuff I liked. The Elder Scrolls series was here, it had lasted nearly thirty years before finally petering off, and Minecraft was still being played to this day. Unfortunately Battlestar Galactica hadn't been made, which I figured might have had something to do with the geth. I was pleased to discover this also meant that Starship Troopers had never existed here, which was a great favor to the people of this universe. That movie was horrible. Several of the bands I liked were in existence but some weren't for what looked like no reason whatsoever, the same with books and movies.

I had a lot of my inquiries redirected to newer things that were unique to this universe, and some of them looked very interesting. There was an 'edgy and dramatic' show currently being aired called "Across the Line" about a hypothetical continuation of the First Contact War that was being produced by both human and turian groups. It supposedly showed both sides in the conflict equally. It had a decent following in Citadel space, and I decided to give the pilot episode a try. The acting wasn't particularly good but the presentation of both human and turian cultures were very interesting. I was probably going to watch some more later.

I continued like that for a while, looking up media that I liked before and finding new things that I thought might be interesting. I hadn't taken the time before to look, I had always been occupied with training, stealing or otherwise working on something. Before I knew it I check the time and found out it was four o'clock. I turned off my omni-tool, double checked my equipment and left my room, absentmindedly locking the door behind me. Taren was indeed up and sitting at the desk when I got there, focused intently on what was probably another novel.

I cleared my throat. He looked up and put the datapad aside. "Hey. Did you get some sleep?"

"Uh, yeah. I got some rest." I shifted uncomfortably. "How are you?"

Taren flicked his hands in an offhand gesture, one that I had figured as the batarian equivalent of a shrug. "I'm fine. It hasn't been very busy around here lately."

I thought back and recalled something from the day I started work with the Blue Suns. "Hm. Wasn't there a krogan here a few days ago?"

He blinked a couple times, then frowned. "Oh, yeah. It sounded like he's not staying long. He paid for two weeks and said he wouldn't be continuing the payment."

I nodded. The conversation lulled a bit and I sighed. "Um… I got a contract yesterday. I'm probably going to be busy for the next day or so. So… if I'm gone for a bit don't worry, okay?"

"A contract?" Taren leaned in and his voice got quieter. "Doing what?"

"Nothing really important," I tried to reassure him. "I'll just be busy."

"Okay, but… be careful." He still seemed uneasy.

I smiled. "I was planning on it."

Pacing was something I did without really thinking, often when I was waiting for something or when I needed to sort through my thoughts. Putting my body through repetitive motion freed my brain up to think about other things, such as the upcoming job.

We were at a busy thoroughfare that led out from the docking area, waiting for our client. This particular docking area was fairly clean, by Omega standards, with very little litter or graffiti and plenty of light. The foot traffic wasn't too bad, but there was a steady stream of hover vehicles flying overhead that made me nervous. I was pacing from a bench to an access terminal, measuring and spacing out my steps so they were even. I kept my gaze on the floor, but I was listening carefully and watching the surrounding area out of the corner of my eye. Across the narrow street Vilnius watched the stream of people passing by with eyes like a hawk Javern and Brek were sitting on a bench near him, quietly chatting. Hyrn sat on the bench I was pacing by, doing something with his teal omni-tool and occasionally casting glances at the crowd. The salarian seemed to have gone shopping recently, as he was wearing a suit of brown and green light armor.

As I made another circuit, a stray thought wriggled into the chaotic mash of worry, planning and hyperbole in my head. If I keep at this, I'm going to wear myself out. I've gotten used to less sleep and food, but it's probably best if I try to conserve my energy.

Sighing a little, I brought myself around to the bench again and sat down next to my teammate, who gave me a sideways look before returning to his 'tool. Lacking better things to do, I attempted to strike up a conversation. "So, what are you up to?"

Hyrn lightly winced, but I took it as a good sign that it was considerably more restrained than how he reacted when I spoke to him only a few days ago. "L-Looking over blueprints. A-And thinking." His eyes flickered over to me. "W-What are you… u-up to?"

"Well, talking to you. How are the blueprints coming along? " Leaning forward, I was able to see a bit of the aforementioned blueprints. "They seem to be for a grenade."

The salarian's expression brightened a little. "O-Oh. Y-Yeah. I've… b-been working on them for a w-while." He hesitated, then brought his omni-tool closer so I could get a better look. His voice was still quiet, but sounded far steadier that normal. "They're supposed to s-stick on contact with inanimate objects or material and detonate when it detects motion within the blast r-radius."

"Trip mines? That's neat." And very handy in a firefight. "How did you get it to create the… uhh… um…" The words eluded me at the moment. "The programming? It has to be programmed, right? How'd you get it to make the computer hardware it needs to run? And how'd you get it on there?"

Hyrn blinked at me, wide-eyed, for a half a second before he understood what I was asking. "O-Oh. Ah, I scanned a basic CPU, really simple so i-it's small, and built around it. And I can send the program to it as I deploy it."

It was my turn to be wide-eyed. "That's… really neat." I tried to make sense of the schematic, but as it was in a different language I had some difficulty. "How powerful is it? How many can you make?"

"W-Well, I have enough material on me now to make four of them. And they're pretty strong." He looked up at one of the flying cars going overhead with an evaluating expression. "C-Could take out a skycar, maybe."

On occasion I forgot why Hyrn was in the Blue Suns. It's not that I didn't respect him, but he often gave the impression of being harmless. It was times like these that I remembered. "That's handy. Good job."

He made a quiet noise and pulled his arm back closer to himself. Giving the trip mine schematic one last look, he turned off his omni-tool and began fidgeting with his hands, avoiding looking at me. "Thanks."

The conversation settled down again, and I looked him over. There was an improvement from how he'd looked only a few days ago. He seemed to have gotten some color back, and his leg was bouncing with unused energy. "You look better. More… healthy."

"O-Oh, um…" The green and beige salarian looked away again and idly tapped the tips of his fingers together. The abnormal firmness to his voice faded, and he started to stutter again. "Y-Yeah. I feel b-better." He paused, frowning for several moments before he spoke again. "M-My family… t-they weren't s-supportive at first, b-but we talked and… i-it helped. T-They helped m-me pick this a-armor."

So, he has family on Omega. It occurred to me as rather odd that he would be recovering so well from something that had happened almost a week ago, but then I remembered that salarians processed their emotions faster than other races. It was part of the trade-off for having short lifespans. They lived to be only 40, but they spent less time sleeping, solving problems or having emotional breakdowns. And now that he has his family's support, Hyrn would definitely be adapting faster.

"That's… good." An ugly feeling of jealousy started to grow in me, but I pushed it behind the mental glass wall that hid my other various traumas and instead focused on my honest desire for him to get past this. "I'm happy for you."

I started thinking about something else to talk about, but suddenly Hyrn broke through the silence. "S-So… um… a-are you… feeling b-better too?"

I crossed my arms across my chest, grabbing my elbows, and looked away. "Yeah, I guess. Better that how I was before, at any rate." I cast about my mind for something to say but something caught my eye, one of the disembarked passengers leaving the dock.

Turian, light gray, black colony markings, well-dressed. This is our guy.

I nudged Hyrn and pointed our client out, then stood up. On the other side of the thoroughfare I saw Javern and Brek do the same. The team had discussed beforehand that Vilnius should approach him first, considering the information we had been given, and I watched as he intercepted Erikin on his way out of the dock.

"Zyrrius Erikin?" Vilnius' tone was blank as usual, but his subharmonics were more noticeable than before. Maybe he's trying to put Erikin at ease?

Erikin stepped back and looked from side to side, but he failed to notice the rest of us along the sides of the street. His mandible twitched slightly in what I thought was nervousness before he met Vilnius' gaze again. "…yes, that's me. And who might you be?"

"My name is Vilnius." His subharmonics grew even stronger, giving his voice a deep and almost melodious quality. "You hired my team from the Blue Suns for protection."

"Oh." Whatever it was that Vilnius was trying to do it was apparently working, because Erikin moved in a bit closer to him and gave him a nod. "Good to meet you, then." The lighter-colored turian's dual-layered voice was deepening as well, as though to match Vilnius'. Erikin glanced around again. "Is the rest of your team nearby?"

"Yes." Vilnius leant to the side and scanned the crowd as it navigated around the two. "We should probably move out of the street."

Erikin nodded again. "Alright. I need to get my meeting, after all."

As we went from the docking area, the conditions of our surroundings deteriorated. The smell, the chaos and noise, the filth and darkness, I had gotten used to it all over the months. But there was something about being with other people that brought it back into my awareness. Maybe it was because Erikin was obviously shocked by it all. He openly gawked at the dirt-encrusted streets and graffiti-covered walls. He winced at the odd gunshot and recoiled at the stench emanating from the alleyways. The rest of my team didn't show any signs of being surprised, but we all had our helmets on so it was difficult to gauge their reactions.

According to our client we were heading to Tuhi District, which I had been to a handful of times. It was more of a commercial area than the relatively residential Gozu District, and I had tried to get a job at some of the shops there. To get there we were passing through Fumi District, which I knew nothing about.

We travelled in an unfamiliar sort of formation that Vilnius had insisted upon. He was at the head of it, with Erikin following closely behind. Hyrn was also near the front, as the client had seemed the most comfortable with him out of all of us, while Javern, Brek and I trailed behind.

I supposed I could see the reasoning in the setup, it put Erikin at ease while having some eyes on their backs, but it also left me with Javern and Brek. They were ignoring me for the most part, but I was still on edge. I walked a bit apart from them, and was careful to make no indication that I was watching them.

After several minutes of walking Javern sighed and muttered, "Why is this guy even here? He doesn't seem the type to have a meeting on Omega. Not a slaver or drug lord, so why?"

Brek's response was too quiet for me to hear. Whatever he's said earned a bark of laughter.

"Gods willing! I was hoping our first job would be something important. Not babysitting a turian kurthda." Javern stretched his neck and glanced down at the gun attached to his waist. I found myself actually a bit curious as to what a 'kurthda' was, but I stayed quiet.

"Maybe we could start a fight." I had to strain to hear Brek's low voice, but I caught it this time.

Javern's wrists flicked in the 'shrug' gesture I'd seen Taren use not too long ago. "Nah. We'd probably get in trouble with the sergeant. That guy's way too uptight."

I couldn't pick up on what Brek had said next, and whatever it was must have been interesting because Javern nearly stopped mid-step and turned to look at his friend. He was silent for a while, then spoke in a soft tone. "Violence isn't the only way to handle things. I know that…" His voice faltered. "…I…I get it, okay? But things aren't always like that."

Brek didn't respond. The two walked in an awkward silence after that, leaving me to my thoughts. I wasn't really sure what to think of all that, and eventually I decided that I didn't have to think anything of it as it wasn't my business.

The rest of the trip to the meeting location went oddly well. A few people eyed Erikin, but when they caught sight of the five armed and armored people with him they backed off.

The location was a fairly nice restaurant, certainly nicer than I had eaten in since coming here. It was clean and well-lit, had nice furnishings, it even had a waiter. There were also a few guards in the place, who gave us sharp looks as we came in. Erikin pointed out the person he was here to meet, a thin, lilac-colored asari, and Vilnius quietly directed us to stand watch around the entrance to the place. I ended up waiting outside with Hyrn and Brek, watching a stream of people go by.

After what felt like almost half an hour sounds of crashing and shouting came from inside the building, then gunshots.

[Edited 3/2/2017]