Eagerly I slam the shuttle door behind me and not a second later we take off, leaving the rooftop of Skinner's place. Unable to sit without constantly shifting around I open the map and look at the small blinking dot in its center. When I and Vala were running to our shuttle it was still moving, but it seems completely still now. Not that it would change how far behind we are.
"Can't this thing go any faster? " I ask through the sound of the shuttle's siren, despite the fact that we are already well past by the speed limit.
"No it can't human!" Vala snaps and I can't but notice the subtle hint of annoyance in her voice. It's probably not the best time for questions.
So without much else to do I keep browsing my omni-tool for something useful. Sure there must be something more about the salarian. C-sec has access to most of the information about citizens of the Citadel, but in this case there's not all that much. We already know he owns a shuttle, we are tracking it after all, and the fact he came on the Citadel just a year ago isn't very useful. His travel history though, that's an entirely different case. No wonder he is living in that shitty apartment, the amount of credits he spends on tickets must be astronomical.
My thoughts are abruptly disturbed when I see a flash of orange in the corner of my eye. For split of a second Vala takes her eyes away from 'the road' and shoot a brief glance at her omni-tool. "It's Tarrmal," she lets out a grunt. "I suppose he just got a call from the hospital." To my surprise she doesn't answer the call and instead shifts her attention back to driving.
"Why didn't you…" in mid-sentence my own omni-tool starts vibrating, just when Vala's stops. "Okay I get it," I remark dejected when I see who's calling. Great, so it's me who gets to say Tarrmal the awesome news. In a second I psychically prepare myself and hesitantly accept the call. Vala is nice enough to kill the annoying siren, allowing me to hear the beautiful voice of my boss.
"STOLL! What the hell is going on?! No one is answering my calls and apparently one of my people is injured. Where are the others?!"
Well, I knew he'd be angry. What I did not expect was that he'll ask me about 'the others' right away. I look at Vala unsure what should I say, but she just shifts her mandibles in some, to me unknown, gesture. So I just decide to start with Tiber.
"Ehm sir, Tiber was injured by Skinner while we were pursuing him, but Vala is here with me she's just driving. As for the Jess , well, she is… sort of… kidnapped." Here it goes…
"KIDNAPPED? What do you mean by KIDNAPPED?" shit. What follows is a series of not very pleasant words, occasionally interrupted when I get a chance to add some details. After what feels like an eternity it finally seems that Tarrmal ran out of insults.
It takes him a moment to calm down and gather up his thoughts. "So you have his location?" he asks with a heavy sigh.
"Yes, we are just on our way there," I reply, more than happy that he stopped yelling. "Once we get there…"
"Once you get there you'll wait for reinforcements!" Tarrmal snaps. "Because apparently one salarian is MUCH more than you can handle!" His tone is harsh and imperative. I seriously doubt that I, or anyone else, could make him change his opinion.
Understood," I say dryly instead of fighting a lost battle. But before I can kill the line Tarrmal continues, apparently satisfied with my lack of objections.
"One more thing human. I just got a report from the morgue about the things you and detective found in the clinic. It looks like skins of those people were reinforced with some kind of chemical, before they were skinned." Huh? "The report says that the remains of their skins were twice as strong as they should have been. Apparently Skinner did something to them. I am telling just so you know that I EXPECT your report will explain this!"
"Sure thing sir. Anything else you want to see in our report?" Ponies perhaps? He replies with annoyed grunt and kills the line. A small smile appears on my face immediately, but it quickly changes to frown. As if this case wasn't difficult enough, we now also have another mystery to figure out.
"The skin could explain how he managed to withstand when Jess threw him through of the window," Vala says suddenly. "That is if he is also using it himself."
"Yeah, maybe… but just so you know, I don't plan to sit on my ass I wait for 'reinforcements'." No way I will just watch from afar and Vala can stick her opinions to…
"I don't plan that either." Her words take me by surprise, but it doesn't look like she's kidding. "What, did you expect that I will just let someone else do my job?"
"YES! You are Vala, miss 'play by the book' god damn it! Of course I think so."
"You don't know shit about me human! I am not an idiot whom can't think for herself." The situation is so absurd that I just have to laugh.
"This is just great. What about that dock then? 'Oh no human, you did something against the rules!'" I say in ridiculously high-pitched voice. "So it's alright when you do it, but when I do it then it's wrong?"
She gives me an angry look. "That's not what I…" while she's looking at me I notice a shuttle in front of us, change its direction. It only takes me a moment to react and turn the wheel, what makes our shuttle shake and turn left. As we narrowly pass next to the other shuttle I hear a loud toot. After that Vala almost instantly clenches the wheel harder and corrects our course.
"We should talk about this later," I suggest and clench the handle on the door, hoping for the ride to be over.
Vala responds with a sharp nod and keeps clenching the wheel. Now I know how Ulah musts feel when I am driving. This is the nice thing about cars. You don't have to worry about three hundred foot drop in case you have an accident.
Fortunately the rest of the ride is much smoother. And after another, rather silent, few minutes we abruptly slow down and quickly begin descending. I get to see a glimpse of red and look down just in time to see the roof of the shuttle we are looking for before it's obscured by a tree. So this is it then, my impatience gets ten times worse when the shuttle's rear finally makes contact with the floor.
"Huh," with a frustrated growl I slam my hands against the shuttle's roof. "This would be so much easier if he just left her inside." Disappointed I step away from the shuttle. Our own is parked nearby, but because there was a chance that Skinner is around Vala landed in the empty alley around the corner. She doesn't look any happier that I do, but it seems she found something on the floor.
"Stains of blood. Look pretty fresh too."
Fuck, so Jess is still bleeding. I hope it's not that bad as it seems. Vala follows the trail of tiny blue droplets, but I can already see they are heading towards a… wall. I check again, but the path really leads to a wall. It takes me another second to notice some sort of panel attached to its surface few feet further. And only when I get closer I realize that what I am looking at is not a regular wall either. There seems to be slight gaps between the plates of which it's made, a door I realize suddenly. Looking at it from up close I am pretty sure it musts be something like that.
I look at Vala to see what she thinks of it and find her with her hands on the panel. "You have any idea what you're doing?"
The panel resembles a piece of modern art to me. It looks like a rather long prism slightly bent downwards towards the end. Somewhere in the middle of it are two holographic wheels with symbols and below them is a keyboard. I am not really sure in what language those symbols are, but even my translator is having some trouble with them.
"Yes, there was a course about how to operate keeper control panels. I never thought I will have an opportunity to use it though," she adds silently. But what I care more is that she mentioned those bugs. "You've heard about keepers I hope." I quickly try to hide the nervousness clearly displayed on my face.
"Yep, sure I have. And I knew I've seen this somewhere before," I say a bit too fast and point at the panel "Any idea where the door leads?" Vala keeps looking at me suspiciously for a few seconds and when she finally looks away I breathe out inconspicuous sign of relief.
When I first met with a keeper I didn't have a slightest idea what they are and meeting with one in an empty hallway was… rather stressing, to say at least. It took me like five minutes to slowly back away from it. When I asked Ulah about them I felt pretty dumb, because apparently they are completely harmless. But that still doesn't change the fact I don't like them.
"Not really. These tunnels are only used by the keepers and it's literally a maze, which can lead you pretty much anywhere."
"But you guys have been living on the Citadel for like thousand years!" I interrupt her." Are you really trying to tell me no one has ever explored them or something? I mean, how hard can it possibly be?"
Vala responses with a smirk: "You'll see for yourself."
When Vala finally gets the door open, after I get to hear many MANY turian curses, I am the first one to look inside. Unlike I thought, it doesn't resemble the tunnels we were in the morning. No red lights, that's for sure. The drawback is that the ceiling inside is pretty low and doesn't leave much space for the head. Vala will most likely have to bend a little. "You're going or what?" I ask Vala when I notice she isn't following me inside.
"Yeah yeah, going," she quickly replies after looking in the direction of Skinner's shuttle. I bet that part of her wants to wait for reinforcements. But despite her initial hesitance it doesn't take her long to catch up with me. The tunnel is wide enough and we can easily walk next to each other, but we only get to walk a few when the door behind us shuts at once, sending a sharp clang through the empty tunnel. I hope Vala knows how to open it from this side.
We keep going forward for what feels like eternity and I slowly start to realize what Vala meant by the maze. The tunnel walls here are plain simple, no paint, decorations, no nothing just a simple light every few feet. Not very stimulating environment, but at least there's enough light. Soon we reach the first crossroad and things get a bit harder.
"The blood," Vala reminds me and I turn to the right, seeing the droplets continue that way. "You don't really need to worry about keepers," she suddenly says. "What, you thought I wouldn't notice? When I mentioned them outside you looked like you shit your pants."
"No! I am not… c'mon! They are giant bugs, you don't find that creepy?" In return I don't get the answer, just a smug smirk. "Whatever, but as far as I know, you guys still don't know shit about them, so, if you don't mind, I will just keep on being wary." The smirk stays on Vala's face for a little while longer and then she again puts on her serious face. We are, after all, looking for a murderer here.
The further we get, the harder is it to follow the blood and the more lost I get. There must have been like six or seven crossroads already, I doubt I could find my way back without a map. Oh, and the blood on the floor is gone, so we can't use that either. But apparently that still isn't enough of the bad news, because there's a keeper in front of us, heading our way.
I heard him long before I got to see him, mainly thanks to his four legs which make A LOT of noise. Those rhythmical thuds are simply unmistakable. But even worse than those legs are its huge black eyes which have been staring right at me since it first saw me. They make the head of that thing look grotesquely small. Sticking out from behind its back is a long antenna which, as I already know, leads to a small backpack-device.
"Just let it pass human," mimicking Vala I lean against a wall and as the keeper walks next to us I can't but notice that its long neck is shaped like a question mark. From up close the keeper looks even more disturbing. But fortunately the thing doesn't even seem to notice us and continues through the tunnel, slowly heading towards its target… wherever that is.
I detach my back from the wall and release a breath which I didn't even know I was holding. "And you were afraid," Vala doesn't forget to mock me.
Pretending I didn't hear her I look at my omni-tool map, only to find out that it apparently can't pinpoint my location. 'Well you are in a tunnel, surrounded with God-knows-how-much material. Of course there is not any signal here,' I say to myself and again start walking.
Just as I feared we reached another crossroad and this time there are not only three possible directions to choose from, but five. Five exactly the same looking tunnels, heading in five different directions and no blood on the floor to guide us. "Soo, how about we go…"
A silent whisper coming from one of the tunnels instantly makes me shut up. Someone is definitely talking, but I can't really say wherefrom the voice is coming from. After a few seconds of listening I narrow it down to the corridors on our left. "Which one?" this time I keep my voice down and look at Vala. Her gaze alternately shifts from one corridor into another and then she hesitantly points at the one on our left.
"That one… I think."
As I have no idea myself I decide to trust Vala's judgment and start walking in the direction se picked. It doesn't take long and the whispers get slightly louder and I catch bits of words. It seems the turian was right then. Whoever is talking doesn't sound very happy, but from what I can hear it's definitely a salarian… and male. Doesn't leave much space for doubts.
At once he sharply swears and I get to see a brief glimpse of his coat as he withdraws from behind a corner. "HEEELP!" Jess' sharp yell fills the entire tunnel and creates a rather scary echo. But before she can shout again she is interrupted and her second attempt comes out as muffled gurgle.
"Shut up! Keepers don't give a shit about you and there's no one else!" We are close enough now and I can clearly hear Skinner. His voice is coming from around the corner where I saw him and he's obviously talking to Jess. The acoustics here work both ways though, so in order to remain silent I have to pay a lot of attention to how I step onto floor. On one hand I want to get to the asari as fast as possible, but my walk is also ungodly slow and I am not even talking about Vala. Though her boots seem to have some sort of padding they are by far not used for silent sneaking.
"Don't worry, once I get from the Citadel I'll let C-sec know where they can find you," Skinner continues and this time in somewhat... soothing tone. Wait, he's not about to kill her? "For your own good, you should pray they won't give me any trouble."
I don't get much time to process the new information when Skinner's figure suddenly appears in front of me. For a second I freeze and keep staring at him. The distance between us is a bit more than fifty feet, but I can see that he is not in such a good state as he was when I last saw him. The bruise on one of his horns and the fact that he's holding his hand in a rather weird angle are both proofs that Jess put up a good fight. But despite his injuries, he doesn't hesitate like I just did.
In a clearly practiced movement he grabs the gun hidden in his coat and almost without aiming sends a salve of bullets our way. Most of them hit only sides of the tunnel, but one somehow finds me, only to be stopped by my shield. Sound of the gunshots, multiplied by the walls, unfortunately isn't stopped by anything and makes my ears bleed and when Vala's gun joins the Skinner's it becomes almost unbearable.
"Overload!" Vala shouts through the noise. It takes me only a millisecond to understand what she wants and aim my omni-tool. Skinner reacts just as fast though, quickly diving into tunnel next to him, so the ball of sparks harmlessly explodes in midair.
'Well, at least he's running away from Jess,' I think, before I start running after him. The sharp pain, which suddenly erupts in my head, reminds me of the low ceiling. Vala next to me curses from the exact same reason. We soon get to the place where Skinner ran into the corridor and I can't resist taking a look at Jess.
She is lying on the floor, apparently tied, and doesn't look all that good either. From the brief look I can tell that her crest is covered in blood both fresh and dried, but as scary as it looks she seems to have quite some life left in her. Through the rag in her mouth she tries to yell something, but her words end up like inarticulate mess.
"Don't go anywhere," I shout at her to assure her we'll be back and realize my poor choice of words soon afterwards. From the other direction Skinner fires some more bullets at us and keeps running, but soon disappears out of our sight again at the place where the tunnel turns to the right.
Our only choice is to keep blindly following him. The way in which these tunnels amplify sound comes in handy and we can at least hear his footsteps somewhere ahead of us. And just as I start to have the feeling that we are catching up with him I find myself at another crossroad. This time it only splits into two tunnels and I instantly pick the one on my right, hearing the noise from that direction. But that's when Vala leaves my side and instead runs into the other tunnel.
At the same time we look at each other with the same questioning expression.
"It's this way!" we shout at once gesturing towards our tunnel.
No matter what she thinks THIS is the right way. "Split up!" I yell after her and keep running, soon losing her completely.
I only get to run for half a minute or so, when I hear a loud shout and gunshots coming from behind me. The sound of the gunshots is accompanied by a loud scared shout, which dies off along with the gunfire a moment later. "Fuck!" I was so sure! Mentally swearing ta my stupidity I turn around, because apparently I chose the wrong way. I recognize Vala's familiar voice when she shouts something and more gunshots soon follow. But as I keep sprinting I start to have a feeling that I hear something else in the distance. Like if someone was playing on a drum or something. It's a very regular sound which very much resembles…
… no, I am sure it's not that. A second before I reach the corner of the tunnel someone lets out a grunt and soon after there's a dull thud as something heavy hits the ground. When I finally get round the corner I get to see a rather creepy scene. Skinner is lying on the floor with his clothes ripped apart and bloodied. Next to him is his gun, but what really hits me is the fact that there's an arm next to it. Twisted, green, bug-like arm covered in disgusting slime. And the creature it belongs to is now standing next to Vala.
"Vala!" I immediately rule out the baton in my pocket and instead go for the Vala's pistol, lying below me.
The keeper holding Vala looks seriously injured with one of its arms completely missing and multiple gunshot wounds across its chest, but it's still standing nonetheless. The place where his arm used to be resembles a small bloody crater, though I'd expect more blood, slime or whatever, from the wound like that. Vala is clearly in disadvantage, pinned against a wall and being attacked by three arms at the same time. Without a gun she's just pushing the keeper away from her using her hands and by the looks of it I'd say that keeper is much stronger than it seems.
Once I grab the gun, it doesn't take me even a second to aim and fire. Headshot is something even I can do at this distance and so the keeper's head gets blown to pieces by a single bullet… the other ones I shoot are just to make sure it's dead. Finally the bloodied corpse falls onto ground almost noiselessly, but even when dead, keeper's legs continue to shake morbidly for a few seconds.
In the silence which follows I can clearly hear the sound I couldn't place before. After what happened here it is pretty obvious what it is. Keepers… and lots of them!
"We need to get away from here!" to that I can only agree and hurriedly handle Vala her gun. Skinner is still dazed and it looks like there's a fresh stain of green blood on his forehead. But, he's alive.
God I am such a good guy. I mentally sigh and lift him off the ground. His weight pulls me down, but he's not by any means heavy. The gun which was next to him finds its way to my pocket. "Don't worry Stoll! They are harmless Stoll!" I shout at Vala, earning myself an ugly look. As I pass the dead keeper I notice that after ten seconds of being dead it already looks like a month old rotting corpse. But I don't even think about stopping to inspect it.
The way back takes us a lot longer and Skinner on my shoulder turns out to be pretty heavy after a while of jogging. When I start sweating I almost wish for him to be conscious and running around. But just almost.
As we move the noises from behind us keep getting closer. I can hear the sound of many legs hitting the floor, accompanied with an unsettling rattle. Suddenly a keeper appears from one of the side tunnels and instantly starts charging right at us. Inside a tunnel that sure is a horrifying sight. But I don't even get a chance to curse before Vala puts the thing down. It takes only a few well-aimed shots form her pistol and the creature falls down with some new breathing holes in its head.
"Gross," Vala says in disgust and there's not much else to say about the corpse. I don't even want to know what that thing is made of.
Without warning Vala abruptly stops, giving me some time to catch my breath. The bounded asari at her feet also might have something to do with that. Setting to work Vala firstly removes the rag from her mouth allowing Jess to breathe properly and then moves on to the rope.
"Finally!" Jess pants out and clears her throat. "What is going on? What happened to… a keeper?!"
I hear the keeper before Jess sees it and by the time she asks about it I am already halfway turned. The gun I took from Skinner leaves my pocket and I roughly throw its previous owner on the floor. Bullets I shoot hit pretty much everything in the tunnel except for the keeper, but when it gets a bit closer one of the bullets at last ends up in the intended target.
With its leg now crippled the keeper trips and lands headfirst on the floor. I hear something loudly snap and when the thing stops moving I assume that it must have been something important. Once again I pick the Skinner of the ground.
"What is going on?!" None of us bothers to explain Jess' question.
"Vala are you writing a poem over there?" I ask her impatiently. It doesn't look like she has made any progress and I am getting A BIT impatient.
She responds with a growl and, despite her loud protests, picks Jess of the ground. "I don't have anything to cut the ropes," the explanation doesn't really matter to me when I see another three keepers quickly approaching us from behind. If I was worried that we won't find our way back before, now I don't give a shit where I end up as long it's not here. Encouraged by a yell from Jess we run into the only tunnel in which we can't see any keepers yet.
As we run I keep turning around every once in a while to shoot a few bullets at the keepers, but they soon learn to keep some distance. "Cover me Stoll!" Vala shouts and I look back just in time to see her put Jess on the ground and approach a device on the wall. I quickly realize it's another keeper terminal with a door next to it, but I am pretty sure this is not the place where we entered.
The ugly head which pops out from behind a wall, makes me shake Skinner off and fire a single shot. It is more than enough to make the keeper retreat out of my view. I keep staring at the empty corridor in front of me, but the longer I wait the more time it gives keepers to assemble. Noises I hear from up ahead tell me that there must be at least dozen of them by now.
"Vala!" I hurry her and fire at the two keepers who pop out to try their chances. It takes more shots to drive them back this time and as I fire the last shot a little bit of steam escapes the barrel of the gun, which then lets out a sharp beep.
Like if someone flipped the switch, all the keepers as one emerge from cover, charging right at us. The heavy pounding of their legs makes the entire floor vibrate… all I can see in front of me are their weird bodies which… "C'MON! The door is open." In instant I grab the salarian, run through the now open door behind me and almost collide with Vala in the process.
She is standing right in front of the door with her pistol raised and aimed at the keepers inside. I get out of her way and she immediately starts firing. A second later I realize that she's not trying to kill them. Most of her shots end up in the legs and arms of the charging mass, and it works. Out of nine keepers only two fell down, but the rest, seeing it, turns around desperately trying to get back into tunnels. I open my mouth in disbelief when I see them all disappear from my view. Not a second later the door in front of us shuts.
"What THE HELL was that about?"
I kneel down to inspect Skinner's injuries and leave Jess' questions for Vala to handle. To the salarian's shame I don't have any medi-gel with me, but seeing his injuries I don't think it would help much. It definitely wouldn't do any good to his broken arm, that's for sure. And when it comes to his chest, well… Carefully I pull his bloodied coat aside to inspect the wound.
A silent groan escapes my mouth when I first see the scratches. There are so many of them! They don't look all fresh though and that's pretty weird. The ones which do look fresh are short, shallow and bleeding, but don't look life threatening. Old ones, those are much more interesting. I grab the rub of his cloak and clean some of the blood, so I can have a better look.
"Weird," I whisper for myself. These are not scars caused by a weapon, or talon. Their shape kind of resembles the cracks which appear on mud when it dries. On touch his skin feels very rigid. Now, I don't know all that much about salarians, but this doesn't seem right.
The sudden sound of siren makes me look up, where I can see two blue c-sec shuttles heading our way. With a smile on my face I turn to Vala: "Just on time, aren't they?"
Hospital of Alune 22:16
"I am telling you, they attacked him because he shot one of them!" Vala says for the third time in clearly annoyed tone.
"But he didn't shoot at all the others, how do you explain that?! It's much more likely that they were attracted to that chemical he had or something." Honestly, I stopped taking this argument seriously ten minutes ago, but it is fun to see Vala getting worked up over nothing. Well, at least it's funnier than waiting, for the second time today and in the same hospital I might add. Jess and Tiber are here too, but this time both as patients. Jess has something called fracture of me… whatever, she has a broken crest, but that's not really why we are here.
Our turian reinforcements weren't very enthusiastic about being our taxi, but they gave us a lift here anyway. Doctor Grotos, as everyone here is referring to Skinner, was immediately taken to one of the upper floors and I and Vala decided that it'll be for the best if we stay. Doctors told us they will sedate the salarian, but one can be never sure, right? The bastard definitely loves to flee.
Vala loudly sights and changes the theme: "Where is that nurse, she said that the surgery won't take longer than an hour!"
I just shrug my shoulders in response. That only reminds me how uncomfortable the bench I am lying on is, so I clumsily straighten up and slowly sit down. Vala is sitting on her own bench, on the opposite side of the hallway, and is blankly staring back at me. "You know, you can use the time to think about what we will say to Tarrmal."
"Yeah…," she agrees wearily and leans against the wall behind her. "Any ideas? You are pretty good when it comes to this."
I can't help it, but chuckle at that. "Heh, be careful Vala, that almost sounded like a compliment." The comment earns me a sarcastic look from her. "So, how about this: we were standing right next to the shuttle, waiting for reinforcements of course, when suddenly we heard something in the tunnel next to us. We recognized Skinner's voice and went in to check it."
…
"Don't look at me like that, it's just an idea!"
A small amused smile appears on Vala's face. "I guess I will just have to think of something better."
Another few minutes pass in silence and make me regret I don't have any human music with me here. Wait, can omni-tool even play music? Suddenly a thought occurs to me, back when Vala was opening the door…
"Hey Vala?"
"Huh?"
"I could swear back in that tunnel you called me Stoll."
Author note:
Well, ehm, sorry for the delay. This chapter really gave me some trouble and the case still isn't even solved yet! Next chapter should finally wrap things up and also focus a bit more on the other things. Like Ulah, his girlfriend, Stoll's fan… you know stuff. (And because I am still not done with apologizing, sorry for the mistakes)
P.S.: I hope that the next chapter won't take one month to write.