Chapter 26
A/N: Man, it has been a WHILE! You wouldn't believe how busy my week's been since the last update…school has been hurling work at me, SOMEBODY accidentally linked me to a computer virus which took a while to purge (he knows who he is) and I've also been celebrating my birthday. So yeah, stuff's been happening.
But now I'm back and ready to write! So without further ado, let's crack on!
Oh man. That jump looked a lot smaller on the diagram Garrus showed us back at C-Sec. And I mean, a lot. I thought it would be a simple hop across, but instead I'm looking at a six metre leap to the rooftop a significant distance below me. So, if I don't jump far enough, I fall about six or so stories and die. If I do jump far enough and then cock up the landing, I break my legs. Garrus has a hell of a lot to answer for when I get back down there…
The climb up wasn't too difficult, thankfully. The only minor complications were having to wall jump one point (just two jumps, thankfully, or I'd have been screwed), a wall run jump, which is as hard as it sounds, and a sketchy traverse across an incredibly thin bit of floor. Still, nothing quite as risky as hurling myself across a gap most people would see as suicidal. The things I do in the name of the law.
"Are you up there yet?" Garrus's voice crackles in my ear. Ah, just the man I wanted to talk to!
"Getting up wasn't a problem. It's getting down that's causing me problems. Your diagram didn't quite capture how lethal this situation is." I'm trying to work out my ideal trajectory in my head…Jesus, there's actually a risk I'll overshoot and roll of the edge of the roof on landing if I'm not careful. I'm just grateful there's no wind on the Citadel or this would be bloody impossible.
"Yeah, blame it on whoever wrote the schematics." He's so sympathetic and caring… "The cargo's already in the building, they'll start moving it out from here relatively soon. So, you might need to get over your fear of flying."
"Oh, right, that's hilarious. You wouldn't be laughing if you were up here!"
"Good thing I'm not, then. If you fall, Rebecca can probably put you back together."
"Again, not funny!"
"Just get it done, Ian. Garrus out." There's a small click as the radio transmission dies. I look over the lip of the roof, and can just about see the blue tinted eyepiece Garrus constantly wears. I aim my middle finger towards it, then look back at the roof. The longer I stand here, the more I'm going to worry and the more I'm going to consider bottling it…I may not like it, but Garrus had a point. Time to get over my fear of flying.
The trajectory calculations I ran in my mind aren't quite as nice as I hoped. From up here, I'm going to need to jump just under my full potential, and go straight out rather than up to avoid leg damage on the landing. I've got a landing zone of about three metres long to make it to in order to land, roll and not fall off the ridiculously high roof I'm facing down. How hard can it be? I retreat back a few metres on the roof, preparing for my run up. Full speed, jump straight out, don't do anything stupid. Stop thinking, and just jump. I accelerate out, driving my arms through the Citadel's sterile air, legs pounding on the jagged surface below my feet…my right, leading foot hits the edge of the roof spot on the edge, and I push off, hurling myself through the six metre gap of space between rooftops and the sudden drop rushing towards me. Time seems to slow down slightly as I brace for the impact, checking I'm going to make the landing zone…my feet slam into the ground, and I push off my toes and put my hands down into the forward roll, advancing far too fast towards the edge. Hurling my weight to the opposite side, I manage to slide to a halt much later than I'd have liked, ankles hanging over the rooftop. Shit, that was way, way too close!
The adrenaline slowly wears off, and I become acutely aware of how hard I'm breathing. I tentatively try standing up, testing my legs' ability to carry my weight. There's a bit of an ache from the impact, but nothing that's going to handicap me…infiltrating a building filled with bloodthirsty guards seems relatively tame compared to this. Garrus's voice comes through my headset again.
"I saw that, Ian."
"Not bad, eh? Overshot it a bit more than I'd have liked, but at least…"
"I was talking about that hand gesture you gave me just before you jumped. Very unprofessional."
How the hell did he see that? "Does your eyepiece have magnification on it?"
"Yep."
Awkward silence ensues.
"Anyway…I'm ready to go in now. Do your team have a thermal scan ready?"
"Sending it to your omni-tool now." I pop it open, and a building schematic flares up in front of me along with red outlines of the guards moving around inside. I'm also on the scan, but marked with a blue tint for the sake of the ground team, and so I don't scare myself by thinking I'm a hostile. "Good jump as well, by the way."
"Thanks, I thought so too."
I can faintly hear him laughing and muttering 'cocky bastard' to someone on the ground team. I resent that! "You're good to go in now," he announces. "Be careful. Last thing I want to end up doing is having to send in a team to rescue you."
"I'll be careful. All I have to do is flick a switch, and evade about twelve people spread over five floors. No problem." I hop into the vent, and start following it down into the building. "Ian out."
###############
I drop down from the vent into the seemingly abandoned fifth floor, landing softly on the balls of my feet, which sends a searing pain up my legs and causes me to fall over. Guess I'm no Thane Krios yet…though that scene would have been pretty damn hilarious if this had happened to him in Nassana's office. Heaving myself back up, I survey my surroundings and check the scan. There's nobody on the fifth floor, probably because this place seems completely pointless. Some old desks, a few chairs and a lot of dust. It's actually quite creepy…if it wasn't for the pistol strapped to my hip and omni-tool glowing in the gloomy darkness I'd probably be getting a little bit freaked out. It's the kind of place you'd expect to see in Alan Wake or something, not bloody Mass Effect. I quite fancy getting off this floor as quickly as possible. There's some more modern stairs in the corner, and I slowly advance towards them, keeping moving as quickly and quietly as possible. I can do a pretty much silent run, crouching slightly, not as fast as if I threw caution to the wind, but it'll have to do me in here. Alright, down the stairs I go…apparently there's one guy up here, sitting in a secluded room. Bet he's having a cigarette away from the rest of the group…I advance along the corridor stealthily to the room where he's sitting and glance through the window looking into the room. True to form, someone human guard dressed in casual clothing is sitting there, leaning back in his chair and taking a drag on the cigarette he's clutching tightly between his thumb and index finger. The temptation to walk into the room, say 'smoking kills' and shoot him is absolutely huge, but I really don't need the trouble. Best just to leave this guy where he is, I doubt he'll be leaving any time soon.
The main problem that's struck me, stalking along the fourth floor to the steps, is that I have no idea at all where the damn switch for the doors is located. I've been having to check every single room I've gone past so far…and I doubt it's handily going to be located on one of the top floors. What's even more disturbing is how packed the floors below me are. There's three guards milling about on the third floor, then four on the second and first floors respectively. Bearing in mind I need to check every room…yeah, this could be a little problematic. No other choice though, as I descend further into the depths of the building. Each floor seems to be completely different…this one has a similar style to an office building, with plenty of rooms to check. Bugger. This place is like the mind in Inception, with all the different layers, each seemingly unique…Each descent also seems to make it a hell of a lot more dangerous for me with all the guards.
Thankfully, the three guards on this floor are playing some card game in a side room…and are all human again. Looks like we're dealing with a completely human based organisation here…meaning the usual mercenary suspects like the Blue Suns and Eclipse are out. They're also not organised enough to be Cerberus, so it looks like we're dealing with a bunch of amateurs here. Looks like they're probably trying to set up their own smuggling ring or something…too bad for them Garrus and I caught wind of it. It takes me about five minutes to check every room on the third floor, plenty of door hacking and checking computers to keep me entertained, and I start to head back along the main corridor towards the steps again. Then a movement on my omni-tool display causes me to panic and dive behind the nearest wall, as one of the red outlines on this floor suddenly stands up for seemingly no reason and starts advancing slowly towards my position. Shit, they must have heard me or something! The guard is about three metres away from my wall, as soon as he walks past it he'll see me. I can easily take him, and probably his two friends, but my cover will be well and truly blown and the operation will go straight to hell…
One metre away now, and I'm readying my pistol for the kill shot, when one of his friends from down the corridor shouts out.
"Leon! You find anything?"
The red outline stops, literally centimetres away from me and his death, seemingly considering his position. Come on, for both our sakes, don't come around the corner…
"It's nothing. I thought I heard something." I almost sigh with relief, stopping myself just in time.
"Well, you better hurry back, because Doug's gonna take your turn for you!" The guy shouts, his friend laughing in the background.
"Don't you fucking dare!" Leon shouts, jogging back along the corridor towards his card game. Jesus Christ, that was way too close. I need to find this switch fast, before my luck runs out completely. I poke my head around the corner, make sure it's completely clear, and advance back down it towards the staircase. Second floor looks like it's going to be a problem. There's guards walking around in what actually seems to be some kind of organised patrol, which I'm amazed to see considering the sophistication of the security upstairs. Still, nothing to complex, they've left a huge gap in the patrol pattern I can slip through without being noticed…I wait for the corridor ahead of me to clear, before moving forward as fast I can and diving into a random room as the guards come back around the corner and into my line of sight again. Looks like I'm in some kind of break-room…with plenty of memos and such like scattered on the board attached to the wall. I start reading them frantically, searching for some kind of information on where the switch is located. Why do people have to make this kind of stuff so hard? Can't there be some kind of massive signpost to help people out around here? Wait, here we go! There's a small handwritten note stuck up saying 'In case of emergencie, door control on first floor.' Wow, these people can't even spell properly…definitely amateurs.
I back away from the wall, glancing back down at my omni-tool, then doing a double take when I see what's happening on it. One of the guards is almost right outside the door, and it looks like he's heading in! I run into the corner behind the door, just as it opens and the guard steps through, standing right in front of me, his back turned. I wait for the door to slide shut, then slowly draw my pistol and twat him over the head with it as hard as I can when the door's shut and no-one's around, sending him crashing to the floor. Oh, shit, that's not good. I need to try and hide the body before people come in here, find him just lying there and raise the alarm. I grab him under the shoulder and start dragging him behind the cupboard standing to the side of the room. Man, unconscious people weigh a bloody ton, talk about dead weight…to my shock, the door opens and another guard walks in, looking at the scene before him with absolute disbelief.
"Erm…he slipped?"
The guard snaps out of his shock and lunges for the alarm, but I'm quicker, unleashing an Overload from my omni-tool at him. I was aiming at the alarm, but the Overload hits the unprotected merc, sending electricity coursing through his body and causing him to spasm uncontrollably before he slumps onto the ground, body smoking slightly. Shit, I think I might have killed that guy…this has NOT gone well, at all. I start to grab him, just as the door slides open again and another guard steps through, same look of disbelief stuck on his face as the last guy who walked in.
"You've got to be shitting me…" The guard, realising he's too far away from the alarm, launches a kick at me, which I bat aside with my forearm. He follows it up with a straight punch, which I catch with my hand. When I first arrived on this universe, this guy might have kicked my ass, but a year and a bit of working with Garrus and being taught unarmed combat from a top hand-to-hand specialist in the turian military has sharpened my skills beyond most others. I crush his knuckles in my hand, causing him to wince in pain, then follow it up with an uppercut to his unprotected stomach, sending him staggering backwards and buckled over in pain. He shakes his head, then lets out a little shout and charges towards me. Bad move. I spin my left leg around, building up momentum, then jump and bring the right one around as fast I can just as he reaches me and hit him square in the face. The combined momentum of his sprint and the force of my roundhouse kick actually cause him to do a backflip due to the sudden drop in speed, and he lies on the floor unconscious. Jesus Christ, this has not gone to plan at all. I wanted to just check a memo, not end up laying out three guards! There's one more on this floor…but now I know where about the switch is I don't want to risk anything by bringing the fight to him. Better open the doors instead, and fast, before anyone works out what's going on within the building.
I hurry down the steps to the first floor, glancing at the omni-tool display. We've got four guards here, but they're all bunched together in the cargo hold dealing with the organs. That means I've got a clear run to the switch, wherever it is around here…there's only two rooms around here, one looks like it's for administrative work, so therefore the other must contain the switch! I walk through the door to it, and I'm greeted by a row of monitors and buttons. I scan the labels as fast as I can…main door control! I press it, and the monitors flash as the text on them changes to 'Password Required.' Goddamit! I start the bypass module on my omni-tool, watching the progress bar on the display fill up slowly as the thermal scan is minimised. Well, not how I'd ideally planned this out, but we've got results. Time for Garrus and his squad of heavily armed cohorts to charge in and steal all the glory once the door opens. My omni-tool beeps cheerfully as the hack is completed, and the door control turns green to indicate it's unlocked. Alright, now all I have to do is tell Garrus what's going on and we should be…
"Put your hands where I can see them," a voice barks around me. Fuck, he must have snuck up on me while the thermal scan was minimised! I sneakily press a button on my omni-tool to activate the radio just before I turn around, and whisper into the mic:
"The door's open. Come in hard before they can organise."
"Roger," Garrus's voice crackles in a military fashion in my ear. I slowly swivel around, both hands in the air, watching the main door from the room's window out of the corner of my eye.
"Who the fuck are you?" The guy asks. Or should that be the kid? He barely looks seventeen, worried expression on his face, and the gun is shaking slightly in his hands. He's nervous…but from this distance even someone with shaky hands isn't going to miss.
"C-Sec, mate," I say calmly. "Put the gun down, you're not going to shoot an officer."
"You don't make demands!" the kid shouts, stepping forward slightly with the gun.
"Look, you're scared. I get that, but if you shoot me you're going to be in even more trouble than you are now. Just put the gun down, and we can talk."
"Like fuck, officer!" He shouts. Poor, misguided bastard…I actually feel really sad when I see someone this young turned into a thug like this. Where the hell are Garrus and the squad!
"Think about what you're doing here. You shoot me, you'll go away for the rest of your life." The gun's still shaking in his hands, but it's too risky to go for the disarm…
"Shut up!" He shouts. "Just shut…" There's a huge bang from outside as the doors slide open and the C-Sec team charge in, firing weapons into the air and loosing off stun grenades to incapacitate the guards before they can fire back. The kid stares out of the window, gobsmacked, giving me more than enough time to lunge forward and punch him hard in the temple, knocking him unconscious. I almost feel bad for doing it…but I hardly had a choice. He'll live, just wake up with one hell of headache.
I head back out the door, practically running into Garrus as the majority of the C-Sec team dashes upstairs to subdue the remaining guards as the others secure the organ cargo. Garrus flashes me a grin after we bounce off each other with slight surprise.
"Great work, Ian! That went perfectly!"
"Erm…" A voice comes through both our headsets, a surprised turian from the C-Sec team. "There's a breakroom here…we've got a three unconscious humans here, looks like one got hit by an electricity transformer or something."
Garrus looks at me, and I raise an eyebrow. "Not exactly perfect, but I got it done. You took your time getting in here! I was at gunpoint!"
"You know me," he smiles. "Always going for the dramatic entrance." I groan in despair, and look over to the stacks of crate spread out across the cargo area.
"You got a crowbar for these crates this time around? We can't just shoot them up like the red sand ones."
"I've got it covered." He gives one of the turians by the crates a nod, and said turian produces a crowbar seemingly from nowhere and cracks the crate open. It's filled with some kind of material to cushion the organ…the turian reaches in and pulls what looks like a turian liver out. Result! Looks like we've got ourselves a successful raid!
"Alright," Garrus says, still smiling. "Let's see what we've got here."
A/N: Well, that was fun. Stealth is cool, right?
So next chapter, evidence collection and analysis. That turian liver's going to be important, as people who know about how the case is described by Garrus in ME1 will be aware…good times with that.
Oh yeah, it was my birthday yesterday (it was great, got money and Microsoft Points...meaning more ME2 DLC and Lair of the Shadow Broker…), but you guys can still give me a present. If all of you could leave a review, even if it just said 'good chapter' or if you want to write an essay...it would be the best present I could have.
Regardless of whether or not you do, thanks for reading, and see you next chapter!