MASS EFFECT: INTERREGNUM


AN EYE FOR AN EYE

ONE: INTERSECTION


The three men stood in a doorway, out of sight of anyone who might happen to pass them on the street, and argued.

"We're doomed," Monteague said morosely. The exertion of hauling around fifteen kilos of solid armour was telling on his tall, lanky frame, and the faint orange glow of the street lighting reflected back off his shaven, sweat-slick scalp as he fixed Weaver with a baleful glare. "You're stupid and rash and insane and one day we're all going to die because of you."

"We're not going to die," Weaver snapped. "Every bloody time it's 'oh, we're doomed, there's no chance we can do this, let's go home and cower in a corner', and every bloody time you're wrong."

"But the difference is that I can be wrong hundreds of times. I can only be right once, which is one more than you've ever managed."

Weaver jabbed a massive finger at Monteague's face. The two of them were about the same height, but Weaver probably weighed in at twice the mass and quite possibly twice the width. "Put a cork in it, you miserable French bastard, or I'll damn well put one there for you."

Monteague snorted. "Imbecile."

"Coward!"

"I believe the term you're searching for is 'realist'," Monteague said. "Perhaps it is a difficult concept for you, no?"

"I'll give you-" Weaver began, but the third man, who was facing away from the other two, towards the empty street, held up a hand for silence. He got it immediately.

"Weaver, stop being an jackass," he said. "Luc, stop being depressing."

"I know no other way of being," Monteague said sourly. "What else can one be in this infernal place with this great half-shaven ape breathing down my neck at every turn?"

"Half-shaven?" Weaver said suspiciously. "Is this about my beard again?"

"It's ridiculous. It looks like you glued half a dog to your face."

Weaver raised a defensive hand to his chin and ran his fingers through the sandy brown mass growing on it."At least I have enough testosterone to grow one."

"Beards do not work that way."

"What are you talking about? That exactly how beards work-"

The third man was about a foot shorter than either of them, but when he turned around, both the taller men fell silent again instantly. "Weaver. Stop being a jackass. Luc. Stop being depressing. Both of you. Shut the hell up."

"Come on, Chang," Weaver groused. "We've been standing here for twenty minutes. I want to kill something."

"There's a surprise," Monteague murmured.

"Can I at least kill him?" Weaver said. "Please?"

Chang rolled his eyes. "Yes," he said, "if you've spontaneously developed the ability to manipulate major psychic energy fields in the last few minutes. Is that something you can do?"

"No, but I can punch people very hard."

"Congratulations," Chang said drily, "but as useful a talent as that is, for the moment a biotic is more useful."

"So... can I kill him later?" Weaver said hopefully.

Chang shrugged and turned away. "We'll see."

"Ah, of course," Monteague said. "Throw me to the wolves as soon as I'm no use to you. I had forgotten what a wonderful person you are, Chang."

"Shut it, Luc."

There were a few moments of silence.

Weaver ran his fingers through his mane of thick, wavy brown hair. They came away slick with sweat. Omega was never exactly well-ventilated, and they were deep in the bowels of the dank, tightly-packed warehouse districts, and his armour weighed in at thirty kilos total. He was a massive mountain of a man, but the load was damn heavy all the same.

Anyone asked to describe him would probably use the word 'big' fairly frequently. At six foot seven, he towered over pretty much everyone – but where Monteague was built like a beanpole, Weaver was built like a rugby player. That was largely because he was one, or at least had played at a semi-professional level before he'd come to Omega; his shoulders were enormously broad, his legs were the size of substantial tree-trunks, and his arms had, on at least two occasions, punched out a krogan. His beard was thick and bristling while his hair reached almost down to his shoulders, and even the gun he carried – a customised variant on the M-76 Revenant which sacrificed mobility for more power – was enormous, a great thick lump of brown metal approximately the size of a child. He was certainly cradling it like a child as they stood in the alcove, and he was very much looking forward to getting some use out of it. He'd always personally preferred to kill with his bare hands, but that just wasn't practical in firefights, much to his annoyance. Still, maybe if we take Williams alive...

The thought of slowly strangling Gus Williams to death was a pleasant one, and Weaver was still enjoying it thirty seconds later when Chang brought a hand to his ear and muttered an acknowledgement into his collar.

"First team's moving in," he said. He turned back to Weaver and Monteague, drawing his Vindicator, and jerked his head in the general direction of the warehouse. "Let's move."

Weaver grinned and raised his own rifle. "Some action at last."

"Don't kill Williams unless you absolutely have to," Chang said. He stepped out into the street and began heading for their destination, Weaver and Monteague falling into step behind him. "And frankly, he's more important than you right now, so if it comes down to choosing between your death and his, do me a favour and choose yours."

"I brim with encouragement," Monteague said bleakly.

"Once we've got the shipment, we can kill him, though," Weaver said. "Right?"

"Talk to Harrison," Chang said curtly. "It's his decision. Cut the chatter."

They rounded a corner in silence and headed down an empty street towards the warehouse at the other end. By Omega time, it was somewhere in the early hours of the morning, but areas like these usually had at least a few people around at any given time. People are scared, Weaver thought. What is it now, five dead here in the last week? And that's just the bodies they found...

A splash of white paint on a building to Weaver's left caught his eye as they moved down the street; they were quickly past it, but he'd turned his head fast enough to get a good look at what it was. He'd seen the design a few times before, or variants on it, sprayed in several districts across the station. Whoever was in control of the area usually had them taken down within the day, but they kept popping up faster than they could be destroyed. The design was simple: two white wings that curved up, this one with the wings smooth and flat. Some versions made them feathery or lost the curve, but the wings were always there. About a week ago, he'd seen one with a humanoid figure painted between them, making the allegory explicit.

Angels. Lots of little white angels.

Omega's underclass had a well-known propensity towards idolisation. Anyone they saw as an enemy of the dominating gangs, they cheered on out of sheer bloody-minded spite. This was different. Weaver had heard the name Archangel all over the place in the last month or so, ever since the guy – or the team, stories differed as to exactly what Archangel was – had burst onto Omega's scene with a bang and brought down the whole Shadows. The murders and assassinations in back alleys that were Omega's stock in trade had more than doubled, and the extra bodies were universally among the station's vast criminal classes. No wonder they loved the guy, Weaver thought idly. Noble ideas never end well on Omega, though. He's attracting attention. He'll be dead in a trash compactor inside two weeks.

He disregarded it and looked ahead to the warehouse. They were close now, and the dull grey walls rose up high and ominous over them. No windows, as usual. Just one door, an old square of metal with a faint green light glowing gently at its centre.

"Wait for the signal," Chang muttered, as they took up positions on either side of it. Weaver took one side to himself, leaving Monteague and Chang on the other. "Bryan, we're in position."

There was a pause of a few seconds as Chang waited for the response.

"Ready to break some heads, Luc?" Weaver said. Monteague glanced over at him in disgust, but there was a layer of queasiness behind that. Weaver had a keen eye for faces, and he could see exactly how much the Frenchman was dreading this particular encounter.

"Shut up."

"Ready to rip them some shiny new arseho-"

"Shut up."

"Go," Chang said suddenly, and Weaver jammed a hand into the door control. It slid open and then they were inside, quickly advancing with guns raised.

The warehouse was relatively small, but it was still probably fifty or sixty metres from one end to the other. Much of the space in between was taken up by stacks of containers, from piles of coffin-sized boxes to the massive, ten-metre shipping crates which dominated the left side of the room, but their targets were still clear. Weaver could see six, and he was sure there were at least twice that many hidden behind various crates on the other side, but the plan had relied on the element of surprise; there was no time to head for good positions or cover, just to fire – but just as his finger closed on the trigger and his Revenant juddered in his hands, he wondered just what the full-face goggle masks they were all wearing were.

The lights went out.

"Shit!" Chang rasped. "Trap!"

The sudden darkness was enough to heavily disorient Weaver for a second, but he was already spinning to head for the door, to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. It was pitch-black, but there was one thing he could still see as he turned, and it made his heart sink like a stone. The faint circular light in the middle of the door had changed colour from green to red.

Trapped.

He whirled back and opened up again. He couldn't see his targets any more, and the muzzle flash from his assault rifle didn't help. Instead, the whole of his field of vision started flickering like bad strobe lighting, and then the return fire started up. Vision became impossible, and the sound of more than a dozen guns all firing at once echoed wildly from every surface, turning the warehouse into a chaotic storm of light and noise.

And they have some sort of vision enhancers...

A few shots smashed against Weaver's kinetic barriers, knocking him off his stride, but he kept ploughing forward, still firing from the hip as the shake and rattle of his gun sent wild sprays of bullets screeching in the general direction of the fire coming at him. He could only see in flashes, sudden bursts of light and shadow that constantly seemed to be morphing and shifting position, but he could see enough to make out a heavy crate a few metres ahead of him, and he dived gratefully into the cover it provided, hitting the floor with enough speed and weight to knock most of the wind out of him.

"Bugger," he wheezed. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his back to the crate, and ejected his thermal clip. It hissed and rolled away on the floor, blinking from red to a glaring white in the bursts of light that came with the volleys of heavy assault rifle fire screaming overhead. He had no idea where the hell Chang or Monteague had gone or if they were even still alive, but he didn't care about that any more. It was about escaping with his life, and he was damned if he could think of a way to do that when he was locked in a dark warehouse with a dozen well-equipped men trying to kill him.

He leaned over and fired around the edge of the crate, blasting away at seven hundred and fifty armour-piercing rounds per minute, but he couldn't see even one target. All there was to see was light and dark, constantly strobing on and off far faster than the eye could process as a dozen guns all fired at once, filling the air with the sharp tang of electricity and damn near deafening Weaver in the process. He grimaced and ducked back into cover as someone noticed him and sent some bullets his way, but he didn't like what he'd seen. Visibility was about three metres for him, and with the door locked...

Weaver wasn't particularly afraid of death, at least not any more. He'd dealt enough of it out (and enjoyed himself immensely while doing so) that he'd come to regard it as just another thing that happened to people from time to time. People including himself. He'd faced it down enough times to know that he wouldn't be lucky forever, and he'd still stayed in his line of work even knowing it would kill him one day. He was thirty-eight. It hadn't been such a bad run, and he didn't have any particular desire to grow much older. As long as he took a few of them with him, he supposed he could handle death. What did he have to live for except more killing?

Then again, that's a bloody good thing to live for.

He sighed, and readied his assault rifle. A charge would leave them off-balance, at least for a while, and then he'd be close enough that he'd have a fair chance at hitting a few of them hard enough to seriously fuck them up. Then they'd return the favour, and he'd die. Probably fairly quickly. But if he could just get Williams... well, then that would be worth dying for, wouldn't it?

Weaver counted ten heartbeats, inaudible as they were over the gunfire. They were fast, but not frantic. He'd made his peace.

He rolled out of cover and sprinted headlong towards the source of the gunfire, not even bothering to stay down. His finger was clamped hard down on the trigger all the way, and blinding white sparks and bolts crashed out of his Revenant as he ran, blasting away at whoever was unlucky enough to be standing in front of him. A flash of blue jerked his head to the right in time to see one of the troopers he'd seen earlier cartwheeling wildly through the air in a bizarrely floaty way, wreathed in the telltale blue light of biotic energy, and he angled his gun up towards him. The Revenant sent a dozen bullets scorching straight through shield and armour, dicing the poor bugger's flesh like coleslaw as he sailed overhead, sending blood splattering down from fist-sized exit wounds.

So, Monteague's still kicking. Good for him. He might as well die like a man.

Shots hammered at his shield, tearing it to shreds. He traced their fire right back at them, sending gleaming streams of bullets racing towards its source. He thought he might have heard a scream over the ear-piercing storm of gunfire, and he grinned savagely, waiting for the next shots to finish him off. His Revenant ran dry at almost exactly the same time as his shields failed, and then the shots were chewing through armour rather than evaporating into thin air. He staggered under the fusillade, but none got through for a few seconds; all he came away with were a few dozen nascent bruises on his torso as bullets whistled all around him. Luck alone was responsible for that, but he'd been riding that for years and he'd just run out of track.

One shot found a gap in his armour near the left shoulder, and drove straight through muscle and flesh before hitting bone. Agony blossomed fiery red in Weaver's shoulder, and he shouted out loud in pain, a thick guttural grunt. He'd been off-balance already, and the shot ripped away what was left; he crashed down onto the floor with all his weight on the wound. It was the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life, and he was damn grateful he was only conscious for a few seconds before blackness boiled up and overtook him.

...at least it's an end...

"Rise and shine, Weaver, my old chum!"

Weaver let out a heartfelt groan as he snapped back to consciousness. The pain in his shoulder had dimmed a little, but it was still utterly agonising, as if liquid metal was running in the veins down his whole left side. He couldn't move the arm, and even trying made him feel faint. Trying to open his eyes flooded them with blinding light, stabbing shards of pure pain into his skull, and he jammed them shut again.

"Always were a fucking idiot, you know that?"

Williams.

Weaver was lying on his back, but he was sitting up barely a second later, blinking frantically. His shoulder screamed at him as he did it, but the pain was almost forgotten as his sight returned. Blood was still dribbling from the wound, but the flow had been mostly staunched by the automatic medigel application his armour had delivered to the affected area. So, I won't die from blood loss,he thought grimly.

The lights had come back on, and he was surrounded by the same troopers he'd been shooting at. Their masks had come off, but their guns still looked big and nasty. They were all pointing at him, and the men behind them looked rather displeased.

Straight in front of him stood Gus Williams, and even through the haze of pain Weaver could see the sneering, smug smirk of triumph on his thin lips. Williams was one of the palest people Weaver had ever seen, but he was flushed pink now and his blond curls were limp with sweat. The fight had clearly taken a lot of out him, but nowhere near enough, and just seeing a smile on that bony yet handsome face stirred a deep rage somewhere inside Weaver.

"You kept me alive just to gloat?" Weaver spat. "You pathetic little piss-stain."

"Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners?" Williams said mildly. "At least Luc had the decency to come quietly."

He gestured behind Weaver, and Weaver turned his head – even the tiny movement brought a moan of pain to his lips as his broken, bleeding shoulder shifted – to see Monteague on his knees behind him, his hands on his head as more of Williams' goons watched over him.

"Fucking coward," Weaver said bluntly. Monteague didn't answer. His eyes were glued to the floor, his shoulders quivering minutely, and Weaver recognised sheer, hopeless terror in him. He knew then that Williams had only kept him alive because the sadist in him enjoyed seeing him like that, and Weaver actually felt a stab of pity for Monteague. He knew fear like that. He'd lost the ability to feel it years ago, but he knew it all the same. He's still young. He'd have grown out of it one day. A day we'll never see.

"The rest are dead, if you're wondering," Williams said with an effusive shrug. "But I lost two of mine, both to you, I'm sure you'll be happy to know. They had families, you know."

"Hah," Weaver said. "You think I give a shit about that?"

"No, not really," Williams conceded, and flashed him another smile. "Still, never let it be said I'm not open-minded. My men here, on the other hand... well, they look out for their friends. Unlike you. They don't like you at the moment."

Slowly, deliberately, and not a little painfully, Weaver unfolded his massive frame and clambered to his feet. Eight gun barrels followed him up. "Then they can fucking shoot me if they've got the balls," he said, and bared his teeth in what might have been a grin if it had worked hard and studied in its youth instead of murdering people in dark alleys with broken bottles. As it was, it resulted in an insane, skeletal death grimace, and a couple of the troopers training rifles on him subconsciously inched slightly away.

"Well, I'll leave that to them," Williams said, offering a dazzling grin as bright as it was cold. "Maybe I'll send what's left back to London. I'm sure your parents would appreciate it."

The mention of London brought back old memories, sending them bubbling to the surface of Weaver's mind. He saw himself and Williams walking the megacity's streets, part of the ever-growing gun-for-hire sector, remembered their near-capture and flight to Omega, remembered joining Harrison and Chang's band of mercs. He remembered how Williams had sold them all out and jumped ship, leaving them in a trap they'd lose three men fighting their way out of. He remembered the moment when he stopped thinking of him as his old friend Gus. He remembered the raw, boiling hate, and found it was still there, potent as ever. He held onto it, and looked straight into Williams' eyes. For a moment, he thought he saw a tiny flicker of instinctive fear in them. He might have imagined it, but he was damned if it hadn't felt good to see.

"Eat shit, you little rat," he said. "Someone will kill you one day soon. I'm just sorry it won't be me."

"Kill me?" Williams said, as if Weaver had said something utterly ridiculous. Weaver did, however, note with quiet satisfaction that his smile had grown infinitesimally smaller. "Sorry, mate. I'm an arms dealer now. I've got more power in my little finger than you have in your whole body, beard included. Do you know who I supply?" He was too into his spiel to let Weaver answer. "The Blue Suns! Vanzar! Eclipse! Even the sodding Blood Pack! I have the Pirate Queen herself paying for my wares. There's nowhere easier than Earth to smuggle high-quality guns from in all of Citadel space, and I've cornered the market on this arsehole of a station. The shipment coming in on Wednesday? It'll make me millions, and all it took to get it was a few little armed robberies. Armed robberies of arms! And it was all fucking cheap. God, I love the economics of scale! Nobody will even get close to me! Look what happened to you idiots! I always said Harrison was brainless. Just didn't mean it literally until now."

"How did you know we were coming?" Weaver asked, if only to answer the question he'd been turning over in his mind for a few minutes.

Williams fixed him with another ice-cold smile. "Because you're morons. Loose lips cause explosive decompression in ships, remember? You only changed your codes once after I left you lot, and you were stupid enough to transmit the new codes on the same unsecure network. I could hear everything you were saying on the station for the last eighteen months. I even fed you information just so I could have you come and try to steal my shipment. I played you all along, and it looks like I won."

"Of course," Weaver said bitterly. "You hadn't fucked with us enough. Why else?"

"Why else indeed?" Williams said, spreading his arms wide. "I hate you, you know that? You're a thick-skulled, classless sociopath and it's doing the galaxy a favour to kill you."

"You're calling me a sociopath," Weaver said disbelievingly.

"What were you going to say?" Williams said, and a harsh mocking tone entered his voice. "That 'it takes one to know one'? Something about pots and kettles? No, I don't deny it. I think you and I both know that the self is the only thing that really matters. The difference is that I used that to get ahead and better myself, and you're a common thug. Worthless. That's why you die. As for Luc, well, he's French. That's reason enough, don't you think?"

"Shit," Monteague snarled from behind Weaver, and Weaver recognised the tone of terror curdled into hopeless defiance.

"Ah, you can still speak!" Williams said cheerfully, bounding joyfully past Weaver to stand over Monteague. "And the word of Cambronne, as well. Very good. What, do you think you're some sort of modern-day Napoleon, defiant to the end?"

"No," Monteague said venomously. "But I do consider you a modern-day Pétain, you son of a whore."

The reference went straight over Weaver's head, but Williams chuckled lightly at it. "Of course you do. Well, I suppose that's that, more or less." He turned away and walked out of the circle of troopers, his back to Weaver. "Have fun, boys," he said, without turning back. "Just clean up once you're done. Nice knowing you, Weaver."

"Burn in hell, Williams," Weaver said, and meant it. There was no reply; maybe he'd been too far away to hear him, but Weaver somehow doubted it. Williams just didn't care.

"You killed our friends," one of the troopers said, presumably a captain of some sort. Weaver regarded him coldly as he stepped forward and slung his assault rifle over his shoulder, leaving his hands free.

"Yeah," Weaver said, and grinned leeringly at him. "Yeah, I did. I just wish I'd done it slower. Made them cry and beg for their life, made 'em shit themselves in terror, then killed the fuckers like they deserved. You'll get yours, sonny Jim. Maybe not from me, but one day your kids won't have a daddy any more. Like theirs."

It would have been suicide if he wasn't already a dead man, but Weaver loved the effect it had on the guy. It would only get him a slower, more agonising death, but that was a small price to pay for such an exquisitely pained look of absolute fury on the man's face, and when a heavy boot drove into his injured shoulder and sent him sprawling back on the floor, the only thing that stopped him from screaming was that sense of vicious satisfaction.

"How about that, motherfucker?" the trooper snarled, and sent another thundering kick straight between Weaver's legs. He blocked some of the blow with his thigh but the pain was still spectacular, and Weaver felt bile rising in his throat at the pain. His vision seemed to fade a little around the edges. He could still see the trooper clearly, and the foot came back for another kick. Weaver braced himself for the agony to increase again, but the kick never came.

The noise was a quiet snap, faintly reminiscent of someone closing an old paper ring-binder, but Weaver had spent too many years in his line of work not to recognise a gunshot when he heard one. The soldier who'd been attacking him froze mid-kick with a hole in his chest the size of Weaver's vast fist and then, almost comically, he looked down. He tried to say something, or at least it looked like it, but all that came out was blood.

Then everything went crazy. The one gunshot became a roar of them, all of them from behind Weaver, and then screams started up as well. The soldiers' bodies started hitting the floor, their guns clattering away into the pools of blood that were already forming rapidly. Every hit brought a fresh spray of blood, and some of it splashed down on Weaver's head. He cursed and wiped some of it away with his good hand, blinking furiously, but by the time he could see again the guns had all fallen silent. It had taken about five seconds.

Footsteps approached, several sets of them. He heard Monteague saying something behind him. Couldn't tell what; he might have heard the word 'Williams' in there, but all his senses were dulled by the pain. Some of the footsteps sped up – and he noted that they were odd ones, almost like the pounding of a heavy mech's feet – and several shapes dashed past him in the direction Williams had gone. He saw figures looming over him, gesturing to one another. Heard a voice, distinctively turian. He focused hard on what it was saying.

"-shoulder's fucked up to hell and back."

"I have medigel," another voice said. Salarian, or it sounded like it. "Give me room."

A couple of the figures moved away, and then the sweet anaesthetic haze of medigel started to spread through his shoulder, dulling the worst of the pain. His sight pulsed a few times and then started to return. While he'd been revelling in the bliss of actually feeling less pain for once, more voices had been speaking overhead, and as his hearing cleared he was able to make out what was being said.

"-most sensitive part of the body," the salarian was saying.

"You're telling me humans have external testicles," the turian said flatly.

"Yep."

"That's fucking stupid! How did that survive evolution?"

"We can't all be metallic monstrosities like you, Sidonis."

"I still think it's stupid," the turian muttered. "I mean, why?"

"Because there isn't enough room inside," Weaver mumbled, and then started laughing hysterically. He could see some sceptical looks aimed at him and he knew that he had to look like a cackling nutjob to them, but the sudden emotional release as he realised that he wasn't about to die was sweeping through him like a tide of revitalising warm water. In fact, he felt good enough to push himself up to a sitting position again, and he took stock.

The soldiers' bodies were strewn across the floor in the same rough circle they'd been standing in earlier, and their blood carpeted it in a thick, sticky red. Its coppery tang was hanging heavy in the air.

Four men were standing around him. One was Monteague; two were the salarian and turian he'd heard talking, the salarian standing up from the squat he'd been in to tend to Weaver's wound, and another was a batarian. All of them were clad in combat armour, and all of them carried guns. Like every fucking being on Omega.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of another body. Its head was mangled almost beyond recognition, but not quite: he could still see that it was, or at least had been, Chang. Weaver grimaced. He'd liked Chang. And now he was dead, along with Harrison, Meckler, Dylan and Sanjay, and all that was left was Weaver and Monteague.

Williams has to die.

That was a good thing to hold onto, he thought. The sudden euphoria of survival was quickly draining away to be replaced by that old, cancerous hate, and every iota of it was directed straight at Gus Williams. He wouldn't have exactly called his colleagues friends, but there'd been at least some respect there, and he hated Williams for killing them. Hell, he'd even have hated him for killing Monteague, as loathe as he would be to admit it. He hated him for the physical agony he was enduring, for being stupid enough to kill a copper and forcing Weaver to flee the city he'd spent all his life in, for betraying him, for convincing him to go to this bloody station in the first place. He was a big man, and he had room for a lot of hate.

But he knew that was for another time, and he painfully levered himself to his feet with his good arm. The salarian held his hands up as if to stop him.

"Whoa, whoa, watch it! I... doesn't that hurt?"

"Pain doesn't hurt," Weaver said. He had no idea where he'd heard the line. Some old movie, probably. And I'm lying.

"By definition, I think you might be wrong there," the salarian said, shrugging, "but what do I care? Go for it, big man."

"Thanks," Weaver said, and he was vaguely surprised to find he was sincere. "Why did you do that?"

"What, help you?" the salarian said. When Weaver nodded, he continued: "You're fighting against Gus Williams. That means you're on our side at the moment."

At the moment. Good to know.

"You know Williams?" Monteague asked. "How?"

"We picked up some signals about a weapons shipment and this warehouse," the turian said. "I'm guessing you did too. Looks like you unlucky assholes set off the trap before we got here." He frowned, and raised a hand to his ear. "OK, OK. I get it, Butler. It was difficult. Now shut up."

"Who's Butler?" Weaver asked.

"It's... not important," the turian said. "Fuck off, Butler. I don't care. I- what? Don't- ah, shit."

Weaver blinked blankly as the turian turned away and started walking off. He was still speaking, but apparently to somebody else.

"Look, I didn't mean it like that, Nalah, I- fine, Dr. Butler, but-"

"Ah, the wrath of Mrs Butler," the salarian said with a malicious smile. "A force of nature somewhere between weak nuclear and electromagnetism."

"...who the hell are you people?" Weaver said.

"We're-" the salarian began.

"Williams escaped," another turian voice called, and Weaver's mouth tightened. He looked around to see the turian striding towards them from the other side of the warehouse, accompanied by a volus, of all things. The volus was having to trot to keep up with the turian, but it moved slightly oddly, almost mechanically. Weaver watched it curiously for a second, then turned his attention back to the turian as he approached. He was only an inch or two shorter than Weaver and lean even in his heavy-looking blue combat armour, which was the same colour as the tattoos on his face. A mean-looking rifle hung from one shoulder, and the sniper look was completed by a thin blue targeting visor across his left eye.

"No, I didn't mean that at all," the other turian said plaintively twenty feet away, but nobody except this Dr Butler was paying him any attention.

"How did he get away?" Weaver said, carefully trying to keep anger out of his voice. The turian regarded him appraisingly with calm, blue-grey eyes for a moment before responding.

"He had an aircar. I got a couple of hits on it, but..." He tailed off and shrugged. "We'll find him again. I'm sorry about your friends. We heard the gunfire, but it was all over by the time we got here."

"You saved us," Weaver said. "That's something."

"Something?" Monteague said disbelievingly. "We owe them our lives, you ungrateful ape. That's a great deal more than 'something'."

"In fairness, we didn't exactly set out to help you," the turian said, then looked around. "We should get out of here in case reinforcements turn up. We can work things out later. And you really should see a doctor." He turned to go, but stopped and turned back when Weaver spoke.

"Wait," Weaver said. He stooped down and retrieved his Revenant before he went on. The grip was slippery with his own blood. "First tell me who you are."

"Archangel," the turian said, as if it were nothing. "At least, that's what they call me."

"You're Archangel?" Monteague said incredulously. "Half of Omega is terrified of you."

"The right half, hopefully," Archangel said. "As I said: questions later. Come with us."

"Why?" Weaver said. "Why do you want us?"

Archangel waved an all-encompassing arm around. "What happened to you here a good illustration that we need all the help we can get for this, and from what we heard of your conversation, you both know him."

"Yeah," Weaver said venomously. "We know him."

"Not a fan, I take it," the turian said dryly.

Weaver smiled humourlessly. "You could say that."

"Then come with us," Archangel said, and turned. "Deliver a little payback."

Payback. Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe I'll get to throttle the bastard after all.

Feeling a little more cheerful and with pleasant daydreams of murderous vengeance floating around his skull, Weaver followed.