Chapter 37
The ducts are barely lit, but with the little light from T'Gegos's omni-tool they managed alright. Today they were somewhere above Chora's den, where the ducts have more hallways to them and more doorways. It was as if there was once a city here years, possibly centuries, ago. As usual, Lorius, Bassius, and T'Gegos are on patrol while Anoin stays back to provide technical support. They started searching the area a couple days before they left for Tuchanka but have yet to find anything other than a Keeper on patrol and a bunch of ruins, including what appeared to be an oversized marketplace. Today they were working on what appeared to be the old residential district.
"So, you are saying he was in a great mood this morning?" Lorius asks Anon to clarify the news.
"He was humming when he unlocked his door this morning with picture frames under his arm. So yes, great mood."
"I didn't know Turians could even hum." T'Gegos comments.
"Well then I'm happy for them." Bassius adds. "To be that happy the kid must undoubtedly be his. It really is the best outcome anyone could have dreamt of."
"And we were so focused on hiding it from him." T'Gegos says distantly.
"Was following orders."
"I know Tolas, but it still felt wrong, especially when they could have been happy months ago."
"You did the right thing Tolas-don't let her make you doubt it." Lorius affirms. "Anything ahead?"
"Still no heat signatures." He reports.
"Okay. Next door then. Bassius, would you do the honors?"
"So you don't get hit by any more traps? Sure, I can do the honors." Bassius jokes as he approaches the door. There were not many traps, but the residential sector did have a few dwellings with spring traps in the entrance which did little damage but were annoying.
He unholsters his gun anyways. He carefully activates the manual locks for the door, opening it slowly. As soon as it gets half way, a laser turret starts shooting at them. Bassius slides the door closed again, stopping exactly when the turret stops shooting. This gives him enough room to slide his arm in and blindly shoot at the turret, until he hears his gun make good contact on the heavy plastic casing of the turret. He opens the door back up with his gun at the ready.
This room was set up as a barrack, with as many bunks possible shoved into the small space, each stack separated by mere inches. Behind the bunks, the dwelling was clearly home to a small family, complete with a small kitchen corner that had not been used in several years, but the slight ripples in the fabric of the bunks indicated that they were used in the past week.
"I think we found something." Bassius tests the phrase out, hoping that he is correct.
"There has to be at least two-hundred bunks in here." T'Gegos estimates. "What's our missing person count? About three-twenty?"
"Three hundred and sixteen. Ninety-four humans, eighty-two Turians, eighty-one Asari, forty Salarians, sixteen Batarian, and three Quarians. Possible that not all of them are involved though."
"So, does this mean that they only have two-hundred of the missing people or that this is an older hideout?" Bassius thinks aloud.
"This place has been used within the past week—the bunks would have reverted to their un-stressed position if it were any longer. But why leave the bunks behind? They have been careful to hide their tracks so far."
"Either they had to leave in a hurry because they knew we were coming, or they simply are coming back soon." T'Gegos thinks.
"I concur."
"Either way I think we blew the lead. If they know we are tailing them they are going to cover their tracks or take drastic measures. If they are coming back, they will know that we are following them because we took out their turret and they will then take drastic measures." Bassius explains.
"Anoin, can you walk Bassius through fixing the turret?" Lorius requests.
"Roger."
"Then get to it. T'Gegos, I need you to install cameras. I'll get counting." He starts examining the dwelling. By his count, there are two-hundred and fifty-one bunks, all seeming to have been used around the same time. There are no footlockers for personal items, and only one crate full of food pills. Near the kitchen they have broken a water pipe and fashioned their own access to it. The only other exit that they see is on the wall opposite the door they entered, but it is also guarded with a turret, which thankfully is inactive. The wall opposite the kitchen area has a small indent in the wall, which appears to be some sort of garbage shoot that had been recently opened.
Lorius opens the panel to be greeted by the smell of death he was hoping never to smell again. Instead of going down into some deep pit, there is only a shallow shoot into another room. He ties a rope onto the foot of one the bunks and pulls on it as hard as he can to test the sturdiness, before heading down the shoot himself.
Inside are bodies; dozens of them. He sighs. "I have bodies. Lots of them."
"Species?"
"A spread."
"You need to catalog them. Blood samples and picture identification."
"I know." Extracting them would be impossible; they would have to come back later and hope that they have not liquified, although the limited oxygen would likely allow them to be mummified instead.
"How many?"
He counts carefully, gently unstacking the bodies. "Fifty-five; thirty humans, ten Turians, nine Asari, five Salarians, and one Batarian. If all the bunks here full, that likely means that we were right about all of the missing refugees being involved. Fifteen hundred weapons, right?"
"Sixteen hundred four hundred and fifty-four. No more missing in the past four months."
He activates the feature in his omni-tool specifically for dead body identifications. He just needs a needle prick of each one to get enough for a DNA test, but they will not be able to run the samples until they shut down the operation. Each sample is accompanied by a picture of the person it came from. With the blue tinge to the human corpses, he manages to determine that they died from suffocation. "I think they were given the same poison that Shepard-Vakarian was. Can you test it without putting it in the system?"
"Not sure of test yet. Can only estimate decay time and cannot determine how long they have been dead without seeing them in person."
He sighs again and climbs up his rope as soon as he has gotten samples from each body, heading up the shoot with no difficulty. "Bassius, is the turret back online?"
"Yes, and Tolas set up a remote access to it so we can control both turrets in the future."
"I set up four cameras as well—we can access the live feed whenever."
"Alright, let's call it a day. We aren't prepared yet for a full assault of this size. We need to give the report Garrus as soon as possible."
"Let's go," Bassius does not question it.
T'Gegos watches him more carefully; he knows their patrols are not supposed to end for another three hours. He usually is on top of protocol, especially so since Garrus corrected his tier in the hierarchy. She says nothing, following as they head back out of the ducts from their access in the back of the wards.