Chapter 50

The sofa in the corner of Garrus's office had well used over the past seven months. Between all the times he did not feel like he belonged in Shepard's apartment without her, all the cases he just wanted to finish before he went back, and all the times he thought that would be the night he found the crack he needed to get the captives back, he had slept on it many times. In all that, he never suspected that he would be sleeping on it because he had a fight with his wife.

A fight which he had no right to bring up or to even be mad about. Yes, she disappeared for six months and he thought he was okay with that, especially since they were separated for over six months after they dealt with the Collectors, but this was harder. She was officially his problem. Before he was always concerned about her, but he could separate it into a box in the back corner of his mind. The worry could disappear for a while, at least long enough for him to get his job done. But now, it was more consuming than that.

She was his guiding star throughout the Reaper War, the thing that allowed him to remember that there was something out there that he could fight for, even if everything went south on Palaven. If she were his guiding star before, now she was his sun. She was the thing that had the most power to heal him, the thing that could always be counted on when he needed something but could not place what it is.

The missing six months were an eclipse. She had disappeared leaving him to fend alone in the dark. She too was in the dark, and he knew that, but sometimes he could only remember that he was and he needed sun. He knew it was wrong, and that he was wrong for even being mad that she needed space, but that meant that he was not her sun, at least not yet.

He was willing to be wrong here, especially with so little time left, but he still was just trying to find the best way to apologize as the prescribed flowers and chocolate just did not seem to be enough.

Garrus is barely in focus when his earpiece crackles on.

"Colonel—I have an update." Lorius speaks clearly, with no attempt to lower his voice from any eavesdroppers.

He sits up and composes himself as quickly as he can before responding; "Go on Lieutenant."

"Turns out everyone here is fairly autonomous. We only have a handful of androids watching us at any time, but I'm sure Medethis already told you."

Garrus had done the debrief himself. But there was very little new information from Medethis than they already had gotten from Lia. The picture was not very clear yet as neither of them could remember how they were abducted. They only remembered getting ready to board a ship to their next destination and then waking up in a lab run by elderly Salarians who started to inject them with something while they were strapped to a table for some time before some more senior captives released them into the general population. They then were given their first dose of PDAT and slept before they started a rigorous boot camp, focusing on agility and military tactics. Every few cycles they would go back for more testing by the Salarians but otherwise it was status quo. If someone died, the body was stashed in the corner of the training site until they went back to the living quarters where they were then tossed down the chute. The captives were largely left to their own devices during training—the androids did not seem to care what they did so long as they followed orders. They were allowed to scheme about running away, but those who tried were always swiftly executed. Neither Lia nor Medethis had any indication of who was in charge, but Garrus did take solace in the fact that they were allowed to hope. "Yes, he told me," Garrus replies simply.

"This morning an android assigned a human, a Batarian, and myself to hand out uniforms tomorrow. I am currently working with them to sort through some brand new standard issue C Sec armor."

"How new?"

"Newer than Bassius's set."

"Damn."

"Yes sir, damn." Lorius automatically responds. "When we finish sorting I will check with the group in charge of weapon distribution, but they are not mobilizing as fast. We have training pistols here but the crates were legit with our insignia on them."

Garrus sighs deeply. "Do you have anything else to report?"

"Other than a gut feeling that we are almost done here. This feels like an end game."

"I know, but you know how to make the tough calls if it comes to it, no matter what your record states. Hang in there and keep everyone's spirits up."

"Will do Garrus." With that Lorius disconnects.

Garrus sighs, rubbing the exhaustion out of his eyes before getting back up to his feet. He was finally getting a full image in his head after far too long of this investigation and the picture was not good.

First was the red sand. It was systematically being stolen from the crates in evidence lockup and being converted into the poison PDAT that was a highly effective paralytic that was in a quantity that would like be enough to taint a whole space station, even as large as the Citadel. Who was deriving it was not known, but whoever it was had nearly unlimited time and funding which meant that there must be a hidden lab in the ducts that is run by some Salarians who were either coerced by fear or by intrigue.

Next was the captives. Two hundred-fifty-five people were plenty to run a fairly large attack, especially when they were as well armed as they were. They all had some sort of experiments run on them which was a strong enough treatment to give Quarians a strong enough immune system to thrive without their exosuits and likely improve traits of the others. Additionally, they were being taken on the docks, without any video feed or anyone noticing the abduction. This also meant that whoever it was had the power to access the feeds whenever they wanted.

Then there was Harkin. Sure, he was likely just hired to hide that the people were missing, but it was a bit of a reckless call and this person was not reckless at all. It was done early on before the people were just blatantly stolen with no attempt to try and hide them. Whoever this was had the power to access prison records and to free a prisoner without anyone noticing for however long Harkin was free, which was probably on the scale of weeks. Then Harkin was killed while in interrogation without a follow up investigation. And no one really questioned it.

The weapons were stolen, but were only outfitted as training gear, which was once a standard protocol after an investigation was completed. Now, new weapons and armor were supplied with fresh C Sec insignias without any record of it in the records.

The androids were a mystery but without looking at them he cannot know how they fit in but they were looking at someone with a lot of power, a lot of funds, and a lot of access.

Garrus is not sure who was in charge yet, but he can already figure out that the end game has something to do with the Summit. And whatever it is, it cannot be good.