[Author's note: Dear readers, I am sorry for the delayed update. While One Tough Cloaca is very much an alive, ongoing project, I have burned through all of the story's pre-written chapters and the additional ones I was able to write up until now. That means I have no buffer anymore and may no longer be able to post new chapters every week. They just often take more time to write than that. That said, I am eagerly working away on the story and there are about a half-dozen chapters left to go.]
Chapter 18
Illium Entertainment News Update - Today on Behind the Scenes Insights we profile up & coming asari actress Linia T'Pala, who will have her first major part in the forthcoming Blasto: The Hunt for Saren. T'Pala told our reporter she was thrilled to be working on a big-budget production. "The last vid I did was this really low-budget crime caper story set in Armali. I was the driver in the climactic getaway scene. Afterwards I asked how they were able to afford all of the police skycars chasing us. Turned out the producers had mounted cameras on the back of the getaway skycar and told the police it was involved in a kidnapping. It was really nice of the court to let the producer attend the premiere."
"Quiet on the set," exclaimed Bik Orbal, the slender drell director of Blasto: The Hunt for Saren. Once the murmuring had died down, he announced "action" and actors Adria S'Voz and Jorgal Dreed resumed their armed stand-off. Actress Linia T'Pala stood a discreet distance behind Dreed, her prop shotgun pointed at his back.
Dreed's hand tightly gripped a pistol pointed directly at S'Voz, its laser pointer dancing on her chest. After two seconds of silence, the gravel-voiced krogan spoke. "Shi'Paard, this isn't right," he declared. "The cure for my people might be in that compound. If there is even a chance that is in there, I have to take it."
S'Voz's eye's darted to the pointer but otherwise she didn't flinch, She trained her own pistol's laster pointer at Dreed's head. "Not a chance. You gave your oath to serve on my crew. Live up to your word or we end this right here," she replied.
"So, that's how it is?" Dreed rasped as his finger hovered over the trigger
"That's how it is," S'Voz confirmed, her pistol still trained on Dreed. From behind, the krogan, T'Pala tensed up and drew a bead on the krogan.
A pregnant pause followed. The pause then lingered for several seconds longer than expected before Dreed lowered his prop pistol and shook his head. "No, I can't say the next line. I can't," he announced, dropping our of character.
Orbal threw up his arms and rolled his eyes. "What is the issue?"
"A krogan clan leader would not say the line: 'You win, Shi'Paard. For the sake of the galaxy, Saren must be stopped,' and just back down," Dreed declared. "Especially not if he thinks that Arterius can cure the genophage. I'm not saying he couldn't be talked out of it, but his pride wouldn't make it this easy. Not after he has drawn his weapon. The scene just isn't believable."
Orbal was having none of it. "We're sticking to the script. Read the damn line."
"No, we're not," Dreed growled back. "You can't make me say this garbage."
The set grew quiet as the cast and crew watched the stand-off. Special Tasks Group secret agent Solik Vass was among those raptly viewing the drama from off-set. It was an eerie parallel, he thought, to the real-life incident the scene was based on: Urdot Wrex and Commander Shepard facing off on the beaches of Virmire just before the assault on Saren Arterius' base. Just like in that incident, the krogan could be terminated at any second, though on this case it would result in the loss of a job, not a life. The sound stage crackled with tension nonetheless. Standing just to Vass' left, was Suzra'Bonah vas Marketa, the studio's chief make up artist, who let out a quiet, "Keelah..."
Major Kirrahe, who was also standing nearby, watched the scene silently with arms folded, as was his usual practice on a set. While the senior STG agent was supposedly the vid's expert military consultant, Vass guessed that major spoke a grand total of maybe ten times on a set. He was a keen observer though and was watching Orbal and Dreed's confrontation particularly intently.
"Fine, then," Orbal at last replied. "If you won't read the lines, then your character dies in this scene and we shoot the rest of the vid without you. T'Rue, outfit Dreed with squibbs and give T'Pala a gun that fires blanks."
Dreed sneered but said nothing.
T'Pala, who had been watching the confrontation like everyone else, but was much closer to Dreed, did a double-take at Orbal's instruction but remained silent as well. She clearly didn't want to get anymore involved in the current drama than was already the case.
S'Voz, on the other hand, was less easily intimidated. "Before we do that, let's consider another option," she announced. "Dreed, what do you propose we change the lines to?"
The krogan spun around towards the actress. "I ... don't really know," he conceded. "I just know that the script's lines don't ring true. Does anyone know what Shepard and Wrex actually said to each other?"
S'Voz was clearly irritated with Dreed for disrupting things, Vass noticed. She was nevertheless keeping her opinions in check for the moment, presumably in the hopes of resolving the matter quickly and getting back to shooting the scene. "Well, as it happens, there's somebody on the set who witnessed it. Kirrahe, get over here. We actually need your help this time," she declared.
Numerous heads suddenly turned to the major, who then straightened up and strode over to the actors. His face was expressionless but Vass could see that he was regarding Dreed warily. The krogan's friend and fellow actor Tyruss Aklaysius had previously warned Vass that Dreed might not react well to meeting the STG agent famous for killing numerous krogan on Virmire, something S'Voz was apparently unaware of. Dreed's already surly expression became noticeably darker as Kirrahe approached. The tension between the two was palpable to everyone on the set.
Out of the corner of his eye, Vass noticed that Suzra'Bonah vas Marketa had discreetly turned on their omni-tool's recording function to capture the drama. "We may need evidence..." she whispered to Vass. The young agent, meanwhile, surreptitiously checked to make sure the concealed STG sidearm he now possessed was in its usual spot.
S'Voz, sensing the hostility and presumably realizing she may have accidentally stirred something up, stepped forward and somewhat between Kirrahe and Dreed. It was a gutsy move, Vass thought, and so did many other onlookers. Their quiet murmuring briefly became the only sound on the set. S'Voz refused to acknowledge the tension however and defiantly remained between the STG agent and the krogan. Orbal sat in his director's chair, seemingly forgotten.
"So, major, what actually happened between Shepard and Wrex?" the actress asked.
Kirrahe's body was all coiled tension but he spoke in a calm, even-toned manner. "The confrontation actually began with me," he explained. "Shepard, being human, knew little about the genophage. So when the issue came up the commander asked me - I'm paraphrasing from memory - why Saren potentially having a cure was significant. I replied that if the cure got out the krogans' numbers would rapidly swell as they had before the rebellions and we couldn't make the mistake of allowing that to happen again."
Dreed narrowed his eyes, stepped slightly around S'Voz and leaned in to Kirrahe. "And what did Wrex say to that?"
The major didn't move or flinch. "He leaned into me, much as you are doing now, and said - this I remember quite clearly - 'We are not a mistake.' He then stalked away and began firing his shotgun into the river. When Shepard finally approached him, Wrex said that if there was a cure, he couldn't allow it to be destroyed because his people were facing extinction. Shepard argued that Saren was the real enemy. Wrex pulled his pistol, prompting Shepard to do the same. Wrex demanded that Shepard give him a better reason than that. Shepard pointed out that these krogan were nothing more than mindless slaves of Saren and asked Wrex if that was what he wanted for his people. Wrex thought about that for a few seconds. He finally said that the krogan had won the galaxy for the Council only to be neutered afterwards when they ceased to be useful. He doubted that letting the krogan become Saren's tools would turn out any better for them. That's when he stood down."
Dreed remained in Kirrahe's space. "And Wrex bought all that?"
Kirrahe stoically stood his ground. "With all due respect, Mr. Dreed, you never saw the krogan on Virmire. You would not have recognized them. Being organic was the only thing that separated them from the geth. Wrex stood down because he realized Shepard was right: The things Saren was creating would not have been the salvation of the krogan people, but their final, irrevocable downfall."
S'Voz again stepped forward to separate the two. "If we ditch the script and improvise something along those lines, would that satisfy you, Dreed?" she asked.
Dreed responded to her while continuing to stare at Kirrahe. "Yes... If I can mention the possibility of extinction and also draw the parallel between the krogan serving the Council and the krogan serving Saren, that would work."
"Okay, then. That's what we do," S'Voz replied.
"Now, waitaminute," Orbal interjected. "You don't get to just throw out the script like that, not for a long, improvised dialogue scene. Or did you forget that this is an action movie? We need to keep the pacing tight."
"No, Dreed's right," S'Voz countered. "The written lines are weak. We can do better."
Having S'Voz take his side had a calming effect on Dreed. He stepped back from Kirrahe and began moving back to his earlier spot on the set. The soundstage's onlookers began to breathe a collective sigh of relief. That stopped a few seconds later when the major began to address the krogan. Dreed froze, then spun around to face the STG agent.
"One more thing, Mr. Dreed," Kirrahe announced. "Ever since that day, I've thought a lot about Wrex's remark, 'We are not a mistake.' I realize now that he was right. Whatever the history between our peoples, no species deserves to go extinct. Wrex was only trying to do the right thing to save his people. I respect him for that," the major explained. "I understand Wrex is back on Tuchanka now trying to reform the clans and spark a revival of krogan culture. I sincerely hope he succeeds and the krogan prove that they would have risen on their own had my people not interfered with their natural evolution."
Dreed slowly nodded in response to Kirrahe but said nothing further. S'Voz drew his attention away by throwing out a suggestion for how they handle the scene. Dreed turned to the actress and gave her his full attention. The soundstage gave out a second collective sigh of relief.
"Keelah, I can breathe again," Suzra'Bonah announced, and stopped recording the on-set drama.
"Hey, could you send me a copy of that?" Vass inquired. Suzra'Bonah nodded and forwarded it to the salarian's omni-tool. The quarian then dashed up to the set to touch up S'Voz's make up. Vass pulled up the clip and began watching it.
The rookie STG agent was still examining it when Kirrahe walked up next to him. "What's so fascinating?" the major asked.
"Well, it's the quarian's recording of your 'conversation' with Dreed, which was pretty dramatic," Vass replied. "But there is something else about it that I just noticed and wasn't expecting. I'm still checking to see if I'm right." The young salarian fiddled with the settings on his omni-tool for half a minute, then started nodding. "Yes, that's got to be it. I watched as Suzra'Bonah sent me the clip through the studio's private communication network. But my own omni-tool doesn't register where the message came from. It can't be traced it back to her. That's because she sent the clip using using Ariake Tech's SecureMessenger 3.5."
Kirrahe beamed at this sidekick. "The same rare technology that an Eclipse ally used during your kidnapping to send a fake studio alert to Linia and draw her away! Well, done Agent Vass. Our next task is clear: we find out what connection the make-up artist has to Eclipse."
Major Kirrahe found a discrete hiding place just down the hall from Suzra'Bonah's personal office and went over the plan one more time with his sidekick. "Remember, we don't know what precisely her involvement is yet," the major declared. "It would be highly unusual for a quarian to be a member of Eclipse, but they could be paying her off, blackmailing her or using her unwittingly. Eclipse thinks you're not an agent, so a variation on the same cover story you used with the editor, Olo Stunn - that you are trying to help Linia find out who pranked her with a fake message - is our best option. If things go bad, just signal me on your omni-tool. I'll be right around the corner."
Vass nodded and approached the make-up artist's office. Music was emanating through the door. It was an orchestral score that seemed familiar but he couldn't quite place it. The rookie agent knocked and heard Suzra'Bonah exclaim "Bosh'tet!" over the music, before the volume dropped and she irritatedly asked, "Who is it?"
"It's Solik Vass. You know, Linia T'Pala's friend? I'd like to ask you about something," he bluffed. "May I come in?"
"Umm, sure. Just need to tidy up," the quarian relied. Vass could hear the sounds of numerous vid screens being powered down, items being shuffled around, drawers being closed and other indications of frantic activity, followed by a resounding crash sound and further cursing by the quarian. After another minute the make-up artist finally announced, "Come on in."
Vass stepped inside. The room was lined with counters that were littered with numerous jars and containers filled with various cosmetics as well as devices that Vass assumed were used to mix or concoct them. The walls alternated between simple mirrors and large view screens. Suzra'Bonah stood nervously in the center. Her brown and gold exo-suit had several long smudges of a gray, glittery makeup substance across her arms, chest and upper thighs. The young agent did a double-take at the sight, prompting the quarian to look down and notice the mess for the apparent first time. She let out another, even louder, "Bosh'tet!" then reached for a washcloth by a basin and began wiping off the make-up.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," Vass apologized. "Was I interrupting something?"
Suzra'Bonah continued to sop up the gray glitter. "No, no, nothing at all... Just working on perfecting Mr. Aklaysius' makeup."
Vass was only a novice in the industry but he knew that was highly unlikely. So he asked the first question to pop into his head. "Perfecting? Really? They've already started shooting his scenes using the existing make-up. They can't change it now without creating continuity errors in the footage, right?"
The already-nervous quarian grew more jittery. "They-they might use it in the sequel! You never know!" she sputtered. "What is it that you wanted to talk to me about anyway?!"
Vass took a breath and began his cover story. "Earlier today, when you sent me that clip of the on-set confrontation, I noticed the message couldn't be traced back to you. You're using some serious tech to send them secretly. Why?"
While it was always hard to read a quarian's facial expressions through their visors, Vass could at least tell that Suzra'Bonah's eyes had gotten noticeably wider. She also gulped. "What-What are you talking about..?"
The young agent felt a surge of adrenaline. 'Good work, Agent Vass. You've got her off-balance. Press forward while you have the advantage,' he thought to himself.
Vass adopted his best accusatory stare and dropped his voice a register. "In fact, you're using Ariake Tech's SecureMessenger 3.5, aren't you? Others may not have noticed this, but we salarians pick up on these things. That's the type of tech that's used by smugglers. Why does a make-up artist need that level of secrecy?"
Suzra'Bonah began to tremble. "Why are you even asking me about this?" she asked in a quavering voice.
Vass narrowed his eyes. "Because somebody has been using this technology to send fake messages to someone else currently working on this vid and that person is quite upset about it and I'm helping them find out who's behind it. That's you, isn't it? Fess up!" It didn't occur to Vass to clarify that he meant Linia T'Pala. He assumed that part would be understood.
For a few seconds Vass thought Suzra'Bonah was having a problem with her exo-suit's air recycling system, then he realized she was just hyperventilating. "Upset?! Really?!" she gasped. "I'm sorry I did it, alright? I-I thought I would just do it one or twice, but, keelah, I got carried away. Does he know it was me yet? This-this could mean my job. Please, don't tell him if you haven't already. I swear I'll stop."
It was Vass' turn to be confused. 'Him? What is she talking about?' he wondered. The agent decided to keep the bluff going however. "Maybe we can keep this secret IF you stop it now and tell me how it got started in the first place?"
The quarian, still trying to restore her breathing to a normal rate, began to speak. "It began, umm, three years ago. I read an interview Tyruss gave where he said he always writes a response to a fan letter if it comes from an extranet address that his communications VI says has never contacted him before. But he only responds once. He said that he wanted his fans to feel special but that if he responded to every follow-up message he'd never have time to do anything else. So I created a new extranet account, sent him a piece of fanmail, and it worked! I got a new message from him. So I created another address after that, using a different name and it worked again. But I realized I couldn't keep creating new accounts. That's when I heard about the Ariake Tech program. I figured it would fool Tyruss' VI into thinking the message came from a new account because it cannot record the address at all. I had it installed and began to use it to send messages to Tyruss."
Vass had been hoping that confronting the quarian would prompt a revelation but he hadn't expected anything quite like this. "Wait, you have been doing this for three years?!"
"Keelah, I know how it must look..." Suzra'Bonah replied in a halting voice. "It seemed harmless at first. I had to create a new fake identity each time but that was fun. It was like we were role-playing together. I didn't even have to be a quarian. I could be a human who had hated turians because of the First Contact War but had gotten over that thanks to his vids. Or an asari who wanted to discuss the craft of acting with him - he really liked that one. Or a turian offering to bear his child - he would always say 'no' in the politest way. He's such a gentleman! After a while it began to feel like I was writing a movie script just for us... We were having so much fun together."
The quarian took a long, deep breath, then continued. "I never thought I would actually meet him though. I mean, a quarian working as a make-up artist? What studio would hire me? And even if some studio did, what where the odds that I'd work on a vid with Tyruss? Or that he would call me 'luzveh' the first time we would meet in person?" At the mention of the word 'luzveh,' a quarian term of endearment, Suzra'Bonah had to pause to collect herself. "Or that he would turn out to be so nice? I mean, I did know that because I had been corresponding with him for three years even if he didn't know, but meeting him in person was different."
Vass suddenly recognized the music he had been hearing as he approached her office. "You were watching 'Fleet & Flotilla' when I knocked on the door, weren't you?" Suzra'Bonah nodded and turned on a vid screen. It showed a scene of Tyruss Aklaysius playing the vid's romantic lead Bellicus and grabbing his quarian leading lady in a passionate embrace while the soundtrack's love theme swelled to a crescendo.
The quarian sighed as she saw the scene again for what Vass presumed was the umpteenth time. "How I could not fall in love with him?" she plaintively asked.
Vass had liked the scene too, though he guessed it probably would have made a much bigger impression on him if he had been a young quarian woman the first time he saw it.
"I think creating an elaborate subterfuge to talk with Tyruss isn't necessary for you anymore," he told Suzra'Bonah. "You're not an anonymous fan. You're his professional colleague. He might respond if you sent him a message as yourself. Or just approached him in person."
"Keelah, do you really think so?" she asked. "I suppose I could try. If I do that and drop the anonymous messages, you promise not to tell him about all this?"
Vass promised he would, though he wondered if that was a wise vow to make. He nevertheless decided that having the quarian talking directly to Aklaysius as herself would be better for both of them. At the very least, things would be clearer. Suzra'Bonah seemed to warm up to the idea as well.
"The other day in the make-up room, Tyruss told Dreed that his mistress on Palaven had become really distant in the last few months. I think they might break up!" she excitedly told Vass. "If he's looking for a replacement, this could be my big chance. Wish me luck!"
"Not how I expected that investigation would turn out," Major Kirrahe told Vass over lunch. "At least we ruled out another suspect. And who knows? Maybe it'll turn out well in the end for Suzra and Tyruss. Hiring a star-struck fan as my assistant turned out to be a pretty good move in my case."
Vass smiled at the compliment. "Thank you, sir. So, what's our next move?"
The major took a bite of sandwich. "We still need to do the favor for S'Voz and find Blasto's drug dealer. That's another potential connection to Eclipse."
They finished their meals and were about to exit the studio cafeteria when the rookie agent's omni-tool pinged. "It's a studio alert," he announced. "Looks like we should have dealt with S'Voz's request sooner... Production on Blasto: The Hunt for Saren has been indefinitely postponed."
Illium Entertainment News Update - Multiple sources confirm that what 6th Dimension Vids had claimed was an acute case of indigestion that required hanar superstar Blasto to be rushed to a hospital today was actually a drug overdose. Elcor producer Mlax Ventkad told our reporter, "Dishonest assertion. Blasto is in fine health and we expect a positive prognosis from the doctors soon." Asked what this meant for the still-unfinished Blasto: The Hunt for Saren, the producer replied. "Intentionally vague response. The production is not officially closed."
