Chapter 7

"How're you feeling?"

I glance up as Garrus takes a seat next to me, perched on the edge of our cruiser's passenger seat with my legs hanging out the edge. After seeing the murderer's...I don't even know what to call it. His corpse room? Regardless, I've not been able to quite clear the sight or smell out of my head, though at least the nausea is starting to subside. Hard to completely get rid of the shakes, though. Wouldn't be pleasant seeing five dead people at any time, but corpses cut open, organs extracted, like some hollow mannequins…

"I'm fine. Ish. I'll be alright, just a bit of a shock is all. Some first day this is turning out to be, huh?" I ask, managing to muster up a smile. "Not exactly what I'd had in mind."

"Yeahhhh." Garrus really drawls that one out. "Sorry. This really doesn't happen very often."

"You mean you don't find six dismembered corpses every other day?" I have enough humour left after that to quirk a brow at him. The turian gives a chuckle himself, reaching out a hand to pass me a water bottle.

"Not quite. Every other week, maybe."

I snort out a laugh at that, taking the water gratefully. "This isn't some dextro thing, right?"

"No, it's not. One of the other humans thought you were looking a bit pale and had it spare," Garrus explained, shifting his weight to lean against the side of the cruiser. "Forensics are having a proper look around now, I thought I'd give them some space. Check how you were doing."

Aww. He cares. "Thanks, Garrus," I smile, taking a sip. Helps clear up some of the sickly sensation still lingering. "Is Pallin on his way?"

"Yeah. I'm sure he wants to try and get ahead of this before the media show up," the turian sighs. "Not that it'll take long. I'm sure at least one officer already mentioned it to one of the outlets, and it's not like we can keep something like this quiet for long. Pallin's going to want this solved quick, or we're going to have-"

"A station wide panic, right. I figured he might want to get involved with that in the background," I nod, that conversation with Garrus and Shepard playing over in my mind. An elcor serial killer – and a biotic, from the looks of things. Hard to believe, but I suppose it makes that particular story a bit more believable; it's even harder to imagine an elcor making a particularly good job of being a serial killer without some kind of unusual ability. Now I just have to get this investigation pointed towards an elcor diplomat – and make it believable at the same time. Not like I even have much authority coming up with suggestions, given that this is literally my first day out in the field, which isn't going to help either. "Did they at least get an ID on any of the bodies yet? Just from quick DNA and facial scans?"

"Yeah. There's a mix. Three of the five were missing people reports from the past week. Of the other two, the quarian was homeless, so nobody reported him missing – we know he came to the Citadel about five months ago, not much other than that yet. And the other human came to the Citadel alone, ten days ago. He was registered to start working at one of the stores up by the Presidium this week, but nobody even reported him as missing when he didn't turn up."

I take a few moments to start digesting all of that, mulling over any commonalities that might show up. Anything that can be used to start making connections back to the elcor embassy, however tenuous. "Who reported the three missing?"

"The turian and salarian? Workplace colleagues," Garrus explains. "The human, one of her friends. They were all missing for three or four days before anyone reported them missing. All lived alone, so people only got concerned when they didn't turn up for work after days off, or missed social appointments." He runs a gloved hand over the top of his fringe as he pauses, looking back down at me. "All lived alone, all moved to the Citadel recently from other planets, all worked low paid jobs."

"And it sounds like all of them went missing in the last week. Killer isn't wasting any time, are they?" I ask, shuddering. Really wasn't exaggerating about a psycho, here. I can't help the slightly harrowing thought that, going off what Garrus has said, I fit the description of the kind of person this elcor would be targeting rather well, beyond the low paid part. "Feels like everyone was picked out specifically."

"That's what I was thinking. I can't see any reason why they'd all be visiting an abandoned factory down here, either," the turian nods. "They must have been lured here by something."

"Well, that implies someone trustworthy doing the luring, right?" I point out, trying to start steering the theories where I want them to go. "Can't imagine anyone would want to just hang out around here because they think it's fun. Maybe the killer tricked their victims down here by offering money?"

Garrus shakes his head. "They weren't earning much, but that's still assuming quite a lot of naivety, to turn up at an abandoned factory with someone they'd never met, just for money. Especially a krogan, if what that salarian said about what he saw is accurate."

"Might not be a krogan," I point out. Here's my opportunity – come at things from a new angle, see if that can't help Garrus along to the right solution. It does almost feel like cheating, in a way, but after seeing those bodies, it's a bit easier to appreciate that this isn't a game; this is really happening. There's lives I could potentially save by speeding this investigation along a bit. Something this small can't really affect anything canonical, surely? Garrus solved this case in the version of events I know, after all. "What if it was a different species? An elcor?"

Garrus fixes me with a look there, and it's not a particularly impressed one. "An elcor? Murdering people?" Well, never anticipated that this was going to be a particularly easy sell…

"The way you reacted, that's exactly the point, though," I say, clicking my fingers. "Who the hell would ever think an elcor is going to murder them? Not like they're easy to read, is it? Unless they said 'murderously: come with me to this abandoned factory', it's not like they've got a tone or expression that's easy to read. Good liars, definitely non-threatening."

The turian pauses for a second there, but he does at least nod his head after a bit of thought. "That's true. Biotics would let an elcor kill without needing to rely on agility or brute strength. What's the connection to the victims, though?"

I give a helpless shrug. Still, at least this is a start, right? "You've got me there. But biotics have to register when they enter the Citadel, right? The elcor population is pretty large, but once you cut that by biotics, must shrink the list a bit?"

The turian nods again, though he does still seem a bit cautious about it. "I don't think we should rule anything else out, but you're right. It's worth us looking into." Score! "We still need to work out what lured people down here to begin with, though. Ask around at workplaces, check their correspondences..."

"A lot of interviewing, basically."

"Basically." Garrus stretches his mandibles in a smile again, just as the sound of an engine has us both looking up, at a rather more formal looking cruiser starting to make its descent. Unmarked, but recognisable as C-Sec, given the concealed siren system exposed and pulsing above us. "And here's the Executor."

"Lovely. I'm sure he'll be a real bundle of sunshine," I mutter, taking another swig of water and managing to find my feet now. It feels like I'm at least pushing towards the right course, which is nicely reassuring – enough to get some confidence back after seeing the trail this elcor's left. From the looks of things, they'd never been planning on this place getting discovered, and if they were luring people down here, that means there has to be some kind of trail. Just need to find it.

Garrus shoots me a look that seems to imply 'behave', as the two of us approach the cruiser once it touches down, Executor Pallin stepping out with a distinctively dour expression – one that only deepens when he claps eyes on me. Must have forgotten that the trainees all started the month with their partners today.

"Vakarian. Shaw." He's not even trying! "I wasn't sure if you were going to get brought along on a case of this importance."

"Well, we didn't quite realise it was going to be this big when we left this morning," I point out, trying to keep my tone from sounding too scathing, as I see Garrus wince slightly out of my peripheral vision. "Good learning opportunity, though."

"I'm more concerned about keeping the station calm, and assuring the Council that we have the situation under control, than your learning opportunities," Pallin replies tersely, before turning his attention to Garrus. Well, guess that's me out this particular conversation. "It's already being picked up by the news channels, all the extranet sites are running breaking news stories. They're going to start descending on here like a pack of varren at any minute. Tell me we have something."

"Traces of element zero, so likely biotics, which should help narrow a suspect list. All the victims moved to the Citadel recently, alone, working low-wage jobs, or unemployed altogether," Garrus explains, seeming happy to get to the point – no doubt what Pallin prefers, given his particular style of working with me thus far. "So far, it looks likely they were lured down here; given their backgrounds, probably by credits. But we won't know for sure until we look deeper into it."

"There was an eyewitness who caught a brief look of the killer, too," I add in. "He said they were big. Possibly krogan size, maybe bigger, like an elcor."

Pallin gives a derisive clack of his mandibles. "Elcor seems unlikely."

"The description was of a 'large' assailant, I don't see why that makes elcor any less likely than a krogan-"

"One of those species is has a predisposition to violence. The other does not. Surely that makes one more likely than the other, don't you think?" Pallin asks. Well, 'asks', in the loosest possible sense of the word.

I'm about to make some kind of ill-thought remark, but Garrus interrupts before I can – probably for the best. "From how confident the killer was keeping the bodies here, they obviously weren't expecting us to piece this together or find them. I doubt they'd be able to cover their tracks that well."

The Executor nods slowly, before sparing another glance at me. "Fine. Just make sure we get something before more corpses like this start appearing. If you want a more senior partner-"

"He's doing fine, Executor," Garrus says firmly. "Thank you."

Pallin still doesn't look impressed, but decides not to make anything of it, particularly as we can see the larger marked vehicles from the various news companies on the Citadel starting to make their descent, with officers all ready and set up to enforce the cordon. "Keep me informed, then." He turns on his heel and marches off towards them – I wait until he's out of earshot to let out the breath I hadn't really appreciated I'd been holding. As much as I dislike Pallin, he's still pretty intimidating.

"You should be careful," Garrus says, turning back to look at me. "It's not much of a secret around the department that Pallin wants to get rid of you."

"I was just saying what the eyewitness told us," I point out. "He can't fire me for that."

"No, but he can for whatever you were planning to say afterwards." Garrus chuckles when I obviously struggle for some kind of protest to voice. "I don't read humans very well, but I recognised the expression you had. Trust me, I feel the same way with Pallin a lot of the time, but it's smarter to let him feel important and just brief him on what we know for sure. Especially in your position."

It's at least relieving to hear that Garrus doesn't think much of Pallin either, not that it's a huge surprise – the Executor's a bit more straight laced, which is something of a personality clash. "Alright, I'll try not to tell him he's an asshole. That means I get to vent with you, though."

The turian laughs, gesturing back to our cruiser – there's not a whole lot more we can do at the crime scene, not until forensics finishes up completely. "Looking forward to it. Pallin has most of the others in the department following his lead, so it's good to have someone to be a little more...open, with."

"You do realise that backing me up is going to put you in his sights too, right?"

I can see the familiar smirk slipping onto Garrus' face – that one he occasionally does in the games, when he's quietly rather proud of something. "Oh, I think I'm there already."

"Meaning?"

"I'll tell you on the way over." he says, opening up his omni-tool to get the cruiser doors to open up for the two of us to clamber inside. "We're going to the Lower Wards."

I give a frown at that. I don't entirely remember anything that pointed us in that kind of direction, so I'm racking my brains for anything that would explain it. "You said we were doing interviews? Did one of them work there?"

"The salarian did, but that's not why I'm heading there first," Garrus explains. "Once you work enough cases in the black market, you start working out informants. I've know a volus who was experimenting on some arms trading on the side from his store, but got a bit deeper than he was expecting. In return for co-operating with the bigger investigation I was doing, I helped pulled him out."

"And you didn't bring him in afterwards?"

"It's the same idea as what you did with the salarian witness earlier. You let some of the little things go so you can make the big cases. It's not exactly regulations..."

"But it makes sense, I gotcha," I nod, grinning. Back home when I was playing the games, I always tried to iron out some of Garrus' more renegade, 'ends justify the means' kind of things, but now that I've sat through a few months of the C-Sec introduction programme and all the regulations, it's hard to concede that he doesn't have at least a little bit of a point. "How long ago was that investigation? Is he still going to be happy to see you?"

"Maybe 'happy' isn't the right word. But he could be a good start," the turian chuckles, starting up the engine. "Once he calms down."

I try not to laugh at the thought of a volus flapping around in a panic as Garrus starts up the engine, opening up my omni-tool to glance through the case notes as he flies. As much as I want to just steer this towards elcor as much as possible, we really should do this properly – the case I'm thinking of might be a different time, after all. Can't imagine Garrus had many cases like this in his time at C-Sec, but I can't know for sure.

We can see what this volus has to say, and then take it from there. The nausea from before is gone – replaced with a keen desire to wipe that dismissive look off Pallin's face. Even if this isn't an elcor, I want to prove that I can do this – regardless of being forced into this job, I'm here now. Working with Garrus. I know that back on Earth, this is the kind of thing I would've loved to have done – and even if the reality isn't quite as glamorous as what I might've fantasised, it's still an opportunity to do something I never could've thought possible in my life back home. Actually make some kind of a difference, in the hub of alien civilisation.

Let's go crack a case.