Chapter 8

"So, what is it you were saying about being in Pallin's sights already?" I ask, watching the Citadel rush by before us. There's a real sort of juxtaposition between the rundown area we flew out of, and the whitewashed, gleaming surfaces of Council buildings and the Presidium as it passes underneath on the way to the Lower Wards. Cities back on Earth, back in my time, always had that as well – almost a hard border to wealth, and obviously intergalactic society hasn't gone any way to fundamentally changing that aspect of large settlements. "You two don't get along?"

"Not exactly, no," Garrus admits, glancing over at me from the driver's seat – brow plate lowered slightly as he presumably works out how best to phrase this. "Pallin is...'classic' C-Sec. He's been around for a while. He knew my father, actually, always thought highly of him."

"You're from a line of C-Sec officers, then?"

"If you'd call my father and I a 'line', then sure," the turian chuckles. "Father had quite the reputation. Solved plenty of cases, did everything by the book, exactly like Pallin wants – 'do things right, or don't do them at all', that was his mantra. Then I join C-Sec, and don't have quite the same approach my father did. The Executor doesn't have a lot of patience for people bending the rules, so we don't always see eye to eye." He looks over at me again. "Sorry. I know it's your first day, and there's been all this dropped on you. I shouldn't be complaining about our boss on top of it."

I laugh, shaking my head. "It's fine. Pallin's been on my case ever since I joined, it's not like you're really changing my view of him. Just glad I'm not the only one who finds him a bit of a prick." He barely ever mentions his father or family in game – I don't want to pry into it too much, but if we're talking anyway… "Did you join C-Sec because you wanted to follow in your father's footsteps, then?"

Garrus gives a flanged sigh at that, mandibles flexing out ever so slightly in a sign of annoyance; at me or his father, I'm not completely sure. "Not quite."

He leaves it at that, a bit of a heavy silence lingering between us for the next few seconds as I look back out of the window. There's a fine line between prying and getting to know someone better, and while I guess I 'know' Garrus pretty well in terms of what he's going to do and personality, there's a big difference between watching that play out in scripted interactions on a screen, and actually talking to someone in person. "You know," I say, trying to find some common ground. "C-Sec wasn't really my first choice either."

"High profile job for someone who didn't want to do it," the turian observes. Guess he has a point there.

"Hey, I would've been fine doing something lower profile. Then you get fast-tracked like this, shoved into where someone else thinks will suit you best..." I shrug at him helplessly. "Trust me, I'm not trying to be some poster-boy for humanity in C-Sec, far from it. Juts didn't really get much of a say in the matter."

Garrus' expression seems to soften slightly – a look at the navigation display in the cruiser shows we're only a minute away from arriving at this informant's store, but he still looks ready to talk a bit more. "Have you ever heard of the Spectres?"

Ah, now this, I did know about him. Interesting to hear him talk about it naturally, though. "Yeah, kind of. Council agents who deal with the really big problems in the galaxy, above the law, all that stuff. You applied?"

"Sort of. I was only one of the thousand or so candidates they picked out from my time in the turian military, so there's no guarantee I would have ever made it further than that. But my candidacy got blocked, and I'd always been planning on looking into C-Sec after the military, so here I am."

I can imagine just by the implication who blocked that particular decision, but I think I've pushed it enough by now, nodding understandingly. "Least you're still helping people here though, right? Just probably a lot fewer explosions and gunfights."

"Right," Garrus laughs, as he starts to set the cruiser down in one of the parking spots in the Lower Wards. "Hante's shop is a few minutes walk from here, and we've got a few people to see today. Let's go."

"Sounds like a plan," I nod, popping open the cruiser door and stepping out into the bustling shopping district. The Lower Wards aren't anywhere near as bright as the Presidium, but there's still plenty of glaring light sources amongst the dimmer background – advertisements climbing up the huge towers in the distance, cheaper stores awash in a glow of holographic displays hawking their wares, as Garrus and I set off through the streets. It's all quite distracting; less of the orderly shopping experience you get in the wealthier districts, and a lot more crammed together, but the prices seem a hell of a lot lower – lots of independent traders and smaller shops, with plenty of people from all species milling around and looking for deals.

After throwing up earlier, Garrus points me towards some good, non-dextro food places to get some energy back, so by the time we reach 'Hante's Electronics Emporium' I'm just finishing up some burrito kind of thing – it's not abundantly clear what kind of meat is in the filling, given it wasn't a human farmed animal, but it tastes pretty great regardless. The store itself is a bit of a dump – there's a half hearted attempt at a display in the windows outside, but it's just a few omni-tools and terminals scattered around haphazardly. I'm not much of a tech expert, but even I can tell that those omni-tool models are pretty outdated, and the higher shelves are notably rather bare. I guess that makes sense for a volus merchant – not like it's quite as easy to reach up and keep the top shelves well stocked…

"Not exactly the Sirta Foundation, is it?" I ask, glancing over to Garrus, who chuckles and shakes his head.

"It never was. Store presentation isn't Hante's strong point," the turian says, frowning at the storefront as we both peer through to try and make out any volus inside. No customers, but no sign of a shopkeeper either. "Okay. If I go in there first, there's a good chance he's going to make a run for it."

"He's that scared of you? The hell did you do to him the first time you met?"

"I didn't do anything. He just associates me with the black market traders that were out for his head, so he might assume the worst if I come through the door," Garrus points out. "So, you need to go in first. Get him out into the store to show you some of the goods, then I'll come in so he can't get anywhere. Then we'll talk and see if he's heard anything."

"Right. Easy as that, I'm sure," I say a touch sarcastically, getting an eye roll from Garrus for my troubles as I step up to the entrance door, with the turian leaning against the shop's window as he waits. Old fashioned door, too, not one of the omni-tool compatible sliding ones, so I give it a push to open it up, and only get the frame to rattle in response. Shit. Is the store open? Maybe that's why he's not around. I give it another go, with no luck – but at least spot a volus peeking his head out from around the back room, before slowly trundling out and looking at me. I gesture at the door, then shrug in confusion. Maybe it's just outside of opening hours? But it's the middle of the day-

"It's *click* a pull *click* door."

I give it a pull, and the door swings open. Ah. That'll do it, then. Trying not to look too embarrassed with myself, I head inside and give him a friendly smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." There's still the slower method of talking, and the clicking in between words, but having met a few volus in my months on the Citadel, I'm quite used to it by now. "What can I do for you, Earth-clan? I have a wide range of second hand goods for fine prices, if anything takes your interest?"

I would probably contest the 'wide range' point if I was feeling particularly pedantic, but given that I'm supposed to help chill this guy out, I decide against it. "Yeah, I saw a couple of omni-tools on display that might make good gifts, but there's no prices on them. Mind talking me through the specs and how many credits they'd be?" I ask, gesturing towards a display on the wall opposite from where Garrus is waiting outside.

"Of course." The volus starts to waddle over to that particular display, the penguin comparisons uncanny, given his white and black suit. "Which specific items were you thinking about?" With his back turned, I quickly open my omni-tool and send a ping to Garrus', before closing it up and choosing one entirely at random.

"That one. That one looks really interesting," I say, with all the authority of a man with no idea what he's talking about.

I feel like Hante would be frowning if I could see his face, as the volus briefly looks back to me, following my outstretched finger to a pretty haggard looking omni-tool with a few scratches on it. "Right. A good choice," he says, apparently more than happy to play the salesman on top of my apparent ignorance. "Let's see about making a deal-"

We both hear the doorframe rattling at the same time, Hante and I both looking back over to see the shape of a turian outside. "It's a pull door!" we both call, in time for a rather flustered looking Garrus to walk in, glancing back over his shoulder with irritation. Hante, on the other hand, freezes up.

"Garrus?" Time seems to slow as Hante looks to Garrus, then me, the turian's arms folded in an unimpressed expression. The volus suddenly makes a break for it, trying to dash towards the back room on his stubby legs; an escape attempt swiftly ended when I stick out my leg and he goes tumbling over it and down to the ground.

So much for high speed pursuit.

"So, how's business, Hante?" Garrus asks. We've got the volus sat up on a chair by the display wall, and given the higher frequency of clicks coming from his mask, he's obviously feeling rather apprehensive about us being here, like Garrus predicted. "Glad we didn't interrupt any of your customers."

"Why are you here, Palaven-clan?" Hante demands, presumably trying to sound a little more bold about things than he actually feels. "I already helped you and C-Sec with your weapons investigation, what more can I add?"

"Riiiight. I'm sure you've kept yourself clear of the black market since then. With all the customers in here, you must be making more than enough credits to cope otherwise," Garrus comments sarcastically, getting a huff of annoyance from Hante. "Organ trade. Even if you're not involved in it, someone's been moving a lot of them this past week. You must have heard something?"

"I left the black market behind after the weapons dealing, you know that! I have no intention of getting involved again-" Hante gives a shout of fright as Garrus kicks the chair back up against the wall, closing in and looming over the volus. Well, that didn't take as long as I was expecting; all of Garrus' talk about not caring much for regulations didn't bother me before, when it was talk. Seeing it like this, though, I'm feeling a little tense – so I can only imagine what it's doing for Hante.

"Don't lie to me, Hante. I've been happy keeping off you after how you helped us before, but you need to return the favour," Garrus says, hint of a growl in his voice. "New dealer on the organ market. A name, species, anything you know."

Hante stays quiet again, and I can see one of Garrus' taloned hands curled up. Okay, time to play good cop. "Look, Hante, we're not trying to prosecute you, even if you are still involved in the black market. No offence, but we've got bigger things going on here," I point out to him. "Just help us out and we're done. I don't want to make it any more difficult than it has to be."

Garrus reaches out and places a hand on Hante's shoulder – even with the gloves covering his talons, I can see that his grip is looking rather tight, from how it presses down against the exo-suit. "I don't mind how difficult it gets." Fucking hell, this got dark, really quick. I don't think Garrus would actually hurt him...I mean, I hope not. It's an act, albeit a very convincing one, and it's enough to get Hante to snap, nodding his head frantically.

"Okay, okay, I'll talk! Earth-clan, get him to stop!"

I give Garrus a quick nod, but he's still got his hand dug in for a few seconds more – just as I'm about to go over and pull his hand off, he finally retracts it, taking a step back but not looking particularly remorseful about it. I suppose if we find out what we need to stop this killer, ends justify the means…

Hante spends almost a solid minute clicking and wheezing, presumably as he starts to calm down from that interrogation, but it starts testing my patience a bit. "Hante, you said you'd talk, so come on. Garrus and I are dying to hear it."

"I keep...*wheeze*…black market data, on my terminal..." Hante explains, slipping out of the chair and waddling back over to the counter. "Let me look it up and see if I can help you." I shoot a sideways glance at Garrus, who's looking a little concerned himself – just as a red warning light bathes the shop, and shutters slam down around the windows and door. The hell did he do?

I look up to see a roof panel open up, and what I quickly identify as a security mech drops down and starts to unfold; pistol immediately noticeable in its right hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I can faintly see Garrus dash behind a display cabinet for cover, drawing his pistol – but I'm completely frozen up.

My right hand is going for the pistol at my hip, but it feels sluggish, legs refusing to move as the mech's pistol starts to come up.

Christ, I'm freaking out, come on! I finally get a grip on the weapon, pulling it up and out of the holster, trying to aim just as the robot brings his weapon to a firing position-

And its head explodes in a shower of sparks and scraps. Garrus steps out with his gun still trained on it until the lights flicker and die, before looking over at me and holstering it.

"Ian? There's no more mechs. Lower it."

I faintly realise I've still got my gun up, aimed at the spot where the mech was standing, finally getting my senses back enough to lower and holster the weapon – but my hands are still visibly shaking. I completely froze up there, shit. We've done plenty of weapons training at the academy; hell, I'm a pretty good shot, but as soon as there's a weapon pointed at me for real...fuck.

That's really not great, especially not in front of my partner. "Sorry. I just...I don't even know. I saw the gun and I-"

"It's fine." There's genuine reassurance in Garrus' tone – not the annoyance I was expecting. He looks and sounds pissed off, but I can tell it's not at me; more likely, it's at the volus who it appears just tried to kill us. "Nobody ever knows how they'll react first time in a real situation like that. Are you alright?"

"Shaken up, but no permanent damage." Next time I'll be better prepared. Just the shock of having a weapon drawn on me...ugh. I'll be ready if that ever happens again. I hope. "Thanks." He's probably saved my life, right there; a feeling which I'm not sure is going to sink in for a little while.

"No problem. You're not getting killed by a security mech. That's just embarrassing." Garrus flashes me a brief smile there; knowing that someone legitimately does have my back is a hell of a reassurance too, my hands start to shake a hell of a lot less as I get my breathing back under control. "Now..." We both look back over at the counter, to see Hante peeking out slowly. "He's got some explaining to do."

"Yeah," I nod, breathing out a shaky sigh, and starting to step towards the volus. "Too right he does."

Garrus has Hante pushed up against the wall, and this time I'm feeling less inclined to help him, given that he literally tried to kill us. Little bastard is definitely getting taken in for that – I've already called in nearby officers to assist and arrest, but this is our best shot at getting info from him quickly, before he's dragged off back to the main precinct.

"I'm *wheeze* sorry! I panicked!" Hante protested. "Please, it's a misunderstanding-"

"Security mechs aren't misunderstandings, Hante," Garrus growls. "And if you don't want to go away for a very, very long time, then talk. Everything you know about black market organ trades in the past week. Now!"

Hante's head strains back over his shoulder to look at me, presumably appealing for help, but I keep my expression flat. He blew his chance, frankly, and the volus knows it.

"Alright, I'll tell you!" Hante practically squeaks, nodding his head. "There's been talk across the market, a new organ supplier – nobody knows where he's getting them from, but he's undercutting all the major labs, so word gets around. Nobody's seen his face, but it doesn't make much of a difference – everyone recognises an elcor when they see one!"

Garrus looks back to me in surprise; I just feel an immense sense of relief that my initial hunch was right. Looks like this really is the elcor case after all. "Why the hell didn't you just tell us that in the first place?" I ask Hante.

"You would have thought I was involved! I didn't want to be arrested, and then with the security mech, I just..." He trails off. He probably did panic and set them on us, but still, that doesn't mean I'm inclined to just let it go.

"Well, bit late for not getting arrested," I sigh. "There's some officers on the way." Garrus has already cuffed him, so we'll just sit tight until they arrive – the turian looks like he's holding himself back from clocking Hante one, but he's showing admirable restraint for now. I'm still getting my breath back from nearly getting shot, too, but knowing that we're narrowing down the suspect list feels pretty good too.

Leaving Hante cuffed to the chair for now, I head over to the turian, flicking open my omni-tool to start pulling a list of biotic elcor. Given how specific a query it is, that only takes a few seconds to come up with a list of names – out of an elcor population of a few hundred thousand, this narrows it down to just twenty-five.

"Closing the net," I mutter to Garrus. "Think Pallin is going to be happy about it looking like an elcor, rather than a krogan? He seemed pretty adamant I was barking up the wrong tree." Garrus looks a bit baffled at that particular expression. "Uh, looking in the wrong place."

"Ah, right. Well, if that's where the evidence is pointing, he doesn't have to like it," the turian points out, opening up his omni-tool. "We still need to talk to the employers and friends of the victims; the tech team are still looking at what they can uncover from mail and extranet accounts, but this definitely narrows down any possibilit-" He pauses mid-sentence, and I can see him opening up a mail notification that appeared.

"Something wrong?"

"Yeah. Pallin's just sent a message." He flicks through his omni-tool; going to the extranet application while he talks. "Two more bodies. Organs removed, Tayseri Ward."

"What? How? We already compromised the killer's spot, they can't have just killed again already," I say, looking to Garrus in shock. "That doesn't make sense..." Christ. If the station wasn't in a panic earlier, they certainly will be now.

"You think that's bad? Here's who found out first." Garrus expands the omni-tool screen as he settles on the extranet site he wants, popping into a full display of the Westerland News channel, reporting live from Tayseri Ward, with the camera crew being ushered behind what looks like a hastily constructed C-Sec cordon.

"That's just out in an alleyway," I mutter. "That's much more open than I was expecting. Maybe the killer just panicked?" Something about it doesn't sit right.

"We won't know until we get there," Garrus sighs. "As soon as those officers get here for Hante, then we need to go. Straight away."

Too right. If the media are crawling all over this straight away, two bodies showing up in broad daylight – or at least, artificial daylight – is going to mean Pallin demanding some answers, and quick.

So much for stopping this before it gets out of hand.