*** Fist ***

Fist closed the inner security door to his office, opened another wall panel and removed a large box with both hands, turned and put it down on his desk. Sitting and facing it, he activated the exotic communicator and spoke: "This is Agent Fist." He rolled a Spanish "R" with his tongue, adding a series of tones to it that was his password.

"Hey…it's Fist. I have a source with evidence…uh, the contents of a geth memory core…implicating Saren in the geth attack on Eden Prime. The only Saren I know is that Spectre Saren Arterius. The source is a quarian. I don't have the file in my possession yet. She's trying to sell a copy of the info only. If you're interested in this info, let me know. Fist out."

He pushed the box to one side and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

Saren…Saren Arterius? He shook his head. He'd seen the Spectre on his security cameras a couple of times; …wait, that's crazy...a Council Spectre wouldn't be involved in that attack on a human colony.

would he?

He squinted in thought.

I wonder if Saren would pay for this?

He pulled his small standalone computer toward him.

A quarian is trying to sell info tying you to the Eden Prime attack. You want the info, the quarian, both, something else? Send instruction and an offer.

Encrypt, kiew-key 11259375. Xmit. He wiped his thumb past an old-style biometric reader. The computer chittered and warbled to itself, and displayed Sent.

Before he could rise from his chair, the stellarcom device lit up again: Incoming message. The holographic display winked on; the connection was realtime.

The Shadow Broker asked, Is the geth memory core in her possession?

Fist pondered his answer, tried to be wiley, "I think so, but haven't seen it."

You have a budget up to GCr 3,000,000 for the intact core plus copy of core dump, fee at your discretion. Reply when you have it.

Fist gawked at the figure. Three million?! He grinned, leaning back in his chair. Guess who finally made the Big Time. He sprang from his chair and stopped himself before walking deliberately through the security doors.

The quarian was sitting at the table, chopping up something on a plate before her and pushing the finely-shredded bits through a filtered chowlock. She was looking up as Fist stepped through the outer door and into the ready room.

Fist smiled reassuringly. "You must have quite the item there; he's offering one million credits for a copy of the info plus the intact core."

Tali was slightly embarrassed to be eating in front of an alien. "That…was fast," she stammered, "I guess your broker just happened to be sitting at his desk?"

Fist nodded. "Uh-huh. It's actually pretty impressive. It may just be one guy with some well-coded VIs that run interference for him on the comms. But yeah…he answered immediately. Almost always does. And a million credits is pretty interested."

"Wait…he wants the cores?" Tali put a hand to her hip pocket, double-checking that the fragment was still there. "But this is valuable…very valuable to my people. We can use it to understand the geth, and maybe even stop them. We've been looking for something like this for centuries!" She paused, reading the analysis presented by her father's unpredictable VI. "How much would he take for just the info? I can't just…I won't let someone else keep the cores. They're just too valuable to my people."

Fist looked away. "Well…" He scratched his head. "I don't know. Let me go check. Maybe I can work something out."

Feeling unusually generous, he turned around and exited the ready room, scratching his chin nervously.

With the doors closed behind him, Fist sat on the edge of the couch, looking around the room in thought. "So," he mused aloud, "How much would you offer for just the info?"

"Oh, not as much," he growled in response, pretending to be the voice he'd heard only once before. "Maybe a quarter of a million. The cores are very important to me, too."

He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Shit, I should have gone straight to Saren, he thought.

# # #

Benezia's eyes reflected the Invicta's smallish cabin.

She regarded the strangely organic device protruding through the aft bulkhead with renewed suspicion. Running the length of the ship like a spine, the "integration" gave the impression it was growing, but she could not examine it too closely without arousing suspicion of her own suspicions. Its veined cables, connecting it to modified navigational display, life support, engineering…it seemed like a highly advanced form of automation in function, but it was too obvious, as if its visibility were part of its function as well. Since installing it, the fly-by-wire ship had become less balky than the batarian yachts she had worked on in her youth before the rise of the Hegemony…but it still made her uncomfortable.

Saren gestured to the comm system, ending the telepresence call to the Council, and sat in the chair behind him. "Shepard," he growled. "Shepard is the one who saw the beacon's message."

As she nodded, Benezia's eyes settled on the navigational display, followed the path the ship would feed to the Relay Transit Tracking buoys. Sovereign had provided the enormous "integration" device, told Saren how and where to use it, and given terse instructions for the timing of its activation. It might make her uncomfortable, but she could not deny that it was a powerful…even indispensable tool: it could leave information of any sort in the relay network, from erasing a transit where there had been one, to recording a transit where there had been none.

Benezia looked away from the Musky's navigation console and rotated the alien chair toward Saren. "Perhaps the way to keep him ignorant of its importance is to ignore him. Killing him could call too much attention to our search for the Conduit. We should not risk undue attention."

Saren leaned on the console, massaging his forescalp with a taloned claw, "But his knowledge of the beacon message must be destroyed. It points to the Conduit, it warns of the reapers, it shows other things even I do not yet understand."

"It will be too hard to kill him on the Citadel."

Saren growled, and lapsed into silence. After a pause, "It is unimportant that I kill him," Saren thought aloud, "What operatives do we have there now?"

Benezia knew their names without consulting her VI, "Dellit Fask and the two Vizs brothers. Prant, Jeripomandua Hinq, and Bad Strongest have all been used too recently. Timiny is posted to the Presidium, but I consider her unreliable. Not enough to end the contract, but not for this." Her ARO displayed a translucent pop-up, Incoming call: Fist – Encrypted – key applied successfully.

Benezia pursed her lips. "Hm. And there is a message from Fist."

"Fist." Saren read the terse message, contracting what was left of his fringe in thought.

A quarian is trying to sell info tying you to the Eden Prime attack. You want the info, the quarian, both, something else? Send instruction and an offer.

Noting the time of transmission, Saren growled with annoyance, then gestured to the display on their left. "Live message to Fist," he said.

Connecting, please wait.

Fist – an absurd name the human had chosen for himself – appeared with his usual doltish smirk.

Saren turned to the display as it lit. "Fist. I'm surprised. I had contracted with a freelancer to kill the quarian; I…appreciate that you were more subtle."

"Saren." Fist nodded once. "Yeah, I thought you might be interested; she's naming names."

"Do you have her there?"

"Yeah, she's in the armory. Someone tried to kill her…oh. That was probably your amateur."

"Kill her. Now."

Fist goggled at the computer. "You don't want the intel? The geth core?"

"If I did, I'd have asked for it. I only want her dead, human."

"She's in my club. I can't do that here; C-Sec will shut me down."

"It's just a quarian; C-Sec will never know. I know about your Maw access, and I don't care where you do it. Just kill it and get the omnitool to me."

"Well, here's the problem: There's another buyer. He wants the data and the quarian, and he's sending a krogan to pick her up. Alive."

Saren fixed him with a look the human had never seen before. "What's the offer?"

"It's the Shadow Broker. He's offering six million," Fist answered evenly. "Well, if she's still breathing."

"What would you say to twelve million for the quarian's omnitool?"

"A quarian without an omnitool? That'll never happen, not even for the whole twelve million. You might as well try to buy her brain."

"It would if it were dead."

"You don't…" Fist scowled, shook his head. "No. No, this is for the Shadow Broker. Are you crazy...or do you think I am? I could never get within twelve million light years of civilization for the rest of my life!"

Saren didn't react. "I'm transferring ten million to your Tunguska account now, and another fifteen million when you hand over the quarian's omnitool."

Fist squinted at the display. His omnitool informed him the escrow account had indeed received the funds.

Saren looked up at the camera again. "Kill that quarian and get me her omnitool to prove it."

There was a long pause, as Fist stared at the display on his omnitool.

"What's the gimmick?" Fist asked. "You've never been this…intense."

"Fist! End that quarian now! I could kill you if I wanted, or worse, ruin you. But I want you to be motivated to succeed. This is too important to too many people. Do it now. Now!"

Saren hammered the cutoff.

# # #

Fist recoiled from the suddenly dark display. He frowned, glanced up toward the door leading to the ready room, and then sighed, shaking his head. He thumbed the reader on the stellarcom; the device lit in response.

The Shadow Broker's device beeped and lit its text interface, Buy now. Intact cores are not negotiable. I want the quarian. If alive at delivery, there will be a million credit bonus.

"Turns out she doesn't have the cores," Fist said to the device, "And…never mind that, there's another complication."

Not your concern. Keep her safe. The agent coming to pick her up is a krogan; he will be at your club in the next hour. ID: Urdnot, Wrex

"Not so fast. I'm not sure you have the best deal."

Silence.

Fist leaned closer to the device, wondering if it had malfunctioned.

You have just received an occulted payment of ten million credits. Explain.

"I'm a free agent," Fist answered. "And I'm choosing who I sell to."

Not an option, came the reply. We have a deal.

Fist stood, lifting the communicator. "No," he said to it as he placed it in the corner of his office. "We do not."

He drew a tiny, silenced pistol from his back pocket and fired it repeatedly; the machine sparked once and went dark. Fist picked the smoking box up with a single hand, and opened the other door.

Stepping through, he looked to his right at the sliver of starlight he could see, leaned over the edge of the balcony and tossed the remains of the stellarcom over the trailing edge. He stood, watching it for a few seconds as it soared along a collection channel toward the recycler Maw. It was at least a kilometer off, but anything that fell away from this surface of the station ended up in the Maw.

The view isn't the greatest, he thought, but it's sure handy.

At last, he put two fingers to his ear. "Okay, Everybody. The bad news is I just blew off the Shadow Broker. The good news is we just made four point seven million credits. Anyone left standing after the shooting stops gets an even share. Trug, Skaven, guard the ready room. Sticky, give 'em a heads-up if you see a big krogan come in."

"Is there any other kind?" Though he was being belligerent, the salarian still sounded nervous.

"I mean big, even for a krogan. All right, this is for the big money. Get plenty of ammo. I'm gonna go seal the deal."

# # #

The krogan bouncer didn't turn his head as the humans stepped through the unmarked door, but Kaidan and Ash both knew they had been noticed.

Kaidan's omnitool picked out Victor Harkin and put a callout over him on his ARO. When he spotted a table nearby, he turned to Ash and started to speak, but the deafening noise – suggestive music that seemed typical of a dimly lit "club" with exotic dancers – made him reconsider. He gestured for RTM, subvocalizing, He's near that exit to the toilets. There's a table just the other side. I'm going to go get the table, you go get us a couple of drinks and walk past him. Maybe you can talk to him.

Ash messaged back, Ew, ick…but...well, you're the top. What do you drink?

Just get a couple of beers or something. Soon as we got info out of this Harkin, we're done with them.

Really? You'd abandon a beer?

In a place like this, it's probably just isopropyl and food coloring anyway. But you can use it to get his attention.

Stopping at the kiosk around the back of the central bar, Ash ordered two of the club's private label beers, lifted one in each hand and headed to the table where Kaidan was seated, going anti-clockwise around the central bar station so she would be able to go past Harkin's table.

How come I get the dirty job?

Because I doubt he'd think I'm his type, came Kaidan's ready reply.

She noticed the man staring at her almost immediately. A lecherous grin formed slowly on his stubbled face. "Well stick a pole up my ass and call me a turian. If more marine babes looked like that, I'd have joined the Alliance instead of C-Sec."

Ash slowed, almost unable to believe he'd said it aloud.

Noticing that the woman had not only heard him, but was now intently looking his way, Harkin continued, "Hey there, sweetheart...ya looking for some fun? 'Cause I gotta say, that soldier getup looks reeeal good on that bod of yours. Why don't you sit your sweet little ass down beside old Harkin? Have a drink and we'll see where this goes." He chuckled to himself, pushed a chair out from the table with his foot.

Ash considered flinging one of the beers at him as a text appeared on her ARO. Play hard to get, Kaidan suggested, I'll Lift him on the way out if you want.

"Why you fff…" She stopped herself, then continued, "You look just like the fellow that Ambassador Udina said to ask where we can find Officer Garrus Vakarian." She paused, found herself unable to resist putting the bottom-feeder in his place. "As for your…charming offer, I'd rather drink a cup of acid after chewin' on a razor blade."

"You trying to hurt my feelings? You gotta do better than that. After twenty years in C-Sec, I've been called every name in the book, princess."

Ash leaned up close to him, and lowered her voice, "Call me princess again and you'll be picking your teeth out of the wall behind you."

Harkin glanced down, reading from his omnitool's VI, "Normandy?" He looked up at Ash again, "Heh! You must be one of Anderson's crew. Poor bastard's still trying to bring Saren down." He grinned confidently. "I know where Garrus is, but you gotta tell me something first. Did ol' Davey let you in on his big secret?"

"Just tell me where Garrus is before this gets really ugly."

Harkin raised his hands imploringly, "But it's all related, don't you see? Your Captain used to be a Spectre. Didn't know that, did ya? It was all very hush-hush. The first human ever given that honor. And then he blew it. Screwed his mission up so bad they kicked him out. Of course, he blames Saren. Says the turian set him up."

Ash was unimpressed. "Why should I believe a drunk like you?"

Harkin shrugged, "Fine, ask him yourself. I bet he tells you. He's too stupid and proud to lie right to your face."

"You said they covered this all up. How'd you hear about it?"

Harkin cackled, leaning his chair back, and grinned again. "I spent twenty years working cases here on the Citadel. People on this station looove to talk." He leered at her. "Secrets are like herpes. If you got 'em, you might as well ssshhpread 'em around."

Ash paused, mouth open in disbelief, then carefully set the beers down on Harkin's table. In a single motion, she pulled the other chair away from the table with one hand and sat down, drawing her sidearm and aiming it at him under the table with the other. The pistol's electronics whined softly as it decompacted and recharged its ultracapacitor for successive shots. "Last chance, buster. You tell me where Garrus is right now. Or you'll be tweetin' like a bird for the rest of your unnatural life."

Harkin reacted with as much life as she'd seen yet; he backed the chair against the wall and put his hands up defensively. "Okay! Jesus, settle down, babe." He rendered an omnitool gauntlet that somehow managed to look dingy and abused, and waved commands at it. "Vakarian…Garrusss…" he muttered to himself as he flipped through the C-Sec blotter interface. "There he is. En route: Shots Fired near Apollo's Café," he read from the omnitool. Looking up, he sniffed, wiped his nose with his wrist. "So how about it? Is that at least good for a little kiss?" He grinned unsteadily.

"Mmmm…" Ash looked up and left, appearing to consider the idea as she stood up. "Not today, sport…but it's good for a beer." She reached for the glasses, lifting one with her left hand and tapping the other with the muzzle of her pistol. The glass tipped over, spilling its contents across the table and toward him.

In his drunken state, Harkin couldn't dodge the liquid; the chair simply fell backwards, throwing him to the floor. Beer drizzled from the table to the floor next to him as he struggled to his feet.

"Thank you for your assistance, officer," Ash said as she turned away.

"Yeah, good. Go…let me drink in peace." He looked at his hands, then at his clothes. "Shit. What did I ever do to you...?"

Ash stepped over to the table where Kaidan was sitting and placed the beer between them. "Obnoxious pig," she glared toward Harkin one last time.

"Looked like he gave you some info, though."

Ash raised her left arm and lit her gauntlet. "I got a finder for the C-Sec officer. Harkin said he was responding to a Shots Fired call at Apollo's Café."

"Good. That takes some of the pressure off. Now we can find him no matter where he goes."

Ash shrugged. "It'd probably be better to get to him quickly. If we wait too long, we might lose whatever leads he had."

"True. Though we ought to give Rich a minute to catch up." Kaidan glanced at Harkin, and then back up at Ash. "Expert use of that sidearm, Chief."

Sitting, she looked down at the weapon, then glanced thoughtfully to her right. Cleanerbots scurried around the drunk, transtating the liquid into a dust, and then quickly vacuuming it up. It was a low-tech solution, but it worked well in public places. She looked up at Kaidan. "I'll have you know that this," she waved the pistol slightly, "was issued to me by mistake. This is a magic gun."

Kaidan turned his head slightly, squinting at her. "Huh? How do you figure?"

"Back when I took the training for, and served as an MP at Hadley...the Alliance base on Acheron..."

"Where?"

"Acheron. One of those really distant colonies that fizzled. Back before Colonial admin figured out about corporate sponsorships. Anyway, it turns out that this gun right here is also a magic translator. There had been an aborted Blood Pack hit on the colony, and I stopped and grilled a batarian; asked if he had seen any of their vehicles in the past few minutes, and which way it had gone. At first, he just babbled his gargle-and-spit language at me, until I drilled this into his cauliflower ear. And then suddenly I was able to understand everything he was saying." She nodded confidently and pointed at her weapon again. "Magic gun."

Kaidan nodded admiringly. "You really do know how to use that thing."

Ash holstered the Stiletto-VI as a krogan stepped into the club.

Like most of his species, he looked something like a bowling pin, heavy end up. Because of this, when he walked, he seemed to waddle. Had he not been carrying a custom shotgun the size of a bazooka, it might have elicited a grin.

But this was a large krogan, easily 400 kilos. While his armor looked expensive, it also looked well-worn, even abused. Panels had been replaced, but scorch marks remained on the adjacent pieces where it looked like he'd taken direct missile fire. He seemed to wear the claw scrapes, acid burns, and bullet marks like medals.

As the krogan waded deliberately between the tables, Ash noticed how patrons and staff managed to subtly get out of his way while pretending nothing unusual. Just before he reached the drunk's table, two other krogan blocked his way at the entrance to the restrooms. Their jungle camouflage armor looked lighter, newer, and subtly – if comically – inadequate.

The large krogan stopped, turning slightly so he could see one guard with each eye. "I'm here to pick up a quarian," he rumbled.

"There's no quarian to pick up," one of them answered.

"There'd better be, or it could get…unpleasant here."

"Back off Wrex," snapped the other, "Fist told us to take you down if you showed up."

"Sounds like fun. What are you waiting for? I'm standing right here."

"Trying to save your fossilized hump," said the first. "There's no quarian. Now go away, you're making the dancers nervous."

Wrex postured a head-butt, but did not deliver it. "This is Fists's only chance. If he's smart, he'll take it."

"He's not coming out, Wrex. End of story."

The krogan sniffed with antipathy, and turned away. "This story is just beginning."

Richard had his eyes on the dancers as he approached the table, and took a step back after bumping into a wall of deep red armor.

The krogan looked down at him indifferently, realized this was not a ritual challenge, and said, "Out of my way, human. I have no quarrel with you."

Richard quickly stepped between two tables to his left, and the krogan continued past. He kept watching the krogan's exit as he arrived at Ash and Kaidan's table, "What was that all about?"

Ash shook her head, "Who knows? Let's just try not to get involved."

Kaidan grinned up at him, "Hey. Did they card you?"

"Come on, I'm not that young," the Corporal pulled a third chair out and sat down, looking at the beer. He looked up at the other two soldiers. "Did you find out anything?"

Ash was looking at the beer too, but her mind was clearly elsewhere. "That C-Sec officer is responding to a shooting call."

"We don't want to get in the middle of that," Kaidan added.

"Maybe we could just sneak up on the edge of it," Rich suggested. "It might be a false report. Or maybe it's already over." He looked from Kaidan to Ash and back. "We should at least tell the Commander, shouldn't we?"

Kaidan sighed, looking resigned. "Yeah. We should do that." He raised two fingers to his ear. "Message to Stephen. Sir, we've located Vakarian, but he's answering a call for shots fired near a place called Apollo's Café. I'm not sure we should bother him while he's on duty."

The "sending" icon appeared for a moment, and then was replaced:

Undeliverable. Cached for recipient avail.

Kaidan looked up and shrugged. "Hm. He's offline."

# # #

Fist sat in his office, having watched the exchange on security cameras. As the krogan stalked slowly out of the club, he realized the quarian was still sitting out there waiting. He'd have to be subtle.

He put two fingers to his ear. "C-Sec. I want to report being threatened by a known mercenary. I am afraid for my life. The mercenary's name is Urdnot Wrex, and he just left Chora's Den. Please help." He lowered his hand with a gesture that ended the call, and raised it again, "Zaf, Umi…uh, and Delvin. I need you guys in the service corridor by the markets."

There was a brief burst of static. The salarian voice was brimming with sarcasm, "What, now? You think we're gonna take on a krogan for you by ourselves?"

Fist sneered, "No, I know you won't take on a krogan for me, and you'll still show up for the cut. This is the easy part that I know you will do. Get set up over there. I'm sending over a little bitty quarian. You think you're tough enough for that?"

"Heh…I'd do that myself," answered another salarian voice.

"Don't be too sure," Fist warned, "Saren's goons already tried to take her down, but she got away. This is for bank, so I want all three of you there. Box her in, take her down, get her omnitool. No omnitool, no cut. Not for any of you. In fact, you botch this, I'll hunt you down myself and send body parts to your nearest family members. Got that?"

The three assassins acknowledged.

"Good. You're going to have at least…uh…five minutes. Though it could take thirty, so don't get antsy; now get over there."

# # #

One of Tali's VIs noticed that Fist looked nervous as he emerged from the office again, performed a quick analysis, and put face-reading callouts on the man:

Concealment ~30%
Overt deception ~50%

"The Broker really wants those cores," he said. "But I understand why you want them. Would you consider being taken to a facility that the Broker controls so he can gather the data that your analysis finds? The lab is very well equipped, and will make your work much easier and faster."

"I can leave with all the data I discover?"

"Yup."

Blush +1.1 uV/cm2

"And the cores?"

Fist blinked. "Uh-huh."

MPC blood throughput increase +14%
MPC activity +31pV/CA

"Liar. I want to talk with the Broker myself."

"Yeah, good luck with that. The Broker talks to you, you don't talk to the Broker."

"You're in there talking to him now," Tali rose from the couch, pointing into the office. "I am talking to the Broker, or I am leaving."

"It's…no, I'm…the communicator is keyed to me." He tapped his left collarbone with his right index finger. "If you're in there, it'll close up. I don't think the Broker trusts anyone, that's why he wants the cores himself...or at least to extract the data himself."

"I've already extracted more data than he could hope to get. I was doing it as the cores were self-destructing."

"I don't know the technical stuff. But the Broker's facilities will have more advanced gear than you could be wearing. Or carrying."

Tali sighed and shook her head. Well, that might be true, she realized, but she still couldn't let herself be pushed around too much. "I'm sorry, I just can't let the cores go. They are too important to the future of my people. Isn't there some way I can keep them?" Fist seemed to be thinking, so Tali pressed, "I could be really helpful in the analysis; nobody knows more about the geth than we do."

Fist looked at the quarian's mask, realizing that there was a person under there…and that he was going to have to get her to trust him so he could send her to "meet the Shadow Broker," giving his men time to get in position. He also had to get her out before the mercenary came back, and his call to C-Sec might just do that. But he didn't like killing little girls, even alien ones, and juggling so many considerations slowed him down.

"Okay! Okay, I'll see what I can do. But you'll have to wait. It will take some time…at least give me a few minutes. The Broker doesn't come down here unless…uh…absolutely necessary. I'll just explain that…this is one of those times. Considering there's a million credits on the table, I think that would make it possible." He held up a hand to reassure her, "But you shouldn't wait here."

"Why not?"

"The…the people who tried to kill you before are still trying." He rubbed his forehead. "They sent a krogan to try to kill you; my guys chased him off. Ah…I don't know…I'm going to…have to try to get him here. The Shadow Broker, I mean. But he doesn't…" He looked away. "Shit. You'll have to meet him someplace else."

"What's the problem?"

"Like I was saying about how 'you don't talk to the Shadow Broker'…I can't just…call him in like backup or something. I'm not his boss. And he's set up so he's hard to get to, or even to talk to."

Tali began to realize that even wealthy and powerful aliens had problems of their own, and she couldn't simply demand miracles.

Fist appeared to have decided something. "But I have an idea. Wait here. I'll be right back." Without waiting for her reply, he stepped away to his office again.

*** Glossary ***

C-note: 100 credits

CA: Calculated Axon. As of 2180, the measure of individual neuronal activity can't be detected at range through an intact skull with 20% accuracy, but electrochemical activity can be, though it must be averaged across an axon matrix, which in turn relies upon an "average" neuron's axons, both the number, size, and particulars of which must be calculated. The result can function as a "lie detector" with a reliability over 90%

MPC: Medial Prefrontal Cortex

subvocalizing: articulation without airflow over the vocal cords activates the same areas of the brain as if one had spoken aloud, but allows for very private messaging

top: highest ranking member of an operation or fireteam

transtating: temporary conversion of a material from one state to another by use of a plot device, the author having decided he'd rather do something merely interesting instead of already scientifically credible. Still, state changes usually involve transfers of thermal energy. Could this be accomplished temporarily, and the energy recovered? The answer (plus resulting patents, fame, and money) is left as an exercise for the reader.