XXVIII
Priorities: Assassination 101
"Can I go now, Mom?" Shepard asked, annoyed, wincing as Doctor Chakwas shone a light into both her eyes.
Doctor Chakwas threw a stress ball at the irate woman sitting on her cot, and Shepard snagged it out of the air, threw it up again, caught it behind her back, and tossed it to Garrus. He caught it in his turn. "Looks like she's up to speed again to me, doc."
"And of course, you have no ulterior motives at all to hope that is the case," the doctor retorted. Seeing Shepard's glare, she relented. "Alright. The symptoms are gone, and reflexes are as good as ever. I'm clearing you for active duty again, Commander, but I want you back in the med bay tomorrow for evaluation, and don't go head-butting any krogan on the Citadel."
"I make no promises," Shepard deadpanned. The doctor hit her in the arm with her datapad. "Okay! No repeat performances."
"Remember to keep applying the aloe vera and the antirad treatment I gave you for those burns," Doctor Chakwas reminded her.
Shepard rolled her eyes. "Don't think I'll forget. I've already made a memo to apologize to every person I've ever teased for a sunburn." She made a face, wrinkling the reddened skin of her face, and winced again. She slid off the table. "Garrus, let Krios know we're moving out in twenty," she said.
Garrus glanced at her, surprised, but shrugged. He didn't care who came along to track down Sidonis, and Krios's contacts and experience could come in handy. All that mattered was that he took the shot.
"Try not to start a shootout in the center of galactic civilization this time," the doctor called after them.
"I make no promises," Shepard called back again as they walked out of the med bay. She tried to grin, but the grin fell short as she looked at Garrus. This time, she wasn't joking. It had been a day and a half since Tuchanka. They'd arrived at the Citadel. And someone was definitely going to die.
"You haven't had a sunburn?" Garrus asked idly as he walked with Shepard back toward the elevator. Krios had his quarters in life support, right across the hall.
"Once or twice," Shepard admitted. "Not as bad as this. Sunburns usually are worse for humans with lighter skin." She examined the tan backs of her unburnt hands. "Lawson's probably been sunburnt several times; a flaw in her 'perfect' genetic structure. Without antirad and attention, radiation damage, solar or otherwise, can cause some serious problems."
"A lot of aliens on Palaven wear radiation suits outside," Garrus mused. "I guess turians have an advantage there."
"Less on the swimming or cold-weather fronts, though," Shepard retorted good-naturedly.
Garrus bumped her shoulder with his as they rounded the corner to the elevator. "See you in the shuttle bay."
She nodded and stepped through the elevator doors, heading for her cabin to gear up.
Garrus buzzed life support and heard a muffled invitation to come in. He entered to see Thane sitting at a table that had been set up in the back of the room. It was the first time he'd been inside life support since Krios had joined the crew. A bunk as spartan as his own was set up by the back wall. The machinery dominated the left wall, but the rest of the room Krios had converted into his own personal armory. Garrus stared. More than half a dozen guns were set up on mounted glass displays. Ariake, Sirta, Haliat, Armax. Even Rosenkov Materials. The amount of killing power in Krios's room made Garrus's fingers twitch. "Nice digs," he said mildly.
"The accommodations are sufficient, but I take it you mean the weapons," Krios said. His face was completely expressionless, but there was a trace of humor in his raspy voice.
"Shepard wants you for the ground team," Garrus told him. "Twenty minutes."
"Yes," Thane responded. "Thank you. You will be accompanying us?" Despite the inflection, Garrus could tell it wasn't really a question.
Garrus frowned. He'd thought it was the other way around, but the drell seemed like he'd expected a summons. "I've got some business on the Citadel. Shepard's helping me out."
"Then that's something we have in common," Thane said, rising with a liquid grace that didn't seem to fit the dying man he said he was. Casually, he examined the weapons on his shelves, and after a moment's consideration, picked up a lightweight pistol and a Viper rifle. He clipped them to preexisting magnetic holsters on his leather suit. "Shall we?"
Garrus followed Krios out of life support toward the elevator. Krios had business on the Citadel like Mordin had had business on Tuchanka, it seemed. Krios accompanied him to the armory without a word as Garrus wondered what his objective was. Shepard wouldn't put him off. Not again.
Shepard has her own priorities, a voice in his head sneered. And they don't involve helping you kill Lantar Sidonis, no matter how much he deserves it.
Garrus glanced at Thane. He didn't see how Shepard could be any more comfortable with any private business the assassin had.
Despite Garrus's curiosity, no one seemed particularly talkative when they met Shepard and Niels down in the shuttle bay. Krios answered Niels's greeting with a single word.
Niels either didn't catch the mood or ignored it—Garrus was never sure which. He'd been grateful for the shuttle pilot's special brand of determined friendliness more than once, but it could occasionally get annoying. "Any big plans for the surface, Commander? Matthews is hoping we'll get another shore leave in the next couple days—a chance to scout out some of the Consort's past clients."
Shepard's mouth quirked up. "There's a better chance he'll get a poetry reading, dinner, or a therapy session out of his appointment with her in a couple months than there is that he'll get laid. Might end up with one of her attendants instead, too. I've met the Consort. I guess never knowing whether you might get lucky is part of the draw, and she's gracious enough, but I never got the hype."
That was one he'd never heard before. Garrus was completely distracted. He stared. "You had an audience with the Consort," He shook his head. "Of course you did."
"She was having some problems with a high-profile client she rejected," Shepard shrugged. "She asked me to help sort them out. I never found out why she wanted me—that was before I'd become a Spectre. Right before we met, actually, Garrus."
"So, no. You didn't have an audience with the Consort. She asked to see you. Why am I not surprised?" Garrus tried hard to hold on to 'I never got the hype.' But the image of the most sophisticated and desired woman on the Citadel seeking out Shepard's company kept intruding. Before she became a Spectre, because she's just that good, and of course the Consort knew it.
Don't know if I'm more turned on or threatened.
The words kept coming out of his mouth without permission. "You got lucky, didn't you?"
He wanted to take it back as soon as he asked. Krios, across from him, looked extremely amused, and he could hear Niels chuckling in the cockpit, but Shepard didn't bat an eye at the question. "Could have, maybe." She made a face. "She's very touchy. But no. After I helped her, she shrunk my head free of charge—and without asking, gave me a keychain, and told me to leave. She sent me a message a while back wishing us good luck on our mission. Friendly for someone on the Citadel." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Why? Did you ever make an appointment?"
Pausing only to note that Shepard had misunderstood him, that the others probably had as well—there's that at least—Garrus scoffed. "On a C-Sec salary? You're kidding. I spent more time on the Presidium with you than I did in five years before you got there." He looked at the display screen on the wall, showing the rapidly approaching arrivals dock on Zakera Ward as an overlay of gold and brown outlines. If Sidonis was still on the Citadel, he'd be in the Wards somewhere, in among the organized crime and the dregs of the galaxy that was civilized space's more expensive mirror of Omega. Fade definitely worked the Wards. They had a different kind of criminal on the Presidium.
"No Presidium today," Shepard said. "At least I don't think so. No shore leave either," she added to Niels. "We might end up leaving here in a hurry. Technically, we're not supposed to be here at all while we're with Cerberus."
But they wouldn't stop her: that was the important thing. No one stopped a Spectre. Now that rumors of Shepard's survival had started leaking out—a couple fictionalized vids, a news story in a backwater human syndicate—it was too messy for the turian, asari, and salarian councilors to execute or fire her. Shepard still had too many supporters, and there wasn't sufficient cause. Even the average guy on the street would start wondering what the Council's real agenda was if they got rid of the woman that had saved their lives and was working to save underdog colonies from the Collectors.
Honestly, if it weren't for Shepard, he wouldn't need Shepard there when he killed Sidonis. But Citadel law wouldn't excuse him for shooting a man who'd committed his crime on Omega, wouldn't trust he would get what was coming to him once they'd passed through the Omega-4 relay. So if C-Sec got him before he made it back to the Normandy—unlikely, really, but it could happen—and Garrus was going to be of any use to Shepard past today, he wanted Shepard there.
Niels pulled into a shuttle docking port and opened the door. "Later, Commander, Garrus. Thane," He nodded at the drell as Krios followed them off the shuttle.
Customs on Zakera Ward was similar to customs on the other four wards on the Citadel. They'd tightened security since Saren's attack—now anyone coming in went through a full body scan and an identity check. But there were holes, as Sidonis had proved and Krios noticed right away. He hadn't said a word since the docking bay on the Normandy, but his mouth tightened as he eyed the cameras, the dual complaint lines, the weapons detectors that didn't scan for plastic weapons. "You'd think Citadel Security would be the tightest in the galaxy," he said mildly.
Garrus sighed as they took their place in the line to go through the scanner. "I know C-Sec too well to believe that's true."
"I see no fewer than fourteen fatal flaws a skilled assassin could exploit," Thane told him. "Eight of them existed when I was here ten years ago."
"You wouldn't mind writing a report for our friend here, would you?" Shepard asked him. "Could help to thank him for the information we're about to ask him for."
"The C-Sec captain of the ward, yes?" Thane mused. "I would not. However, there may be reasons to keep some of the information to ourselves. There are times one must circumvent security."
Shepard tilted her head, considering this. She walked through the scanner. Cameras and 3-D imaging software logged her identity for the computers, including her weapons clearances. Garrus and Thane followed her without incident.
"You've kept up C-Sec contacts?" Garrus asked as he followed her.
Shepard shook her head. "I was dead, remember? This is a new guy. Met him when C-Sec had to officially declare me not dead last time I was here. He's been helpful enough. If you know someone better, though—"
"Probably not the best idea," Garrus admitted. "By the time I left, they weren't too fond of me around here, and I worked Kithoi, anyway."
Shepard turned the corner and led him into what looked a lot like the chief office on the ward. The steps, glasswork, and reach of the department all looked big and important enough. And the officers looked stressed enough. All around, Garrus saw faces like he'd known for years. Humans—more than there used to be, asari, turians, and salarians in pressed uniforms with regulation weapons and shadows under their eyes, all thinner than they ought to be and most with a mug of coffee or ariita in their hand. Overworked, underpaid, and restricted by enough red tape to build their own skyscraper. "Working Citadel Security is a terrible job," Garrus muttered. "If it's not skilled assassins slipping through the cracks, it's political bureaucracy stopping you from doing your work. I thought it might be interesting to come back here, see what's changed. But it's just the same."
An asari officer overheard him and gave him a nasty glare. Garrus gave her a big, fake smile. Not in the least intimidated by the scarring—which he had to admit was refreshing, she made a crude gesture in his direction, but as she walked away staring at a case file, he saw her shoulders slump.
Shepard had led them right to the captain's office. She didn't stop at a front desk. She didn't need an appointment. Another advantage of traveling with a Spectre. The office was modest—not too many personal touches. An engraved emblem of the captain's rank on the front window of his office, but when they went inside, Garrus saw a cycling holo of a human woman and a boy on the desk. A gap-toothed kid on a bike. The kid, older, and a woman sitting on a bench eating hot dogs in what looked like an Earthen city. The woman and the man behind the desk at some sort of awards ceremony.
He was human, not young but still in good physical condition, with a strong, square jaw and a full head of graying fair hair. He wore his uniform like former military, pressed and creased and spotless, and the ring on his hand said he'd been married according to Western Earthen traditions.
He'd been studying a file when they entered, but looked up immediately. "Shepard. You're back. Heard they'd reinstated you as a Spectre."
Shepard extended her hand, and the two shook. "Captain Bailey. Nice to see you again. How are things on the ward?"
Bailey's mouth quirked and he twitched an eyebrow meaningfully. "Hoping they don't get too interesting now you're back. Is there anything I can do for you? Guessing this isn't just a social visit."
Shepard jerked her head at Thane. "My associate's trying to find his son. We think a local criminal might have hired him."
She didn't introduce Krios. She didn't introduce Garrus. And she didn't ask about Fade. Garrus shifted.
What business could an assassin have on the Citadel that Shepard could approve of? I never like the answers to these questions. Shepard, being Shepard, is more concerned about the kid her teammate wants to keep in line than a forger who might lead to a guy that needs killing. In the meantime, the scanner back there just tagged me, and somewhere the name 'Garrus Vakarian' is filtering through the Citadel's systems, just waiting for a person or a VI responsible for protecting Lantar from anyone that wants to find him to pick it up.
Bailey pulled up recent files. "This should be easy. We don't see many drell here—" He shuffled through files, then nodded, as if he'd remembered right away but had just wanted to confirm. "There we go: one of my men reported a drell recently . . ." He frowned. "And he was talking to Mouse. Interesting."
Thane blinked. "Mouse?" he repeated, as if he recognized the name.
Bailey waved a hand. "Ah, petty criminal. Probably not the guy who hired your boy, but a messenger. He's a former duct rat, runs errands for anyone who'll pay."
"Duct rat?" Shepard asked.
"Orphan, refugee, or truant, probably," Garrus told her.
Bailey shot him a glance, then nodded. "It's the local slang for the poor kids who grow up on the station," he confirmed. "When they're small they tend to play in the ventilation ducts where adults can't get to them."
Shepard's mouth turned down. Back in the day, she'd been a duct rat, Garrus knew, or whatever the equivalent was down on Earth. "Aren't the ducts dangerous?"
Bailey sighed and steepled his hands over his desk. "Every couple of months we pull a little body out of them. Lacerated by fan blades, broken by a dead fall. Suffocated by vacuum exposure."
"The ones you find, anyway," Garrus said darkly. He remembered the panicked parents and siblings. Child duct casualties were hardly the worst thing he'd seen in C-Sec, but their deaths were so preventable.
Bailey looked at him again, eyes narrowed. "We think some of them might get sucked into space," he agreed. "Maybe they fall into the protein vats the Keepers run."
Shepard's fists clenched.
Garrus closed his eyes. Screw it. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to scream, but the helpless rage Commander Shepard felt when she couldn't save people who deserved it was the same helpless rage he felt when he couldn't punish people who deserved it. And it came from the same damn source. He stepped up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her, like she'd done for him on Tunchanka.
I'm this close to snapping, Shepard, but I'm here. You'll kill me if our mission doesn't, but I'm here.
"Mouse survived long enough that he can't fit in the ducts anymore," Bailey was explaining. "He was one of the smarter ones . . . or the luckier ones."
Shepard folded her arms and leaned back on her hip. "What sort of trouble has Mouse been getting himself into?"
Bailey shrugged. "Odd jobs for shifty people. Duct rats take whatever's available to get by: data running, fencing stolen goods, selling illegal VI personalities." Suddenly, he grinned. "Actually, he was selling one of you."
Shepard blinked. "Me?" she repeated.
"Yeah, when you erased a file it would say, 'I delete data like you on the way to real errors,'" Bailey told her.
Garrus shook his head. "That's pretty extreme, Commander."
Shepard shoved him lightly. "Laugh it up, Garrus."
"Buggy, though," Bailey noted. "It crashed every half hour. The error message was about how the galaxy was at stake and you should fix the problem yourself."
Garrus chuckled, and even Shepard cracked a smile. "So we look for Mouse?" she confirmed.
Bailey nodded. "He's usually on Level 28 around Pylos Street. Hangs out around the Dark Star."
"I know the place," Shepard told him.
"He works out of a public comm terminal," Bailey told them. He sat back in his chair, smiling again. "You should pick up a copy of the Shepard VI when you talk to him." Then he looked at Thane, more seriously. "It sounds like your boy's running with the wrong crowd."
"Yes, I agree," Krios said gravely.
"If Mouse can't get you in touch with your son directly, he'll know who can," Bailey said. "I'll help you if you need it."
Shepard stiffened, almost imperceptibly. Whatever job Mouse recruited Krios's kid for, it's bad enough Shepard doesn't want Bailey any more involved than he has to be. "I'm sure you're busy, Captain," she said. "Why would you take the time?"
Bailey regarded Krios. "I've worked Zakera for two years," he said then. "Every day kids turn to crime because they've got no other choice, because their parents don't care. You're trying to save yours."
"He faces a dark path," Krios said simply.
"Let's make sure he doesn't get too far down it," Shepard said, clapping Thane on the shoulder. She nodded at Bailey. "Captain." She started out of the office. "Come on, Garrus," she said.
Garrus hesitated, then fell into step.
He followed Shepard and Krios out of the C-Sec station. "You didn't tell him that Kolyat plans to assassinate someone," Thane murmured to Shepard.
Shepard shrugged. "He's a cop. He'd try to stop Kolyat, and one of them could end up dead. I don't want that."
Garrus stopped. "Commander." Shepard slowed down and turned to face him. Garrus didn't mince words. "Are you sure you need me for this? This seems like the sort of thing you and Thane could handle on your own. I could get a head start on tracking down Fade." He understood the drell might want to resolve the situation before heading off on a suicide mission, but they'd wasted days already that Sidonis could have used to get halfway across the galaxy with the new identity Fade had given him. He'd been living months on borrowed time, and it was past time he paid up. Garrus wasn't going to abandon Shepard and risk his availability here, but if she needed to take care of this first, she could catch up later.
Shepard raised her eyebrows at him. "You could get a head start tracking down Fade," she agreed. "And maybe Thane and I could handle this on our own, but we don't know who Kolyat's mixed up with. Anything could happen. I'd like to be prepared. Even if everything goes off without a hitch, though, I'd like you to to come."
It wasn't an order. If he wanted, he could interpret it as a release. I could walk away right now, and she wouldn't stop me.
Damn.
"If you want me, I'm there," he said reluctantly. "But Shepard, we need to track down Fade. Sidonis could be weeks ahead of us by now."
Shepard tilted her head. "Fade's job is to give people a new life. Someone on the run like Sidonis will want to blend in, which he can do better in a hub like the Citadel than he can in a colony," she pointed out. "Odds are, he stayed here and has started a new life under a new name. We'll find him."
Garrus held her gaze, and she didn't look away. "Good," he said.
Whatever she said, Shepard sure wasn't in any hurry to get Krios's business sorted and get to Fade. She stopped in the middle of Zakera to mediate between an angry volus and a quarian he'd accused of theft, and it wasn't until they'd taken an hour to prove the quarian had not, in fact, stolen anything that she was willing to even resume the search for Mouse.
Garrus simmered as he walked behind her. I could be back talking to Bailey, or over in Kithoi. Chellick or Mila might be willing to slip me some intel. If they're still around. If they know anything.
But the truth was, the more people that knew he was here, the bigger the chance someone or something would tip off Sidonis. One thing he had always been able to trust—the one thing he should have remembered—was the bastard's instincts for self-preservation.
Still, Shepard and Krios eventually tracked Mouse down. There was a public terminal near the Dark Star, just like Bailey had said, and there was a kid there, human, chatting into a jury-rigged headpiece and typing an email up on a free server. He was average height but underfed, as the clothes he wore attested. They were all either too tight, clinging to his skeletal frame, or drowning him. He was maybe in his late teens, of vague ethnicity, with a once-broken nose, acne, a fading, yellow bruise on his cheekbone, and purpler ones on his knuckles.
"You Mouse?" Shepard asked, interrupting his call.
The kid turned, annoyed. "What are you—" He caught sight of Thane and jumped about a foot in the air. "Oh, shit! Krios! I thought you retired!" His wide eyes darted to Shepard and almost bugged out of his head. "Commander Shepard?! I thought you died! And you—" He peered at Garrus, eyes tracing the remnants of the Cipritine colony tattoos, a face that had once been pretty well known on the vids around here. "You're Garrus Vakarian, aren't you? Shit. What do you guys want with me?"
Krios reached out and gripped the boy's shoulder, a gesture too familiar for a new acquaintance. Garrus had thought Thane had recognized the name when Bailey had dropped it. "Be still, Mouse," Krios said, a flicker of amusement passing over his lips. "You can change your pants in a moment."
"How do you know Thane?" Shepard asked.
The kid blinked. "He didn't—" He folded his arms, and his jaw set. "He didn't—if he didn't say nothing, I ain't either."
Krios released him, glancing at Shepard. "When we heard the name, I didn't think it could be the same Mouse," he explained. "He was a contact on the Citadel when I was active. He and some other children would gather information on my targets."
Shepard paused. "You put children in danger to spy for you," she summarized, an edge of disgust in her voice.
Krios didn't react to it. "Children, the poor. My people's word for their kind is drala'fa, the ignored. They are everywhere, see everything, yet they are never seen." Without warning, he lunged forward and grabbed Mouse's collar. The kid gulped and blanched, staring down at Thane. His hands flexed around Thane's wrists helplessly. "You gave another drell instructions for an assassination. Who was the target?"
Mouse raised his hands. "I . . . I don't know," he yelped. "I didn't ask! 'Cause the people I work for, they can make me disappear." Thane put him down. "I'd like to help you, Krios," Mouse added. "You've always done right for us, but . . . I ain't gonna die for you!"
Shepard folded her arms. "Look. You know Thane. He wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," she cajoled the kid, playing the good cop to Krios's bad. "Do it for him."
Mouse shot a nervous glance at her. "I want to. He was always nice to us! But these people ain't nice, Krios."
"Nobody's going to know you talked to us," Shepard promised.
"Mouse, I swear that you won't be named," Thane seconded.
Mouse folded his hands behind his head. He made a face, then a frustrated noise. "Alright, alright," he agreed. "He came with that holo you took of me. Said he wanted a job. I read through your old contacts to see who might give him a shot. The guy who offered was Elias Kelham."
"Tell me about Kelham," Shepard instructed coolly.
"Human," Mouse said flatly. "Moved to the Citadel about ten years ago. He was little people when you were here, Krios," he told Thane. "He got big after the geth attack. Lots of the big guys from before got cacked, all in the big, fancy apartments up on the Presidium. Now he runs the rackets on the lower end of the ward, Shin Akiba. He's seriously bad news."
Shepard shot him a smile. "Thanks, Mouse."
The kid was trembling, though, eyes darting from side to side like he wanted to go hide out. "Yeah. Hope I live long enough to pat myself on the back," he muttered.
"Kelham will never know," Krios repeated.
Mouse straightened his jacket. "I hope not. I'm outta here, Krios." He scowled. "Next time you're in town, just don't bring the family."
Shepard raised her hands, indicating he was free to go. As he walked away, she shot Krios a look. "So. Mouse?"
"Mouse knew more about my life than Kolyat ever did," Thane said quietly. His eyes focused on something in the distance. "He smiles up at me, broken teeth and scabby knees, bare feet black. A dead-end future looking up at me. Worshipping the petty gifts I offer."
Solipsism. Garrus had heard of it before. He'd never seen it happen. One reason drell were so valuable to the hanar was their eidetic memories, memories that enabled them to learn faster and infiltrate quicker than any other species in space. The downside was that drell memories could be so powerful that, given sufficient stimulus, they could recall past experiences as if they were living them all over again. Drell drug addicts and trauma victims ran a distinct risk of never recovering. Right now, Thane was seeing the child Mouse had been as he'd known him a decade ago just as clearly as anything else on the Citadel.
"I was the only good thing he had back then," Krios concluded. "And I left him, as I left Kolyat."
Shepard raised an eyebrow. "He said you had a holo of him?"
"Yes," Thane agreed. "A foolish bit of sentimentality. I can perfectly recall every moment I spent with Mouse." Once again, his eyes fell out of focus. "He pulls at my arm, smiles. He wants to know that I'll remember him, that anyone will remember him. I take the holo. He smiles at himself in miniature on my palm. Then a frown wrinkles his brow. He pats my pockets, checking for other holos. 'Where's your son, Krios?' he asks."
Shepard waited until Krios had finished. She didn't look thrown by his episodes. Odds were she'd seen a few during rounds. Her lips were pursed, though. Without comment, she said, "Let's head back to Bailey."
"Got information for you," Shepard told Bailey, not too much later.
The C-Sec captain looked up with interest. "Yeah? Who hired the boy?"
"Elias Kelham."
"Kelham?" Bailey sat back in his chair heavily, and his fingers drummed on his desk for a moment. "Shit," he muttered. "Ahh . . . look, this is awkward. Kelham and I have an agreement. He doesn't cause too much trouble and buys tickets to the 'C-Sec Charity Ball' from me. In return, I ignore him."
It wasn't uncommon, Garrus knew. Small-time and white-collar criminals often made donations to C-Sec or turned informant on more violent offenders to keep the cops off their back. He still hated to see it. You give a guy a get-out-of-jail-free card for the small stuff, and eventually, he thinks he can get away with bigger stuff. And now Kelham's hired an assassin.
Shepard wasn't shy about how she felt about Bailey's C-Sec Charity Ball. "He pays you off. You were ready to help us before. Is it too inconvenient now?"
Bailey squirmed, looking from her to Garrus to Thane. "I said I'd help," he protested, "It's just, there'll be repercussions if I don't handle it right. He and I give each other space. It keeps the peace. I'll get some of my people to bring him in and set him up in a private room. You can interrogate him yourself. I'll stay out of sight. If I'm lucky, Kelham will believe that I had nothing to do with it."
Shepard sighed. "Bring him in," she ordered the captain. "We might not have much time. And Captain—thanks."
Bailey winced. Shepard hadn't made a point of it, but he knew she was speaking as a Spectre. He stood. "I'll make it happen," he told them. "Wait here."
Bailey left to tell one of the grunts to make the arrest. "How do you want to do this?" Garrus asked. His voice came out clipped, but Shepard knew he just wanted to get this over with.
"If he believes he has a deal with Bailey, Kelham may not talk if he sees you, Garrus," Thane said.
Shepard considered this. She tapped her foot against the floor. "He's right," she decided. "Your posture, the way you talk, the paint on your damn armor, it all reeks of C-Sec even if we weren't seeing the guy in a police interrogation room." She looked at Thane. "Still, I hate to leave him. He's got investigative training I just don't. Catches things I miss sometimes, on and off the battlefield."
"Maybe one time in twenty," Garrus muttered, feeling his neck heat up. "Personally, I think you've just gotten lazy."
"You've gotten better, and I've let you," Shepard retorted, eyes flashing. "And I'm not going to cry if I don't have to micromanage every second we're in the field because you're with me."
Krios regarded Garrus thoughtfully. "Perhaps it might be beneficial if you stood outside the interrogation room, Garrus," he suggested. "You could inform us over radio of any useful observations without needlessly provoking Kelham."
"So, I'm the profiler."
"You'd make a good film crew, too," Shepard pointed out, with a nod at his visor. "If we get a confession, I'm not going to hesitate leaving Bailey with the evidence to put this guy away, regardless of whether he bought tickets to the 'C-Sec Charity Ball.'"
"Hah. Now that's a plan I can get behind. D'you know when they'll bring him in?"
Shepard exchanged a look with Krios. "Probably longer than two minutes," she said levelly.
The impatience under his voice would have had Pallin or his father telling him to get a grip. Most standard translator programs didn't come with subvocal add-ons any more than they did with body language interpretation software, but sometimes the essence of nonverbal communication leaked through across species regardless of translation. Shepard wasn't hearing screw this as loud as a turian would right now, but she was hearing it well enough.
Garrus shook his head. "Just radio when I need to be stationed outside the interrogation room," he said.
Pacing the C-Sec station did absolutely no good. It didn't get Kelham detained any faster and didn't get Garrus any closer to Fade and Sidonis. Just gave Shepard more reason to worry. He saw her watching him more than once from her and Krios's position by the interrogation rooms.
It wasn't much consolation that Krios seemed nervous, too, tense, scanning the station every few seconds for all he kept still. Of course he was nervous. His kid was out to shoot somebody. This isn't a life you want for your kids. Whatever problems I've had with Dad, I get that much. Better a safe, law-abiding C-Sec officer than a killer about to get his ass blown up every day. This life chooses you, and if you see someone you care about about to choose it, you do whatever you can to talk them out of it.
Most drell assassins were chosen as part of the Compact they'd made when the hanar had saved the species from extinction. Technically, they could refuse to serve, but social pressure was great enough they usually didn't, and the hanar chose their assassins young, raised them to it as children. Krios probably hadn't ever known anything different, but Kolyat had a choice. Hearing Bailey, Shepard, and Krios talk, and judging from Krios's apparent age, Garrus got the sense Kolyat was probably around Oriana Lawson's age. Still a kid. Young enough to be stupid. Old enough someone might not know to look at him. Bailey's officer would have taken special notice of a child.
Shepard's right. A few hours or a day won't make a difference to me and Sidonis. Probably. Two of them are at stake right now—Kelham's target and Kolyat.
I should care about that. Any other day I could. Before I knew about Fade. After Sidonis is dead. Damn it!
That was the point, of course. Shepard might need him in the interrogation room or she might not, but her actual goal here was to slow him down. Not to stop me, I don't think. At least, it better not be. Samara could potentially be just as useful as backup here, but Shepard wanted him here because she wanted him thinking about saving Krios's kid instead of killing Sidonis right now.
Probably healthier. Probably better. But Spectre or not, Shepard, you don't get to decide what's important, what's important to other people. That justice for ten dead men matters less than the futures of one stupid kid and another guy that probably has it coming.
Garrus heard shouting in the hallway. He faded into the shadows of the hall that led off to the employee locker rooms as the exhausted asari officer he'd seen earlier dragged a human male into an interrogation room. The man was stocky, middle-aged, and dressed in a suit modeled on Hierarchy styles, but his slicked-back black hair and skinny goatee gave him an oily, untrustworthy appearance to begin with. He was yelling about his rights and Captain Bailey. The asari wasn't taking it, though. The light in the interrogation room flicked on, and through the two-way mirrored observation window, Garrus saw her using her biotics to force the man into restraints in a reclining chair in the center of the room. She stalked out of the room, leaving the man, Kelham, bound inside.
On the other side of the station, Bailey had walked over to Shepard and Krios. He led them over to the interrogation room and nodded at Garrus in the shadows.
Another female officer, human this time, stuck her head in from the front. "Captain, his lawyer's here," she reported. "Bet Elias has his VI set to page him if C-Sec gets within ten meters."
Bailey scowled but nodded at Shepard and Krios. "I'll stall him. Get in there, and work fast."
Shepard looked at Garrus. "Signal us when we're running out of time."
Garrus nodded curtly and stepped up to stand beside the observation window. Thane and Shepard stayed standing a meter and a half away for a moment, obviously deciding how to handle the interrogation. Shepard eyed the door, but Krios, despite all he had riding on this, kept his eyes on Shepard.
You've seen that kind of reaction before. Krios's hyperattentiveness was subtle, closer to what Garrus had seen from Liara than from Kaidan or Jacob—and all the more difficult to distinguish because his visor didn't track drell life signs—but the tell was still visible.
Great. All you needed was for the drell assassin in the open leather shirt to develop an interest in Shepard. Softspoken and eloquent, moves like a cat, with a troubled family and a tragically short life expectancy. The nauseating romance vid almost writes itself.
And you thought this day couldn't get any more annoying.
But then Shepard walked into the interrogation room, and it was time to go to work. Krios followed her in, shutting the door beside him, and Garrus forced himself to focus on the task at hand.
Kelham craned his neck around, trying to see his interrogators. Anger mixed with confusion when he saw a human and a drell, both heavily armored but not in a C-Sec uniform. "Who the hell are you two?" he muttered.
Shepard gave him a small, cold smile. "Call for Bailey all you want," she told him. "He has nothing to do with this. We just want a few answers, off the record."
Kelham scoffed, fighting the restraints. "Off the record in a C-Sec interrogation room? Sure."
Shepard paced around his chair, making him follow her. "You hired an assassin," she said. "Who do you want dead?"
Kelham's lips thinned. "I want to see my advocate," he told her. "You two are in way over your heads. Bailey won't let you touch me."
Shepard tilted her head, letting her smile widen. "Bailey doesn't know you're here. But he will. After we're done."
Garrus saw Kelham look Shepard up and down pointedly. "What, sweetheart? You're gonna bore me into confessing?" he sneered. "You ain't shit. Come on, hit me. I dare you." Shepard didn't move. Just folded her arms, leaned back on her hip, and waited. "No, huh? Didn't think you had the balls."
She wouldn't, Garrus knew. It wasn't her style. Shepard would always prefer waiting someone out, or convincing the perp to cooperate with her, that she had something they wanted. The trouble was, he didn't know if they had time for that.
"Careful, Shepard," he murmured over the radio. "We might need this name fast."
She gave no sign she'd heard him. "Think carefully, Elias. I want to catch the assassin, not you. Why stick your neck out for him?" She'd adopted a reasonable, cajoling tone, and Garrus could see it was working. Kelham was starting to relax.
"You want me to confess to putting a contract on someone?" he retorted. "You think I'm stupid?"
Shepard shrugged. "I get the name, I walk out. You never see me again."
Kelham looked away from her. "I got no reason to believe you." Behind the glass, Garrus rolled his eyes.
"He'll talk," he told Shepard. "He's angling for a deal." From the second Shepard had started talking, he'd talked and acted like someone with something to confess, and he knew it. Shepard tilted her head, examining Kelham, and Garrus started the vid, but down the hallway, he saw Bailey arguing with a human in a suit. He hit the signal button, and a tone sounded over the radio, letting Shepard know there wasn't much time.
In the interrogation room, Krios stepped forward and caught Shepard's arm. "This isn't working, Shepard. We're making no progress." Shepard arched an eyebrow at the drell, and he let her go. She turned back to Kelham.
"Are we done here?" Kelham demanded. "Because I got people to see. Goddamn waste of my time," he grumbled.
Shepard regarded Kelham a moment, and then she said, "How about this: you tell us the target, you never see us again, and Bailey drops his price 50 percent."
Kelham paused. "Yeah?" he asked, intrigued. "Can I get that in writing?"
Shepard smirked. "I don't think either of us wants this in writing."
She had his measure, Garrus saw, and he was ready to talk. "Alright," he agreed. "I ain't going to jail for the tadpole, and I do love a bargain. Joram Talid. Turian running for office in the Zakera Ward. He messes with . . . legitimate businessmen." His face darkened. "I'm gonna stop it."
Krios stepped forward again. "Where and when?"
Kelham sneered. "His apartment, the 800 blocks. You better hurry."
At the end of the hallway, the human in the suit shouldered past Bailey. As he strode past Garrus toward the door to the interrogation room, Garrus signaled again, but they had what they needed. He shut off the vid as Kelham's advocate entered the room, waving his arms at Shepard and Krios.
"What's going on here?" he demanded. "Get away from my client!"
Kelham blinked. The color drained from his face as he realized he had just made a deal with a person who had no obligation to honor it, made a confession in a C-Sec interrogation room without his lawyer. He strained against his restraints. "You!" he cried. "You played me!"
Shepard smiled coldly. "I've enjoyed our chat, Elias. Thanks for your help."
She headed toward the door. "This isn't over," Kelham threatened her.
Krios fell in step with Shepard. The door cracked open, and Garrus heard him saying, "Nicely done."
"Wait," Kelham called. "You got what you wanted. Who ratted me out?"
Shepard turned back around. "Think you're a little fuzzy on how interrogations work, Elias. Enjoy your time in prison."
"I'll find out," Kelham promised. "And once I have a name I—"
Kelham's lawyer cut him off as Shepard and Krios shut the door. "Elias, as your legal advocate, I advise you to shut the hell up."
In the interrogation room, Kelham and his lawyer started arguing. It didn't matter. They had what they needed. Bailey came down the hallway, and Garrus transferred the vid to his omni-tool in five seconds. Bailey sighed. His paperwork wasn't going to be fun today, but on the whole and to his credit, he didn't look too bitter about sending his cash cow to jail. "What's the story?" he asked Shepard. "Why'd Kelham hire the boy?"
"Assassination. A turian named Joram Talid," Shepard told him. "We've got to get to the 800 blocks, fast. You know the target?"
Bailey frowned. "Joram? Yeah. You might have seen his posters around. He's promising to end organized crime on the ward. Thing is, his message is all mixed up in race politics. He's antihuman."
Garrus had heard some antihuman grumbling before he'd left the Citadel, and of course there were antihuman religious groups on Omega. But this was the first he'd heard of xenophobic politics catching any momentum in the heart of Citadel space.
Shepard was distracted, too. "Are things so bad that people can openly campaign as antihuman?"
Bailey shrugged. "Before the Citadel, the alien population thought that we were violent upstarts. Look what's happened since then: a human fleet guarding the station for months, C-Sec filled with humans? Anderson does what he can, but some people have lived on this station since before humans had starships. They see it as a coup."
Not yet, Garrus thought. Give them another century. He'd always worked well with humans. Of course, Shepard was the best friend he had left in the galaxy, but he'd liked other humans well enough too. On the whole, they were smart, resourceful, and he'd found they were more likely to be friends than enemies if they were approached that way and treated like equals. But he'd never say they weren't dangerous. Thirty years from their first contact, they could rival the other Council races—and did. There were human individuals that could match asari for subtlety or salarians for brilliance, and the Alliance military had surprised the Hierarchy thirty years ago and was making them very nervous now. He could see where some people might be coming from.
Shepard pursed her lips. "I guess if a majority votes for him . . ."
Bailey looked like she'd force-fed him something sour, and Garrus himself was surprised. She'd stand behind restrictions on humans if that's what the Citadel wanted? "That's a nice ideal, Shepard," Bailey said acidly.
She rolled her eyes. "I didn't say you shouldn't campaign to change their minds."
Bailey huffed, then raised his hand, summoning an officer. "Sergeant, get a patrol car! These three need to get to the 800 blocks."
The officer—human, female, young, with the light still in her eyes—saluted. "Yes, sir!" she cried, and scurried off to get them a car. Garrus tried not to resent Krios as he got ready to go looking for the wrong killer.
A/N: I had both of these almost ready, so you guys get two updates this week. Please enjoy dorky, insecure Garrus. It was about time he made a big appearance. Of course, you've also got the more standard, broody, revenge-obsessed Garrus, now cranked up into high gear now that he can smell Sidonis's blood.
Merry Christmas. Leave a review if you've got something to say,
LMSharp
