XXX
Victim's Justice: The Hunter
Garrus had finally slipped into a doze when he was woken up again by a pounding on the battery door. Again, his hand lunged toward the workbench and a gun. "Whoa—what!?"
The curt, commanding voice on the other side of the door was unmistakable. "Garrus. Move your butt!" Garrus groaned but relaxed, blinking his burning eyes, and sat up. He pressed at the sore places on his back.
"I'm up, I'm up."
"Good. Get dressed and equip. I've got ariita brewing and already ordered a breakfast wrap from Gardner for you. We're moving out with Goto in twenty."
Garrus shoved his visor on. Local time blinked at him in neon orange. It was nearly 0700 hours. Breakfast for the retiring night shift would be over in an hour, was over for the morning shift. They were going on duty now. C-Sec's Captain Bailey would be, too. Garrus had lain in an insomniatic stupor longer than he'd thought.
He dressed and neatened his bunk mechanically, only spared about ninety seconds to check the calibration algorithms on the Thanix.
Goto. Krios might have volunteered, but bringing Goto made a lot more sense, and felt like Shepard. Like Thane, Kasumi moved in the underworld. She could be useful tracking Fade, but if it came to combat, she provided a slightly different skill set. She was an engineer, not a third sniper. And, probably more to the point, Shepard knows that while Goto and I get along, it'll be easy having her along then, say, Tali.
And is there a reason you have a problem with Tali seeing what happens today?
Garrus was used to the snide voices of self-doubt and self-loathing in his head, but for some reason, this morning, the voice of his inner negativity sounded much more like it had on Omega. Damn it, Shepard, you're across the ship by now. Couldn't stay there until it's time to question everything I do again, could you?
Garrus examined the stock of the Mantis. He'd reconfigured it for armor-piercing ammo last night. Sidonis would be dead before he knew what had hit him. Better than he deserves, but we don't have time to draw things out. He could feel the kickback now from the perfect headshot, see Lantar's body on the ground.
Garrus clipped the rifle to his back, equipped the Mattock, too. Just in case. Then he walked out of the battery.
Garrus didn't taste Gardner's wrap, muttered a single word each in response to Niels's and Goto's greetings down in the shuttle bay. He felt Shepard's eyes on him all the way down to Zakera, but he didn't look at her, and she didn't say a word.
She led them right back to Bailey. The captain managed a smile when they walked into his office. "Back again, huh?" he asked. "What is it today? Gambling? Extortion? A bit soon for another assassination."
"Forgery today, Captain," Shepard told him. "We're looking for a local criminal. Goes by the name of Fade?"
Bailey grimaced. "Yeah, I know him. The alias, anyway. He's been a thorn in the network division's side for the last year. He works with the Blue Suns."
Shepard glanced at Garrus. "Great. Because we needed another run-in with them."
Garrus tapped his talon on Bailey's desk. "Where can we find him?"
Bailey snorted. "Yeah, if I knew that, he'd be in a cell. Best I can do is put you on the trail. There's a warehouse in the marketplace. Some of Fade's contacts work out of there." He brought up a navpoint on his omni-tool and floated it over to Shepard's. "Go ask them some questions." He narrowed his eyes at Garrus. "Gently, of course."
Shepard looked at the navpoint speculatively. "Why haven't you found this guy?"
Bailey shook his head in disgust. "Whoever he is, he's damn good at avoiding C-Sec. I think someone on the inside's feeding him information. Either that or he's got access to our databases and comm channels—I don't know which is worse. But you're outside C-Sec. Maybe you can nail his ass."
"We'll try," Shepard promised.
Bailey nodded. "You need anything else, let me know."
As they walked away, Goto looked from Shepard to Garrus. "So, let me get this straight: we're going after this forger, Fade, because he gave a new identity to someone Garrus needs to find?"
"That's about the size of it," Garrus agreed.
Goto shifted so her hand was closer to her pistol. "But this guy probably has an army of deadly mercs protecting his operations."
"That's what it sounds like," Shepard confirmed, without enthusiasm.
"Oh. Business as usual then."
They were able to catch a taxi to the market level where Bailey had told them the warehouse was. Despite several shops doing quiet business in the immediate vicinity, the address Bailey had given them looked abandoned. No workers or truckers anywhere around. "This looks like the place," Garrus said. "The forger's thugs should be inside."
Shepard glanced back at him, and without a word, drew her pistol. Goto did the same. Garrus drew his six-shot. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to use it, but it was nice to be prepared.
There were the requisite boxes and crates piled around the sides of the warehouse, but in the center of the floor around a plain, unadorned desk stood two armed krogan and a volus.
Shepard frowned. "Fade?" she asked, addressing the volus. "You're not quite how I imagined you."
Garrus didn't relax for a second. Once upon a time, he'd underestimated a volus. That had been an embarrassing day, and he'd used the lesson he'd learned from it several times over the last couple of years. Still, the volus shifted from foot to foot. Garrus didn't think this was their guy, though the volus obviously wasn't unfamiliar with the nickname.
"Looks can be deceiving," the volus said. "So: which one of you wants to disappear?"
Garrus jerked his head, drawing the volus's attention. "I'd rather see you make someone reappear."
The volus clicked his claws together nervously. The krogan bodyguards were taking them in with tiny, bloodshot eyes. Normally, two krogan would have no trouble with a couple of slight human females and a single turian. But Garrus could see the krogan taking in their stances, their armor, and their guns. He saw the notion make it through their thick skulls that they weren't dealing with routine mercenary scum or C-Sec or Alliance grunts here.
The volus cleared his throat. "Ah. That's not the service we provide."
Garrus made a point of cocking his pistol. "Make an exception. Just this once." He wasn't going to shoot this idiot. But the volus didn't need to know that.
The volus crouched behind the desk. "Damn it!" he cried in an irate tone. "Shoot them! Shoot them, you lumbering mountains!"
But Goto's omni-tool was glowing around her forearm, and she had her pistol trained on the head of one of the krogan. Shepard was covering the other, expression grim. Garrus twitched his pistol toward the door. "Why don't you two find somewhere else to skulk?" he suggested.
The krogan looked at one another. Garrus watched them decide they didn't want to die today. They shrugged. One pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, and the two of them walked out the open door of the warehouse. "What?" the volus yelped. "Just like that? You're not getting paid for this!" He stood, trembling, to face Garrus and the others again. "What's the point of hiring protection if they won't protect you?" he sighed.
Shepard rolled her eyes and holstered her pistol. "We're looking for someone. A client of yours," she explained again.
The volus's eyes darted back to Garrus. "Not mine!" he stressed. "I'm not Fade. I just work for him . . . sort of."
Shepard put a hand on her hip, irritated. "I knew it."
Garrus gestured with his pistol at the volus. "Well then maybe you'd like to tell us where to find him."
The volus held up his hands. "Y-yes, of course," he said hastily. "He's in the factory district. Works out of the old prefab foundry."
Garrus thought back to emergency maps of the Citadel he'd memorized back in C-Sec. Zakera had never been his stomping grounds, but the abandoned business the volus mentioned was a fairly big factory where Zakera cops had had trouble with smugglers before. "I know the place," he told Shepard.
The volus raised his hand timidly. "Oh, he's got a lot of mercs there," he volunteered. "Blue Suns. Harkin thinks they're protecting him."
Ralph Harkin. That's a twist.
Shepard frowned. "How the hell did Harkin end up being the Fade?" she demanded.
Garrus looked at her out of the corner of his eye, surprised she knew the name, but the volus's head bobbed up and down several times. "Well, he got fired from C-Sec a while back," he explained helpfully. "He used his knowledge of C-Sec and their systems to help a few people disappear. Then he made himself disappear, and Fade was born. So to speak."
"Interesting, but it changes nothing," Garrus told Shepard. "We still need to find him before we can get to Sidonis."
Shepard sighed. "I guess we need to pay Harkin a visit."
"We'll need to go to the transit station. I can get us to him from there."
The volus raised his hand again. "So I—uh, I can go?"
Garrus looked down at the volus. He was a coward and a criminal, but he'd been helpful enough. Unless he was lying—but Garrus didn't think so. He shrugged and lowered his gun. "Sure, but if we don't find Harkin, we'll be back for you," he said, twitching it up again.
The volus leaned back against the desk. "Oh . . . good." He sounded sick.
Garrus didn't care.
"So, who's this Harkin guy?" Kasumi ventured once Garrus had taken over driving one of the common-use skycars at the transit hub.
"One of my old coworkers in C-Sec," Garrus told her, pulling out into traffic smoothly. "One of the first humans to be admitted, so they gave him a lot of favors, but he was bad news."
"Suspended when I met him," Shepard added. "Sounded like he'd been caught embezzling and abusing suspects in addition to the drunkenness I saw. He told me how to find you at Dr. Michel's office, but I can't say I was sorry to say goodbye." Her tone made the rest clear. Garrus glanced at her. When Harkin had been drunk, he'd been caught out for harassment of asari and human female employees too.
"Sounds like a charming guy," Kasumi said drily. "But if he was C-Sec, that explains how he gets around them now. Can't be as stupid as he sounds."
Garrus tightened his hands on the wheel. "I guess we'll see, won't we?"
The morning rush hour was over, and the factory district didn't get a whole lot of traffic. They arrived at the abandoned foundry the volus had said was Harkin's base in less than twenty minutes. Hovering over the building, Garrus saw movement through the grimy commercial windows. Lights. But no business trucks—just a line of nondescript gray and black skycars parked out back. Easy to mistake for civilian models, if you weren't familiar with aircraft armor. As Garrus lowered the public skycar into the parking lot, he saw a red light on the corner of the building start flashing. "They're here."
Shepard already had her rifle out and on her lap. Goto popped another clip into her Locust as the back door to the foundry opened, and four Blue Suns and a middle-aged human male in dirty black fatigues made their appearance to see who'd come visiting.
RALPH HARKIN, HUMAN, Affil. Citadel Security (former)
-Search?
-Construct targeting solution?
Garrus didn't need the readout on his visor to identify his former coworker, and the fear that blossomed over Harkin's face when he caught sight of them was confirmation enough the volus had told the truth. Harkin was Fade. Harkin was the bastard that could get him to Sidonis.
Shepard leapt out of the skycar. "There he is!"
At three times magnification, Garrus could see the sweat break out on Harkin's face, yellowed and lined prematurely with substance abuse. He saw the confusion there as Harkin squinted at him—shook his head—and zeroed in on the dead Spectre at his flank. "Shepard?"
Shepard held up her hands, but Harkin was already staggering back. "Don't just stand there!" he yelled at his mercs. "Stop them! Stop them!"
He dodged behind a turian, turned his back, and broke out into a dead run back into the foundry. "Run all you want, Harkin! We'll find you!" Garrus yelled after him as the first fire broke out in the parking lot. He dodged behind a shipping crate.
Four outside. Judging from the skycars, could be thirty or more inside.
Thirty's nothing.
His visor gave him the readout on the four outside the door. A batarian and a turian—shielded. Assault rifles and active omni-tools. Two humans without the tech with heavy pistols. Garrus crouched down behind one of the Blue Suns skycars and listened to the bullets cracking the fortified glass and demolishing the paint job on it. The batarian roared. Garrus smiled, and synced his visor up with his omni-tool to arc an overload program under the vehicle and up toward the source of the cursing.
Off to the right, a human's head exploded back over the wall next to the entrance to the warehouse. The headless torso fell like a limp mannequin to the floor, twitching. It might be another half-second before the nerve endings realized the body was dead. Shepard's Widow was overkill at these quarters against unshielded human combatants.
But damn, I love that sound.
Garrus leaned out from behind the vehicle to fire at the distracted batarian as the other human yelped, and an omni-tool-fabricated, ultra-durable, burning, orange combat knife slashed across the weak throat of his armor. Crimson blood sprayed forward, and Goto appeared behind the human. She quickly turned him around to serve as a flesh shield, cover against the turian, then let go. Before he'd even hit the ground, Kasumi had vaulted a crate and somersaulted away.
Garrus saw a blue flash around the turian as Shepard snatched his shields away, and he took the shot she'd lined up for him. He walked forward as Shepard and Goto came up on his flanks.
Garrus glanced over at Kasumi. "Nice moves."
"I do my best," she smiled. She looked at the door. "What do you think it's like in there?"
"No telling. This place shut down a few years ago, but it's not the first time C-Sec's had trouble with squatting criminals here. Lots of old industrial equipment, and it'd be easy enough to tap into somebody else's power and get some of it working again. Could be some nasty surprises. Normally, I wouldn't advocate chasing someone into home ground we haven't scouted yet. But there's a first time for everything."
Shepard looked up at him, an odd expression on her face. "You want to take point in there?"
"If you don't mind. Three of us, I generally would anyway. And it might throw Harkin off. He seems fixated on you."
Shepard tilted her head in a sort of half-shrug. "Mmm. Spectre. It might not last. Don't know how much these guys have heard. But for now, let's go with it. We'll follow your lead."
Garrus nodded, exchanged his Mantis for the Mattock, and the three of them walked into the foundry.
Garrus took one look around the inside of the warehouse. One thing was abundantly clear.
This was stupid.
Have I seen a worse place to get in a firefight? Upon reflection, he'd been in worse environs—but they hadn't started out that way. Something had always happened to make them worse, like a multi-gang free-for-all or an artificial gravity malfunction. Here, though, it was going to be a crapshoot from the start.
The Suns had the machinery in here working—conveyer belts running overhead and around the walls to create an atmosphere of constant movement and make it harder to spot any enemies. Empty crates of all different sizes were in tall stacks of different heights all around the room. No obvious sight lines. They'd have to maneuver around the room slowly, and snipers could be at any level. And a lot of these crates are big enough to hold enemy personnel.
"Great," Shepard said lightly, taking in the room like he was. "Well. I'd hate if this was boring. Stay on your toes."
They took the easiest path available to them, to the left along the back wall. Shepard kept her eyes focused on the towers of crates to their right. "They can't be using all this stuff," Goto murmured. "But they're paying the bills to keep it running. They've got this place rigged, guys."
Just then, a cargo container ahead slid open. Three sets of red, electric optics glowed out of the darkness. LOKI MECH, Garrus's visor warned him. He was already firing. Goto, too. The cheap mechs went down in a crunch of sparks as new fire broke out to the right around the corner. Garrus crouched down behind a couple of angled crates. Behind him, Shepard flickered, and he switched on his heat sensor and saw her orange-red outline vault silently up on top of a crate stack nearby and lay flat on top.
Her Widow sounded once. Twice. "You're clear," she said. "Let's avoid the aisles where we can, though. That's where they want us to go. Take the corner, then there should be a route up and over straight ahead."
"Affirmative."
The Blue Suns were possibly the best-organized criminal merc group in the galaxy. Their leaders were almost all former military or quasimilitary terrorists. They had some of the best equipment and training you were likely to see outside of smaller, more privately funded organizations. On Omega, they kept whole sections of the station ground down into the dirt, funding their ops off protection rackets, piracy, smuggling, slavery, and extortion. Brutalizing those who couldn't fight back.
In C-Sec, he'd fought for years to keep the Suns and cancers like them from growing on the Citadel. Seeing them so strong here, now, was only a little better than if he'd found a recruitment center down his old street in Cipritine.
But wiping them out is going to feel good.
Garrus climbed fluidly up and over the path Shepard had pointed out—over the crates instead of around them. More tiring, but they wouldn't be playing the Suns' game and would have better sightlines. Ahead, he saw the snakelike aisle the Suns had left open. He also saw the gunners they'd stationed off to the left and right and the two LOKIs marching through the aisle down below.
"Keep them off me, will you?" Goto murmured, gesturing at the Suns in the distance and flipping down into the aisle, omni-tool at the ready. Garrus was already constructing a targeting solution. Shepard's position gave her better sightlines to the guys on the right, so as Kasumi chopped the LOKIs into so many spare parts and faded out of the crossfire, Garrus waited for the guys on the left to stand.
He fired. The sound of most of the gunfire in the foundry was absorbed into the sounds of the running machinery, but Garrus marked where his targets fell and knew they wouldn't be getting up again. The Widow was an exception, and it cracked out twice more in quick succession. Garrus dispassionately watched the Blue Suns fall and jumped down to join Goto in the aisle. In his periphery, he saw Shepard climbing down from the cargo crates behind them, falling back into their shadows and fading out once again. He almost smiled.
Harkin's got these mercs looking for her. So she'll let them keep looking.
He saw movement ahead—another crate opening on the right. Before it was even completely open, one of the LOKI mechs inside jerked—Shepard, hacking its friend-or-foe and targeting protocols. Garrus flicked his wrist to overload the systems of one of the others, and Goto followed his lead. The hacked mech's optics flashed in confusion, then it turned and fired at a turian Garrus hadn't seen yet, up ahead.
Garrus retargeted and fired in an instant. The three-bullet pulse took the target in the throat, forehead, and jaw. Garrus wasn't sure which bullet killed the guy, but as the merc fell back trying to swallow his own teeth down a throat that didn't exist anymore, Garrus was sure it wasn't the LOKI's. They were programmed to find the center of mass and had all impacted on armor. Before the mech's reboot programming overrode Shepard's hack, Goto took it down.
Shepard's voice came over the radio, speaking in an undertone. "A lot of tech for a small-time forger."
"No kidding," Goto agreed. "Keeping the machines running like this isn't cheap, either. Wonder what else your friend is into."
Garrus shook his head. "I could take a guess. Harkin will pay for this. He's in here somewhere. I can smell him."
There was a drop-off to the left now—the bottom of a bay that opened overhead. No shuttles in sight, and the overhead conveyer belts weren't moving, either. Instead, they were looking at a single lane moving ahead on the right. The Suns had left themselves cover here, but it was nowhere near the jungle it had been. "Any surprises are on our right," Garrus told the others, noting the LOKI-sized cargo containers were only on one side of them now.
"Copy."
Of course, the Suns in cover ahead chose to make their appearance at the same time the expected cargo container opened. Garrus slid into cover without missing a beat and set about eliminating the crossfire with Shepard. Goto blinked out beside him, and in less than five seconds, a Suns' strangled scream turned into a gurgle. Kasumi burned the blood off of her omni-tool and executed a double backflip past the foot soldier's horrified buddies back into cover. Garrus took the opportunity to wipe the shock off the face of one of them.
"Fall back!" he heard someone shout. "They're tearing us apart!"
"This is our turf!" Harkin snarled over a loudspeaker. "You going to let three people take it?!"
"Aarrgh! Open fire!" a batarian yelled. Shepard's Widow retorted—with a lot more efficiency. Garrus saw the fine, red mist where his head had been.
At the edge of the bay, the foundry opened up again into the obstructive stacks of crates the Suns had piled up at the entrance. Garrus saw a conveyer belt overhead again, and coming down it, a white, metal chassis curled up into a cube.
Goto was already out ahead again, cloaked and hunting a shielded turian officer yelling into his com by the wall. "Watch out!" Garrus shouted as the cube dropped to the floor with a sickening smack and expanded into a YMIR assault mech—behind cover from where he stood, but perfectly in line to fire at Goto. "Heavy mech incoming!"
"Online," the mech said in a detached, synthetic basso. Its guns spread out, focused, and fired at Goto—out of cover and uncloaked, still standing over the turian. The sound of its heavy fire reverberated off the metal-and-concrete walls of the foundry warehouse. Garrus leapt to the top of a crate to see Kasumi's shields fail—and two other Suns behind a desk.
Not again!
He twisted his omni-tool as he jumped again, saw his overload hit with Shepard's energy drain, but the mech was still firing. Kasumi was crab-walking backward, trying to get to cover. She cried out in pain. Garrus slid past the YMIR mech into the line of fire. He saw his shields glowing blue with each impact, and his armor grew warm around him.
WARNING! HEAVY FIRE!
79 . . . 62 . . . 45%
Another shot impacted against his torso.
31%
Firing one-handed, Garrus wrenched Goto to her feet with the other arm.
9%
Half-throwing, half-pushing her as she staggered to cover, he vaulted in beside her as a fireball and a rocket impacted against the mech within a half-second of each other, finally drawing its attention away.
"There she is!" a human shouted. "Take her out!"
Garrus glanced hastily at Goto. His visor, heat sensors still enabled, highlighted blunt-force trauma in several places over her right side—bicep, chest, hip, and thigh—but only one open wound: a graze to her jaw dripping blood beneath her hood. He pulled up a medi-gel application, shoved it at her, and rose to his feet—ignoring that his shields had only regenerated to 13 percent—saw the YMIR's optics flashing red, and immediately dived back down, turning his heavily armored back to the explosion of the overloaded battle mech.
He felt his shields fritz out, felt the heat of the blast, and heard a double crack over the drone of the foundry machinery. Then just the machinery for a second that seemed to stretch forever. He stood, gun raised, and heard two boots hit the ground behind him.
"What's the damage?"
Garrus reached down to help Goto to her feet, but she smiled and shook her head, climbing to her feet herself. "I'm fine, Shepard," she said. "Thanks to you and Garrus. That was a close one. But no real harm done."
Shepard examined the congealing graze on Goto's face. "That's really the worst of it? You took some serious fire there, Kasumi."
Goto smirked, dusting off her front and straightening her hood. "I know you think I wear this just to look pretty, but there's more tech in here than you'd think. I know some people that don't believe in sacrificing function for fashion. It's come in handy in a couple business deals to be armored better than a client thinks I am."
Garrus stared. Shook his head. He took a breath. "You don't say. We should move on."
Kasumi took a shaky step and couldn't hide her wince. "No problem," she said bravely.
Garrus turned away. She'd live, all right. She'd have bruises for a couple days, but the graze probably wouldn't even scar. But "close" didn't come close to describing what had just happened. And it's your fault.
Goto could've gotten hit on any ground mission we've been on. The way she uses that tactical cloak is more suited for sabotage, infiltration, and assassination than all-out combat. It was bound to bite her in the ass sooner or later.
But it didn't. She's usually more careful. She's been taking risks today. Don't you wonder why?
Shut up. I didn't ask for her help. I didn't ask anyone but Shepard to be here.
And you almost got her killed too.
I didn't set this ambush. I didn't run like coward. I didn't open fire.
Tell me you weren't happy Harkin ran. Tell me you weren't hoping you had to chase him.
This isn't me! I'm here to put things right!
Tell that to Shepard and Goto. Come on, Archangel, you sang that song for two years. What exactly have you put right?
"Guardhouse?"
Shepard's quiet question broke in on his thoughts. He looked over at her, and she nodded at a room off to the left, past the wall ahead.
Garrus hummed. "Looks like it. This building's a bit big for one company. Could be two businesses split it and a third party guarded both ops from here. Good place to set up a trap."
Shepard scanned the area with her omni-tool. "Not picking up any hostiles or nasty surprises. Door's locked, but that's easy to fix. Think we've spooked Harkin pretty bad."
"We have to have taken out half the force parked outside, unless they've brought in reinforcements."
Shepard finished hacking the door. "Look around for any useful tech for the professor," she told Goto. "If this post's abandoned now, it's been manned until pretty recently. Good place to find schematics or creds."
"Can I say I really like this part?" Kasumi said, a smile in her voice, as she moved to comply.
"Keep an eye out for more Suns—ahead and behind us," Shepard instructed her. "Garrus is right—they might have reinforcements they could call in."
Garrus eyed the heat sinks on the desk in the empty guardhouse, the chair tilted back like someone had been reclining in it just ten minutes ago. "The scale of this operation is unbelievable."
Forgery wasn't usually large-scale, but with the mechs and manpower here, Goto had been right earlier—Harkin had to be making a killing. Probably into smuggling, connections with weapons dealing, trafficking. With a former officer getting them past C-Sec systems, the Blue Suns could establish a presence here that would let them hold entire neighborhoods by the throat. Bring hard drugs into the wards. Strengthen organized crime.
Whether I'm right or not, this is wrong. That Harkin left C-Sec to help these bastards is worse. That Lantar ran here, paid them to hide him from what he did on Omega, is worst of all.
The guardhouse window had a shutter, closed for now. Garrus flipped it open and crouched beneath it, looking out over the other room in the foundry. "What the hell is Harkin up to?" By this time, Harkin had had enough time to set up an ambush. Or worse.
Behind him, he heard Kasumi downloading the tech off a foundry terminal for the professor. Shepard came over and knelt by his side. "So. Harkin has finally gone completely bad."
Garrus shook his head. "He was always a pain in the ass, but I'm in no mood for his games. If he doesn't cooperate, I'll beat him within an inch of his life."
"Garrus."
Garrus glanced at her. The reprimand was implicit—we don't do that—but if she thought she was going to stop him, she had another think coming. "Harkin may know why Sidonis wanted to disappear. If so, he knows why we're here, and I don't want him tipping Sidonis off." In the next room, past some cargo crates, Garrus saw a flash of ceramic moving in a direction opposite from the conveyer lines overhead. "Did you see that?" he demanded.
Shepard's weight shifted to her back leg, and she adjusted her grip on her rifle. "I saw something."
"He's getting ready for us."
Shepard made a face. "Say he doesn't cooperate when we get up there. What will you do?"
On Omega, it wouldn't have been a question. When you'd cornered a rat, you didn't leave him alive to spread plague another day. And no mistake, Harkin's spreading a plague. "He's a real criminal now, working for the Blue Suns. I should just shoot him on sight." He grimaced. "But—I need him alive, so I won't do any permanent damage. Just enough to loosen his tongue." Not particularly elegant, but they didn't have the luxury of time, resources, and a backup investigator.
Goto finished her download and took up a position by the rear door. She closed it and began fiddling with her omni-tool. Garrus's visor registered the jamming program she was using—much more sophisticated than the door's actual lock—shutting out any incoming reinforcements and cutting off an escape route for Harkin and the Suns
Shepard bent closer to Garrus. "I know we don't like the Blue Suns, and shooting the guys that are trying to shoot us is one thing. But this isn't Omega. There are laws here."
Technically, Shepard's only authority was the Citadel Council, Garrus thought—and she pissed them off, but they were terrified of her, too. But because he was on her crew, he could only go as far as she let him. Fortunately, he knew his man. "Don't worry—Harkin's a coward. He'll talk long before I can really hurt him."
Shepard shook her head slightly. "That's not the point. Sidonis—you're still going to kill him?"
Because we came all this way to have a cup of ariita and exchange contact info to keep in touch. "That's the plan. It'll be quick and painless. Unlike everyone he betrayed, he'll be spared the agony of a slow death. It's more than he deserves, but as long as he's dead, I'll be satisfied."
And fine, he would've enjoyed the chase. Letting Lantar feel how they felt when they realized the mercs were coming and there was no way out. He would've enjoyed dropping Sidonis off a building, perforating him beyond recognition, shooting him in the gut and waiting for him to bleed out, dazed and hallucinating. Maybe all three. Letting Sidonis die like the others had died. But all that was just extra. It didn't matter. Not really. All that mattered was balancing the ledger, and all that would take was one fast, clean bullet.
"You think that will help?" Shepard asked. "Killing him like that?"
Garrus looked at her. "I know you don't like it, Shepard, but I have to do this."
The silence stretched for a long moment as the two of them peered out at the room beyond. Garrus felt Goto's eyes flicking back to them every few seconds as she shifted in the doorway. "Is there no other way?" Shepard asked finally, her voice low.
Once upon a time, Garrus had seen Shepard gun down a man in cold blood. A gang member, a former associate that had made an extortion attempt to get her to use her Spectre influence to forward their now-xenophobic agenda—and probably in the long run to tie her back into the gang.
She needed a drink afterward.
Shepard had been a special operative—a commando—for years, and a sniper. Her mission files after Anderson had recruited her were mostly classified. But Garrus had figured out pretty early on it probably hadn't been a lot of wet work. Or if it was, it was bad.
Like any good officer, Shepard took responsibility for the actions of her subordinates. But we moved past officer and subordinate a long time ago, Shepard, and that was your call. She had to understand he was moving independently here. No one's going to hold her accountable for this.
"Maybe, but this is personal. I'll pull the trigger, and I'll live with the consequences," Garrus promised. "All I'm asking is that you help me find him."
Shepard looked sideways at him. "Okay," she said finally. She nodded at the room ahead. "What do you think Harkin's got waiting for us in there?"
"Not sure. It looks like an industrial complex: heavy machinery. Could be anything. Something's in there, probably more Blue Suns. Harkin's kind of trapped himself in a corner; he must have something in store for us." Both of them were in a bad position, tactically speaking. Garrus had flagged the exits flying in—without jumping out a window, Harkin had no way out now. But it was his base.
Shepard made a face. "Love the new battle plan, Garrus," she said under her breath. She rolled her shoulders and nodded at Kasumi, edged around the window and back toward the door. "Let's do this."
"Oh, is it time for another blind charge into a booby-trapped warehouse?" Kasumi asked brightly. "I'm so glad you woke me up this morning, Shepard. I would have hated to miss out."
"Just stay sharp, and don't get shot again," Garrus sighed. "But watch your targets. We can't kill Harkin until we have what we need."
He felt Shepard's doubtful glance at his back as he walked out into the back half of the foundry. He slowed half a step as he realized what he'd said. Then he kept walking.
A/N: Not sure how I feel about this. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on Garrus: the hyperobservant detective; the black sheep; the awkward, nerdy, second-guessing, philosophizing guy with a love of sarcasm and sniper rifles, just about drowning in self-doubt. His alter ego Archangel is something else entirely: all black-and-white conviction; emotion; action and ruthless reaction. He doesn't think. He knows. He doesn't reflect. He does. And then Garrus is left trying to analyze the aftermath of the storm—when he's brave enough to even look at it and strong enough not to be swept away on the tide. Archangel is almost beyond me to write—he's a creature of primal absolutes with no nuance at all and no space between thought and decision. From his perspective, there's almost nothing to write. And this chapter, while Garrus is still hanging in there—barely—Archangel is very close to the surface. I kind of feel like my writing suffers for it. And like Garrus needs a couple years of intensive therapy.
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