Never Leave Me

By Kachimoochi

Chapter VII

Did You Just Call Me RJ?

RJ just stared at the Omni-Message, for minutes on end, not a single expression appearing on his face.

The Phantom of Revin began to cry silently, this isn't what she was expecting. In truth, she'd felt a similar feeling about this murder, like somehow a force unlike anything she'd ever known was telling her to investigate this apartment.

For a second, just for a second, she'd given up hope that there would be any connection between the once-living Revin and the newly murder victim. She should have known better, when she was alive her greatest instinct was her gut, it was never wrong, and it certainly wasn't now.

RJ still stared at the message, he'd read it at least 5 times now, scouring every letter and syllable for any hint that this was false, but his gut was also always right, and he knew it. He turned his head finally from the Omni-Message to meet Revin's gaze, her eyes still filled with tears as she huddled herself together on a nearby sofa.

"What does it mean?" The Phantom whimpered, clutching her arms in comfort.

RJ didn't answer immediately, he returned his gaze back to the massage, still scouring it for any clues or explanations it may contain.

"RJ?" Revin asked again.

"I-I don't know" He answered, still keeping his gaze on the message.

Revin regained control of her emotions, clearing her eyes of tears and stood up from the sofa, and made her way over to the catatonic human. His eyes showed massive amounts of fright, unable to keep his eyes from racing across the entire screen in search of something, anything to explain this.

"What did you do?" RJ asked ominously.

"I don't remember any of this, I swear!" Revin choked out.

RJ still continued to scour the message until it started to hurt, and only then did he stop. He limped over to the sofa Revin had been seated at, feeling as if he'd been shot in the heart and head simultaneously. Revin sat beside him, not close, but just beside him. Their gazes were fixed to their feet, each being doing their best to decipher what they'd just read.

"Does this mean I knew my killer?" Revin pondered aloud.

"It…it looks like it" RJ said, still staring at his feet.

"I swear I don't remember anything; I just remember waking up in an alleyway, knowing that I was a ghost or something, and then following you when you stormed out of the ambulance, I don't remember anything" Revin sobbed.

RJ continued to stare at his feet, until he turned his gaze to the sobbing Revin, covering her eyes. He scooted over on the sofa to her and attempted to hold her, to comfort her. As usual, his arms passed through her body like thin air, he still couldn't do anything to help.

This is what bothered RJ most about their situation, no matter how long they talked, how many jokes they told, how real their dialogue seemed, Revin was dead, and all of this was in RJ's head.

When Revin raised her head to meet RJ's disappointed gaze, she sobbed even harder, knowing that her love couldn't comfort her, when she needed it most. Minutes passed once more, and eventually Revin fell out of her sorrow, or at least transitioned into soft whimpers. RJ was as catatonic as he was when he read the message, just staring at the hands he tried to cover his love with, only to pass through the apparition.

"The Club!" RJ finally said.

"What?" Revin croaked.

RJ stumbled out of the sofa, the feeling coming back into his legs after not moving them for some time. He directed his stupor back to the console which hid the revealing message. RJ reopened the console and found the message, and then began to scrutinize each line, finding something he'd seen, something for them to follow.

"The Kensetus Club!" RJ finally said aloud, his attention still on the message.

"What about it?" Revin asked, walking slowly to join him.

"See here, Milika mentioned meeting somebody in the message there, and it sounds like you hired her to find somebody there" RJ explained, motioning Revin to scour the message with him.

"I don't remember any of this, I've heard of The Kensetus Club, but I've never been there, and I certainly don't know anybody there" Revin explained.

"Then let's go there and put our minds at ease" RJ said, already walking out the door.

As he was about to cross the threshold, he stopped in place and froze. He looked back at the center of the room, Revin stared back at him, wondering what got his attention. RJ walked to the center console and downloaded Revin's final message to Milika onto his Omni-Tool, and then deleting the original copy. He didn't want anyone to know about Revin's alleged involvement in what was otherwise a confirmed murder. However, doing so would also damn Milika's case to most likely be ruled a suicide, unless he was quick at finding the culprit and eliciting a confession.

Would RJ be willing to cross this line? Would he withhold evidence to redeem his old friend which now only exists in his diseased and broken consciousness?

That question doesn't truly necessitate an answer, does it?

RJ stormed out of the apartment, whilst fiddling with his Omni-Tool. Poking one key after another, soon his unmarked police car exited itself from a parking garage and presented itself in front of Milika's apartment.

RJ quickly boarded the hovering, black vessel, waiting a minute for Revin to catch up with him. He didn't see a shadow or any other sigh of Revin exiting the room, it didn't take long to figure out why. Revin was a figment of his imagination, she could be anywhere he wanted her to be, he just had to think.

RJ closed his eyes and imagined Revin in the seat next to him. He imagined her fiddling with the protective belts and how it chafed into her neck plates. He imagined her back-armor hump constantly flip-flopping her body with any sudden movement. Finally, he imagined the small smirk on her face that she'd give him in the passenger seat, the look that said "We'll do this forever" it was a look he'd never forget.

When RJ reopened his eyes, Revin was there with the same smirk waiting for him. At that moment it felt as if nothing had changed in the first place. He felt so natural, it was like the old days, when they'd find a clue or lead and smile to one another, knowing that a criminal was on the run from them. It was a cat and mouse game for the, they'd always win, it was just a matter of time.

"Maybe this wasn't so bad" RJ thought to himself.

He wasn't completely wrong after all, even though to everybody else he was on his own, it was as if RJ was sharing his body with an equally intelligent being. Nobody else besides Vikeni knew that Revin still appeared to him, and he was good at keeping secrets in the first place. This would be alright, he'd never be away from her, wherever RJ went Revin would follow. She would exist eternally in his imagination.

He copied Revin's trademark smirk and gave it back to her. Next, he opened the console in the car and opened a comm to Captain Vikeni. Chances are him and a squad of other detectives were already on the way to investigate Milika's house looking for foul play clues or some such. RJ could only fathom how livid he'd be when he found out he was interrogating suspects or otherwise investigating leads he didn't share, but he'd face it when Revin's murderer was either captured or killed. He honestly hadn't decided which he'd prefer.

"Car #33 to HQ! Come in Vikeni" RJ shouted through the comm link.

"EVERYBODY QUIET DOWN! What is it RJ!?" The Captain screamed, obviously losing control of his own briefing, he wasn't as authoritative as he thought.

"I need you to send me directions and maps of The Kensetus Club" RJ said while maneuvering his unmarked skycar through the maze leading to the outside Citadel.

"Why the hell are you going to a strip joint on in the lower wards?" Vikeni said aloud, eliciting a chuckle from the listening briefing staff.

"Well you answered my second question, but I still need directions to the Club, I'm following a lead" RJ excused.

"Wait, give me that!" The Salarian exclaimed to another presence. "Let me see here…The Kensetus Club? That's where Milika worked, did you find something in her apartment?" VIkeni asked.

"Eh…it's complicated, it's more of a hunch than anything. I'm trying to establish a timeline and profile, I guess" RJ said, thinking quick on his feet, Revin offering mischievous faces in agreement to the comm.

"I've already sent uniforms there two days ago, do you think we missed something?"

"Uh…I can't really say, like I said it's more of a hunch" RJ stammered, now running out of clever excuses.

"Fine, I'm sending you directions, but you better not screw me on this Clifford, and it better not be "Revin's" idea either"

"You're a beautiful man Vikeni, and hey?"

"What!"

"Did you just call me RJ?" RJ said facetiously, Revin's phantom bursting out into silent laughter.

The Salarian's response was a simple and abrupt disconnection of the comm channel, leaving Vikeni to the mercy of at least a dozen curious detectives hungry for gossip.

RJ and Revin shared a giggle as the coordinated automatically imputed their route through Vikeni's directions, allowing RJ to deactivate the manual piloting protocol, and offer him a chance to relax.

In about a half hours' time, the sky car made its way to a modestly sized club in the lower wards of the Citadel. It was around 7 stories tall and had a neon atmosphere, ironically it was considered a classier place than most establishments in the Lower Wards.

The façade of the club was written in red, neon Turian characters, a language that RJ had never seen nor knew how to translate. His Omni-Tool translated the warped and angular characters at The Kensetus Club. Revin told RJ that it was a slang dialect of her language, a "bastardization" as she called it.

Such a bastardization was due to the proprietors of the establishment, or rather the gang that represented the proprietors of the establishment: The Bane. Much of the Lower Wards was controlled unequivocally and undeniably by gangs, usually centered around a certain species.

Asari called their gang "The Revival": a new-fashioned gang of 200-year-old hipsters masquerading as gangsters, dying their scalp crests wild colors and singing aggressive, beat-less music and poetry. This wasn't to say they didn't have muscle, much of their bread and butter was made by the drug trade, but with many of the higher-ups of the gangs being the children of politicians, progress in their turn was time-consuming. Although, the Asari always had time on their side.

Humans called their gang "The Crucifiers": a similar gang to that of the old-Earth mobsters. They dressed in old fashioned shirts, ties, and pants, all made of authentic materials not mass-produced by modern convenience. As their moniker suggested, their method of discipline resulted usually in crucifixion, leading many to believe them to be either devil-worshipers or emos, they dealt mainly in illicitly gained weapons. They didn't actually call themselves The Crucifiers, but most translators didn't translate their original name, and the street tag by committee seemed to gather more notoriety, which they certainly wouldn't refuse.

There was an up and coming gang led by the Elcor, calling themselves "Colossus". They existed in a legal grey area, specializing in stolen merchandise and counterfeit goods, mainly luxury goods. They were enforced by indentured Vorcha or other mercenaries, all of which enjoyed the legal protection from the law the Elcor were able to obtain. Nobody usually muscled in on their territory, as their business didn't normally overlap with the others. The Citadel law held many loopholes that the Colossus took advantage of, and as far as RJ was concerned, they could have been much worse.

Finally, the Turians called their gang "The Bane": a society of anarchists and revolutionaries trying to reform the so-called oppressive rule of The Hierarchy. What little support for reform they gathered, they destroyed in their incessant mass murders, kidnappings, extortions, and most infuriatingly to Revin, the revision of the Turian native tongue, as their current language was labeled a language of oppression. Most Turians couldn't understand the revised language, and was now mostly seen as a joke in the eyes of the galaxy, not that they weren't dangerous all the same.

Through it all, the three co-existed in relative peace. Though the gangs would accept any reason to slaughter the other, the last gang war had ended in a cease-fire lasting for 4 years and counting. It seemed that no matter how loyal the gangs were to their turf, death was costly, and business trumped all, no matter the life cost. Most of the gangsters in the respective tribes weren't intelligent enough to realize their mortal folly, but it didn't truly disturb RJ, their mistakes kept him employed after all.

Obviously, The Kensetus Club was property of The Bane, not legally, but by proxy. He had RJ had to go in, but he needed to keep his head on a swivel, not taking even the most innocent of chances. The Bane was undoubtably the most fanatical and ruthless of the four gangs, they didn't fight for money, they fought for an ideology, which made them the most dangerous. They didn't take kindly to humans, save for the ones they employed, so RJ acknowledged that he had to be careful of who he interrogated.

He parked the skycar in the parking lot of the club, opening both doors for himself and the Phantom to disembark. Before he left for the club, he reached into a hidden compartment in the skycar and withdrew a pistol. It was a 2243 model Mauser repeater, more for style than substance, but it certainly gave off a "Keep Your Distance" vibe. It fit largely on RJ's magnetic hip holster, and as far as he was aware it was legal for law enforcement to carry arms on the Citadel.

RJ and Revin made their way to the entrance of the club, which was protected by a sizable Krogan bouncer. As they made their way, Revin decided to ask a question relating to their current search.

"So…who're we looking for?" Revin asked, as they walked slower to the entrance.

"In the message you seemed to hire Milika to eh…confirm the identity of a Turian…I think. First, we'll press the employees for info about Milika, then we'll search for the Turian" RJ recited, rereading the message on his Omni-Tool.

The pair approached the threatening Krogan, dressed in elegant combat armor guarding the door. He had a gruff expression on his face, one that read "I hate my job, I should be out eating babies instead".

"30 Credit cover" The Bouncer moaned.

"I think this will cover it" RJ said, presenting his Omni-Badge.

The Krogan gripped RJ's arm and brought it closer to his eyes, studying each edge and inscription on the official Detective badge, finding it to be genuine he beckoned the lone Human to enter the club.

"Be careful around these parts pal, the bosses don't take too kindly to CLED" The Krogan whispered as RJ passed through.

"Thanks for the tip" RJ replied.

RJ took a few steps before noticing that Revin wasn't with him, remembering his last technique, he closed his eyes and repeated the motions. He imagined her standing beside him admiring the décor, whilst simultaneously scoffing at the half naked women dancing in the cages above. When RJ opened his eyes again, she was doing just that.

"What? This ain't your kind of place?" RJ joked.

"No! it's just that…those cages…there's something familiar about them…I don't know…let's just get back to work" Revin decided, still tilting her head to the sky, or rather the ceiling.

The Kensetus Club was a classy joint, as far as classy joints went on The Lower Wards. The building at one time in The Citadel's history may have been a dance hall, or something obviating intricate craftsmanship and fanciful designs. Such class was buried underneath sweaty bodies, spilled liquor, and Bane graffiti.

Women of every species danced either in the center dance floor, or within cages dangling from the ceiling. Some sauntered around the establishment alongside Turian mobsters, tripping over their own feet, obviously on drugs. A real classy joint after all.

Where would RJ start?