Chapter 1

The Suit

"Just the usual today Bolak," said a male quarian in the common trade language as he sat down on a stool amidst a line of bar patrons leaning on a counter. His accent was typical and his envirosuit was devoid of colored clan fabrics. "Water. On the rocks."

The bartender, probably the most amiable batarian he'd ever had the fortune to meet, gave the quarian a sidelong glance with all four eyes as he leaned on the opposite side of the counter with an elbow. "You ever gonna man up, Renlof? Get a real drink. Got a nice shipment of Shard Ale in the other day. Prime stuff, and I might even knock a few credits off the top to entice you."

"You're so kind to offer me such a strong levo drink at a discount. I'll pass." The quarian propped up one of his misshapen legs so he could place his heel on a crossbar under his seat.

Misshapen to anyone but him, of course, and it always seemed to come up in every possible casual conversation. His suit's legs from the knee down had been replaced with a human's hardsuit equivalent, and they didn't have the backward bend that normal quarians had. The feet didn't have the three-toe split, either. If you had only seen this quarian from below the knee, one might mistake him for a human.

Kev'Renlof vas Del'Kellius's explanation on that grotesque modification was different every time it needed explaining. Sometimes it was "Birth defect, but not so bad that I couldn't make it on the flotilla," other times it was "Broken in a fight with a krogan," and sometimes even "Replacement experimental cybernetics. Quarians are hardly overlooked when potentially dangerous experiments need testing on live subjects." Still, every now and then he felt compelled to sprinkle truth on his story and explain it as, "A nasty in-the-field injury with an in-the-field fix that saved my life." People generally got the hint it wasn't something he liked talking about and those that didn't found that any further questions just caused him to walk away without another word.

The batarian bartender shrugged and filled a glass with cold water and plucked some cubes of marginally clear ice out of a cooler to drop them in. Backwards for any drink on the rocks, but it hardly mattered when it was water. "Bah, you dextros are always complaining about that. Levo-this and levo-that."

"With good cause, you bosh'tet," Kev said amidst a chuckle. He knew the batarian was just being his usual stubborn self. It didn't bother him—rather it reminded him of himself sometimes. "You head to a turian colony and see how much thought they give to your stupid levo drinks."

"Small chance of that," Bolak said as he leaned back against the chilled wall-size drink rack and began to shine up a few glasses with a rag, much to Kev's amusement. "You know just as well as I that getting off of this piss-hole of a station is more trouble than it's worth."

The quarian raised his glass towards the batarian. "Indeed. One day I might bother to try, though. I do have people out there I want to see."

"Must be nice," Bolak said with just a hint of bitterness as he started to aggressively wipe down another glass. "Most anyone I know is here on Omega. All my old friends were killed back in the Skyllian Blitz. Damn humans…"

"Keelah, not this again. That story's starting to get old, Bolak. Even to me."

The bartender blinked his upper set of eyes, unconsciously giving away his irritation. He seemed to let it go after a brief silence. "Yeah, yeah. Can't really call you out on that either, being quarian and all."

"Not looking for pity. I know that whole exile story gets old to others just as much."

A new patron down somewhere to the right flagged Bolak down and he raised a finger to ask Kev to hold on a moment. Meanwhile, Kev swirled his untouched glass of water for a moment while he waited for his conversation partner to return. The cubes within klinked softly, audible even over the din of the pub, as the resulting micro current spun them. He reached under the jaw of his helmet and pressed a pair of pressure buttons on both sides and a short, durable tube snapped out. This 'straw' pointed down with a slight forward angle, the pivot sitting under the chin. He dipped it into the water and sipped the refreshingly cool liquid up.

A few moments later, Bolak returned to mix a drink for the one who flagged him down and he spoke to Kev while working on it. "I'm sorry, Renlof. Just seems every time there's something that gets me down, the source of the problem is that Blitz or some other human-thing."

The batarian slid the full tankard down the smooth counter towards the requesting patron and he settled back into his relaxing lean against the rack of bottles. Kev watched it as it glided gracefully to a stop right into a krogan's big, meaty hand. He wondered if said krogan could even appreciate the finesse that went into such a precise and calculated shove, or how much work went into keeping the bar counter as smooth and clean as it was to even be able to do it in the first place.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Anyways, am I late? Have I missed my party? Should be one today if I recall." The party Kev was referring to was likely a small band of amateur mercs sent to take him in. He had been taking on contracts of various sorts since he fell into Omega in hopes of getting Aria's attention and potentially earning some of her trust. That, and enough credits to ship himself off of the blasted station and somewhere where he can buy a decent small ship. His job, a hitman for hire, tended to require that he stay mobile.

Unfortunately, the only contracts to land his way tended to focus on taking out certain upstart members of the various gangs on Omega, and while these often came straight from Aria's henchmen, he wasn't getting anywhere with Omega's queen. This wasn't really unexpected, but it was frustrating. It's because I'm quarian, isn't it? he thought. The problem with hitting gang members, as he's long known, has been the blowback that the gangs often sent his way to remove him from the contract business altogether. Much to their fatal dismay, Kev was far too cautious to be caught and he was adept at fighting off the amateurs they tended to hire to take him in.

"Don't think so. Haven't seen anyone come in with guns drawn yet, anyhow. You said you were expecting some?" The batarian put down the current, well-shined glass he was working on and moved a step forward to lean on the counter with one hand.

"Always, my friend. There's never a shortage of cheap cannon fodder that these groups just can't seem to resist hiring, especially here on Omega. It's practically the credit-a-dozen merc capital of the galaxy."

"True enough." Bolak seemed to have more to add to that, but he never finished. All four of his eyes focused on some newcomers in the doorway somewhere behind Kev. Just after taking a moment to visually scan the armed patrons, Bolak tapped the three fingers of his hand on the counter twice on the glossy surface rather nonchalantly, and the middle a third time.

Two humans and a krogan, he knew. The krogan is in the middle, and will more than likely be the one to approach me. How to play this one… The helpless quarian kid? No, my rep's too loud for that now. Might as well do the usual, but I'll need just a split second of distraction if I want to keep all my parts. Been a while since I've dealt close quarters blows to krogan.

Kev stared at the many shined glasses and equally reflective bottles on the wall not four feet in front of him. With so many tiny, unnoticed mirrors to tell him exactly what was going on behind him, and he'd never even have to turn around and look. He was using them now—three silhouettes in the light of the doorway with guns of some sort in hand. One on the left and right sides each, appearing human in their stature. The center one was a hulking shadow looming towards him with the very distinct stomps of a krogan trying to puff up his own presence to intimidate others.

This little detail told Kev that the krogan was young, new to the merc business, and so much the amateur that he just might give Kev the window he'll need to handle this situation quickly and efficiently. Older, more experienced krogan didn't do this; they let the intimidation factor flow freely from their reputation, signs of battle experience, and general existence of being krogan.

He only wished this method didn't bump his rep and attract even more hateful guns.

When the krogan stepped up behind Kev, the first thing he did was make his armed presence known by shoving the barrel end of what appeared to be a Scimitar-class shotgun into the quarian's back. It was a little difficult to tell exactly what model the shotgun was due to the naturally warped images the curved reflections gave him.

The krogan wasted no time in grumbling his instructions. "Alright, suitrat, let's get this over with. Hands up and turn around. We've got places to be and credits to collect."

Kev didn't move.

Bolak chimed in. "Look guys, take this crap outside. I've got enough problems keeping Darg placated without you assholes coming in and kidnapping my patrons."

The krogan glared at the bartender, but not far enough away for Kev to make his move. "Here's a bit of advice, crap-for-brains. Don't piss off a krogan doing his job unless you want some of his attention. We krogan don't have an easy time splitting attention spans, and I might take you and the suitrat both to make it easier on myself." He jabbed Kev again, harder this time and rumbling with deep growls. "I'm not gonna ask a second time, shitstain. Get up and get moving!"

Kev still did not move, and he noticed a few patrons sitting at tables behind him and off to his right relocating to other tables. When the krogan realized that his target, more recently known as 'The Suit', wasn't going to come along easily, he turned to look back at his two toadies, presumably to give orders to force him to comply. Kev never gave him that chance.

"You two, g—"

It all happened within a couple seconds. As he saw the krogan look away, Kev kicked off of the footrest that ran along the base of the bar counter to put himself in a counter-clockwise spin as he rose to his feet. As he turned, he drew his heavily modified Kassa Fabrication M-5 Phalanx and turned it horizontally while he pointed it sharply off to his left. When he rotated enough to have the krogan directly in front of him, the barrel-end of the pistol cracked hard against the side of the krogan's head. At the moment of impact, he fired.

A few patrons wailed in fright at the sound of a gunshot, and krogan brain matter scattered across the recently evacuated tables. Hired muscle intent on keeping the peace on the owner's credits had their weapons drawn and ready, but didn't seem like they felt they had to intrude. They had seen this before and visibly had little worry as to what the outcome might be.

The next part Kev knew was the hardest, especially since he hadn't done this dance with a krogan before. He knew that the armed mercs in the doorway weren't going to risk losing this suddenly-increased pay day, and he saw one immediately take aim with his M-8 Avenger. The difficulty of this part was mainly in keeping the krogan upright enough to provide a substantial meat shield. The immense weight of the limp beast was, on its own, more than Kev could ever hope to hold up, but lucky for him this one was clad in ample heavy armor. He gave the upper half of the body a tug while holding it just so to keep it upright. Down low, the knees and the thick armor of the legs over said knees locked to provide a natural stand. As long as he kept the dead weight balanced atop those locked legs, he could hold the body upright enough for cover.

The merc on the left took several potshots at Kev in a kneejerk response to the sudden loss of his squadmate, but the dead krogan's kinetic barriers and thick body took every shot. Kev wasted no time and brought his pistol up beside the messy remains of his meat shield's head and fired off three precise shots—two to kill the hardsuit's barriers, and one to put a hole through the once-confident merc's helmet. The body fell backwards like a ragdoll in the same instant the red mist sprayed from the back of his head.

The second and only remaining merc started to raised his Avenger in response to the shots in his direction, but Kev adjusted his aim for the new target and put a warning shot in his kinetic barriers. "Just… don't. Be a good boy and drag your buddy out and walk away."

This merc at least had enough wits left to save his life. After a nasty flinch from the warning shot, he slowly put his hands up and let the rifle dangle on his finger by the trigger guard. Once given some quick advice, he scrambled to do as he was bid. He left a red smear on the ground as he dragged the armor-clad squadmate out of sight.

Kev, his arm now shaking from the incredible strain of keeping the krogan upright, gave the uncomplaining barrier a shove and sent it tumbling forward. The thud the corpse made when it smacked on the ground echoed around the room, followed shortly by a few sniggers from some unnamed patrons somewhere in the room. He let go of a held breath and rotated his left shoulder, which had begun to tingle from the stress it was under. Once he was sure the last merc wasn't coming back, he turned around and sat back down in his stool.

"Sorry for messing your place up again, Bolak," Kev said in a tone of disinterest as he tossed a small collection of credits on the bar to account for the cleaning costs.

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to my boss," said Bolak with amusement as he collected the credit chits from the counter and stashed them somewhere under the counter. He quickly called upon a few of those standing around the outside of the room to do something with the dead krogan on the floor. "He's liable to crush your skull between his thighs for shooting up his bar again."

Kev chuckled and waved dismissively. "Darg is more like to get a laugh from seeing that last guy piss his armor as he ran off." Quash Darg, the current owner of Fortune's Den, was an uproarious krogan through and through, after all.

"No, take it out. I don't know, toss it out the airlock or something!" Bolak shouted at the two turians and krogan who were drawing a thick red line across the floor with the dead krogan's head as they dragged him. Once they had finally gotten that mess out he turned back to Kev with an insolent smirk. "You wouldn't think that after seeing how he handled the last quarian to fire a gun in here. Before you came along, anyways." The batarian smirked knowingly. "Heard she was rushed to the nearest clinic soon as she was thrown out."

"That's probably because she did something stupid, like shoot an employee."

Bolak nodded, chuckled, and then shook his head in amusement as he recalled the memory. After he had his laugh, he looked up and flicked a thumb down the bar somewhere off to Kev's left. "Group of regulars just walked in. They're a picky bunch, so I'm going to have to abandon you."

"Oh no, don't leave the poor quarian to his water! I don't think he can handle that kind of rejection!"

"You're a piece of work, kid," was all Bolak had to say before heading off to tend his new arrivals.

Kev threw a dismissive air-shove of a wave at the batarian as he watched him leave. He had only returned to silently sipping his water for a few seconds when he saw the krogan Bolak had previously served relocate to the stool next to him. He could swear there was a gravity well around this one, so great was his mass.

"Amateurs," rumbled the newcomer. "Shoulda never taken his eyes off of his prey like that."

Kev hardly even looked up. "Hey Targold. That was you watching down there?"

"Hah. Don't make it sound like you didn't know I was there the whole time. The Kevin I know never misses something as fat as me."

Kevin flicked an accusatory finger at his old friend. "I told you not to call me that in public, man. Too many ears out here."

Targold laughed—a deep-throated boom that could practically carry through Omega's thick metal walls. "I'd rather risk that then call you that sorry excuse for a quarian alter ego. What was it? Your name backwards or something?"

"I find it amusing that you've managed to puzzle it out while the rest of Omega hasn't." He once again sipped up a gulp of water. Kevin Folner hadn't put a whole lot of creative effort into his new quarian name when he forged it, but it wasn't meant to be elaborate. It only needed to serve its purpose. "Anyhow, it worked, didn't it?"

"I think it has more to do with the fact that ninety percent of the people with enough brain cells to do it just couldn't be bothered to give a damn," said the krogan as he waved his near-empty tankard of ryncol at the general public currently enjoying the Den.

"You're such an uplifting individual, Targold. Remind me to look for you whenever I need encouragement on my past accomplishments." Kevin smiled to himself at the idea of Targold being a positive guy then shook his head at the prospect.

"Speaking of quarians," started Targold after a quick quaff of his toxic drink, "you ever make contact with that fleet of theirs? I remember you trying pretty hard to get to them."

Kevin shook his head. "Nah, I gave up a couple weeks ago. It's been nearly two months since I came back from that planet on the edge of dark space. What would I tell them? 'Hi, sorry for waiting so long to tell you, but every single one of your people are dead'? 'Oh, by the way, there's nothing but geth and worse out there'?" He sighed and his head sank a bit involuntarily.

Those wounds were still fresh for him. Memories of his time as part of the venerable elite quarian squad, the first Xelvas'taersh to exist since the exile, still plagued his thoughts on a regular basis. They were a motley bunch; a bunch of quarian Migrant Fleet Marines, an ex-STG salarian, who was the brother of his best friend, and himself—a human shoved into a mutilated quarian environmental suit.

He remembered the good times they had together, the trying times during and after missions, and the relationships he forged with each. Siri'Kortel with her calm wisdom and true captain's heart; Tyr'Garloh with his elder knowledge and staunchest of heads; Riik'Votis with his strong passion and short temper; Tosh'Rolush with his quiet courage skill in software; Bela'Merni with her fiery nature and constant flirtations; Kar'Welkas, the rookie who'd take on the galaxy for you, Ralik Dolannus, his first companion of the adventure and brother to best friend Tarsil Dolannus…

And Arla'Tavval vas Kellius with her pride, her arrogance, her incredible body, her high aspirations… The woman who stole his heart, felt his warmth, experienced his intimacy, and would have been his closest companion in mind and body until the end of days. He had never loved anyone in this wide galaxy as he'd loved her. They would have given everything to each other, he was sure of it. They all would have given each other everything.

Would have, had she—had they not died.

It killed him to create those gravestones in the middle of his ship's wreckage, every one of them a blade to his heart. Arla's was the hardest and sharpest by far. He left hers for last, hoping to steel his resolve some by the time he had to place it. By the time he had finished carving the last letters in the jagged unearthed rock face, he had begun to weep for the first time since his childhood. Things were never the same after her death, as if the galaxy had altogether lost a portion of the color spectrum when her life gutted out under the fiery piece of the broken Kellius.

The last he saw of those gravestones, out on some planet that wasn't even a planet at the very farthest edge of the galaxy, was as he saluted to them all for the service to the galaxy at large. For braving the unknown and facing down an entire fleet of rogue geth just to cross an unmapped relay. For finding wonders he'd never even thought to find anywhere and taking documentation of it all. For finding a sleeping beast of the most impossible kind, and facing it as it woke. For destroying a thing so terrible that it once took an entire fleet of the Alliance Navy to bring its kin down.

I have not forgotten, you bloody bastards. Come as you will, we've beaten you before and we will again.

Targold brought his thoughts back as he gave an exaggerated shrug. "No skin off of my hump either way, kid. I was just curious. You need to get over that lot, and the sooner the better." He nearly emptied the tankard this time, and little dribbles of ryncol fell off of the sides of his jaw.

"Just let it be, Targold. You know I hate talking about them," Kevin said, feeling a shade more depressed than before.

"Hah, right." He finished off the last bit of his drink and slammed the durable cup upside down on the counter to signal the bartender for another. "What you need to do is get your balls back out of that suit and find a female to mate with until you stop caring about that shit."

Kevin gave Targold a reproachful stare, and while he knew the krogan couldn't see his face, the universally understandable angle of his head told all.

Targold quickly performed a double-take when he noticed Kevin's reaction. "What? It works for me. Here, let me help you out a little." The stool under him whined loudly as he shifted to look at the amalgam of patrons behind him. "That asari right there. See her? The one looking all over the place as if she's expecting her best friend to show up and knowing she never will?"

Kevin decided to humor Targold by turning to see who he was talking about. He knew the blasted krogan wouldn't stop until he did. The one he was pointing at, paranoid-looking asari in classic asari scientist garb and little in the way of defense, met his eyes only once as he looked, though she glazed over him as though he wasn't even there. "Yeah, what about her?"

"A bit squishy for my tastes, but I've had enough asari to know she's one fine piece of ass. Go over there and make her day, Folner."

Kevin sighed and brought a hand to the visor of his helmet. "And why, pray tell, would she even consider me as a bedmate?" It was a hopeless question to ask, he knew, but the more he let Targold run with it, the longer it would be before he'd hear it again.

The krogan smiled; a fearsome thing it was, all oddly colored, sharp teeth and remnants of ryncol. "Probably because she's been asking around Omega for Kevin Folner for two days now. What, you didn't know?"

That got Kevin's attention, no doubt as Targold expected it would. He looked at the asari with more interest this time, his eyes lingering for a while. His friend was right about one thing, she was incredibly attractive. She wore tight white and cyan clothes that accentuated every curve, as the asari had a longstanding expertise with, and her face was shapely to the point where it seemed to make the rest of the room lose color. Her dark blue skin had the supple quality of a maiden-stage, yet her eyes spoke of the wisdom of a matron. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes as well, and Kevin could not help but find that excited him. Truth be told, Kevin could feel a slight flush that had crept onto his face.

More importantly, she'd been asking for him. Him. Despite not having shown his face here since he had collected that bounty on Linus many months back, she was here looking for him. He considered going over to talk to her, but he was wary. Targold had a habit of using these unusual wiles for a krogan to get him to do things he would have otherwise avoided. He had to know, though. He had to.

"I did not. Well then, this changes everything," Kevin announced as he stood from his seat. "I think I'll go over there and make her day."

Targold gave a half-laugh, half-growl of victory. "Hah-haaaarrr, that's the Kevin I know! Make her squeal nice and good, kid. She looks like she needs it." He gave Kevin a firm pat on the back, a move that nearly sent the quarian-clad human stumbling into a nearby table.

He would make her day, but not with pillow play.

Kevin sauntered over towards the asari with strides full of a confidence quarians on Omega seldom ever sported. The moment he was within talking distance, he grabbed a seat from another and slid it over to hers, as she had intentionally removed all the others. He leaned to the side and propped his tube-ridden head up on a hand supported by an elbow as though he were drinking her in, admiring her. This might have been true to some extent. Her eyes slowly moved from the datapad she was reading to him, almost nonplussed as to why a quarian would dare sit with her.

"The hell do you want?" she asked in pure disdain, squinting as if slivered eyes would be an effective deterrent.

Kevin moved his head up and down to signify the fact that he was checking her out. Those tight clothes did not disappoint when it came to curves. "You're a pretty one," he said in his well-practiced quarian accent. "What's your going rate? I'm immune-boosted and I have credits on hand if you can go tonight."

The look on her spoke half of disgust and half of murder. "Get lost, you immune-deficient sack of shit. Do I look like a whore to you?"

Kevin performed the exaggerated nod again. "Uhh, yes. Yes you do. Are you saying you're not?"

"Ugh, Goddess…" She reached down under the table, presumably to one of her thighs, and she pulled out a pistol, whereupon she immediately shoved the barrel end right in front of his face. "There. Does that make it clear?"

Kevin laughed and laid the arm propped up on the table flat so he could lean in. He heard the light tink as the pistol came in contact with his visor. He could see part way down the inside of the barrel, and he was glad for the helmet's natural ability to obscure facial twitches and sweat. He already knew this woman was unstable, and he had to figure this was the most stupid thing he's ever done. Next to jumping out of a ship into open space amongst a geth-ridden asteroid field, anyways. Somehow, staring down the barrel of a gun wasn't quite as terrifying as free-floating in open space.

"You really don't know much about Omega, do you?"

Cocky, she turned her head in a mocking gesture meant to show she was 'thinking about it'. "Umm, I'm pretty sure a gun to the face means 'Fuck off' anywhere in the galaxy." She smiled to him. It was a cold, condescending smile.

Somewhere behind him, Targold must have been able to hear the conversation, as he let out a loud, guttural laugh.

Oh, she's a feisty one, he thought. Careful, Kevin, you don't want to get TOO interested. "Maybe you were too busy with that pad there, but the last two people to point a gun at me fell dead on the spot." He spoke with such casualty that it might have been labeled as disinterest. Threat or disinterest, it would serve. He had no intention of hurting this asari and her very stupid, blunt threats, but he had a reputation to keep up and an example of her haughty inexperience had to be made.

"You're all talk, but you're pretty useless when you don't have that gun of yours in hand." Bold talk, but there was a flash of uneasiness in her eyes. Maybe the inability to read his face was helping him more than he thought.

He knew how he would do this. The way she held the gun spoke of too much experience with firearms to just melee from her hands, so he needed an indirect approach to disarm her first. Once that was done, he just had to have her put in a position where biotics wouldn't be a threat. Gunpoint or a takedown would handle that well enough.

Kevin lifted his arm off the table and sat back with his arms up in surrender, gesturing for her to just relax. "You need to calm down, lady. All I came here for was—"

Her anger flared for a brief moment. "All you came here for was to get a grab at my—"

Kevin, still as stone until the very last split second, kneed the underside of the table as hard as he could, which sent the small thing flying upward. It crashed into the raging asari's arm and knocked the pistol upward, effectively taking all immediate threat of being shot out of the few seconds he would need to complete his move.

As the scene around him seemed to slow, he got to his feet and shoved the still airborne table into her, causing the chair she sat upon to tilt back so far that gravity took it. She, the table, and the chair fell with a noisy crack and a surprised grunt. Without even waiting for her to figure out where she should have been, he stepped forward and leaned down to take the wrist of the hand holding the pistol and he twisted it until her fingers naturally, though forcefully, uncurled enough to let the weapon get away.

Finally, to make his point clear, he rolled her onto her stomach, pushed a knee into her lower back, and twisted the held arm behind her to pin her still and be sure that no biotics would be able to come flying at him. She struggled under him, of course, but the sharp knee in her back could be moved to persuade her to knock it off. Once he could feel her struggling recede as she finally admitted to herself that she was pinned, he leaned in.

"You really don't know anything about Omega, do you?" he said in a half-whisper. "If you're calling for a name you suspect to be here and can't find them, it's because they don't want to be found."

Once the asari understood why he was really there, her apparent fury subsided some. He backed up off of her but took her gun in his hand by the barrel until such time as he could be sure she wasn't going to shoot him out of spite. Truth be told, he didn't know if such a time would ever come.

"Why don't have a more casual conversation, hmm?" Kevin gestured towards a nearby booth. Again, he heard Targold laughing. This was more likely at how quickly the asari went down rather than the conversation, if he had to guess.

The asari got up, scowling hard at him, and brushed herself off while mumbling under her breath. "(Son of a bitch…) Are you going to give me my gun back, or am I going to have to take it?"

Kevin ignored that and took a seat, gesturing for her to do the same. He placed the pistol on the bench seat next to him to keep it from her reach. This table was fixed to the floor and wall; there'd be no table-kicking antics here. "So. What's your story, Sweet Cheeks?"

Her jaw clenched at the pet name. "I'm looking for someone very important to… to me."

"Just someone?" he asked impatiently.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "A human named Kevin Folner."

Kevin tilted his head to give the appearance that he was racking his brain. "Must be a pretty lucky kid." His tone gave suggestion as to what he meant.

The asari's head flinched back and she scowled again. "Don't get your suit all wet, quarian. He's part of a hefty research project I was a part of. I'll say no more than that." She crossed her arms, defiant. "Asshole."

Kevin chuckled. "Now now, there's no need to be calling any names, miss…?"

"Matriarch Sugar-Tits," she spat, apparently rather fluent in human colloquialism.

Kevin nodded, offering up another chuckle. "I like that even better than my name for you. However…" He leaned forward, laying his arms on the table and lacing his six fingers together. "I may know this individual you seek, and he might not be so inclined to let himself be found if the people searching for him are straight up liars. He's not very fond of liars, you see."

"You're an annoying little shit, aren't you?" she asked, gripping the table harder by the second.

"Do you want to talk to him or not?"

"I want to meet him. Can you make that happen or am I wasting my time here?"

"Who's asking?"

The asari threw her head back and growled loudly in frustration, but finally relented. "Maela T'Vess."

That surprised Kevin. It was a name he was familiar with, though only in the hearing. He was once again glad for the obscuring nature of his helmet. If he remembered correctly from all those logs he listened to, Maela was the asari geneticist who assisted the Cerberus cell he was brought into the world from. She helped shape the framework of his very DNA to ensure that he could actually get use out of his biotics. A million questions flashed through his mind, but he'd have time enough for that when they met face to face. Well, metaphorically speaking.

Even still, one red-flagged question lingered in his mind. What the hell is she doing on Omega?

For now, he leaned back, nodded once, and crossed his arms. Finally, it was time to get down to business. "I can. I'll inform him of your arrival. You'll be meeting him one day from now at an apartment in Omega's first district's main block. The apartment is here." He tapped on his omni-tool and sent the coordinates of his apartment to Maela.

Once she had the coordinates he passed along, she quickly grabbed his arm. "That name must not pass beyond the two of you, understand?"

Kevin looked down to her hand, then back up to her. "Yes, yes, of course. You can trust me on that."

"I don't trust you at all," she said pointedly, "but you're the only lead I have right now." She let go of his arm and gave him a measuring stare. "So who exactly are you, and why are you the only I have?"

"I'm known on Omega almost exclusively as 'The Suit'. Not my choice, mind you, but it serves. And I'm your only lead because I know the right people and know where to send you. Truth be told, no one has seen Kevin Folner on the station for months."

"And you're just going to magic him up for me?" she asked in fairly evident disbelief.

Kevin's only reply was a confident nod.

Maela sighed. "Goddess help you if you're lying to me. I'm sure enough people here know you so that I can find you again if I want."

Kevin picked up the pistol that was sitting next to him. "If that should happen, hopefully then you'll bring something a little more effective than this." He handed the pistol to her, grip first.

Maela took the pistol from him with another scowl and a dagger-eyed glare. It was clear that this one was not accustomed to being talked down to. And why should she be? She's a renowned geneticist, if those logs were anything to go by. As if that meant anything to anyone around here, he thought. She needs to learn that her accomplishments mean squat to ninety-nine percent of the galaxy sooner or later. I just happen to be a huge part of that remaining one percent…

The asari left rather unceremoniously and without any further words or grumbles. Once she was out of sight beyond the entrance to the pub, Kevin got up and moved back towards Targold, where three of the turian muscle for the Den were standing there waiting for him and conversing casually with the massive patron. Strangely, they didn't seem interested in shooting him. Maybe they knew he still worked as a bouncer at the door to Afterlife, or maybe Targold hadn't opened his mouth to breathe in the past twenty minutes. Hah. Right.

"Ah great. What am I getting kicked out for this time?"

One of the turians, one Kevin knew only as 'Beric', casually waved the Vindicator rifle gripped tightly in his hands towards him, though more as a conversational gesture than a threat. "Darg's sick of the noise you're making, so he wants you out." He flicked an armored talon at the overturned table nobody had seen fit to set right.

"I suppose I should be thankful he didn't come tell me himself," Kevin mused aloud. A round of nods confirmed this as a good thing. People escorted out by Quash Darg generally went to a clinic first. "Alright alright, fine. I don't think I'll get the chance to come back here for a while anyways." He looked to the krogan, who'd just finished off his third tankard with a sonic boom of a belch. "Coming?"

The krogan visually thought to himself for a moment before tossing a chit on the counter to pay for his drinks. "Why not. This place is dull as dirt when you're not here to shoot up idiots."

Beric escorted Kevin out of Fortune's Den with little more than a small shove to make sure he got some sort of physical show out of the situation. Out on the streets, Kevin stopped to stretch and visually scan the area as he usually did. This area was always busy and full of bodies, and there were no shortage of people to keep an eye on when taking a stroll. If the nearest drunk krogan wasn't looking to 'accidentally' knock you over, there was always a salarian looking to rope you into a scheme, a batarian looking to mug you, a quarian trying to electronically transfer your personal funds out of your chits, or a human looking for target practice. Such was the way of Omega.

A very short silence between them followed as they began to walk along with the diverse crowds towards the apartment blocks. That silence didn't last very long, however.

"So?" Targold asked expectantly.

Kevin smiled to himself. "She's coming to my apartment tomorrow," he said, sounding quite pleased with himself.

"Hah!" the krogan roared as he gave Kevin a friendly, but still devastating punch on the shoulder. "You're quick in a fight and to the bed. Did she fancy you before or after you threw that table in her face?"

Kevin stumbled sideways from the punch and rubbed his arm. "Oof. Ah, yeah. It was after. I get the feeling she likes it rough."

"No other way to do it, in my opinion," Targold with a sagely nod. Hah. A sagely krogan nod. "If I get a mate that can't take it rough, it stops being 'mating' and turns into 'masturbating into a warm body'. But with crying. I hate crying. Irks me to the bone."

Kevin laughed heartily at his explanation and walked around a batarian recruiting for some no-name gang that was likely to be ripped to shreds in the next few days. "I'll try to remember that next time you take someone into your room alone, Targold. Hey, speaking of finding mates, did you ever hear back from that message you sent off?"

"The one to Tuchanka?" Targold never walked around people. They moved their stuff and got out of the way when he walked on the streets. Maybe it was the claymore holstered on his back. "No. I'm hearing a lot of other krogan talk, though. Something damn big is going on out there."

"Is clan Urdnot involved?" Kevin asked. He watched some unfortunate salarian careen sideways off of his feet when he failed to move for his massive companion.

"Right at the center as far as I can tell. Something that's involving the other clans, too."

They turned a corner and passed through a number of massive doors that led to the residential apartments for the station. "Why not head back there and find out for yourself, especially if your clan's at the center stage?"

Targold laughed in derision. "Hah. I may be clan Urdnot, but I'm hardly connected with any of them. It's like some big hot-shot family that's more than content to let you remain forgotten in the galaxy. I prefer it here where people know who I am."

Kevin shrugged. "They may need you there."

Again, Targold laughed. "Hah! Next you'll be telling me the Citadel council needs the Blood Pack to join C-Sec." The krogan shoved another sorry soul out of his way to vent some misplaced anger and shook his head. "Maybe I'll head there someday. All the females are there, and I might one day grow as soft as you and want to contribute to the krogan survival efforts, but not now. Besides, there's more good fighting here."

"Unless that thing that's going on is about to be war," Kevin said, refusing to let it go.

"War on Tuchanka is crap. It's messy and full of has-been warlords trying to get more battle glory for themselves and their krant. You know I prefer the personal touch of smaller battles."

Kevin's eyes itched badly, but he had to settle for crushing them shut over and over. It wasn't very effective. "I've never heard of a krogan opposed to war before."

"I'm not opposed to war," he said definitive. "I'm opposed to krogan wars."

They parted ways shortly after that, Kevin to his apartment and Targold to wherever Targold goes when not at a bar. When he reached his place, he opened the door remotely with a quick passcode from his omni-tool an approached slowly. It was pitch black inside, as he never left even the most cursory of door lights on. This was intentional, and the reason had saved his life more than once.

Just before he got near the door, he paused to ensure no one was watching then dropped down to crawl on his stomach. Using his forearms and elbows to pull him along, he squirmed his way into the door and inside his apartment. When he had crawled far enough in for his feet to be beyond the doorframe, he rolled to the right once, twice, three times. All this was done in fluid, practiced motions, and it wasn't until after the door closed and he completed that third roll that he groped to the right of his waist for a small console. He found it with little difficulty and pressed a small button on its face. Only then did all the electronics in the apartment—lights included—come alive.

His apartment was small and hardly homely. It was the color of unpainted walls and gray metal floor, and any furniture he had—a queen-size bed, a chair near it, and a small square table with two chairs in the higher, non-separated kitchen on other half of the room—was sterile white or polished chrome long since tarnished. He didn't bother furnishing this place more than that, as it was intended to be only a place of rest and refuge between missions. That's what the intent was several years ago when he first set it up, anyhow.

Now he had been living in it for two months and was wishing it had a little more life. Even a man as numb as I've become can only stare at this sorry place for so long, he thought. Money spent to place extra furniture or add some décor would have been a waste, though. Even today he seldom spent time in his apartment out of desire, and he never had visitors that warranted more chairs, tables, or a sofa. No one visits a vagabond quarian with hacked up legs for any reason. Not until tomorrow.

Maela would be the only living person to visit his apartment since he took it. All else died upon entry, save for him. He had no intention of killing her as she stepped through the door, though, so that meant he had to clean up the entryway. Said entryway was the reason for his unusual manner of getting inside and the means of killing intruders. He got to his feet and approached the amalgam of extremely fine filament wires and rigged weapons that surrounded the door. There were three wires for every rigged gun, all mounted specifically to coat the entire entryway in gunfire once any of them were triggered. The trap had reached a pointlessly high level complexity due to his adding to it over a couple years with the assumption he'd never take it down.

"Why use such an obsolete and tricky trigger for a trap like that? Why not just use door triggers like most well-adjusted paranoids of modern times?" Targold once asked him while they were discussing the reason why the krogan could never relax at Kevin's place.

"Mechanically rigged weapons like this can't be detected by electronics scanners," Kevin had explained back. "No one with the intention of collecting a head ever enters someone else's turf without a few scans to see what they're up against, and Omega's walls and doors are perfect for preventing through-wall layout scans. Additionally, mechanically rigged traps can't be hacked, and with so many tech experts in the gangs today, that counts for quite a bit."

"Spoken like a true paranoid," Targold just said in response. He never really approved of such tactics, calling them 'coward's schemes', but Kevin never paid that any mind. Targold was krogan after all and always preferred to charge an armed attacker and punch him or her in the face to ensuring the attacker never actually attacked anything to begin with.

Unfortunately, the complexity was starting to rear its ugly head now, and he was wondering to himself exactly why he let it get this way. I'll just show them how to get around the wires, he always told himself. That prospect has since lost its ideal convenience, and now he had to undo the entire lethal web before Maela showed up. This might have been a simple, if lengthy, task with ten fingers, but he was limited to six thanks to his quarian envirosuit. Sure, he could take it off and get all his fingers back, but he'd have to sacrifice the precious kinetic barriers the suit came with and the slightest wrong twitch could set the trap off. He needed the kinetic barriers as well as his own biotic supplement if he hoped to survive an accident, given the two shotguns and three heavy pistols aiming at him on this side. The guns were old and under-maintained, but he made sure that they fired on command and he knew these wouldn't be seeing constant action.

Maybe this is a little bit overkill, he reasoned as he gathered dark energy to himself and coated his body in a biotic barrier just outside of the rather short effective range of his kinetic barriers. Note to self: Think it through entirely.

As he worked, his thoughts traveled to the logs where he first heard Maela T'Vess's name. If Maela is here, does that mean Liam and the others are too? All the more reason not to have this nasty surprise up by the time they show. He wondered if they were still on the run from Cerberus, too. The audio he received from the Shadow Broker implied as much, and he'd listened to that so many times he could quote the entire thing word-for-word.

It was then he recalled hearing them plan to find Maela so that they could do something about Kevin's headaches and neural degradation associated with being, well, him. The experimental project that he was birthed from made him the last surviving natural biotic. He was the only human who could make powerful mass effect distortion fields on par or better than most biotic humans, only he didn't have any implants. It didn't come without cost, however. All of the other subjects of that project were dead by now, most having never made it through their second week of life.

On top of that were the headaches. The headaches. These manifestations, born of some problem with the way his nervous system works with his brain, were wrought of pure, crippling agony. L2 migraines were a prick in the finger compared to these, or so Kevin assumed. He'd never seen any L2 biotics fall to the floor, instantly disabled, with how overwhelming the pain was.

'Neural Cascade Incidents', Liam had called them, and they were what killed his brothers and sisters who managed to survive their early years. Kevin knew that his own final, lethal NCI was coming, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had one a month ago, right on time with how frequent they were getting. He was sure that one would kill him with how it felt. It was only a matter of time until the next one came, and each was just one step closer to absolute neurological self-destruction. The next could be his end, or the one after that. It took a lot of mental effort to not let this knowledge send him spiraling into depressed madness. It was never an easy thing to stare death in the face to see who flinched first.

Around four hours into the task of taking down his safety net, he finally managed to disarm enough of the trap that he could safely remove the envirosuit without fear of getting shot to bits due to an errant twitch. He needed a break from that taxing task anyways and his eyes still itched madly, watering up as a result.

He moved over to his bed and began to remove the many ornaments that had to come off before the suit itself could. His pistol, a heavily modified Kassa Fabrication military-class Phalanx, was the first to go. Second came the sheathed monomolecular blade that was strapped around his waist and sat horizontally across the small of his back with the handle off to his right for quick access. Third, and finally, he untied the wrappings around his left bicep to reveal a unique metal-on-metal emblem attached to a strap of crimson and black that wrapped around his arm.

The emblem was in the shape of a wide T with the bottom of the central shaft gradually flaring out until it was as wide as the top. The two ends of the horizontal line across the top shot down and curved inwards before finally terminating half-way down. He knew this emblem well, even if the rest of the galaxy does not. The emblem of the Xelvas'taersh—the elite quarian squads from days before their exile. It had been revived when Siri'Kortel and a small collection of her marines joined with him and Ralik to embark on a journey out into deep space to explore the unknown for the Migrant Fleet. Those days seemed a thousand years ago now.

Kevin unwrapped the strap and hung it on one of two hooks on the wall near his bed. That settled, he moved on to getting the environmental suit off. He was quite adept at this by now, since he had made the conscious decision to remove the suit two to three times a week when safely locked away in his apartment. He had no intention of letting his immune system atrophy like a real quarian, and Omega's recycled and poorly filtered air had plenty enough crap floating about to give it a good exercise every time.

It only took him around twenty minutes to remove the whole thing on this particular try. The first time he ever removed it, even with Arla'Tavval's direct assistance and a roundabout way of shutting everything down quickly, it took near an hour. She was so insistent that he be extra careful with the various clasps and locks that kept the suit as one piece that he assumed they were fragile compared to the rest of the suit's parts. After all, these things weren't meant to be fiddled with very often. By now, however, he had to figure his suit had seen more removals than that of ten quarians combined.

He sighed in relief as he finally was able to work that itch out of his eyes, but a good whiff of the apartment's atmosphere caused his face to scrunch up. "God. Why does Omega have to smell so bad?" he asked the walls. He preferred to leave the olfactory filters of his suit disabled so that he didn't have to stomach the nasty and ever-oppressive smog of filth every day. The downside was that he had to get used to the smell all over again every time he removed the suit, and that wasn't exactly a small feat. Still, the choking, dusty air was preferable to a withering immune system in his eyes, so it was worth the repulsive few minutes.

After hanging the empty suit on a recently-installed hook near the bed, he pulled on a basic dockworker's uniform; something he bought just to have for clothes when not in his environmental suit. It was a bland mix of a dark grey shirt, faded blood-orange cargo pants, and black boots. Another hour and a half later, the dangerous web had been undone and he had started to collect the guns up. He laid them out by type and size on his small kitchen table, using the chairs when he ran out of space. He made himself a quick bite to eat and finally decided that he should try and grab some sleep before his visitor showed. The last thing I'll want is to be slow-witted and sleep-deprived when that asari comes knocking down my door.

"Dim lights," he commanded the air and the lights dropped to a sleepy level. He kicked off his boots and crawled into his bed, falling asleep within a few minutes. He was beat, and hadn't slept in a couple days due to being on watch for the amateur bounty hunters that he had taken care of earlier in the day.

He woke suddenly only four hours into his nap. The room was dark, but he was surrounded by the familiar orange glow of his omni-tool. An urgent message was blinking, trying desperately with visuals and a notable beep to get his attention. It was from Targold.

"What the hell…" Kevin mumbled to himself as he rubbed his bloodshot eyes and sat up in his bed. He spent a minute getting his focus together and attempting to fight off the drowsiness with moderate success. He then opened the text message to read it.

kevin theres a group of sketchy types heading to your place i think. that asari

you talked to yesterday was with them. bringing friends? you sly drell. i didn't see any

guns but you never know what people are hiding these days. they DID have long coats.

–URDNOT TARGOLD

Kevin's bows furrowed together. He was not expecting an entourage. He looked up to his doorway, completely open and devoid of danger-obliterating traps that might have helped him negotiate entry terms with such a host.

"Crap."