"Roane Lorrais!"

She looked up, blinking at the guard shouting her name at the doorway to the cell. Eyes turned to her, as the others asari being holed up with her noted that she was being called. There was a certain tension—of envy, curiosity, annoyance and anger—at someone else getting to leave. Standing out was not good here, she had noticed. I have to stay low, keep my head down and...

"Get up, you're being questioned in five."

"Y-yes," she said as she rose up and hastened to move past the two Eclipse sisters who had somehow wound up in an Ulee holding cell.

As many of the others realized she was just being taken out for a short walk, their attention on her waned and they quickly lost interest in her again.

She moved to follow after the uniformed guard, meekly looking at the ground, avoiding looking at anyone around here in the eyes. She had tried to manage with bravado and wit at first, just as she had for years in various legal cases. But here all it had earned her was a beating at the hands of her 'fellows' and the disdain of her captors for making a ruckus.

They entered an elevator where her guard crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall, glancing at Roane merely once to make certain that she wasn't trying anything. She knew better already; the guards were to be obeyed. No ifs, buts or whys about it. You simply obeyed.

Roane was led to another hallway, similarly drab and featureless as she was taken through a byzantine mess of corridors and doors, until they finally reached an unremarkable door and was pushed inside.

"Sit down," the guard said as she slapped on the lights.

Hastening to obey, she considered whether to ask how long she would have to wait for Tela Vasir to arrive. But she refrained, keeping her mouth shut and eyes down as she sat. I can't, no—think about Hoana, this is all for Hoana...!

The door closed with a heavy echo through the empty room, somehow final and oppressive as she flinched at the sound.

A minute passed. Two.

After five, she finally looked up from where she sat by a simple table. It was a drab, colorless room with just a table bolted to the floor, with four simple chairs around it. In two of the corners of the room there were dome cameras and there was only a single door in and out; a thick slab of metal that even a commando would have struggled to dent.

Where is she... Has something happened? No, this is a ploy. She must be waiting and watching. I have to be strong, she thought as she inhaled slowly.

"So, Roane."

She bolted upright, jumping out of her chair at the deep voice that came from behind her. She had nearly jumped out of her skin as she gawked at the sudden appearance of a dark figure standing in the room. Where—The door didn't even?!

"Who—who are you?" She asked, almost whispering as she took a step back.

Long of limbs, wide of shoulders and wearing skintight dark clothing of some kind, with white highlights and strange straps by the legs. It was a human, and a man at that, she realized. His head was covered in a smooth black helmet that barely muffled his voice at all.

Somehow this figure seemed familiar to her.

"Hmm? Oh, I forgot," he huffed as he reached up with one hand. Removing the helmet, he spun it on a finger and sat down by the table on one of the chairs.

Roane blinked, her mind completely lost at that moment as she recognized him, despite the white hair and tanner skin. "F-Fujimura?"

As he set down the helmet on the table, he shrugged as if to say 'who else?'

She realized her mouth was hanging wide open as they simply stared at each other for several seconds. H-how is he here? I thought, but Tela Vasir said that—

"Sit down," Fujimura said as he gestured at the chair opposite to himself by the table.

Roane swallowed, nodding once as she did. Her mind was too numb and confused to even question the suggestion. Or was it an order...?

She felt a new kind of worry entering her heart, a less oppressive and wide-ranging, but all the more worrying and immediate all for it.

What could he want with her?

"H-how are you here?"

"I hacked my way in. Didn't that Spectre tell you that much? That I was a wanted man?" He asked, raising an eyebrow as he leaned back in the chair, his posture relaxed and confident.

She flinched at that, realizing just what Tela Vasir had sought to do to this man. "I didn't tell her any—"

"You told her everything she wanted to hear, holding nothing back. I found some recordings of your talks," he interrupted her with a nod to himself.

Roane paused, her mind whirling and grasping at straws. "I—I didn't have any choice!"

"Hmm." He looked at her, as if weighing her very soul in that moment. "You're the very definition of the little fish, you know that, don't you?"

And it appeared he had found her utterly wanting.

She hesitated, before nodding. And you're... I don't even have the words... Oh Goddess, what did we get pulled into...?

"Is—Are... Hosin and Hoana...?"

He blinked once, his eyes narrowing at her then as his eyes bored through her.

"Hmm? Hoana was fine last I saw her," he said, nodding to himself as if thinking back and remembering something he hadn't thought about in a long while.

"Oh, thank the Goddess..."

"That was before Hosin sold me out, though..." He muttered offhandedly, brows furrowing as if he was deep in thought.

At those words, her blood ran cold. Why is he here? We're, we're his enemies aren't we? We all but betrayed him, didn't we...?

"I—I..."

"Haven't seen hide or hair of them since that. He said in his note he would be escaping, but I don't quite see how he'd manage that."

She bit her lip, her eyes turning to her hands as she was gripping her fingers tightly, almost painfully so as she tried to understand why she was here. I—I need to know if Hoana is safe, nothing else, nothing else matters!

"I, what do you want of me?"

He looked up, giving a slight smirk then. "Right. I said it, didn't I? You're a little fish. Tiny. Utterly beneath notice."

"I... Yes," she admitted.

She had never stepped beyond her means or tried to grasp beyond her reach. She skimmed a little here, pinched a little there. She never hurt anyone with what she was doing, just skimming the cream enough to make a little bit more without anyone being able to notice—she just didn't ask questions or always pay all that the fine print of the legal print might have required.

She was a petty criminal, she knew that. But for the right reasons she would do anything.

But Hoana was innocent. As long as she would not suffer, Roane would do anything. She looked up, meeting his dark gray eyes—a fact that somehow stood out as unnatural to her in that moment, for some reason—with determination. I have to gain his help. He can help me, he can save Hoana. No matter what; no matter what he asks or wants from me, if it's—if it's for Hoana...

Anything for her child.

"I—"

"See, I don't have time to babysit you. So this is going to bring a lot of heat on you—that fact that you know me and I went out of my way to come here, I mean—so you will have to completely disappear off the face of the galaxy."

She blinked, suddenly mentally stumbling over his words.

"Umm, what?"

"So when you get out of here, you'll have to head either for some backwater colony or the other side of the galaxy. Somewhere where even the Council and Spectres won't think to look. How you'll find your husband I have no idea, but I'm sure you'll manage as long as he doesn't get himself killed," Fujimura sighed as he shook his head. "I just don't have enough pieces to work with here..."

He seemed to be talking to himself, more than to her in particular.

"Umm, what?"

"But I'll do what I can. You'll have to pick it up from there."

Roane blinked, not understanding a word he was saying.

"So, for the next half an hour you're going to get bounced around between rooms and holding cells for a while until the personnel shift for the guards is over, after which you're going to become someone else. Someone whose bail has been paid and is going to be released today. With the switching around and new guards on rotation, they shouldn't notice for a while. You'll receive 'your' personal effects when they kick you out, including an omnitool and some new identitags and medicard I prepared for you. On the omnitool is a contact to me if you need help, but I won't be able to keep a constant eye on the mail so don't rely on it. There's also enough credits for you to buy a ticket out of Parnitha, and a few trips onward. Like I said, you need to disappear. Understood?" He looked at her, raising an expectant eyebrow as he finished talking.

She blinked at him, realizing that her jaw was hanging open again. "Umm...?"

"Sheesh, you really are that little one's mother, aren't you? Close your mouth before you swallow a fly," he scolded her as he shook his head.

"Umm, what, but...?"

"Did you listen to a word I said, or will I have to explain everything again?"

"Ah, no—I, I heard, but...?" She shook her head, trying to focus. She felt like crying, right then and there. She understood what he was saying, every word. But not a single syllable made any sense to her. Did she dare to hope he wasn't lying or deceiving her? "But why are you...?"

He huffed as he stood up, clearly laughing at something. Walking around the table he patted her shoulder as he walked past her. "Hosin asked for my help, that's all."

She blinked as she froze at those words. She turned around to ask him what he meant by that, "But—?"

He was gone; there was no one behind her. She looked around, before remembering he had left his helmet and turned to the table again.

But it was gone as well; she was completely alone in the room again.

;

Emiya dived right back in where he had left, eyeing the progress on the various ongoing processes.

"It'll take some more time, huh," he said, floating in place in the vast darkness of the digital world.

Given that there really was no 'down' or a ground to stand on in this place, he had eventually gotten himself accustomed to simply floating in space when he dove into computer systems. What he did here was oftentimes less dependent on his physical actions and more on what he willed to happen, so in that sense it was just a matter of training. The less he relied on his physical actions as cues and shortcuts for doing things, the more quickly he could handle data and what was going on around him in the digital world.

As such, he reclined in the middle of nothing and crossed his arms. Huh, I never thought about it, but despite the shallow similarity to being underwater it's nothing like actually being submerged in here.

Shaking his head at his recent underwater exploits and the comparisons that sprung to the fore of his mind from those experiences, he focused on what he had been doing before having his little talk with Roane. Still haven't found Hosin or Hoana, but he was nothing if not sneaky... No news is good news, I suppose.

Trawling through the extranet he had tried to find a lead on the forces hunting him down. If he could get into their systems it would be a massive advantage. But with the Serrice Guard no longer on the look out for him or coordinating with the Spectre, it was more difficult than he had expected. He suspected the drones would have led him somewhere but for now it looked like those had all pulled into hiding.

The starship he had hauled up from the bottom of the ocean had also been recovered some hours earlier, as satellite footage revealed, and in Serrice it seemed like Tela Vasir was still buzzing around his house. Probably looking for any clues, well that's fine.

Around the Ini'an Straits where he had been running on the sea there seemed to be dozens of starships still looking for him. But not a one of them seemed connected to anything, as he could only peek at them from orbital satellites. Probably using a tightbeam sparingly to avoid being subverted.

If he wanted to take a closer look at them, he would have to physically go there and try his luck. Which seemed like a waste of time on a gamble that might not even give him any results, given how careful the STG seemed to be in to regards cyber-security.

"I'll have to draw them out if I want to find their base," he noted with a sigh. That could wait for now, since he had a pile of things he was still trying to handle.

He returned to looking through various medical manuals and books, searching through various maladies and miseries but nothing seemed to quite match what he had observed of his body. There weren't that many human-specific sources of information on Thessia and he wasn't sure of how accurate knowledge pertaining to asari physiology would be in his case, either. Still, it was all he had to work with.

It might just be fatigue, he mused as he closed various connections and dismissed several sources.

Emiya had been looking up his condition using various search terms and specifiers, such as his diving or his long bout of wakefulness, but so far nothing seemed to be of any use. He had even been consulting various veterinarian sources for Thessia, trying to see if any animals suffered from strange conditions due to eezo or sudden changes in pressure or brightness. But as expected there was so much information but so little that matched his particulars that it turned out useless.

I need an expert opinion; someone who can discern the relevant and connect the dots, he thought as he closed his eyes for a moment.

"Guess it can't be helped," he said with a shrug and sigh.

He found one of the medical hotlines and then set up a link of proxies, bouncing his communications through a comm buoy out halfway across the Parnitha system before it shot back to Thessia. Putting the commlink through, he waited for the other end to pick up.

"Usaru Central, how may I help you?" The Virtual Intelligence answered, its synthesized voice and mannerism obvious immediately.

Emiya cleared his throat, checking that the voice coming out at the other end of the commline to the Usaru Central would sound as if he himself was an asari as well, and that the comm would look like it was coming through a comm buoy rather than from Thessia itself. "Yes, this is—Telana N'vorok, calling from a solo flying starship, I would like a medical consultation."

He waited for several seconds, letting the message bounce all the way to the comm buoy and back even though he could have used a connection without a noticeable lag if he had simply connected directly to Usaru. But he wanted to appear as if he wasn't on Thessia for anyone who might look a little bit deeper into who was calling in.

A few seconds passed and the VI finally continued, having received his answer.

"Is this a medical emergency requiring immediate assistance?"

"No."

The system was mostly in place for starships who were too far away for them to be able to check in themselves and for whom calling in a medical starship would be too costly. Within half a light-second, commlinks were usually instantaneous, thus it was usable at even considerable ranges as long as one had the time to wait for the communication lag. More than one life had been saved by calling for help and abiding by the medical aid such services could offer.

Several seconds had passed again as the VI continued. "Commlink medical consultations are not considered a legally accepted medical diagnosis, Usaru Central is not legally responsible for any—"

"Skip and send it in writing." he said, cutting off the VI. It paused for a few seconds before it continued on another track.

"Understood; legal disclaimers sent as text file. Commlink consultations cost—"

"I accept all billings under the registered account."He rolled his eyes.

"Very well, miss N'vorok," the VI spoke and for a moment he paused wondering who it was talking to, before he realized it was using the name he had invented on the spot. "Please describe the problems you have been experiencing."

A good thing about the advances of Virtual Intelligences had been that a lot of jobs where it was necessary to be able to sort through immense amounts of information quickly and sort out the relevant details could be assigned to the VI who would never grow tired and who could continue working at high precision without any need for breaks or time off.

With sufficiently detailed and tagged medical encyclopedias at hand, the VI could easily cut the amount of time and resources needed for diagnosing a patient.

As he began to detail his various symptoms and what he had been doing—making sure to use explanations where necessary for the sake of records kept by the VI—and finally the VI chimed back to him with a request to wait while it processed and consulted its databases.

"Please hold, credits will not be taken while waiting for results. In case of hang up, data will be stored for one galactic day after which it will be expunged from records. Please hold."

After that, some gentle asari muzak simply played on loop and he shook his head. This will probably take a while.

Turning his attention back to the two connections he had to the Athena Nebula Central Bank, he looked at the progress that had been achieved so far. There were several searches going on, though all could be further divided into numerous other individual components.

Basically he was running a history check on credits related to two sources right now. One was the credits he had recovered from the chit on Dretirop, the one that had belonged to the batarian wetworks outfit. The other was from several accounts of asari belonging to the Sapient Rights Council here in Ulee, specifically of those who had been visited by Tela Vasir prior to the vote on the cyber-tracking bill the Council had passed and who had also received significant amounts of money afterwards.

Simply put, he was doing the very thing that he had been avoiding having done to him by laundering the money through Hosin for the past few years.

All credit transactions could be traced down and tracked, meaning that all credit flow could be monitored. There were ways of muddying this trail, such as with the help of the quarians as he had. But generally speaking you couldn't hide everything. Something would always pop up if you looked deep enough.

Follow the money and you'll find what you're looking for.

Of course the former might just pick up the trail of the batarians' former victims who had been robbed, but that too would tell him something. Like where they usually operated and after which point in time the individual credits had fallen out of circulation. It might even be possible to draw an entire timeline of their actions using all the credits on the chit, depending on how long they had been stored there.

Additionally some of it might also have been through more legitimate means, showing a base of operations or trading hub where the batarians might have stocked up and hidden away between operations.

For the latter Emiya wasn't sure what he was looking for. For all he knew Tela Vasir might have been paying them off on the Council's orders and the money had been acquired through taxation and then use to fund the Spectre's use.

And while the Athena Nebula Central Bank was a huge organization with tens of thousands of branches, its records were not perfect. He might have to look around elsewhere as well.

Well, this should give him a basic idea so there was nothing to do now but wait. He pulled out a bunch of streams of information; Ulee police comm chatter, Serrice news reports and then live satellite feeds from orbit where he kept an eye on the surroundings of various key locations.

He was nowhere, yet he was everywhere. A ghost in the system, incorporeal yet able to affect change all-too-real anywhere that was within his reach.

There was just one thing he found lacking.

"I really should try figuring out how to bring a cup of tea in here, though..."

;

"This is..."

The automatic door made a chiming sound indicating that someone had tried to enter and had been denied access, causing Baliya to blink and turn around.

She frowned as she paused for a moment. Shaking her head, she continued speaking. "This is monumental, to think that something like—"

Again, someone tried to enter through the locked door and was denied access. So, they've come.

She turned to look at the brilliant young asari opposite to her by the table with a serious look. "They must be here for you."

Liara blinked, looking at the professor curiously. "Are you sure? It could simply be some students or University staff, couldn't it?"

"It could." Baliya nodded. "But I doubt it. Put on the full protection suits and go into the vacuum chamber. Go."

"Uh, me too?" The other Maiden who had been sitting by the side in relative silence while they had been working, and as the Matriarch nodded she shrugged and moved to follow after the other.

The two had slept in her office overnight and they had continued working on the Prothean gun first thing in the morning. So far no one had bothered them and due to the disruption of the previous day, many schedules had gotten so mixed up and chaotic that most classes had been canceled for the time being at the University. This had left them with plenty of privacy at the laboratories and museum, something most of them did not mind.

Tyra seemed somewhat antsy, but overall she did not seem too troubled with having to stay inside and sit by the side too much. It seems like she has a lot on her mind, I wonder what happened between her and him earlier...

The door chimed a third time and she walked up to it, checking that both of the Maidens had gotten into the one-use plastic suits and entered the vacuum chamber.

She opened the door from the inside, frowning as she looked at the two asari there. "What is all this racket?"

"Serrice Guard, ma'am. Please step aside, we are performing a routine sweep and need to search the premise," one of the two hardsuit-clad asari said as he peeked over Baliya's shoulder into the room.

"Well go do it somewhere else, I am running a very delicate experiment right now," Baliya brusquely brushed them off, closing the door behind her.

She just had time to see the surprised blinks of the two asari before the door closed. Let's see how well that works, it will tell me quite a bit about their orders if they push it. She waited a second and nothing happened.

Turning around and raising her hand to give the two girls an All-Ok sign, the door chimed again. She sighed, making eye-contact with Liara and mouthing the words 'pretend you're working' as she turned around to open the door again.

Alright old girl, you can play it by ear. Just another day at the office, really. She exhaled, putting on a put upon expression of measured annoyance and grievance at being interrupted as she opened the door.

Neither of the two Serrice Guards so much as blinked as she stared them down. They're here on orders from someone with a lot of pull, then. A Spectre? No, it has to be an asari most likely—A Matriarch.

"Ma'am, if you do not cooperate then we will have to take you in for obstruction," one of them said as the other immediately walked in before Baliya could close the door again.

"Do you know who I am?" Baliya asked as she crossed her arms.

They ignored her, looking around the room. Immediately spotting the two asari in the vacuum chamber, clad in face-concealing plastic suits, they looked at each other.

"Who are they?"

Baliya sniffed, staring at the Serrice Guard down the length of her nose. "My students. You are in a University, you do realize that, do you not?"

The hardsuited asari frowned, looking at each other for a moment before turning to the vacuum chamber. "Come out and reveal your faces, right now!"

Baliya rolled her eyes, uncrossing her arms and moving to stand between the vacuum chamber and the two Serrice Guards.

"It is a vacuum chamber, they can't hear you."

"Well, get them out of there. We need to identify them," the taller of the two asari said.

"It can't be done, they're in the middle of a very delicate and expensive procedure. Opening the lock could contaminate ancient samples and destroy literally priceless artifacts!" Baliya said, moving to stand in front of the chamber door.

"Move aside, we're—"

"I am not going to destroy a million credit sample because you are too thick to take a no for an answer," Baliya said, glaring at the two now.

The shorter asari moved to Baliya's side, setting herself up to flank her as she spoke. "Ma'am, we—"

"Are going to leave, now."

The two looked at each other before nodding slightly and backing away. They walked back to the door before turning around again. "If you see anything unusual, please do not hesitate to report it immediately."

Baliya nodded, saying nothing as she closed and locked the door behind the two. Turning to look at Liara and Tyra taking off their helmets while inside the vacuum chamber, she sighed.

"Do you think they were looking for us?" Liara asked, stepping out.

"Perhaps."

"They'll be back, won't they?" Tyra noted, finally speaking up after what seemed like a day of silence. "Should we run? Or should we just turn ourselves in? It's not like they can do anything to us... Right?"

"With Spectres involved, nothing is impossible," Baliya quietly noted. "And I haven't made a habit of trusting strangers in a long time. Let's return to my offices, we'll be hidden there."

"But the pistol is still..." Liara began but was interrupted by the Matriarch.

"We've already gotten most of the information out of the weapon, for now it is a matter of working with the data. There's no need for us to remain here, the remaining tests aren't as vital."

"Professor?" Liara asked.

"It's nothing. We'll be fine, trust me." Baliya showed a re-assuring smile to the two Maidens, showing none of the uncertainty she felt in her heart.

;

"It looks like some results are beginning to pour in. Let's see, let's see... Ternit system, Parnitha system, Citadel hmm..."

Emiya nodded as he eyed the tables of locations, dates and sums of the money that were being traced. The money of the various board members of the Sapient Rights Council had come back first, so he was now going through and trying to find a link. So far it seemed like all of that money was coming in from various disparate sources without any obvious common factors between them.

The commline chimed and he blinked, turning his attention away.

"Miss N'vorok? Are you there?"

That's not the VI, someone took over the call? That's unusual... isn't it? He wondered as he cleared his throat and focused on altering the output voice again. It wasn't like he was speaking, rather it was simply data being transmitted and translated into sound by the computer system after all.

"Yes, have you found something? Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing to worry about, miss N'vorok. We simply need to ask you a few questions, if that is alright—oh, do not worry about the costs, they will be waived for now, alright?"

Emiya blinked at that, pausing for a moment.

"Miss N'vorok, is everything alright?"

"Yes, no problem. What did you want to ask?"

He waited a few seconds again, noting the lag had changed from before.

"You mentioned that you had been diving before you lost consciousness, where did you swim exactly?" The asari on the other end queried.

Emiya frowned; the lag was infinitesimally smaller suddenly again. "Why? Is it related to why I blacked out? What's going on?"

Injecting a hint of growing panic, he listened to how the person on the other end would react.

"No, no, it's nothing like that. I am sure it is nothing beyond some exhaustion as you noted. A good night's rest would be all that's necessary for it to clear up." The asari hastily spoke, audibly trying to appear calm and controlled.

And again, the lag had decreased. It meant the distance the message had to travel was decreasing and considerably so. But with the comm buoy he was using, it would appear as if he was double the buoy's distance from Thessia due to the comm lag. Which could only mean that someone was flying towards the comm buoy while speaking, then? He reached out and checked, subtly extending his mind through the connection to see where it was leading. And as expected...

It's not being routed to Usaru anymore... It's to some starship flying out towards the Mass Relay? Was this person trying to track him through the phony relay connection he had made?

"That's good," he commented noncommittally. Something about all of this seemed fishy; I should probably cut it here.

"You mentioned that you had a headache and that your pupils seemed to be dilating and shrinking by themselves, yes? Along with phantom sensations of touch and sound?"

"Yeah, can you tell me what that was?"

"Ah, we aren't entirely certain, but if you could come in for a few tests, we could figure it out together. All expenses covered, of course!"

Emiya shook his head, then. Too suspicious.

"Well, if there's nothing more..."

"Ah, please wait, I have some more questions! It could be important and it won't take long."

He said nothing, simply waiting quietly for her to continue as he noticed they were running a trace on the commline now. Exhaling, he re-routed the trace and sent it out towards the Mass Relay buoys where it would be sent out of the system entirely.

"Were you alone? Or did you perhaps have company, wherever you were? A lover? Or someone you met recently?"

"No, nothing like that," he said and then blinked as something stood out among the numerous feeds he was watching. "Huh, looks like I have to go now."

"Wait, miss N'vorok—Telana! You can fight it—"

He shook his head. As expected, with the difference in human and asari physiology there was no point in trying to consult a local doctor for something like this. He had already gone so far as to check any melding-related problems commonly available but there had been nothing like that there.

Closing the commlines, he focused on one particular stream of data coming in through a security center, as he set aside the bank compilations and research tabs he had been working on. Well, that's not good.

;

Baliya led the way walking five steps ahead of the two Maidens.

Close enough that she could keep an eye on them but not quite close enough that they moved in one group. This way she could take corners first and cover for the two. It's been over half a millennia, yet the VIP detail skills still seem to be there.

They just needed to go through the intersection and then out through the hallway and they would be able to enter the Museum where they would be safely sequestered from curious eyes.

She turned a corner and froze, her eyes raking the scene up ahead in an instant as she turned around and walked back behind the corner. She did not hurry, nor did she panic as she walked into the two Maidens coming up behind her. Grabbing their arms she walked right past them and took them with her.

"Change of plans, we must go around by the outside entrance."

"Huh?" Tyra asked as she blinked, moving to keep up.

"What is it?" Liara added her own query.

Baliya didn't speak for a few seconds, only picking up her pace a little and taking a turn to get outside the University building to the enclosed courtyard next to the museum.

"The Serrice Guard are here again."

The two Maidens blinked, sharing a silent glance. In unison they hurried to keep up with the Matriarch in silent celerity, then. Is the museum safe? But it's not like I have anywhere else to go either.

For the first time in a while she felt distinctly annoyed by her lack of a proper apartment, or even friends living nearby upon whom she could rely at a time like this. Perhaps if she could call Tevos things would be different, but assuming that Fujimura's hunch was correct then it would be difficult to get in contact.

They made it outside, noting that it wasn't quite as it had been yesterday. There might even be some rain later today, with clouds looming in the horizon. She led them towards the museum, walking at a clipped pace forward. There remained only a stretch across a patch of grass to the museum ahead.

But up ahead, they could see two hardsuit-clad asari standing by and looking around. Clearly on guard and looking for something, Baliya halted and held them back behind the cover of a corner. "We can't sneak past them like this..."

"Should we try to fight?" Liara suggested and both Tyra and Baliya blinked at her.

"No, that would be a terrible idea." Baliya said and then blinked as she realized someone had walked up to them from behind. A hardsuit-clad asari stood there with a pistol in hand as their eyes met. Baliya blinked as she switched mental gears immediately. Raising a hand, she greeted the asari. "Can I help you?"

At the same time she was preparing to use her biotics in case the asari raised the pistol. At those words, Tyra and Liara stood a little straighter, turning around to look at the person who had appeared behind them, immediately spotting the tension in Baliya's expression.

However...

"Miss Liara?"

;

Emiya jumped out, spiritualized and invisible as he moved to tail Roane.

Looking around he spotted the two Ulee police officers immediately. It seemed like they were running an identification check on everyone buying tickets off of Thessia and using a facial profile system to confirm their identities against a database. It didn't seem like they were on the lookout for Roane, but the heightened state of security had brought on some additional measures. Roane's face was being analyzed and compared to an external database, something that was not related to the identitags or medicard, rather running in quarantine parallel simultaneously. In other words, the same kind of system that he had needed to spoof in real time because simply having identitags would not be enough.

Having passively followed after her he had made sure that the asari was not getting into any trouble, but she had immediately headed for the express starliners off of Thessia. I should have told her to lay low and buy an economy-class ticket; this is too suspicious on such short notice.

Well, it couldn't be helped.

He had broken her out so he might as well go through the extra effort of making sure she got off Thessia as well. What point was there in half-assing it at this point? With a sigh, he dived into the starport system as he heard the shout, keeping an eye on the situation through the camera feeds.

"Next, please!"

Roane stepped up, hiding her nervousness quite well as she smiled at the asari behind the desk. Using the omnitool, she sent forward her identitags along with her ticket off-world. Keeping an eye on everything, Emiya simply let it all go by as normal without doing anything.

He had been maintaining the 'All-Ok' status on the facial recognition VI for several minutes already, having wormed his way into their databases and reworked Roane's profile to make sure she wouldn't get arrested again the moment she walked in.

"Very good, the starliner will be leaving an hour from now at Terminal 4. To arrive there, take the left and follow the yellow line by the floor. Thank you for using Parnitha Starlines and enjoy your trip."

Roane nodded, moving past the desk as she moved with calm and measured steps out from the reception into the waiting area. Emiya looked around as he manifested next to Roane again, noting that no one seemed to have caught on yet.

Looks like everything is working out.

;

"Shiawe?" Liara blinked.

"Miss Liara!" The asari rushed over, almost bowling into Liara as she moved over. "I can't believe—how did you, why didn't you tell anyone that you were alive!"

Liara blinked as she realized she was being embraced by the commando.

"Ah... That is...?" She blinked, looking at Tyra for help who seemed to be staring with equal bafflement at the stranger.

"You know her?" Baliya asked, lowering her guard a tad bit.

"Well, yes... She is a subordinate of my mother—a commando, to be specific. But why are you here...?"

"Ah! That's right, miss Liara! What happened with that man Fujimura? What's going on, everything's been a complete mess! Why were you at his house!?"

"Erm, Fujimura? How do you know about Saiga?" Liara blinked.

Tyra seemed especially curious about that fact, as well.

"Ah, well Matriarch Benezia sent me to tail him, but..."

"My mother did?" Liara blinked, suddenly completely nonplussed. "Because of me? Is she here?"

"Err, no... Matriarch Benezia discovered him near Dretirop and he was deemed suspicious, so we followed him here."

"Dretirop?" Liara only seemed to grow more confused by the second. "What is mother doing on Dretirop?"

"Look, all of this can wait for later. Shiawe, was it?" Baliya cut in, then.

"Ah, yes?"

"You're working with the Serrice Guard, correct?"

Shiawe nodded. "We have been looking around the Serrice underground parking hall the whole night, together with the Serrice Guard! Miss Liara, we thought you were dead!"

"Ah, is that so?" Liara seemed only mildly surprised by that. "Well given how much trouble Saiga seemed to attract, I would be likely to think so as well."

"That's right! How did you escape? We tried to come to your rescue as soon we realized that Spectre was coming to arrest him and that you had been pulled in by accident. But we were arrested before we could do anything!" Shiawe looked ashamed at that, avoiding eye-contact. "Luckily Matriarch Benezia saw fit to get us some back up, she—ah, well... She umm, called some help and..."

Shiawe's words trailed off there, as it seemed like she was trying to think of a way to explain something without revealing too much.

"Shiala is here as well?" Liara asked.

"Huh? Shiala, no—I mean, yeah! Shiala's here!" The commando nodded vigorously. "Yeah, she bailed me out in no time! She got us back up, a uh... friend of Matriarch Benezia, to come help us."

"Oh." Liara blinked, before exhaling. "We need your help, Shiawe. We need to get inside the museum without being seen by the Serrice Guard, or anyone else."

"Uh... Sure? But why?"

Tyra injected herself into the conversation then. "Cuz we weren't there at the house by accident. That Tela Vasir pretty much herded us in there before she tried to kick down the doors. Saiga said she's dirty, so we need to get out of sight and quick, you know?"

"Tela Vasir is—" Shiawe blinked, freezing for a moment in confusion. She shook her head with a frown, raising a hand clenched to a fist up to her chest. "I'm not sure I get it, but yeah I'll help! What do you need?"

"Can you get those two around the corner away from the door? We need to get inside," Baliya said immediately.

"Sure, is that all? Just gimme a sec." Shiawe walked around them.

Baliya blinked, peeking around the corner. It was too far away for the discussion to be heard but it was obvious that Shiawe had spoken to them before. There was some laughter and a few seconds later the two Serrice Guards walked off as Shiawe settled to lean against the wall.

The three walked around the corner and to the door as soon as the two disappeared from view.

"Heh, they were just taking a break out of sight. No problem, no problem," Shiawe grinned and Tyra offered her a cheeky thumbs up that made the commando blink.

"Thank you," Liara nodded.

"The others are still underground, looking for you. I'll try calling them and the moment they get out I'll let them know that I found you, your f—erm, I mean—they'll all be really relieved to know you're safe." Shiawe said and neither of the other two Maidens seemed to notice the stutter.

The Matriarch among them simply eyed the commando curiously before deciding to trust her as was.

"I... thank you, Shiawe," Liara said with a slight smile.

"Alright," Baliya nodded as they entered the museum. "With this we should be safe for a while."

"Right, won't let anyone get past me, so don't worry," Shiawe said entering with them and closing the door behind them, positioning herself to stay by the inside of the door.

Baliya nodded, familiar with the young vigor and desire to please so common in young commandos, having both been one and worked with several over her long life.

Well, that's helpful. But, I should still call Tevos and try to get this sorted out, she thought as the three of them entered the museum. Still, with this it should be alright.

;

Emiya blinked as he returned to looking over the banking data. "Well, now..."

It had progressed considerably while he had been looking after Roane, he noted with a wry grin. He began to sort through the details of the credits he had gotten from the batarian wetworks outfit he had eliminated on Dretirop. There were a lot of holes, since the Athena Nebula Central Bank only had so many branches around the galaxy, but it still painted a somewhat coherent picture of how and where money had flowed. Physical transactions with credit chits were more difficult to track, but digital transactions usually left a record that banks and financial analysis groups were more than happy to pay for.

Knowledge is power and information is money, as they say.

It wasn't individual credits that told him anything, but 'groups' of credits that were useful. Usually when one bought something one paid with more than just a single credit after all. These clusters would form and disperse, but there was usually enough of a trend to make some inferences as to where the money had come from and where it was headed. Like a hundred thousand strands of hair so thin that they could not be seen with the naked eye, congregating and being woven into a thick rope that could be easily followed.

There were two major 'ropes' he could see; the somewhat legitimate looking one and the somewhat questionable one. In the former major group all the signs pointed to one place.

Khar'shan, the batarian home world.

Though the batarians had pulled out from the Citadel they still used the same legal tender— the galactic credit—for trade with other races, and many an industrious and adventurous merchant was more than willing to try their luck despite the Citadel sanctions in place.

Profit was profit, that was all there was to it.

So someone on the batarian home world is funding the group I ran into, he noted dryly. It was useful information, but right now it wouldn't help him much. Given the political situation between the Batarian Hegemony and the Citadel Council, it would be rather difficult to get there, for starters.

He would have to hope that the other major grouping of credits would be more useful.

In the latter 'rope' he found dozens of unique sub-groups with a readable trail through the galaxy, with numerous exchanges—someone either buying or selling using a specific credit where it was noted and put into the records he was now accessing—until they suddenly entered a certain region and disappeared. They had used their credits before attempting to pass through that place, never to be seen again. Someone sold a haul of iridium here, moving to pass through this cluster, buying supplies at these settlements with some of the iridium money and then they disappeared. With much of that iridium money now in my hands through the batarian's credit chit.

Pulling out a galaxy map and taking a closer look, he looked over the region where many of the credits had 'disappeared' over the years. A large cluster of systems relatively nearby to each other, each containing one or more mass relays and small settlements of people on asteroids and moons, mining and trading with passing by ships from the Mass Relays.

"A pretty good place to set up shop, if you were looking for ships to attack. Piracy then," he noted.

No major settlements or fleet presence, a long distance between Mass Relays allowing you to spot them in FTL and then rush to the relay ahead of them and ambush them as they dropped out of FTL and began their relay approach. It was reasonable to assume that the batarians had a base of operations here, a place where they could perform maintenance on their ships and handle downtime discreetly in a way that a public dock simply would not allow. Still...

There must be thousand places in here for a secret base to be set up. It would take forever to look them over one by one and they would see me coming a light-second away. He shook his head. There's only so many places an outfit like that would be able to operate out of. I just need to limit it down using those criteria. Going through a dozen systems he found a handful of places, but four systems among them looked like they fit the bill.

Zooming out, he looked at one of the four systems. "No Mass Relay inside the system meaning little civilian traffic and plenty of privacy. A gas giant to skim for fuel. Dozens of planets and moons to hide in and mine for resources, and a view of the interstellar space between systems which merchant vessels have to cross..."

Still, there were three other systems generally like it nearby. It would take too long to search through all of them. He raised a hand to his chin and thought about the matter. "Would it be enough to be looking around for ships passing by in FTL? No, if the targets were too fast then they would always get away. Which means there must be something more to this."

They needed information; what ships were coming, what kind of armament and escort did they possess, where did they arrive from. For something like that an informant was necessary. FTL tightbeam buoys were expensive, but with a large enough operation—the kind that received funding from the batarian home world, for example—it was possible.

And those informants had to be in a position where they could not only relay such information forward but be in place to see it immediately, wasting no time.

Somewhere like the settlements near the Mass Relays where he had noted a handful of credit trails leading. There will always be people willing to sell out strangers for an easy credit. I can probably find the trail in those settlements again.

Then he should start there, once he left Thessia to go looking for Henell.

;

"Baliya? How surprising of you to call me. I believe this is a first in... Well, it is a first." The Matriarch and Asari Councilor laughed, smiling at her old friend.

"Ah, well... You know how it is Tevos, I'm just so busy all the time," Baliya weakly defended, feeling more than a little sheepish.

"Yes, you were always like this. I remember having to wake you many a morning back in university after you had lost all track of the world outside our dorm." Tevos smiled lightly and somehow Baliya had the impression it was the first of the day for her fellow Matriarch. "What entreated you to call me? You even called me through the hyperlane."

Much like how Mass Relays could raise objects to massively faster than light velocities, through the use of comm buoys it was also possible to send tightbeam communications at a much faster than usual speed. Of course, given that to make it work it required a miniature Mass Relay replica along with a truly humongous power source to fuel the tightbeam, it was exorbitantly expensive. But due to that it was possible for a nearly lag-free conversation to happen in real time between Serrice and the Presidium, despite the fact that there were thousands of lightyears between them.

"It has to do with that guy you're having trouble with, Fujimura I mean."

Tevos blinked and there was a short pause as the other tried to compute what she had just heard.

"...Fujimura Saiga, you mean? I had not expected you to know that name," the councilor said. "You never were one for paying attention to the goings on of the outside world. What has brought this on? Did someone tell you about the operations there? I apologize if you have been inconvenienced, but you understand how vital these matters are to the Citadel."

"Uh, well..." Baliya hesitated, before sighing and simply saying it. "He is something of an acquaintance of mine, so I guess you could say he told me about all of this."

There was a moment of utter silence as Tevos tried to process what she had just heard, her eyes widening so quickly that Baliya almost laughed.

Rare was the occasion when Tevos would lose her cool.

"What—what do you mean? There was nothing in his file about—how, when?"

"Ahaha, well he began to visit me a few years ago. He was quite a bright young man, so it didn't take him all that long to ingratiate himself to me. I thought I would be more annoyed with such a headstrong character hanging around, but he reminds me quite a bit of Nirida actually. A real worrywart, you know?"

"This, this is..." Tevos sputtered, obviously utterly off her balance with this revelation. "Is he there, are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine. He left a few hours ago, which is actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Tevos, we—" Baliya spoke but paused as suddenly the connection cut off.

She blinked at the darkened screen noting the 'connection lost' error message with confusion.

"What happened?" Tyra asked, looking at Baliya. "Why did it cut off?"

The two Maidens had agreed to sit by quietly as she made the call, agreeing with the sentiment of bringing in someone who could sort this out.

"I, I don't know," Baliya admitted, frowning at the terminal. A second later she noted that the extranet connection also disappeared.

A second later the lights went out as all power was cut. Baliya's first reaction was to curse at the fact that all of her cataloging and analysis programs would be cut off and probably corrupted, before a second later she realized how bad this actually was.

"We need to get out of here—someone, someone must have overheard the conversation and cut it off!"

Tyra blinked as Liara's eyes shot wide open. "They are trying to box us in."

"Grab your things, we need to go!"

They got up and moved to get out, using the emergency latch to forcefully pry open the powerless automatic door. While the power had been cut off, Baliya still had an omnitool with flashlight functionality which allowed them to dispel the worst of the darkness.

"Really getting tired of being constantly in the dark like this... Once this is over I'm not going inside for a week!" Tyra complained as they ran. "I'll sleep on the grass and everything."

"This is nothing, on Dretirop I had to stay underground for a month due to sandstorms caving in the entrance once," Liara huffed.

Baliya rolled her eyes at the two as she lead the way. Every door on the way had to be pried open using the emergency latches, which luckily faced inwards in the museum.

Arriving halfway out, suddenly the lights came back on and they slowed down. Looking up at the lights and then at each other, they gingerly walked to the next door and tried to open it normally.

"It won't open," Tyra noted, turning around.

Baliya stepped forward. "The emergency lockdown is in place? Let me try my omnitool, it should have the override authorization..."

Her fingers danced across the haptic adaptive interface for a few seconds until she looked up. But the door remained stubbornly unresponsive.

"Did it work?" Tyra asked.

"No... I do not understand..." Baliya frowned. "We should go return the other way..."

They doubled back to go back the way they had come, but the door they had opened earlier closed by itself before they could even cross halfway there.

"Oh no..." Liara said, turning around. "We're trapped now."

The door they had tried to pass through earlier suddenly opened, and through it Tela Vasir strode in with an easy smile appearing on her face as she spotted them. "There you are. I've been looking for you for hours."

All three looked at each other, quietly trying to judge what to do. Finally, Tyra managed to ground out a response.

"You've been looking for us?"

"Yes, indeed." Vasir said with an easy smile. "It's dangerous right now, so how about you come with me for now. We'll get everything sorted out in no time."

"Dangerous? Is that why you have a gun drawn behind your back?" Baliya asked.

The Spectre blinked as her face turned carefully neutral, turning to look at the Matriarch. A beat passed and the smile was back as she relaxed her arm to show the gun before holstering it slowly on her hip.

"Well, you know how it is. You can never be too careful. But never mind that, we should leave. Come, I have my ship just outside."

"Where is Shiawe?" Liara asked, clenching her fists as she glared at the asari before them.

Baliya blinked, realizing that given the way the Spectre had come in, she must have run across the asari commando from earlier.

"Hmm? Who? Come on, we can discuss this once you're safe and secure," Vasir said though the smile was obviously growing brittle. "Let's talk about it outside, okay?"

"Yeah, I don't think so. I thought you were weird before, but Saiga was right; I can smell the rot right on you." Tyra said as she took a step forward to cover for Liara.

For a drawn out second all of them stood there, tensely staring at each other.

Then the Spectre let out an explosive sigh, rolling her eyes at them as she scowled, drawing the pistol. "Nothing works out like it's supposed to. I must be losing my touch."

"You... Why are you doing this? You're betraying the Council by doing this, you do realize that don't you?" Baliya said as she focused on her biotics, preparing for a fight.

She might not be the strongest fighter, but she was a Matriarch nonetheless. Still, that gun will be a problem...

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Vasir said with a dismissive scoff. "I serve the Citadel with everything I am. Everything I do, is for the good of the Council."

Tyra huffed. "Right, and I didn't flunk polyverbial dialectics twice. No wonder Saiga didn't want anything to do with the likes of you."

"Fool Maiden, are you so love struck that you can't see reality before you?" The Spectre shook her head, clicking her tongue. "What do you even know? 'Saiga'? That's what he called himself, didn't he? That's not even his real name. Everything you know about him is a damn lie, you stupid child. You have no idea what he is. What he is capable of. Do you really think someone like that would simply be acting out without a motive? Without some hidden interests? He is dangerous, more than you could ever know."

Tyra scoffed at that, staring at the Spectre unimpressed by her words.

"Hah, you really don't get it at all, do you? Saiga, Shirou, redhax or whatever—none of that matters. If you'd just look, you'd see how transparent he really is. Why he does everything he does, it's just—" Tyra paused, as if suddenly realizing something right then. "It's like... it's like his heart is made out of glass...?"

The Maiden blinked, shaking her head as pieces finally fell into place in her head.

"What? What are you even talking about?" Vasir paused, frowning at the young asari as she tilted her head. "You know what, I can ask you properly later once I have my interrogation kit. You know something, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"Interro—" Tyra tried to say but couldn't, as the Spectre cast a split-second Stasis field on her.

Liara blinked, stepping back and away from the statue-like Tyra who had been utterly stilled by the Spectre with what seemed like minimal effort. She turned to look at Vasir, growing concern in her eyes replacing the anger that had been lit earlier.

"Your cheek was starting to piss me off, too. Well, it doesn't matter, I can take it out properly later. Now, as for you professor Haphia," Vasir said as she raised her pistol with a smirk.

"You don't think you're going to get away with this, do you? Tevos is on her way here right now, you realize that don't you?" Baliya said as she took a step to stand in front of Liara protectively.

"Hmm? You mean that earlier call you made? Oh, yes. That." The Spectre merely smiled, sauntering forward with sinuous steps. "Was a most unfortunate thing. That dastardly hacker had broken in here and used your likeness along with his skills to falsify a call to the asari councilor. Who knows what he was trying to do with that... Lure her in and use her as a hostage. It's a good thing I was here to put a stop to that, isn't it?"

Baliya blinked, taking a step back as her eyes widened.

"But it's too bad that the poor professor didn't make it. See, unlike those two, I have no intention of taking any chances with you. Which means you will have to die here," the Spectre said with an easy smile, much more natural than the facade from earlier.

"You're mad—" Baliya began to say.

But the pistol report cut her off. The hasty barrier, erected at the sudden raising of an arm and old reflexes of centuries worth of training was the only thing that saved Baliya's life then.

Vasir reacted immediately, Charging forward like a biotic freight train and slamming into the Barrier. Baliya reeled back as the protection broke with just enough force left over to push her back on her heels. She brought her hands up and shoot forward a biotic throw almost instinctively, but the Spectre slapped it aside with instinctive ease.

"You!" Liara shouted, throwing out a biotic pull at her.

Tela Vasir grinned as she reached out and slapped the attack with her own biotics halfway before it had even reached her, sending it bouncing towards Baliya's open back.

The Matriarch had just enough time to realize she was airborne before the Spetre's Throw slammed into her and sent her flying down the hallway like a rag-doll shot out of a cannon.

Liara's eyes shot wide open as her jaw dropped in horror at the realization of what had happened, her head turning and following the Matriarch as she flew past her.

"See princess, that's what happens when you try to fight with the big girls," Vasir grinned as she shrugged, raising her hands lazily to show how easily she had beaten them. "But thanks, that old biddy was rusty but I could tell she would have become more and more troublesome the longer the fight would go on. Underneath all that dust and rust is a legitimate commando."

"It's not over yet...!" Liara said, gritting her teeth as she glared at the Spectre.

Her answer was three shots with the pistol at the wall next to her, causing pieces of the building material to shatter and fly into Liara's face. She flinched, raising her arms and closing her eyes on pure instinct.

The biotic lash that Vasir threw at her was too quick for the Maiden to even notice, much less react to. Like a biotic lasso it wrapped around Liara and pulled her towards the Spectre who jumped forward in a shoulder tackle into the flying asari's gut.

Liara could barely even grunt as all the air in her lungs was pushed out at the impact, and as she hit the floor she curled up with her arms clutching at her gut. She almost retched as she gasped for air at Vasir's feet.

"Ah, much better." The Spectre rolled her neck and shoulders, seeming quite pleased with herself.

Tyra gasped as the Stasis broke, allowing her to move again. She turned around, eyes wide as she beheld the carnage that had happened right behind her.

"Welcome back, sweetie," Vasir said with obvious relish. "Don't worry, I didn't forget about you."

;

Roane fidgeted in place.

Calm down, it's all going to work out. You have to believe tha—Her omnitool chimed and she almost jumped out of her skin at the sound. An asari businesswoman in a smart casual business outfit blinked at her, looking up from her datapad with a frown.

"Sorry," Roane offered apologetically as she sat back down.

With a frown, she turned on the omnitool's holographic display to see what the problem all of a sudden was. Immediately, even before she pressed anything a message came up.

'You've been found. You need to leave.'

She blinked, frowning at the message. She looked up and around, eyeing everyone and trying to find anything amiss. Looking back down, the message had changed.

'Not here. They're in orbit and coming down. You need to leave right now. Walk calmly out of here, the police or guards haven't been notified yet.'

"...Eh...? Fujimura?" She blinked before closing the omnitool and slowly making her way out from the waiting area. She would be missing her starliner flight this way, but it probably couldn't be helped.

Her omnitool chimed again and she raised it up. This time it didn't even wait for her input to open up the holographic display and show her the message.

'Turn left here, the guards have been notified. Don't worry about the cameras, I'm running interference. Don't run or hurry, don't draw any attention to yourself. Just calmly leave. Outside there will be a skycab waiting for you with the door open.'

"Ehh...?"

'Get moving, Roane.'

"Alright, alright." She shook her head, closing the omnitool as she walked out. Fighting the urge to walk more quickly and keeping her head down, she could see out of the corner of her eye how a pair of asari guards were running towards the waiting area she had just left behind. That's reassuring. I think...?

Walking outside, she found the promised skycab there. As soon as she saw it the door opened to let her enter. Sitting down, she inhaled slowly as she looked around as the door closed and the vehicle took off. There was no one else in the skycab, as expected.

"Where is it taking me, though...?" She wonder out aloud.

"It seems like they discovered your disappearance. It was quicker than I'd expected, right now it looks like there will be some trouble."

She almost jumped again, realizing that the sound was coming through the stereo and that she recognized the voice. "Fujimura, so it was you. What is happening?"

But there was no answer. She blinked, leaning forward to tap at the skycab's dash terminal.

"Fujimura?"

Nothing.

"He's... gone?" She blinked, leaning back as she tried to understand what was going on. She sighed, looking out the window, trying to wrap her head around everything that was going on.

;

Emiya ripped himself free from the strange binding that had suddenly appeared and tried to capture him.

Landing onto the geometric plane below him in the digital ocean of the extranet, he looked around warily for another attack. He had noticed an increase in communications on certain channels, which had allowed him to predict what was going to happen next and get Roane out of the starport before the local security could do anything.

But as he left her in the skycab and set out to figure exactly how she had been found, he had suddenly been attacked by something on the extranet. It seemed like someone was running a trace and analyzing information extremely quickly, so he had tried to track it down only to be shunted off somewhere else, and here he was. It was like suddenly the world itself turned against him, the space itself turning into rope and hooks that aimed for his limbs and flesh, walls being erected and hardening in an attempt to restrain him and dazzling lights appearing to blind him while the pressure of the surrounding space increased.

Moving around, he avoided it all with flowing movements as he ripped through what he couldn't avoid.

I've never had to fight before in here. It's not quite what I imagined it would be like, he noted as he looked around. Nothing seemed amiss, after having left the skycab.

He had run into opposition and problems before while spirit hacking, but it wasn't like he had ever encountered anything that could actually fight against him in here. Bugs and viruses weren't living things but something along the line of clearly defined patterns, meaning that even as he interacted with such things they usually didn't react to him in any way. Even Virtual Intelligences didn't so much as blink when he interacted with them directly, which made sense. This was a representation; a view of the world created by his perceptions. There was no reason anything acting in here had to assume a similar understanding of what was happening, thus expecting to get into anything resembling his fighting in the real world was ridiculous. He was too much of an unknown quantity for something like that to work, simply given how information technology worked.

Another 'rope' tried to reach for him as he simply back-handed it so hard that it shattered out of existence. It seems like whatever or whoever this is, it's prodding me right now.

Hackers and electronic warfare specialists weren't usually a problem either, since in this form he didn't have any hardware or code they could target. Unlike most programs and Virtual Intelligences, he did not have a source code tied to a specific computer. He could freely jump from one system to another, free from the boundaries of propagation time and processing speed, meaning that until now nothing had really been able to touch him.

But this was something entirely new; it was the first time something was able to perceive him in here, even as he couldn't quite perceive it.

He moved backwards at will as suddenly a portion of the world simply disappeared, turning into a square void where he had been a moment before. He blinked, staring at the nothingness before him. Never before had something like that happened as far as he had seen. Reaching forward, he pushed a hand into the void. It did not disappear or vanish, or anything like that as he flexed his hand to see if anything happened. It simply pushed into the space as if nothing was unusual there.

Did someone just try to delete me, or something?

Shaking his head, he looked around trying to find whoever was attacking him right now. He focused on trying to see through disguises or trying to see through and recognize whatever it was that was here with him.

"Come on out, no point in hiding. I'll find you eventually," he said, waiting for some kind of response. Anything, really.

His response came in the form of the section of the digital world he was in being completely shut down, like someone had pulled the plug on the computer. He blinked as he was spat out into the real world, somewhat disoriented by the experience despite being unharmed.

Did... Did it try to take me down by self-destructing?

Shaking his head, he turned to get his bearings. Having no idea where he actually was beyond that it was some server-farm, he chose another server and dived back in. It would be easiest to find his way back to Roane that way. Jumping through the extranet he found himself in Ulee Traffic Control quickly enough and connected to the skycab Roane was in. Checking that she seemed fine and nothing was amiss in the skycab, he settled to watch as it continued towards the hotel he had sent it to originally.

Patching himself through the skycab's speakers he spoke up. "Roane, the cab will land in a minute at a hotel. I got you a room there, to lay low in for a while."

She blinked, looking up suddenly.

"Fujimura? What happened?"

"Computer was acting up, you know how it is," he said vaguely.

She blinked, letting out a small laugh. "Yes, yes, I suppose. Do you know anything about Hosin and Hoana?"

He blinked, realizing that he hadn't actually bothered to investigate that at all yet. "I'm working on it. They seem to have disappeared, at least none of the officials on Thessia know anything about them. Go to the room once you land, the omnitool will have directions and the digital key. Use room-service if you want to but don't leave until I contact you again."

"I understand, I won't."

"Good, I'll be out of touch for a while but I'll be keeping an eye out, so just sit tight."

Exhaling, he disconnected.

Hosin, huh. He jumped to the local police department and went through their files on the arrest, but found nothing on either Hosin or Hoana. Roane had been brought in by Tela Vasir and thrown in a cell on her word, meaning there wasn't much of a trail to follow.

But he did find some reports about Hosin's Hangar.

"He must have been planning this for days..." Emiya muttered as he looked up the planetary reports.

'Near-Thessia General Airspace Warning: Unexpected and unauthorized surge of traffic in Thessia orbit from orbital station, be on the look out for numerous unmanned vehicles in flight near Thessia.'

It seemed like Hosin had ejected all of the vehicles stored in his hangar, using the confusion to escape aboard one of them. From the looks of it, all the lights were out on the orbital station itself and it was flying completely empty and dead in the sky right now as a result. Many of the patrolling military ships were picking up the various vehicles—large and small—while looking for Hosin by the looks of it. The arrest warrant seems to have been bumped up a rank in urgency due to his actions. It doesn't look like anyone has been put in harm's way, though.

Emiya shook his head. Hosin was on his own for now, he could only hope the crafty quarian had not overplayed his hand with whatever plan he had concocted.

For now I should be focusing on how they found Roane. She won't be able to leave before I figure that out.

;

Tyra froze, feeling her stomach dropping through the floor. Oh goddess, what do I do?

The Spectre noticed this and moved to walk over to her, only to notice the asari by her feet. Liara coughed again on the floor as she tried to get up, but a kick to the gut by Vasir brought an end to that.

That was enough to snap Tyra out of her panic, but even as it galvanized her into a mindset to fight she didn't know what to do. So she simply pushed outwards, trying to get Vasir to move away from Liara.

"Really?" Vasir asked, piercing through the attempt with minimal effort.

It was as if she had created a balloon and tried to push using it, only for the more experienced biotic to simply puncture and deflate the balloon to completely neutralize all the energy she had thrown into it.

Tyra blinked, realizing how useless her efforts had been. Stupid, stupid! Now she's only going to hurt me like she did Liara. Biotics have to be focused, just lashing out like that was so stupid!

She was shaking, she realized. Her legs wouldn't move, Tela Vasir's eyes boring into her and utterly paralyzing her down to her soul.

Yet...

Somehow, she felt calmer. Like she was standing in the eye of a storm. All around her everything lay broken and hopeless, but in this exact time and place she could survive. As long as she could just—

"This is how you do it!" Vasir shouted and Tyra realized that a biotic throw was barreling towards her—like a wrecking ball of concentrated force, it would break her instantly she knew.

Unbidden, she felt a sense of deja vu.

It happened in an instant and she blinked as she realized it was over. Nothing hurt, nothing had happened. It was so easy, like she had done it a thousand times before. No, she had done it a thousand times before.

Vasir blinked, frowning as she realized the Throw had somehow been caught harmlessly by the shaking Maiden.

It's just like a biotiball; bleed out the force and catch it, nothing more to it. Tyra shook her head, this wasn't the time or place to be thinking about biotiball.

Except...

It was all she knew. Biotiball was a full-contact sport, no holds barred, all out biotics. And if she didn't do something, she was going to die. It's just like biotiball, it's just like biotiball, it's just like biotiball! I can do this, I can do this!

She looked up as she poured all of her will into Charging at the Spectre.

"Huh—" Vasir barely had time to shout as Tyra slammed into her with all the force she could muster. But the difference in age and experience shone through as the Spectre took the impact head on and shrugged it off without so much as a flinch.

A fist lashed out and Tyra's vision flashed with the white hot pain of her nose being broken. She cried out, stepping back in shock from the biotically enhanced punch breaking through her Barrier with such ease.

Tyra tried to open her eyes as she took several steps back to make some distance, but the only thing she had time to see was Vasir's burning eyes as she slammed her fist straight into Tyra's gut. It drew all the air out of her lungs and she almost threw up, gastric juices burning in her throat as she fell to her knees.

"Well, it doesn't exactly matter where you die. Might as well make this quick," Vasir said as Tyra realized she was aiming the pistol at her head.

Move! Get up, I have to move! But it was useless. Her limbs would not obey her.

Vasir suddenly turned around, just in time to slap aside a pair of biotic attacks; a one-two combo with Lift and Throw. It was pure training and instinct from the Spectre, meaning she wasn't at all prepared for the Maiden that came running at her in the wake of the biotic attacks.

"Aaargh!" Someone shouted as suddenly Vasir was bowled over.

Tyra realized a second later that Liara had gotten up and had bum-rushed the older asari, managing to get both on the floor where it dissolved into a wrestling match. She tried to get up and go help, to move at all but she couldn't draw the breath necessary for even that much.

The two asari struggled on the floor for several seconds until Liara managed to headbutt the Spectre in the heat of the moment, causing her to split a lip and flinch. In the next moment, there was a flare of biotics as Liara was kicked away and hit the wall opposite to Tyra in the hallway, as Vasir broke free from the entanglement of limbs. She got to her feet, obviously having grown tired of this as she spat some blood onto the floor.

"Fine, if you insist I'll let you go first."

Tyra's eyes widened as time seemed to slow down. She could perceive it all; how the pistol was slowly being raised to aim down at Liara's forehead, how Liara's eyes were widening in terror at that realization, her own pain and helplessness keeping her from getting up and doing anything.

Her hands rose up as she tried to reach out to do something, anything.

And suddenly it just clicked.

Just like biotiball, she thought as her hands moved. The first thing you learned in biotiball was that you had to have the ball to win. And to get the ball, you needed to wrest it from the opposing team's hands. Her hands reached out and Pulled at one end and Pushed at the other, creating torque that loosed the ball from any grip.

"What—"

Tyra wasn't sure who shouted, as she suddenly realized she had the pistol in her hands. She looked up, meeting eyes with the just as confused Spectre.

Raising her hands up she took aim, just like in the vids.

Tyra pulled the trigger, closing her eyes and looking away expecting the kick of the pistol and the loud snap of the railgun. But there was no report of gunfire. No recoil or kickback, no flash or fired bullet. She opened her eyes, blinking twice and looking at the pistol with confusion and a mounting sense of dread.

"It's ID-locked, idiot," Vasir said as she began to stalk back to Tyra.

She could only stare helplessly, having no longer the strength to mount a defense. Even the thought of trying another biotic attack seemed overwhelming and exhausting beyond measure. Liara behind Vasir tried to get up, but was obviously just as exhausted and beaten, stumbling down as her shaking legs couldn't muster the strength she needed. We can't win against her.

Tela Vasir walked with slow steps towards Tyra, the echo of the hard heels somehow hitting notes of finality in the hallway.

And then the Throw hit her in the side, sending her flying sideways down the hall. Tyra blinked, her eyes following the flying Spectre to see her land with a controlled roll, unhurt and all the angrier for it as a dark energy field flared around her. And then her eyes shot wide as the Singularity went off right in front of her, grabbing a hold of her, like the miniature black hole it was and not letting go.

"Gah, this...!"

Tyra's jaw fell and her head swiveled to look in the other direction down the hall, finding the sitting Matriarch panting with her arms outstretched.

"We, need to get out of here..." Baliya spoke weakly, not getting up.

Tyra looked back, seeing that the Singularity was holding but that the Spectre wasn't particularly being hurt by it. Shaking her head, with seemingly infinite effort she managed to stand up. Breathing seemed to help with the exhaustion, something she had never before had trouble with. Fighting was nothing like biotiball, the sheer uncontrollable bursts of action a hundred times more draining than anything she had had to do before. With trembling legs, she moved to go help Liara up as well and they hobbled towards the professor.

There, they both froze.

One of Baliya's legs was bent the wrong way, with sharp splintered bone poking out through the skin. Tyra almost threw up, but Liara immediately sat down to put pressure on the wound. "You're bleeding! Where are the first aid kits?"

"There are, several stored everywhere... There should be some near the stairs, and... by the guards' room by the main entrance... Get me up, we need to move, before she breaks free...!"

Tyra snapped out of her shock, moving to grab the Matriarch with Liara as they started to leave. The door through which Tela Vasir had come was still open, allowing them to leave quickly.

"Wait, close the door and bar it—the singularity, won't hold her for long..." Baliya instructed through pained breaths and Tyra hastily did as told.

They carried her until they found a first aid kit. Setting the Matriarch down, Liara immediately set about getting the bleeding stopped.

They had grabbed a first aid kit and moved around the museum to buy some time by hiding. It was a large building with enough hallways and spaces that for a single person it would take a considerable time to find them.

"Will it be enough?" Tyra asked, licking her lips as she looked over her shoulder nervously.

"Yes, I managed to stop the bleeding. But I can't do anything about her leg with just medigel and wraps..."

Baliya nodded at that. "The pain isn't so bad now, but even if I don't bleed out we can't wait here. We need to get out—"

"No, they were outside too! What good would that be?" Tyra protested.

"The Serrice Guard will arrest us, but it is preferable to death. And at least... they will give us medical aid first." Baliya countered.

The Maiden scoffed at that. "Right, because a Spectre can't just shoot us anyhow and call it a day. Besides, I'm sure they'll take our mad rantings over the word of a Council appointed special agent. We'll just be handed over once she realizes we got out."

"Well be that as it may, none of it will matter until we manage to lift the lockdown. All of the exits are sealed, we are locked in here with Vasir."

"Huh?" Tyra blinked. "Can't we just find a window and smash our way out?"

Baliya shook her head. "Numerous valuable artifacts are stored here. Nothing so mundane as a window would be acceptable when it comes to something like that. This may be a museum, but security and safe storage was a major concern for the Serrice Council when this addition was built into the University. The collective value of what is stored here is in the range of trillions of credits, easily."

Tyra paused at that, taking in what the Matriarch said with some surprise. "Oh, okay, that's... No. What about the roof, then?"

"No, the roof entrances are behind locked doors as well. From here we could not manually open those doors," the Matriarch said. "The only way out is to lift the lockdown through the guardroom, but it too is locked."

"Wait, if the only way to open the doors is to get behind a locked door, how was anyone supposed to get out? Seems a bit, uh, dumb?"

Baliya nodded, continuing. "Yes, yes. For that authorization would be transferred to certain people. I had it on my omnitool, but it did not work earlier as you noticed. Only that Spectre right now has that authorization."

"Great." Tyra expelled a great sigh, rubbing her brow. "We're stuck here with that crazy bitch, then. Wait, you have an omnitool, can't we use that?"

"No good, I tried it already. She's jamming us somehow... She really doesn't want this getting out."

"Damn it..." Tyra clenched her fists.

Liara suddenly stood up. "I have to go."

"What?"

"If Vasir came in through the rear, then she must have run into Shiawe on the inside," Liara said, pausing. "And I do not think she would have let Vasir past her without a fight..."

"R-right," Tyra nodded. "But... What about the professor?"

The two of them turned to look at the crippled Matriarch.

"Go, I'll be fine. I know this museum well enough to find somewhere to hide, out of your way," Baliya said as she leaned against the wall, having managed to get up on one leg through the use of her biotics. "I'll try to call for some help from the outside. If you can distract Vasir until then, then maybe we can all get out of this alive."

"You can do that?" Tyra asked, hope glowing on her face.

"...Maybe, but go with her. I'll be fine."

Liara nodded, turning to walk away with determined steps.

Tyra licked her lips, looking between the two for another second as Liara continued running. With an aggrieved sigh, she moved to follow after Liara.

;

Emiya sighed as he reached up to rub his brow.

He had set a number of bait to see if anything would happen but so far it didn't seem like anything was biting. Faking records at another starport, taking control over another skycab and re-routing it to another city and even forcefully shutting down an Ulee police vehicle to see if anyone would come knocking again.

So far nothing had shown up.

But he thought of it like fishing; patience was necessary if he wanted something to bite. He would simply have to wait until something took the chance and gave him a lead to work with.

Leaving him to do nothing but twiddle his thumbs in digital space. One could only float in place so long before one started spinning in place out of boredom.

"Hmm?"

He righted himself and stared at the sudden change in the security feed footage from the hotel. Blinking, he changed camera feeds as he tried to understand why there was a sudden strike team moving out into the hotel where he had left Roane behind. His jaw almost dropped as he realized how they had found her.

"She sent a mail to the orbital hangar from the hotel room? What the hell was she thinking?"

Jumping out through the connection to the hotel security system, he took stock of the situation through the various cameras. Three teams of six salarians moving out to the fifth floor hotel room. Two in the hallway and one on the roof probably intending to rappel down and come in through the window. There weren't any Spectres or asari in sight, however. Thirty to forty seconds until they're in place.

"Lovely," he muttered as he jumped through into the omnitool he had acquired earlier for the asari on the run. "Roane, what the hell did you do?"

He could see through the inertial sensors how she jumped at the sound of his voice suddenly coming through her omnitool so unexpectedly.

"Fujimura? Did something happen? Did you hear from Hosin?"

Emiya blinked.

"What did you do? The STG is coming to raid this room right now."

"What? Th-the STG? Why would they be—oh no, I only wanted to see if Hosin was still—"

Emiya reeled around, forgetting all about Roane as he sensed the sudden intrusion of another presence in the omnitool with him. Like a pressure wave, it was immediately apparent as it seemed as if the volume was suddenly straining to contain the increased information inside of the omnitool.

01100011 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01101001 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100101 01110010 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01111001 00111111

He blinked, feeling like his eyes were being gouged out by something at the sudden stream of beeping noise. Gah, damn machine code. Sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

Shaking his head, he sighed as he noticed the presence coalescing into a form he could see in the digital world. It was much like the VI programs he had seen, only much more complex and layered. Glowing blue and floating in place, it lacked anything as human as a face or a front-side. Quite a bit larger than the VI he had seen as well, looking less like a glowing beach ball as VI usually did and quite a bit like something else he was familiar with back from the Moon Cell.

Was it representative of the size of its source code, how much processing capacity or cache it required, or something else entirely? He had tried to figure out how his perception of things mattered, but so far it had been quite questionable how accurate such metrics were.

"Great," he said with a sigh, turning to face the thing.

The VI paused, before trying again.

"Cease resistance or be terminated, comply?"

Emiya blinked, surprise overtaking him for a moment despite himself. "Huh, you can actually talk now. That's new."

"Cease resistance or be terminated, comply?"

"So you're the one who attacked me earlier?" Emiya asked, crossing his arms.

"Affirmative, one confirmed fork of designation 'redhax' has been terminated. Cease resistance or be terminated, comply?" It repeated, turning a shade darker that was closer to red.

Is this my interpretation of its mood, then? He shook his head at that thought. So they think they managed to do some damage to me earlier. Maybe I should have stayed behind to see what they did to the server I popped out of. Well, too late now.

"Here's my counter-offer. Pull back and I won't tear you apart, I'm kind of busy here."

It paused for a second, processing what he had said and Emiya frowned. Is it the difference in processing speed that makes it appear so sluggish, or is it communicating with something else and dealing with the propagation lag?

"Hostility confirmed; terminating."

It pulsed once, turning a deep red before it began to expand. Doubling in size, it began to unfold like a rosebud with layers sloughing off like petals until the thing had returned to its original size. The shed red petals vibrated and twisted in place, folding and shaping like origami into something resembling a cross between a dog and a caltrop of all things.

Emiya counted the six-legged spike-legged crimson petal dogs to be in the excess of two hundred before he stopped counting, sighing as he nodded to himself. So it really was closer to a plant-type attack program from the Moon Cell.

The first wave of the spike dogs—basic attack programs as Emiya knew them—rushed forward, but Emiya backhanded once and it was enough to shatter thirty of them as his attack rippled through space. Attacking these things is useless.

These things weren't really what they looked like, as that was merely his mind interpreting them into something familiar. When he had fought on the Moon Cell against rogue AI, they tended to subvert sections of the Serial Phantasm worlds to make use of its processing capacity. The same was here; the large red orb that was shedding petals to create an additional thirty spike dogs to replace the ones he had destroyed, wasn't actually creating enemies for him. Rather it was using and hoarding the processing capacity of the omnitool they were on, to create processes and programs that would hamper and attack him—much like the plant-type attack programs on the Moon Cell. Not 'plant' in the sense of a life-form, but plant in the sense of a factory or machine that endlessly created simpler attack programs.

They were strings of ones and zeroes, but to him in this world they looked like something he was familiar with instead. This was probably some form of denial-of-service or worm attempting to overload buffers to make him crash. It couldn't be anything too specific, given how little they must know about him.

The next wave of spike dogs tried to attack him and he simply moved out of the way, letting them run past him. It took them several seconds of relative time to notice he wasn't there anymore and to start looking for him again.

Fighting them wouldn't get him anywhere, since defeating the spike dog attack programs would just let the plant-type VI keep creating more and more of them until the omnitool either ran out of power or something in the hardware broke down.

So, I should take down the source instead!

He rushed forward, the digital space straining under his movement as a hundred spike dogs shattered in his wake. He lashed out with a fist, burying it deep into the red orb going past protective layers and defenses without even slowing down. Clenching his fist he grabbed onto something inside of the thing and simply ripped the whole thing apart.

It exploded into a shatter of red and purple sparks that slowly turned blue and white as they disappeared.

At the same time he noticed an outgoing signal from the omnitool that went straight into the extranet of the hotel. That must have meant it was lagging due to being a puppet of something else that had been hunting him down. It was a 'drone' in a sense, rather than an actual AI—which made sense now that he thought about it. A hacker would be operating from their terminal somewhere far away, wouldn't they? This was probably just some kind of backdoor hack through which they operated.

For all his time spent in the digital world, his knowledge of the inner workings was mostly a shallow surface understanding of the general mechanics and designs of things. He wasn't a conventional hacker who needed to slowly prod and pry at systems to understand how they had been made, to find a weak point and be able to leverage that to his advantage. Most of the time he could just dive in and do whatever he wanted, after all.

Turning around, he looked at the spike dogs that were still running at him wholly unaware of the plant's destruction. He took care of them quickly, not wanting to leave anything behind in the omnitool. I should probably trace down the outgoing signal. I still have thirty seconds before Roane is in any actual danger.

The whole encounter had taken less than three seconds, mostly due to him slowing down enough to not destroy the omnitool, after all.

"Fujimura? What happened? Are you there?"

"Stay in the hotel room, I have to take care of something. Lock the door and don't do anything until I get back," he said without waiting for a reply as he moved to follow the outgoing message from the destroyed plant.

Jumping through from the omnitool, he went into the extranet server of the hotel and from there he followed it into the Ulee central hub where it would continue into orbiting satellites, where it could either continue to another satellite to go around Thessia or towards one of the FTL buoys in outer space. It was like a system of mirrors, where the receiving mirror would be turned so that the light would continue on to the next mirror after that until it finally arrived where it needed to be.

Catching up was rather easy, which he tried not to think about given that the signals were propagated through tightbeams—that is, a light signal blinking on and off to transmit the binary data. Right, it's probably because I'm moving faster through the more complicated systems in between the tightbeams, it's not like I'm moving faster than light during the transmit.

Arriving next to it, he tried to take a look at it. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the absolute nonsense he was seeing before he shook his head. It's probably been encrypted multiple times, with each stop removing one layer of the encryption to allow it to figure out where it should go next. It'll only be readable once it's come out at the end terminal. That is, if it is onion routing they're using...

Shaking his head, he decided to move ahead of the message to the next stop. He arrived before the signal from the plant to the orbital satellite. As long as he followed after it, he would eventually find the person behind the attack on the omnitool Roane was wearing.

Settling in to wait, he exhaled as he focused on which way the signal would go next. From here there were hundreds and thousands of ways the signal could continue thus it was vital he find the right way and continue following the signal. As long as he could follow the mirrors, everything would work out.

But as the tightbeam arrived, Emiya's jaw dropped as realization struck him. This satellite wasn't set to act as a mirror to continue the light, but instead like a hundred thousand-sided crystal that scattered the beam of light everywhere. The tightbeam signal was copied and sent out through every outgoing route; heading to every other satellite in range, every buoy, every city down below, every starship nearby and every orbital station on this side of the planet.

Which one do I follow? He hesitated, seeing the lone signal scattering into a hundred thousand.

Some ended in dead ends, like fifteen hundred that had been sent into asteroid mining facilities, but the absolute majority of the signals continued on all bouncing and scattering again from several points ahead. He couldn't follow all the signals at once, nor could he figure out which ones were headed where while staying here.

Wait, the signal that had uploaded the plant program and controlled it must have come through here as well! He checked the logs on the satellite in orbit, noting that it had been sending a signal to the omnitool as he had thought. But just as there had been a hundred thousand signals going out, there had also been a hundred thousand identical signals coming in and being filtered down into the one that was sent into Roane's omnitool.

Emiya blinked, shaking his head.

It was like being mired in a mad mirror-house with a million mimicking murals, endlessly refracting, reflecting and reproducing the signal. Finding the source would take him forever this way. He grit his teeth, accepting that he didn't have the means to continue from here as he returned down to Thessia the way he had come.

Returning to the omnitool, he checked up on Roane and made sure nothing had happened. Satisfied, he tried to figure out what to do next. I need to slow down the salarians for now and figure out what to do next. But first...

Jumping to the hotel's system he reached out and took a look through the cameras again to take stock of the situation. There were still only three teams present inside and the lower floors were evacuating the hotel's residents already. But outside there were Ulee police setting up a perimeter, making things difficult. If I had gotten here a minute earlier, I could have just broken the floor in Roane's room and had her disappear in the crowd.

He went through various plans, a veritable rolodex of ploys and stratagems spinning in his head as he tried to figure out the optimal course of action. They seem to have downloaded the customer registry... Probably to create a list of profiles for quick facial recognition, on a discrete and disconnected database which will be difficult to spoof. They have a profile of Roane so they've probably had the asari on the ground memorize her face, too... Damn, what the hell was she thinking making a call like that.

That was the problem with trying to predict everything and working with the flow. In combat where usually his opponents were just trying to kill him, it was relatively easy to think ten steps ahead and find the right path. But in a situation like this, where the people he was trying to protect acted out in a completely unpredictable manner based on something they thought pertinent but he had no way of knowing was something completely different.

They know I was keeping an eye on her, but should I materialize myself as well? Yeah, that could work. Smash their strike team, grab their attention and then make a run for it to get their attention elsewhere. I could project a dummy that approximately looks like Roane, hide her away in the hotel while I'm pulling them away and then double back to actually get her out. He nodded to himself, settling on a course of action.

Satisfied with that, he exhaled and flexed his presence. In the same vein that him moving too quickly could put pressure on an omnitool and a noble phantasm could fry a system, simply by pushing outward he could stress the entire system until it popped and broke down. The entire computer network of the hotel-building fried in an instant, dying down with a low hum. Cameras, lights, automatic doors and more all went offline instantly, as the hotel was designed to function wholly without staff outside of the reception.

Without his cybernetics to allow him a constant connection, he was operating under a state of massive information inferiority. Out of a spirit hack, all of the systems would be freely usable against him by the salarians, thus he might as well completely fry the system and deny his opponents that asset.

Pushed out of the system as it shut down, he leaped in his spiritualized state through the floors to the room where Roane was still waiting. Checking that the door had been turned inert by the power loss, he projected a sword inside of the door mechanism to make sure it couldn't be manually opened either. Turning to the one window through which the Ulee center could be seen, he Reinforced the glass and frame to make sure it would hold for now.

Stepping out into the hallway and making sure no one was within eyesight, he materialized in his usual appearance barring the crimson shroud.

He wanted to bait the STG; they wanted him, not some big asari Justicar, after all.

Alright, need to make a way out and lose the salarians so that I can get Roane somewhere safe, and then I need to impress on her the necessity of radio silence. Cracking his neck, he turned into a dead run.

Navigating the hallways, taking a left and a right unto another long stretch, he burst into a sprint. Ahead was the corner around which the nearer of the two six-man teams was advancing from. Turning the corner, he jumped against the wall and turned in the air so that he was running against the wall along the ceiling, way above the salarian team's heads. The point man and the front second support didn't even notice him as he went over them, landing in the middle of their formation just behind the center pair. The fire team consisted of six salarians; two in the front taking point, two in the middle looking forward and two walking backwards in the back to cover their rear, all three 'pairs' with a reasonable distance between them to prevent a stack that would be vulnerable to grenades. Both in the front and in the back, the outermost salarian had the heaviest armor and shields, the second supporter near them had various grenades on their person by the looks of it.

A pretty standard fire team all things considered, if a bit large.

The weakest point of a fire team inside of a building thus wasn't their rear—as it could defend just as well as the front could—but the middle of the formation where the leader of the team usually was. Landing behind the center pair, all six were thus looking away from him.

Emiya raised a hand to each of the salarians' necks, intending to stun both of them only to pause. Oh, right. That trick didn't work against them.

He wasn't familiar enough with their physiology to know of a simple knockdown, nor did he want to kill them. Over the shoulders of the two center salarians, he could see the front turning around. Ah, they saw me after all. Don't have time to be counting daisies then.

He turned his hip and launched a low kick at the right leg of the left salarian. The salarian let out a muffled scream of surprise as the leg suddenly failed him, as Emiya continued with the same leg to do a low side-kick into the left leg of the right salarian. Driving his heel down, that leg broke as well with a similar scream of pain.

Stepping forward he grabbed both with an arm each and then threw them forward down the hall into the front pair that had just turned around and could see him now. The were just in time to receive the center pair and be bowled over completely.

Turning on his heel, Emiya dashed toward the rear pair that had only just realized something was wrong. But they did not have enough time to turn around as he broke a leg on each, allowing them to crumple in place.

He turned around just in time to see the front pair's second salarian throwing a grenade at him. It was like a small disc, much like the human grenades also were, he noted distantly in the dark hotel hallway as he reached out and grabbed it out of the air before it could hit him. Two salarians for the one me, seems like a fair trade. Still...

Having gone out of his way to treat them so gently, he had no intention of letting these two die—Trace, on—begin synchronization,

Noting that it was in fact a fragmentation grenade of considerable yield, he felt like sighing. Still, a grenade was mostly harmless as long as the detonation system didn't work, which was usually a simple thing. Even for a smart-grenade, it was just a matter of 'pulling out the fuse'.

Having reinforced the thing harmless with a minute application of magical energy, he tossed the grenade right back at the salarian. He could see behind the tinted visor how the salarian's eyes shot wide open as the grenade latched onto his torso, the universal Van der Waals-mechanism stronger than any adhesive.

Satisfied with that Emiya turned around and moved out, leaving the salarians behind along with the panicking grenadier bracing for an explosion that never came.

I can probably ignore the roof-team, so that leaves just the other team inside. Then he could double back and get Roane moved and get this damn mess sorted out.

;

Tela Vasir ran through the museum, her boots gliding across the smooth and polished floor as she turned a corner. This was starting to be a little ridiculous. She had been running around for five minutes already.

Where the hell did they go? The blueprints were clear; there's no way out. Did they hide somewhere?

Her eyes took in the hallway before she continued on to the next, still searching for any signs of those damn loose ends. She needed to wrap this up quickly; she told the councilor that the call by that Baliya Matriarch was a hack by that damn human in an effort to lure her in, when she had interrupted and cut off the call. But that didn't mean Tevos wouldn't come here herself.

I have to wrap this up quickly. Can't call for help since the Serrice girls aren't bought off and that damn turian will notice if I start pulling strings... Fucking Shadow Broker, I knew this plan was a fucking stupid idea. Fuck. She rushed to another open plaza, eyeing the various stands and glass vitrines but finding no signs of the asari she kept moving. This damn place is like a labyrinth!

Stopping, she eyed the tour map one more time but it was of little use. The damn museum had three levels and over a hundred display rooms, large and small. There was the back area, too. But with the lockdown those doors couldn't be opened from this side, meaning she could discount those rooms.

Opening her omnitool again, she checked that the outer lockdown was still unbreached. She could pull up a map of all the doors and see that they still remained closed and locked, meaning that they were all stuck here until she rescinded the lockdown. The museum was not just intended to be a place of showing artifacts and historical pieces to the public, nor was it just a place of research either. Supposedly by the insistence of the curator—professor Baliya Haphia, the damn Matriarch whose leg she had broken earlier—this place had to be a vault that could withstand a fleet bombardment.

Tela Vasir had just been a little girl back then, but she could still remember what a tragedy the glassing of Mannovai was and how the current curator had been in the news for a decade, championing the cause of preserving history. Back then she hadn't thought much of it. Now, she thought the salarians were idiots for letting the batarians of all people push them so hard as to lose a damn planet. As a result the walls here were thick enough that the damn place could take a nuke or three and still stand unbroken, all to preserve history just like that broken and bleeding Matriarch had wanted. Never thought you'd end up dying because you had your museum built like a damn vault, did you?

Chuckling darkly at that thought, she cleared another room before moving on again. I can still wing this, it's not a complete fuck up yet.

She had lost her gun, but that didn't mean she would have any trouble with those Maidens. They were pushovers—civvies with minimal training. As long as she could just find them, then it would all work out.

"Fuck, where are they?"

Were they moving around ahead of her? She doubled back, going to the rear entrance through which she had come in. She slowed down, blinking at the pool of blood on the floor by the entrance. It wasn't the fact that there was a pool of purple blood that confused her.

It was the lack of the asari commando body. The brat who had tried to stop her when she had come running in, whose body she had dragged inside to keep anyone from noticing as she put the museum into lockdown.

"Did they grab her?" Vasir frowned, before looking up at the wall and noticing the missing first aid kit. "Huh, so they chose to grab dead weight along. Well..."

She grinned, moving out again.

Who was she to complain if those brats wanted to burden themselves?

;

"Shh," Liara hushed.

Tyra panted, choosing to say nothing as she merely breathed intently to regain her stamina. Running around an empty museum was not her idea of a good time at the best of times, but with a murderous Spectre on her tail and a half-dead stranger in a hardsuit on her back, the idea dropped another three dozen ranks down on her 'a real good time'-list.

Still, with Liara here they were able to stay alive. That was something.

'I've been here a hundred times, I know the public side inside and out!' Her roommate had said and Tyra was was inclined to believe her on that, at least. Other than that, Tyra wasn't sure whether to be happy that this 'Shiawe' person had still been in good enough condition for the medigel packs to work, or annoyed at having to carry her around because of that. They had tried four doors so far, but all had been locked. Unlike the internal doors, these were sealed completely shut.

So far Liara had been able to stay ahead purely through listening for the sounds of the Spectre running around, the echoing footsteps coming from seemingly every direction to Tyra's ear. And where did the professor go? We went past where I left her, but she was gone. Did Vasir get her?

She shook her head, moving to follow after Liara again as the other moved out.

But...

"We cannot keep this up forever..." Liara muttered, making Tyra perk up.

"Yea-yeah..." She panted her agreement. "We need to do something. Something proactive; you don't win by just running around—"

"Nnuuhh...?" Shiawe murmured, groggily waking up on Tyra's back just then. "Whut's goin' on...?"

"Shiawe!" Liara half-shouted as she ran up to Tyra. "Are you alright?"

"Miss... Liara?" The commando looked over Tyra's shoulder with half-lidded eyes, trying to blink to clear away the blood loss and befuddlement as she did. "You—you're alright, I tried to..."

"It is alright, you are fine, it is all alright."

Tyra took the moment to set the asari down, rolling her shoulders and stretching to get the kinks out.

"I can still..." The commando tried to say, only to realize that she couldn't move all that well actually. Sitting against the wall on the floor, she could barely lift an arm up and her head was wont to loll as she seemed quite drowsy.

Reaching up, her hand came to her throat and touched the synthetic material plastered against her skin, causing her to blink with some confusion.

"You were shot in the neck and were bleeding heavily, you cannot help us now. Just rest," Liara said, placing a hand on the huntresses shoulder.

Shiawe inhaled slowly, before her eyes closed again and her breathing continued at a slower rate. Liara sighed, clearly exhausted as well.

"...I don't know much about first aid, but it looked pretty bad. Will she be fine?"

Liara looked up from the ground, meeting eyes with Tyra then. "She was shot at point blank, the bullet tearing through her throat and neck. She had lost much blood and a lot of it had gotten into her lungs, too..."

"Didn't you say her heart had stopped beating already, too?"

"Yes," Liara nodded. "But as long as her brain hasn't been without oxygen for too long, she'll live. It, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before we found her that Vasir shot her. We were lucky there was medigel so readily available here..."

"Still had to use three packs of them... I never knew you were this amazing, Liara," Tyra said with a wan smile.

Her roommate blinked, looking perplexed at the sudden praise. "No, I merely had some first aid skills from going to Dretirop—necessary field courses, nothing more. It is nothing amazing like that, at all. She will still need a doctor, I simply managed to stabilize her."

Tyra's brows furrowed for a moment, before she shook her head. "No, that's not true at all. You went straight for the kit without hesitation. I thought she was already dead, but you just calmly got to it and saved her life. You're honestly amazing, Liara."

"I..."

"You know, I just realized why you got along so poorly with Saiga." Tyra laughed, glancing at Liara.

"Huh? What do you mean?" She frowned at that.

"You two are way too alike, I think. So you immediately start butting heads without even realizing it." As Liara blinked with confusion at her roommate, Tyra shook her head. "I... I'm sorry, Liara. I've always been a bit of a jerk to you, haven't I?"

"No, that isn't true at all. Really, I..." Liara immediately began to protest again.

"I always thought you were looking down on me, but really you're just like him. You're just looking ahead and completely lost for how people actually see you, too focused to think about something like that."

"No, you... You are not entirely wrong." Liara admitted. "I do not quite understand what you see in biotiball—it is so violent and brutish and, erm, never mind actually—And I have been quite dismissive of you due to that, perhaps... I apologize as well."

The two roommates stood there for a moment, before as one they shook their heads.

"Hey, at least we're going to die as friends, that's something!" Tyra grinned.

"A rather morbid pleasantry, but I suppose I must take what I can out of all this," Liara smiled in return. "But enough of this break, we should keep moving. Vasir will have completed a circuit of the west wing by now."

"Right, off we go. Onwards, then!" Tyra said, getting the commando on her back again with Liara's half-amused help.

;

Dispelling the sword inside, Emiya opened the automatic door with brute force and walked inside.

"Fujimura!" Roane stood up from where she had been sitting on the bed. "What's going on, there's police outside and—"

"You revealed your position by calling the hangar, that's why," he interrupted her, staring down at the shorter asari.

She blinked twice, her mouth forming a perfect round O as she processed that. He could see the exact moment when the correct neurons fired in her head and she realized how monumentally she had screwed up.

"It doesn't matter. Come on, follow me."

"Huh? Wait, where are we going?" She asked running up to him and grabbing his arm. "We can't leave yet!"

He blinked, stopping for a moment. Raising his other hand he lifted the visor on his helmet to stare at her directly. "And why not?"

"I called Hosin! He's coming here! We can't leave yet, not before he's gets here!"

Emiya froze for a second, before he shook his head minutely. "Hosin? He's here?"

"Here? No, no! Back home! He's coming here!" She shouted, obviously too excited and frayed to speak clearly enough for him to understand what exactly she was talking about.

"Roane, I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath and explain it from the top. I don't understand what you're talking about."

She opened her mouth, blinking twice before she nodded and inhaled slowly.

Just then a loud sound reverberated from the window as two hardsuited salarians came rappelling down the outer wall of the hotel and tried to kick in the window. Roane jumped with fright, turning around with wide eyes to stare at the pair hanging outside, feet planted against the glass.

Good thing I reinforced it, Emiya thought as he walked over to the window, moving past Roane.

The two salarians were obviously confused, trying with their feet and the muzzles of their automatic pistols at the window that wouldn't break. They looked up to him as he approached and he could see just through their visors how their eyes widened. Huh, so they didn't have any radio contact. They're still cautious of me, good.

He gave them a slight wave of the hand, as if greeting someone washing the windows, before he reached over and used the blinds on the window to obscure the two salarians from view.

Turning back to Roane, he motioned for her to continue. "Ignore them, they can't reach us."

Well, unless they think to kick the windows of the next room, but I'll hear that and handle it, he thought as Roane nodded hesitantly.

"I—yes, it's... Hosin, he was always refurbishing and renovating the hangar, talking about how much space he could leverage by optimizing and renewing systems. He would move entire rooms at a time, even!" She began to explain. "And while he was doing it, he would build small passageways between the rooms. Little safe-rooms and places to hide... He, he lost his parents to a pirate raid when he was little, you know... He hid in the ventilation, just watching as..."

She looked terribly sad for a moment, before she shook her head.

"He always talked about needing options. About being able to always have a way out." Roane looked up, then. "If you brought him Hoana, then I'm sure he would do that!"

Emiya slowly nodded, thinking about it.

The numerous vehicles launched would be a distraction, a red herring for the Thessian officials to look at and shrug after they couldn't find him. If he had sufficient food and water stores, along with his hardsuit and something similar for Hoana, that could allow them to live without life support...

He looked up again, meeting her eyes. "Okay, it could work. But how are you so sure? How is he planning to come down here, then?"

"The, the uh, automated reply system to the mail sent a 'meeting booked at appointed location' reply, which means he must have seen my message!" She said excitedly, almost vibrating in place.

He nodded slowly. "And how is he planning to come here?"

"I... Umm, I don't know?"

Emiya sighed. "Alright, then. Change of plans, let's go."

;

"Don't worry, papa... papa will think of something," the quarian said as he hugged his envirosuited daughter. "Papa will take care of it."

Yet, he couldn't think of what to do.

Through the passive reception he could follow what was going on through the extranet, reading headlines and listening to the broadcasts. It was all he could do, the need of keeping a low profile placing such restrictions on him.

After he had gotten Hoana back, he had triggered all of the systems he had prepared, sending out all of his vessels into random trajectories while turning off all the life support systems to further confuse and distract the asari and salarians onboard his hangar. It had worked perfectly, he had been able to slip away with Hoana and enter a hidden compartment where he could not be found.

All he needed to do was wait. And wait he did.

Wait and think.

About Roane, all alone on Thessia. Roane, who he was leaving behind. Roane, whose daughter was asking for her mama. His wife, who he had no way to reach. His heart ate at his resolve, the pain too much.

And now she was free and on the run. She hadn't been able to explain it beyond stating that Fujimura had somehow hacked her free. But she had been found out at the starport and was now stuck in a hotel with no way out.

And then he found the Ulee news story of the police setting up a perimeter with a salarian strike team was moving in.

'I'll kill your wife if you don't do what you're told, suit rat.'

Those words kept echoing in his head and he knew she wasn't going to survive if he didn't do something. Anything.

"Papa is going to make it all okay, don't worry," he said as she stood up. Hoana looked up at him with wide eyes, nodding slowly without understanding.

His resolve was made, what happened to him was irrelevant as long as he could save his wife and daughter.

;

Three salarian operators suddenly froze, turning completely and utterly still as they raised their hands away from the haptic adaptive interfaces.

They blinked, rearing back slowly as if their consoles were suddenly burning them.

Nihlus blinked, noticing this change immediately.

"What is it?" No answer. His mandibles twitched as he stalked over to the nearest salarian. "Operator, report!"

The salarian looked up, snapping out of his reverie with wide blinking eyes. He shook his head, looking down at his console. "Patching through broadcast."

Nihlus blinked, confused and perturbed but as soon as the main screen lit up he turned away from the salarian. A quarian?

"—repeat, this is my ultimatum. I warn you, I have set the systems to react to ANY external attempts at connecting or tampering, so that it will cause the core to immediately go into overdrive. Do not try to hack my station, do not try to shoot me with a starship, do not even try to contact me. You have my demands, I will re-initiate contact in fifteen minutes for a safe connection to verify that you have met my conditions and to facilitate the rest. Hosin... Hosin out."

Nihlus blinked, not quite understanding what was going on. He turned back to the salarian communications officers.

"Report! What's going on!"

"Sir... He, the quarian Tela Vasir made contact with—the one who was presumed to have vanished and was being searched for by the outer Thessian fleets. He was aboard the KX-0331 orbital station the whole time, it seems."

Nihlus tilted his head. "And no one else was there?"

"No sir," the salarian shook his head. "The hull breach the quarian made during his escape—faked escape, that is—meant that the whole station is depressurized. There is no life support and the main generator was presumed dead."

"What has he done?" Nihlus asked, dreading the answer.

"Two minutes ago the power suddenly turned back on, but before anyone could investigate, a kinetic barrier encased the orbital station, preventing entry. Thirty seconds after that, a mass increasing field suddenly appeared, which caused the station to slowly begin degenerating from its orbital trajectory as it began to slow down... At this rate, it will crash in two days, but..."

Nihlus froze, realizing what the salarian was saying. "He's..."

"Sir, he is threatening to raise the station's mass two hundred fold and drop the orbital station into Thessia instantly, if his demands aren't met."

The turian's legs almost gave out under him as his stomach dropped through the floor, and he had to stretch out a hand for support against a console. His vision swam and he felt nauseous. That kind of impact was the thing of nightmares; an impact of that magnitude would do unspeakable damage to the planet's surface.

In the worst case scenario, all of Thessia...

"Spirits preserve us," he whispered under his breath.

;

HOLY SCENE BREAK BATMAN!

Thanks to PseudoSteak and Olive Birdy for proofreading. This chapter was particularly messy due to all the scene breaks messing with my ability to proofread it. Also a thanks to my patrons, for putting up with me.

Now for the bad news; I'm going to slow down writing for now. Considerably. Why? Well, I'm going back to school with summer over. Gotta get dem edumacations. As a third year for a bachelor in science... Well, I doubt I will have all that much time. So for now, you might as well consider this to be on hiatus until I figure out how much time I actually do have for writing. Sheesh, I had told myself before summer that "surely, if I put my mind to it I can complete this fic before school starts again... Right?" Ohahaha, you how naive you were, me. Why do you do this to me?

Well, we'll see how things turn out. Thanks for reading until now and let's hope I can finish this sonnovabitch and not leave it at this cliffhanger for too long :V