"What are you thinking about, Boss?" Pia asks me as traffic starts moving.

"I should be thinking about the case," I say as I put my hand on her thigh. She laughs, a pretty combination of girly giggle and nerdy snort that made her glasses rise up as her nose crinkled. How did I get so lucky? She puts her hand over mine, giving me a gentle squeeze. "But you know me, my mind wanders."

"Well," her voice is higher than normal. "Well, why don't you look up these Templars?" Someone honks at us when we take too long at the stoplight, "Find some info on our new investigator."

"Great idea sweetie," I agree, bringing my hand back up and activating my omni-tool. "Avina, tell me about the Gaian Templars." Hopefully Pia had fixed the voice commands on my omni-tool. Otherwise I'd look like an idiot talking into my wrist.

Luckily the voice commands did work. But you can't avoid looking like an idiot when you are talking into your wrist.

Avina told me everything she knew about the Templars. Which wasn't a lot. Can't blame her, the electronic cutie was only relaying what the Citadel Library knew about the Protectorate and could actually verify. And a lot of stuff the Protectorate said was completely unverifiable. Actually, that's not true. All the stuff they were saying was verifiable. Believable?

That's what the problem was.

So Avina tells me what she knows; the Templars are a human-only para-military organization that combats all the horrors that lurk on Gaia. And if their histories are to be believed they've been doing their thing two and a half millennia before the Citadel Council was formed. Of course! It reminds me of all the terrible conspiracy theories we've got. Like the Unification Wars being a hoax. Or the asari being telepathic blobs of jelly that cast illusions into our brains.

More relevant to me and my team was the fact that the Templars were an independent organization that functions almost like the SPECTREs do. Except still bound by Protectorate law. So not at all like the SPECTREs. Still, they were highly trained combat veterans with extensive resources backing them up and had a sort of legal authority over most Protectorate agencies. I couldn't help but draw comparisons to our own galactic special forces groups. Unlike the SPECTREs, the Templars had a net site. Even an email listing!

I thought about shooting them an email, but I wasn't sure what I'd say.

Luckily all the random browsing I was doing served to pass the time, and before I knew it Pia was nudging my shoulder and telling me that we'd arrived.

We pulled up to some weird looking apartments, all prefabs by the looks of them. Rows of bright blue containers stacked on top of each other and connected by stairways and elevators. All the nearby buildings were the same, even the stores. Lots of humans around in work coveralls, security uniforms or medical scrubs. I even saw some weird creature running a food stand, a group of people eating on nearby benches and tables. Being surrounded by so many humans meant that my little group of troublemakers stood out like-

"-a group of aliens." Det glanced around before deciding to pull his jacket's hood up.

My thoughts exactly kid.

But before I could agree with him I turned to a new voice, finding myself face to face with this Templar Klein. He… well. I was expecting that special forces look. Strong jaw, scary features, some sort of cut or scar that hinted at a fantastic battle. But he looked like any other human I'd seen. That was probably the point; the one SPECTRE I'd met also looked pretty unassuming. That way you never see them coming. But he looked alright, slicked blonde hair, blue eyes. If I didn't already know he was a Templar, I'd have imagined he was just some high-priced businessman. He had a pin on his tie, a small silver cross against red metal. I recognized it from browsing their website.

"You must be Detective Casvius," he said with a friendly smile, holding his hand out in that human gesture. "And Detective Canipia. It is a pleasure."

"Templar Klein," I said, returning the gesture. "It's nice to have some local help on our side. And speaking of which, why don't we get started?" I pointed at the nearby building, 413. Smith's apartment was number 59, which meant taking that haphazard elevator.

"Of course," the man agreed as he followed us on our way to the apartments. "Let us hope our first bit of field work is fruitful."

"It'll be frustrating if it isn't," Pia muttered. "We're working a weeks old case; we need to make up for lost time."

"You three go on up Cas," Det tapped me on my shoulder, "Me and Narg'll stay down here, take the front and back. If Smith is up there and he gets away from you, we'll catch him."

"Vaul runs down the guilty who flee." Narg declared before he trudged off in the direction of the back exit.

The Templar smirked as we made our way to the main elevator, past a few humans and an animal-person-thing who were all sitting around a holographic screen, cheering at some game. Someone kicked a ball into a net, the announcer screamed "goal" and everyone cheered. Looks fun.

"Your krogan associate reminds me of some of the Templar back home," he chuckled as he called down the elevator. "I was not aware the krogan were religious."

"They aren't," Pia answered, "Nargon's an odd one." She nudged me, "Boss, you remember how we found him?" I chuckled. Of course I did, but Pia loved telling the story. "We were on Vessus, trying to find an asari teenager who had run off and…" the elevator arrived and we all filed in, Pia continuing the tale after we settled in. "We track her to some asari monastery. Turns out the matriarch," she begins laughing, tears already forming as she starts recalling the funniest parts of the mission, "they were smuggling them out in diapers!" More laughter, the Templar begins smiling alongside her. "And Nargon busts out of a wooden crate…" Yeah. She's gone now.

Just because Pia loves telling the story doesn't mean she can actually tell it. Right now she's probably remembering the part where the matriarch attacked Nargon with a stone dil-

"Here we are," Pia composes herself, probably embarrassed that she acted so unprofessionally while on the job. "Fifth floor… we need to head to apartment 59," she points down the hallway and gestures for the Templar to step out first, glaring at me behind his back. "You!" she hisses as soon as he leaves the elevator. "We are professionals." She punctuates her displeasure with me by stomping on my foot. It doesn't hurt much but her anger hurts me emotionally.

I limp out of the elevator; Pia doesn't spare a glance in my direction. Luckily she stews in silence for only a few seconds before we reach 59, past some apartment blaring what sounds like the same game from downstairs.

And that's another one of the police drones.

"You are not authorized. You are not authorized."

It repeats in its dull robotic timber. I wonder why they always repeat themselves like that. There must have been some Gaian long ago who didn't hear the first "you are not authorized" and then got shot for crossing a police line. Maybe.

"Not to worry," our black suited friend begins as he steps up to the police drone and pulls out what looks like a datapad from his coat and holds it up to the drone's face. It must be his ID. "I am Templar Alexander Klein, investigating the disappearance of Olik Bayora." The datapad's screen starts flashing in some sort of code, the drone's glowing faceplate flashing in response.

"You are authorized," the drone responds, standing aside and unlocking the apartment unit for us. Pia once again walks into the apartment while facing the machine the entire time. Girl never changes.

The first thing I notice is the smell. My nose scrunches up in such disgust that I can almost hear my faceplates crack. I can almost see a haze of stench wafting in from a mess of a kitchen; it looks like Smith isn't too big on cleaning up after he eats, the kitchen sink is stuffed with old dishes. That wonderful combination of airborne flavor is enhanced by the fumes of alcoholic drinks; all packaged inside a too small apartment and left to ferment for weeks.

Smith's work clothes from the LlMRC are tossed over the side of the nearby couch. There's a small hallway big enough to lead to two rooms, I'm guessing the restroom and bedroom.

"Time to earn our pay," I mutter, omni-tool lighting up as I start moving around the living room. Pia gingerly opens up the restroom door and to both of our surprise the place is incredibly clean. Pia looks over at me and catches my incredulous stare. She shrugs, I shrug. We make a great team.

Well, there's not much to the living room. A giant viewing screen, what looks like some sort of Gaian video game console and a small sound system. There's a luggage bag next to the couch, half opened. I walk over to it and start rummaging through the thing; it looks like the uniform of some sort of sports team, a pair of sports shoes, a few medical supplies, a bottle of water and a white ball with black spots all over it. Underneath all of that there's some smart paper with sports plays sketched all over it. There's lots of tabs open with several more sports plays. Except one page which just has some writing at the bottom.

The Templar is standing behind me, his eyes closed. Odd, but every detective has his own method. I don't' want to bother him so I put the smart paper under my omni-tool's translation feature, hopefully I'm not just wasting my time on the name of a sports play or the address of some sports groupie Smith picked up.

About twelve seconds after I scanned the writing I get a translations and it looks like an address.

"I've got nothing," Pia announces sadly as she emerged from the bedroom, "Just a bed and a small dresser in there, nothing interesting except some clothes and a few bottles of medicine."

"And I've got these," I wave the smart paper in the air, "Got an address on it."

"And I have found Mr. Smith's tablet." The Templar added from the kitchen table, powering up the device.

"You call datapads tablets? Why? They aren't made of stone." Pia asked as we all started to gather around and compare our findings.

Pia has a habit of asking odd questions like that. She once asked a volus why they all wheeze… which actually turned out to be a pretty interesting conversation.

The Templar seemed fine with the question, responding with one of his own. "Why do you call them datapads? They aren't a collection of loose papers bound at one end."

Well, he's got her there. "Anything useful on it?" I ask before this evolves into some xenolinguistics discussion.

He hums as he flicks through the device, "Despite being sloppy with his kitchenware, Smith isn't so careless with his security. His email account is password locked." He sighed, putting the datapad into one of his coat pockets. "My Codex might be able to break its password, but I'd rather not linger in this foul smell longer than I have to."

We all agreed on that one and decided to wait outside again, Klein waking off to file some standard procedure stuff with the police drone.

We're about to leave, but Pia puts a hand on my arm before she starts pulling me towards the kitchen.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"This doesn't seem odd to you?" she asked as we stopped at the kitchen sink. "The rest of this place is pretty well kept. Not spotless, but clean enough. Open up the window, spray some air-freshener and it's cleaner than our room on the Detective Maiden."

I guess Pia has a point, but I wasn't really getting what she was suggesting. I said as much.

"So," Pia said as she started digging through the sink, moving plates and cups and half-eaten food out of the way, "why does this sink look like it got three trashcans dumped on it?"

Now I understand.

I helped her dig through all the shit in the sink, though I think I got the worst of it when I put my hand into the sink and unclogged the drain. Looks like Pia had the right idea; I felt something down in the water clogging the drain. I pulled whatever it was out, the sink gurgling as all that garbage juice started going down the drain, the noise drawing the Templar over to us.

"Find something?" he asked.

I stared at the thing in my hand, a weird meaty object. I couldn't really tell what it was. It looked like some skinless animal but it was one I didn't recognize.

Pia slapped it out of my hand when it moved.

"What is that?" she gasped while I felt my plates squirm over my skin.

The Templar knelt down and picked up the vile looking creature, examining it in his hands. "This," he began as he stood up, holding the thing out for us to examine. Pia recoiled away from it. I did tool. "This is the handiwork of the Institute of Endless Life."

He scowled at the thing in his hands before they began to glow. They burst into flames and I was assaulted by the stench of burning skin. As soon as it started it was over and the Templar opened his hands, ashes and bones falling down.

"They are the reason I came to Lluvia."

I looked down at my food. The Templar had treated us to some food from the nearby stall, but after I held that thing in my hands I was having a bit of trouble eating. Seemed liked I was the only one with the problem though, since Pia was already on her third one.

The Templar had placed his Codex over Smith's tablet; the two devices "talking" to each other while it attempted to access Smith's emails and other private information.

In the meantime, he told us about the Institute of Endless Life and their quest for an "immortality serum".

"But why?" Det asked, his mouth full of taco before he remembered his manners and covered his mouth. "You guys already live forever don't you?"

The provider of food finished a drink from his cup before answering. "Yes and no. Age and illness cannot touch us; but violence can still end us. While mundane physical damage will simply shunt us into our spectral forms most Anima weaponry will still outright kill us. Likewise, if my body is completely annihilated in such a way that my spectral form has nothing to return to and I cannot find an Anima well in time, I would eventually lose my mind. A fate no different than death."

"Do your people have an afterlife?" Nargon asked. "How would you reach if it your soul is stuck in the world?"

It would be like him to view the Gaian's in a philosophical sense. I was just thinking about how hard crime-fighting would be in the future as more Gaians spread out throughout the galaxy. If the only way to put a human down for good was complete body disposal… well, sales of plasma-throwers would go through the roof. On the other hand I can't wait for the first human "murder" case to end when the human's ghost identifies the killer in court.

"I believe in one," the man said as he touched the silver pin on his tie, "Though I can't prove it exists."

"Fascinating," Det cut in, "But why don't we stick to things that'll help us in this case?"

I couldn't disagree that we were getting off topic, but seriously kid.

"Quite," the Templar said, who looked a bit embarrassed himself. I noticed Det suddenly wince in pain and since he was sitting across from Pia I knew his shin had been introduced to Pia's boots.

"So, this Institute wants to somehow get around the fact that your bodies are vulnerable? Like making your bodies indestructible?" Det guessed, no doubt reaching under the table to rub his shin. "Or something like that?"

"Exactly," our friend continued, "While we have greater freedom than most and can temporarily escape these mortal coils, we are still bound to our physical bodies. The Institute seeks to make our bodies untouchable by physical harm."

"That doesn't sound so bad," I added, "There are plenty of similar research efforts in Citadel space. Lots of people out there would be willing to pay for immortality. Especially…"

Nargon swallowed one of his tacos whole, though he had the presence of mind to cover his mouth while he talked. "The salarians are the single largest provider of funds for that field of research." He looked down at his empty plate and then glanced at my own. I put a protective hand over my last taco, I might not be hungry now but I will be in a while. "It is understandable; their lives are fleeting compared to those of the asari and the krogan."

"The Institute was once noble, attempting to extend the gift of immortality to all of Gaia's children. Founded only a few decades ago and drawing some of the finest minds they held immense public support, receiving funding from just about every nation on Gaia. They had very promising research."

"What happened?" Pia asked. "If they were still legit you wouldn't be investigating them."

The human sighed, "We know that their leader, Doctor Sibyl Anastas, became radicalized sometime in 1253 GC," he saw our blank stares, "Twelve years ago. It was around this time that the Institute split, around a quarter of their members condemning their new agenda and leaving; they founded Sirta Foundation, which is partnered with LlMRC. The Institute now kidnaps people for their horrifying experiments."

I mulled that one over. "So Bayora's probably dead already." Well, that might make Missus Busty happy.

"And if he is, we still need to find a body," Pia added.

"And hopefully it is still identifiable." The Templar added.

"What's that mean?" Det asked, and I was certain I didn't want to hear the answer.

"The creature we found in Smith's apartment is a rabbit. A newborn by the size of it." The Templar answered, "Members of the Institute usually experiment on a small animal on their own. They then apply what they've learned on their own to bigger research subjects. Dogs, cats, ghouls. Humans. And recently, aliens."

"So?" Det asked.

"Rabbits do not have eight eyes, two jaws and three heads."

Ok. I'm not hungry anymore. I push my last taco away from me, Nargon grinning as he reaches for it before Pia snatches it away from him. He gives me a sad look, but there's nothing I can do. My nerdette comes before you do buddy.

We're slightly startled by the Templar's Codex ringing.

"Ah, the technological wizardry is finished," Klein beams, wiping his mouth and hands before picking up Smith's datapad. "Let's see what he's been hiding."

We sat in silence for a while as he searched through Smith's information, occasionally dragging some files into his own Codex. Det stood up and stretched before waking a little ways off to see a sports game being held by a couple of children, Nargon headed back into the direction of the food stall, no doubt wanting to try some of the other foods.

I just sat next to Pia and held her hand.

"The address you lifted from that smart paper appears in a few of the emails between Smith and some unidentified persons," the Templar explained. He turned his device over and handed it to us, a map of Lluvia displayed on it.

This seemed important so I called the guys over, Narg took his sweet time with a grin on his face and a stacked plate in his hand.

It all looked pretty shady. What would Smith and Bayora need all the way out there in some mining complex two hours away from town on the very night that both of them disappear? Frankly, I'm surprised the local cops didn't already check out such an obvious hiding spot.

Klein went ahead and called the local mining company and found out, to our dull surprise, that the mining complex had been shut down about a week ago after the mineral vein they were after was completely exhausted. So that left us.

Of course, Klein reminded us that nothing stopped him from calling the local police and ordering a raid on the place… but he'd only be willing to do that once we confirmed that there was anything there to raid.

"Well, we've got no other leads," Pia sighed. I could tell she wasn't keen on driving all the way out there, especially since we'd blow at least four hours if the mines ended up being a bust. But she was right, we had no other leads.

"You sure we can't squeeze some more info from this Pillar guy?" Det asked. He was also against plan "Go investigate the mine" unless we were sure we had no other choice. Like Pia he worried it'd be a giant waste of time.

"The difference is that Pillar is still showing up to work," I responded, "Plus, since he cooperated with the cops I'm not worried that he'll try to get his ass off-world anytime soon. He hasn't tried since the cops first opened the case, so why would he now?"

Narg nodded, finally taking a break from eating. "Pia, remember your own words too. "We're working a weeks old case". We must find Bayora's corpse before it is disposed of and the longer we wait…"

"He's right Pia, Det." I continued, "And you just said that we've got no other leads."

Pia groaned, "I hate it when you use my own words against me."

"I learned well from the women in my life," I respond immediately. "Besides, all I'm doing is repeating what you've said. And in this relationship, you're clearly the smarter one."

She looks away but I know I've got her.

Det folds after that. He always does when it's four against one.

"So, we are in agreement then," Klein summarizes with a clap of his hand, "We head to the mines. When do we leave?"

I stand up, making eye contact with my little crew and our tag-along. And Det.

"Now."