* * * 65 * * *

Liara was behind Tali as the quarian was removing the black-and-gray armourplates from her enviro-suit and securing them inside her locker. "Tali, what was that about you sleeping on a crate? That sounds uncomfortable."

Tali shook her head and waved a three-digit hand dismissively. "It's just a joke. Um…I think it's practically a 'running gag' by now." Her HIVI assured her that this was the correct idiom.

Liara had slotted the Stiletto-IV into the pistol cradle inside the locker, stopped with her fingers on the armour releases at her sides, and looked at Tali. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"Um…when I first met Commander Shepard, he was trying to explain to his ambassador why he couldn't take any more people on his ship, and that I would have to sleep on a crate or something. I thought it was funny, and I keep teasing him about it."

"Was Kaidan involved in this somehow?"

"He was there, but not part of the decision. But he's smart, and I think he understood it was a joke, and he played right along."

Liara had finished shedding her Phoenix armour, started removing the red DCE/impact layer. "And yet clearly you prevailed upon Commander Shepard to accept you. How did you do it?"

Tali shook her head, "I didn't. It was his ambassador. But he must have made a good case in private; the ambassador didn't specifically say, 'Put Tali on your team,' but…here I am." She shrugged. "Can an ambassador give orders to an Alliance officer? I don't think so, but I don't know."

Liara's ARA dispayed some information about human cuture. "The Ambassador's social standing is probably higher, but they appear to have non-overlapping spheres of influence."

Tali waved dismissively. "Human culture is weird, but relatively simple – well, at least for me as a quarian – so I don't worry about it. My VIs keep me aware of anything I'd miss."

Liara was pulling her utility suit on over her DCE "one-piece," "I've never been aboard a human ship…or a warship, for that matter… before, so I've been highly reliant upon Baedeker functions to…mmh…keep me out of trouble. But I've not spent time with professional soldiers before, and everyone here seems so focused." She shook her head and smiled at the quarian, "I'm glad you're here, though. I think you're the only other real 'civilian.'"

Tali looked puzzled. "Hasn't Tal talked with you yet? Or Roz? They're regular crew, but I think part of their job is to help contractors like us not feel like outsiders."

Liara had finished putting on her shoes, carefully pushed the locker closed until the latch clicked. "I have not…though I do not know who that is. My…ahm…isolation is largely my own fault. Though Commander Shepard has welcomed me as part of the ship's complement, I do not know what my role is. Consequently, I try to stay out of everyone's way, though cleaning up the situation at AT/KT-121 has kept me very busy; I don't spend much time outside the Convertible Clean Room. But Doctor Chakwas has been very helpful and accommodating."

"I know soldiers can be intimidating when you first meet them, but soldiering is just a thing you can do, like…oh, what's a good example?...being a ship captain. True, there are lots of things you need to know and do as a captain, but you are still yourself when you're not captaining. Soldiers are like that, too. They were somebody before they started soldiering. And they're still that person when they're off-duty." She leaned closer, put a hand to one side of her helmet's chinguard as though whispering a secret, "They're actually that way all the time anyway."

Liara smiled self-consciously, shook her head at her own myopia, "Perhaps. But there is a…ahm…" she seemed to be searching for the right expression, "A level of commitment…of proficiency…of familiarity that I do not have."

Tali canted her head. "Maybe you just need a little soldier immersion. A little introduction to what it's like to be a soldier." With her hands still on her hips, she indicated her locker with a wave of her head, "Take the way you just closed your locker." The helmeted quarian turned and grasped the handle, very daintily lifted it before closing the door and latching it by lowering the handle again. "That's about how you did it, right?"

The asari looked from the quarian's locker to her faceplace with puzzlement. "Ahm…yes…I suppose so."

Tali opened her locker again, "As a soldier, you live in a world that is by turns out to get you, and designed to help you. A locker like this? It likes abuse; niceties are for civilians. So if you were a soldier, when you're done with your locker, close it with certainty – even carelessness – and move on. Don't even bother to look." Her left hand contracted into a fist, whipped to the side, bashing the locker door noisily shut. "Like that."

Liara smiled impishly, opened her locker, made a fist, and banged it closed.

"Good!" Tali gestured encouragingly, "Now try it again!" She turned and opened her locker again, bumped it closed with her left hip.

Liara re-opened her locker, banged it closed immediately with her right hip.

"That's it!" Tali opened Liara's Locker, then her own. She pointed, "Close them both!"

Liara's hand lifted, and bolt of biotic Throw flashed toward the doors, slapping both lockers closed.

"Now you're really getting it!"

From behind them, there was a gruff, Ahem. "Are you kids done making all this racket over here?" Wrex, standing behind them with his arms crossed, lifted a sausage-sized finger to point foreward and up a deck, "Because we have a debrief to get to."

# # #

Following the debrief, Shepard had walked to his stateroom, compiled his mission report, spent a few extra minutes on the analysis, and sent it off to Hackett. He pondered for a few seconds whether to introduce himself to another of the contractors or take a virtual white belt class.

Tali's recommendation about why he needed to talk to Garrus sprang to mind, so he went down to the hangar.

As the lift's door descended, he immediately noticed that the Mako's portside middle wheel (usually designated "#3,") had been removed, rolled aft, and was tipped against the portside rear wheel ("#5.")

He walked forward to investigate. "Garrus?"

"Down here." Garrus was supine on the creeper, his head and shoulders sliding out from under the M-35, "Commander. Good to see you."

"More damage to clean up?" Shepard gestured at the Mako.

"Not from this mission; I'm making improvements: Upgrading the belly armour." As Shepard's ARO put a callout on the turian's fringe (pride in service, it tagged) Garrus rapped the closed spanner against the alritresigon plating, and held it so it could ring at a steady D5#. "163 kilos, but only cuts the total boost altitude by two or three percent…a few meters. Makes us a lot less vulnerable when hopping. I'll updated the control software to account for the increased mass."

"Outstanding," Shepard nodded approvingly. "Also, good mission on Therum, I had meant to thank you for your work there, and on the APC. Also wanted to ask you about your C-Sec experience…if you've got a few minutes."

"Sure; I've configured the starboard set of old plates for removal, but the connectors will take a few minutes to decure." He slid out a little further, reached back under the Mako to retrieve some instruments and tools. "You mind if I tidy up while we talk?"

"Not a bit. You've been at C-Sec a while, I assume; what sort of adventures have you had? Any really amazing stuff?"

"Nothing like you. But yeah, I've…seen some interesting things." He placed the instruments on a pad for later pickup.

"Working on the Citadel? I'll bet you have. You've certainly worked with more aliens than I have. I'd like to think I can benefit from knowing what sort of things you've done or seen. Anything in particular stand out?"

"Not sure what I could tell you. The saviour of Elysium?" Garrus shook his head and waved a claw as if tossing something aside, "Spirits. You thrashed a planet-conquering force of batarians to the grave's edge. What could I possibly tell you?"

Shepard took a deep breath, let it out slowly, shook his head with his eyes closed. "Tell me something that wasn't coughed up by a propaganda department. I was just trying to stay alive long enough for the Alliance to get there. If you think that vid had anything to do with reality, you are misinformed. The live-action ones aren't any better, they just cost more to make."

"You mean you didn't splash three VF-244 gunships with an AMR [anti-materiel rifle]? You didn't organise the civilians into functional units for protection? You didn't hold out until the Alliance finally got a couple of warships there to back you up?" The turian leaned closer, seemed to be getting in Shepard's face, "You mean you didn't do all this while grieving the loss of your mate?"

Shepard was silent for a moment, studying the claims as they appeared on his ARO for analysis while appearing to hold eye contact with the alien. His mouth scrunched briefly in annoyance. "Very well. You seem to have done your research. Those things are in fact true, and you didn't mention even one of the ridiculous, superhuman things that they showed me doing."

"'One of?'" The turian set his feet firmly, as though preparing to pounce. "I assume you haven't seen the one made by the Darosisk…a pro-human group…for turian audiences. Not only did they present you as capable of pounding an armoured batarian senseless with your bare claws, but they cast a biotic female as you!"

After a pause of disbelief, Shepard burst out laughing. "You've got to be kidding me," he gasped, "Why?" He wiped his eyes with a hand, "Why would they do that?"

"Well, for turians, it kind of makes more sense. Our sexual dimorphism is greater than it is with humans," he gestured at his head. "They don't have a fringe or flowspikes to damage. They have longer, sharper talons, and more pink muscle tissue than males; it makes them stronger and faster…well, generally. There are weak females who aren't as strong as strong males, but the capability bell curves overlap less than for humans.

"But if you go way back in our species history, females were always the hunters, and that may be why they evolved that way, or maybe they evolved to not have them because they were the ones hunting; males tend to be more domestic: Raising the kids, making bricks and crockery, managing the garden, maintaining the houehold. Not a lot of turians realise your world evolved kind of…upside-down. If they'd cast you as a male, there are a lot of people who simply wouldn't have believed it, both as a behaviour, and in terms of physical prowess."

"Turian females give birth and hunt? What are you guys good for, anyway?"

Garrus didn't laugh, but his fringe instantly splashed, and Shepard's ARO tagged it as Amusement. "Well, while they're out hunting, we guard and incubate the eggs…and…all that other stuff. There was quite an evolutionary funnel to get through…but it allowed the species to survive. It's mostly a behavioural lever, of course. And it was the Agricultural Revolution that really cemented the roles; hunting wasn't as critical. Both sexes started to function in both roles almost immediately, but there's still evolutionary inertia at play, you know?

"Anyway, you're the human Stephen Shepard. You're an N7, which is sort of like the Blackwatch, but not quite as legendary. You saved a whole colony with a jump pack and a sniper rifle. You're the first human Spectre, now you command the first human-turian warship. Me?" The turian made a noise that sounded like a bulldog clearing its throat, "I'm a cop on the Citadel. What could I possibly tell you?"

"Wait a minute. Were you in the Blackwatch?

The turian shook his head, "No. Wrong training path."

"Good. Then let me ask you…why is the Blackwatch so legendary?"

Garrus shrugged carelessly, "Compared to an N7? For starters, you've only had them for decades, instead of millennia. The name is practically a direct translation; the Blackwatch got its name because they were on watch when the night was black, and they had to be able to kill a shratha without calling the attentions of others in the pack, or to spot nevris activity when they were still far enough away to get everyone up and moved before they got close enough to smell."

Shepard's ARO displayed images of the two types of animals; he gestured for 4x acceleration so he had time to get up to speed.

Shratha were rhinoceros-sized predators with dagger-sized teeth, and a nevriu [singular] was a gerbil-sized hemavore [blood-eating] that travelled in herds of thousands. They like to grab onto a turian from behind, between the arms (difficult to reach) and use a razor-toothed extensible probe to get through natural turian armour between the plates. The bite is subtle, and may not be noticed by a lone turian who isn't paying attention; not unlike a mosquito bite, but with higher throughput…and more likely death if a lone turian is sufficiently drained as to be rendered unconscious by successive bites.

A herd of starving nevris were known to sometimes find a tribe of turians and drain them overnight. Sometimes nomadic turians would bury themselves in a cave using rocks, leaving only a few small entrances for air; if some nevris started to enter, they could be caught and eaten in two or three bites. Alternatively, nevris could be repelled with the right combination of plant chemistry, but it had to be laid out to describe a circle around the tribe's sleeping place, and a Blackwatch posted for security.

Shepard gestured to clear the ARO taglet, and returned to normal cognitive speed. "As for what you could tell me, you've seen aliens I haven't even heard of, and C-Sec certainly knows more about how to deal with them than I do. I'd appreciate hearing what sort of insights you have."

"Hm." Garrus appeared to reconsider. "Good point. Okay, have you met the jellyfish?"

Shepard smiled in amusement. "The religious fanatics? And how. But do you have jellyfish on Palaven? I didn't think you had enough water."

"Oh, we do, but…heh, our homeworld isn't drowning like yours. We even have a joke about how stupid humans have to be to call their water-covered planet 'dirt' instead of 'water.' But our jellyfish are smaller, smarter, and capable of walking on the land...uh, though they don't like it. Oh, and they're about a hundred times more dangerous."

"Yeah, I've met the walking jellyfishes on the Citadel. They have…beautiful voices."

Garrus looked surprised. "Funny, the drell say the same thing. Did you get that from one?"

Shepard's ARO displayed a drell for reference. He said, "Drell?"

Garrus shook his head in dismay. "Spirits, there's a tragedy of a species. Their culture was even more dysfunctional than the batarians'. Their leaders drove them to pursue conquest rather than cooperation, and the tech couldn't keep up. They had run right up to the brink of extinction when a Council survey found their one planet. A second team determined it would be too resource-intensive to try to uplift them, but the hanar considered the tragedy too great to not avoid. Unfortunately, they didn't save the whole planet, they just interviewed individuals, to find the ones most likely to respond well to being transplanted."

"They saved what they could."

"Oh, but it gets worse. The hanar got themselves a client race, which many people consider to be a fancy term for slaves. And while the drell world was even more dry than Palaven, Kahje – the hanar homeworld – has more liquid water than Thessia. And the drell, evolved on a dry world, have developed a simply dizzying array of maladies in response to too much water. So the hanar brought most of them to the Citadel, both to their embassy, and to wards, where there isn't as much water, but still more than they're used to."

"Is the drell homeworld still…extant?" His ARO began to display current images of Rakhana.

"Technically, yes, but it's only got a population of…oh, I don't know, maybe a hundred thousand? Two? Though I happen to know there is at least one plan to repopulate it, it's starting very slowly, like establishing a colony. The biggest hazard is the drell that are still there, who act like it's their planet to kill, and have tried to take over the colony, or kill them off. It's crazy what's happening there, but…I think it'll work out. The hanar are keeping it moving forward by encouraging the colony to accept a slow trickle of natives, and re-acculturating them."

"How do you know so much about it?"

"There are a couple of drell who work at C-Sec. Jasmit and Ekavir. Both born on the Citadel, watching the repopulation, wanting to be part of it. Both really sharp with omnitech. Both work for Myvas Iliop, my favourite tech resource."

"They should do well in a colony if they work tech."

"Yeah, that's what they're hoping. They have to balance how primitive they're willing to tolerate with how much demand there is for what they do. But Myvas wants them to stay until he dies."

"Myvas is sick?"

"No, he's salarian. And he's old, I think he's thirty-six or thirty-nine."

"Don't they retire?"

Garrus' fringe contracted in Surprise. "Not if they can help it. Salarians usually work right up until they die. They don't slow down as they age; personally, I think they get faster. And then one day, they just…don't come in to work. There's even a benediction they use, 'May you finish at your workbench.'" He squeaked, made a few clicks, and a descending trill. He shrugged, "Eh, I have a bit of an accent, so I can't say it right."

"Well, aren't you just a font of information. Yeah, salarians I kind of know about; they're the other Council race, but I didn't know any of that." Shepard folded his arms. "It would have been nice if we could have one. Seems like every tech problem in the universe is being demonstrated aboard Normandy."

"You want a salarian contractor just so you can look good to the Council?" Garrus shook his head. "Don't bother. Most salarians won't take an interest in anyone else's stuff unless they're paid. Too busy with their own business."

The turian emulated Shepard's stance, folding his arms and then shaking his head again. "And some of them are just full-bore insane. Like galactic-conquest-or-death insane. I remember this one salarian geneticist I was sent to investigate." He had been looking away as his mind went to recent history; he stopped himself and checked the human for signs of any interest before launching into a tirade. "Uh…that case was more than a bit…disturbing."

"What happened? Why were you investigating him?"

"I think they wanted to investigate this one guy because the salarians do it more than everybody else. And they're usually good enough that nobody knows they're doing it.

"Anyway, during the course of my investigation, Myvas particularly noticed an increase in the trade of body parts; internal organs, mostly. He brought it to my attention. I knew we usually get a few of those, but not the numbers I was seeing. We weren't sure if there was a new lab, or if some freak was harvesting organs from citizens."

"You've seen this before on the Citadel?"

Garrus shrugged as though making a concession, "Every so often, some lab sells unwanted parts through the black market, but they're not as bad as the psychos." He shook his head, "I remember this one elcor diplomat we caught in my first year on the job. She was hacking people up and selling their organs, had the station in a bit of a panic. She had some kind of delusion that the organs had already been stolen and she was taking them back, vigilante-style." He shook his head again, "Totally insane.

"Anyway, the salarian case wasn't as clear-cut. Turned out there was more going on than we first realised."

"So how did you figure out what was happening?"

The turian glanced aside momentarily. "Grim stuff; are you sure you want to hear it?"

"You can't leave me dangling like that."

"First, we got hold of a sample and ran some DNA tests. The weird thing was, it led us to a turian who was still alive, and very convinced he'd never lost his...um...liver. After some digging, I found that this turian had worked briefly for Dr. Saleon, the geneticist I was telling you about. So I went to his lab, hoping to find evidence of cloned organ development. But there was nothing. No salarian hearts, no turian livers, not one krogan testicle."

Shepard smiled as if expecting that to be the punch line of a joke, "Krogan…testicle?"

"Well, that's the human word for the analogue. It's a little different, anatomically, but the function is close enough."

"You're kidding, right? Why would anyone want a krogan testicle?"

"They wouldn't. One by itself isn't very valuable." The turian had raised a single digit on one claw, but now he raised the other with all three talons extended. "But some krogan believe that a GMO transplant can increase their virility; counteract the effects of the genophage."

Shepard's ARO began to scroll out a brief explanation of a "Krogan Genophage," but he banished it with a subtle gesture as the turian continued to speak.

"Of course, it's easy to harvest organs and sell them again with only claims of genetic modification, so of course it doesn't work, but that doesn't stop them from buying. They'll actually pay, too, and up to 10,000 credits each; that's 40,000 for a full set." He nodded as he paused to consider that fact. "And you still have to have them installed; that's the expensive part. Um…okay, less so for krogan because their anatomy will regenerate and appropriate so quickly. Any hack can do it on a krogan, they don't even need anaesthetic: Scalpel open at the base, remove the old, and push the replacements in. Biotape the connections and close."

He looked away, shook his head in thought. "Somebody's making a killing out there."

"So what did you do about the geneticist?"

The turian focused on Shepard again. "I brought in some of his employees for interrogation. The lab wasn't properly certified, but of course, Saleon wasn't there, so flunkies was all I could get. Still wanted to see if I could get them to talk."

Shepard found himself smiling, imagining himself in the turian's position. "Good thinking. Lackeys are always easier to scare, right?"

"Exactly. Though in this case, it paid off in a different way. While I was interviewing them, one of my detainees started bleeding profusely during the interview. Not from the arrest, that was all at a walk. So our medic started to patch him up, and he got frantic, really freaked out."

"That sounds suspicious."

"Hmph. What was suspicious was that the lab had no equipment, just 'employees' sitting around at desks and GPCs playing games with each other, and watching vids. They were all sleepy and low-energy. A couple of them could barely make it to the storefront on their own, including the one who was bleeding.

"I ordered a full exam on him to find out what was going on. One cursory scan revealed incisions all over his body, some of them fresh. Like two-or-three-days-ago fresh. That was my big break. These people weren't Saleon's employees, they were test tubes. Walking, living test tubes."

"I'd probably call them 'grow vats,' but…Saleon was growing spare parts in his own employees?"

"Exactly. He cloned organs right inside their bodies. Then he harvested them and sold them off. The one who was bleeding? I scanned the blood on the floor right when it happened, and it was brimming with immunosuppressants."

He shook his head. "Most of the 'employees' were poor. They didn't actually have job functions, he just let them sit at GPC consoles and act like they were doing something like a job. He'd pay them a percentage of the sales, but only if the organs were good, and 'took' when installed.

"Sometimes an organ wouldn't grow properly, and he'd just leave it in them. Most of them were a mess, but only on the inside; hidden, so nobody could see it. The bleeder? He had six extra rindictia."

Shepard's ARO popped up a translucent window that read, singular: rindictium, analogue to the liver in humans, but smaller; turians typically have two each, occasionally three.

"Six. Probably started bleeding because of the extra volume straining the sutures." Garrus shook his head sadly.

"I hope he got what he deserved."

"Saleon? Oh, no, that's the worst part: We never caught him."

"You what?! What happened?"

"He ran. After months of investigation I'd invested, he must have smelled us coming for him; he blew his lab, grabbed a few of his test tube 'employees' and headed for his ship at the port. By the time I found out, his ship had already pulled away from the docking arm. He threatened to kill his hostages if we tried to stop him."

"That was dumb. Doesn't the Citadel had a no-nonsense policy for hostage-takers? I thought it was a model policy for the galaxy."

"Oh it does, and it is, but it's only applied that way in politics. If you're just a civilian committing GTS or B&E, and you take a hostage, it's a different game. Then we will try for days to talk you down. If you actually hurt or kill the hostage, we'll put a bullet in your head, no questions asked." He looked momentarily sad. "I've had to do that a few times."

"You have personally?"

"Oh, yeah," Garrus nodded, "The first time, it was great. Someone thought they could take hostages as a profession; we caught them in their safe house, and the site commander was sure he was going to start shooting because he had no escape. She asked me to fill the role of a sniper they didn't have at the moment. I went home glowing with pride, and a couple of hostages who thought I was a hero. I asked for a transfer to the VCU as a sniper, and they gave it to me. My first time out, it was a human, a real young one. Had fallen on hard times, and a high-value burglary had gone wrong. She'd already maimed the victim, and my captain told me to take the shot."

Garrus shook his head. "I didn't see the value; the victim was a salarian, and the eye would regrow in a few weeks, but the human just didn't have enough experience to know what to do. She panicked, started shooting out the window at nobody. My captain was worried someone in another arm might take a bullet, and we got into a shouting match. If the human had stood still long enough, I could have shot the gun out of her hand – it was only a small pistol – but if I shot more than once, then she'd really have panicked." He sighed heavily. "So I went for the torso, hoping she'd be injured but not killed; we'd have time to get medics in there and save her. Yes, she'd be jailed after repair, but at least she'd…"

He closed his eyes, shook his head.

"What happened?"

"She moved, I missed, and blew out her brain stem." He held up two talons to show the size of the hole. "They should have gassed the place."

They stood in silence for a moment, neither looking at the other.

Shepard tried a subject change: "So what happened with Saleon, escaping with hostages? You went after him anyway?"

"I called for Citadel Defence to disable his ship, but C-Sec headquarters countermanded. They were worried about the 'hostages,' and about civilian casualties if the ship was destroyed so close to the Citadel. I told them the hostages were dead anyway; he'd just use them to make more organs. But they wouldn't listen."

"They just let him fly away?"

"Yes they did. I went to Pallin and told him what had happened. He said he had to trust his people to carry out policy, and if I didn't like it, I could apply for the decision-making positions and take the fall for breaking them, or join the legislators and start shaping policy myself. Or quit the force." He folded his arms before continuing, "I almost did. All they had to do was disable that ship, stop him from getting to the relay. Maybe the hostages die, maybe they don't, but at least we stop the bastard responsible for it all, stop him doing it again someplace else.

"I suppose the Citadel especially has to present an image of 'zero collateral damage' to the civvies. But ultimately, that just means a higher morgue population."

Garrus nodded, "Exactly! I mean, those hostages might be wishing they'd died by now anyway." He looked away, into the past, and sighed. "I just wish I could have stopped him, that's all."

"It's not as if there aren't transponders. Do you have any idea what happened to this 'doctor' Saleon?"

"Like I said, it's only been a few weeks. I've sent out feelers, hoping to find something. I tasked a VI with finding him; thought I'd found him a few days ago. He'd changed ships and changed his name to 'Dr. Hart.' His idea of a joke, I suppose. I looked up the transponder ID for his new ship, passed it uphill in C-Sec, but got no traction. 'Wrong jurisdiction,' they said.

"So I passed it on to various militaries, even STG. I can't get anyone to check it out; they said they weren't sure it was him. I'm not sure if they actually looked, can't be bothered, or if they've been told to look the other way because he's sibling to a Dalatrass or something.

The turian's fringe shifted; Shepard's ARO tagged it as Resignation, "I have the transponder ID for his new ship, but I just can't get anyone to check it out."

Shepard gestured aft, "My Spectre workshop there should give me access to that kind of stuff. If we bounce through that system on our way somewhere, it might be worth checking out."

"I was hoping you'd say that." Garrus all but smiled. "But, Commander, take me with you when you go. If it is Saleon, I want to be there when you find him."

Shepard's smile didn't show teeth, but it took conscious effort to do so; he wanted to be encouraging. "Are you kidding? I'm not enough of a jerk to take that from you. We'll get that guy, and you can throw the book at him yourself."

The turian paused, tilted his head at Shepard. He raised a claw in a gesture that didn't truly have a human analogue: Hold that thought, read Shepard's ARO. The turian lit his omnitool and searched for something.

After a few seconds, he showed the results to Shepard. "With humans, it seems you have several types of 'wish-granters.' Genies, faeries, sphynxes, and some varieties of…dragon." He looked up at the human. "Are you any of these beings, but in a human disguise?"

Shepard couldn't help himself; he chuckled, smiling. "No."

"You might consider applying for the position."

* * * Glossary * * *

AI: In 2180s common usage, "Artificial Intelligence" refers to what is known in the industry circa 2020 as AGI (Artificial General Intelligence;) 22nd century research in AI and ML is sufficiently advanced that it is highly regulated and usually restricted to secure facilities like those on Sardok and Noveria.

Alritresigon: Originally fabricated in 2148 from an alloy of aluminium, magnesium, and titanium, the patented material's hexagonal matrix was found to be supremely robust, and readily used in other alloys to great effect; though the name refers specifically to that product, almost any microfactured product which incorporates that material's scaffold matrix will find itself referred to colloquially with the name of the Alliance's last patented metamaterial, "Alritresigon." Technical types may distinguish different alloys with element-specific acronyms (e.g., AlMaTi alritresigon uses the original alloy, MoTin alritresigon uses molybdenum and tin, etc.)

APC: Armoured Personnel Carrier

ARA: Augmented Reality Appliance

ARO: Augmented Reality Overlay

B&E: Breaking and Entering

BJJ: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Baedeker: Traveller's Guide

C-Sec: Citadel Security (also C-SEC)

DCE: Distributed Computing Environment

DNA: Deoxyribonucleic Acid

GMO: Genetically Modified Organism

GPC: General Purpose Computer

GTS: Grand Theft Skycar

HIVI: Human Interaction VI: A VI specialised in assisting with interacting with humans. Databases for HIVI are often found on dedicated NfoXes, but each one has a focus, allowing users to collect and blend them based on their interests, a particular task, or the reputation of the database itself

STG: The Salarian Union's Special Tasks Group

VCU: Violent Crimes Unit

VI: Virtual Intelligence