Chapter 62 – The Chase

April 8th, 2211 0414 hours – Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Fado District

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

My eyelids drooped and I stifled yet another yawn. At this hour of the night every minute of continued consciousness was hard-earned—especially in situations like this where I had nothing to do but wait. I toyed with the idea of perhaps taking a nap, but Cade probably would not be gone for much longer and waking from a ten-minute nap when I was already this tired would be nothing short of emotionally devastating me.

The darkness wasn't helping. The meagre glow from the closest station light was not strong enough to penetrate the small alley that I was waiting in. Instead, it made it warm, soothing, and pretty damn cozy. Slightly off of the main station roadways and flanked by some old, shabby-looking apartments, the alley was the perfect spot for us to lay low for a while. The hour was late so foot traffic was already sparse — this far from the main roads it was virtually non-existent.

I put my back against the grimy, graffiti-covered poly-steel wall behind me and drew my hand through my hair, scratching the top of my scalp. That stupid hat. As soon as Cade had left I had taken off the fedora and shoved into the pocket of my trench-coat.

Percival was standing beside me looking at something on his omni-tool when he suddenly nudged me gently. "Hey, I just got a message from Rentea. It looks like Rayla and Sophie are going to be okay. Shepard got to them in time."

That perked me up instantly. I leaned over and looked at the message. I placed my forehead on my friend's broad shoulder and let out a low sigh of relief. "Thank god. I can't believe that happened to them. What are the odds?"

In the course of getting the Eclipse on our side, Rayla and Sophie had made a deal with the mercenary group to collect dirt on a local arms dealer in exchange for their cooperation. Little did they know the arms dealer had ended up being a deranged serial killer. The killer – some asshole named Junichiro Takatoshi or something like that – had drugged the two women and had apparently been attempting some sort of ritualistic murder. If Shepard hadn't found them Junichiro very likely would have succeeded.

Nearly twelve million people on this station and somehow they had ended up in the clutches of Omega's most notorious serial killer. What stupid, stupid bullshit. Unbelievable.

At least Shepard had stopped him permanently. Junichiro would never again hurt another living soul. I hoped the bastard was rotting in the deepest pits of hell.

When I looked back up I found Percival starring intensely into my eyes. "You making a move on me Perc? Stop it, you're going to make me blush."

"Yes." He gave an annoyed little scoff and shook his head. "Buddy, you really don't look well. You look like you haven't slept in a month. You sure you're feeling okay?"

Before I could react he had placed the back of his hand on my forehead. "You're not running hot – quite the opposite in fact. Maybe you should head back to the ship and have Rentea check in on you too."

I lightly brushed his hand aside and slunk backwards. "I'm fine—I'm just tired. It's like four-o-clock in the morning right now. I've been awake for like the last twenty hours and I didn't get much sleep the night before."

His face told me just exactly how credible he thought I was. Percival let out a little snort and shook his head. "Cloud, don't give me that. We've been glued hip-to-hip for more than five years. I've seen you stay awake for far longer and in active combat situations as well. Hell, even when we were on the Hippocrates we were fighting non-stop for almost a whole damn day."

"I had stims," I countered. "And who knows man? Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I am old – you ever think about that? We don't know how old I am."

My friend scoffed again. "You little baby-faced dork – don't tell me you're old. You have skin that most women would kill for and I know because Gwen routinely tells me that whenever she sees you. You still get carded sometimes at the bar after you shave! You look like a college student."

He was right, I'd gotten a lot of compliments over the years. I wasn't a big sunscreen guy and my routine was really just water and soap. I only recently found out that I had mostly my mother to thank for that. If only I could tell Percival that that, but then he'd ask me how I'd know and then I'd have to tell him everything.

There was a pause in our conversation after that.

"You'd tell me if something was wrong with you, right?"

Another pause. "Yes, Percival. If there was something not okay with me I'd tell you. You and Cade. You're my two best friends in this whole damn galaxy."

Lying hurt, but that seemed to satisfy him. Not that it was all a lie. My friend nodded and let out another sigh. "You two are my best friends too. Look, I know you might think that you have to always put the mission first. Hell— I used to think like that."

"Depends on the mission."

"Depends on the mission," Percival conceded. "But what I am trying to get you to see is… Look, when we complete these missions it's to secure a better future, right? A future worth living in?"

"Among other things," I semi-agreed.

"Sure, but that's what we're really fighting for. A better future. Shepard for example didn't stop the Reapers just because she hated them or because they destroyed Earth, right? She did it so that everyone could have a future."

Sure I suppose. It made sense as far as reasons went. "Percival, where are you going with this?"

He stared at me with an irritatingly-knowing smile, like the answer was obvious and I was just slow. "Imagine a future where Cade and I weren't in it. Imagine my future if you or Cade weren't in it."

I thought about it for a moment. How would I manage in a galaxy without either Cade or Percival? Aside from Elektra and my old gang they were the only family I had ever known.

"But we're Spectres," I pointed out. I thought about Corribus and the decision he made to go and help Shepard when the Project had attacked her home. "Sometimes we have to make hard decisions. Sometimes we don't get to go home."

Percival shook his head ruefully. "God, you're still just a kid," he laughed, causing me to scowl. "Sure— again I agree – sometimes we have to make hard decisions."

My fellow Spectre placed a hand on my shoulder. "But the key is knowing when. You've only got one life to live, and you can do a lot of good with that life. Don't take every single crisis that comes up as an opportunity to spend it. Don't treat it like its nothing."

Percival gave one last sigh and gave me a little shake. "Just promise me you'll take care of yourself, okay?"

That tone in his voice – it was the same tone I heard in Shepard's voice when she was describing how she had felt after the War.

Just war-hero stuff I suppose. "Yeah. Sure."

"Did I miss something?" a flanged voice called out. Cade returned carrying a cardboard tray filled with three cups and a stained paper bag. "I found it boys. The all-hours diner."

Percival and I immediately crowded around Cade. The big man pulled a steaming breakfast sandwich out of the paper bag and immediately began wolfing it down. I opted for a cup of coffee. It was hot but I didn't care. I took half-a-dozen little sips immediately.

"Don't forget to eat too. You'll need calories for your biotics," Cade admonished.

I grumbled and clutched at my coffee jealously. "Are you two in cahoots or something? You're both mothering me really hard today."

Cade's mandibles twitched in confusion. "What are you talking about, man? I just want you to eat something so you don't whine and complain when you have to use your biotics. Percival, did something happen?"

My friend looked at me and then back at Cade and just shrugged. "I was just telling him how he looked like shit," Percival mumbled through a mouthful of bacon and egg.

Cade looked at the two of us. "Oh what? We don't need to be in cahoots to tell Cloud he looks like shit." My friend turned his head and looked pointedly at me. "Cloud. You look like shit."

I scowled and flipped him off but I nonetheless grabbed the sandwich that Cade then offered me. As I was unwrapping it Cade fished the fedora out of my pocket and placed it back on my head. The three of us moved out of the alley and towards the direction of where this 'Smoke' lived.

"So the usual then?" Cade asked. "Recon, infil, exfil? Or do you want to interrogate him there?"

The coffee was doing wonders. I raised my arms and let out a nice stretch, cracking my neck for good measure. "Yeah I mean, I'm kind of okay with doing it either way. We might get seen if we exfil with him, but it also might be dicey if we do it there – especially if it looks like he's got a lot of guards."

"Smoke's probably a higher-level loan shark than Seamus is but still a loan shark nonetheless. Cowards to a tee. Can't be too bad."

"We'll wing it," Percival decided. "These are prime hours for either plan. I don't fancy having to wait another day to talk to him."

"Agreed."

The Fado District where Smoke operated in and where we currently were was smack in the centre of Omega's "floor". The "ceiling" of the station was the highest here. It also had the largest concentration of tall buildings and the district most closely-resembled one of the urban sprawls you'd find on any of the major planets like Illium or Terra Nova.

We travelled through the alleys parallel to the main road, doing our best to stay in the shadows. There were few people around so our presence would be noticeable to any that might spot us. Our conspicuousness was also largely attributable to the fact that the three of us were still wearing Cade's stupid trenchcoats, but he had brought us breakfast this morning so I was okay with letting it slide for now.

The sound of something metallic hitting or scrapping softly against poly-steel caught my attention and I immediately whirled. Cade whirled too, while Percival kept his eyes trained directly ahead of us.

"What is it?" Percival asked.

"Might have company," Cade whispered. I nodded in agreement. A sound like that wasn't normal in an environment such as this one, especially when there was a conspicuous absence of any automatic machinery or any living, breathing souls nearby.

My knife appeared in my hand like magic but I kept it concealed in the sleeve of my trenchcoat. I calmly sipped my coffee and turned my gaze upwards towards the tops of the buildings above us.

"We have to keep going. Assume we're being tailed though," I told them. My friends nodded in agreement.

We cautiously resumed our way, but now the three of us were on guard. Truth be told I felt as if I could use the excitement of a fight. That would be just the thing I needed to snap me out of my sleepiness. For a moment I wondered if the Project had decided to send out an advance scouting force ahead of the Exeter.

If only they had went at it another way. They had good intentions and a good plan. If only they had presented to Shepard better safety measures or something then maybe she would have allowed them to continue researching the Cris'paii. But they resorted to trading lives for progress, and that's where they went wrong. Perhaps in another lifetime.

I shook my head, surprised at those intrusive thoughts. I must have been more tired than I thought.

Up ahead the alley emptied into a rather large plaza surrounded by high-rises. The tallest one was our target. I let out a low whistle. Maybe Smoke wasn't as small a fish as we thought if he could afford an office in a building like that. The tower looked more like a place where insolvent rich folk or corpos went to get a large loan to stay afloat than a place where no-name citizens went to get some extra rent money. According to Seamus, Smoke's "office" was on the hundred and tenth floor.

Cade let out a low whistle as he glanced up the tower, his mandibles splaying in surprise. "Looks like there will probably be some decent security. Fun."

"Same rules of engagement as before," Percival looked crossly at the two of us.

"If I get to kick another bad guy out of a window today it'll absolutely make my year," Cade whispered to me. I smiled mischievously back at Cade and nodded in agreement. Behind us Percival had a heavy scowl on his face, but who was Percival kidding? I know that he was thinking it as well.

Listen to us. Who were we kidding. The three of us probably weren't more than a trio of psychopaths with more net good to our names than not.

I placed my empty coffee cup in a trash bin bordering the plaza before entering the building. We crossed the plaza and entered the tower. The inside looked as nice as the outside, with nice, leather couches everywhere, flower features, and even a piano in one corner. Man, Omega was really the land of extremes. You had shit-covered walls and run-down buildings not a hundred meters away from where you also had a building that looked like it had been ripped right out of Bekenstein.

There was no one in the main foyer. The concierge was manned by a couple of VIs and a few cleaning robots were busy doing their job. Not terribly surprising given the hour. The three of us made our way over to the elevators and I called one down for us.

The elevator was exactly what you'd expect, with nice, wood paneling, gold trim and pearl-covered buttons. Soft, lilting muzak piped up from a quaint little speaker installed in a corner. While normally I hated muzak, for some reason I really didn't mind it right now. It was soothing.

"Cade?" Percival called out.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, I think we need to ditch the coats soon. We're too easy to spot and track."

I'm glad Percival had said something. I was about to after what had happened back in the alley. I didn't want to make things easier for our tailers.

The turian let out a heart-breaking sigh that I so badly wanted to laugh at. "I know, I know…. Just a little more, okay? After we interrogate Smoke we can take them off. I just want the three of us to pretend to be detectives for just a little while longer. It's been so fun."

"Fine. Until we interrogate Smoke," Percival agreed. I was a bit surprised Cade didn't put up a stronger fight, but these kinds of things were always more authoritative when they came from Percival. Plus someone was definitely following us.

"And cheer up man, I've also been having a lot of fun too, surprisingly. We can always keep the coats. For next time."

Cade smiled happily and nodded. "Okay, deal. For next time."

Percival wrapped a burly arm around Cade's shoulder and pinched him on the mandible with a grin. "My little champ! Attaboy!"

"Stop, you're making me blush!"

I grinned and shook my head. Sometimes I wonder just exactly when the two had gone from mentor and apprentice to this—not that the two were ever super-professional towards one another or anything. I remembered thinking to myself back when I first met them that the two seemed like really good friends rather than a Spectre-slash-Spectre candidate duo. Then I had learned that they had only first met each other a couple of weeks before I had met them, making their relationship even more peculiar. I suppose some people just clicked with one another.

The elevator doors slid open and I left the unexpected comfort of the muzak behind. Like the elevator, the theme around the floors and walls was marble, polished wood and metal trim. Portraits that look like they had been painted rather than captured by camera hung everywhere. All of it was very out of place in this day and age. It gave the building an old-timey feel.

Like always our destination was the door at the end of the hall. When was it ever not? If I were a big bad-guy villain or a sketchy loan shark tied to disappearing girls I think I'd try to make my office as inconspicuous as possible, but I suppose ego often came with the territory of being an asshole.

"Hard or soft?" Percival asked me, or 'shock or aww' as Cade liked to call it. I replied by touching my finger to my lips.

Percival and Cade both took up flanking positions beside the door. I booted up my omni-tool and did a scan. It picked up a rather high-end electronic lock, but nothing that could withstand the Spectre intrusion protocols. After a few seconds my own program had it open.

I turned the handle and pushed open the door as quietly as I could.

The lights were off. The only source of illumination in the apartment was coming from the large, floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere, where the soft, red station lights outside were penetrating in from.

I took a few steps inside and started a visual sweep. When I saw it, I stopped. Shit.

Cade moved up beside me, and then Percival. Both of them were likely wondering what I was doing, breaking our entrance maneuvers and all, but then they saw what I had seen and they stopped too. From beside me Cade let out a frustrated hiss.

Seated behind a grand, oak desk in a large leather office-chair was a man. Human, probably in his mid-forties but it was hard to tell with all the shadows cast by the chair. He was dressed in an expensive-looking suit. His neck had been viciously cut.

A lit cigar somehow was still hanging from his lips, trailing smoke. I wasn't a betting man but I would have bet anything that we'd found who we were looking for.

We all cautiously approached the body, making our way around the desk closer to the chair. There was a bloody envelope taped onto the front of Smoke's suit.

Cade pointed at the blood on the desk. "Wet," he whispered. Fresh kill then. Must have been, because Smoke hadn't even begun to stink yet. All I could smell was the cigar and some brandy that had spilled on the floor from the crystal tumbler he'd been holding. Whoever did this must have gotten him from behind. Death had come unexpectedly and swiftly.

I gently removed the envelope and lifted the flap. Inside there was a single piece of paper. A letter.

I unfolded it. There was no writing – nothing but a hand-drawn smiley face where someone had tried to make the eyes bigger by scribbling harder with the pen. The hair on the back of my neck rose. Something about it tugged at the very edges of my subconscious mind, drawing me down to the graveyard where I'd buried all my old memories. It was just a question of which grave. Or whose. There were no headstones down there.

Something – and I don't know what – made me turn towards the windows and that's when I saw them. Small, blinking red lights reflected along the edges of the glass.

Thankfully Percival had seen them too. Thankfully Percival's combat instincts exceeded both Cade and I's.

He immediately grabbed us by the collars of our jackets and hurled the three of us back over the large, wooden desk, then grabbed it and flipped it over onto its side, putting the surface between us and the window. Red tech armor that was more elaborate than anything I'd ever seen him wear erupted around him, covering him from head-to-toe in an armor-suit of light that looked like it had been ripped right out of Galaxy of Fantasy, along with a large, red omni-shield similar to the one Locke had.

I didn't get a chance to admire it because before I could even draw my next breath, Percival had flung himself over us, pressing us both closely to the floor and bracing himself above us, his shield held over our heads.

The air above us erupted in a shower of fire, glass and metal. The accompanying pressure wave drove Percival hard into us, knocking the wind from both Cade and I, but somehow my friend managed to stay braced.

Eventually it subsided and I felt Percival go limp. Fear and adrenaline flooded through my veins. Cade and I scrambled out from under him.

"Check him!" I screamed at Cade.

"On it!" came Cade's muffled reply. My ears were ringing so hard I could hardly think.

I stood up and immediately brought my hand up to my face as I was hit by a blinding beam of light. The windows and the wall were gone, destroyed in the blast and leaving the apartment exposed to the winds coming in from the outside. My coat whipped around me.

Two large, black hovercars were parked outside of the window, their sides facing us. One of them had their side-door open. The light was coming from inside.

Everything that followed was instinct. I immediately raised my other hand and erected a biotic barrier. A split second later the gunfire came.

Tiny circles erupted around my barrier as it caught their rounds. I took a deep breath to calm myself and waited for their heatsinks to overheat, just like I had trained myself to do so many times. With a few, slow, deep breaths I filled my lungs with the cold, night air. The fear and anger that I had been initially filled with began to cool, becoming something that I could use. With my other hand I pulled out my Talon knife.

My eyes began to adjust to the light and eventually I could see that there were three gunmen standing in the hovercar, unarmored, but firing what looked like modded Revenants.

The rounds stopped. Now was my chance.

I launched myself recklessly into a biotic charge right at the hovercar – a new ability courtesy of Shepard's custom biotic implant.

I slammed into the man in the middle, sending him crashing into the other side of the hovercar. I then whirled faster than they could react, slashing a second man in the back of the neck with my knife and wounding but not killing him. I kicked the third right out of the car itself. Luckily the ringing had subsided enough so that I could hear his screams on the long journey down. I hope with all of my heart that Cade had seen that.

The hover car began to jerk and sway as the driver in the front began to realize what I had done. I stabbed the first man in the heart and then slashed the neck of the second man again for good measure as he was scrambling to try and train a pistol on me. I then wrenched my upper body into the front of the vehicle and stabbed the driver in the neck too. Luckily for me he wasn't armored either.

He pitched forward onto the controls and suddenly the hovercar began to drop. I felt the emergency dampeners kick in to try and slow the descent and I knew I didn't have much time. I leaned over and opened the driver-side door from the inside.

I saw that the other black hovercar was still there, still waiting.

I quickly shoved his body out and then somehow managed to pull myself into the driver seat, grabbing the controls. I brought the hovercar up from its freefall and aimed its nose straight at the bottom of the other black hovercar.

It just barely evaded me. The car was now hovering a few meters away, its windows rolled down.

Someone in a white, full-faced mask was staring back at me from the driver seat of the other vehicle. There were overlapping, black circles drawn over the eye slits and a large, black glascow smile drawn over the bottom half.

They wagged their fingers at me in greeting and then the hovercar sped off.

I heard a noise, and then another. Something was hitting the top of my car and I quickly looked behind me to see if someone was perhaps trying to get in, but there was no one there. Through the open passenger doors I could see Cade still crouched over Percival.

Damn it, there was no time. They were okay. They had to be okay. I stomped on the accelerator and sped after the hovercar.

I weaved in and out of the skylanes, artfully dodging all the hovercars travelling in the opposite direction. The other hovercar was getting closer and closer. There were a decent number of hovercars still in the sky and I was a damn, good pilot, but there was no way I could have been gaining on them. The bastards were toying with me.

As if they could somehow read my mind, the other hovercar suddenly sped up. I cursed and maxed out the accelerator.

"Get in close and I'll hack their car," a synthetized voice suddenly said from beside me.

I looked over to the passenger side and when I saw the source of the voice I nearly yelled.

The shock momentarily caused me to lose focus and the hovercar swayed. I fought to regain the controls and just narrowly managed to avoid colliding head-on with another hovercar. Seated beside me was a slim figure in fancy black armor and a full-faced helmet typing away on an omni-tool unlike any I had ever seen before. Instead of orange, it was silver and was sleeker in profile.

I raised my knife and tried to bring it up to the intruder's neck but she deftly grabbed my wrist and yanked my arm upwards, so that the knife was shoved against the roof of the car. Her gauntlet sparked and my hand spasmed and then went limp, allowing her to pluck it out of my fingers and toss it behind us.

"You b— keep your eyes on the road!" the figure beside me hissed.

I was still extremely confused and I didn't know exactly what to do here, but I figured our goals probably aligned for at least the next the few minutes so I decided to go back to driving. I apologized sheepishly, flexed my fingers a few times and returned my hand to the wheel.

Another figured appeared in my peripheral vision between the black figure and I. The sight of a tiger-sized robotic head with clearly-feline features appeared like a strange hallucination with my knife clamped between metal jaws that were filled with sharp teeth. The only reason why I didn't scream was because my adrenaline was already pumping from the whole encounter.

"Down, Kiki," my unwelcome passenger ordered. "Down."

The robo-cat let out a low purr, dropped the knife in my lap, and then slunk away back to the rear of the hovercar. I slipped it back into the sheath I had across my lower back. What the hell was going on?

"Twenty meters," the stranger ordered.

"What?"

I chanced a quick but careful look. The stranger was clearly a she, and I could see a pair of silver pinpricks of light from behind that black visor. She also had two fingers on each hand. My new friend was a quarian then.

"Get within twenty meters and keep us there for at least five seconds. That's how long I'll need to make the connection and take control of the car."

The wind was howling through the open passenger doors and every second or two I could hear a whir as another hovercar passed us by. I hissed through my teeth. This piece of shit couldn't go any faster than this. "Easier said than done."

The quarian flicked through a few screen on her fancy omni-tool and then tapped a button. "Hang on," she warned cryptically.

The instrument panel of our hovercar suddenly began to go haywire. Buttons and all sorts of warning signs began to flash on the heads-up display and our mass effect drive redlined.

We shot forward, rapidly picking up newfound speed. "We need to connect and then bail in two minutes or less," she warned me.

"Or else what?"

She brought her hands together and then swiftly brought them apart. Behind me her robot cat yowled mournfully.

"Shit!" I cursed. I brought us within the hack-range and began to count to five.

Suddenly the other vehicle swerved and whipped away, causing us to lose connection. I cursed again and shifted directions, trying to get back into range. The quarian didn't so much as flinch. How much time did we have left?

They made a few more haphazard turns through the maze of skyscrapers but I stayed on them. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself and attempted to get into connection range again.

I started counting. They swerved left but I was ready. They then tried to swerve right, but again there I was.

Five.

"Connection established," the quarian told me. Her hand flew across the omni-tool. Ahead of me their vehicle began to jerk and their mass effect drives started to sputter.

A nav marker appeared over a large, wide building with a flat top. "We don't have much time left so I'm putting them down over there. Try to get us down there in one piece!"

The other hovercar tilted and began to head towards the building that had been marked. I followed behind them, doing the best I could to keep control of the rapidly-deteriorating vehicle and trying hard not to think about how much of the two minutes I had left. Truth be told I was starting to not like this quarian.

The quarian caused their vehicle to accelerate at the last minute and then made it pancake against the roof of the building. It slid across it, sending sparks flying everywhere before stopping near the edge of the other side.

We were flying just a few meters above the building and I was busy trying to put us down somewhere close to the hovercar when the quarian suddenly grabbed my shoulder. "Bail!" she hissed, and then before I knew it she had opened the door and flung herself out with her robot cat hot on her heels. What had she called it? Kiki?

I cursed for the billionth time, shouldered the driver door open and followed suit. I managed to slow myself down enough with my biotics so that I didn't shatter half the bones in my body when I hit the roof, but it still hurt like hell when I landed and knocked the wind out of me.

When I began to roll is when I really started to feel it. Why hadn't I decided to just wear my armor? Damn you Cade.

Our hovercar exploded in a shower of blue-ish fire and metal maybe three seconds after I'd gotten out of it, sending a wave of heat careening through the air above me. I didn't really have any time to appreciate it though with the rolling and all. The wreckage scattered everywhere across the rooftop and it was utterly amazing to me that I wasn't hit, cut, or impaled by any of it all.

Eventually I stopped rolling. The taste of copper filled my mouth. I spat to get rid of it and ended up sending a spray of blood misting across the early-morning air. Lovely. The joys of internal bleeding and all.

I pulled myself to my feet and I almost let out a sob when I realized that I didn't have any painkillers or stims on me. The pain was bad enough already even with the adrenaline. In a few hours I bet I'd be screaming.

I looked around. Of course, I was alone and the quarian was nowhere to be seen. My trenchcoat and most of my clothes were in bloody tatters but I still had my knives, my pistol and the shield generator clipped onto my waist. Cursing angrily, I began to head towards the other hovercar lying at the edge of the roof. The front engine compartment was engulfed in fire, and the flames were slowly making their way towards the rest of the car.

A shape was moving somewhere in the wreckage. The driver-side door opened and a figure in a black suit pulled himself out. He doubled-over, placed his hands on his knees and looked as if he were breathing hard. The man was wearing a white, full-faced mask. It was him.

One of the other doors to the hovercar slowly opened with a screech of metal and another man tried to shakily pull himself out. The masked man turned towards the other man and instead of helping him he kicked him in the chest, sending him back into the burning wreck. He then pulled out a pistol and fired a few rounds into the wreck. I could have sworn that I heard a peal of deranged laughter ringing from his direction.

His movements were jerky and he had this twitch in his left hand. Something about the way he moved seemed familiar to me. What had I buried in that graveyard of mine?

I pulled out my pistol and began to shamble towards him, doing my best to be quiet, but there was just no damn cover out here. He saw me coming. He let off a few, panicky shots that zipped over my head and then began running towards a nearby exit.

Shit. I let out a few shots as well but all of them missed wildly. I half-debated using biotic charge to clear the distance but between the obvious concussion, the pain, the internal bleeding and the proximity of the exit to the side of the roof there was a decent chance I'd just end up hurling myself off the building.

Shit. I launched into a half-run. Every step sent pain shooting up my shins and legs and I was about ninety percent sure I'd broken a rib or two, but I wasn't a wimp.

Luckily the other guy seemed like he was banged up pretty badly too. He slipped through the door maybe ten meters and just a few seconds ahead of me.

I wrenched the door open and followed. The crash must have really shaken me up because it took me about three steps in to notice the proximity grenades he'd left stuck on the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

I immediately raised a biotic barrier. A second later the grenades exploded.