Chapter One: Tús
Date: December 2183 (Illium)
"We're not free in what we do because we're not free in what we want."
Martin was trying to enjoy his meal at a small restaurant on Illium. It was in the lower levels of the arcology skyscrapers where the "lower classes" lived. It was a bit more dense than the upper levels where his apartment was, but it was less snobby. There were also fewer Asari and more other Aliens and humans that inhabited these areas. Most of the Asari on the upper levels would take one look at him and give the most sickened expression; few still would even talk to him unless they needed something from the Merc or to chastise him. The only thing Martin considered "good" about Illium was the contracts, corporate or otherwise; they always attracted a heavy fee, and the rich were always willing to pay to have any advantage over their rivals.
Martin was seated in the rear of the restaurant with his back facing the wall and his eyes constantly scanning over the large open room filled with patrons mostly seated, some hanging out by the bar in the corner.
He only ate about half of his steak, and it tasted different than he remembered it used to back on Earth, back in his day. He tried not to think what animal it probably came from or whether it was vat-grown or not. Neither option made him very hungry. The future wasn't as great as some sci-fi authors made it out to be, but then again, it wasn't as bad either. At least there weren't any existence-ending threats that he was aware of, just himself and his shitty choices and those he could probably live with. If he could live long enough.
He didn't want to be on Illium anymore; he was tired of this concrete jungle. Sure, the corporate jobs filled his pockets nicely, but he had to tiptoe around more than he liked. This may have been a Termius world, but it was still an Asari world. They expected a bit more discretion than the Neanderthal firefights Martin generally encountered.
Martin diverted his attention away from his plate and looked out around him to an Asari, dressed rather casually, making her way through the busy restaurant towards him. He made quick eye contact and then dropped quickly to pretend he didn't see her. He sighed, hoping he was wrong about who she was looking to approach.
"Are you Martin Winters?" the soft voice beside him asked. "That depends on who's asking." He replied without looking.
"Athira Kysan, I'm here to discuss an opportunity." Martin leaned back while setting down his utensils, looking up at her. She was of a darker blue color with even darker shapes around her face. He noticed her demeanor was rigid and stiff as if she was forced to communicate with someone she would rather not. This wasn't ahappyoffer but one she'd rather not bother with. He signaled with his right hand that she could sit on the opposite side of the table, which she quickly obliged. Judging by her facial expressions, she seemed a bit surprised.
Athira quickly settled in and pulled herself up to the table. "I am here on behalf of the Andromeda Initiative; I've been told you've heard of us?" Martin quietly shook his head in affirmation. "Yeah, some Ryder character invited me to join a while back, but..." He shrugged off the rest of his statement, wishing not to explain himself.
"Yes, from what I hear, that offer still stands, but that's not why I am here." She crossed her legs and leaned back into her chair. "We would like to hire you for a job; we need you to track someone for us." Martin also leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. "Are we actually talking about tracking or something else?" He questioned, recalling a few other jobs he was burned on due to wording.
"That will depend on the circumstances once this person is found." Martin shook his head in disapproval and sighed heavily. "I'm going to need more than that to go on; I need the complete details."
"Alright," she sighed in return. "We are looking for a Quarian female who may have information to lead us to an artifact we have been searching for. We would like to utilize your services to locate the Quarian and question her about what she knows." Martin shifted himself in the chair and leaned forward slightly over the table. He was deep in thought for a moment, trying to read between the lines... if there were any.
Martin tilted his head slightly while raising one eyebrow. "So, You want to hire a bounty hunter to hunt someone who is withholding information from you? Is this person going to put up a fight? Is this a friendly chat, or is this going to get physical?"
Athira took a deep breath, her back now firm against the back of the chair. Martin could see she was withholding something from him; the pause told him much more than she realized. "We don't know, but assume she won't just give up the information without some persuasion. We don't care how you get the information, but we need it regardless."
"Well, I don't make it a habit to go around smacking women around if that's what you're asking me to do." Martin smiled slightly at his joke, but seemed to fall short of entertaining the Asari. He quickly cleared his throat and changed the subject. "I'm going to need the name and last whereabouts." Her stone-faced demeanor didn't change, which worried him. Maybe she just reconsidered the offer. Or perhaps she was dumbstruck by his poor joking skills.
"I'll send you everything we have, and by the way, I'll be your handler for this mission, so I'll expect updates regularly." Her stern demeanor wasn't what he was used to, at least with Asari. Most of them on Illium, who would try to convince him to take a job or attempt to sell him something, would always try to be more... flirtatious. They'd usually wear something more revealing and talk in a manner where you'd catch the wrong impression if you squinted enough.She must be a government hire. Martin thought to himself. Her personality was too stiff to be from Illium. Martin gave her a quick nod as Athira stood up from the table and walked away.
Martin returned his attention back to his half-eaten food and sighed heavily. "Welp, at least she was friendlier than the food."
After his disappointing meal, he returned to his apartment building and rode the elevator to his floor. The elevator opened, and he walked down the windowed hallway to his doorway. Martin pulled out his keycard from his pocket only to notice that the door was already unlocked. He waited there for a moment and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and drawing his pistol from his hip. He punched the door mechanism, and the door opened. Standing in his living room was an Asari, a rather tall one, decked out in complete combat kit and reading from one of his data tablets. Her eyes met his as she began to smile.
"Interesting stuff in these; you should probably code-lock your diaries." She menacingly quipped. Martin walked in the doorway, closing and locking the door behind him. His blood was boiling, and his face felt like steel, stiff and unmoving. "I wouldn't have guessed the most terrifying apeman on Illium would be such a softy." Martin raised his pistol slightly and fired a round into the floor right by her foot. The deafening sound made the Asari recoil as Martin made his move and rushed her, picking her up by the waist and slamming her into the wall by the unlit fireplace, the force of which expelled the air from her lungs in a gasily fashion. He held one arm to her throat, and the other held the pistol, which he shoved into her gut. "Start talking bitch!" He snarled through his teeth.
"You... should know better." Martin's eyebrows dropped in a confused manner. Only realizing she was a biotic. She blasted him in the chest, which sent him flying across the room and into the kitchen's bar with a thud. He sat upright against the bar, trying to recover his lost breath from the impact.
"Yeah, they said you'd have trouble with fighting someone with biotics." She walked toward Martin as he tried to get back onto his feet using the bar as support. The Asari took two giant steps and socked Martin on the side of the head with her fist. It stunned him, but only for a moment. "You punch like a bitch." Martin grumbled as he stood the rest of the way up. The Asari reached for the pistol on her hip and noticed it was gone. She quickly looked behind her and realized Martin had somehow disarmed her earlier without her notice.
She took a few steps back angrily, and her right hand began glowing blue. Martin sprang forward again, ducking the punch, stepping a leg behind her, and sweeping her head over ass to the ground with his arm. He quickly jumped on top of her, holding her down with his body weight. "Who the fuck sent you!" She refused to speak. He used his right hand, grabbed her head fringe thing, and slammed her head into the floor. He waited a few moments, but she continued her silence.
"If you know anything about me, then you know if I can't get what I want, you are worthless!" Martin angrily explained. He lifted her head and slammed it down one more time when a cracking glass-shattering sound ripped through his living room window. Martin immediately rolled off her, dove behind his couch, and grabbed his pistol on the floor as several more shots landed around him, tearing up his apartment.
The sniper fire stopped, and the sound of footsteps approached. "Next time when you have the chance to kill someone, Don't hesitate." The Asari murmured. Martin turned onto his side and fired the remaining seven rounds through the couch when he saw the blue head peering over the top. The loud, successive bangs rang back and forth off the apartment's walls. Her eyes widened as she stumbled backward, thumping onto the ground. "Thanks for the advice asshole."
The shots from outside started again, shooting through the couch as Martin tried to turn himself around and crawled on his stomach toward the bedroom. He needed his rifle; his pistols were worthless. The rounds kept coming, ricocheting off of everything, throwing shrapnel everywhere. Finally, it stopped again, and Martin moved, leaping up, bouncing off the wall, and diving into the bedroom. He headed for the closet and pulled out his rifle, resting on the top shelf. "Like shooting fish in a barrel, right?" he unfolded the rifle and cocked the charging handle. "Well, this fish believes in the Second Amendment."
Martin headed to the large bedroom window and pushed it open. The hot air rushed into the apartment, almost taking his breath away. He peeked his head out, seeing the balcony a floor down. He smiled, "Welp, I hope the neighbors aren't home." Martin slung his rifle on his back and climbed out the window, lowering himself before letting go. He landed on the balcony and approached the door to the apartment. It was locked, so he used the butt of his rifle to shatter the glass and walked through. Another Asari, looking distraught, turned to the sweaty human in her living room. "What are you doing? Get out of my apartment!" she screamed frantically.
"Lady, do you make a habit of yelling at armed men? It would be smarter to, you know, run." Martin quipped. This asari began to back up, turned, and ran for the door, "You'll be hearing from my lawyer!" she yelled from the hall.
"I hope he has a gun too!" he yelled back at the fleeing asari. "He'll need it."
Martin slid the couch a little closer to the windows, rested his rifle on the back of the sofa, and began scanning the building across the way. A few moments passed without seeing the shooter until a light glint from a window caught Martin's eye. "Amateur," he said softly. The target wasn't too far away, thankfully. Martin adjusted his scope slightly above his target and to the right and fired at the Shooter, sitting comfortably at a table where his rifle was resting. His shot penetrated the closed window in front of him and knocked some pictures off the room's wall. However, he was affixed to the sniper, watching the impact, the blood splatter behind him, and watching the body slump over and fall out of the chair.
Feeling quite satisfied with his victory, he left the apartment and headed for the elevator back to his room.
He walked back into his wrecked apartment, bullet holes scattered everywhere. Bits of wall shattered lamps and liquid all over the floor and countertops. He walked over to the Asari lying dead on the floor with its eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Blood pooled on the floor, and the wind whistled through the holes in the glass windows.
He bent down next to the corpse, taking care not to dirty his boots, and tried to access her omni-tool. Martin heard the clattering of boots coming from outside the apartment door. "Goddamn it." He stood just in time for a squad of bodies to fill the room.
"Hands up, Human!" A Turian yelled and pointed his service weapon at him. The crowd of aliens began to surround him from almost every angle. "You guys make it a habit of pointing weapons at victims around here?" Martin jokingly suggested.
"Ugh," the lighter-skinned Asari, who had just walked into the room, let out. It had to be you, human."
"You know, for once, I'd like to be referred to by my name and nothuman. Is that too much to ask? Officer."
The Asari approached him and looked past the body on the floor. "Not when there's a dead body on the floor." she quipped back.
Martin stepped out of the way and down the corpse at his feet. He rubbed the back of his neck and breathed deeply. "Yeaaah, that," he said elongatedly. She turned to him questioningly. "You have thirty seconds to explain."
Martin looked around the room at the other officers with their weapons still drawn on him. "I shot her?" Martin shrugged. "I can see that, smart-ass; why?"
"She was in my apartment when I got back from lunch; she attacked, and I was better," Martin stated as he turned back towards the body. Bira signaled to the other officers to lower their weapons.
"Martin, I'm really starting to get sick and tired of cleaning up after you." He chuckled under his breath as he stepped away from the corpse. "Well, this time wasn't my fault. At least, I don't think."
"Is there anything else I should know?" He let out an airy sigh and walked over to the shattered windows. "There's a dead guy with a rifle on that tower." He pointed.
"Damnit," she looked over at one of her officers. "Derek, building two-twenty-seven." The Turian nodded, and three of the officers left the apartment.
"I need you to come to the station... if I have to deal with this, the least you can do is fill out the paperwork."