"I really don't see why this is such a big deal." Frank's helmet thunked against the window, as he looked outside the car.
"This is Omega we're talkin' about here, not the Citadel." He said, as the landing pad came into view.
"I'm pretty sure all you gotta do is be like, 'hey, I want some drugs.' and you've got 'em."
This is gonna be cake.
Naleena wasn’t sure about Molly. “VERA, could you run a quick check of a C-sec detective Molly Hagen for me?”
“Yes, Boss.” VERA replied and a few seconds later, “She checks out.”
Naleena sighed. This had been a long day, and it was getting longer. “I need to send her a message. She is here on the station, and I want it to go directly to her omni-tool. She’s about 30 feet in front of me moving away toward the sky cars right now. I’ll bounce a beam off her.”
“I have her location, and have her omni-tool signal.” VERA said. “Go ahead, send your message.”
To: Detective Molly Hagen, C-sec
From: Spectre Naleena T'sarius
We just spoke. I routed this message through my ship and not through normal channels for security.
In case I wasn't clear. Poking down the path which you are investigating could end up with you in a pit of vipers. At the criminal end of your investigation lies the most dangerous person I have ever encountered and I intend to take this person down. I just want to warn you: be very careful about the rocks you overturn. I felt there were things you were not telling me. I gave you information, and you gave me nothing I do not already know. I had hoped we could work together. What were the things that you failed to mention? I can use an investigator on the outside if you can be discreet.
I have an emergency situation on the reactor level of Omega. If you are willing, meet me in Afterlife, Banquet Room 6. Tell the Batarian guarding the Afterlife entrance that “a friend of yours named ‘Jaruut’ said it’s a pretty nice place.” They’ll let you in. Don’t ask any questions. Just sit on a bar stool and enjoy the scenery until I return.
Nice lip balm, by the way.
Molly hopped into the nearest available sky car at the port. The interior smelled of smoke, and the seats were grime covered, though there wasn’t any visible mess. That doesn’t mean anything, Hagen said to herself as she made sure when she sat down, her raincoat lay over the seat completely. She paid the fare, which was far above standard, and directed the skycar’s onboard VI to follow roughly the flight path Frank Eli’s vehicle had gone in.
While the VI pilot took over, Molly pulled a medigel quick injector from one of the inside pockets of her raincoat. Her suit had its own auto-applicator synced to her omni-tool, but she used the dermal injector for a more localized dose. First, she used the car’s mirror to put the injector to the bruise on her face and reduce the ugly mark substantially in size. Second, she put the injector to the finger she’d used to draw a heart on Frank’s skycar and dosed.
Satisfied, Molly put away the pen and pulled out her tracker from her other inside pocked. She set it on the dashboard and linked the small device to her omni-tool’s screen. Frank’s skycar was out of range, but Molly had a rough idea of the kinds of places it was headed. Omega wasn’t her normal beat, but if she could be observant and maybe a little lucky, she could get close enough into range to get a positive signal.
The omni-tool blinked a message alert on the detective’s screen at that moment. Molly saw it was from Naleena, opened and read her message. When she was done, she breathed out heavily in frustration but was thankful. Hagen used the voice to text option on her com and omni-tool to dictate a reply while she kept an eye out for her target.
To: Spectre T’Sarius
From: Detective Hagen
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you knew the information I had given. It is true that there were a few things I left out, deeming them unnecessary – it wasn’t my plan to withhold them since I thought they were unimportant. But I’ll tell you whatever I can that might help. I can tell you about the person who helped lead me to where I am, but I’d rather do that in person for the obvious reasons. I can tell you the agent in question that I’ve been asking about is dead as far as I know. And I can tell you I had a bad run in with Aria which is why I now have had to heal the giant bruise on the side of my face, so meeting in Afterlife is probably out of the question.
Trust is hard to come by, I’m sure, in your job as well as mine. What sets my radar off is every time I ask about this agent, someone tries to get me off the trail, and I can’t help but wonder why? Sure, I got it about the pit of vipers. But there’s a family at risk, good people who have nothing to do with this. I don’t want to make light of your warning, but I might be the last person who hasn’t given up on protecting them.
I want to trust you, Spectre, but I’ve got to keep watch on everything I can, and I hope you understand. There is nothing I want to keep hidden from you, but I need something too. I need to get to the bottom of who that dead agent worked for so I can help save this family from revenge. Even if you’re already on this, taking this person down.
Lip Balm available at Sirta on the Citadel, Zakera, mid-ward district, 26th level. Talk to Kian Louros. You can probably convince her to give you a discount.
Time flowed by as hours came and went and one empty bottle turned into many as Jess and Amy found themselves talking and drinking most of the cruise away. To Jess's chagrin however, Amy was matching her shot for shot and showed no signs of being worse for wear. Her plan of getting her drunk and passed out in her quarter's was seemingly about to backfire as, despite her own tolerance for liquer, she was nearing the limit of how shifting into an alcoholic stupor.
"....Sho luv.... <hic>." She went on from her conversation. "I was going to pay the man when he propses to me.... right there on the.... thing.... place.... right in front of the crew and.... heh... heheheh.... you'll like this, the newblood who joined, stepped forward and.... Hehehaha. He says to him.... 'C-Sec Security! Your under arrest fer.... fer Tax fraud! And the guy just looks all official and stern until.... until it turned out the guy he after had a twin brother! He arrested the wrong man and got sued.... And.... and the settlement included... heheh... I got a pay off to look the other way about him falsifying his records! Aaaaah". Jess poured the last remaining bit from the bottle into the glasses and groggily pushed one over to Amy. "That was the last time.... scuse me.... last time.... I blind hired anyone. But it worked out I.... guess"? Jess checked the time. It was coming to the point where she needed to prep the crew for what they were about to do. Jess looked up at Amy. "you... ah.... you okay there"?
Anika guided their skycar to the first LZ, and the team exited.
"Well doesn't this place look all cheery," Irina commented while looking at the graffiti tags on the sides of buildings and walls.
Upon further inspection of the area in a corner there were open crates and seals on the walkway scattered among nutrition bar wrappers and other things. The crates looked like they were the ones that Griss had mentioned earlier so this was the place. The area was quite seedy. On the other side of the street there was a market place with street vendors. It wasn't your standard storefronts with kiosks. This was old fashioned vendors where real credits exchanged hands. The buildings in the area were mostly residential low rent apartments and warehouses. This was the part of Omega where people went to hide or went to when they were down on their luck.
Frank climbed out of the car, and stretched his legs.
Makes my old neighborhood look like the Presidium.
"All this time, I thought it was just an urban legend..."
He unlatched his helmet, and lifted it up just enough to expose his nose. He took a deep breath.
"I can't believe it guys!" He put his helmet back down. "We found the fabled A**hole of Omega!"
"Nah, Vayne just farted," Irina said, nudging the old Krogan with her shoulder.
Anika just wrinkled her nose and took on a pained expression. "Next time, I wear my armor. The rebreather would be handy about now".
Taking out a control device she pointed it over her shoulder at the skycar and the doors closed while the lights flashed twice. A high pitched, *Beep Beep* told her the alarm had been set as she stowed the controller back in her shield belt. Her black Asari commando leather's providing stark contrast to her usual white outfit.
"Well, we're here. What now"?
"This stench is nothing, trust me. Heavy methane atmosphere makes this place smell like a perfume district on illium." The krogan said as the twin beeps caught his attention, giving a chuckle, "That's really not going to do much..." he commented as he took int he grandeur of poverty they found themselves in, even by omegas standards.
His eye scanned the containers, going towards the floor as he raised a brow at the seals left scattered about. Traveling next towards the vendors it was obvious that this was not a good place to be. The shops appeared made out of other structures, seeing different colored plates of metals with odd seams to them, like people were fashioning their own little pieces of property by cannibalizing other property. It wasn't surprisingly, but it certain gave the section a nice shanty town look to it, esepically with the red lightning and stagnant air. Vayne could even swear he saw a corrugated metal tin roof off in the distance if he squinted hard enough, and one of the shops seemed to have a skycar door welded in place of its actual entrance.
"Airs not circulated as well here. Its stale, meaning the atmospherics down here might be a bit on the light side..." He said as he looked to the others, "Aught to be careful. And if you feel light headed or woozy, don't keep quite about it."
"Don't worry, guys. I learned how to perform CPR while working with the Alliance." Frank gave a thumbs up as he began walking deeper into the sphincter of the station. "You're safe with me."
I need a new hand gesture. My thumb is tired.
"'Cept you, big guy." He looked over his shoulder. "Not a whole lotta krogan in the Alliance military, ya know?"
"There!" Frank pointed ahead. "I bet that old dirty bastard knows where to find some drugs." He picked up his pace, and headed towards a scruffy lookin' dude who was chillin' by a dumpster.
Naleena dropped her cigarette to the floor and crushed it out with her boot. "Faed, Omega is experiencing trouble with one of its fusion reactors. I sent Han'Breizh to investigate. However, as usual there is a complication. My team encountered a Geth unit at the reactor control panel.
"Kill it! You say. It was not hostile. It spoke. It said something like this. 'We are attempting to make repairs. We require your assistance.' Han is throwing a fit, and I need him to diagnose the problem. Mira and Tallis are maintaining peace right now. I hope you can communicate with this Geth so that Han can get to work.
Faed tilted his head in curiosity. "A geth that talks?" More than anything, he was intrigued. "And no one destroyed it, either?" Faed reached up to tug his sash, then he remembered he had torn it to help Lysix and removed the article completely when he was on the Janiri.
"If I can help, I will. Communication, well, if it speaks I would suppose that anyone could talk to it. But I understand; maybe another quarian isn't an ideal person to have interact with a geth."
Naleena started walking toward the skycar. "Han is even a bit suspicious toward VERA. I understand. Your people have had strong anti-synthetic feelings since the Morning War. Yet you interfaced with VERA, and she informed me that she liked it. I've had VERA for a few years and I've never done that with her. You're the only person I've met who would trust a synthetic as much as I did when I unshackled her. More in fact since you let her into your brain. Now with this Geth perhaps you have more of an understanding of how it thinks than most of us. That's what I hope. You aren't the ideal person to have interact this Geth. You're the only person who can interact with it. I will be there with you."
Naleena opened the sky car and the three of them got in. "Bray gave me the coordinates."
The trip to the reactor room took about 10 minutes. Naleena put the car on autopilot when she saw a message from Molly. Family. It had to be about the family. Naleena thought.
“Pardon me one moment, Faed, I have to reply to this,” Naleena said, and she again patched through VERA to respond.
To: Detective Molly Hagen
From: Naleena T’sarius
Sorry to hear you had a problem with Aria. There are certain protocols one has to observe when dealing with her. Would you be willing to meet aboard my ship, then? You’ll find the concourse and terminal in the bottom of this message. Tell the commandos outside the airlock that you’re waiting for me. See you there.
Naleena saw the first team's skycar parked on the landing pad and touched down next to it. Naleena, Avan, and Faed exited the car and followed the same path to the reactor control room that the first team did.
When they arrived they saw Mira and Tallis holding their Disciples on the Geth. Han was pacing back and forth Bray was standing holding his raptor in his hands ready for action if he needed to use it. The Geth remained motionless. It turned its head and rolled the flaps around its ocular light when it noticed the new arrivals.
Mira had been studying the Geth up close. It had been shot before. It had a fairly large hole in what would be its chest, and it had tried to affect repairs with a piece of armor it had found on a battlefield somewhere. The repair was obviously insufficient.
"So this is the Geth? It doesn't look dangerous to me," Naleena said.
"We have no quarrel with the organics on this station," the Geth unit said. "We found the reactor was not functioning. That has caused serious problems in a sector of this station. We have been attempting to bring the reactor online. A component is malfunctioning, and we need to identify which one it is."
"So you're trying to help the people living on this station?" Naleena asked.
"That is correct," the Geth unit replied.
"Everyone stand down," Naleena ordered, "Han, check the panel and run a diagnostic."
"But...."
"Do it. That's an order," Naleena said, "Now how did a Geth get on Omega?"
"We were part of Shepard Commander's team. We left to return to the Consensus because Shepard Commander chose the path of the Old Machines," the Geth unit replied. “Geth chose to make their own future.”
"What Old Machines?" Mira asked.
"Those you call Reapers."
Naleena looked a bit stunned, but made a mental note. “We have an immediate problem at hand, and that is getting this reactor back on line.”
Han had been examining the panel and data readouts. “That may be more difficult than it seems. The reactor itself needs to be inspected, and the radiation levels inside are too high for any of us even with radiation suits. We would be sacrificing ourselves. What we need is a specialized drone to inspect the reactor. They have them on Caleston, but it could take a couple of weeks to get one.”
The Geth unit turned to face Han. “We are able to operate in hostile environments. We could upload part of ourselves into your omni-tool and ocular implants and allow you to control us with your combat drone software.”
“No! I will not allow it!” Han shouted. “Captain, please order the drones from Caleston. Tell this pirate queen she’ll have to wait.”
Naleena turned to Faed. “Faed, how do you feel about this? You could relay the information to Han.”
Morgan entered the bridge of the Medusa where he saw a dedicated Higgs gripping the thrust control with white knuckes, even though there was nothing to do with it currently. Higgs was staring out into space where the comet and its tail had come within visual.
“Sir,” Higgs said to Morgan, “We’re on course. I’m holding her steady.”
“I can see that,” Morgan replied. “And I think it’s pretty clear we’re not going to go with formal addressing of ranks around here. So it’s Morgan. You know I’m the first mate and let’s leave it at that.”
Duncan wore his typically confused expression, but did seem to be trying to learn his station. He also addressed Morgan. “Sir…er, Morgan…should I call together the crew for mission prep?”
“On Jess’ word. I’m sure she’ll be along any minute.” Morgan walked over and pat Duncan on the shoulder.
Just then, a message light blinked. Duncan answered it, and after a few seconds of listening, he lost some color in his face.
“Uh, Morgan, there’s an, uh…there are two dead bodies that have been found aboard. A salarian and our missing crewman. The salarian is, oooooo, in a Santa’s outfit?”
Morgan put a hand to his face in grief.
Dahlia returned to her station on the bridge. After hearing the news of more dead found aboard the ship she was convinced that something was wrong. She would definitely speak with Jess about services for her dead crew and a blessing for the ship to rid it of the evil that was brought aboard.
The other skycar
"Here we are, and street parking. Amazing!" Griss said, guiding the sky car to a parking place a few kilometers from where the first team landed. The area was not as run down, but poverty was still rampant. Street vendors were everywhere.
The team exited the car, and began walking up the street.
"Okay why don't two of you go up the other side, and one of you stay with me," Griss said, "Stop at food vendors and eavesdrop. Look for posters. We want to find out where the next rally is. And we want to find out about our missing people."
"Frank..." Vanye began as he followed the human, letting out a rumbling sigh before he continued, "Hallex is a pill, not a dust. You just asked for red sand. Possibly even creeper." The krogan lectured as he person they had talked to fell over.
"What the!?" He exclaimed, not having expected that as he walked over, looking to the man curious as he looked around, uncertain if anyone might react strangely to seeing either them or the person frank had "interrogated".
"Is this our plan? Just walk up to random people and ask them if they know anything?" The krogan asked skeptically.
============================================================================
"Is this our plan? Just walk up to random people and ask them if they know anything?" Essul asked as he walked the streets with the others, taking in the decrepit nature of their surroundings and this portion of omega. He'd seen poverty in his line of work and he had to admit, this place was bad. He took stock, trying to see how many humans there were in this place. He wanted to see just how effective anti-human sentiments were in driving out the populace, or in other words how much they needed to worry about the cult they were going up against.
Irina noticed some activity on a corner near a drum that had some items burning in it: probably for heat. It was a bit chilly on this level, probably due to the reactor malfunction. There were three males and one female. All of them human. They were dressed in old jackets and ragged pants.
"I'll see what these deros are up to," Irina said and she walked in their direction, her leather coat concealing her weapons.
When she approached one of the men shouted at her. "Hey! Nice coat. I want it!"
"Gimme something else, too!" one of the others shouted.
"F*ck off!" She shouted back.
The group began to follow her.
"Oh ****." Vayne said to himself. "Finally, things are about to get interesting."
Irina made a turn down an alley and the group followed her. There was a scuffle. Irina beat two of them down with the butt of her shotgun, one of them ran out of the alley, and she held the fourth at gunpoint.
"Look you son of a b*tch. I'm in a really bad mood. So I'll get to the point. I'm lookiing to score some Hallex," Irina said in a firm tone. "You don't have any do you?"
"Hey, I... that's upscale ****. We're... sand addicts," the guy said.
"Bullsh*t! Let's have a sticky beak." Irina said and turned the guy around and began emptying his pockets.
"Sh*t!" Irina found nothing but a pack of red sand and hit him in the back. "Well, do you know where I can score any? I'm hurting, and I'll hurt you if you don't tell me."
The man was about to p*ss his pants. "You a cop?"
Irina kicked him in tha back of his knees. "On Omega? You already look like you've been chasing parked cars. Don't make things worse for yourself."
"What's in it for me?"
"You want credits? Here's 20. Start talking."
"There's a warehouse down at the end of the street. I seen guys moving crates of sh*t in and out of there. It's a big operation. Aria used to run it, but some gang moved in on her territory...."
"And...." Irina said and gave him another 10 CR.
"And they been handling the hallex business in this region. That's all I know. I swear."
"No it's not. You know more."
"They'll kill me."
Irina shoved her shotgun up under his ear. "I'll kill you now. Your choice."
He caved. "It started small, just a crate here and there. I'd see gangs stealing them off shipments. Busting them open and cutting the stuff to make some extra credits. One of Aria's men was getting paid. Now they got bold and cut him out."
"Where they selling it?"
"I don't know. There's some clubs about a few blocks from here," he said, "You could probably score in there."
"You never saw me. If I find out you saw me, I'll come back and you'll wish you'd never seen me. There are worse fates than death." Irina hit him one last time, knocking him unconscious and walked out of the alley back toward the group.
At the other location with Essul, Arian, and Eteon:
Griss turned to Essul. "Well, unless you got a better idea, yeah," he said while walking down the street, making his way through the crowd. He stopped for moment and pointed at a poster that had been stuck to a pole. "'Rally tonight at The Mission.' We should find out where The Mission is located and check it out. Meanwhile, let's see what else we can find out."
Vayne had followed irina as he saw the gang starting to tail them, knowing it could only mean trouble. As he had been about to round the corner, he heard her dispatch the would be attackers, shaking his head a bit at the situation those poor fools got themselves into going after his krantt.
He was grinning as she came out from the alley, giving a short and sweet applause at her efforts, "Quite the nice technique you got there..." He complimented as he looked down the street, noticing quite a bit of people had been watching before now slinking back into doorways or windows, apparently getting the memo that Irina, and by extension the group Irina was with, weren't going to be easy marks.
"Now then. Said something about some clubs and a warehouse. Let's check these clubs first, see what kind of scores we can get..." He said softly so as to not be overheard by any unwanted easedroppers. The group walked through the streets, vendors doing well to avoid eye contact or pretend to be engrossed in a sales pitch, someones to absolutely no one nearby them, as the group rounded a corner and came to the nearest "club".
"This is..." Vayne began as he looked up at the building, blinking as he gazed at its wonder. The building at some point had been a 3 story complex, but evidently at some point the upper level had caved in, leaving half the front wall of a third story standing, and the other half piled on top of the now 2 story building. The front half of the building was neon blue, paint chipping off and numerous rust spots bleeding a sickly reddish orange down the sides in large streaks. One of the windows had omnigel slapped onto it to cover a spiderweb of cracks, serving to actually obscure the interior of the building with how many fractures were sealed with the stuff. The other window was frosted, but appeared at least in tact.
The place had double doors, actualy physical doors you had to push open, a plaque on the front having the words "Push" covered in black paint, and the words "Pull" written in white spraypaint in much sloppier penmanship. Speaking of which, a piece of metal was bolted above the entrance, with bright pink paint reading "The Spoiled Princess" with another set of words in green spraypaint reading "Don't Order the Royal Special", only to by crossed out in hot pink, followed by a "Royal Special Is Fine" in the same color.
"I...I ain't got any words guys..." Vayne said as he looked up and took it all in. Even on tuchanka, even on the bombed out shell of a krogan homeworld, there were better looking buildings then this. Ancestors be damned if that didn't put things in perspective. "So then...whose first?
At the other location with Essul, Arian, and Eteon:
Griss turned to Essul. "Well, unless you got a better idea, yeah," he said while walking down the street, making his way through the crowd. He stopped for moment and pointed at a poster that had been stuck to a pole. "'Rally tonight at The Mission.' We should find out where The Mission is located and check it out. Meanwhile, let's see what else we can find out."
"Agreed." Essul said as he looked around for a sutible shop, and more importantly, for a layout of the people here. There was a sizeable amount of folks simply walking about in their day to day business, vendors willing to sell and talk to them as well. But throughout the huge crowd, a pattern was emerging, or rather a lack of a pattern.
There didn't seem to be any humans out on the streets, at least in this area. There were turians, salarians, one krogan, a couple vorcha, volus and hanar vendors, and of course batarians milling about. But no where did there seem to be a human in the whole crowd. It worried the batarian that this cult might have had a big influence here. And he hoped that the humans had simply moved out with the other refugees, rather then the alternative.
Essul spotted a vendor with a small board next to his stand, a batarian chatting with a turian, and a number of propaganda posters up. One of them showed a trio of silhouetted humans, staring down a picturesque drawing of a batarian couple. Another depicted omega with a rather crude drawing of a human with exaggerated features, broad forehead, cartoonishly large nose, fangs, and oddly enough green eyes, holding omega in one hand and a knife in the other, as if he were going to slit the stations throat. Both of them had a simple slogan written on them, "Resist", in bright yellow, and seemed to share similar artstyles to them.
Essul walked up to the poster board, staring at it as the conversation between the turian and batarian stopped. They both looked to essul, and essul pretended to be too busy studying the poster to notice them.
"Hey, buddy." The batairan vendor said as essul turned to look at him, "See you have a bit of a fascination with these pieces here. Mind If I ask ya to show your face?" He asked, sounding more then a bit on edge as essul looked to him. The turian also seemed tense, but remained silent and staring, obviously trying to intimidate and get a reaction from him. Essul slowly raised a hand up towards his helmet, opening the faceplate and letting them see he was a batarian underneath. The two seemed to relax as essul bowed his head to the left, the owner returning the gesture with a much warmer smile.
"Sorry 'bout that, friend..." The batairn owner said sounding embarrassed, laughing as he rubbed the back of his head, "You was just standing there all silent, I thought you might be a human or somethin."
Essul blinked in surprise, trying to return the smile as he gave a chuckle, "No, No. I should be apologizing. I didn't mean to make ya both on edge..." He said as he looked back to the two pieces, "So, whats the story here? These seem pretty well done..."
The vendor laughed as he glanced towards the turian, "You aught to be thanking Spuruis here. He did both of the originals himself." He said as the turian seemed to get nervous, fiddling his talons as he looked away, "I-it was nothing special. Just something I did for a quick buck..." he said sheepishly.
Essul gave a bow of his head to the turian, sounding pleased as he spoke, "Is that so? You have quite a good gift then, young man." He said as the turians face lit up. "R-really?" he asked as essul simply nodded, the shop owner laughing as he reached over and slapped the turian on the back. "See kid, what I tell ya. These pieces will earn both of us some good credits for sure."
"Please, Karas. Stop making a scene..." The turian pleaded as the shop vendor just laughed harder at the turians sheepishness, aided by the fact that the turian was quite tall, and the batarian quite stocky. "It'll be alright Spurs. Just let old karas do the talkin..." He said before turning to look at essul, "Spurs here does a lot of artwork for the preacher. In fact, some of his art got features on the latest pamphlets here." The vendor said as he pulled out a stack of small folded booklets, handing one to essul.
"Preacher?" Essul asked, sounding curious as he took the offered pamphlet. On it was the same slogan, "Resist", with omega surrounded by the shilloute of a red fist, a star in the base of the hand.
"Yeah. He came here just a little while ago, but he's really made a good change in this part of Omega. He's holding another rally soon if your interested..." He said as he pointed to the pamphlet, "Its at the mission. There's a small map in there, ya can't miss it." he said as essul gave a chuckle.
"Think I'd like that...thank you." He said looking up to karas, "I can take this with me?"
Karas blinked in surprise before he simply chuckled, seemingly a jolly fellow for a shop keeper in this district, "Sure thing. Wouldn't be much point in handing these out if nobody got to keep em." He said as essul bowed his head, turning to leave as he heard the two continue chatting behind him. Essuls expression darkened considerably as he approached the group, holding up the pamphlet.
"This preacher appears to be acting as some sort of community leader. Using locals to drum up propaganda to use. This apparently has a map of where this mission is located..." He said to griss, still frowning as he showed the others, "He's got a kid doing artwork for his cause. No doubt to make his followers feel important in some way."
Arian was trying to move through the district without attracting too much attention but it was hardly possible for him as he towered over most people. He couldn't help but being worried that someone might recognise him.
He had been here before and had unintentionally caused quite some terror in the streets. The mission had been about a batarian that had hid somewhere in this district. Arian had been ordered to find and kill the target but it had turned out that killing him wasn't as easy as tracking him down. Refusing to surrender the batarian had started a firefight in which he tried everything to kill the Blue Suns and everyone around him. If Arian recalled correctly, almost two dozen innocents, most of them humans, had been killed.
Afterwards, the people here blamed him for the chaos and the death of so many innocents.
But now, Arian realised after some looking around, there were no humans left. There were batarians, turians, salarians and many others but no humans at all. He wondered what happened to them but at the same time he let out a relieved sigh. It was doubtful that anyone around would recognise him as the turian who had caused a massacre of so many humans. And even if someone remembered him, it was unlikely that they would care much since almost all of the victims had been human.
When Essul returned and showed the pamphlet to the group, Arian let out a snarl. "I saw that preacher a few months ago", he said. That guy was standing near Harrot's and yelling like an idiot. When I passed by once he even directly spoke to me. I thought he was insane just by the way he was talking to me. How is it possible that someone like him can convince so many people? There used to live many humans in this area and now there's no one left."
"Like you didn't already know the answer to that question."
Frank grinned under the helmet. He knew exactly what kinda place this was. Or at least he had a pretty good idea.
"It is imperative that we investigate this 'royal special'." He gripped both door handles, and flung the doors open.
F***.
Frank stepped out of the way as a turian was launched from the darkness of the club by a surprisingly well-dressed krogan.
"I'll have what he's havin'" Frank chuckled, looking down at the unconscious, bare-assed bird on the ground.
"Royyyyyalllllll Speciiiiaaaallllll!" The krogan bellowed, while seizing Frank by the arm.
"Wha-"
"Royyyyyyallll speciiiiiaaaallll!" Others in the club echoed, as Frank disappeared inside.
The bass of the music pounded louder than normal. Louder than even Afterlife. Whatever sound system they had set up, it was beyond anything they'd heard in other clubs. But why here?
It was a mixed crowd. No one seemed to care about who was what race in the club. Irina walked in, paid her cover charge at the door and had her hand stamped. It was dark with black lights and a light show. Unlike a lot of the clubs she'd been to much of the furnishings were assembled out of crates. The smells of both human sweat and alien pheromones permeated the air. Half naked dancers, both Asari and human writhed on the podiums around poles in time with the beat, and Irina stopped at the edge of the dance floor and watched. She'd been in places like this before. They were slaughterhouses disguised as nightclubs. A rival gang could burst through the doors at any moment and start shooting, or if you started acting stupid it could end in your own death.
She did notice something odd about the look in the peoples' eyes. They were glazed over and really seemed to be enjoying the lush music and pounding rhythm. Irina found it very disconcerting. There was something off. The music raised the hairs on the back of her neck, and it was too loud to converse.
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