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"Private dick."
"Pri-what now?"
"You know? Private investigator?"
"Private?"
"When you don't want to go to the cops."
"There aren't any cops on Omega."
"Tell me about it."
There was a long pause. "Dick?"
She looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "Pity. I was starting to like you."
He turned his back on the bar and scanned the room, easing himself to his full height. She watched his eyes flicker systematically, near, far, near, far. Then he turned back abruptly and settled onto his elbows again. He waved at the bartender. "Serrice Ice. Warm the glass. Leave the bottle."
The bartender raised an eyebrow but complied.
"Can you even drink this?" she asked.
"It's for you."
"Is this your idea of an apology?"
"It is."
"What for?"
"This."
He slipped his hands around her and lifted her off the barstool. Up, up, at the end of his long arms. Shocked, recovering, she wound up to kick him in the face with her fancy heels but stopped. From her vantage she could see the disturbance propagating from the door.
He lowered her gently behind the bar. The bartender was already crouching there. She figured it might be a good idea to follow his example. She reached up for the bottle. Her hand closed around a warm claw.
"Sorry, uh..." he peered down at her.
"Shepard," she supplied.
"Pleasure. I'm going to need that." He handed her the glass instead.
"And you are...?"
"Oh, uh..."
A screech of rage came from the door. Nails on the chalkboard crossed with fingers on glass. "Archangel! Face me!" Three, maybe four vorcha, hissing and spitting.
"Excuse me," he said. She saw his arm blur, heard the smash, the screech of indignation. A quiet report, like a silenced weapon. Exactly like a silenced weapon, she realized. A modded Carnifex, with a whoosh that could only mean.... then the phut of ignition and the screams of pain as the incendiary round set spirits and flesh alight.
Shepard sipped at her drink. It really was better with the glass warmed. She peeped over the edge of the bar. "Nice to meet you too," she mumbled.
She found it hard to believe that the warm hands that had nestled so recently under her arms could be the same ones he was using to slice and dice four vorcha in close quarters. They'd been so gentle.
The vorcha attacked without finesse, frenzied and undisciplined. Whereas the turian was economical, balletic. She watched as he dismantled them efficiently, hand-to-hand to limit the risk to civilians from stray shots.
Not that anyone was really a civilian on Omega. That kind of distinction was for more organised worlds. Business wasn't good. Most people settled scores by hiring thugs, not PIs. Evidence was a secondary consideration. On the Citadel she'd specialised in cheating spouses and a little light industrial espionage. Now she longed for a nice messy divorce case that she could sink her long lens into.
Instead she'd been more or less obliged to take on this latest gig.
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"Ms. Shepard?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Got a job for you."
"Is it on the level?"
"Seriously? This is Omega, darling."
"I can't have standards?"
"You ask a lot of questions."
"It's my job. Think of it like advertising."
The batarian made a noise that might have been a chuckle, or might have been phlegm. He pulled up a chair and sat down. "My employer has noticed you."
"Uh-oh," Shepard replied. "This employer have a name?"
"Yes," said the batarian. "They wish to retain your services. They want you to find someone."
"You're a tease, you know that?"
"Archangel."
"Never heard of him." Actually she had, but sometimes it was better to play dumb.
"Then perhaps my employer is mistaken about your talents. That would be... disappointing."
Shepard drummed her fingers on the desk. She didn't like being threatened. "What's it pay?"
"Enough to buy your way off this rock."
"Tempting. Tell Aria 'no thanks'."
This sound was closer to a laugh. "You got a deathwish, darling?"
"Nice counteroffer." Shepard let the barrel of her pistol sneak over the edge of the desk. "Here's mine."
This time it was definitely a chuckle. "She said you'd be a riot."
Shepard twitched the barrel sideways. "Don't be a stranger."
His laughter echoed down the hall.
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Shepard cursed herself for the umpteenth time. She really couldn't afford all the bribes she'd needed to get into the warehouse district. It wasn't like she was getting paid for this, after all. They said Aria was a thousand years old. She sure as shit knew how to manipulate people. Why else would Shepard be hunting Archangel on her own dime? Aria's goon had got her curious, which had probably been the point all along.
Shepard could only assume that Aria knew what had brought her to Omega in the first place. So Aria knew how to push her buttons. Archangel's name would be on everybody's lips soon enough. But for the moment it wasn't common knowledge that all three of Omega's major crime syndicates were getting hauled over the coals by a masked vigilante.
Worse than that, he was pranking them in the most humiliating ways. You could see what he was thinking. Show them to be not just vulnerable, but incompetent, and the people would turn against them. He couldn't possibly hope to be anything more than an irritant, otherwise.
Trouble was, it was Omega. Nobody cared. When everyone was a criminal, nobody was.
Goddamn if she didn't have a soft spot for quixotic fools, though. Here came one now.
"Sh... Shepard, right?"
"Hey."
"You, ah, you..."
"I do."
The turian took a literal step back. "Do what?"
"Come here often."
"To the warehouse district?"
She shrugged. "Where the work takes me."
"Listen, ah..." He stopped. She could see the wheels turning in his head. "I mean, that is..."
"It's a setup."
"It is?" he said. "I mean, what is?"
"In there." Shepard indicated with a toss of her head.
"How do you, ah...? Know?"
"Aria didn't hire me," she shrugged. "So I'm not looking for Archangel."
"I'm confused."
"So when I don't find him, I can't tell him that it's a setup."
His mandibles twitched and she saw his tongue running over his teeth. "So Aria's paying you..." he began.
"Not paying."
"And she sent you to warn..."
"Not warn."
"Right. Sorry." He grinned. "So Aria didn't send you not to find Archangel so he wouldn't know the Blood Pack people-smuggling meet wasn't a setup."
Shepard grinned right back at him. "Close enough."
He leaned against the wall. "This your typical day?" he asked. "As a private investigator?"
Shepard shook her head. "Not many cheating spouses on Omega," she admitted. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have..."
"I'm not the settling down type," he said.
"Me neither," she replied. "The things you see in this line of work."
He didn't seem in any hurry. He didn't seem bothered at all that he was walking into an ambush. "I used to be a cop, myself. On the Citadel."
"Why'd you quit?"
He broke eye contact. "Compromises. One too many."
"You don't seem the type."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Good."
He looked at her for a little while, mouthparts working. She looked right back, letting the ghost of a smile tease her lips. He broke first. "So..."
"If you see Archangel, let him know," she said quickly.
"Sure thing," he replied.
"Although, I have a feeling he's probably a paranoid son of a bitch."
"Wouldn't surprise me."
"Maybe he already knows. About the trap."
"Maybe."
"But he'd go in there anyway."
"He would?"
Shepard nodded. "He would. Women and children. People smugglers. Bad combination. Someone should do something."
"And there aren't any cops on Omega," he agreed.
"There's one."