Kaynor considered the message with a not insubstantial amount of anxiety.
After the spook had left, he’d been allowed to leave the building, told to go home and wait for further contact. He’d done so, if only because the idea of not listening to instructions from such a figure, not quite a person as far as he’d seen so much as… something else, gave him conniptions. What vague hints of people like the one that had faced him over an interrogation room table that he could dredge up only reinforced his wariness.
So he’d waited in his apartment, watching with dread as his life changed around him, manipulated by unseen hands. His fellow officers sent him well-wishes, as it seemed he’d been reassigned to an entirely different position in a different location, promoted to a higher job that he suspected that he wouldn’t be taking. Movers showed up to pack his things, without his prompting, and he was informed that, to celebrate his promotion, he’d apparently picked another larger apartment closer to where his professed current position was to be. Money flowed in and out of his accounts without his input, and all he could do was watch the storm pass and hope that he wasn’t caught in it somehow.
And now, here he was, in his new apartment, most of his belongings still packed in crates that he hadn’t purchased. He hadn’t gotten around to unpacking the rest, because in the very first one that he’d opened, he’d discovered the first few obvious monitoring devices and knew very well that they were simply there to provide cover for far more discreet ones. So he sat on one of the unopened crates, looking at his omnitool, one of the few things that he tentatively trusted because it hadn’t been out of his sight since he’d purchased it.
It wasn’t a complex message he’d been sent, just a few lines, the sending field listing someone whom he didn’t know. The body of the message itself was a positively worded request for a public meeting with someone who was apparently the head of the task force he’d been assigned to, asking him to be available today, in approximately half an hour. He had little doubt that any sort of poking at any part of what he’d been sent would turn up exactly the information needed to make everything look perfectly mundane.
He shut off his omnitool, standing from the crate. Most likely, they’d be picking him up, then ferrying him through a series of vehicles to an end point where… he wasn’t sure what would happen. The spook, whose name he didn’t (want to) know, would most likely have someone brief him for whatever they needed him for, and then, if he was lucky, he could do what needed doing and then, hopefully, never work with them again.
Something told him it wouldn’t be that easy. Regardless, he clung to the hope.
Without really thinking about it, years of experience tailoring his personal look to a given role the only thing guiding him, he moved among the crates and opened the top of the correct one. Sorting through the outfits there was quick work, as he knew exactly what he was looking for. Swiftly, he dressed, trying not to think too hard about who, or what, might be watching.
Jacket and pants, grey and silver, long-sleeved with hints of a steely blue down the sides. Professional-looking, with enough spare room to hide a holdout weapon if he chose. He’d worn it before, here and there to various official events before his undercover stint with Line Ark, and it fit him well. He felt slightly better with the familiar outfit on, though he avoided putting his hands in any of his pockets. He really didn’t want to know what might be in them.
When his omnitool chimed it's quiet little alarm, a reminder he’d set without thinking about it, he was already waiting at one of the aircar landing pads on the roof of the building.
The sun was setting, falling over the horizon, painting the city sky in oranges and yellows as blue and deep purple crept forward from the opposite horizon, slowly covering the sky. Holographic advertisements flickered on here and there as darkness flowed into the city streets far below his feet, then was pushed back as lights came on, one after the other. Aircars flashed in the dying light, reflecting the last bits of sunlight off of windshields and painted metal, and catching slightly dimmer reflections from passing ads painted against the cityscape in a rainbow of colours. Craning his neck back, he thought he could catch a glimpse of a shining artificial star, light reflected down off of the Citadel fleet in orbit… though there was no way to say for sure.
He twitched his head to the right as a vehicle settled on the pad there, engines spinning down to idle instead of shutting off. The windows were tinted near-black, making the interior impossible to see, and the design was sleek and modern- vaguely, he realized there was no visible branding or tags marring the deep blue body. With a quiet hiss nearly drowned by the engines, a side door swung up, and an Asari that he didn’t recognize wearing a slate-grey bodysuit leaned out of the opening.
“Kaynor Ah’Leck?”
She’d raised her voice slightly so that it could be heard over the droning whine and the traffic constantly coming in and out of the building itself, but Kaynor had no difficulty hearing her. Her voice, her face- everything about her was average for an Asari. Given a lineup, he doubted even he would be able to pick her out. Still, he nodded, and replied.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
Wordlessly, she moved back into her seat and gestured at the empty one that she’d been leaning over. Kaynor glanced at the door that led back to the elevator that would take him back to his apartment, then let out a quiet sigh and took his chair. He took a moment with the safety straps, securing himself in place as the door shut, then looked up… and froze.
He’d suspected that he’d be taken on a ride of some sort, change several vehicles and be shifted around a number of locations- if he was going to see the spook today, he wouldn’t be until later. However, when he looked up, his eyes met the glossy visor of the spook.
They hadn’t made a single noise since he’d entered. The Asari sitting next to them hadn’t even glanced at the spook, scanning out the windows in a manner that would almost seem casual if Kaynor hadn’t caught a glimpse of a sidearm at her belt. Even now that he was looking straight into their helmet, the door closing to his side and shutting out the ambient noise of the city and the whining of aircar engines, they sat in perfect silence, relaxed, gloved hands folded one over the other.
With the door sealed, utter and complete silence descended over the interior and the three individuals in it. So quiet, Kaynor realized, that if he focused a little, he could actually hear the breathing of the Asari. Still, no sound that he could hear came from the spook, and they still didn’t move. Kaynor couldn’t even see or hear the driver of the aircar, the cockpit sealed off entirely from the rest of the vehicle by an opaque glass window.
He expected a gesture, a word, some sort of action from the spook, but they seemed as content to simply sit there and examine him as the Asari seemed to continue scanning for unknown threats. He waited as minutes slipped by, the initial start seeing them had given him fading to the low sense of background dread that he’d felt since the moment the spook walked into the room with him, but whatever reason they had for being here, they didn’t seem likely to express it now. With a little bit of hesitation, Kaynor turned to the windows.
The colours that inundated the city were muted somewhat by the tinting, washed out to darker ones as they passed them by, their vehicle weaving into and out of traffic with a smooth sort of skill that he was grudgingly impressed by. The sun was gone behind the buildings, and the darker colours had swept across the dome above, leaving the holograms and streetlamps the only source of light in the city.
He watched, wordless and silent but for his own breathing, as the car wove its way among the city’s paths. Several times, he noted a change of course, even a complete reverse of direction once or twice along their convoluted route. Once, he could have sworn he saw a completely identical aircar sweep around them in the direction they had been going, only for them to turn a completely different direction and ease their way into a dense grouping of vehicles that hid them from sight.
Several times throughout the journey, they passed through tunnels set in various buildings, allowing traffic to flow through areas ranging from malls where one could park the aircar and enjoy a number of stores mere steps from their car to maintenance-like tunnels festooned with simple bar lights, gunmetal grey walls and any number of varying pipes. It came as something of a surprise, then, when in the middle of the fourth such maintenance tunnel, they came to a sudden stop and set down on a section that looked like any other before or after it. A completely identical aircar, tinted windows and all, lifted off and accelerated in the direction they’d been going.
He gave the other two occupants of the car a glance, but the Asari was still scanning out her window, and the spook was still entirely unmoved. One of his hands played with the release for the harness, and he made himself release it, settling his hand back on the armrest between the Asari and himself. He supposed that all he could do was wait.
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He didn’t have to sit for long. Without any prompting from either the Spook (he’d started making it a proper noun, now) or the Asari, a slight vibration coursed through the frame of the air car, and Kaynor had the briefest dropping sensation in his abdomen as the entire car and the metal panel beneath it began sinking into the building itself. He gave both of them another glance, then turned his attention to the window.
The car sunk below the floor of the tunnel, passing through the reinforced metal that constructed it and past several glowing boxes that he suspected were sensors of various types. After a moment, light became visible near the bottom, and he watched as the bright crack expanded into a view of a well-lit room filled with vehicles completely and utterly identical vehicles, each and every one a copy of the one he currently rode in down the smallest details he could discern- as well as a number of vehicles of a variety of types. Old beat-up public transport aircars mixed with sleek higher grade models, food delivery and prep, even waste disposal vehicles. He looked up as they sunk towards the ground, noting various sized rectangular holes in the ceiling of the room where he guessed the vehicles could exit and enter the tunnel above.
The car settled into place with a one final shudder. The doors hissed open without input from any of them, and the Spook and the Asari stepped out without a moment of hesitation. Kaynor released the harness holding him in place, stepping out onto the grey flooring of the parking garage-like room. The moment he was beyond the reach of the doors, they slid closed. He glanced at them in mild surprise, the Spook not even glancing backwards as they walked towards an elevator door on the far side of the room, heavy and utilitarian. He gave the aircar one more glance, then stepped after them. The sound of two pairs of footsteps echoed inside the concrete and metal place, sound bouncing off the walls and vehicles. Disturbingly, he couldn’t hear the Spook’s steps at all: they moved silently, like the ghost he’d been calling them. If he were in a much less tense situation, Kaynor may have made a joke about praying to a deity, but as it was, he didn’t want to attract the ire of either the Asari or them.
There was no need to call the elevator. When the three of them approached within five meters of the door, it slid open with a quiet whisper, revealing an inside decorated with a handrail at waist height and a metallic mesh extending to the roof, lit by bar lights set behind frosted glass. The Spook stepped to the side of the elevator, helmet turning to watch him as he took a position in the corner, on the opposite side of them. The Asari took her place at a glass panel that lit up with a holographic interface. She waved an arm at it, then spoke aloud.
“Operations.”
The panel let out a soft, quiet chime, the door closing and the elevator starting its descent. Kaynor, for his part, was attempting to examine every inch of the elevator except the Spook, whose helmeted head had been turned in his direction since he’d entered the elevator and hadn’t turned away at any point. Privately, some hysterical part of him wondered if that rumour about some of the less stable soldiers replacing their eyes with cybernetics so they never needed to blink again was in any part true. He lingered on the unpleasant thought for a few moments, then crushed that line of thought as best he could. He was wary enough as it was without adding undue stress to the situation.
He was shaken out of the thought as the panel let out another small chime. He hadn’t even noticed the elevator coming to a stop, and was uncertain whether it had been due to him being engaged with his own thoughts or whether it was just that high quality of an elevator. This line of thought, too, was abandoned as the doors opened and revealed what was beyond.
Kaynor was not an easily frightened person. As much as the Spook scared him, that was for what he felt was entirely justified reasons, and after all, he wouldn’t have voluntarily chosen to infiltrate a mercenary group like Line Ark in order to have the chance at an ‘in’ with Red Jurraut if he hadn’t had a good amount of steel in his spine. Still, the blank, perfectly square metal hall that greeted him beyond the elevator, leading to simple double doors at the other end… that did scare him.
Any civilian would have walked straight in, asking what the big deal was. Even officers and soldiers would have been unsettled by the thing, but wouldn’t have given it anything more than an initial thought. Kaynor, on the other hand, looked a little closer, identifying the nearly-invisible outlines that sectioned off parts of the walls, ceiling and floor. Defenses were clearly not in short supply, even if he had no idea what they were.
The Spook and their companion showed no such hesitation or wariness, the Spook primarily because they didn’t have body language as far as Kaynor could ascertain, the Asari because she hadn’t exhibited any emotion but a sort of professional detached boredom since he’d first seen her. He felt as if he was following them into a deathtrap, but there wasn’t much else he could do, and he was almost entirely certain that the elevator wouldn’t respond to his commands no matter what he did. Thus, he followed swiftly behind, focusing on the doors at the far end.
They slid open before the three reached them, the Spook at the point, hands at their sides and moving at a distance-eating pace, with the Asari to one side and slightly behind. Kaynor lagged slightly behind the two, eyes on the Spook, but the actual operations center grabbed his attention more than his enigmatic host of sorts- even if just for the moment.
The space beyond the doors was huge, even bigger than the parking garage they’d come from, and Kaynor quietly suspected that it might even rival the Red Jurraut headquarters where this had all started. In fact, it was remarkably similar in many ways, though it was in a building and not crudely chiseled out of rock. Members of every Citadel race moved among banks of terminals, lit up with holographic lights, calling things to one another as they shifted tablet-like computers and data chips amongst themselves. Large holographic displays lined the walls of the room, displaying a large array of data pertaining to criminal organizations, major political figures, influential individuals, anyone significant within Quarian space. Kaynor even saw a few screens displaying a variety of Geth platforms, which, now that he thought about it, were completely absent within the room.
He followed the Spook down a central raised walkway, almost like a wide catwalk that hung over the heads of the people below, clear glass supported by silver beams and edged with railings. Looking through the floor, he could see right down into the workstations of the people below, none of whom even glanced at him. The effect was eerie, as if he was a deceased spirit returned to haunt the living plane, a thought that didn’t at all help how unsettled he felt about every part of this.
Steps led down from the catwalk to various parts of the room, but the Spook ignored each and every one without even so much as a passing glance, focused only straight ahead at another set of sliding doors. These, unlike the ones they had just passed through, were constructed of mirrored glass that Kaynor recognized as one-way. The mirror, interrupted only by a series of support beams, stretched left and right out to the edges of the room, though not from ceiling to floor. Above the catwalk was suspended a structure of more mirrored glass that resembled one half of an octagon, giving an elevated view of the entire room. If he had to guess, he’d say that was where the Spook most likely kept their office.
The second set slid open easy as the first, allowing them through into another well-lit area and sliding shut directly behind them. This area was entirely different from the last. Where the larger room had been taller, this was just a meter or so above the normal size for a room, not accounting for an elevator shaft wrapped in what appeared to be a glass staircase leading to the office above. Instead of computer banks and workstations, this looked to almost be living area for a group of individuals. In one corner sat a kitchen and dining area of some type, shining appliances and holographic displays that applied to their functions. Here, almost an entire gym, multiple repeating machines for exercising various species, some of which were in use. There, what appeared to be a combination of entertainment center and briefing area, a large holographic display set on a raised center dias surrounded by a large crescent couch with an accompanying table.
A Turian and a Salarian glanced at him from the kitchen, the latter giving him a brief look before turning back to his work, the second giving him a much longer and more considerate look. An Asari slowed a running machine to a crawl before stopping it entirely, stepping off of it and using the towel hanging around her neck to dry herself off as she turned towards them. Two Quarians, completely identical, were using a punching cylinder together, appearing to be practicing some sort of cooperative martial arts, and being too involved in their efforts to notice the Spook’s arrival. A huge Krogan, huge even for the species, turned slowly from the crescent couch in their direction and away from what appeared to be an entirely disassembled assault rifle, grinning with a mouth full of very sharp teeth.
Before anyone could say anything, the Krogan vaulted the couch in a graceful move that surprised Kaynor, stomping up to their group while cleaning some sort of oil off of his huge hands with a stained cloth. The Spook merely nodded to him, the most Kaynor had seen from them since they’d picked him up- to his surprise, the Krogan nodded back in what could almost be considered a gesture of respect. It was the Asari that he verbally addressed, however, even as the Spook breezed by.
“See you didn’t die yet, runt. Guess even you could handle an escort mission without the doc putting you back together.”
He felt another stir of surprise as the Asari huffed in response, the edge of her mouth quirking upwards in a way that he would have entirely missed if he hadn’t happened to look at her just then.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, old man. Won’t be me hauling your carcass back home when you finally get spooked and have a heart attack.”
The Krogan guffawed, a loud and booming sound that vibrated Kaynor’s clothes around him, and clapped the Asari on the shoulder. Honestly, he was surprised she was still standing. His moment of bemusement turned to understated tension when the Krogan turned his gaze, calculating and weighing, on him.
“So, this is the new pup, eh?” the large, imposing figure looked him up and down, scarred expression unrecognizable… until it shifted back to his razor grin, and he gave Kaynor a clap on the shoulder much like the one he’d given the Asari. “Welcome to the Thresher Maw den! I’m sure you’ll fit right in here!”
Kaynor did not entirely share his confidence.