Mass Effect: The Complete Novels 4-Book Bundle (87 page)

The salarian looked up from his omni-tool. “He left about fifteen minutes ago. I haven’t seen him since.”

Kahlee thanked him, activated her omni-tool, and spoke Nick’s name. What she got was a recording. “This is Nick. Leave a message. I’ll call you back.”

“No answer?” Anderson inquired.

“Just voice mail.” Kahlee was worried and it was visible on her face. “I told him to stay here.”

“You know Nick,” Anderson replied. “Chances
are he got bored and took off for The Cube. He’s been talking about the place all morning.”

“You’re probably right,” Kahlee agreed. “But let’s make sure. The Cube is on the way home.”

Anderson thought Kahlee was a bit too attentive where Nick was concerned. The boy was eighteen for god’s sake. But she’d been responsible for Nick’s well-being at the academy and agreed to serve as the boy’s guardian during his stay on the Citadel. A responsibility she took very seriously.

They took the glassed-in elevator down to the ground floor and left through the main entrance. The same turian was on duty so Kahlee paused to speak with him. “We passed through security earlier with a teenager named Nick Donahue. Have you seen him?”

The police officer nodded. “He left fifteen or twenty minutes ago.”

Kahlee frowned. “And you let him go?”

The turian was clearly annoyed. “My job is to keep people out—not in. And if you lost the boy whose fault is that?”

Anderson chose to intervene before Kahlee could reply. “We understand. Was he alone? Or with someone?”

“He was alone.”

Anderson looked at Kahlee. “That’s good. Come on.”

It took a short shuttle ride and the better part of fifteen minutes to reach the workout facility called The Cube. It had been built by biotics for biotics as a place where they could compete with each other and sharpen their skills. In order to join a person had to have a proven ability to throw, pin, or block objects.
Or to use spatial distortion to destroy targets with rapidly shifting mass fields.

The asari were natural biotics although some were more skilled than others. But for other races, including the krogan, turians, salarians, and humans, biotic abilities were the result of exposure to element zero, or eezo. And most if not all biotics were equipped with implants called Bio-amps that served to amplify and synchronize their talents. Such individuals were classified as Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3, according to their strength and stability. Nick was an Level 2 and had been working out at The Cube in hopes of qualifying as an Level 3.

The gym, if that was the right word, was located on a dimly lit commercial thoroughfare and identified with a glowing sign. A reptilian krogan was stationed outside the front door to keep the merely curious away. He was about two meters tall and weighed upwards of one hundred and fifty kilograms. Like all of his kind the doorkeeper had a slightly hunchbacked appearance as a result of the shell-like layers of flesh and bone that rode his powerful shoulders. His face was flat, brutish, and notable for the absence of any discernible ears or nose. A pair of small, wide-set eyes regarded Anderson with a brooding hostility. His voice sounded like a gravel crusher in low gear. “Members only.”

“Our son is a member,” Kahlee lied. “We’d like to watch him work out.”

“Name?”

“Nick Donahue.”

The krogan eyed his terminal, located what he was looking for, and uttered a grunt. “You can enter.”

The door gave access to a cramped lobby from which members could access the locker room and the area beyond. A narrow flight of stairs led up to a small balcony where spectators could view the action below. “Come on,” Kahlee said. “We’ll watch him throw people around.”

“And then we’ll chew him out,” Anderson said sotto voice, as he followed her up.

The viewing area was empty. So they followed a ramp down to the front row where they had a good view of the cube-shaped space for which the gym was named. The walls were padded and divided into softly glowing squares so that when a salarian was “thrown” across the room he was able to bounce off and land uninjured. One of the boxes lit up, a tone was heard, and a computer-generated voice delivered the score. “Five, three, advantage Atilus.”

But the match was far from over as became apparent when the salarian’s turian opponent was “lifted” off the cushioned floor and brought back down with considerable force. “Five, four,” the voice proclaimed. “Advantage Atilus.”

“I don’t see Nick,” Kahlee said, as she peered over the edge. At least a dozen biotics were down on the main floor sitting or standing along the walls. Some of them clapped as the point was scored, but were forced to scatter when the turian took his revenge, and the salarian came flying their way. “I think the office is in the basement,” Kahlee added. “Let’s see if he checked in.”

Having made their way down to the main floor, and from there to the basement, the pair found themselves in a dimly lit office. A roly-poly volus was ensconced
behind a messy desk. “Earth-clan biotics are welcome here. One membership or two?”

“None,” Kahlee answered. “We’re trying to locate our son, Nick Donahue. Has he been here today?”

The volus turned to his terminal, entered the name, and turned back. “No, he hasn’t. You could extend his membership though. Two hundred and fifty credits for six months.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Anderson said firmly. “Tell me something … Does our son have friends here? People he tends to hang out with?”

The volus shrugged. “I don’t have time to track personal relationships. But I have seen your son with Ocosta Lem and Arrius Sallus. They work out together.”

“Who are they?” Kahlee wanted to know.

“Lem is a salarian, and Sallus is a turian. Both are listed as Level Threes.”

“Have they been in today?”

The volus consulted the terminal. “No.”

“Where do they live?” Anderson inquired. “We’d like to speak with them.”

The volus hesitated as if reluctant to part with the information, but when Anderson placed both fists on the desk and frowned, the volus complied. Three minutes later the humans were back on the street. Kahlee eyed the slip of paper. “Lem and Sallus share the same address.”

Anderson didn’t like that. Not one little bit. But he decided to keep his concerns to himself as they dropped two levels down and made their way through increasingly claustrophobic streets lined with bars, strip joints, and sim clubs. Some of the people who
swirled around them watched the couple the way predators eye their prey. But appearances were everything. And thanks to the fact that Anderson and Kahlee looked like they knew what they were doing they were allowed to pass unimpeded.

“Here it is,” Kahlee said as they arrived in front of a seedy-looking structure. The sign out front read S
UNSU
E
LECTRONICS
. A commercial building seemed like an unlikely place for the biotics to live.

Anderson opened the door and they went inside. A middle-aged woman was seated behind the front desk. She smiled. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” Kahlee replied. “We’re looking for Ocosta Lem and Arrius Sallus. We were told they live here.”

The receptionist frowned. “There must be some mistake. Nobody lives here. Other than the duct rats that is … and they don’t have names.”

“You’re sure?”

The woman nodded. “I’m sure. There are three employees and we all go home at night.”

They thanked her and left. The moment Kahlee was outside she made another call and got the same result. Nick was missing.

The Illusive Man was seated in front of an oval portal that looked out onto the frozen wastes of a planet in the Crescent Nebula. He could see the ruins of an abandoned mining operation in the foreground and a line of jagged peaks in the distance. It was a miserable place, but one that would help ensure his privacy, which was very important to him. A tone sounded and a female voice said, “Kai Leng is here to see you.”

The Illusive Man turned toward the door. “Send him in.”

The hatch hissed open and Kai Leng appeared. The operative had proved himself many times and was a very important part of the Cerberus operation. He had black hair and brown eyes that harkened back to his Chinese ancestry. But the shape of his face and the color of his skin hinted at what might have been some Slavic DNA as well. The guest chair sighed as he sat down. “You sent for me?”

“Yes,” the Illusive Man said, as he removed a silver cigarette case from the surface of the metal desk. “We need to talk.” The head of Cerberus selected a cigarette,
set fire to it, and took a deep drag. He liked the process, the taste, and the feel of nicotine entering his bloodstream. Words mingled with smoke. “A call came in a few minutes ago. From an operative on the Citadel. It seems that Paul Grayson has been testifying against us.”

Leng’s eyebrows rose. “I find that hard to believe. I put two projectiles in his head.”

“Yes, you did,” the Illusive Man agreed, as he flicked ash into a tray made of black oynx. “But you may recall that we were forced to leave Grayson’s body behind as we fled the space station. That allowed David Anderson and Kahlee Sanders to preserve the corpse and use it as part of a presentation to the Citadel Council. And in spite of Anderson and Sanders’s efforts to warn the Council members about the Reapers, they blame Cerberus for what took place. I don’t like that. Our credibility is at stake.”

Another operative might have said something unnecessary at that point. But not Leng. He just sat there, his face empty of expression, waiting. The Illusive Man liked that. He took another drag and let the smoke emerge with the words. “And there’s something else too. The Council gave Anderson and Sanders permission to continue their investigation. So I want you to go to the Citadel, keep an eye on them, and retrieve Grayson’s body.”

Leng stood. “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

The Illusive Man waited until Leng had left before touching a button. A beautiful brunette arrived one minute later. She was wearing a nicely cut jacket, miniskirt, and knee-high boots. A bottle of Jim Beam
Black and a single glass were sitting on the tray, which she placed on his desk. Then, having poured three fingers of the amber liquid into a glass, she left.

The Illusive Man watched her go before picking up the glass and turning toward the portal. The icescape was like the universe itself. Cold and inimical to human life.
But the race will survive
, the Illusive Man thought to himself,
no matter the cost
.

The
Glory of Khar’shan
was more than a hundred years old and not especially pretty to look at. But her hull was sound, her drives were practically new, and she was well-armed. That was important in a galaxy where slavery was frowned on and ships like the
Khar’shan
were targeted by governments and pirates alike. But the
Khar’shan
’s virtues were lost on Hal McCann and the other one hundred and thirty-two beings crammed into her stinking hold.

It was a gloomy place; what little light there was emanated from a row of disks that ran the length of the compartment. Curved supports gave the impression of ribs, so that from McCann’s position it looked like he was imprisoned inside an enormous beast. The way condensation oozed down rust-stained walls, and the unrelenting stench of unwashed bodies, added to that impression, as did the intermittent rumbling noises which the plumbing produced just prior to a “wet down.” The wet down consisted of a monsoon-like rainstorm that was supposed to cleanse the slaves and flush their waste materials into the ship’s recycling
system. So, as one of his fellow slaves put it, “We can drink our own piss.”

But what was—was. All McCann could do was try to carry out a regimen of isometric exercise, fantasize about regaining his freedom, and doze. And that’s what he was doing when a batarian backhanded him across the face. “Wake up, Cerberus scum! Or would you like to lose your feet?”

McCann swore and brought his head back around. The batarian was humanoid, if it was possible to refer to something with four eyes, eight nostrils, and bulging cheeks as “human.” “Screw you, four eyes,” McCann said, “and your motherless caste.”

That earned McCann another blow as machinery whined and a formfitting cage was lowered over each slave—all of whom had to sit up straight and pull their feet back to avoid injury. The restraint system was designed to allow the slave masters to isolate and control troublesome individuals, and to protect them if the ship was forced to execute high-gee maneuvers. So McCann knew the batarians were preparing for one of those possibilities. But which one?

The answer came as a tone sounded and a voice was heard over the intercom. “This is the captain. Secure the ship for battle. All crew members will report to their battle stations. Primary weapons are armed. Secondary weapons are armed. Tertiary weapons are armed. Estimated time to contact forty-seven minutes. That will be all.”

Now the slaves knew more. But some critical pieces of information were still missing. Were the batarians about to be attacked? Or about to attack someone else? And if so, what were they after? There was no
way to know. A woman started to pray, a turian told her to shut up, and McCann found himself in the strange position of hoping that his captors would win the upcoming battle. Because if they lost, and the
Khar’shan
was destroyed, his life would be over.

Gillian Grayson was on duty when the alarms went off. Drills were a common occurrence aboard the
Idenna
, so she assumed that Captain Ysin’Mal Vas Idenna was putting the crew through yet another simulated emergency, until he spoke over the intercom. “This is
not
a drill. I repeat … This is not a drill. What may be a pirate or a slaver is closing with us and, based on our preliminary sensor readings, will make contact in about forty-two minutes. All adult personnel will report to their battle stations—and all minors will enter the Creche. Keelah se’lai.” (As our ancestors will it.)