[Rainfall] It's Never JUST an Interrogation.

"Then there's something we can agree on, agent."

Empathy wasn't his strong suit. Buried under a mountain of bigger picture problems. The barest of reactions as their operative began seizing in his chair, gave little more than an aggrieved sigh at the Doctor's reprimands. It wasn't as though patience was beyond him, but patience had its' use and it had its' times. You'd be hard-pressed to convince him that this was one of them. He took a look back at the projection.

"Now, those two researchers. They are?"

Spiza fought back a wave of bile as he focused on the two of them – particularly as, unlike most other salarians in the room, their faces were burned into his brain.

“One and Two," he said, fighting through a ragged breath. “The two secrets MIRC actually bothered to enforce. Even their names on-site were classified, to say nothing of their actual work. Pretty clear where all the project funding was going, though.”

The two of them were typing notes furiously, moving far more tensely than their compatriots at other stations. 1, however, continually cast furtive looks between the crowd and his terminal; 2, in the meantime, blazed his keys across the keyboard.

“Two’s name was Mannovai" - he mumbled incoherently - "Hidmul Anoleis. Was lucky with him - spent hours trying to investigate him and only found the name by accident at the last second. One, on the left, there? Named Kireji. Don’t bother looking for the rest of the name; I don’t think it’s even on the server."

Spiza watched the two of them as they worked. Kireji looked oddly composed, his every action composed, if rushed. Anoleis by comparison looked flushed and terrified. Despite the fact that no warnings had gone off yet, his eyes were blinking hard and casting furtive looks at everyone else in the room.

“Pretty sure Anoleis was being used as a patsy for Kireji. For what I don’t have a clue, but it ‘s probably got something to do who he, er, represents.”

Spiza wasn’t quite sure why he said that – at the time, he’d only thought there was something off about what Kireji was doing. The moment “phantom” Spiza reached this area, though, ducked into a corner and tapped the side of his temples, activating a narrow HUD that zoomed in on the terminal.

There, but for the merest fraction of a second, through Spiza’s HUD, parts of Kireji’s screen were visible. It wasn’t picture perfect; but the simulation simply blurred anything he hadn’t seen. No garbage data, no classic “blockbuster code” gibberish to sort through – just the remains of a message he was sending.


“Phantom” Spiza’s eyes widened, flicked to 2 – who was frantically running a bevy of backup programs – and flicked back to Kireji, just in time to see him receive one back.


A dull, echoing klaxon began to play.

"By the Wheel - focus on that! Try to stabilize the image! Take a screenshot, whatever! You! Nameless technician! I want you to administer some keramonine to the agent - maybe if we slow his neurological functions a fraction, we can get a clearer image! Oh, don't look at me like that, director, it's perfectly harmless. On varren."

Chemicals were administered, orders followed, and half-mad salarians appeased. Slowly, the image blurred, then focused, then froze, then... hovered. But the image was more or less stable.

"But... what does it mean? I don't understand."

His eyes narrowed as the simulation stood still, the words distinct against a faint orange haze. The doctor asked a good question. What did it mean? Of course, for him, that was rhetorical. He had an idea. Gears crawling. If nothing else, this was enough to inform him about the scale of the operation - to some extent. Agents able to receive a package or more on either side of the galaxy. Enough to tell him that something left Entish somewhere around the time of the crisis. His first guess for what a Triad could be was, obviously, leadership. Which only asked who that leadership was. Questions answered with questions.

And perhaps, a question of how blameless the MIRC really was.

"Noltric was close to the Eternal Spring project," he began, almost carefully. "That was, of course, why Agent Spiza was inserted in the first place."

He paced, arms locked behind his waist.

"What I think this means, doctor, is that the enemy may be closer to Eternal Spring than we'd prefer. That whatever Kireji transferred and whatever he sent, it relates to the ongoing Shroud projects."

It meant that they finally had a few leads.

And here he busied himself clearing the vials of keramonine away, head down, submissive, nonexistent. But it wasn't respect, or deference oh no.

It was to smother the seeds of a smile that were starting to pull up the corners of his mouth.

They didn't know. The great, vaunted, Special Tasks Group, the Blade of the Union the all encompassing Invisible Shield didn't know what to make of it. Of that message. Of what was happening.

But he did.

Oh yes he did.

And so did they.

So did the Project.

Pull the strings and watch the puppets dance and a thousand eyes and a thousand ears to see and hear it all. The thoughts blended together in his head, twisting and turning and sloughing into one another. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to shout. He wanted to rant and deride and scream spittle flecked words into their faces. For every indignity, for every moment of skull fucking, mind grinding tedium this life consigned him to.

He wanted to.

But instead he dusted the last of the trash into the biohazardous waste bin. Instead he watched

and he waited.

“Sssshit. Shit shit shit shit shit.”

Spiza shook his head vigorously as a piece of the puzzle finally fell into place, sending IV drips jangling as his body grabbed into the armrests.

“Fuck that. It’s got everything to do with where it’s going. I mean, yeah, whatever they’ve got’s going to Omega - everything does, I’d be more surprised if it didn’t – but they’ve got enough control, they’re pulling enough strings, that they’re keeping a copy on Thessia.”

In his subconscious prison, Spiza was stormning back and forth, holding his “head” as the emergency vidscreen seemed to bloom at an impossibly slow speed. He rested his hands on the Eternal Spring table, desperately willing the image of the terminal to clear, then abruptly did an abrupt about face and looked into the blurred crowd of researchers.

“The last time a secret this big broke on Thessia, it nearly doomed the shrelling galaxy, and there’s somebody, somewhere at Tilare Pointe, planning on doing it again. More than one person – the fact that whatever this thing is needs arranged transport – and that for whatever reason it was cancelled – means that there’s a hostile element brewing there. The Matriarchs wouldn’t dare try something that stupid again, least not this close after the war—“

He stopped, and stared at the vid of the second salarian starting his rampage on Entish. Something massive. Something unthinkable. Something that would require an incalculable number of resources. Something—

”...This isn’t just the SDU.”

Not just the SDU. It sounded worse, the longer it festered in his mind. Their agent was right - couldn't have been the Matriarchs. As contempteous of their ilk as he was, even they would understand discretion so soon after their last little scandal. Not that it wasn't worth investigating - assumptions were what got you killed in this business. But it wasn't worth his first guess. And it left... who, exactly?

Couldn't be something like the Lystheni. Couldn't be the Batarian Confederacy. Had to be something that could receive something at Thessia. Some kind of private corporation, maybe.

He exhaled sharply, his head cocking back.

"Then enlighten me, Agent Spiza. Who else?"

“I don’t know,” said Spiza irritably, tapping his head irritably with his good hand. “Probably something in the DU, someone with access to all the defectors. I mean, those are our toys going off, right?”

He pointed at the destruction of the Tevishi Vael Spaceport on the simulation’s vidscreen, brandishing it at the unseen Director before doubling over in pain as the familiar rush of white noise washed over him. The entire simulation flickered violently and split again; this time, however, it was from him suffering the effects of the sonic bomb.

He didn’t remember it being this bad. Maybe it was due to this shared hallucination; he couldn’t have been in here twenty minutes, but to him it felt like weeks were passing in the blink of an eye. Static rang in his ears and roared against his chest. It took nearly all his willpower to refrain from vomiting; back then, as they all saw, he’d not been so lucky.

“Someone in the SDU.” He traced a finger through the air; at this point, talking was what kept him from doubling over.. “Someone with…connections, someone talking with the asari. Some asari. Probably militant. Resources to…burn, uh, I’d guess who’s actually seen battle if they think this is acceptable. Old rich, touched less by the War... maybe even more? Maybe wanting to rub this in our face and without a Matriarch to keep them in line?”

He wasn’t sure if he was talking about the puppeteer or the asari at this point. For all he knew, they were one and the same. Not that he believed that for a moment – this would take years or decades at the asari pace. No, someone wanted this done and now.

As the simulation’s graphics slowly swam back into view, Spiza tried to focus on the new figure in the room…and not the corpses littering the floor.

”Talk to me,” he hissed. ”Show me what I’m missing.”

And lo was Spiza's appeal to the universe answered and he was shown the path forward.

Somewhere deep within the complex a klaxon began to blare.

Strident.

Insistent.

A click and the comms network came online, the cool, clipped tones of a VI filtering through. Level. Calm.

"Code Black: Storage sublevel twenty one. Subject: X-13/Veslo has breached containment."

Well. That was unfortunate really, but at least it was only storage.

"Mandatory base wide evacuation is in effect."

And even then it could be worse. Could be so much worse. The Catacombs were a dead maze of tunnels hollowed out deep beneath the earth, with experiments, samples, and stores contained behind sealed bulkheads and airlocks. There were layers upon layers of defenses, both temporal and digital, between them and the outside world. Nobody ever went down there. It was likely just a precaution.

"Code Black: Storage sublevel twenty. Subject: K-54/Igalan has breached containment. Mandatory base wide evacuating is in effect."

Just...

"Code Black: Storage sublevel twenty. Subject A-98/Bitii has breached containment. Mandatory base wide evacuation is in effect."

Just a precaution.

Doors were folding open in the hall outside, the sound of booted feet slamming against the hard tile as they moved.

No.

As they ran. The noise swelling every second as more and more agents and employees joined the flood.

"Code Black: Storage sublevel nineteen. Subject Y-27/Ouv has breached containment. Mandatory base wide evacuation is in effect."

There was a certain odd beauty to this really.

"Code Black: Storage sublevel eighteen. Subject D-87/Iklipi has breached containment. Mandatory base wide evacuation is in effect."

You see, one of the greatest benefits of being functionally invisible.

"Code Black: Storage sublevel eighteen. Subject Q-36/Malwi has breached containment. Mandatory base wide evacuation is in effect."

Was that nobody noticed when you vanished.

Meanwhile, the salarian doctor was suddenly overwhelmed with a craving for salt licorice. As the technicians stared on at this drama unfolding before them, the stooped, aging salarian started rooting around drawers and boxes for the blue-tinged salarian candy.

"I know I left a package here, agent," he said at a particularly inopportune moment, slamming the drawer self-absorbedly as the story unfolded. "If I find out Hidkins has taken them again I will be most upset! Ah!"

There was the sound of several datapads slamming into each other, then into the floor. The doctor's head poked up form behind a tool cabinet, his face happily grinning as he chewed on a long tendril of neon blue... stuff.

"They fell behind the datapads," he said unnecessarily. "Did I miss anything important?"

His jaw clenched as the cool, digitized voice over the installation's network continued to rattle off containment breaches of every kind and variety. The Catacombs would be a Wheel-damned zoo in the next seven minutes. He cursed, stony features fracturing to reveal an expression no more pleasant than the last. He strode over to another interface, hands flying over an ever-shifting mosaic of projections. No dice. No access. No communication with any level above or below. Arranging for

An inside job.

Careless. Absolutely careless of him. He grimaced, then turned back to the others.

"Doctor," his head gestured to an intercom.

"Code Black: Storage sublevel nineteen. Subject: E-98/Danar has breached containment. Mandatory base wide evacuation is in effect."

It rather spoke for itself.

"Get Agent Spiza out of that thing. Now." He ordered.

"Yes, yes! Remove the harnesses! Quickly!"

The technicians pulled the young salarian out of the harness and the mental... thing he was in as the doctor directed, a single string of salt licorice hanging from his mouth.

"Right, now, there may be some confusion and discomfort from the sudden termination of the connection, but I fear we have no choice. You, technican! Hold him up and carry him out! I'll initiate the data wipe sequence and the auto-destruct! Quickly, hurry!"

Before anyone could object, the older salarian dashed to a wall, swung open a glass panel, and slammed his tiny fist on a large button.

"There! That should do it! We should probably go now, if we want to survive."

The building shook as the terrorist thrust his hand into the datastream again, this opening links throughout the complex’s network. Petabytes of information could be at his purview, and it looked like he was throwing just as much formation as he leeched out. Who knew what could have been in those files – trogans? Worms? How many hundreds of lines of code was he sabotaging?

Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be overt. This man was using an enormous terrorist attack as a distraction. Whatever he was doing, it would be subtle. Deadly all the same, but subtle. He couldn’t be allowed to finish.

A shot rang out. It was from Spiza’s gun – it almost sounded like it went off before firing, knocking the already-disoriented Agent’s aim wide. The round buried itself in the wall ahead of him, alerting the terrorist to his presence.

He turned around.

Practically two meters tall if he was an inch. Impossibly thin. Yellow skin – though the skin flakes around his neck suggested a disguise. Dark green eyes, gray teeth – crinkles around the eyelids suggesting he was in his early thirties.

A sneer on his mouth—no, that was just a blur, Spiza just wished there was one to latch onto. Just a professional scowl as he glared at the Agent.

”Why.”

A snort. There was the sneer, if only there for half a second. A hand pointing at the bodies.

”Let me guess. Special Tasks. Here to make sure this doesn’t happen, right?”

Another gunshot. Ineffective; the barriers held. A chuckle.

”Well, rook…you’re officially in over your head.”

A salute – a salute of all things – and then the entire world exploded. Great gouts of flame all around them, a plume of fire around the Saboteur, a groaning as a great support tore itself loose and plummeted toward him—

A terrified scream—

A leap—

Spiza was yanked back to reality with a horrible screeching CRASH. Klaxons wailed, lights flashed, and the surging agony in his arm returned with a fury akin to someone plunging it into ice-cold water. The sensory overload, particularly after such a long time trapped in his own world, was too much – for nearly half a minute, he sat there, unable to so much as breathe. A technician shoved a syringe-full of something into his IV as he dashed by, almost regarding him as an afterthought, and his lungs seemed to explode as he began gasping for breath once again.

Two doctors in white coats hurriedly tossed him onto an automated stretcher and took notes of the salarian’s vital signs as he twitched on the table, when Spiza suddenly screamed and grabbed his abdomen, his right arm erupting in pain as he used it to grip his bowels.

The first immediately bent over and shined a flashlight into his eye, gingerly palpating his sides to find the issue. “Agent Spiza? Agent Spiza. I need you to speak to me. Can you tell me where the pain is coming from?”

As the group flew down the sterile white hallway, Spiza’s hand whipped out and grabbed the medic by the neck. Pulling him in close, Spiza gave him a mad stare and muttered, almost inaudibly, "I think my liver is about to explode."

Fin