[Rainfall] Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Thief

As Spiza’s words buzzed through his head, Mekan bit his tongue. Upon hearing the agent’s carefully-worded ‘suggestion’ that he hand over the 'tool, he started breathing slowly, trying to calm himself. He didn’t try to resist as Spiza attempted to prise his omnitool from his arm.

The device went unnoticed as Spiza dropped it into Mekan's armor.

Get a grip. Get your head in the fucking game, Mek. Just...try to focus. You’ve brushed with fucking death before, Mek. Get ahold of yourself. Kirok’s right. It’s not the end of the world. You’ve fought QoroQ, you crossed Dietrich and survived, you made it through the Reaper attack - you’ll get through this. If the apocalypse couldn’t kill you, these Rainfall guys won’t. At least not yet.

He'd gotten enough information to give them at least a few leads. He’d spent enough time freaking out in the last few minutes - it was time to focus on proving he did his damn job. It was more than everyone else did in all the time they spent gawking at the hoard out in the warehouse and arguing over who would take off with the biggest cut.

Rainfall may have had Mekan pegged, but they weren’t going to ’get’ him. Not without a fight.

"I got the data we were after. The manifest. And more. A lot more. It looked like most of their operations playbook for all of their activity based out of Omega. And it was a lot. Front organizations, shipments, supply and money transfers - everything. I mean everything. Tons of potential leads. I didn’t botch this one. I managed to halt the data-purge process and reverse enough of it to make the effort worthwhile. But...holy shit. The sheer scale of this was..."

Mekan gulped, shaking his head lightly, and he took another deep breath. He was already returning to his inane blithering. Focus.

"Project Rainfall.”

”They were deleting a bunch of documents relating to something called Project Rainfall. And whatever it is, it’s entering Phase 2. Spiza, ‘the Wheel turns once more’, does that phrase mean anything?"

Oh, he knew that phrase. All too well. "Wheel of Life," he muttered, poking around at Mekan's arm, looking for the disengaging pin. "Salarian answer to the question of 'What happens when we die.' It's not...Heaven, or Void, or even some featureless gray waste like Urakh, more like...living an entirely new life, somewhere else in the universe. Now hold still, you're going to feel a slight shock."

As he did, he popped the first implant on Mekan's wrist, and as advertised, a blue arc of electricity popped between flesh and electronic as it parted ways.

"Comforting thought for us - you know, since we're not outlasting anyone but the vorcha," he continued, moving onto the batarian's next implant. "Problem is, just like anything else, you get idiots who take it literally. People who don't get the metaphor, who think there's a literal Wheel out there working as a glorified automaton, sifting through souls like - like an accountant, for lack of a better word. The Galaxy itself, if you will, ticking away endlessly, like an impossibly complex clockwork of gears and cogs - and when something truly galaxy-rending occurs that shouldn't - like, say, a giant unstoppable race of killbots the size of skyscrapers,...well, it throws a wrench in the works. It gets stuck."

It was at that moment that the batarian mercenary finished drooling at the thought of the payday from this job and turned his attention to the vaguely stressed-looking salarian. Collar approached slowly so as not to arouse suspicion, and then opened up his omnitool and transferred a pair of contracts to Spiza.

"If you have a sec, sign and return those. The first acknowledges completion of the mission within the specified parameters and pays me. The second sets up any future team members with a Lorek Chains basic training session," he explained. "Nothing too fancy, just some simple squad tactics and tips on how to not get killed, whether by enemy fire or a frustrated team leader."

The batarian shrugged.

"You want your people as far away from this as possible, and I can guarantee Melek's discretion in this. They know their shit, and they're basically legitimate these days. It's a pretty good deal."

Mekan's faceplate-covered head turned to glare silently at Collar. Then back at Spiza. "Right, nevermind the fact that these guys are probably running a background check on me right this minute and looking into past associates or anything. No, you need to get paid. I keep forgetting I'm surrounded by psychopaths."

Focus, Mek. You're in deep, now. You had to take the job, you HAD to take the job, and now you're in deep.

Focus now. Get out of this alive. Freak out later.

You never expected to make it to thirty, anyways.

"Spiza, in the message I intercepted, they were using the phrase like...I dunno, like some kind of verbal salute. What are we dealing with, some kind of...salarian death cult?"

"Did you miss the part where I offered special forces training at no extra expense, kid? And is there anything you could do to stop them from running those checks? Then calm the fuck down."

Spiza bit back the most obvious retort - that the Collar could have taken a few of his own lessons on not pissing of the team leader - and dismissed it as petty and unproductive. He could feel his gums bleeding with the effort of clenching his teeth, but he flicked through and threw his initial approval at those contracts that were strictly volunteer only. He had no intention of alienating or losing recruits by sending them to a mercenary slaver, after all, but at this point he couldn't deny it: he needed some help.

As for Mekan?

"Pheh," he muttered. "Whatever this groupo is, it may be suicidal but death isn't its goal. No, if this is salarian-centric at all, it's getting its theoretical wheel running again - you know, 'turns once more.' Get the galaxy running back the way it used to, before the Reapers arrived. Get things back in their proper place."

The circuitry on Mekan's arm arced slightly as the final implant came off. Spiza pulled it off, pulled out a small, mesh-lined container, and quickly stuffed it inside.

"There," he said. "That should keep this from broadcasting anything until I've got it stashed in a Dead Room for analysis. Don't worry, we'll get this reimbursed - and in the meantime, we'll get you to a safehouse until we've figured out a way to get these loons off your tail. All right? And Aleksanders - let's get this stuff packed away. I don't want our departure concluded with some ridiculous space battle or something."

Fin