[Dolo Station, Shrike Abyssal] Kai The Liberator

[REDACTED]'s base on Dolo Station was actually pretty comfortable. It was an apartment attached to a medium-sized warehouse, it had enough room for everyone to sleep, a rudimentary clean room, tele-operation booths for the drones, facilities to store weapons, armor, terminals and omnitools, and what was damn-near a workshop for drone maintenance and repair.

It was that last one that most of Kai's work involved. Lots of drone repairs, occasional weapon maintenance, once he had to crack open an encrypted hard drive that Neyri had...acquired.

He didn't ask about the blood that stained the thing, which was probably for the better.

The other [REDACTED] operatives mostly left him alone, they'd suit up and disappear for days at a time and then come back with gear, or information or something, or go into one of the tele-operation booths for several hours to drive one of the [R] drones.

Indeed, when our narration catches up with Kai during one of those lonely nights, nearly a week into his stay at Dolo Station. It's quiet and he's doing...something.

Weapon maintenance was surprisingly not as hard as Kai had expected. In the end, guns were still little machines with their own quirks and ways of doing things. An afternoon of practice was all he wound up needing before he was able to strip and repair a given firearm. Not exactly spectacularly, but gunsmithing wasn't exactly his area of expertise.

No, that was the drones. With the drones, Kai was in his element. He worked long hours without a word of complaint, focused in a way that you really wouldn't expect him to be capable of if you knew him. The speed with which he could work was sometimes alarming. All because he used the free time to - what else? - work on the Narashima.

Tonight was one of those nights. Its armour plating had been all but stripped, leaving it looking like some kind of technological dog-zombie. Aesthetics could come later, of course. He worked delicately with the wiring in its throat, one eye on the readout from his omni-tool as he worked. A spark leaped from the compartment and he replaced the palm-size metal covering.

"Vocal diagnostic one; run," he said.

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," the Narashima replied. The audio quality was relatively poor and he could hear some subtle glitching in the lower ranges, but overall... he had his drone's voice back. He smiled to himself and set to work on less sentimental repairs.

This, naturally, is when fate, the universe and damn near everything else decide to go 'Fuck Kai'Fenrer Nar Something-Or-The-Other'. There's gunfire outside of the warehouse, and several explosions and then far too close screams, followed by dead silence.

Nothing happens for just long enough for Kai to be near-paralyzed in fear and anticipation, and then the door bursts open and a shadowed, malshapen figure bursts into the dim light of the warehouse.

"Kai! Get the medical supplies!" it bellows as it kicks the door shut. It's The Boss. With a salarian corpse in a corporate uniform over one shoulder and a young, human not-quite-corpse over the other shoulder. "And open a line to Nitasha. They gassed the slave before I could pull him out."

Kai is started out of his seat by the noises. Shockingly enough, the Reaper War and attack in the restaurant had not desensitized him to the sounds of fighting and death. The Narashima, conversely, dropped low as if ready to pounce. Its weapons systems were offline and it was unarmoured, but it had claws and it had fangs and that was quite enough to wreck anything that tried to get close to Kai.

Thankfully it was just the mysterious Boss. Unthankfully he's got a dead body and a dying body over his shoulders. Paralyzed with indecision, thankfully the Narashima helped Kai out in at least one regard. Taking the commands to its master as its own, it yanked a drawer free with its jaws. A first aid kid spilled to the floor, which it nudged towards the hardsuited figure with its head.

"N-Nitasha!" Kai stammered, his OT finding a direct line to the creepy-as-fuck yet quite skilled doctor. "Slave! Gas! Help!"

[R] decides that 'the mech grabbed the kit' is enough to go on and dumps the slave in a heap in front of Kai and then puts the salarian on a cot and starts scanning his corpse with his OT.

"Kai, calm down!" says Nitasha as the transmission connects, "Get him on his side, clear his airway. Check for a pulse and vital signs, if you don't have an app for it there should be a diagnostic scanner in the medical kit. And stop gibbering."

The slave is shivering and incredibly pale.

"Oh Keelah... oh- oh Keelah..." Kai's hands hovered nervously over the human's body. For obvious reasons, he had no fucking idea how to find vital signs manually. Especially on an alien. After what felt like an eternity of blank idiocy, he called up the diagnostic app on his OT and passed it over the slave's body.

"A-alive!" he reported to Nitasha. "Pulse. Weak, but... alive." It was disturbingly easy to roll the boy over. Barely any older than Kai was, if he had his human ages right. So thin and weak, even more malnourished than the quarian had been on the Citadel. Kai carefully cupped his jaw and eased it open.

"Breathing... I don't know how to check for breathing..." he stammered. He couldn't see or feel if the human's chest was rising or not, and he wouldn't be able to feel breath on his hand even if the guy decided to puff like an enraged bull.

"Good," says Nitasha, "That means we have some time to work here. Put a hand on his chest and an ear over his mouth, listen for it, see if his chest is moving at all. Then check if he's sweating and grab one of the probes in the medkit, stick it in his mouth. Hopefully there's enough residue to guess at what he got dosed with."

Meanwhile, over at the salarian's corpse, [R] seems to be satisfied with the results of its scan and is, uh, cutting the corpse apart and pulling tiny computer chips out of it. Followed by removing a pair of gray boxes from the back of the salarian's skull. "There we go!" it says, "Right what I was looking for. Any luck with the slave?"

The slave, currently, is whimpering in pain. Following Nitasha's instructions would get the probe to reveal a dose of 'Hazardous Material: Gruul-Green/Dextro'. 900 milligrams. Kai has no idea how dangerous that is.

"It's okay, it's okay," Kai babbled, trying to convince both him and the young slave. He leaned in close, pressing against his shivering body, helmet almost flat against the slave's cheek, a gloved hand over his chest. His thoughts raced madly, cursing the barrier of his suit. It could have been wishful thinking, but he thought he heard and felt the human's ragged breaths.

Kai reached, his fingers scrabbling for the edge of the medkit. He just pushed it further away. Only to have the kit nudged back toward his had by the Narasimha's head. He snatched up a probe, plunging it into the slave's mouth, and breathlessly scanned the readout.

"Gruul-Green/Dextro," he repeated for Nitasha. "900 milligrams. Is that bad?" He wiped the slave's paper-white brow, the faintest glisten of sweat residue on his glove when he checked. "Sweating... What do I do?"

"Dextro? He's in shock," says Nitasha, "Grab one of the dose-bands, wrap it around his wrist. It'll handle the injection. I need to you to stick your fingers down his throat induce vomiting and then probe again, if the dosage is above 12 milligrams induce vomiting again. Once it's down to a safe level feed him water and antacids, the bioagents are likely trying to cannibalize his stomach."

Wrapping the dose-band around the slave's wrist was the easy part. Then he was told he had to stick his fingers down a strange human's throat. Wincing and recoiling, he forced himself to do it. The right hand glove of his envirosuit practically disappeared into the slave's mouth, both fingers forcing their way down his throat. He snatched them back out quickly as the slave retched, then... eugh.

Kai tried not to think about the disgusting gunk that he just pulled up from the slave's stomach. In went the probe once more. 100 milligrams. Still too much. Close to retching himself, painfully glad for his suit's olfactory filters, he shoved his fingers back down the slave's throat.

Kai felt a dangerously acidic belch escape him, and looked away from the mess on the floor. "D-drone... water. My store. Fetch." He didn't trust himself for multisyllable words. A crash as the quarian's orderly drawer of sealed, purified water containers hit the ground. Delicately picking one up in its jaws, the Narasimha carried it over to its master.

Kai fixed the seal to his helmet vox, adding a shot of antacids from his suit supplies. Despite being in desperate need of it himself, he forced himself to disengage the vox seal and bring the container to the slave's lips.

"Here. Drink this," he said quietly, cradling the slave's head with his free hand. "Please, drink."

The vomits elicit more whimpers, more pain. He tries to stop Kai, the last time, but can't quite muster the strength. Then Kai offers the water. He doesn't have the strength to grab the bottle, hold it up, but he drinks greedily and messily, spilling almost as much as he swallows.

"Good work Kai," says Nitasha, "You've probably saved his life. Call me if there's a complication, record everything he says, try to get him to talk. Anything'll do, if we want Kalamo gone we need everything the boy can offer."

The slave rolls over, as if he only now realized where he was, what was going on. "Where?" he croaks.

Kai let out an intense sigh of relief, his head buzzing and his whole body feeling curiously light as the adrenaline stuck around long after it had overstayed its welcome. "You told me what to do," he replied, somewhat dazed. On the other hand he practically beamed with delight as the slave spoke - though with no idea how visible that would be through his visor - and tried to lift him a little higher. With some difficulty he got the slave's back propped up against his thigh, his arm around him for support.

"Dolo Station," Kai replied quietly, pawing the floor behind him with his free hand. Another sealed cylinder of pure water was nudged into his hand. Once more he fixed it to his helmet vox, a shot of antacids fizzing as it hit the water. Popping the cap and 'spitting' it out of the way, he offered the fresh one to the slave.

"Slowly," he added helpfully, a little light in his vox flashing in time with his words. He kept his palm at the base of the water container, trying to stop half his precious purified water spilling everywhere this time. "Do you remember what happened to you?"

The slave followed Kai's directions, and got much more of the water this time. He's visibly recovering, steadier, his eyes are steady, finally, locked with Kai's, uh, faceplate. Vaguely.

"There was...we were in the pens. Me, and the slaves, they had a project. Canisters, drones, it was late," he started, evidently still fuzzy, "Someone came in, to talk to the overseer, and there was shooting, and the pens opened. This..." He pauses, "This janitor, a salarian, he opened it and told us to run. And there was this drone, and dead people, and it was giving directions, telling us to take a hall." He shivered, as if reliving a bad memory. "We didn't listen, rushed past it. It grabbed me, and there was gunfire and green gas and everyone-" He practically shrivels, reliving the memory, and shuts up.

[R], meanwhile, is dumping what little remains of the mutilated salarian corpse into a plastic tub filled with...some liquid. There's a neat pile of bloody cybernetics and greyboxes on the table where it was working. "Memo," it says into its omnitool, "We need to visit one of the livestock pens soon. Also, need to rip some new identities out of these before next job. Kai also shows promise in first aid and interrogation. Keep that on record."

"It's okay," Kai said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "It's okay. Take your time. You're safe here." He was actively trying to ignore whatever the fuck [R] was doing with the bits of dead salarian in a tub on the other side of the room, but at least a place that had Dr. Nitasha's Hall Of Bodyparts was safer than a slave pen.

"You're lucky. The gas was dextro. You'll be fine in no time." He tried to smile. It was only visible by a slight change around his luminous eyes, but it was the thought that counted. "What was this project you were working on?"

It took the slave a few minutes, but Kai's reassurances helped him calm down. "I, uh, drones, and sprayers, like from the war? The other slaves, they said that the army would deploy them if people fought too much," he said, "There was this, this scary quarian who'd show up and take things, and she'd make us place cores on those, uh, those robots. With the tails? I, I don't know that much. Sorry."

[R], by now, has plugged the cybernetics into one of the computers and is...whistling a pop tune as he waits for them to download. "The drones are Transgressions," he notes off-handedly, "The Quarian is...I do know this one. Aral'Karras? Maybe Denal'Koth. The greybox might help, so I do think that's all we need. You have something special planned for this kid, or should we just give him some cash and drop him off somewhere safe? Decent homeless shelters on this station, plenty of work. Not bad, for a kid who was a slave half an hour ago."

The boy doesn't say anything, but he obviously doesn't like this suggestion.

The name meant nothing to Kai, so he refrained from commenting. He did, however, wonder to himself how one of his people could ever make it in a business like slaving. His mind was then filled with possibilities, and he paled. Enough of that line of thought. He tried another smile behind his visor.

"Thank you," he said sincerely. "You've helped us a lot. What's your name?"

Before he could get an answer, he did a double-take. "Wha- no!" First time he'd ever raised his voice, even if it was only about half a decibel, in anyone's presence. "Look at him. He's dangerously underweight. We... have to keep him. At least until he's stronger. Keelah, he only just survived a bioweapon attack!"

"Uh," the kid says, "Kyle. I'm Kyle. Thank you."

There's a pause, [R] looks over Kai, and then stares him down. Well, tries to, it's visor-on-glowing-[R], really, which rather ruins the effect. "Fine, you can keep him," it says after a moment, "But he's your responsibility. You take care of him, you get him clothes, you keep him healthy, you feed him, you take him on walks, you make sure he doesn't get kidnapped or eaten by wild varren. And you clean up his vomit.

Now, if you'll give me a few minutes, I need to call a woman about a quarian." It grabs a terminal and moves into the apartment, "Should be back in a couple minutes. Get to know your new friend."

"...Who was that?" asks Kyle.

"Fine."

Kai waited until [R] had safely left earshot.

"I have no idea," he admitted. "Everyone wears hardsuits like that so it's just as likely to be someone I haven't met yet as someone I have. Kai. My name, sorry. It's Kai."

Kai winced inside his helmet. He didn't relish having to clean up the sick on his workshop floor.

"Um... can you stand? Should I help you to a chair?"

"Oh," says Kyle. He tries to swing his legs out of the bed to get up without help. He collapses back onto it without much dignity at all and groans. "I, uh, yeah, I could use help up," he said, reaching for Kai's arm, "Uh, back there, why'd you stand up to the armor-thing for me?"

"Don't worry, you'll get better soon." Kai leaned down, offering Kyle his arm, and wrapping the other around his waist. Kyle was frighteningly easy to pick up, but he supposed that wasn't really a surprise. Kai had been living pretty well recently but Kyle, well... Kai was intimate acquainted with hunger and malnourishment. He carefully walked Kyle over to the chair beside his workbench, shouldering his weight, and eased him down into the seat.

"I..." He paused. Why had he stood up to [R]? "I guess... I know what it's like to be hungry and homeless. I didn't want to put you through that. Not unless there was another way." He dropped his eyes back down as he spoke, his voice softening again. Accent more pronounced as it usually was when he was nervous.