[As-Of-Yet-Unnamed Ship] Bro-Op

The Ulmati Box-O-Fun (UBOF for short, which had helped with the ad campaign because "ooh-boff" was fun to say out loud) was one of the institutions that was bound to survive the Reaper war, even as governments fell and entire planets were exterminated. No amount of external pressure, brought from immortal god-beings bent on genociding all life or otherwise, could take away the indomitable sapient need to call other people creative racial slurs on the extranet every time they shot you in the head.

It was no surprise, then, that the servers had been going back up almost concurrently with the relay network's gradual rebuilding.

Still, there was no need for servers or thirty-year-old asari with more time than vocabulary tonight; the console Shirin had found had two controllers and local uplink, and the considerable-sized table in the crew quarters was the perfect spot to set up a holo emitter. The landscape display took up the entire table, which made the hovering "MARAUDERS, LLC" title screen look pretty awesome. She had to admit it was a better set-up than they usually got.

Hopefully she'd used enough small words in the message that Kirok would eventually turn up. In the meantime, the drell leaned back in her chair, enjoyed to the title screen's deliberately-retro theme music, and browsed her omnitool - in one window, a CDN thread she'd read about a million times now, and in another, her inbox and the eighty-something emails from contacts and information brokers that had been pouring into it for the last two hours.

Suddenly, Kirok.

The krogan lumbered into the room with a twelve-pack of Korovan Pale Green tucked under one arm as Whitefang and Her Brood danced around his ankles, snarling and zurgling happily like a trio of highly nasal attack reptiles only could. As soon as he lowered his mighty weight onto the makeshift couch - little more than a trio of luxury liner seats with the springs pulled out and a blanket thrown over it - the Brood settled into their usual positions in the room, which was wherever they felt like being at the time.

Wordlessly, Kirok ripped off the cardboard top of the box and plunged his hand in, bringing out two bottles of the batarian ale and holding one out to Shirin. Moisture beaded on the glass like quartz.

"Found it in one'a th' lockers. Drink up. What're we playin'?"

"Where do you keep finding all these varren?"

It seemed like every other time they docked recently, Kirok came back with another varren; the Omega stop had resulted in a bunch of pups appearing on their ship, and it was no longer a question of whether one of them would eventually trip up a crew member during a getaway, but when. Still, they were being trained for combat and Kirok was valuable enough that alienating him was way out of the quesiton.

Shirin accepted the ale gratefully and took a swallow. It was bitter and incredibly strong on the back of the tongue, as cheap batarian products tended to be, but her fondness for the finer things in life wasn't quite strong enough to override the age-old rule of 'if you can get free food, alcohol, or sleep, take it'.

"Marauders." She passed Kirok a controller, and the character select interface hovered over the table in a burst of green circuitry. "Good job on the ship heist. I'd say we're making some headway."

"Damn, I hope so," Kirok said as he picked up the tiny controller and held it gingerly in his hands. The flimsy plastic bent ever so slightly in his grip. The creak of the plastic seemed to say 'I will be broken and shattered before the night is through, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.'

Fiddling with the joysticks, Kirok harrumphed, sending The Brood yiping around his ankles momentarily.

"Don't git me wrong. I ain't worried. We've gotta solid crew - well, cept fer that 'sari, she's gonna git us inta trouble one of these days, I kin smell it - but we ain't got much 'sperience. We been lucky twice. Luck gonna run out 'ventually. We're gonna make enemies. We gots t'be prepared for that."

Kirok looked at the screen as he fiddled with the controller. Yellow eyes narrowed as he continually pressed the buttons, trying to understand what was going on in this-

"PLAYER 2 - LORD BABBAGE! PRESS START!"

"Wait, what'd I jist do. Why's that little human sumbitch holdin' up a keyboard at me."

"We already have enemies, Kirok. And I was under the impression that my plan, with the whole 'multiple angles of attack' and 'internal security breach' thing, was more of a factor in getting the ship than luck - he's got a key interface because he's a hacker. You use it to control the drones."

Vacillating for a moment on her choice of characters, Shirin eventually decided on Mr. Hollow. A quick adjust of the options later, the layout to level one (Stuffer Shack Shootout) sprawled out across the table, and digital representations of their avatars dropped onto it. The screen began scrolling, and a steady parade of clown-painted mooks began to stream forth for the pummeling.

"Thanks for bringing that thing to my attention, on that note. The extranet thing, I mean." Shirin directed Mr. Hollow over to a comm antenna, which he promptly uprooted and began using to pummel the clowns senseless. "I've got some people looking at it - not Band resources, I'm not using up any of those for personal stuff, trust me. Anything comes of this, I'll handle it myself, you're not getting dragged into it."

She paused to ram the antenna through a clown's eye and throw him onto an electric fence.

"I think there's a drone power-up in one of those barrels."

"Uh. Yeah. Extranet. Right."

Kirok had other worries right now. Right now there was a clown with a machete inching his way towards Kirok's tiny nerd of a character, and pressing the "attack" button only made PLAYER 2 - LORD BABBAGE swing the keyboard up and down in five frames of useless attack. Shirin had said something about drones, but the fact that clowns were attacking him had the krogan otherwise occupied.

"WHY AM I BLINKIN'. WHY AM I BLINK- DIE, DIE, YEW SHIT-FACED GOON YES YES NOW IT'S YER TURN T' BLINK, HAW HAW, YER BLINKIN AN I AIN'T. Sorry. Right. Look, kid, y'can't get riled up every time someone mentions yer pappy, alright? Don't git me wrong - Abattoir was one o'th' best bosses I ever had, an' we made a killin' offa Quetzlcoatl an' some other places - hell, we even managed to kill Tethys Reave once. I think. Look, ennyway, thing about yer pappy was that AAAAAGH WHAT IS THAT!? WHAT IS THAT!? CHEAP PIECE OF SHIT!"

On the screen, Lord Babbage entered something called "hacking mode" near a wall, which meant that Kirok had to play a minigame while various clowns were beating the shit out of him.

This did not last long.

One digitized death later, Lord Babbage was blinking on the screen again, and Kirok was running head-first into the posse of insane clowns, wielding the keyboard like a machete.

This was the problem with bringing Kirok to game night. In retrospect, perhaps she should've guided him towards Mr. Hollow, although managing the suit buff probably would've been a heavy task for the krogan.

"You gotta stop trying to melee them, you're not built for that. Go over by the access port and go into hacking mode - no, that's a dumpster, you want an access port, the things that are glowing green - okay, now press left shoulder. No, left shoulder. Okay, once you get through the minigame, you can spawn a drone and mop up. I'd stick with the basic taser drone, since you're just getting started, and..."

At this point it became obvious that Kirok was going his own way with the game, and that her attempts to direct traffic outside of a heist were...ineffectual, at best, judging from the events on the holo. The drell sighed and settled for covering Lord Babbage's hacking attempts with considerable violence and improvised weaponry. Clown parts flew everywhere.

It was quiet for a long moment and then, perhaps because Kirok had broached the subject for the first time since they'd begun working together, Shirin spoke up.

"Lemme know if this is going places you don't want and I'll back off, but...what was my father like? To you, I mean. We never met face to face and I don't think he ever said more than three hundred words to me."

Kirok seethed at the namby-ass game designers behind this wretched abomination. Who the hell played a game to solve puzzles!?

"That's a ... that's a long an' dark road of a story, Shirin," Kirok said as he pressed X, X, Y, D, Shoulder, Shoulder, and X, finally completing the minigame and getting a useless digital orb that shot a lightning bolt every five seconds. "See, th' thing 'bout yer pappy is he weren't exactly... conventional-like. We got 'long just fine, actually - he said 'go kill them sumbitches,' an' I said 'okay,' an' sumbitches died, an' we took their stuff, an' then we drank an' I beat up people while he was a-whorin' around. That's when he was feelin' social-like, though - you know, th' good days."

Lord Babbage started assaulting a trash can as the krogan tried to work out the special attack button. Bizarrely, a whole cooked turkey fell out.

"Now, there were th' bad days. Not bad like 'runnin' from der law,' bad, but 'bring me this bastard alive' bad. 'Make sure y'bring his family in, too,' bad. Now, I ain't a squeamish type, an' y'don't git t'be my age without gettin' in a fair bit of torture yerself - both sides of th' fence, if'n y'know what I mean. But there's a difference between just havin' fun on th' job an'... doin' the job just b'cause it's fun, right?"

There was a roaring cacophony of digitized chords. Part of the Stuffer Shack wall exploded, and out of the ruin stepped a large, mutated freakjob in clown paint and a pink mohawk. He screamed WELCOME TO DIE at the pair before bringing out a laser chainsaw and rushing the players.

"We had a room in th'back. Called it th' Pen. Well, I calt it that. Ennyway, occasionally someone'd fuck with him an' he'd remember it. He'd plan fer weeks, even years, t'get that person in th' proper spot, right? Then it'd be up to me t'collect 'em, and I drug 'em t'th' Pen. He'd spend days in there, doin' all kindsa things that y'only hear about inna movies. An' when he was done, we'd call in th' vorcha t'clean up. Only thin' he told us t'do was never ask questions. So we didn't."

Babbage blinked and died as the neon-pink chainsaw cut into his last life bar. Undaunted, Kirok waited until the sprite reappeared, and then continued to bash at the giant clown with the keyboard.

"... He also had enemies, too. Tethys Reave. Suri. Some gimp of a frog. He was always one step ahead of 'em, though. T'be honest, I'm surprised a Reaper kilt him. Part of me still thinks he's hidin' on some vacation spot right now, drinkin' Bloody Marys inna hut made outta robot parts. But that's jist me. Also, I want t'find whomever made this game an' stick a shotgun up their asses. That ain't high-per-bowl-ee, neither."

The explanation went by in silence, on Shirin's end. Her eyes stayed on the holo, while Mr. Hollow continued to grab soy jellybeans off the shelves and hurl them with improbable force at the lynching parade that continued to scroll onto the table. One could be forgiven for thinking she wasn't listening, until Kirok finished and she nodded slowly.

"Yeah, that...lines up with everything I heard."

That was all she said for a few minutes. It wasn't totally obvious why; perhaps she'd been hoping the answer would be different, somehow more relatable. That there'd be some kind of gnosis in it that experience hadn't given her.

"When I first met him," she said, running backwards around the shelves and pelting the clown boss with jellybeans as he futilely tried to close the distance to melee range, "it was, uh. I was nineteen and I'd been active for a few years, and I pulled a few favors on Cartagena to get some contact information, and I sent him an email saying hey, this is the emerald death, I think I might be your daughter, there were like four paragraphs. It was a lot." A pause, as the drell focused on a mad dash towards a vending machine and got ready to throw it. "And I'll never - you have got to stop trying to melee him, Kirok, he has a fucking saw - even if I weren't a drell, I'd never forget the response, it was two sentences long and it said 'There are four other people on Cartagena claiming that. Get in line.'"

A few dodge rolls and a thrown vending machine later, the boss had begun to flash red. Shirin grabbed him, and the quicktime event prompt appeared over their heads.

"Go over there and press the star button. Anyway, so I inquired around and I did some field work and two weeks later I sent him a reply, and it said 'Now there's four less'. And that was when he actually took notice of me."

A pause.

"I'm not really sure where this conversation is going. Is this getting weird?"

Kirok did as he was commanded. Lord Babbage stood. Improbably a flashing bar labeled "SHADOW COMBO" began flashing brighter and brighter. Not knowing what to do, Kirok mashed buttons.

"Weird's relative, kid," Kirok said as terrible things happened to the clown on the screen. "Killin' yer maybe-sibs'd be weird in Alliance space, yeah; y'get ten to life inna can fer that. In th' Murtag clan, not so much. Gotta screen out th' weak, make sure th' genophage didn't let no wusses live. Well, used t'be that way, I guess. If yer askin' me if I'm gonna judge you fer killin' yer own flesh an' blood just t'get a response out of yer pappy, then th' answer's no, b'cause I din't know enny of 'em an, fer all I know, they were dicks. If yer askin' me if yer anythin' like yer paw, the answer is I don't know, b'cuz I ain't worked with you long 'nuff. If yer askin' if you should be, then th' answer is ain't nobody was like yer pappy, an' that's both a good thing and a bad thing. An' if yer just whinin', then shut up b'cuz yew gotta be harder'n that shit an', ventually, someone's gonna use yer connection t'yer pappy t'try an' get one up on you. For all we know, Reave hisself is gonna be at our next job, an' he'll say somethin' like BEHOLD THE DAUGHTER OF MY ENEMY, BLUR BLUR BLUR an' the goddamn space wizard summons his bones or somethin'."

The keyboard suddenly launched a "HACKING THE WORLD - POWER UP!" move. Kirok had lost all control over what was going on a long time ago. In this simple world, buttons were simply pressed and hackers beat up giant clowns with computer hardware.

"So he took notice of yew, eh? Actually answered? Whut happened? I'm 'summing there weren't no normal happy family reunion or nothin'. What'd he say t'yew?"

Beneath his feet, the varren pups - all FIVE of them now - began eating the carpet. Not gnawing on it. Eating it. Whitefang hopped n the back seat of the couch and yawned massively into Shirin's ear before curling up for a well-earned nap.

"Nice work on the boss. And I'm not whining, lest you get the wrong idea, I've never really discussed this with anybody, and besides that show isn't even real - MOTHERFUCKER--"

Leaning over the couch, Shirin swatted at the pups. They scattered, briefly abandoning their efforts at eating the carpet, and then returned the second she straightened up, causing her to lean over again and shoo them off. The drell sat up again only to find that the next stage had already begun; it opened with a fast-scrolling sequence where an elcor on a hoverbike flew down from outer space and began to pursue the characters, swinging a pair of implanted blades. Having been distracted, Shirin had already died and needed to respawn.

"We have to find somewhere to keep those," she muttered, watching Mr. Hollow flicker back onto the holo. "Anyway, we, uh...we communicated a little, over the next few years. He didn't want his DNA on record so there wasn't any testing, but I guess he acknowledged me, technically. Once I told him I was geared more towards this line of work than killing rampages, he occasionally forwarded me leads on a few things. Usually without comment." Digitized gravity bounce played as Mr. Hollow and Lord Babbage hurdled traffic signs and ducked under incoming skycars.

"Jump! Slide! Jump! Slide!" shouted the onscreen representation of a suit-wearing moxie.

"That was pretty much it, really. He had me introduce him to one of my liaisons in Eclipse once - they're a fucking joke for the most part but they had the tech he needed for a job - and there was a congratulations message waiting one time, after I killed my first huntress. Then after he died, I got a post-mortem email. Must've been tied to one of those sensors in a bank that triggers when you don't check in for a month or something. That's how I found you. There were some directions, a DNA sample, and access to some resources, and...that was it, really."

A pause. The occasional enemy tried to impede their progress and was quickly hurled into the space-bike.

"Throughout that, I kept going after the 'siblings' whenever they popped up. Weeding out the pretenders, I guess."

"Pretenders. Hrrrrrm."

The elcor rushed forward in a sudden blur of rainbow-colored speed. The elcor - presumably the elcor, anyways - suddenly started talking. A mangled digitized voice said "THREATENINGLY: YOUR ASS IS ARE MINE."

"Look, I don't pretend t'know what it's like bein' Abattoir's kin. I barely unnerstood bein' his friend. Shit, we'd talk about ol' times an' shit, but t'ain't like I unnerstood 'im. But I do know e's dead. Can't live in yer pappy's shadow ferever. It's obvious this shit's on yer mind, but don't let it 'fect how y'do yer job. That includes trackin' down ennyone yew think may try t'say 'LOOKIT ME, I'M TH' NEW ABATTOIR,' b'cuz that boy done got around and probably has more kids than that... that... that human who fucked over all of Mongoloid, whatshisname. Anywey. Th' moment you try bein' 'im, you stop bein' enny good t'us. That said, if y'ever say 'Kirok, I need yew t'find this person in this photo, break his legs, an' drag 'im back t'the base, no questions asked,' I'll do it."

A ryncol truck drove by on the screen. In a rare burst of competency, Kirok managed to shoot the truck, causing tons of barrels of ryncol (identified because they said RYNCUL on the side) to roll towards the elcor at near-mach speeds.

Whitefang yawned again and started absently licking Kirok's crest. Kirok didn't seem to notice.

"Er... speakin' of which. D'we have a base, yet? I'm only askin' b'cuz this ship's gonna get awful close awful fast, an' I think th' laundry machine's broken."

There was a ghost of guilt on Kirok's face. How it broke was open for debate.

He was right, and this carried enough weight that Shirin declined to ask how the laundry machine had broken when they'd had the ship for all of two days.

"Yeah. You're right, I know. I'll keep it in mind."

It would take a while for her to think through it - not because it was particularly difficult, Shirin had processed infinitely more complicated concepts before when dreaming up plans for some overly-ambitious theft. It was heavy, though, and had kept her awake more times than she'd admit to anybody, Kirok included.

"SUBLIMINALLY: KILL YOU ARE PARENTS."

"As for a base of operations, I've been thinking about it. There's a few places up for grabs on Omega, and the more legit it goes, the safer we are there. As long as we pay off the lease, I mean. At the same time...ehhh. There's always better places, I think. Now that we've got options, with the relays open, I was thinking of trying to track down one of the older strongholds, the ones you used to use. They were pretty reliable, from what you said, and we might find..."

She trailed off without finishing that thought, and they jumped onto the front of the hoverbike to do battle with the cyborg elcor at close range. Shirin dodge-rolled under a sweeping blade and performed a heavy attack combo on the elcor's face.

"Do you still have the Pen? I mean, I figured it wouldn't still be around, but like...I don't know." Another pause. "Sorry. I was, uh...you know. I was preoccupied. Got Suri'Neyvi on the mind, after what you showed me."

There was a surprising sound of disgust from Kirok.

"UUuuuuuuuuuuuurgh. Suri. Goddamn, I'm gettin' sick of that name. She weren't even that good, y'know. Just a slim piece of nothin' what started out as a fangirl. Okay, yeah, she could kill a dude, but hell, you give a gun t'a volus, he can kill a dude as well. BAH. Stupid little goddamned faceplated pain inna ass princess bitch, BAH. She was damaged goods first time I met her. Shoulda headbutted her faceplate an' let her die of a flu inna sewer're somethin'. FEH. I mean, hell, th' boss weren't much for sanity, either, but at least he din't write goddamned Abattoir fanfiction an' publish th' goddamned shit."

Kirok suddenly turned towards Shirin, eyes screwed up with repulsion. Surprisingly, Lord Babbage was doing better as a result, and several barrels of RYNCUL exploded on the elcor.

"Didja know she tried readin' it to me one day? I'm here, surrounded by a goddamned battalion's worth of goddamned rifles an' shit, an' she just.... PRANCES IN, tawkin' about th' boss, an how she's written a new chapter an' OH LA DE DA DIS IS GON' ON TH' EXTRANET FUR SUUUUUUUUUUURE."

There was a harrumph from Kirok. He fell back into the couch, causing Whitefang to tumble with an AWK sound. He reached for another bottle, bit off the top and guzzled the contents, glass and all.

"Meh. Never could stand that stupid bitch."

There was a moment's silence.

"Yeah. Still got th' pen. Less pirates've taken it over. It's on an asteroid near Omega. Once we get in range I'll take us there. It ain't much, though. Just word of warning."

It was water off a duck's back. You can only pile on so much that matches a person's impressions and expect it to take, really. Shirin just nodded through most of the tirade, pummeling the elcor boss amidst monotone threats and exploding 'ryncul' barrels.

"No. No need to take me there, I was just wondering. I don't need it, we're closer than ever now. I've got something to go on. It's just a matter of time - sooner or later, I'll be able to get in close." Another barrel exploded atop the hoverbike. "And then I'm gonna get her on her back, sit down on her chest, and crack that faceplate open like an egg. I want her to know before I get started, I want her to understand that she brought this on herself."

Her tone was calm. Matter-of-fact. Unwavering.

"I think I'll start at her lips. Cut them off, maybe, I don't know."

She did know. She'd thought about this a lot. She'd dreamed about it.

"Haven't really got a plan from there."

She had a plan. It was improbably long and precisely detailed, and would almost certainly fall short of the fantasy if put into practice.

"Either way, she'll know, before she goes. Mmm, Suri. The biggest pretender of them all. The one who actually got chosen."

On the holo, the hoverbike exploded and their characters leapt onto inexplicable hovering surfboards, a halo appearing over Mr. Hollow's head.

"Oh hey, I leveled up!"

"How'd you level - wait, y'get 'SPERIENCE POINTS IN DIS? Shit, how menny - HOW AM I LEVEL ONE!? This game's shit, Shirin. Fraaaah."

The veins in Kirok's neck were starting to bulge, and his face was blushing orange. The controller creaked in his hand.

"Ennyway, don't focus on Suri right now, either - although when y'wanna take 'er down, lemme know, b'cuz I know 'er, know what she fights like. Don't care what happens afterward. That means y'don't git t'describe it t'me in that weird way you just did. Damn. You an' Abattoir're more alike than I thought. He used t'do that, too. Gimme th'shivers. Just wait 'til we got th' resources t'do it an' WAIT WAIT WAIT, WHAT'S HAPPENIN' NOW, WHAT'D I DO, WHAT'D YEW DO!?"

Inexplicably, the screen began flickering. Suddenly, there was a hovercar sitting on a pier. Inside was a small, young salarian with red sand on his nose.

The screen screamed BONUS STAGE so loud it vibrated the cabin walls.

A shrieking, slurred screech rivaling it came rattling through the wall.

"HOLY SHIT IT'SH TH'FUZZ, CHEESE IT CHEESE IT CHEESE IT"

"Trust me, I will. Vids only go so far - there aren't a lot of them. Oh, this is the bonus round - bust up the car."

As they regained control, Shirin leaped unto the skycar and began swinging a length of rebar into its windshield. Chunks of metal and plating went everywhere as she whaled on the car. Kirok 'helped' with ineffectual swings of Babbage's keyboard, and between the two of them, the car was destroyed before the sixty-second timer had run out.

"HOLY TOLEDO" shouted the salarian, tears forming in his eyes as he surveyed the ruins of his skycar.

"Anyway, speaking of which, I've been giving some consideration to what we should do next, but we can't really go for anything huge until Jil gets done overhauling the ship. That reminds me, while that whole process is still going on, he's supposed to look over the ship's memory banks, see if the Wolfpack has any interesting intel. They might--"

The distinctive screech of a tripping-balls asari pierced through the wall behind them.

It was quiet for a good ten seconds, and then Shirin slowly raised the controller again. "Okay, you might be right about that one."

"Toldja," Kirok said as the new stage started. It was a cutscene. Mr. Hollow and Lord Babbage were having a tense conversation with a drell with an iron hand and steel teeth.

YOU WILL TO DEFEAT SAM ARE EYE ASS ASS IN, he said, before Lord Babbage and Mr. Hollow walked off-screen. As the game blinked into a mess of cybernetic alleyways - you could tell they were 'cybernetic' because everything was made of silver - a bunch of tattooed men with throwing knives started attacking. Kirok got one good swipe of the keyboard in before he started blinking again. He was on his last life.

"Eh, dunno if th' Wolfpack got enny 'telligence worth lookin' at. We may hafta start data minin', mebbe lookin' fer contacts. Gotta be a few info brokers lookin' t'get themselves a rep, maybe funnel us some info. Somethin'. Might put a spider on d'extranet, too - have Jil code somethin' up, drop it on that CDN site, see what it picks up. Dunno. That ain't mah area of experti-no no no no no WHAT THAT IS STRAIGHT UP BULLSHIT HOW CAN A KNIFE DO DAT MUCH DAMAGE WHEN THROWN COME OOOOOOOON!"

"Good plan. I'll make some discreet inquiries. Don't want Jil to do all the work; he's already dealing with most of the tech stuff on the new ship as it is. I might be able to find something, though. Hopefully respectable - we've got enough people at this point that we could go for something a little more ambitious than usual."

She breathed a slow, deliberate sigh through her nostrils, having died at roughly the same point as Kirok to a whole wave of cyborg yakuza. The 'continue' screen blinked and counted down in front of them.

"...Okay, I don't remember those knives doing nearly that much damage. Did they have this set on Extreme?" Shirin set the controller down, leaned back on the couch, and took another swig of the ale. "Y'know what, let's just continue another time. Ugh. Fuckin' yaks."