[Illium] Meanwhile, at One Dwickcast Tower

As his aircar hurtled towards the skyscraper, a statuesque man with ebony skin gently gripped at his collar and pulled.

The scene outside was disturbing, to say the least. The building looked, for all purposes, to be the epicenter of Illium’s own Tuchanka. Ruined buildings surrounded the foundation, collapsed seas of steel and plascrete serving as a constant reminder of the Reaper attacks on the planet less than two years ago. A single paved highway stretched from this ruined center of Nos Astra, this…malaise of ruin and neglect of a once-great and rebuilding city, the only occasional transport being the supplies of food, water and services required to keep the building running.

A lone sign blazed on the building, its lone flicker serving only to draw attention to the apocalyptic wastes surrounding it.



As the aircar slowed, however, drifting into the parking bay on Floor 69, the scene changed considerably. Inside this massive skyscraper, everything was pristine, neat, and orderly. A shower of sparks flew from the polished floor as the car extended its docking clamps, and a sultry female voice echoed over the vehicle’s comms as the vehicle descended into place.

“Welcome to the DDS,” it said.

As if on cue, there was a sudden crash of glass from far, far above - so far above it barely registered to the ear. However, the sudden razor-sharp rain of silicate shards were easily seen, especially as it was followed by a giant leather couch, executive model, black as midnight and made only out of the finest Illium leather.

Of course, it was also on fire.

As the giant piece of flaming, ultra-fine furniture crashed to the ground, scattering burning pieces of wood, glass, ultra-light materials, and dead cow everywhere, the speakers around the building suddenly cracked into life, slamming the air with the raspy sound of a volus speaking into a microphone.

You fucking *hssssk* fatass that thing was worth 10,000 credits UH, ATTENTION, DDS *hsssk* EMPLOYEES. UH, PLEASE DISREGARD THE *hsssk* UNANNOUNCED, UH, FURNITURE MOVE. WE ARE CURRENTLY *hsssk* UH, FILMING A... SAFETY VIDEO. YEAH. A SAFETY VIDEO ON *hsssk* PROBLEMS IN THE WORKPLACE. PLEASE KEEP CALM AND IGNORE THE *hsssk* FLAMING FURNITURE alright, you fucking asshole, that's coming out of *hsssk* YOUR half, I'm sick of..."

The speakers rose to a pitch and shut off as the couch burned to a crisp on the ground. Just another morning in the DDS.

And just like that, the ambiance was destroyed. As the ebony-skinned man watched the couch crash into the floor several stories above him, his eyes narrowed to slits, and he withdrew a miniature camera from his pocket, snapping a single picture.

This was going to be easier than he thought.

Exiting the aircar with practiced grace, he strolled down the parkway and snapped another picture of the couch, getting a clearer shot of burning leather and mahogany. Stuffing it back into his breast pocket, he then walked to the parking bay entrance, hesitated for a moment, and opened the door to the lobby.

The first thing the man - and everybody else - noticed in the lobby was the huge, two-story oil painting of Jorgal Dwick, dressed in 17th century earth finery, painted in the baroque style and lit by floating teerg crystals, brought in all the way from Thessia. To the right of it, in a much, much smaller frame was a portrait of Terrorbyte in a similar outfit, complete with a large, red hat with a feather on it.

The office drones didn't even so much as look up at this display of opulence. Par for the course for the DDS, apparently.

The lobby was a riot scene. A pair of vorcha wheeled out a large box labeled "PROPS" on it, the bottom of the box dripping with faint green goo. A pair of asari dressed in business suits yelled at each other about lawsuits as they walked through to the cafetera. A turian security guard wrestled a giant klixen - a giant, blue klixen, still dripping with paint - out of the elevator and towards the parking lot. All the while, camera drones zipped around, scouring every single scene of action, as if mining even the most mundane of people's lives for possible entertainment.

Across the lobby, the elevator dinged. A large elcor, dressed in neon clothes and "oontz oontz oontz"ing to himself as he left the buuilding.

Ducking away from a camera drone as it whizzed by, the man slowly made his way through the crowds toward a single, rounded desk in the center of the room marked “INFORMATION.” As he made his way forward, politely brushing his way past an angry-looking krogan in yet another business suit, he thought to himself just how easily he could get what he needed through any other means.

But that wasn’t why he was here. Oh, no.

Marching up to the desk, he knocked against the chintzy plascrete material and spoke.

“Excuse me, Miss, but I need to…see…”

The door flew open. Beyond it, several group of varren were being trained by a salarian to bark in a particular note on cue. The salarian glared at the human, eyes thin with displeasure.

"Do you mind!? We're trying to train these animals for the next 'Hap-Pup-y Holiday" musical extravaganza! This is a private studio, sir! Begone!"

In the background, the varren spontaneously began "singing," the noise dissonant and discordant as only a room full of bored varren can be.

The man was taken aback for a moment, then shook his head. “Yes, I do mind,” said the man, raising up his wrist and peeling back the sleeve to reveal a detective’s badge engraved on a state-issued omni-tool. “Vincent Olabode, Risk Assessment and Analysis, IPMSIC. I wish to speak with your employer.”

This got…less than the reaction he expected. Barely anyone even paused at his declaration, milling around him to get to wherever the hell they were off to in such a hurry. His only audience, the scantily-clad barely-out-of-her-seventies asari sitting before him, put her stiletto’d feet on the desk and gave him a bored, somewhat lascivious look.

“Which one?” she asked.

Olabode pointed to the painting looming directly behind her, a deadpan look on his face. She turned to look.

“Ahhhh, you wanna talk to the big boy upstairs, huh?” she replied, grinning and withdrawing a datapad from the desk. “Welllll, I’m gonna have to get you to sign this forrrrm, indicating the date and time of your meeting. If you don’t have one scheduled, I can see if I can pencil you in, but I have to warn you that our CEO has very strict hours and makes a habit of meeting reserved people a priority. He’s a very busy man, you know, managing company assets across so many different systems, and it makes a bad impression on our investors if we put a drop-in client on higher priority than…”

The asari’s voice slowly faded into the background noise as the detective walked away, datapad in hand.

After ten minutes of listening to the asari go on and on about her job and DDS in general - and twenty more minutes of signing so many non-disclosure agreements the man was surprised he'd be allowed to take the air in his lungs outside of the building - the investigator was finally going up the elevator to the penthouse level.

He rolled his eyes sullenly. This was turning into less of an experience and more of a visit to the madhouse. The info on the datapad was... telling. It all seemed ordinary at a first glance; insurance fraud queries, mounds of mismatched insurance claims, someone who was seen eating in a cafe on Noveria when he was supposed to be dead and his family getting thousands in DDS credits. But then it got... weird. For example, the numerous instances of "death by fatal prank-related misadventure" or "ritual rhakhanian sacrifical practices." The huge amount of red sand that was being smuggled in to various members of the DDS writing cast, including one "Juan Packsresident." The insurance claims against a "flaming dump truck." Chemical reports saying that Space Protector(z) merchandise were made of semi-toxic materials. So on and so on and so on...

The elevator dinged as it hit the penthouse floor. The doors opened.

It looked like a war between two interior decorators was going on. On one side, an immensely fat krogan was tearing at some extremely lush furniture, throwing bits of it out the window and setting other bits on fire. On the other, a white-suited volus ranted and raved incoherantly.

"DWICK, YOU MASSIVE *hsssk* FUCK UP. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE *hsssk* FURNITURE, WE CAN FUCKING *hsssk* RETURN IT - NO, YOU FUCK, THAT'S GENUINE CORINTHIAN LEATHERRRRRR"

“NO IT AIN’T, NO IT AIN’T!” bellowed the krogan, dousing his current victim in something that stank like benzene before zapping it with his omni-tool. As this particular couch caught fire, however, an almost terrified-sounding screech of electronics squealed from within it, and a drone shot out of it, spinning crazily and letting out electric shocks before the grabbed it with a biotic ball and threw it to the floor. The drone positively shattered, then exploded in a fireball of its own.

Dwick looked at the drones remains, then cocked his head at the volus. “SEE?! DIS IS WHY YA DON’ ACCEPT SHIPMENTS FROM ENNY FUCKERS CALLIN' 'EMSELVES ‘JAYKAWK!’”

"IT'S A TURIAN *hsssk* FURNITURE COMPANY, YOU *hsssk* COLOSSAL ASSHOLE," Terrorbyte said as he waved the receipt at the overweight krogan. "TURIAN *hsssk* FUCKING *hsssk* FURNITURE, LIKE YOU ASKED FOR. JAYKAWK IS A *hsssk* TURIAN NAME. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU. AND WHO THE *hsssk* IS HE?!?"

Terrorbyte waved the receipt at the investigator, a raving ball of rage and disbelief.

“DAT’S WHAT’S WRONG WIT’ ME,” shot back the fat dinosaur, pointing a finger at the wreckage. “AN’ DON’ NEVER TAKE SHIT FROM NO ONE EVEN SOUNDIN’ LIKE KAWK AGAIN!”

He then spun around, facing the investigator and started bellowing again before the man could get a word in edgewise. “AN’ YOU! WOSSYERNAME?! Y'AIN'T NO 'KAWK' FUCKER, IS YA?! IS YA?!”

“…N…No?”

”Oh.”

Just like that, the Jorgal’s psychotic shouting was over. Stomping over to the door with a mad grin on his face, he held out a hand to greet the investigator…who had quite wisely retreated behind the doorframe.

“Jorgal Dwick, CEO’a der DDS. What’cha in ‘ere fer?”

Oh dear. This was going to be one of those meetings.

"My name is Vincent Olabode, sirs. The ... insurance investigator you signed for? Regarding the possibly fraudulent insurance claims against your organization, particularly the media department? I spoke on the phone to the both of you just last month, do you remember?"

“Olabode, Vincent…Olabode…” Dwick’s eyes want vacant as he repeated the man’s names, tapping one of his chins as he did so. A moment later, however, a look of recognition came back to the, and he snapped his fingers.

“Oh, right, right, yer da fuzz we ordered!” he exclaimed, patting the man on his wiry hair before dragging him into the room. “C’mawn in, take a load off – don’ mind da mess, we’re just redecoratin’, heh—”

One of the couches was still on fire. Dwick ignored it, sitting on his massive stone seat as he watched the detective from across his equally massive desk.

“Sooooo, what can we do you for?”

"That's what I was about to ask you," Mr. Olabode said, crossing to one of the overturned seats and levering it to an upright position. Wiping some invisible dust off of it, the tall, lean man sat down and opened up his omnitool, a number of windows fluttering from it like luminous butterflies.

"I have the reports and information your, er, business partner sent me over encrypted electronic courier. All this information regarding fraudulent insurance claims against your media conglomerate - ten, from what you've told me - need to be investigated before the Illium courts will even take them seriously. As I told your friend, that's where I come in. However, your... bookkeeping here is somewhat disorganized. Not that I'm blaming you for this," he said as the pair of them moved to speak, "only that some of your employees, like this... Juan Packsresident, which is the second most ridiculous name I've ever heard, do not keep very tidy books, nor do they make for the most coherent support for you. For example, from the afore-mentioned Packsresident..."

Mr. Olabode took out a pair of antiquated glasses and peered at one of the windows that hovered around him.

"'Ahoy, companjeros. I totally and willfully disadmit that, hey, these Dwick and Thermovite gentlemen are the most upstanding and the legalest of eagles. How so many red sand did get into the colony's drinking water is forever a mystery, like a man who wears a fishbowl on his head. Why does he do it? No one can say. But I, who is totally not the sexy man John Sackpresident, did not and never will admit to the totally awesome habit of snorting red sand and accidentally dumping the remains into the toilet while dancing in the shower to old-timey tunes.'"

The tall nigerian took off his glasses and gave the most withering of looks at the pair of them, a look so intense it could burn suns and so heavy it attracted asteroids.

“Lemme see dat shit.”

Olabode frowned but did as told, waving the screen over to Dwick. The krogan, meanwhile, leaned forward as far as his gut would allow him to stare at it with his good eye. There was a good half minute of him sitting there, reading over the deposition, before sitting back and shrugging.

“Wellllll, I don’ see what da problem is,” the krogan said, grinning. “’Mean, looks like Nineball there’s straighter’n a crowbar ter da face.”

He cocked his head in a way that was remarkably birdlike (well, aside from the chins). Olabode, to his credit, remained motionless, aside from clasping his fingers together.

“Mr. Dwick, all levity aside, this is a deposition of one of your most famous employees’ statements, and it all but indicts him as not only a criminal, but a remarkably poor one at that.”

“Reaalllly now,” returned Dwick, laying an arm on the table. “See, way I see it, even if Nineball’s lyin’ ‘troo dem little white teeth’a his, ain’ ‘no crime bein’ committed! ‘Ee’s just a dumbshit what’s flushin’ some good stuff – an’ who’s ever heard’ve a sand law on Illium, eh?”

Olabode sighed. Yes. It was going to be one of those conversations indeed. “I have, Mr. Dwick. But let us table that issue for now. We have plenty more…issues to discuss. Say, for example, the family of the late Iloiriet Moczanelle, who claim that they were forced to conduct a closed-casket funeral due to, and I quote, ‘how bloody and unrecognizable her earthly remains were.’”

The detective’s windows spun around until he found the correct one.

“Mr. Dwick, your records state that Ms. Moczanelle died of a stroke. Care to explain?”

"Uh, I think I can *hsssk* field that one, Mr. Olabode. The person in question had a ... heart-related issue while on set that was... er, *hsssk* completely unrelated to any DDS-proscribed *hsssk* events. What caused her... stroke *hsssk* was a miscommunication with a fellow colleague who has *hsssk* gone on to give a public apology and has allowed us to *hsssk* donate extensively to her *hsssk* family. In no way was the DDS ever *hsssk* involved in her untimely death, other than we just *hsssk* hired two people who didn't really get along. Happens all the *hsssk* time."

Terrorbyte looked around for a chair of his own to sit in; unfortunately, the remaining furniture was either on fire or ripped to shreds by an obese, paranoid krogan. Sighing deeply, he found a pillow that hadn't been torn to shreds and sat on that.

"In any case, we didn't hire you to look into *hsssk* those cases. We're more concerned about some of the others - say, for example, how we're being held responsible for the poisoning of *hsssk* Travius 4 when we don't have any holdings there."

Olabode gave Terrorbyte a long, hard stare out of the corner of his vision, the whites of his eyes only serving to sharpen the intense look of dislike on his face as he listened to the volus’ placations. As the conversation turned back towards him, he reached to his side and slid one of the screens before him.

“You don’t? Then how about a large demographic base? Children, three to thirteen or species-to-human equivalent, the main demographic for your Space Protector(z) holoshow?”

He double-tapped on the screen before him, and it expanded to show an image of turian children in hospital beds, eyes sunken behind even further than usual behind their carapaces.

“Thirteen children of the colony have been hospitalized with acute lead poisoning in the past four weeks,” he said with mild contempt. “So far, the only unifying feature of each case has been their family’s purchase of so-called ‘Space Protector(z) Sensogoggles,’ of which there have been multiple complaints of ‘shoddy worksmanship’ and ‘poor overall quality.’”

He gave the volus a cool, even look.

“Now, I have taken the liberty of collecting the offending items for chemical analysis, but you could save me a lot of time and effort if you simply tell me what you build them with.”

"All those materials passed the GalStan *hsssk* Hazardous Chemical Requirements of 2150, Mr. Olabode. If you want a complete list of the *hsssk* chemicals and elements we used in the toy construction, they're all *hsssk* available in our legal department. Also, every package came with an *hsssk* explicit warning not to light the toys on fire or expose them to acid - how on earth were we *hsssk* supposed to know that the colony had acid lakes nearby? Totally *hsssk* not our fault. Besides, we hired *hsssk* you - specifically to look into the fraudulent insurance claims we've been *hsssk* been forced to pay out. I mean, we've been accused of subliminal *hsssk* advertising and the use of psychoharmonics in our commercials! That's *hsssk* absurd! Right, Dwick?"