You're My Thrill (Watchmen/Mass Effect) Chapter 2.

Hell or High Water (1.2)

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Commissioned by Sivantic

Wordcount: 2500

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The Presidium, a den for snakes, salesmen, and politicians for the entire galaxy. While children crawl, live, and die in vents miles away, they live in luxury growing fat and bloated off the misery of others. Asari whores, Turian thugs, and Salarian murderers in suits and dresses live next to floating gardens and artificial rivers, while soup kitchens and clinics can barely help anyone. 

They do not notice me, because I walk in their shadows, and the sensors that can pierce my skin would find their own toys, drugs, and illicit gadgets.

So, I walk amongst them invisible, and I listen, and I wait at the steps the galaxy’s bloated, rotting heart.

Those who pass by whisper amongst themselves.

“…what are the humans thinking!? Those accusations are ludicrous…”

“…Who’d ever believe the Butcher of Torfan, of all people!?”

“…who would ever think Saren Arterius would betray the Council…”

“Idiots that’s who.”

“The Geth have never left the Veil. There’s probably something in their programming…”

“You expect to believe the Quarians thoughts about that, but couldn’t save themselves? What a joke.”

Meaningless words mingled with the only words that mattered. I threw aside what didn’t need, and took what I did, as the crowds left the Presidium.

I took notice when the crowds grew silent, and their steps became hurried.

The Butcher of Torfan is a woman with red hair and with a face covered in battle scars. Clad entirely in black armor, all grew silent or left in her path. She carried her history on her shoulders and with pride, as she walked with two other soldiers, an Admiral, and a politician towards the human embassies.

Her gaze on the Presidium was predatory. She searched for targets, threats, and foes. Her grip on her helmet tightened, as she looked at alcoves, waist-high walls, and at where I stood. 

Others saw someone to be feared.

I saw a woman on the edge, a warrior who expected battle, and a human being who would do anything to accomplish her mission.

I saw all that I needed to see, and as they passed me by, I placed a listening device on the back of the politician’s shoe.

Then, I waited, listened, and learned as I searched for a Volus named Barla Von.

…

The Volus grows still when he notices my grip on his mask. His hand clenches, but his Omnitool has been disabled. 

A gratifying, deep hiss leaves him.

Fear is gratifying.

“Talk, or I break you.” 

“I… who…” His questions end, as I tighten my grip. Slowly, surely, and carefully. That is how you hurt and kill a criminal with kinetic barriers. “Stop!”

“I ask the questions. Saren. Eden Prime. Now.”

I listen to my device on the politician’s boot. Mouse did good work. Their words are clear and crisp. 

The Butcher of Torfan is seeking out a C-Sec officer, believing that Barla Von will charge too much for his information.

It is true. Money exchanged poorly for information.

But not violence.

Not for criminals.

They are weak. Spineless. Lacking in conviction. 

Pain terrifies them. Losing their life? Unthinkable.

I have already won.

“He… Saren worked with the Shadow Broker through me. He betrayed him!” The Volus speaks quickly, attempting to move, but I hold him fast. The doors are shut, but even if they open, all people would see is him standing perfectly still. “He sent a Krogan to deal with Saren, something about evidence—

“More. You know more. Tell me.” I move my hand away from his mask. He relaxes, until my hand takes hold of the tube on his shoulder. It cracks and hisses in my grip. His fear is renewed. “No games. Everything. Now.”

Barla Von is silent for a moment, before he gives me the answer I want.

“There is a Quarian! A girl with evidence of Saren’s betrayal. Evidence that the Shadow Broker wanted! Stop! Please!” Panic fills him. In my grip, the tube has shattered and the hiss of gas begins to escape into the room. I search his voice. There is no anger. Only rising despair and hopelessness, as I take hold of his other life support tube. He is telling the truth. I begin to squeeze. “Fisk! Fisk of Chara’s Den! He’s hired people to kill her! You need to find her before they do!”

I crush the tube and a cry of pain leaves him, before I take the back of his head and crash it into the counter of his shop.

A shop used to validate money gained from the suffering of others. A method to launder funds from his true vocation. This man is a career criminal, lacking in morals, and he will continue to do his work even after this. 

His body grows slack, and his mask cracks against the edge of his shop’s counter, and blood seeps through the crack. It is heavy and thick, oxidizing quickly with the air, and forms a bridge between him and the broken edge of his countertop.

A thought crosses my mind.

He fears me. 

He will answer my questions. 

He will be useful in the future, if I stop now, and call help for him.

I disregard those thoughts. 

If I let him live, he will continue to sell information. That information will ruin lives for the sake of saving others later.

I am not Osterman. 

So, I rear back Barla Von’s head in my grip and aim for the jagged, broken edge of his countertop. 

And, I press forward.

His skull gives way and his body jerks a singular time, before life leaves him completely, and he slumps forward embedded into his desk.

I take his Omnitool and take all he has, before moving on.

…

The politician yelled at the Butcher of Torfan about a firefight occurring in a clinic. The soldier went to C-Sec, met with and recruited a Krogan, and was moving to confront Fisk with a Turian officer. 

Fisk is dead. Sprawled on the ground, reaching for his gun.

His workers do not know. 

The bar he called his continues to serve mind-numbing liquor and Asari whores. 

But he is dead, his omnitool is mine, and I know where the Quarian will be.

Her name is Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, she is in danger, and I will save her.

“Who’s there!?” She turns as soon as I enter the alley. My footsteps are quiet, my face silences my breath, and my skin continues to hide me. A sensor? Unlikely. Too expensive. Detection systems within her mask? Too advances and expensive for her. A dedicated device on her person? Hrrm. Most likely. “Show yourself or I’ll shoot!”

Tornado shotgun, Hahne-Kedar, modified for Quarian use. Three fingers require a different trigger and stock. It has more modifications. Carnage shot modification. There is increased bulk to the ammo block location. Another modification.

I deactivate my camouflage and leave the shadows. 

“A child?”

I ignore her concern and her words, and throw Fist’s omnitool at her feet. It is active, and its screen activates before her.

“You have been betrayed. Assassins are after you. We need to go. Now.” I raise my hands and show my palms. Her barrel does not waver as she retrieves the omni-tool with one hand. Good discipline. “Look quickly.”

I wait and watch the shadows, as she discovers the truth.

“Damn him. He set me up.” Anger fills her, but it fades into the will to act. Disciplined. Strong. Well-raised. I can see how she has come this far and acquired her evidence. “Okay, fine. How are we doing this? Where are we going, human?” 

The Butcher of Torfan is once again on the phone. She is telling the politician that Fist is dead and they have no clue who did it. As she speaks, the Krogan grumbles about his mark being taken and the Turian comments on the brutality of my kill. All three wonder how he died, and the politician growls when he hears the cameras no longer function.

“Chora’s den.”

“To Fist!? He wants me killed!”

“He’s dead. I killed him.”

The Quarian is silent for a moment, as she stares at me with glowing eyes behind her mask.

Then, she speaks.

“Oh.”

…

Fist’s body is gone. His office has been cleaned of blood. C-Sec guards the entrance, called by the Turian officer the Butcher recruited. The Krogan listens from the doorway of Fist’s office, with the two human soldiers who accompanied the Butcher before the Council. 

The Butcher has finished speaking to the Quarian, resolving to bring her before the council, and calls the politician.

The politician moves quickly on the other end of the line, pulling many strings and plying his trade, so the leaders of the Galaxy would hear him out once again. 

He works quickly.

But there is enough time for the Butcher to ask her questions.

“You called yourself Rorschach.” She is scarred from battle, and there is no softness in her gaze. I am viewed as a possible threat. Something that she doesn’t understand. It is good.  “Is that who you really are?”

She wonders if I have lied to her, if I am concealing my identity.

It is not the case.

She sees all of me. 

My coat, my spotless gloves, my face, and my whole body. It is all in front of her. But she doesn’t understand. 

No one ever has. 

“It is. This all of me.”

Her jaw tenses at my words. Her hand curls into a fist. She steps toward me, and looms over me. A soldier clads in black armor, holding her helmet in one hand, and other ready to unholster her gun.

“Shepard!” The male soldier speaks out in alarm, and the female soldier moves forward. 

They see a child in an elaborate costume, unlike their commander.

“Quiet! This kid killed Fist and probably Barla Von, too. He knows what he’s doing, and knew how to find us, after getting what we wanted.” She speaks, and the entire room listens. The two humans, the Quarian, the Turian, and even the Krogan stand straighter and focus renewed gazes on me. Caution fills them all. They are not criminals, so they have nothing to fear from me. “So, “Rorschach,” what’s your game? Why are doing this?” 

The answer is simple.

“The criminals on the Citadel. I want them all gone. Dead.” The Turian from C-Sec opened his mouth, as the Butcher of Torfan loomed over me. I spoke before he could. “Not the petty thieves. Not the ones C-Sec takes in. I want those they can’t reach.” 

The Krogan laughed a deep, throaty laugh.

“The politicians getting bribed to look away. He. He. He. I like this human. He has a quad.” The Krogan’s gaze was steady. His lips were curled in a smile. But behind the humor, in his eyes, was a soldier. He searched, found, and memorized all the ways he could kill me. “He wants you to keep messing things up, so that he can make a mess of the Citadel’s criminals.”

Bribes change hands. Money flows. Follow the money, trace the accounts, and you make a web. Criminals on the Citadel are easily found. They pay their dues, or blackmail those in charge, in order to do business. They funnel drugs to the hands of children, steal people away, and murder each other while killing civilians because people look away.

I will grab them by their necks and force them to look into the abattoirs of blood, filth, and misery that they have made.

Those blackmailed will be given a choice. 

Death, or the chance at redemption, while I kill those who threaten them.

Those bribed will have no choice. 

“Look, human, the Citadel has a lot rough spots, and I get wanting to get rid of all the criminals, but what you’re planning isn’t going to work.” The Turian speaks up. I am surprised. He speaks with concern and experience. “You’re just going to get yourself killed… even with how well you managed to get inside a drug lord’s business, murder him in his office, and steal every piece of important information he has… you know what, the more things I say, the less crazy your plan is sounding.”

The Krogan laughed again.

“This little human will get through at least half of the underworld, before they even know what’s hit’em. That stealth tech, his information gathering, and his skills… he he he… this place’ll be ruined in a month. It’ll be a sight to see.”

The Turian idly tilted his head at the Krogan’s words, before crossing his arms.

“Depends on how he does it, if he plans it right, hits his targets after staking them all out properly, plans a decent route of attack, and invests in some actual weaponry… he can probably hit them all before anyone noticed. And, I’ve just realized I’m helping plan the deaths of a lot of people as a C-Sec officer. Forget I said anything. Please.”

I considered both the Krogan and Turian as possible allies in the future, before the Butcher of Torfan grunted and retook my attention.

“So, I take Tali, her evidence against Saren, and get the Council on his ass, and all you want in return is the chance to rip through the Citadel’s criminals.” The scarlet-haired, scarred woman grimaced as she looked down upon me. I met her gaze with my face, and wondered what she saw, before she shook her head and made her decision. “I can use someone like you against Saren and whoever he’s working with. Work with me. I’ll do what I can to help you against the criminals you’re after.”

“Shepard! This kid is a murderous vigilante with severe mental issues! We should be handing him off to a mental facility, not helping him!”

“Uh, yeah, Commander. I have to back Kaiden here. This doesn’t sound good at all.”

Both the soldiers with Shepard spoke their minds, but her gaze remained upon me. 

She awaited my answer as the Butcher of Torfan, a officer of the Alliance Navy, and as a skilled, N7 operative.

She offered her help as all those things.

She did not know that she was set to be a Spectre, after the Council heard for themselves the recording of Saren’s voice and received the Geth memory core that Tali’Zorah acquired. She did not of the deal the politician I bugged was making behind her back, with the admiral by his side. 

Therefore, I made her clarify. 

“I will help you with all I have. I will expect you to do the same.” I have only myself, and the information I have gathered from Barla Von and Fist. It will take time to investigate it all. But with the help of a Spectre, that time will not be wasted. “Is that clear, Commander Shepard?” 

I offered her my hand, as the deal was brokered between the Council and humanity.

“Crystal.”

She spoke through grit teeth, suspecting me of something, but her grip was strong as she made her promise. 

It is a good day.