Who: Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and Garrus Vakarian. What: The truth comes out, courtesy of odd coincidences and shady thugs. Where: A warehouse in Novi Sad, Serbia. When: Friday night. Rating: R, for violence, language, and NPC!death. Status: Complete!
This feels wrong, Tali thought to herself for the umpteenth time, as the two armed thugs escorted her into the warehouse. Ever since agreeing to meet Fist in person, her survival instincts had been screaming at her that this was an obvious trap and that she was going to get herself hurt or worse. The Admiral never met anyone in person and with good reason. Taking away that hacker anonymity was beyond dangerous. People were unreliable and the only way to wipe their hard drives if something went wrong was killing them. The guards had taken away her pistol, and even though she had a few cobbled-together smoke bombs, she was already on quite a few most wanted lists. If she could avoid it, she really, really didn't want to add murder to her list of crimes.
When she got inside, she was greeted by another armed thug, which didn't help her comfort level. "Did you bring it?" The thug asked in Romanian (not surprising, considering Novi Sad was heavily populated by Romanians) stepping calmly into her personal space bubble and running his hand along her side in a way that made her skin crawl. Tali slapped his hand away, taking a step back. "What's going on? Where's Fist?" She demanded, again in Romanian, though hers was decidedly more choppy.
"Right here, Admiral." The voice came from behind two more armed thugs, and a tall, surly looking man stepped out. She was a bit more concerned with the fact that he had a gun pointed at her, though, and her brow furrowed in confusion. "Sorry, Admiral, but you're worth far more than any data you could give me. Do you have any idea how many companies and countries would pay through the nose to get to you?"
Shit shit shit shit shit. Tali swallowed heavily, steeling her resolve. "I think I have some idea," she responded, raising her chin defiantly. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her hand slid into her jacket pocket, fingers curling around one of the small smoke bombs she'd managed to scrape together from scraps and junk. Thank god for engineering and her travel soldering iron. "Come on now. You're outnumbered, sweet thing. Don't make this difficult," Fist chuckled ominously at her, stepping closer.
"The deal's off." In one quick motion, she threw down the smoke grenade, using the thick cloud of gray as an opportunity to sprint off into the rows of crates. It was a large warehouse. Maybe she'd be able to get out before they located her.