Chapter 5 Chapter Four

"Look where you're going, human." Pell almost ran into the krogan who appeared out of nowhere, and the krogan glared at him, obviously looking for fault and preparing to fight.Normally Pell wouldn't be afraid of anyone, least of all aliens, but he wisely made an exception for an angry eight-foot mountain of muscle bumps. "I'm sorry," he whispered, avoiding eye contact until the gigantic reptile slumped away to find another place to satisfy its bloodlust. Normally, Pell wouldn't be so careless that he almost ran into a talking lizard the size of a small tank, even on Omega's crowded streets.But at the time he had other things on his mind.Cerberus sent him to connect with a new liaison in a new Terminus star system, but that liaison never showed up.That alone was enough to make Pell nervous.Then, as he walked to his rented apartment on the next block, he felt as if he was being watched.

He hasn't noticed any suspicious people following him, but when Cerberus trains his agents, he says that ignoring his instincts is a quick way to die.Unfortunately, Omega isn't the kind of place where you can just wander back and look back.You have to be aware of where you're going if you don't want to end up with a knife stuck in your stomach for no apparent reason. Omega is a massive space station deep in the Terminus star system, unlike any facility known in the Milky Way.The space station was built around the remains of a huge, sprawling asteroid whose core was nearly hollowed out for its rich deposits of heavy metals, which were used to build the complexes that covered every inch of the asteroid's surface.The exact age of the space station is unknown, although everyone agrees that it was built before the Protheans disappeared.Opinions differ, however, as to who was the first race to settle here after the Protheans mysteriously disappeared.

In the long history of the space station, several ethnic groups have claimed to own it, but no one has actually controlled it for more than a few years.Now it is a gathering place for the unwelcome people in the world of the Citadel, and it is also a relay station for these people's interstellar business activities.These undesirables are mainly the Lithani branch of the Batarian and Salarian people, as well as mercenaries, slave owners, assassins, and fugitives of all races. Omega is now the de facto capital of the Terminus star system, although wars have occasionally erupted between the races that hold territory here.Some factions have been entrenched on the space station for hundreds of years, and each new race builds its own buildings outside the space station to suit its own needs.Their efforts turned Omega into a giant floating city, broken up into individual neighborhoods, each with its own wildly inconspicuous architecture and arbitrary design.From a distance, the extension of the space station is extremely uncoordinated, not even balanced at all.The center of the main junction on the asteroid extended long arms in all directions, and strangely shaped branches extended from the arms.In the various blocks, the buildings seem to be erected randomly, without any purpose or planning, the streets twist and turn, turn in the most unexpected places, and sometimes turn around and back, forming an annoying dead end. alley.Even the inhabitants of the space station can quickly get lost, or become disorientated, and for newcomers, it can be completely confusing.

Pell has been to Omega many times, and these annoying things are no longer a problem for him, but he still hates this place.The space station is full of races, endlessly, and even humans are a noticeable presence here.Compared to the orderly - even tedious - order of the Citadel station, Omega's high street is bustling, dirty, and dangerous.There is no law enforcement force here, and the few rules that exist here are enforced by the actual controllers of each site who hire thugs to form gangs.Crime is rampant here, and murder is rampant. But it doesn't bother Pell, he knows how to take care of himself.He has other things at Omega.Every corner of the space station exudes the stench of more than a dozen races. All kinds of strange perfumes can't hide the smell of sweat and urea. The smell of all kinds of unidentifiable food comes from the open windows and doors. It drifted out, and the garbage piles were scattered randomly in the back streets and alleys.

Although the taste is already bad, the sound here is even more unpleasant.Unlike the Council world, the vast majority of races here refuse to use the common language of trade unless absolutely necessary.His ears were filled with endless murmurs, grunts, growls, and piercing screams as he walked along.His auto-translator is useless here, as it is not programmed to decode the dialects of the various planets. The various races can't even agree on the name of the space station.The mother tongue of each race has a different name for it.The unpronounceable Asari language can be roughly translated as "evil heart", which means "lawless place" in Turian, and "secret place" in Salari, krogan Humans call it "The Land of Opportunity", and for convenience, the automatic translator on Pell's belt translates all these words into the human "Omega", which is the end of everything.

Although he didn't want to come here, he still had things to do.Cerberus sent him to be an intermediary with the contact, and Pell knew it was best not to mess with the Phantom Man.Of course, this does not prevent Pell and his team from taking on some projects that may not be approved by the above, but can earn extra money.That's why it's important to do things right: follow instructions, keep a low profile, don't make mistakes, and don't draw unwanted attention to your unauthorized actions. Unless they already knew, Pell wondered.He wondered if he was being targeted by a Cerberus agent.Maybe the whole job was to throw him on the streets of Omega, where the humans wouldn't even notice.

"There's only one way to find out if that's the case," he murmured, and started to run, luckily he wasn't wearing any armor that might hinder his mobility. He ran fast, dodging crowds, turning, twirling, and walking away amidst the aliens' exclamations, ignoring their incomprehensible threats and curses.He changed direction sharply and turned into a deserted back alley filled with garbage cans, waste bins, and piles of trash. He dodged several tightly closed doorways and crouched low behind a large dumpster. He took a small mirror out of his pocket and adjusted the angle so he could see what was going on in the alley without sticking his head out and exposing himself.

In a moment his stalker came into view, dashing from the street into the deserted alley, and appeared around the corner.This person was not big, at least thirty centimeters shorter than Pell, and was covered in black clothes from head to toe.The hood tightly covers the stalker's face. The man stopped and looked carefully at the whole alley, looking around, trying to find out where Pell had gone.The stalker draws a pistol, constantly reorienting, and moves forward cautiously, ready to fire at any moment. Pell could pull out his own weapon, and he had several to choose from: his trusty Hane Kedal slung from his hip, a dagger in his belt, and a miniature pistol on the heel of his boot.That guy doesn't seem to be wearing any combat suit that can be equipped with a kinetic shield, so a good shot can kill him.But if you kill the tracker, you won't be able to find out who is tracking you and why.So, he just quietly waited for the opponent to come.

The man moved on, walking in the middle of the alley, obviously not wanting to get too close to the door, or next to boxes where the enemy might be hiding, in case the enemy popped out and caught him off guard.But the tracker was still looking around, hesitatingly looking at every possible hiding place, and it took a long time to see. His target was getting closer, maybe only three meters away.He stared at him in the mirror, waiting until the guy's head was turned away from him, then rushed out and lunged at him, aiming at the enemy's gun hand before he could react. He grasped the forearm with his left hand, then snapped the wrist with his right, directing the pistol toward its owner, the enemy himself.He kept kicking his feet, knocking opponents down with momentum and his size.

They rolled out into the street, the man's pistol jerked out of his hand, and Pell heard a manly scream from his opponent.They scrambled quickly, but Pell was bigger and stronger, and Pell had the upper hand as they fell to the ground together.Pell twisted him face down, and Pell hooked his forearm around his chin and choked him hard by the throat.With his other hand still twisting the enemy's wrist, Pell twisted the enemy's arm behind his back. The guy beneath him was struggling and squirming, his arms were as strong as iron bars, but Pell's size and joint skills still couldn't gain an advantage.

"Who are you?" Pell whispered in his ear in the common interstellar trade language, "Who sent you?" "Glo." The answer was nervous. Pell loosened his arms slightly. "Glo sent you?" "I'm Glo." Pell's automatic translator translated his words into English, but he still recognized the speaker's native language, and the voice behind the tightly closed ambient mask was unmistakable. Pell snorted in disgust, let go of the quarians, and stood up. "You should have met me at the bar," he said.No help pulling his contact up from the ground. Glo stood up cautiously to see if anything was broken.He was like every other quarian Pell had ever met.Slightly shorter and smaller than the average human, wearing several layers of ill-fitting clothing.A black veil covered Glo's face, but it had been torn away in the scuffle, revealing a glossy, reflective visor that covered him tightly. "I'm sorry," the quarian replied, speaking in English. "I set up meetings so I could watch you from a safe distance and make sure you were alone. I've had too many meetings in the past where I was supposed to only meet one person but it was nothing more than luring me into their ambush circle .” "Why this?" Pell thought, excited. "Are you used to betraying others?" Glo's authentic human accent made him inexplicably unhappy. "I mean what I say," Glo assured him. "But there are a lot of people who don't like quarians, they think we're just ghouls and thieves." That's because that's how you are, Pell thought. "I was going to go back to the apartment with you," the quarian continued, "and talk to you there face to face." "Just that you'd draw a pistol and point it at me." "Just in self-defense," Glo protested. "I knew I was spotted when you ran away. I was afraid you were trying to kill me." "I might want to kill you right now, too," Pell replied, but it was only a vague threat.Cerberus needs this quarian alive. Glo must have felt himself out of danger, for he turned his back on Pell and picked up the pistol from the ground. "We can go to your house now and continue our business in secret," the quarian suggested, stashing the pistol somewhere under his clothes. "No," Pell said, "in the open. I don't want you to know where I live." You might turn around and sneak up on me. Glo shrugged nonchalantly. "I know a place not far from here." Glo took him to a casino in the area.A heavily armed krogan gave them a slight nod as they entered.The sign above their heads reads "Nest of Wealth" in several languages, though Pell doubts anyone has ever made a fortune here. "Do you come here often?" Pell asked as Glo led him into a small back room. "I have an agreement with the boss, no one here can disturb us." "Why didn't you tell me to meet here in the first place?" "As I said just now, I have to be sure that you are alone. If I bring a lot of human mercenaries to this casino, Orsa will be very unhappy." Pell thinks the inflection in his voice makes Orsa sound like a Wallerian name, but he can't be sure.But it doesn't matter. Pell took the seat across from Glo and was startled to see that the place was almost empty.Two four-eyed Batarians were rolling dice, a few round Wallers were playing a game of something like backgammon, and a few humans had gathered in the middle of the room to play poker, a cypress Merchant Larry looked at them with vacillating eyes.He'd rather go to a strip club—everyone with an asari dancer on his arm—but he's not complaining. "There are no Quasar slot machines," he notes. "Too easy to hack and too expensive to repair," the quarians explained. A maid - a human being - came over, placed a large mug on the table in front of him, and left quickly without making eye contact.Maybe she used to be a charming beauty, a long time ago.As she turned to leave, Pell noticed that she had an electronic locator on her ankle, which is usually used by slave owners to track and locate their property. He gritted his teeth viciously.The thought of a human being held as a slave by an alien master sickened him, but there was nothing he could do for the woman.At least not now. The Day of Judgment will come soon, he promised himself.And justice will rain down on the heads of these disgusting alien slave owners. "My treat," Glo said, nodding to Pell at the table. It looked like an alien variant of beer, but he had learned the painful lesson not to eat human food served in non-human places.If he's lucky, the food is just bland or bitter.If he's unlucky, he'll spend half the night throwing up. "I don't drink," he said, pushing away his glass. "Why don't you drink anything?" After a while, he suddenly asked suspiciously. "Germs," ​​Glo explained, tapping the faceguard on his helmet. Per nodded.Since the quarians were driven out of their homes by the geth they created, almost all quarians live on the wandering fleet. This wandering fleet has thousands of warships and wanders aimlessly in the world of the Citadel. .Dozens of generations have lived alone in this way, and the carefully controlled artificial environment has made the immune system of the quarians ineffective against the germs and viruses that are raging on every planet in the galaxy. In order to avoid exposure, they live in ragged Under the clothes, he wore a special environmental isolation suit tailored to his body type, and never took off his airtight visor in public. This also led to rumors that the quarians were actually neurocyborgs, a hybrid of organic and mechanical beneath their clothing and sensors, and Pell knew the truth wasn't so insidious—the quarians just couldn't travel between fleets. It's just a matter of surviving without wearing an airtight suit and mask. "Let's get down to business," Pell said, turning to the task at hand. "You said you could provide us with the transmission frequency and communication code of the wandering fleet." The Phantom Man and Cerberus are very interested in the wandering fleet, especially after the geth attack the Citadel, which gave the Phantom Man a lot of inspiration.Most people think that the quarians are just a nuisance, seventeen million refugees struggling to make ends meet on a dilapidated old warship.For centuries they wandered from star system to star system in vain looking for a habitable planet free of other races so they could build their new home. It is generally believed that the greatest threat posed to any established colony by people of other races is that they will deplete local resources - say, the asteroid belt in a star system will wipe out the metal resources and zero reserves of elements - Moreover, thousands of warships of various types will inevitably interfere with communications and normal interstellar travel.These annoyances make quarians unpopular in any civilized part of space, but honestly no one is afraid of them. However, the Phantom Man can see more than shabby clothing and battered battleships.Technically they are the same as any other race.The quarians created the geth, and the geth became a plague on the galaxy.And they have maintained their civilization for hundreds of years with 17 million individuals, and without the help of any planetary resources.Who knows what good fortune they have? The Wandering Fleet is also the largest independent fleet known in the galaxy, thousands of warships ranging from tiny dirigibles to cruisers to three giant living ships - a marvel of cosmic and agricultural engineering by which they provide all the fleet Primary agricultural resources needed.It is a widely accepted fact that most ships in the fleet are armed, although exactly how much and to what extent is not known.In fact, not much is known about the quarian fleet.This is a completely isolated society, and since their exile three centuries ago, no outsiders have been allowed to board their spaceship. The Phantom Man doesn't trust aliens with so many ships and secrets.If the quarians' code and communication frequency can be obtained, and if the phantom man's own spaceship can get close enough to intercept the signal and prevent the wandering fleet from discovering it, the Cerberus can monitor the wandering fleet's battleship communications...Pell Not sure how the Phantom Man was going to successfully execute this part of the plan, but he didn't need to care about that, he was only here to get the code and frequency. "I can't actually give you the communication code," Glo said. "They changed the code after I left the fleet." Pelle bit his lip to keep himself from swearing.He should have known long ago not to trust Glo - he was an outcast from the Wandering Fleet.The quarians don't have that much space or resources to put a prison on board, so the way they deal with criminals is by throwing them out of quarian society and onto the nearest uninhabited planet or space station.In Glo's case, he was just thrown on the Omega. What disgustingly twisted, perverted crime do you have to commit to be cast out by a race of beggars and thieves?he asked himself.He suspects Glo is a murderer, a rapist, or just plain psychotic. "I can give you something, though," Glo continued.He didn't seem to notice that Pell was about to explode with anger. "I can introduce you to someone who can provide you with the information you want. But for a fee." The bastard who supported the two families with one hand. "That's not how our business works." "You need to learn to be flexible," he shrugged. "Go with the flow, adapt to the environment. That's what our kind of people are. When I first found myself on this space station, that's how I survived." You mean they dumped you here like trash.And they're just another bunch of scum that needs to be cleaned up. Despite his contempt, Per reluctantly showed his respect for Glo.Even on Omega, the quarians are not welcome, as is the rest of the galaxy.His survival is a testament to his cunning and resourcefulness.It also sent a warning: Don't trust him.Pell was reluctant to report to the Phantom Man empty-handed, but he wasn't prepared to trust the quarian either.At least not without knowing him. "Tell me why you were kicked out." Glo hesitated.There was a sound, perhaps a sigh, behind his visor, and Pell almost thought the quarian was about to answer. "About ten years ago, I wanted to do business with collectors." Although Pell had never actually seen one, he had heard of gatherers.In fact, many people, including Pell, do not know whether they really exist.In lore, they are more like a space legend among the stars than an actual race. But most people think they first appeared in the Milky Way about five hundred years ago, supposedly in a space not marked on the star map, where no one could go if it weren't for the Omega 4 Mass Effect Relay Station.Afterwards, if the legend is true, they have been there for about five hundred years, and nothing is known about this enigmatic race and their mysterious homeland.They are isolated to the extreme, with foragers appearing only sporadically on Omega and a few nearby inhabited planets.Even so, the space station often has no reports of gatherer sightings for decades, and only occasional visits by sporadic plenipotentiaries for a few years to do some trade or barter with other races. Even rarer are the foragers who come to the Terminus star system, and they have reportedly declared that visits by other races to their territories would not be tolerated.Despite this, countless ships have attempted to search for their home planet through the Omega 4 Relay Station over the centuries.Of course, none of them came back. The number of warships, expeditions and expedition fleets is surprisingly large, but they all disappeared on the side of the Omega 4 relay station, which also sparked speculation about what is in the port on the relay station. Countless guesses.Some believe that the opposite is a black hole, or the center of a star, but that doesn't explain why the harvesters themselves can take advantage of these relays. Others say it's a futurist's paradise, where people who traveled back in time lived a life of luxury on an idyllic planet, and no one wants to return to the current violent, lawless Terminus star system.The most widely accepted explanation is that the gatherers have some kind of powerful defense technology, which is unique and extremely advanced, and any alien spacecraft that visits through the Mass Effect relay station will be blown up. But Pell didn't know which theory he should believe. "I think foragers have always been a myth." "This is a big misunderstanding, especially within the Citadel world. However, I can assure you from personal experience that they are absolutely true." "What deal did you make for them?" Pell's curiosity was aroused and he asked. "They want two pure quarians, a male and a female, who have spent their entire lives aboard the fleet and have not been to other worlds, which means they have not been polluted." "I thought all the quarians had left the fleet to wander," Pell said, referring to the quarians' entitlement ceremony. "Not all quarians have wandered," Glo explained, "except for those who were too sick, or too frail to live in a planetary colony. Even more rarely, a People with rare skills, or geniuses, can get waivers from the command." "I knew from the beginning that I might get caught," he added, almost regretfully. "But the offer they made was so good that I couldn't refuse it." Pell nodded, which was in line with what he had heard.When gatherers want to trade, they generally seek to exchange machinery or technology for other creatures.But legend has it that they were far more than simple slave masters.Their requests were generally unusual, even outrageous: twenty-four salari left-handed; sixteen batarian twins; krogan babies born of feuding clan parents.The rewards provided by the collectors are incredible technologies and knowledge, such as a spaceship with a new type of mass effect drive device that greatly improves engine efficiency; or an advanced targeting module 4 that can greatly improve the accuracy of weapon shooting.Eventually, these technologies will be adopted by galactic society as a whole, but within a few years these technologies will give those doing business a big head start, or so the legends say. The names of no one in this race are known, and they are willing to pay extravagant prices to have what they want as long as their special needs are met, so they are called gatherers.As with the mythical realm beyond the Omega 4 relay, there have been many theories trying to guess and explain the motivations behind their illogical needs.Some believe the need has great religious significance, others see it as evidence of perverted sexual proclivities or horrible culinary tastes. If the foragers are real as Glo says, Pell, though unable to guess at the precise nature or purpose of the foragers, would like to support the most widely accepted theory, that they are genetic experiment.Still, it makes any sane person suspicious. "If foragers are real, why hasn't anyone done anything to stop them?" he wondered. "Who cares as long as you're making good money out of the deal?" Glo replied.His exaggerated questioning only used one sentence to represent the widespread attitude of the terminal star system. "They show up and offer something worth millions of credits, and all you have to pay is a few prisoners in exchange. They're nothing more than bloody slave owners, but they're asking more .” Slavery is illegal on the world of the Citadel, but it is accepted - even common - in the Terminus star system.But whether the foragers acted ethically was not Pell's concern. "Is no one worried about what they are doing behind the relay station? They may be developing new genetic weapons. What if they study our race and find out the weaknesses and flaws that can be attacked?" Glo laughed, and even his visor resonated distantly and hollowly. "I have no doubt they're working on something unpleasant," he admitted, "but they've been doing it for five hundred years. If they were going to invade, they would have done so." "Aren't you curious?" "The curious have passed through the Omega 4 relay station," he reminded his human companion. "And they didn't come back. Those of us who stayed on Omega were more worried about getting killed by our neighbors than what happened on the other side of the galaxy. If you want to survive here, you have to pay attention everywhere." Good advice, Pell thought.Foragers were interesting, of course, and he wouldn't be surprised if he knew that the Illusive Man had sent agents to find them.But that's not his job. "You said you could take me to someone who could provide the communication code." Glo nodded, and the conversation turned back to their current business, which he was very happy about. "I can arrange a meeting with the crew of the escort spaceship in the Wandering Fleet." He promised, "Just make sure you can catch a living one."