Chapter 16 Chapter fifteen

"Are you going to tell us where we're going anyway?" Callie woke Grayson, who always took a nap when he had time. The adrenaline rush of Grayson rushing out of Grism Academy wears off, his body relaxes, and he falls asleep in the pilot's seat.This didn't cause any trouble; as long as the course was set during the flight, the faster-than-light flight process was nothing to him.He knew that as long as he entered the range of the mass effect relay station from the Citadel world to the terminal star system, the spaceship would automatically send out a signal to wake him up, so he relaxed and fell into a deep sleep.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, his mouth dry and his tongue thick and recalcitrant. "I guess I dozed off." Carly was sitting next to his seat, and Grayson saw her sniffing as if she smelled something bad.Grayson looked down and saw that his shirt was wet with sweat.Profuse sweating is a typical manifestation of the first stage of red sand fading.He was a little embarrassed, and moved in the other direction pretending to be nonchalant. "I was just wondering where we were going," Carrie said, tactfully pretending she didn't smell the scent. "I'm thinking about this too." Handel chimed in.

Grayson lay on his side in the chair and saw the security chief standing at the door of the cockpit, his broad shoulders almost blocking the view to the passenger compartment. "I thought you were looking at Gillian," Carly asked sharply. "He's sleeping," replied Handel gruffly. "She's all right." "I have an informant on Omega Station," Grayson said, turning his attention back to Carly. "Omega space station?" Carly was half vigilant, half surprised. "We have no other choice." Grayson replied coldly. "Maybe we have. I have other friends who can help us," Carly assured him. "I have a personal relationship with Commander David Anderson. I can trust him with my life. I can guarantee that he will protect you." and your daughter."

Handel dismissed Carly's idea, which relieved Grayson. "This will definitely not work. Cerberus has people everywhere in the league. Maybe we can trust Anderson, but how do we contact him? He is a big man now, and we can't just show up at the Citadel and walk up to him." Inside the office." "Perhaps Cerberus has agents reporting every move of Commander Anderson," Handel continued. "If we send out a message, maybe Anderson doesn't know it, and they know it. Then we'll never find out." Anderson." "I never expected you to be with me," Grayson said, carefully watching Handel's expression, wondering what medicine he was selling in his gourd.

"I just want to be nice to Gillian. But right now, that means escaping the Council world. But Omega Station wouldn't be my first choice. There are plenty of other places to hide in the Terminus star system." "We definitely can't go to a human colony," Grayson insisted. "The Alliance has people stationed there, and they will track every passing ship. And if we want to go to a colony controlled by aliens, it will be too conspicuous." .And we can mix with the crowd at Omega Station, well hidden." Handel considered Grayson's reasoning, then said, "I'd still like to know who your informant was." He seemed to be beginning to admit that Grayson was right.

"A client of mine named Per." Grayson began to lie. "I sold him almost twenty spaceships in the past twenty years." "What does this guy do?" Carly asked. "Import." Grayson found an excuse. "Drug dealer." Handel whispered, "I told you a long time ago, he will take us to his previous home." "He had no idea that Gillian was a psychic, and he didn't really know why we were here," Grayson explained. "I told him that I was caught with saffron on the way to the Citadel. I'm on the run, avoiding the pursuit of the Citadel Police Department."

"Then why are we here?" asked Handel. "He already knew I had a daughter. I'll tell them that Carly is my girlfriend, and you're a corrupt Security Service officer, and I slipped you money to get me out of the space station." "So he's waiting for us?" Handel asked. Grayson nodded. "I sent them a message when I left the academy. When we get out of the FTL state at the next Mass Effect relay station, we will log on to the communication network to see if he has sent a reply." "I want to see the message he sent you." "Handel!" Carly objected.She felt it violated Grayson's privacy.

"I just don't want to take chances," Handel replied. "Our lives are in his hands. I want to know who we're dealing with." "Sure," Grayson said. "No problem." He glanced at the readout so he knew where he was on the flight. "We'll be at the relay station in an hour." "You can still take a shower," Handel told him. "Before your baby girl wakes up, you'd better wash off the stench of drugs." Grayson really couldn't say anything.He knew Handel was right. Sixty minutes later, he was back in the pilot's seat, washed and dressed in a new suit.He's not sweating now, but his hands still tremble slightly as he adjusts the levers.He knew that the trembling of his hands would only get worse, unless another dose of red sand was added.

Carly was still in the passenger seat, and Handel was still standing behind him, leaning against the cockpit door frame.Gillian was still sleeping peacefully in the back, and Grayson watched her before and after the shower. A slight electronic time chime sounded from the navigation panel, and in a second, they would break out of FTL flight.They felt a slight deceleration shock, then the navigation screen activated, and they were filled with ships and asteroids and other big things that the sensors picked up. This giant Mass Effect relay station has a blue dot of light flashing in the center of the monitor.Although the muscles were still shaking, Grayson confidently pulled the joystick and navigated in.

"Do you want to check the information?" Handel asked, the question was rather bad, reminding him that he still had doubts. "Just need to locate a comm buoy... OK, found one. Connecting." The computer beeped briefly, and a message flashed on the screen, indicating that a message had just been downloaded from the information buoy of the interstellar communication network across the vast galaxy. "Play it," Handel said. Grayson pressed a button, Per's face appeared on the screen, and the sound filled the cockpit. "Got your message. Sorry, I'm having trouble here, but I told you before," he said, raising his eyebrows. "You are lucky, I can help you with this. I sent you the coordinates of my warehouse at the Omega space station. When you land, I will take a few people to pick you up."

There was a pause, and then Perl laughed. "Do you think I'll ask you for money? You know I hate cleaning up other people's mess." Another beep came from the monitor, the image froze, and the message ended.In his head, Grayson let out a sigh of relief, but there was no outward sign of what he was feeling inside.Cerberus agents are well versed in using ambiguous puns when using insecure public links.But Handel was right behind him, and he could still feel a little worried when he pressed the play button. "It's vague," the security director whispered. "This is the public channel," Grayson replied, his nerves still on edge, wanting another dose of red sand. "You really think he's going to admit he's a drug lord?" "I think that's the confirmation we're going to get," Carly told Handel. Handel thought for a while and nodded. "Okay, but I still don't like this, take us past the relay station." Grayson was annoyed because it seemed Handel was giving him direct orders; it was his ship, after all.He complied, though, starting the route programmed before receiving the message. "Looks like you need some sleep," Carly said to Handel. "Go and lie down for a while, I'll take care of Gillian." I bet there's me, Grayson thought.But he is not going to play tricks now.He only needs to wait until he lands on the Omega space station, Pell and his men will take care of the rest, the spacecraft continues to move forward, and the mass effect relay station emits a swirling and flashing energy jet, Grayson can't help showing a smug smile, everything is in order It went so well.He found that Carly was also smiling at him without knowing the truth. Rhyme inspects the unremarkable warehouse through binoculars.He had been lying on the roof of a four-story building in the next street for several hours.Until now, he has not found anything unusual.All windows are tinted one way glass, you can't see what's inside. "I don't see anyone standing guard," Rhyme muttered. "There they are," Glo assured him. "Armed up. Pell doesn't believe in races other than humans." Rhyme didn't bother to think why a deeply xenophobic man would set up a station in a place like Omega, where greed trumped all prejudice. The warehouse was no different from the other surrounding houses, a low, square building, only two stories high. "If I get close enough, I can climb up the wall, maybe I can climb in through a second-story window," he said to himself. "They have security cameras down the street," Glo warned him. "You'd better go in from above." He realized the quarian was right.Judging from where they are lying on their stomachs, they can jump to the next three-story building, go down to the next floor, and then go to the top of the second-story building.According to the distribution of this block, he can continue to move from here, jumping on the roof, and finally reach the warehouse. "Good idea," he admitted. He still didn't like the quarians around him, and Glo had always been a despicable traitor in his eyes.But he had to admit that Glo was instrumental in orchestrating the attack on the warehouse.What Glo was doing was almost starting to make Rhyme trust him; well, not quite. Glo seemed genuinely determined to prove himself.He even got a drawing of the interior of the warehouse.The twisting halls and staircases were dizzying, and the corridors rolled forward and back again; Although the structural drawing was extremely troublesome, Lime managed to remember the drawing.Simply put, the front half of the house is divided into two floors.The office on the ground floor was converted into a barracks, and the second floor is mainly a small storage room.The garage in the back half of the house is open with high ceilings, big enough for quite a few containers and a few cars. As Rhyme watched, the garage door opened, and the two cars sped out, heading for the nearby spaceport.He didn't even move, and there was no way that group of people could have seen a person lying on the roof a few hundred meters away. "What are they for?" "Maybe it's a receipt?" Guessed Glo. Lime quickly thought about whether he could sneak in and observe the situation inside before they came back. What a chance it was.Glo told him that Pell's men were five men and three women, which together made nine humans.He didn't know how many people drove out, but it was likely that only a few people stayed inside to watch the house.If according to his guess, the crew of the Sinai Ard were still locked inside, then now is the best chance to rescue them. "I'll go in and have a look." "Don't be stupid!" Glo gasped, grabbing his shoulders to keep Rhyme from standing up. "It's broad daylight, and they'll see you pass!" "There may only be two or three people in there now, so my chances are much better than one-nine." "Those cars could come back any minute," Glo reminded him. "Then you're outnumbered, and there's a chance they can surprise you." Rhyme hesitated.While everything the older quarian said was logical, his instincts told him to act now. "According to the original plan. Go in tomorrow night. You have more time to prepare. Besides, it was dark at that time, and most of them were sleeping." Rhyme sighed, lay on his back, and pushed on the night vision goggles.He didn't like sitting around doing nothing all day, but Glo was right.He must be patient. Those cars came back in less than half an hour.The vehicle disappeared into the garage, and the iron door slammed shut behind them. "We've seen everything we wanted to see," Glo told him. "Let's go. You need to rest so you can get ready for tomorrow night. You can sleep in my apartment." Glo could clearly sense Rhyme's hesitation, and added, "I know. You can't trust me just yet. You could put the shotgun under your pillow and you'd feel safer." Grayson glides the spaceship slowly for a long distance.The sensors picked up the signal from two vehicles outside the perimeter of the landing port, which he believed belonged to Pell and his men. They landed, just scratching the ground a few times.Grayson turned off the console, stopped the engine, and walked back to the back of the cockpit, where the others were waiting for him. Handel was with Carly, Gillian was on the other side, and the three of them stood inside the airlock of the spaceship.Gillian had shed her hospital gown and put on an old undershirt and trousers they'd found in the storage room behind the ship.Compared to the last time she wore these two dresses, Gillian had obviously grown a lot—the sleeves could only reach her forearms, and the trousers were several centimeters away from her ankles.But she is still wearing hospital slippers. Grayson came over and she smiled.He came to her side, deliberately between the security chief and the baby girl.Handel scowled. "I'll talk to them," Grayson warned them as he activated the airlock.The door slammed shut behind them, and they were locked inside.Before opening the outer hatch, there is a rush of air from the spacecraft system, so that the internal pressure and the external pressure are equalized.The spaceship stretches out a constricted tunnel that can pass through the vacuum of the landing port and take them to the interior of the free-breathing space station. Grayson and Gillian went first, Carly and Handel followed.They go very slowly on the ramp.When they finally reached the ground of the Omega space station, Pell and five other people Grayson didn't know were waiting for them: three men and two women, all in armor and carrying guns.But even though they were fully armed, they looked very relaxed, not as if they were facing an enemy, and a few of them were even smiling. "How is it, killer?" The big man came over to comfort him. "Killer?" Grayson heard Handel whisper, but ignored him, took a step forward, and reached out to shake Pell's hand. "Is it just these people?" Pell asked with a grin, and he shook hands so hard that Grayson's fingers were about to be crushed. "Everyone disembarked, can we go?" "It's just the four of us." Grayson confirmed, withdrew his hand and shrank back a little, and took another step back. "Let me introduce..." Before he finished speaking, Pell and his men raised their guns at the same time, pointing at the new visitors.The hostility speaks for itself.The relaxed atmosphere suddenly disappeared, and the murderous aura permeated. Grayson scolded himself. He had told Pell to be careful so that Gillian would not be surprised.He wanted to say something to tell Pell not to provoke Gillian, but suddenly found that one of the other women was also pointing a gun at him. "What's the matter, Per?" "Don't move, and no one will get hurt," Pell warned.He said to one of his subordinates, "The big man and the little girl. They are biological powers, pick them out first." The man holstered the gun and drew an automatic multi-socket syringe.He walked towards Handel, his walking posture was well-trained. "Hold out your hand," Pell ordered. Handel just glared at him. "Put your hand out or I'll shoot this woman," Pell threatened, pointing a pistol to Carly's head.Handel gave in reluctantly, and stretched out his arms, palms up. The man grasped Handel's fingertips, bent them slightly downward, then extended the syringe and pressed it down on the upper side of the exposed wrist.The syringe whistled, the potion was forced out like a fountain, the invisible needle pierced Handel's skin, and the unknown drug entered his body.Handel immediately fell unconscious to the ground. "Handel!" Carly exclaimed, and before his head hit the ground, she stepped forward and grabbed him.Carly struggled to support Handel's weight, and Handel's body was lying on top of Carly. The man quickly lowered his body and pointed the syringe at Carly's neck again.Another burst of liquid came out of the syringe, and Carly fell limp immediately. "Daddy?" Gillian called, her voice trembling.Her eyes were wide open, full of puzzlement and fear. "And that girl!" Pell yelled, "Come on!" "Please, don't do this," Grayson begged, but his former partner didn't even turn around.The woman who pointed the gun at Grayson shook her head slightly, warning him not to move. The man grabbed Gillian by the wrist and rolled her arm roughly.As soon as he touched her, Gillian's face contorted in pain and she cried aloud. But the guy ignored it, pierced Gillian's skin with a syringe, and injected another quick-acting sedative.Gillian's shouting stopped, and she fell limp and passed out in the man's arms. He lowered Gillian's body, not too gently, but with care.Gillian lay on the ground. Then he walked towards Grayson. Grayson didn't move as the man approached him, just asking, "Did he say why?" The man then pressed the anesthetic syringe to Grayson's neck. "We don't listen to the Phantom Man's orders now," Pell replied. Grayson heard the familiar spray of potion and passed out before he could ask Pell what he meant. He didn't know how long it was before he finally woke up.But he felt like he was unconscious for at least a few hours.The familiar feeling of wanting another dose of red sand called him again, but it was more of a psychological rather than a physical need.The drug red sand is easily metabolized in the body, and the physical symptoms after metabolism will gradually subside after 12 to 16 hours. That seemed like a good thing, considering that now he was lying on the floor in what looked like a makeshift cell. There is a door to the cell, which should be locked.A high-efficiency LED light hangs on the wall on the other side.There was no furniture or decoration in the room, only a monitor was set up in the corner to watch him. He sat up, and it took a while to clear his head, realizing he wasn't alone here.Carly sat across from him, with her back against the wall. "I guess your friends will give us to the Cerberus anyway," she said. He was confused for a moment before realizing that Carrie hadn't heard the last conversation he had with Per.Carly still thinks Pell is a drug dealer, and still doesn't know who Grayson really works for. "I don't think they're going to work with Cerberus," he admits.It wouldn't be a big inconvenience to divulge a little information. "Do you know how Gillian is doing?" Carly shook her head. "I didn't see her, and I didn't see Handel." Grayson bit his lip and thought about it. "Pell knows they're biotics," he whispered. "He'll have to be extra careful with the two of them, and maybe he won't be able to wake them up until..." He stopped, because in fact he I don't know what Pell is planning. "Have you checked that door?" he asked Carly. "They disconnected the control panel. It can only be opened from the outside." Carly shifted, crossing her legs, trying to find a more comfortable position on the hard floor. "Any ideas for getting us out of here?" The only answer Grayson could give was a shake of his head.There was nothing to talk about between the two of them.After about ten minutes, the door slammed open, startling them both. Pell walked in, followed by two armed guards, and placed a wooden chair in the middle of the room.Pell sat in a chair, and the two men stood on either side of the door, which was not closed. "We've been through a lot together, and I feel like I owe you an explanation," Pell said. "Where's my daughter?" Grayson asked angrily, not caring how Pell was trying to justify his betrayal. "Don't worry, she's safe. We won't hurt her. She's too valuable. And your friends," he said, turning to Carly again. "How much did Cerberus give you?" Pell laughed, and Grayson felt his stomach twitch. "Cerberus has always been generous," Pell admitted, "isn't it true, Killer?" Carly stared at Grayson, but Grayson didn't meet her gaze. "So Handel was right," the voice was helpless and full of defeat.The facts overwhelmed her, and she was no longer angry. "You and Jiro are on the same team. How can a father treat his own daughter like this?" It never occurred to Grayson to argue that he was not Gillian's biological father.The two of them were not related by blood, but he had raised Gillian since she was a baby.For ten years, all he cared about was her, educating her, raising her, until the sublimation plan accepted her.She was, and is, the center and all of his world.In his consciousness, she was his daughter; if she wasn't his daughter, maybe everything would be better. "It was never supposed to be like this," he said softly. "Gillian is special. All we want to do is help her discover her biological powers. We just want her to reach her full potential. " "Sounds like your sublimation plan, doesn't it?" Pell smiled at Carly. "We will never do anything that endangers the lives of students!" Carly finally couldn't hold back her anger, and shouted at Pell, "Nothing is worth taking such a risk!" "What if it means saving the lives of a lot of other people—perhaps tens of thousands?" Grayson asked calmly. "What if your child has the potential to be the savior of the entire human race? Is it worth it? Are you willing to take the risk?" "That is," Pell interjected, still smiling. "If you want to make an omelet, you need to crack a few eggs." "They're not eggs!" Callie cried. "They're children!" "Not all will be saved," Grayson said, repeating what the Phantom Man had said, though he dared only look at the ground as the Phantom Man said it to him. "If humanity is to be saved, sacrifices must be made for a greater cause. The Alliance never understood that. Cerberus did." "Are we those sacrificed eggs?" Carly asked, her tone full of contempt. "A martyr who died for the cause?" "Not quite." Pell interrupted them happily again. "You see, the Cerberus offers a very generous price. But the price offered by the collector is even higher." "I always thought gatherers were just myths," Kali whispered, as if guessing that Pell was just playing with her. "Oh, of course they're real. And they're willing to pay a lot of money for healthy human psychics. With your little girl and your friends, we can live like kings for the rest of our lives." "What did the gatherers want them to do?" Per shrugged. "It'd be better for me if I didn't know the grisly details. Maybe it'd give me nightmares. You know how that goes, don't you, Killer?" "You are a traitor to the cause. You are a traitor to humanity as a whole." "The Cerberus really brainwashed you too thoroughly." Pell laughed. "You know, if all the Cerberus agents were so dedicated, the Phantom Man would have tossed something out. But the truth is, it's human nature to be wary of the boss. You never realize that , what a misfortune." "What are you going to do to the two of us?" Carly asked. "I think the collectors will give us a little extra reward because you are an expert in human biological abilities, sweet girl." "As for that old friend of mine over there, I can dump him to the gatherers for free. This will buy us a little more time before Cerberus understands what's going on." "The Phantom Man will follow you like a dog," Grayson said angrily. Per stood up from his chair. "Look at the prizes that the collectors gave me. I'm willing to give it a try and see what the chances are." He nodded to Carly. "Put her in with those two. If we put her in with Grayson, she'll gouge out his eyeballs." A guard stepped forward, grabbed Carly, and dragged her out of the cell. Pell, chair in hand, paused before closing the door. "True matter and no man, killer." As always, he always had the last word.