*Note: This story takes place around three years before the events of Mass Effect, and is entirely based on a conversation involving Garrus Vakarian that occurs in-game.

Mass Effect: "It's The Inside That Counts"

Chapter One – A Buyer's Market

It was 0700, standard Citadel time, when the krogan's front door was hacked. He was half-asleep and still half-inebriated, and quite unable to respond in any manner as the C-Sec officers started tearing through his belongings without regard. Any piece of parchment he had lying around was scrutinized and placed in evidence bags while his datapads were unlocked and scanned in front of him.

"Hey," the krogan managed to groan. "That's…your stuff…Wait…" The fun and games were over and he knew that he was just embarrassing himself now, which was more sobering than anything else to his species. No matter what else was in the room, his blood prevented him from standing knowingly on a lower station.

"This is my home!" he roared, though the exertion threw him off balance. "Unless you have a—"

Suddenly, a datapad was flashed in front of his face. Words in several different languages scrolled by at a rate that made it near-impossible for him to read in his state.

When the datapad snapped back out of sight, there was a turian male standing in front of him.

"Were you about to ask for a warrant?" the turian asked snidely. "Search Warrant issued at 0700 this morning. It seems that you like to run that wide mouth of yours a little too much when you've been at the bar too long."

The krogan growled under his breath. "What's it to you? Haven't done nothing wrong."

"I never said you did," the turian replied, shifting around in his standard C-Sec uniform. "These other men here are simply looking for bits of information that you may, or may not, have stumbled upon after your recent procedure."

It took a lot to startle a krogan, and these days it took a whole lot more for a turian to make one lose some ground. But that's just what happened.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied. "Haven't…Haven't done nothing wrong."

"Again," the turian continued, calmly, "I never said you had."

"Did I ever catch you name, or anything?"

"Garrus Vakarian. Detective for Citadel Security." Garrus slowly pulled up a chair so he could stare down the krogan more comfortably. "Do you want me to tell you about your procedure, or do you want to save me the trouble?"

The krogan said nothing, but ground his teeth within his massive maw.

Garrus shrugged, feigning disappointment. "Very well. Mister Randet, you were caught hiring an unlicensed doctor to perform a procedure to increase your virility. Normally, when it comes to the krogans we tend to look the other way when red flags like this pop up out of respect to your condition—"

The turian was interrupted by Randet's amused baritone. "Hehe. My condition? It wasn't my condition until your kind gave it to me, turian. So don't patronize me, and don't treat me like some charity case."

"Anyways," Garrus continued, ignoring the predicted comment, "I'd just like to point out to you that your procedure just happened to come at a time when the market is flooded with organs…krogan testicles included. While the doctor didn't supply your…product, you know who did." He leaned forward, his bright blue eyes tearing into the krogan. "We need a name."

"Heh," Randet snickered as he eased back onto his couch. "I don't got a name for you."

Garrus sighed. "Mister Randet, if you're going to turn this into a racial matter, then I'm obligated to tell you that hindering an investigation will result in your immediate incarceration. Do you understand?"

"Sounds like you memorized that out of a book or something."

"C-Sec Training Manual, Version 56-A, Section 32. Want me to quote the entire passage, or can I haul you off right now?"

"Easy there, scales," the krogan joked with a snort. "I don't got a name for you cause I don't got a name to give. It was an anonymous meeting and I sure as hell wasn't gonna ask any questions."

"Do you at least remember who you talked to about acquiring the product in the first place?"

"Turian, eavesdrop on any conversation between two krogan males, in the Citadel or anywhere else for that matter, and you'll find we're all looking for the same thing. The damn things are expensive though, for good reason, so only those of us with a steady income are given contact information."

Aggravated, Garrus sighed and rubbed the hardened slip that spanned the length of his scalp and off the back of his head. The krogan was looking like another dead end. "Can you at least tell us where you met this dealer?"

"It was about a month ago. In the markets near Chora's Den on the fifth arm."

"And there's nothing else you can tell us?"

"You caught me on a good day, turian. The only reason I'm even speaking to you is because aspects of my condition are in question. After this, I'd like it if I never saw you again unless you decide to hand over that cure for the genophage that we know you have."

Garrus sat up and turned for the door, knowing there was no more information to be had. "Take that up with the salarians."

"Who should we hate more? The men who made the bullets or the men who pulled the trigger?"

"Good day, Mister Randet."

--

Ten different angles on the vids and the suspect was completely obstructed in each of them. The markets on the fifth arm of the Citadel were notorious for their clutter. Shipping crates, piled nearly to the ceiling blocked out the camera on one angle. A vendor's umbrella was tilted just far enough to the side to block another.

It's always something, Garrus mused.

By the time he found a clear angle, the suspect had already blended in with the crowds. No sign of similar clothing or shifty individuals. The dealer simply seemed to vanish.

"Another day." He stepped the vid back thirty seconds to watch the encounter yet again. "Another dead end."

The krogan, Randet, was leaning up against the wall looking just about as nervous as his kind gets. A few seconds later, something catches his attention. The dealer, hidden behind two conversing humans in this shot, hands Randet a small cryobox. Credits are exchanged, and the dealer disappears into the crowd.

It almost seemed too convenient. If Garrus was the conspirator type, he would've assumed that everyone in that section of the market had been in on it. Ten cameras rendered useless at just the right time? It didn't make any sense. It was just unheard of.

With a sigh, he stretched out his neck and rested his head on his arm as he rewound the vid—yet again, and on a different angle.

It was then that the entrance to his office slid open, letting light into the darkened room. In the doorway stood one of Garrus' associates, Chellick, another turian with pale skin and the white markings of his tribe striped down across his cheeks and around his chin.

"Any luck?" Chellick asked in a very unexcited tone. Everyone at C-Sec that knew Garrus understood that if the turian had any sort of leads in his case, his office was the last place he'd be. So, his question was more of a request for a status report than anything else.

Garrus groaned and rubbed his brow in frustration. "Ten angles, Chellick. Ten angles and not one clear shot of this dealer. Even if I could see how many fingers this guy had, it would be something."

"I think you should get some sleep. Call it a night. If you haven't found anything yet, then chances are good that stressing yourself out won't help matters."

"You always tell me to get sleep whenever I see you."

"That's because you never switch off. You're one of C-Sec's best investigators, but only when you're not crashing on the job."

Without looking up from the vidscreen, Garrus indifferently said, "Would you please give me some privacy?"

Shocked, Chellick stood motionless in the doorway. Even when his fellow officer was in his worst of moods, he still managed to be polite. This last case had taken its toll, though. Garrus was shooting everyone down who offered a helping hand.

With a scoff, Chellick left the room, letting the door slide shut behind him.

Garrus finally looked up, feeling some semblance of regret, but couldn't help but drift back down into the world that this shadow had created for him. Every suspect he had come across since the investigation began were merely puppets, cut loose at even the vaguest sign of trouble, leaving their master free to continue his dark deeds.

The black market for the organ trade was flourishing. Many of Garrus' fellow detectives could only come to the conclusion that these unlicensed geneticists had come close to perfecting their trade. They guessed that it wouldn't be too long before such practices became legal and widely accepted.

But Garrus couldn't disagree more. He knew what he had seen. There was no evidence to support the theory that these scientists had simply made a breakthrough. Every underground medical facility he had shut down showed no signs of even coming close to such a thing.

No, when something works, it works. Slaughtering innocents or hijacking cadavers for their organs was still a common practice. In that sense, the turian concluded, perhaps these butchers were the ones who had perfected their trade.

The clock on his terminal showed it was 0700 again. The finish line of another day of empty investigations. He found it amazing that even on a station like the Citadel, where literally every building could be monitored and controlled remotely, leads were so hard to come by.

He felt the red tape's scalding embrace tighten around him yet again, and found his father's words bouncing around his mind telling him over and over:

"Do thing's right, or don't do them at all."

Garrus slammed his fist on the terminal, causing it to glitch for a moment. For every second he wasted doing the "right thing", more people were dying by this invisible butcher.

"Where are you," he groaned at the vidscreen, rewinding the clip thirty seconds again.

His body twitched. His eyes had seen something, but his tired mind could do nothing but throw up a red flag. Garrus backed up the vid again, and watched carefully, forcing his consciousness back on point.

He watched an asari enter the markets and lean up against the wall. She had a clear view of the transaction between the dealer and Randet and it seemed as if she knew what was going on. Her eyes were dead-locked on the figures until the trade was made.

Garrus continued watching until the obscured dealer disappeared, then watched to his surprise as the asari left her spot and walked off towards Chora's Den.

"Not such a dead end after all," said Garrus, a grin forming across his beak. He grabbed his pistol and folded his assault rifle up into its holster.

There was a loose end somewhere out there to tie up.