“I’m telling you, I’m not responsible for this!” I say as they cuff me to the table.

“Well you better know who is responsible. Because a high ranking Kar has been poisoned!” he slams pictures down on the table in front of me.

I pick up the first picture, the kid doesn't look familiar. But most of these colonials look the same. But then I see the illumination on the picture, coming from within the dead body. It started at his heart and exploded outward like a ball of lightning, lighting up his entire circulatory system. 

“I don’t recognize him and what's the Varkh party line ‘if you suspect poisoning, look to the Umbrics’ Have you tried checking with them? He looks like a hybrid humper” 

I give him a wink and blow a kiss, he turns his face away. Muttering about disgusting frogs. It gives me the few seconds I need.

I squeeze my hand, pressing my webbed fingers against my palm to apply some of my secretion toxins to the picture. 

Now to get him to pick it up.

He turns back around and puts his hands on the table. “Listen, we’re not stupid, and neither are you.”

“Yeah, I’m too smart to talk to you.” I attempt to lean back but my hands are still chained to the table. I try to scoot the chair closer but it is welded to the floor. I roll my eyes and return to my original position. 

He picks up the files “We don’t want you. We want to know who was really responsible. Do you know who that is?” His finger brushes the toxin…perfect. “Cause if you do, you can walk right out of here.” Now I just need to stall for ten minutes. 

“I can tell you everything and regardless of what I say, I guarantee you that I will be walking out of here.” I say back to him, my wide mouth curling up at the corners.

“We’ll see about that. What do you have to say?” The office says to me

“Well it started as your clumsy peacekeepers stumbled into my hab-block to try and raid my apartment. I had overheard them outside the door planning what to do. ‘find her! And bag up any drugs you find!’ Which gave me enough time to grab everything I needed. Including all of my supplies.” I lean back in the chair.

“And by supplies you mean?” his eyes are starting to dilate. I wonder if he’s noticing anything yet.

“I mean my supplies.” I look back at him. “A lot of my stuff is expensive. Catalysts, inhibitors, plants, extracts. I needed to protect my livelihood, your flat footed goons would be more likely to stomp it into nothing.”

“We found no illicit materials in your apartment.” He looks like he’s trying to adjust to the lights now shoving his head almost entirely into the file. “Why did you run away?”

“Well as I said, I’m a chemist.” I try to show my palms to him, feeling the cuffs holding my arms closer. “I just wanted to protect my gear. They way they were shouting outside, didn't seem like they were there for a conversation.”

“Alright, well, where did you go from there?” He reaches towards his pen, and I set the scene.

I hear their boots first, making tremendous noise as they ascend the stairs. I push my face cover up and grab everything I can find within reach. Thankfully the Varkh only let the aliens have tiny one room hab-blocks, so everything is within reach. 

I put everything I can grab into my bag and head off towards the small escape hatchway. It’s a tight squeeze for a normal sized person. But I made modifications to my suit that allow me to squeeze through. 

Activating the purge protocol, I feel as the entire suit compresses my body. For a moment I struggle to let the air back in, then I remember shallow breaths. No time to think, I reach my arms through the hatch, grab the outside edge and yank.

Once I’m on the other side I deactivate the purge, and I feel my body slowly return to its original shape. Dropping down I pull my bag with me and listen as the peacekeepers slam into my room. I land myself in the alley and take a moment to assess.

The peacekeepers are always predictable. Only ever a guard posted on the main entryways. That's when I first overheard the charges. “Tainted drugs”, “Intentional hit”. 

There was no time to think, I walked out through the other side of the alleyway, past the Molari hovels. And went through my supplies doing an inventory.

I have my flora, no way someone could taint that. But on the safe side I rip off a nugget and pinch it into my wrist mounted tester. Clean. 

I turn back around and use the rest of the nugget to barter with one of the Molari to give me a safe space for a moment. He takes it, no questions, and leads me further in.

Once I get a place to sit down, I check out my extract, also clean, has to be. I grew them myself.

Then I pull out the most recent batch of P210 I ordered. Photorhabis luciferase, also known as Neon-Vein, but I also notice that the weight is off. I drop it into the tester and it flashes red, some compound it doesn't recognize.

“So, you admit to having the poisoned drugs?” He asks, I hear his speech slowing from what it was before. 

“No, I said that I had a product with a chemical signature I did not recognize.” I quickly twist it back to ensure my words are as innocuous as possible. “I had not used that material since it had been delivered. But the weight was also under what I had ordered. So it had been used already…” I try to pull us back into the memory. 

I had to get to an actual synthesizer to discover the full compound of the poison, but I knew that it was not a normal part of the P210. Then I needed to figure out a way off the planet. 

I follow my exosuits receptors with the scent of cleaning supplies to find a lab. Where I see a bunch of drugged out hybrids. I move past them just as quickly and pound on the door.

An emaciated starforged opens the door, his skin green with short horns emerging from his cheeks curving forward. Almost circling his mouth entirely like a cage. Clearly he has been breathing in poisons for a very long time. 

I gave him a bit of extract and he allowed me to get into his lab. Surprisingly clean, I run the sample through and see the chemical signature. The luciferase had been adjusted by a whisper-catalyst, a classic tactic of the Knives. 

It’s designed to attack the heart, Xan’Kirill created it years ago for them and thought it was so clever that they named it after themselves. A standard batch of P210 just makes the injection site glow. But with the Catalyst, it aims straight for the heart and releases the drug.

I went out of the lab back into the grime of the underground, thankfully the Molari underground connects all over Elystra so I was able to get to the Oakhaven district. The plaster trees carved to look like they are growing out of the buildings.The sickening scent of what a committee decided that nature should smell like.

I made my way to my usual stomping grounds, the Gilded Bars, and maneuvered my way through the back entrance with another bribe to a staff member in the alleyway.

The music is so loud and filled with people that it’s almost impossible to make my way through, but I already know where I’m going. The VIP section, where the Icons make their nests. It’s one of the few places where the Ascendant Eye itself turns away.

I got to the velvet rope and the Orclan security guard tried to say something to me, but I couldn't make it out over the music. I just handed him the rest of my plants and he let me through. Not like I was going to need it anyway.

No, I would just need extract, to make a deal with Max. I just had to find him first, I followed my usual tactic of looking for the trail of women.

Then I saw his stupid beautiful face. Max Lokthorn.

“Woah, you know Max Lokthorn?” The detective is almost completely dazed, just a few more minutes. I look down at the cuffs around my wrists and decide to test out my toxins.

“Yeah, in fact I can tell you more if you want to undo these cuffs.” He just looks back at me and then down to the cuffs like they are an obstacle to his new goal. He leans to the side and pulls a ring of keys out of his pocket before he reaches to the cuffs and unlocks them.

I take a few seconds to just rub my wrists before he gestures with his hands to get me to continue. “Well, what happened next?” I lean forward trying to get him close as I return us back to the tale.

Max had been sitting at the high rollers table. I walked close and signaled him. He looked nervous as he stood up and interceded before I could grab a seat, but I could hear the charm take over once he started talking.

“N’rn! What are you doing here?” He said it like he had been missing me. 

I told him what I knew so far. That the peacekeepers had raided my place, that I had a container of tainted P210. When I mentioned the whisper catalyst I saw his face change. “Max, I just need a ship to get out of here. I can give you the rest of my extract. There are people after me and I’m not safe here.” 

He was about to grab his data slate when I saw the shadow of an exosuit move past, it was another kheltasi. The dull purple glow felt familiar, like one of the assassins I ran into before I made it here. But when I saw the markings on her suit I knew where she had come from. Xan'Kirill, the new warlord, intent on joining all the syndicate factions together.

“N’rn, great to see you. I would have thought the peacekeepers would have gotten you at this point.” Her voice sounded melodic even under the scrambled static of the exosuit com-box. “We needed a scapegoat for some Kars who didn’t like the new arrangement.”

I pulled out the P210 and watched as her eyes changed to surprise from beyond the misty helmet. “Yeah, I figured out how you did it. You should have picked a better scapegoat. Probably someone that doesn't know their business.”

“It really doesn’t matter. Whether you’re caught at your hab-block or at this club. The message was sent and it all points to you.” She pulled Max on his shoulder like a leash and he instinctively followed her direction. I gripped the stanchion while she was turned and used all my strength to swing the heavy base into her gut.

I dove over the banister into the lower level, knocking over the dazed colonials to reach the door. I ran as fast as I could back into the Molari levels before I realized she wasn't following me. 

“Do you mind?” The detective licks his dry lips as I push over the water glass that was meant for me, he chugs it down. “So what’d you do?” I just smiled and returned to the story.

Well she was so confident. I figured maybe I could still throw a wrench in the plan. If I could broadcast the proof that Xan’Kirill hired the Whispered Knives. But all I had was the chemical signature and the container of P210.

Then I realized what she said. The Kars who didn't like the new arrangement. I could let the whole ascendancy know that the syndicate is willing to kill any nobles that don't play along. That gets the target off my back and onto Xan’Kirill.

I continued running in whatever direction felt right, until I saw the graffiti. I followed the symbol of the concordia flower to one of their hundreds of underground radio stations all across Elystra. They're usually all mobile but you just gotta find the cables and junctions.

As I approached them, I realized I had to find somewhere to get rid of the tainted supply. I passed by an incinerator and tossed the rest of the P210 in there. I had what I needed, the chemical signature was more than enough to clear my name entirely.

I begged the broadcasters to give me a moment, to tell the truth about the recently killed noble. Most of them are too clean to dare using extract. But they could see I was desperate. 

They let me in and I was able to send out the proof that the recent wave of deaths was a coordinated hit by the whispered knife. There were probably plenty of nobles who wouldn’t be happy to find out some syndicate warlord is killing off anyone who disagrees.

“Then the door was broken in by the peacekeepers. I was dragged away and thrown in here with you.” I look him in the eyes which are now fully glossed over and completely bloodshot.

“Woah, that’s crazy.” He's just holding his head up with his one arm while the other lays lifeless on the table. 

“Exactly, so you can see. I’m completely innocent and you'll escort me out of here” I lean forward and take his hand and guide him up.

“Yeah. Completely innocent. Escort you out.” He repeats the words like they sound strange in his mouth. Then I see a flash of awareness come across his face like he's realized. “Oh wait! There’s paperwork!” 

“Oh you can handle that without me. Can't you?” I look at him now getting sheepish.

“I certainly can.” He says beaming with pride as he opens the door for me “You are free to go.”