Scales McGoodCop: Right. I'll have my file ready.

God, what a nerd. Teddy minimizes most of her windows.

"Mort, I assume this would be a good time for you to go to the flea market or whatever. I would encourage you to take Zanna so that you don't get mugged, but I'm only literally the boss of you two."

Are the old guys going to try to come to her nerd meeting?

"Roger that, Commander. I do like not getting mugged. Come on, Zanna."

"Sure thing, Mort. You wanna grab lunch on the way? There's this great ramen place on Zakera Ward."

They walk off, chatting intermittently.

"It sounds like you have the situation well in hand," Udina nods. "Come with me, Anderson, I wanted to go over some comuniqués from Admiral Hackett."

"Nothing I'd love more," Anderson says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

They, too, walk off.

Teddy comes to an understanding with an aircar. It's nice to be alone for a minute, even if she would prefer to drive herself instead of quietly letting the autopilot do its thing. She shuffles her brain files. There are some big angry new folders in there. Maybe Garrus will like them.

When she gets to C-Sec, she's greeted by A Scene.

     "I'm warning you, Ms. Yakhol," says a trembling officer. "You keep issuing threats, you're going to the lockup."

The krogan laughs like an avalanche, little chuckles leading up to a massive bellowing guffaw. "The lockup. Terrifying. You'll take away my hammer and my guns and my amp and my omni-tool, and then where will I be? Just a scared little krogan."

     "We can contain you," the officer says weakly. "The cells' kinetic barriers are tested against-"

"Yes, yes," the krogan says dismissively. "If you can get me into a cell, I'm done. The thing about that, though?" She leans in and grins, revealing teeth like tombstones. "You have to get me into a cell."

     "Get out," the officer says. "Out."

"I haven't spoken to Officer Vakarian," she says placidly. "I intend to speak with him."

     The officer shakes his head. "You don't have an appointment."

"And I'm first, anyway," Terentin says, strolling right up into the Scene. She has a hand on the officers shoulder, like it teleported there. Like if anyone gets to bully her new cop it's gonna be her. "Commander Terentin to see Vakarian. So you'd have to wait anyway." She looks the krogan up and down and continues to sense a kindred spirit. A big one. With a hammer. "I'd ask you to join me but he doesn't seem like a guy who has a lot of chairs."

The krogan turns and laughs. "Terentin. What a fucking coincidence - the woman of the hour. And I'm willing to stand. What if you ask Vakarian if I can join your little meeting of the minds? I'll wait patiently in this lovely antechamber."

The 'woman of the hour' appellation slides off of Teddy like water from a duck. (Every hour would be more like it.) She gives the cop a kind of, "See? Friendly!" look, and a pat on the arm. Dismissed.

"Sure, why not. Do I need to just say 'Miss Yakhol' or will he want more context, do you think?"

"Warhead. Yakhol Warhead. If he wants my birth name, he'll have to do more than ask."

Warhead, hot damn. Hopefully the Garrus innuendo is just innuendo. God, what if she's a fangirl?

Teddy pushes off the Citadel cop she's been manhandling and follows ambient architecture and body language to wherever Garrus Vakarian is.

Garrus's office is not super difficult to find. It's tiny, and it doesn't have a nameplate, but his door's open. He's sitting behind his desk, but he rises when Teddy enters. "Commander Terentin. I watched the Council meeting - you made some excellent points. Sadly, the Council needs its collective head removed from its collective cloaca with a crowbar. Hopefully I can help out with that."

("Collective cloaca" is going to be bouncing around Teddy's head for days.)

"If you've got something that'll work I want to hear it. When flailing gets you nowhere then you need to get some leverage." She sits. "You do have another visitor outside, though. Yakhol Warhead? Charming, has a hammer?"

"Yakhol Warhead? I've... never heard of..." His omni-tool flashes. "Sorry, priority message, one sec..."

He flicks through the priority message, then massages the place where his right mandible meets his skull. "Little late there, Von... uh, a contact of mine just got back to me saying he's got information I need for my investigation. Which is, officially, no longer going on. And that he sent Yakhol Warhead to drop it off. You don't mind if the charming lady joins us, do you?"

Military command structure tends to preclude this kind of banal back-and-forth miscommunication from reaching Teddy's desk, so this is charming in its own way. "Mind? Not even slightly." She swings out of her chair and collects her.

She's sitting daintily in a chair manifestly not designed for her bulk, demonstrating impressive core strength and even more impressive commitment to a bit that, frankly, isn't that funny. "Back so soon?"

Fuck off, that's hilarious.

"Yeah, your guy just forgot to hit send or something. Literally nobody knew to expect you." Teddy extends a hand out to 'help her up out of her chair' and leads her to what is sure to look like an even smaller office the second time.

It does indeed. One krogan is a crowd; two would be more of a stampede.

"Vakarian," she says neutrally.

"Yakhol," he responds. "Sorry about the kid at the desk. Doesn't know how to treat a visitor."

"Not the worst treatment I've gotten from C-Sec," Warhead says, in a tone daring anyone to ask what was.

Then she closes the door. "So," she says conversationally. "What made a nice boy like you turn to the Shadow Broker?"

Oh boy!

"Why does anyone go to the Shadow Broker? I needed information, and I wasn't getting anywhere through the usual channels. Are you threatening me, or is that just how you talk?"

"The latter. You've got a quad, going after Saren. The Broker likes that. And, as it happens, Saren broke a deal with them, and they've been itching for a chance to make an example of him. And you present them with an opportunity, as long as you don't fuck it up. They sent me to make sure everything goes down smoothly."