He came to slowly, hazily. Though someone had silenced the alarms, their blinking warnings were so numerous and bright that they shone through his eyelids. The fog in his mind told him he was on the automed, but he couldn't quite remember why.
Tentatively, he opened his eyes and ran them over the readouts. Broken shoulder, puncture wound, muscle tears. Right, he'd been shot. The readouts also showed he had cracked two ribs and broken an ankle, in addition to large-scale bruising.
That must have been from the landing.
Suddenly, he noticed he was moving, buildings moving past slowly. "Anton?" the operative murmured. "Sitrep?"
"We're about 5 km from the tower," Anton said. "No pursuit we can see. Currently we're moving through the back alleys to get some more distance. Unfortunately, the automed is running at far higher levels than it can naturally replenish."
BRONCO blinked, trying to clear his head to no avail. "I'm in pretty bad shape, aren't I?"
"For someone who needs to be moving and evading pursuit, yes. Unless we tone down the drugs you're getting, we'll be out within a day. If we do turn it down, however, it's going to hurt. Mostly because you have to keep full analgesics on your damaged foot, or else we won't be getting away anywhere. We can take a slower pace to let it heal after we get out of the city, but the escape itself is causing you further unavoidable damage. That means the rest of your body will just have to feel the damage."
"Currently, I'm running the suit on override mode, with Victor monitoring the situation. Don't try to move, sir. My calculations will put the least amount of stress on you possible; anything you try will be less efficient."
Victor added, "Not to mention you're currently on enough analgesics for an open-heart surgery. Your judgment is undoubtedly impaired."
BRONCO nodded, grunting in agreement. "...Feeling pretty foggy at the moment."
He closed his eyes. "Tell me if you need me for anything."
"Sir."
Slowly, he let himself drift away again. He had a feeling this was going to be the closest thing to sleep he'd be getting for some time.
"It's set," Garrus said with a sigh, slumping into the couch. It was one of only 4 pieces of furniture in the room- a table, a couch, and two armchairs. They weren't particularly comfortable, either.
"We've got a discreet ride off-Citadel towards Batarian space. It won't get us all the way there, and it's hardly a luxury cruise, but it will get us there for a price I could afford. We'll book something else once we're out of here and we're harder to spot."
"About time," Navarrus grumbled. "Being the one with a limp makes me the most conspicuous, and wanted posters and ads are plastered over every billboard and info VI in the wards. Every time I go out for anything it feels like a hundred people are watching me."
"You'll have to do it one more time," Garrus replied. "We'll have to go on foot through the spaceport to get to our ship. No Customs- I've paid enough credits for that- but basic security will still be there, and I'm sure the Council has a few people looking around for our guest.
"Speaking of, is he still in the room?"
"Yep," Navarrus said. "Hasn't left in the time you were gone."
"What is he doing in there?"
"No idea." The Turian shrugged. "And I don't think I want to know, really. It's probably just him muttering to himself and scribbling more stuff on the walls."
Garrus grimaced. The first time they'd checked on the alien, he'd scrawled messages in his own language all over the wall. The matrix he'd extorted from the slavers only had spoken translations, not written ones, and the sloppy nature of the writing made him doubt they were particularly intelligible.
Not to mention some of them were red, when the house didn't have any red ink.
A/N: Sorry about the short update this month, I've been busy with an internship, and I promised I would get at least something out roughly every month. In any case, next month should have a longer update now that I'm on top of all my work.