“Rough day?” the turian asked, noticing Rykarn’s glass problem. The krogan grunted non-committedly. 

“Locals who can’t hold their liquor.” 

Surprisingly, it was a quarian that made his way to Rykarn next, perhaps because of his lack of involvement in whatever was causing the ancient sprinkler system to shower the station and the apparent hostilities, or if he thought people were picking sides that the krogan was the safest bet. He seemed skittish, or at least conspiracy minded. Test? Spectres? Whoever it was, it probably wasn’t Spectres. He worked with one, and they didn’t seem all that fond on playing games on people. Before he could interject, the turian sidled up, reminding the krogan of some character out of a detective vid for some reason he couldn’t put a finger on. Perhaps he seemed too sly or opportunistic. 

“I wouldn’t call this gaggle a ‘group’, or a social hub. It’s an assembly of people who were all brought to these coordinates. Some of you are rather wound up for no damn reason. Besides, if this is a test, it’s stupid; you don’t drag people out somewhere just to have them kill each other pointlessly. Trust me, kid. Don’t make assumptions. Just observe and react to what you do know.” Rykarn replied to the quarian, albeit not unkindly. “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, explosions are never random.”

He shook his head at the turian. “This is the spot. This station survived the Reaper war; it can survive a few jumpy pyjaks who get jumpy around strangers. You can go; I’m staying. I want to find out exactly who not only located us over the extranet on an untraceable account, but told each and every one of us to be here, at this time. If they don’t show in an hour, I’m writing it off as pointless and leaving.”

Meanwhile, outside of the seemingly only stable circle in the station, it was the batarian who spoke up, huffing irritably and smoking, not unlike the turian. Rykarn observed his body language, noting the alien only had the three eyes. There was some history there, he was certain. When the batarian unleashed his actual language, it seemed annoyingly flowery and superficial. It was like Sir Francis Kitt’s Elcor [I]Hamlet[/I] came to life, haunting the krogan for mistakenly spending credits to go see that production due to a very uneventful shore leave.

Unfortunately for Ja’Far, he was already doomed in Rykarn’s mind as being associated with the most tediously horrible 13 hours of his life. He was also a religious fanatic. Wonderful.

“The talking thesaurus has the right of it. We stay here and see who shows. Just don’t do anything stupid like wave guns around at each other and set off more bombs, because if you’re the kind of varren-brained stooge who shows up to a meeting spot from an unknown sender expecting to be ambushed, you’re an idiot because you thought you would be in danger but you came anyways.” Rykarn announced to the assembly at large, collapsing his shotgun and slotting it against the small of his back. He stepped back to lean against the tilework, arms crossed. People were making introductions, and that was fine. If they were all here for a reason, they’d find out soon enough. 

Rykarn took in the faces, or masks in the case of the quarians, and tried to figure out if there was something they all had in common. From the firepower present and the ongoing pissing contest turned makeup festival, the initial thought was mercenaries who were local and needed for a job. Problem was he didn’t recognize any of them, and having a self-professed former batarian Hegemony soldier wandering around on Earth without having been stabbed in a dark alley seemed unlikely, especially for one who was so under-dressed for the occasion. The only human, a surprising thing, considering they were on [I]Earth[/I], was hardly a stabilizing element. He was mutually antagonistic with a number of the people in attendance, and he had the gall to admit to being ex-Cerberus; if there was a candidate for unsolved murder in post-war London that was hated more than batarians, it was an ex-Cerberus operative. 

Rykarn heard enough stories to already loathe the Ellis individual; no amount of so-called redemption attempts were enough to wash away the stain of association with the notoriously xenophobic terrorists who deliberately tried to sabotage the war effort against the Reapers and countless other atrocities committed against aliens. His pacing and endless fidgeting, as well as his attempts to become chummy with the other people, only further entrenched his resentment towards the human. When he powered down his suit, an oddity in of itself, it was a disguised blessing. The less he went noticed, the better. 

People were killing the time the ways they knew how, some more restlessly than others. The krogan was used to waiting; for someone who could outlive an asari, he had all the time in the world. An hour wouldn’t mean a damn thing.